Ruan’s feet stopped in front of the tenth bed.
Karen closed that brief opening at once. The accent vanished, but in the space it left behind, a firmer silence remained.
Ruan did not question that silence. Not asking was the only space he could give Karen right now.
The enemy soldier had spent the night feverish, his lips moving little by little, and at first it was impossible to tell whether they were meaningful words or broken breaths.
As Ruan moved between the beds to check on the patients he had treated the night before, he noticed that the fever at that spot alone was burning in a different way.
The rain that had fallen all night had stopped, but the tension inside the mobile medical tent had not subsided.
Only the rainwater pooled on the tent roof dripped down to the ground, drop by drop.
“Third bed. Check his breathing.”
The order was brief.
Instead of answering, Sera placed her hand on the patient’s chest.
She checked first to see which side the breath was leaking from.
“Stable. He has a slight fever.”
“Undo the bandage.”
Sera carefully unwound the rough cloth wrapped around his chest.
The edges of the wound were slightly red and swollen.
But no blood was seeping from within.
“This is where the fragment grazed the edge of the lung. There are signs of inflammation.”
“Pour disinfectant over it and wrap it again. The wound will pull every time he coughs. Make it tight.”
Ruan asked nothing more.
He only looked at the reddened edges of the wound.
Who was lying there did not matter.
Whether it burst. Whether it held. That was the standard.
Ruan moved to the next bed.
It was an old soldier whose arm bone had been broken and whose flesh had been torn away.
The old soldier’s face was deathly pale.
Because the broken bone had been forced back into place, cold sweat was running down him.
“Move your fingers.”
Ruan’s voice was dry.
With difficulty, the old soldier made the tips of his bloodstained fingers tremble ever so slightly.
“Sensation.”
“A little... tingling.”
“The nerve wasn’t severed. Consider yourself fortunate.”
Ruan lightly pressed the old soldier’s wrist and took his pulse.
The pulse was weak, but it was beating.
“Tighten the joint fixation. If it moves, it will slip out of place again.”
“Yes.”
“Next.”
Ruan’s steps were a little heavier than usual.
After going all night without a moment of sleep, the insides of his knees felt leaden.
Even so, his back did not bend.
Beneath his sleeve, the veins at his wrist stood out faintly.
The white strands among his hair were more noticeable than before.
Sera glanced that way once, but said nothing.
If they stopped now, the next bed would only be delayed.
In front of the tenth bed.
Ruan’s feet stopped.
“This one.”
“The enemy soldier you sutured last last night.”
Sera said it while checking the chart she was holding.
The enemy soldier lay under a blanket, unable to fully come to his senses.
His fever was raging, and his breathing was rough.
Without hesitation, Ruan pulled back the enemy soldier’s blanket.
Yellowish discharge was seeping out from the end of the bandage wrapped around his abdomen.
The abdominal penetrating wound they had forced shut last night was heating up again.
If they had been even a little later, it would have reopened.
“The wound site is severely hot.”
Ruan said, placing his hand over the bandage.
“The inflammation is spreading.”
“Clean it with disinfectant and bring a wet cloth. We need to wipe down his whole body and lower the fever first.”
Ruan’s order fell sharply.
Sera hurriedly turned back to fetch a wet cloth.
Ruan picked up the forceps himself and grasped the end of the bandage.
“Former military physician, I’ll do it.”
A young medic who had been waiting nearby approached in surprise.
But Ruan did not even turn his head.
“Move.”
“Ah, yes.”
The bandage was slowly removed.
Across the enemy soldier’s abdomen, sutures that ran like a spiderweb remained vividly visible.
The bleeding had stopped, but all the surrounding skin was flushed a dark red.
His body, unable to withstand the pain, twitched reflexively.
“Hold the restraints tight.”
The enemy soldier’s arms jerked up once.
Two medics pressed down harder.
Cold sweat spread beneath the damp blanket.
Ruan pulled the loosened end of the bandage farther up.
With the tip of the forceps, he lightly pressed the spot where pus had gathered.
The reddened skin throbbed hotly beneath the metal tip.
“It’s only festering on the surface.”
Ruan said in a low voice.
“The inside is still holding together.”
He parted the area between the sutures once more.
The flesh inside was barely holding.
The problem was the fever.
If the fever rose any higher, he might not survive the night again.
“More disinfectant.”
Sera immediately handed him the bottle.
Ruan soaked the end of a cloth and began wiping the places stained with pus.
The enemy soldier ground his teeth and let out a short groan.
It was then.
“Hrr... Ber... dara...”
An incomprehensible sound slipped between the enemy soldier’s lips.
It was not a simple groan.
It was speech made by the rolling of a tongue.
It sounded different from Cerdin speech from the very pronunciation.
Short, harsh syllables broke off.
“Kas... roga...”
Ruan paid no attention at all to the enemy soldier’s delirium.
His eyes were focused solely on whether pus was seeping from the gaps between the sutures.
“I brought the disinfectant.”
Sera came running back with a wet cloth.
But the movement of Karen, who stood behind Ruan, stopped for an instant.
Her fingers, which had unconsciously gone to the hilt of her sword, flinched.
Karen’s eyes fixed on the enemy soldier’s lips.
“Aron... dara...”
The enemy soldier half-rolled his eyes upward, panting as he muttered.
Karen’s breath stopped, and the bucket handle creaked in her grip.
From between her pale lips, a very small and unfamiliar accent slipped out despite herself.
Only her lips moved.
“Mi...”
The sound that could not fully escape caught in Karen’s throat.
Karen’s neck stiffened ever so slightly.
Her hand was still on the bucket handle, but strength entered it all at once.
The veins on the back of her hand rose faintly.
Sera could not speak to her right away.
She had clearly heard the sound that came from Karen’s mouth, and yet the moment she asked, Karen’s face would close off even further.
So she only gripped the wet cloth more tightly.
The enemy soldier half-opened and closed his eyes again.
He had not regained consciousness.
His was the face of someone feverish, spitting out old words.
And yet Karen’s face alone had gone cold far too quickly from that one phrase.
Even without knowing its meaning, it was clear that the accent had pierced Karen.
It was of the same texture as the sound that had just flowed from the enemy soldier’s mouth.
The area around the operating table fell quiet for a moment.
Sera’s hand stopped in midair.
A single drop of water fell from the end of the wet cloth to the floor.
Sera unconsciously lifted her head.
Her eyes met Karen’s.
Karen’s lips were already tightly shut again.
Only her gaze trembled more shallowly than usual.
Sera swallowed once.
A question rose to her throat, but she could not open her mouth.
The sound that had just come from Karen’s mouth resembled the enemy soldier’s.
That much was enough.
Behind the entrance pillar stood Elik.
Elik remained standing behind the pillar and did not move to the end.
After hearing the brief accent that fell from Karen’s lips, his gaze went to Karen once.
Then it returned to Ruan’s hands and the enemy soldier’s face.
The fingers holding the register curled once.
Elik said nothing.
Elik’s gaze sank a little.
He did not open his mouth immediately.
Elik pressed two lines of words into the blank margin of the register.
Enemy soldier’s dialect.
Karen’s reaction.
Before the ink had even dried, Elik covered that part with his finger.
As though it were a record no one should see.
Karen closed her mouth even more firmly.
Sera did not open hers.
She knew that the moment she asked, Karen would shut down.
The only person who had not seen that silence was Ruan.
Ruan lifted his head.
His gaze remained fixed only on the reddened skin and the heated sutures.
“I asked for the disinfecting cloth.”
“Ah, ah! Yes!”
Sera hurriedly handed him the wet cloth.
Sera’s hand trembled ever so slightly, but Ruan did not see it.
When the enemy soldier twisted his body again, the two medics pressed him down harder.
Ruan pressed the disinfectant-soaked cloth firmly over the enemy soldier’s abdomen.
The enemy soldier swallowed a scream that nearly stopped his breath.
Along with the scream, meaningless northern dialect spilled to the floor again.
Ruan pressed the disinfecting cloth deeper.
The heated skin throbbed hotly beneath his palm.
He had to wipe it clean before the fever rose any higher.
Exhaustion weighed on his shoulders, but the movements of his hands did not slow.
“If the fever keeps refusing to drop, mix the antipyretic at double strength and force it into his mouth.”
Ruan said, throwing the bloodstanching water into the bucket.
“If he can’t swallow it, pry his jaw open and feed it to him anyway. If he dies here, all the stitching we did last night was wasted effort.”
Only then did Karen loosen her grip on the bucket handle a little.
Her eyes dropped to the floor, but her breathing did not easily settle.
The tips of Elik’s shoes near the entrance entered her field of vision.
Karen bit the inside of her lip once.
Ruan wiped his hands and turned toward the next bed.
“Next. Seventh bed on the right.”
The moment Ruan took his eyes off the enemy soldier, he immediately moved toward the next bed.
With a face that showed not the slightest intention of looking back at the enemy soldier he had just stitched again, he shook the wetness from his hands once and headed straight to the bed on the right.
On the seventh bed to the right lay a supply soldier whose intestines had barely been pushed back in after laparotomy.
The bandage wrapped around his stomach was wet.
When Ruan pressed over the bandage, a heavy heat rose from within.
“This one has a fever too.”
Sera followed after him and flipped through the chart.
“Undo the bandage.”
Ruan spoke briefly.
“We check first whether it’s leaking again inside.”
At the entrance, another stretcher was being brought in.
A medic, breathing hard, shouted for people to make room.
Even amid that commotion, Elik remained standing beside the pillar.
Once, he looked at Karen, then again at Ruan.
But in the end, he said nothing.
The legs of the new stretcher scraped against the floor.
Without even raising his head, Ruan held out his hand first.
Sera flipped through the chart with her lips pressed shut.
Karen, too, silently returned to her place.
The medical tent did not stop even then.