Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Don't Wake Up
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In the dimly lit corridors of the hospital, where lights burned low even in the deepest hours of dawn, the hushed whispers of the sleepless hung heavily in the air. The fervor of the final battle was not something that would fade easily.
In the aftermath of the screams and sobs that had poured forth, a cautious excitement about the war's end began to bloom, as if it were the natural course of things.
Arthur declared that mourning the fallen should be replaced with joy over the ceasefire. It was a decision born from his desire not to burden the survivors—those who had made it to this day marking the end of the war—with the guilt of having lived.
Aines sat beside the sleeping Gail, whose legs were wrapped tightly in bandages. Her pale face was a tangled mess of anxiety and relief.
Beth watched the scene quietly for a moment before heading silently to the fourth floor.
Dever lay face down, still unconscious. The bandages wrapped around him had turned dark red with fresh blood, and the scars peeking through between them were just as they had been at first.
I wanted to do something for him. In the end, she'd done nothing for this man. She'd only added scars that needn't have been there.
Fearing it would hurt if she touched him, Beth's hand trembled faintly as it hovered in the air over Dever's shoulder wound.
If they weren't close, if this man didn't call for her first, they would always miss each other—like when she'd spotted him being carried off on a stretcher but couldn't reach him.
Because my voice can't call to this man.
She gently took the hand of the sleeping Dever.
I wish you could hear my voice.
It was a confession she knew she could never convey.
I wish you'd turn around when I call for you.
In the deepening dawn, only these unreachable confessions continued to pile up.
With the wards overflowing, those with minor injuries received outpatient treatment or waited for the daily house calls that came to the barracks once a day.
During these hours, Beth had to move so busily that she could push thoughts of Dever from her mind.
The morning consultations didn't wrap up until dusk had fallen.
"Finally done. Whew."
Barden let out a long sigh as he stretched.
Only then did Beth step out of the dimly lit tent that had been converted into a makeshift hospital.
A deep purple hue blanketed the sky in an eerie shroud. Beyond the horizon, the halo around the moon sharpened into focus. It had been exactly this kind of sky when she and Dever had staked their lives diving down that slope.
Not a slope at all, but like plunging into a purple sea.
Beth hurriedly loaded her gear into the car. She needed to get back to the hospital even a little faster. He might have woken up by now. Barden, oblivious to it all, muttered something inane like, "That hungry, huh?"
"Huh? Your Highness. Hello."
"Ah, yes. Hello."
Turning at the familiar voice, Beth's eyes met Arthur's. He quickly shifted his gaze away.
"Are you alright?"
Arthur's lips twitched at the question brimming with concern.
"No way, are you hurt somewhere? If so, we can—"
"No."
He cut her off swiftly.
"I... I'm not injured anywhere."
Heat surged up the back of his neck.
"That's really a relief."
Her sincere words only deepened his embarrassment. He could feel Beth's dark eyes still fixed on him.
This was shame. Fear. Weakness.
The worry that she'd find his unscathed state ridiculous.
"Take care."
He turned away as if fleeing, and soon the fading sound of an engine reached his ears.
Only after the surroundings fell quiet did he glance back at the now-empty road. Naturally, Beth—who had been standing right there—was gone.
"Why bother going there just to see nothing."
The quiet self-reproach lingered.
"Still alive?"
The sentry replied in a voice that crawled with unease to Arthur's incredulous question.
Affirmative.
The commander arrived a little later than promised, radiating an aura as murderous as Commander Dever's in that moment.
Arthur stepped into the pitch-black, sealed tent.
"Hello."
Having washed the battlefield grime clean, Arthur looked every bit the charming Nexus prince as always.
"Wh-what are you going to do with me!"
Ironically, the man's shouts from the chair binding him only betrayed his terror more clearly.
"Shut up. I don't like babblers."
Arthur's lips curled slightly. That eerie amiability bred an unpredictable tension instead.
The man trembled so violently it was comical for his bulk. Arthur stared fixedly at the unsightly quaking. His blue eyes, sharper than usual, keenly tracked every change in his captive.
"Killing me gains you nothing. Th-think about it. Nexus won anyway. What changes if you kill one like me? I'll give you whatever you want. Al-all of it. Everything."
Contempt for his foe seeped from Arthur's sneering lips.
"What can a mere Kovah scum offer Nexus? If you want to live, show some respect. Right now, your life's worth less than a stray mutt by the roadside."
"I-I mean, put in a good word with Dever—no, Duke Dever—"
The man flinched as the bedside table shook with a loud bang.
"I've never liked the likes of you."
A crown prince in his own land, groveling before the enemy just to save his own skin.
"I'd love to kill you right now."
At those words, the man's chair lurched hard. Bound hand and foot, its dull weight thudded against the floor.
"No, please! Y-you know my position. Even if others don't, Your Highness understands. For my standing. Yes, that's the only reason I came to the battlefield. I knew nothing of what the Kovah Army did to Nexus. It was all my father—no, the emperor—who decided."
Excuses poured out like machine-gun fire, chaotic and frantic.
Arthur ignored him entirely, crossing his long legs and clenching, unclenching his fist repeatedly. Strangely enough, despite diving into yesterday's brutal melee, he bore not a single scratch.
He'd heard the tales of the lucky prince so often—had fate truly shifted in his favor?
"Your Highness is in the same boat as me!"
In his extreme anxiety, the man spat out words he never should have.
His dazed, unfocused golden eyes slowly lifted. The man realized his blunder, but it was all he had left to throw. If death awaited either way, why not try anything?
"Your Highness knows how tough it is to be born of the emperor's mistress. Have mercy on me—"
He couldn't even finish before Arthur's fist sent him sprawling to the floor. The brutish grip crushed his jaw. A refined hand for a man, but its raw power was utterly merciless.
"How dare you compare your base blood to mine?"
"Urgh!"
Thud—the fist slammed into the man's face once more. The visceral crunch of bone and flesh filled the tent.
The sentries outside, ears tuned to the commotion, murmured among themselves from the fading groans: probably dead by now. Even bystanders thought as much, yet Arthur alone remained oblivious to the man's state.
His eyes, unfocused as if some inner part had shattered, weren't even on the man.
They stared at his own reflection amid the crushed features.
"You know the type of person I hate most? The ones who look like me."
That desperate scramble to live had grated on him from the start.
The graceless begging for survival was all too familiar.
The self-pity over lowly birth, no different.
"You look like me? Speak up! You bastard! Do you?"
Arthur shook the collar like a madman. Even as the man's eyes rolled back, unresponsive, the blows never stopped.
Now, all matters of Dever's care had naturally fallen entirely to Beth.
When she'd first heard "dedicated nurse," she'd wondered what ploy that man was up to. But realizing it had truly come to pass brought a wry smile.
The man was unchanged from the night before. She'd face another endless wait.
Because he'd told her to wait.
The heavy sky had turned utterly black at last, and as ever, the white moonlight touched the prone man and shattered.
Gazing at his peacefully sleeping face, Beth suddenly reached out to brush the bangs from his eyes. Now his gently closed eyelids were fully revealed.
Perching on the edge of the bed, she carefully stroked his soft ash-gray locks and lashes. May he dream of warmth and goodness equal to the heat she felt. With that wish, she caressed his sharp, angular features.
And as if answering her sentiment, his closed eyes slowly opened.
Beth did not pull back her hand.
The man's eyes blinked slowly.
"A dream...?"
A voice, cracked and parched to the bone, leaked out.
Beth kept stroking his face.
"You wouldn't do this..."
Dever's hand overlapped hers. As he pressed his lips to her palm, his gaze slowly rose.
It was the first time she'd seen such a defenseless look in his eyes. Dever Cliff's gaze—free of schemes or calculations—held an unexpectedly boyish innocence.
"Did you wait?"
Even the faint tremor at the end of his question came through unguarded.
Beth nodded.
Dever stared at the woman before him for a long while. Beth, who had said she waited, who stroked his face.
"Must be a dream."
He squeezed his eyes shut once more.
Never once had his dreams been sweet. But could something this sweet possibly be real?
"Must not wake up."
Whatever it was.
Dream or reality—as long as it didn't end.
Dever murmured in a voice that was fading away.
Must not wake up. Must not wake up.