Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Don't Become My Misfortune
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『Last night was strange.
You, so readily granting my request.
The moonlight that seemed unusually bright, perhaps because it touched your face.
The lukewarm warmth felt from the hand covering my eyes.
When I think about it, there was nothing strange at all, yet I felt everything was so different from usual—could it have been a harbinger of the misfortune about to come?
Beth, I'm a person accustomed to misfortune.
So don't get used to me.
Don't become my familiar misfortune. Please.』
When he opened his eyes, the chair was empty.
His slowly blinking gaze searched for traces of Beth, even though he knew there wouldn't be any.
He couldn't remember when the hand that had covered his eyes had been removed. He hadn't expected to actually fall asleep.
It was just that her scent, the warmth of her hand, seemed to whisper that it was okay, just for a little while. Pathetic as it was, that's truly how it felt, so he had closed his eyes.
He couldn't recall the last time he had fallen asleep without medication.
As he pushed himself up from where he had collapsed, something he had unconsciously been gripping in his hand fell to the floor. The clanging friction of metal against the floor rang out chillingly, like the ominous cry of a fortune-teller predicting doom.
A nearly empty jar of ointment and the necklace with the key attached.
In that instant, it was as if he had picked up a missing puzzle piece, and the before and after of that memory clicked into place.
Beth's unusually dark expression last night, Gail wearing a deathly pallor when he should have been excited about seeing his fiancée, Arthur unusually silent, and even Barden avoiding the army commander more than usual.
"Damn it."
He hurriedly reached for his clothes. His unhealed shoulder throbbed from the rough movement, but now wasn't the time to care about that.
Dever's hand paused for a moment.
If she hadn't gone to the battlefield, but simply returned to her own home...
It was the question he had asked himself that day at the market with Beth, waiting under the window for the woman.
If she really tried to hide, could he find her?
The door creaked open. He whipped his head around, hoping against hope, but the person standing there was not who he expected—it was Dixie.
Dixie was equally flustered by the unexpected presence. She had seen Aines and Beth silently packing their things and roughly guessed it was a secret mission. No one had asked her to handle the fourth floor, but she had busied herself tidying up the now-empty space in place of her friends.
But to find that place, which should have been empty, occupied by someone who shouldn't be there...
If he's here, then who's on the battlefield?
Dixie couldn't hold back and asked.
"Your Grace... what are you doing here?"
The combat vehicle rattled violently over the unpaved dirt road. The soldiers and medical staff crammed in the back like cargo shook along with it.
Cold dawn winds and dust whipped in from all directions, but no one complained.
Whether from the chill, the rough driving, or sheer terror—no one knew. Everyone just trembled with faces drained pale as ghosts.
Even after boarding, Aines kept scanning for Gail, but the air force colonel was unlikely to be with them.
Beth hugged Aines' shoulders. She hoped her small embrace might offer some comfort.
They hadn't even reached the assembly point yet, but vomiting sounds echoed from all around.
"It'll be okay. It'll be okay."
Aines' prayer-like mutter mingled with the retching noises. Beth, whose calm demeanor from yesterday now seemed laughable, felt like she might hurl at any moment too.
Last night, she had kept her hand over Dever's eyes for a long time. She didn't know why. Part of her wanted him to sleep deeply, and another part didn't want to show him her own tension.
And she feared that seeing those eyes, occasionally softened with kindness on the battlefield where she had resolved to face everything, would make her beg pitifully to be spared.
To be removed from the field hospital roster. That she wanted to live longer. To send her home. That he could do that, couldn't he?
In truth, covering his eyes was no different from silencing her own mouth to prevent weak pleas.
Because if she covered his eyes, none of her words would reach him.
The sensation of his eyelashes fluttering against her palm was still vivid. Gray lashes no one else had seen.
Just before dawn, seeing Dever still asleep, she finally realized he wasn't joining this battle. She had assumed he would go with them and skipped a farewell. The half-written notes were still in her pocket.
No words she wrote satisfied her. Sweet, desperate, or curt—all felt wrong.
A relationship that couldn't be explained might be no relationship at all.
Still, she wanted to know.
Would he be startled to wake and find her gone? Or relieved now that he could freely come and go from the medicine storeroom?
Winter had fully arrived, white breath billowing thickly with every exhale.
Would he worry about her disappearance even a little?
"Attention."
One soldier raised his hand.
"The soldiers with you now will provide cover fire. But you must protect yourselves first. Everyone has their rifles, right?"
A brief explanation followed. Beth awkwardly mimicked the soldier's demonstration.
'Bend your elbows a bit. Can't handle the recoil.'
Recalling Dever's voice from memory, she pulled her elbows in slightly.
'Now fire.'
A faint smile crossed her face. Back then, she thought he was a madman; now, she found herself treasuring and replaying every word.
I remember your words, but what of me will you remember? With no voice, will there be nothing?
Beth shook her head. No more idle thoughts—luxuries she couldn't afford.
In the distance, troops swarmed like ants through the dust clouds.
"Get down!!"
While bandaging a soldier bleeding from his side, Beth quickly clamped her ears and slammed her head to the ground. The earth vibrated as if in an earthquake.
No matter how hard she pressed her ears, deafening explosions ruptured nonstop around them, making her eardrums throb.
"That's not worth treating!!"
Someone roughly yanked Beth to her feet.
Before her appeared a soldier clutching his severed arm. Too shocked for pain, the dazed man thrust it forward.
"M-my arm... p-please reattach it."
His mumbling voice faintly pierced the bombing din. Beth frantically rummaged through her medical kit. There had to be a painkiller syringe somewhere, but she couldn't find it.
"Bombers!! Hide!!"
She crammed herself against the trench wall.
Kovah Army fighters strafed with machine guns as they flew over Nexus lines.
With a 'boom', smoke so thick it blinded everything engulfed her vision, and the soldier who had just begged to have his arm reattached vanished.
Her body shook uncontrollably. The pounding self-propelled guns threatened to burst her heart, churning her stomach.
"Beth! You can't stay here! Get up, hurry!"
Someone grabbed the retching Beth's hand and pulled. Aines, blood streaming from her head—unclear where the wound was—urged her on.
Bullets whizzed relentlessly toward the pair as they clasped hands and ran.
"Nurses! To the military flag over there!!"
At the command of some unseen Nexus soldier, they ran without hesitation.
Corpses squelched underfoot, but terror-blinded, they didn't register what they trampled.
"Hah! Hah, save me! Save me!"
She injected morphine into a man gasping against a tank and hastily poured antiseptic on his wound.
Looking around, she spotted a few others from the hospital.
Get it together. She steadied her ragged breaths.
Shouts calling for medics rang from everywhere. Desperate struggles to live clung persistently to her ears.
Beth slapped her cheeks hard. She barely felt the pain.
Wounded soldiers dropped into the trench pit like diseased livestock being buried alive. Others died waiting mere minutes for their turn.
A young soldier dragged the bodies of those who had gone from wounded to dead in moments.
"Goddamn it! You crazy bastards! Enough already—argh!"
A soldier, cursing at the sky amid the barrage, collapsed backward. Beth gasped under the weight pressing on her prone form and scrambled out from under the corpse.
"That one's done for!"
A sergeant pulled Aines away from staunching a throat-stabbed soldier.
"Save the ones worth saving, not the dead men!"
Cruel verdict. Treating the living like corpses. But that's how the battlefield worked.
Powerlessness surged through Beth, making her tremble. Her bag's bandages and gauze were already depleted.
No. I still have things to do.
Beth's memories fragmented sporadically.
She couldn't gauge how much time had passed.
She ran somewhere, rode armored vehicles a few times, it seemed.
When she came to, death loomed inescapably close.
"Damn it! Retreat! Retreat!"
Unfamiliar uniforms appeared. Field hospital staff were supposed to be at the rear—how had they reached the front lines?
Her shaking legs barely moved. Like a newborn foal, she stumbled a few steps, fell, staggered up, fell again—no one to grab her hand.
Facing death head-on, her mind blanked.
Better to die painlessly right away.
Beyond extreme emotions, numbness set in. Grenades exploding before her felt distant.
Thick smoke filled the dazed Beth's view. Smoke grenades.
"Are you insane!!"
An angry voice faintly penetrated her muffled ears.
Rough hands shoved Beth somewhere. Feeling the rhythmic jolts beneath, she realized she was on a military truck.
Amid lingering smoke, bullets pinging off the chassis rang starkly. She thought she heard 'Dever' from somewhere.
"What the hell are you doing here!"
Now it rang vividly in her ears.
It was that man's voice.
Beth couldn't believe Dever beside her was real. Maybe she was already dead, dreaming.
"Get your gun out!"
Dever bellowed, veins bulging in his neck.
"Gun! Now!"
Only then did Beth frantically search her bag. Her senses sharpened. This was no dream.
"Just like I taught you. You can do it. Check the magazine, rack the slide, fire."
As they sped through the chaos of intermixed armies like rabid dogs, Dever explained rapidly. The sharply turning wheel betrayed their dire straits.
"Ugh!"
Enemy artillery fire rocked them from behind, slamming their bodies forward.
"Play dead."
Dever whispered low.
Beth kept her head down as ordered, cautiously gripping a syringe from her bag.
"Looks dead."
"Nurse is here too."
"Take the live nurse."
The truck door flew open as a Kovah soldier yanked it.