A Thirty-Percent Return Rate Brought the Enemy's Name and Karin

Day fourteen at the front. The trauma work was all but finished.

Forty-seven of the fifty had reached acute relief. The remaining three were complex cases — they would need more time, and Erica was carrying their follow-up counseling.

With the acute ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠symptoms of forty-seven out of fifty men settled, the combat return rate had climbed by thirty percent. The results traveled the front line ahead of the rumor of them.

Beneath the numbers, Erica had attached footnotes.

Of the fifty, only fifteen had gone back to the fighting line right away. Twelve were on restricted duty at the hospital and the rear supply units, twenty were still in treatment, and three had been transferred out for long-term care. The one-line miracle the command staff wanted and the actual paths taken by actual people were two different things.

I changed the report title from Treatment Complete to Initial Intervention Results. It was an edit that shrank my own achievement — but if I didn't shrink it, the next unit might start driving its people toward the same number.

Morning briefing. The main tent, at the narrow table beside a cot in the medical bay.

Marta set her coffee cup down. Tap. A beat slower than usual.

"The demon side has started moving too."

Marta's gray eyes were grave. The sheet of paper in her hand trembled faintly.

"According to the recon unit's report, demon intelligence has been gathering information on the 'human-side therapist.'"

"The intelligence service?"

"The intelligence service."

Short answers. There was weight in how short they were.

Marta also held out a note the recon unit had recovered.

Every phrase had been rendered in the demon tongue — the very items only the forged treatment request had ever asked about. And along the paper's lower edge, thirteen dots of ink had been stamped in a neat semicircle.

"The same mark," I said.

"Which means, at the very least, that the forged request was no prank."

Someone inside the hospital had composed those questions, and those questions had crossed the defense line. Whether demon intelligence had dispatched an agent in person or was buying our information through intermediaries, there was no way to know yet.

Erica counted the people with access to the treatment roster all over again. Marta, Erica, me, two intake clerks, the messengers from each unit. Any one of the five channels could be leaking.

A jolt. One heavy knock of the heart.

It was me. They wanted information about me.

Trauma treatment, a rising combat return rate, the recovery of human fighting strength. That whole chain had registered on the demon side too — along with the calculation that if you removed the therapist, you could stop the recovery.

...Those bastards move fast. Fucking hell.

In other words, I could become a target.

"Are you saying I'm in danger?"

"Not right now. We're inside the defense line."

Marta broke off for a moment and looked at me. Her gray eyes traveled over my face, my neck, my shoulders. Not a doctor's gaze — a comrade's.

"But be careful. Don't go wandering alone at night. If you hear something strange outside your tent, don't run — drop flat. Kill the sound of your breathing."

"You're saying there could be a raid?"

"On this line, the only place that's completely safe is the field hospital main tent. Everything else is a potential blind spot."

Advice from a physician with twenty years of army service. Every word of it carried experience paid for in live combat.

...The moment my treatment acquired military significance, I stopped being a therapist and became a target. Which was, at the same time, proof of what I was worth.

It meant I was effective enough to make the demons nervous. And — fucked up as it is — it didn't feel bad. Look at me, quietly swaggering behind the noble pretext of saving lives. Shit. I knew exactly what I was doing, and my spine prickled anyway.

A prickle. One slow shiver down the spine.

"Doctor."

"Mm?"

"Can I put this in the report that goes up to the Queen?"

"Put it in. Write that these are 'results serious enough for demon intelligence to take notice' — the palace will be even more shocked that way."

Marta said it calmly. There was backbone under the calm.

...Results serious enough for demon intelligence to take notice. That one line would turn Elena's attention straight toward me. Fucking bulletproof bait.

Afternoon. Family visit day.

A tent at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back of the field hospital. At Marta's request, I had opened a "psychological counseling booth" — counseling offered not only to soldiers but to their families. War doesn't wound only the ones holding weapons. The families behind the line take their own wounds too.

First patient. A woman in her thirties.

"Have a seat. Would you like some tea?"

"Oh — no, I'm fine."

"Please, drink anyway. It helps to wet the throat before we talk."

I handed her the cup. Her hands were shaking so badly that even receiving it was an ordeal — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her fingertips barely caught the handle. She had probably lived with that trembling for three years.

Gulp. She swallowed.

"Shall we start with your husband's story, or with yours?"

"...Mine?"

"Yours. Have you been sleeping lately?"

She stared at me, startled — a look that said, you're asking about me? Out here, "counseling" for a family member usually meant tell me about your husband. No counselor had ever asked about her.

"...I don't sleep well."

"I hear your husband comes home a little different every time."

"...Yes. He screams every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠night, and if I so much as touch him he jolts like he's been shot."

Secondary trauma. When you live close enough to someone else's wound, it grows the same symptoms in you.

I explained before offering my hand.

"If I hold your hand, some of the scenes you've lived through with your husband may surface for me. If you'd rather not, talking is enough."

"How much would you see?"

"Only as far as the moment you were hurt during his last episode. Nothing of your village, nothing else of your family."

She kept her hands on her knees and thought it over for a long time.

"You can see that one. Because I don't even understand why I'm so angry."

Only then did I take her hand. [Memory Reading].

I threaded [Suggestion] through it. Gently.

A slow, warm melt — the tension drained out of her shoulders. Tears came. Not heavy, heaving sobs, but the quiet, ceaseless leaking of four years held in.

Tap. The first drop struck the table.

"...Really? I'm allowed to be angry?"

"Of course. You're exhausted too."

"But he's the one who's sick. I don't get to be angry, do I?"

"His suffering and yours are two different things. Both of them are true. You're allowed to acknowledge both."

She bit her lip and held it for ten seconds. Then another line of tears slid down.

"...Thank you."

"For what?"

"...No one has ever said that to me. All anyone ever says is 'take good care of your husband.'"

Ten minutes of counseling, and her whole face had brightened. It wasn't a cure — but merely having her own feelings permitted did enormous work. It was the face of someone finally draining a cup of water that had stood stagnant for years.

...Fuck, this work is strangely addictive. I unpick one person, and something inside me comes unpicked with them. Occupational hazard.

As the session wound down, information came to me the natural way.

"How are things in your village these days? Food still easy to come by?"

"Herb prices have gone up lately. They say the supply coming from the south has thinned out. There's even a rumor that the village chief has been siphoning off military goods."

"The village chief?"

"I can't swear to it. Just a rumor."

A rumor. But rumors are free intelligence. I nodded along and filed it away.

...Counsel people, and the information follows. Just as I'd harvested commoners' gossip at Marisa's inn, I was now reaping everything behind the front line from a counseling tent. Disgustingly efficient. A bastard who pries while pretending to comfort. That's me.

The second session. The third. The fourth.

I counseled four soldiers' families in all — three wives and one mother. I used [Memory Reading] only on the scenes each person had explicitly approved; two of them chose to keep to words alone.

But with every session, the state of the rear came out alongside the grief. Herb prices. Missing military goods. Rumors of a knight-order rotation. A peddler said to have come from the east.

At first, I wrote it all down on a single sheet.

Erica read the sheet and asked.

"Did this information come from conversation, or from what you saw in their memories?"

"Both. It's mixed."

"Then it cannot go into the royal report. Consent to be treated is not consent to be tapped for intelligence."

A precise hit. I had been comforting people while rifling through the memories that opened at their most defenseless moments, like a handler working his sources.

"Some of it is needed for front-line security."

"Hide the sources because it's 'needed,' and on the next visit day, no one will walk through that tent door."

Erica didn't tear the sheet in two. She made me re-mark the source of every item instead.

The herb prices and the peddler rumor, offered voluntarily, could be re-consented as formal tips. The knight-order rotation, seen only in memory, was cut from the report entirely. Unless a life hung in immediate danger, anything glimpsed during treatment stayed sealed inside the treatment records.

Then I went back to the first wife and asked again.

"Would it be all right to pass what you said about the chief and the supplies to the security officer? Your name stays out of it."

"As long as the chief could never trace it back to me."

"I'll widen the village name to the whole region, too."

Only after she consented did a single line survive — a request to audit the rear-area supply chain.

The mother who had spoken of the eastern peddler agreed on the same terms. I recorded only the face and clothing she had seen with her own eyes, and cut my own hunch that the man was a "demon spy."

The final report held no glamorous intelligence worth a decoration. Just two tips that could be verified.

...I'd thought doubling as counselor and informant would be unbelievably efficient. It was — and the arrangement burned through trust exactly as fast as it produced results.

A single line that caught the Queen's eye would not outlast making sure these people kept opening the tent door on the next visit day.

In the evenings, Erica and I reconciled records in her tent. Three nights running under the same canvas, but in separate beds — a camp cot for me, her own cot for her. What had drawn closer was not our bodies but the order of our work.

Erica filled in the patients' expressions I had missed; I flagged the excessive fear responses she had waved past. When the dawn wind snapped the tent ropes, we both stopped for a beat, confirmed nothing was happening, and picked our pens back up.

On the third night, Erica said it as she turned down the lamp.

"Here, even learning to relax is training."

"The ones who survive have to train the longest."

And the very next day, a patient arrived who needed exactly those words.

Day fifteen at the front. Morning.

A new patient had arrived.

Marta called me to Tent Three, her stride faster than usual.

"We've taken in an injured patient. The battle wounds are treated, but the mind isn't cooperating."

"That bad?"

"Bad. Punched a medic who came close enough to hand over medication."

"That's a fucked-up situation."

"Which is exactly why I called you. Can you take a look?"

"That's why I'm here."

Tent Three. The new patient lay on the bed.

A woman. For a heartbeat I'd mistaken her for a soldier — no, she was one: armor stripped away, but still in uniform. It was the first time I had seen a female soldier with my own eyes at this field hospital.

Bandages wrapped her from the right shoulder down the arm, a faint bloom of blood seeping through. Her left arm was untouched, but the fist was clenched — gripped so tight the knuckles had gone white.

Her eyes were open. Ceiling, wall, ceiling again — vigilance without focus. Hyperarousal. She was forcing her eyes to stay open, because the moment they closed, the scene would be waiting.

Twenty-two. Red hair down to her shoulders. A dusting of freckles across her nose and both cheeks. Lips pressed into a hard line. Jaw set.

My first impression: a kid holding everything in. A college freshman, by the standards of the world I came from. And at that age, she had already lost her comrades at the front.

Karin.

Twenty-two, red hair, a knight.

"Name?"

Marta flipped the chart open with a dry rustle of paper.

"Karin. Knight apprentice, attached to the 5th Infantry Regiment."

"How was she wounded?"

"Outpost engagement three days ago. Her squad was wiped out. She's the only one who made it."

Squad wiped out. Sole survivor.

...Similar to Erica's trauma — one lost lover — but on a different scale entirely. Not one person. An entire squad. More than ten comrades gone in a single night. A fucking colossal load.

"May I approach her?"

"Careful. I did tell you she hit a medic."

"Understood."

I set a chair beside the bed and sat. Clack — the legs met the floor. Two meters of distance. A physically sufficient margin of safety.

Karin's eyes came to me. Focus, this time. Wary eyes. Green. Red hair and green eyes — a violent combination of colors.

There was emotion in them. Not frozen, the way Erica's had been — boiling. Anger, fear, and guilt tangled into a single look.

"Who are you."

Low and rough. A voice running on pure wariness.

"Kang Do-hyun. I'm a counselor."

"A counselor? Don't need one."

"I didn't come to talk."

"Then what do you want."

"I'm going to sit here."

Karin studied me with suspicion. But she didn't lash out. A man seated two meters away didn't classify as a threat.

I did not use [Memory Reading]. At my current level, reaching into deep memory without contact was impossible — and no one had given me permission anyway. Instead I observed: the locked jaw, the toes angled toward the door, the fingers strangled around the blanket. Surface emotion shows plainly enough through behavior alone.

Anger — why did only I live. Fear — if I close my eyes, it's there. Guilt — if I'd been a little faster, all of them would still be breathing.

And beneath all of it, grief. An enormous grief, buried under the anger and the fear.

Karin wanted to cry. She simply couldn't. She was ordering herself to be strong — because she was a knight. And knights don't cry.

...This woman — no, this kid — her core problem is that she has never been allowed to cry. Sealed up with fucking textbook honesty.

I sat without a word. Ten minutes.

Every so often Karin flicked a glance at me — still here? — but she never told me to leave.

...For someone holding it all in, a person who simply stays and watches carries more weight than a person who talks. Day one of treatment: sitting beats speaking.

Fifteen minutes.

"...Can I get some water?"

Karin spoke first.

A request. A patient in full wariness mode asking for something meant she had filed me under not a threat.

"Sure."

I held out the water. She took it with her left hand — the right arm was the wounded one. Our fingers grazed. Three-tenths of a second.

A spark. Contact. [Memory Reading] — running.

The images poured down.

The contact broke.

...A crushing, stupid-heavy trauma. Larger than Erica's — one lost lover — but the approach is the same. Build trust over time, then open the dam and let the water out.

Except Karin is not Erica. Erica sealed her emotions shut. Karin holds hers down. What's sealed has to be opened; what's held down has to be released. Fuck — the treatment runs in exactly the opposite direction.

"I'll come again tomorrow."

"...Suit yourself."

That wasn't a refusal. It was consent — a tomorrow, promised.

That was enough. On day one, all that mattered was being filed away as a "safe presence."

That evening, I shared Karin's file with Erica.

"Seventh Knight Order. Squad annihilated. Sole survivor."

"And what did she say to you today?"

"Her name — Karin. And she asked whether I'd be coming back tomorrow."

Erica wrote the first objective at the top of the record sheet.

Beneath it, my name went in. Karin had chosen that herself; I had not planted it.

I was stepping out of the tent when a messenger came sprinting up, holding out a small sealed cylinder stamped with the royal crest.

"A return order from the capital, sir. You depart in four days."

The time granted for Karin was four days. Nothing more.