"Clear the third spot on the right."
Ruan’s first command cut through the tent before the smell did.
A medic hugged his clipboard to his chest and stepped aside.
The evacuation team had already been pushed right up to the entrance.
Stretchers kept coming in, while only the area around the central operating table was strangely hushed.
At the center of it stood Ruan Hesse.
"Next stretcher. Third spot on the right."
Ruan’s voice was low and brief.
The medics moved at once.
Soaked cloths, stained red, were carried outside, and the boiled water soon began to bubble again.
Inside, who was laid down and who was pushed aside was decided almost entirely by Ruan’s orders.
"First patient on the left. Tie off the severed leg again."
"Yes, sir."
"Second spot. His airway’s blocked. Tilt his head back and start with the cloth."
"Yes, sir."
The orders fell without pause.
Ruan’s hands were already wet with blood.
The medics moved just by seeing which way Ruan turned his head.
On the narrow line between life and death, hesitation was the costliest thing of all.
"My leg. My leg’s gone."
A soldier lying on the floor tried to jerk himself upright as if in a seizure.
Everything below his knee had been severed clean off.
Dark red blood was spreading again through the hastily wrapped bandages.
"My leg’s gone. I can’t see it."
"Hold him down."
"Medical Officer, this patient is resisting."
A young medic grabbed his arm but could not press him down properly.
The soldier panted, his face smeared with tears and sweat.
He tried to grab hold of anything within reach.
Then he even seized the collar of the medic who had come close.
Ruan immediately stepped in front of him.
He pressed down on the soldier’s shoulder.
Even as the man thrashed, his hand did not budge in the slightest.
"Listen carefully."
Ruan’s voice was cold.
The soldier looked up at Ruan, breathing harshly.
"Your leg is gone. But you’re alive."
"I don’t want to live. It hurts too much."
"If you keep fighting here, you’ll bleed more."
More strength entered Ruan’s hand.
The soldier’s body was forced back down onto the stretcher.
"If you want to live, shut your mouth. Dying right now is easy."
At those words, the soldier’s gaze faltered.
His scream soon dwindled into a groan.
He had not calmed completely, but he could no longer twist his body over like before.
"Redo the hemostasis. Wrap more bandages. Don’t forget to disinfect where the bone is exposed."
"Yes, sir."
Ruan turned away without lingering.
His eyes were already searching for the next wound.
On the right was an old soldier with an arm bone protruding from his flesh.
On the left was a boy soldier with a torn eye area, swallowing back sobs.
Ruan set the order again.
He placed the life that would go out fastest at the front.
The entrance was roughly lifted.
Cold wind and raindrops burst into the tent together.
A new stretcher came in, caked with mud.
The soldier on this stretcher was not one of their own.
The scraps of epaulet and the knotting style left between his torn uniform belonged to northern attire.
The lines of his cheeks and jaw were also different from the soldiers of Serdin.
Even the color of the skin revealed beneath mud and clotted blood was unfamiliar.
The young medic gripping the stretcher handles flinched to a stop.
"Medical Officer. He isn’t one of ours."
"Wound locations."
Ruan cut him off and stepped closer.
His gaze did not go to the uniform or the face.
He first examined which way the flowing blood was pooling.
"Right thigh is badly torn open. Abdomen is pierced too. Pulse is weak."
"Three compression bandages. Forceps. Boiled water."
Ruan’s hand immediately reached for the enemy soldier’s abdomen.
He wiped away the blood with rough cloth and spread the edges of the wound.
Inside, clumped mud and torn fabric were revealed.
Even as he removed them, the enemy soldier’s breaths kept growing shorter.
No matter who the patient was, there was no difference in his movements.
"Closer."
"Here."
"Not yet. More."
The hot water Sera had brought flowed over the wound.
The unconscious enemy soldier’s body twisted violently by reflex.
Ruan immediately pressed down on his shoulder to stop the movement and looked deeper inside.
There was more blood leaking in the abdomen than expected.
If they missed even a little, the body would quickly go cold.
The tip of the forceps slipped once inside.
Sera swallowed her breath.
Ruan changed his grip and went in again.
Only after a brief silence did one severed blood vessel catch on the tip of the forceps.
"I’ve got it."
"Thread."
"Here."
Ruan took the thread and tied it at once.
The wet thread slipped over his fingers.
As he made the second knot, his wrist trembled for the briefest instant.
The tremor was small, but Sera saw it.
Without a word, she handed him the next cloth.
Then a heavy voice fell from behind him.
"Medical Officer Hesse. I assume you know who it is you’ve laid down there."
It was Elric Sein, the royal medical officer.
In his hand, he still held a register densely filled with recovery cases.
For the past few days, those eyes had hovered around Ruan, alternating between records and actual treatment.
The air inside the tent cooled a little more after he entered.
"A patient with an abdominal penetrating wound."
Ruan did not even turn his gaze.
As the forceps stopped inside, the flowing blood began to lessen little by little.
But it had not stopped completely yet.
If he lost focus, it was a place that would burst open again.
Elric stepped closer.
The heels of his shoes scraped against the muddy floor.
Two medics standing close to the operating table unconsciously retreated half a step.
"Our own soldiers are lying outside in the rain and mud. And yet you put an enemy soldier on the operating table?"
Elric’s eyes narrowed.
"You treat the enemy first?"
He looked down at the stretcher for a moment.
"On this battlefield, where both supplies and strength are lacking. Did those excessive recoveries left in your records also begin from this obsession?"
The moment Ruan half-straightened, the gaunt wrist beneath his sleeve trembled for a brief instant.
The white strands among his hair were more noticeable than before.
Fatigue felt as if it were rising from deep within his bones, but Ruan gave no sign of it.
If he stopped his hands now, blood would surely leak again from inside.
That was what had to be stopped more than any argument.
"I’m not treating him because he’s the enemy. I’m treating him because he’s the one dying fastest right now."
Ruan pulled the thread.
The red-soaked thread passed through the flesh.
"The soldiers lying outside have already been staunched."
He spoke briefly.
"If I don’t close this man’s abdomen now, he’ll be gone soon."
Elric opened his mouth to argue further.
Ruan cut him off.
"Discuss identity and uniform after he makes it out alive."
His voice was low and firm.
"Here, wounds are the standard."
A brief silence fell.
Outside, the legs of another stretcher could be heard scraping through the mud.
Inside the tent, the medics kept their hands moving, but their ears were turned this way.
Elric did not immediately refute him.
Instead, he looked at Ruan’s hands.
The fingers holding the needle were trembling faintly.
He also noticed the pale nape of his neck and the intervals of his breath, shorter than usual.
The treatment was calm, but the one performing it was worn down far too much.
Elric’s gaze changed slightly.
Just then, Karen stepped in from the corner of the tent.
Before anyone knew it, she was behind Ruan.
She placed herself between Elric and Ruan.
"That’s enough, Medical Officer Sein."
Karen’s voice was low and hard.
"You’re obstructing treatment."
One hand was already resting on the hilt at her waist.
She had not drawn it, but no one could come any closer.
Elric looked at Karen for a moment.
Karen did not avert her eyes.
Elric silently took one step back.
"Very well. I’ll record that principle today."
He looked at Karen once, then at Ruan again.
His gaze was different from before.
Elric’s eyes lingered longer on Ruan’s wrist than on the enemy soldier’s wound.
"It seems the records are not the only strange thing here."
After leaving those words, Elric looked once more at Ruan’s white hair.
Then he turned his back and disappeared.
The tent entrance flapped, and some of the tension drained away.
Sera let out the breath she had been holding, very softly.
But Ruan immediately bent back over the wound.
When he tied the final knot, the flowing blood at last began to settle inside.
Bandages were wound tightly over the coarse silk thread.
Only after pressing down on the abdomen once more did Ruan remove his hands.
"Cover him so his temperature doesn’t drop."
"Yes, sir."
"If he moves, it will burst again. It would be better to tie his hands and feet as well."
Sera pulled over more fresh bandages.
One medic spread out a thick blanket and covered the enemy soldier with it.
The enemy soldier still had not properly regained consciousness.
Only his eyelids trembled faintly, and his lips were parched dry.
Then the body of the enemy soldier who had been unconscious twisted slightly.
"Ugh..."
His rigid jaw trembled, and a short sound leaked from between his parted lips.
It was closer to a rough breath than speech.
Even so, it clearly was not the language of Serdin.
"Kashalla..."
It was not the standard language used in the capital.
It was a northern dialect.
And one close to the rough accent used only in the outskirts, at that.
Ruan did not understand what the word meant.
No, he had neither the thought nor the leisure to understand it.
His gaze remained fixed only on the suture line and the intervals of the man’s breathing.
He had to check first whether a fever was starting.
But right beside him, Karen, who had been wiping away blood, suddenly froze.
The knuckles of the hand holding the bucket to pour hemostatic water turned white.
Karen’s eyes fixed on the enemy soldier’s lips.
That single word that had just slipped out held Karen fast.
For an instant, her breath stopped.
Ruan belatedly asked as he washed his hands.
"What is it?"
Karen could not answer right away.
Only the hand gripping the bucket handle tightened further.
Only after pausing for a moment did she speak very briefly.
"It’s nothing."
Her voice was a little lower than usual.
Sera heard it, but she did not ask now.
Ruan could not press further either.
Another stretcher was coming in from outside.
Beyond the tent, artillery fire rumbled low through the earth.
For a while, Karen could not let go of the bucket handle.
Her stiff fingers would not easily loosen.
"Next stretcher. Seventh spot on the right."
Ruan’s dry voice once again cut through the tent.
Soon, the next wounded man was laid on the operating table.
It was a night when the work of cutting flesh and sewing it shut would not end.