Disgusting Human (1)
Rear Military Hospital.
Even the name sounded sweet—rear, yes. After all that long, grinding suffering, I was finally going to the rear lines.
I never would have guessed I’d accomplish my goal like this, but I decided it was best to focus on the fact that I was going to the rear at all.
Clean beds, warm blankets, and kind nurses everywhere, right?
Those nurses would surely look relieved every time my body healed a little more…!
There might even be a crowd of other wounded soldiers. Hollow eyes full of survivor’s guilt, and the memory of dead comrades reflected in their faces.
What a lavish feast that would be.
—
Unfortunately, my expectations were betrayed.
And in a very bad way.
—
Still, despite what I’d said, it took quite a long time before I recovered enough to move.
Apparently it was dangerous to move my body or load me into a vehicle too soon, or something like that.
I was transported only after about two weeks had passed.
...
Ugh.
I woke in a fog.
They’d pumped me full of sleeping pills and strange drugs to keep me calm, and when I opened my eyes I was lying in a hospital bed.
Blue magical lights shimmered on the ceiling, and above me was a spotless white expanse.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen a ceiling.
Mostly I’d been staring at other people’s bed frames or the inside of tents.
Just thinking about the training camp and the northern barracks made me feel sick.
I slowly turned my head to the side.
There was a curtain.
It seemed another patient was beside me; I could barely sense their presence.
I reached out and drew the curtain back.
“...Oh?”
“......”
“We meet again?”
I let out a deep sigh inside.
The man acknowledging me was Julian Weiss, a lieutenant, and a human famous as the Ruin Star.
Yes. The same man who had killed Anais Schoen in an instant.
Why on earth is a Star in a military hospital... and right next to my bed, of all places? Shouldn’t officers have private rooms?
With his trademark squint and smile, he lifted a hand and waved at me.
...Only then did I realize something was odd.
He was missing his other hand.
His left arm was gone cleanly below the shoulder.
I shut my mouth tightly.
My throat wasn’t in any condition for long sentences anyway, and I didn’t exactly have anything to say.
Lieutenant Weiss apparently took my silence for disregard, because he placed a hand over his chest and shuddered dramatically.
“That hurts, you know. Ignoring me like that.”
Is he insane?
“We were reunited by fate, and you’re going to act this cold? I thought we’d gotten pretty close.”
Close?
We’d barely ever spoken. How could we be close?
To be honest, I wanted to kill him right then and there.
I felt like burying him somewhere no one could see.
...I wanted to meet a new human, so why did it have to be this one?
I’d said it before, but the emotions of psychopaths and villains tasted awful.
That was because they lacked any real empathy for others.
I wanted altruistic feelings, not selfish ones. I wanted to make that clear.
People who can cry for others, people who can get angry for others—those are the ones with the richest flavor.
But if I keep ignoring him, who knows how he’ll retaliate....
Ha. No choice, then.
I prepared myself to force out a sentence, even if it meant tearing my throat apart.
Sorry! Unknown military doctor!
A lieutenant asking a private a question was bad enough; if I didn’t answer, I could get in real trouble. You’d understand that much, right?
“Lieutenant Weiss.”
“Oh...! You’re finally looking this way?”
“My condition is not good... I can’t... speak at length. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, sorry! I wasn’t paying attention! You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I was just bored from having no one to talk to for weeks.”
For weeks?
Did that mean I’d been hospitalized weeks ago?
Then my injury was recent... no way, could it be?
I roughly compared the day Anais Schoen died with the day he was injured.
Hm. It certainly made sense.
A charge, or an operation, dangerous enough to cost even the Ruin Star an arm—that was when Anais Schoen died.
That was one way to interpret it.
—
My guess was correct.
Cough, cough, ugh...
Uwaaek...
Cough.
I’m sorry.
I... am fine....
—
Anyway, that was how my body began to recover.
Slowly, yes, but the improvement was unmistakable.
My fingers were still wrapped in bandages, my right leg was in a splint, and my lungs made me cough every time I breathed, but by then I’d recovered enough to manage short conversations.
Of course, I kept my words to a minimum whenever possible.
A frail beautiful girl was all the more mysterious—and pathetic—the less she spoke.
The biggest reason, of course, was that I didn’t want to talk to the human in the next bed....
Then I heard a voice again.
“Chloe Winterland!”
“......”
“Pretending to sleep?”
“......”
“You know, I’m Level 3 Enhancement Magic. If I strengthen my body, I can tell whether someone in the next bed is awake or not.”
Grrrr.
Should I kill him?
What would it take to kill a human with one arm missing?
...Two arms?
Was that a little cowardly?
No, did it matter if it was a little cowardly?
It wasn’t as if I was some noble person.
“It’s still... difficult for me... to speak....”
“Really? When do you think you’ll recover?”
“I... don’t know....”
“Well, all right! The other soldiers don’t want to keep me company, so I’m terribly lonely. Sorry for pestering you?”
He lay back down on his bed again, and only then did the world go quiet.
—
Thinking back on it now, he really was a rather unusual person.
What? You’re asking whether it was because of his face?
He was certainly handsome, but he wasn’t really my type....
Don’t tell me not to say he’s handsome. That seems a little obsessive, doesn’t it?
Who do you think is responsible for making me like this? What exactly are you implying right now?
—
In any case, more time passed.
There were still only Lieutenant Weiss and me in the ward, and the orderlies had gone out to fetch medicine.
Sergeant First Class Muller came by occasionally too, but every time he did, he left without saying a word.
His face was always blank, so it was never much fun.
Yes. That meant I couldn’t taste despair for a very long time.
In the end, I decided to use my last resort.
I wanted a little despair—and a little attention—from the human lying beside me, the clearly rotten one.
At this point, I couldn’t afford to be picky about quality.
If this kept up, I was going to die from a shortage of despair, a shortage of essential nutrients.
In a cracked voice, I spoke to him first.
“May I ask... one thing?”
“Oh! You’re finally talking to me first?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to ask?”
“Do you know... Anais Schoen?”
Lieutenant Weiss drew back the curtain and met my eyes.
He was still smiling.
“Anais Schoen?”
“Yes. Do you know who she is?”
“...Hmm. Who was that again?”
“......”
“I feel like I’ve heard the name, but were you two acquainted?”
For the first time, I was at a loss for words.
It was because I had just met a piece of trash even worse than myself.
“Ah, was that the girl? Brown hair? Blonde? Sorry, my memory’s a little off these days!”
He tapped his temple with a finger.
“You know how it is in war, right? So many people die. It’s incredibly hard to remember every single one.”
My insides twisted.
The feeling was unfamiliar.
Disgust? Interest? Anger?
Probably none of those.
Most likely... loathing.
Yes. I loathed him.
I used people like toys. I toyed with their feelings, collected their expressions, and used their wounds as props.
I wouldn’t deny that.
I was definitely vile.
But at the very least, I remembered the name of a toy I cherished.
Anais Schoen died because of me. She was the girl I had sold away. The girl who had thought of me as a friend.
And yet the bastard who had helped bring about her death... couldn’t even remember her name?
I may not be able to empathize with others’ feelings, but I can remember a person’s name!
“You’re... ”
“Disgusting?”
“Yes.”
I froze and shut my mouth.
I hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
I’d made a mistake.
“That kind of thing hurts, you know.”
“...Are you serious?”
“I’m lying, obviously! I’m long past the age where words like that could hurt me.”
Disgusting.
Filthy beyond cleaning.
Ugly, ugly, ugly, and then ugly again.
Could someone be this repulsive?
—
In more ways than one, he was my natural enemy.
—
That same afternoon, Sergeant First Class Muller came to see me.
“Could you move me to another room?”
“Why?”
“I don’t like the person in the next bed.”
He was undoubtedly a good adult, but he was also a soldier.
Would he forgive my rudeness?
No, that wasn’t important.
I wanted out of this bed, one way or another.
“That’s not really a reason.”
“I think it may have a harmful effect on my mental health.”
“...That would count as a reason, then.”
Sergeant First Class Muller glanced at Lieutenant Weiss in the next bed.
Lieutenant Weiss put on an exaggeratedly startled expression.
“Are you rejecting me right now? Is that what’s happening, Muller?”
“...Yes.”
“Tsk, how sad.”
It was several minutes later when my bed was moved.
I was transferred to another room together with my bed, and Lieutenant Weiss waved at me.
“See you again next time!”
I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t.
—
Now that I think about it, what on earth did you two talk about?
...What? No, no, impossible.
That would be...
—
After Chloe Winterland’s bed disappeared beyond the ward, only Sergeant First Class Klaus Muller and Lieutenant Julian Weiss remained in the room.
---