Chapter 50
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: Toward the Capital (4)
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“Sergeant Bell!”
Before anyone could react to the sudden anomaly, Bell Mayer clamped her hands over her mouth and hurriedly disappeared into the alley.
I wasn't the only one taken aback by her action.
“……!!”
“Lu, Lumia!”
“Platoon Leader! We have to follow her!!”
We only paused for a few seconds before immediately chasing after Bell Mayer. We found her inside the alley she had just turned into, heaving her guts out.
“Blaaargh—!! Ugh, urgh… huff…”
“A-Are you alright?”
I approached Bell carefully, gently patting her back as I spoke.
Why was she suddenly vomiting?
Did she eat something bad?
No, that couldn't be it. Bell Mayer hadn't eaten anything today. All she was forcibly expelling was a thin, watery liquid.
“Cough! Cough, ugh… Cough!”
Leaning against the wall, Bell let out a pained cough.
A sense of foreboding washed over me, and just as I reached out to grab her, her body went limp like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Bell!”
I quickly caught her and barely managed to prop her up. Bell Mayer had already lost consciousness. If I hadn't been right next to her, she would have smashed her head against the pavement.
“Platoon Leader…”
Lumia Blue spoke in a worried voice. I wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but it was clear we couldn't go pick up the clothes like this.
First priority was getting Bell back to the lodging.
“Lumia, could you help me get her on my back?”
“Ah, yes!”
Lumia came over and helped me hoist Bell's limp body onto my back.
Since she was completely unconscious, if her center of gravity shifted backward even slightly, it would be a disaster. I had to wrap my arms tightly around her legs to hold her steady.
“Ugh…!!”
“Platoon Leader!! Are you okay!? Sh-Should I carry her?”
“No…! I'm fine!!”
My own body was naturally frail, so my legs trembled with every step I took.
However, after wrecking my back saving Lumia last time, I had been building up my stamina whenever I had a spare moment, so I wasn't about to collapse or anything.
'I can't let this happen again.'
The fact that my back had broken was only overlooked because Lumia didn't see it properly. If she had been conscious at the time, she definitely would have looked at me with pity.
After all, I had won the fight perfectly fine, only to wreck my back trying to dig someone out of the ground. There's no foolhardier, more pathetic stunt than that.
Even if I told her the truth, she'd probably just think I was making a self-deprecating joke.
As we barely managed to return to the lodging, the manager of the annex, who had been manning the lobby, cried out in shock.
“Good heavens!? Wh-What on earth happened?”
“We're not sure either. She was fine one moment, then suddenly collapsed. Is there somewhere we can lay her down?”
“H-Here! Over here, please!”
The manager calmly guided me to a sofa in one corner of the lobby. It was wide enough to lay a person down.
“Ron, get a doctor immediately. Luna and Illa, bring pillows and blankets!”
As I struggled to move Bell onto the sofa, the manager gave orders to the servants under his command.
It was as if they had a manual for this exact situation; the servants scattered in an orderly fashion the moment the order was given.
The manager, while giving instructions, approached Bell and roughly checked her condition.
“Her breathing is normal, and there don't seem to be any major issues on the surface.”
“That's a relief.”
Only then could I let out a sigh of relief. The immediate fire had been put out, I tried to check her consciousness again.
“Bell, Sergeant Bell Mayer! Can you hear me?”
“Ugh… ugh…”
“Sergeant Bell, try to open your eyes!”
I took her hand in mine, and her closed eyelids fluttered. Slowly, her hidden crimson pupils began to emerge.
“Pl…atoon… Leader?”
“Are you alright?”
“Where… is this…?”
She painfully turned her head. Lumia had somehow procured a glass of water and was propping Bell up to give her a drink.
“Drink.”
“Mmm…”
Bell drank the water obediently.
I had wondered if this might be a prelude to a Mana Rampage, but thankfully, it didn't seem to be that serious.
“Wait, where is this? Something feels familiar…”
“The lodging.”
“The lodging…? This isn't our lodging, is it? It doesn't look like this…”
A distinct sense of wrongness.
As I watched Bell Mayer look around with a confused expression, I instinctively knew something was wrong.
Dissociative Amnesia.
Bell Mayer's trait, which I had forgotten about, had manifested.
The doctor's diagnosis was a nervous fainting spell caused by sudden stress. Since she was deemed to have no major health issues, the doctor left without any special treatment.
“Then I will go to the clothing store.”
“Yes, please do.”
The schedule to meet the Archduke had to proceed as planned, so Lumia decided to go alone to pick up the formal wear we hadn't received yet.
I stayed behind at the lodging to keep watch over Bell Mayer's condition.
While there was no immediate danger of a Mana Rampage, we always had to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
“Bell.”
Knock, knock. I tapped on the door cautiously, and a voice came from inside.
“You can come in.”
Entering Bell's room, I saw her sitting on the edge of the bed in comfortable pajamas.
Bell Mayer was hugging her knees and staring at the parrot. It was a surprisingly fragile image, completely different from the one I had seen in the army until now.
“Have you regained your memory, more or less?”
“For the most part? It doesn't seem like I lost many memories. Just… the memories from when we set out won't come back, hehe.”
Bell Mayer spoke in a more lively voice. The effort she put into pretending to be okay was painfully obvious, and it stabbed at my heart.
“I forgot for a moment that I suffer from Dissociative Amnesia. I'm sorry.”
“There's no need for you to apologize, Platoon Leader. It's the first time I've experienced this since you were assigned to us.”
Bell Mayer added bitterly.
“I thought I was doing better for a while… but it hit me harder than I expected today. It's been quite a while since I lost consciousness like that.”
“Does this… happen often?”
She answered by nodding her head.
“I don't know how much of my memory is gone until after it's already disappeared. It used to be so painful, but after coming to the 3rd Battalion, it was actually nice. Nobody paid any attention to me. No one even asked if I remembered.”
“Sergeant Bell…”
“I'm used to it now. But I'm sorry for worrying you so much, Platoon Leader.”
I couldn't give her a proper response to her apology. Because I was the one who should be apologizing.
“……”
A heavy, unavoidable silence fell between us.
There wasn't much I could do at this point, with the recurrence of Dissociative Amnesia—a condition that could never be taken lightly.
And then there was the doctor's diagnosis: 'a nervous fainting spell caused by sudden stress.'
Bell had started vomiting right after seeing the Strigoi being transported.
No matter the circumstances, I had a feeling there was a connection between Bell Mayer and that group.
It was surely related to the background that led her from being a noble lady to a disgraced, low-ranking magic officer in the sticks.
But I couldn't ask her directly.
Just like with Lumia's 'incident,' there was a very high chance it would trigger Bell Mayer's trauma.
What if I brought it up carelessly and made her condition worse?
“I really am fine. This isn't even considered that severe.”
“How severe does it get if this isn't considered severe?”
“Hmm, to the point where I forget my own name and origin? There have been times when whole years of my past just vanished at once.”
I just couldn't understand why they hadn't discharged her yet.
The more I heard, the less it made sense.
Bell Mayer's condition was far more serious than I had imagined. I thought Dissociative Amnesia meant just losing isolated pieces of information, but it was clearly much worse than that.
“……Sergeant Bell, this isn't right. Even now, we could request your discharge—”
“No, Platoon Leader. I like it here. In fact… I want to put off my discharge for as long as possible.”
Bell Mayer's calm voice slammed into my consciousness.
“The army is the only thing left that confirms my identity. Even when I lose my memory, seeing the military uniform in my room puts my mind at ease.”
What shone in her crimson eyes was a hollow resignation, as if she had given up on everything. And I, too, felt her words to my very core.
My past that I had hated with every fiber of my being, yet loved just as fiercely. The faded combat uniform. The acrid smell of gunpowder and the stench of blood.
I, too, had been a ghost trapped by the identity of a soldier.
“I understand. I was the one… who spoke out of turn.”
“That's why I brought the parrot with me. In case I lose my memory in a foreign land. I've been raising it since I was a child. Even if I forget everything, I hoped I could recover my memories through the stories I told the parrot.”
I turned my head to look at the yellow parrot in its cage. It was sitting quietly on its perch, preening its feathers.
That parrot must serve as a trigger to help her recover her memories.
“Well, I get the gist of it now. Why I'm here, and what I need to do.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course. If I'm going to meet the Archduke properly tomorrow, I should get a good night's sleep today.”
“Rest is absolutely essential.”
“……Then, would you stay by my side?”
Bell Mayer said, averting her gaze slightly.
I had already figured that even if she claimed she was completely fine, she hadn't shaken off her anxiety entirely.
I silently pulled a chair from inside the room and sat next to the bed where she was curled up.
“It's not hard to keep watch until you fall asleep.”
“You're… surprisingly kind for someone who looks so stern.”
Bell Mayer burrowed deeper under the covers. I watched her quietly, leaning back in my chair.
“See you tomorrow, Platoon Leader.”
“Rest well.”
She tossed and turned for a little while longer before finally falling into a soft, even slumber.
“Platoon Leader…? I'm back.”
“Shh.”
Lumia had just returned to the lodging at that moment.