The main camp command tent was where the most immense silence pooled on the front lines.
Aizen pushed one of the markers aside. The wooden tip scraped lightly at the dust on the map.
Dozens of staff officers bustled back and forth, yet even the sound of military boot heels was swallowed by the thick carpet underfoot.
A topographical map of the northern continent lay spread wide across the massive strategy table.
Red and blue wooden markers dotted it densely, forming the front line.
Third Legion Commander Aizen Locke stood silently at the end of that table.
His ashen eyes merely swept coldly over the map's surface.
A gaze empty of both emotion and excitement.
"Damage report for the Fourth Defensive Line as of yesterday midnight."
One operations officer approached Aizen's side clutching a folder.
The officer's voice was stretched taut.
"The right flank of the defensive line was pushed back once, but we barely held. There was a field assessment that the numerous severely wounded needed to fall back to the second interception line, but over half were redeployed to the front positions by dawn today."
"You said half returned."
Aizen's voice was low and dry.
The officer flipped a page and continued rapidly.
"During the offensive a week ago, the Seventh Infantry and the light cavalry were effectively written off as annihilated. Even survivors were expected to be permanently stricken from the ranks due to amputations and tetanus."
Tap.
Aizen rapped his fingers against the table. A signal to stop circling the point and report only the conclusion.
"But the backbone of the Seventh Infantry—many core veterans and non-commissioned officers—survived. Their wounds were sutured, their limbs splinted, and their fevers broke. Those very men rejoined the flank of the Fourth Defensive Line last night and are raising a spear wall."
Aizen's gaze slowly lowered to the map.
"Fifty men who've been stabbed before heal better than a hundred green recruits. That side's line collapses later."
The officer nodded deeply.
"The latter, sir. Survival time on the flank has increased more than threefold compared to before. Troops who would have been carted to the rear to die of fever or lose their legs are now standing with spears in hand."
"Are those numbers accurate?"
"Actual position return rates that have undergone secondary confirmation by each platoon leader."
Aizen's gaze settled on a single blue flag on the map.
A small marker newly planted behind the Fourth Defensive Line.
It marked the location of a mobile medical tent that had been moving most nimbly along the front lines for the past ten days.
"You must have also brought the non-combat casualty rate for the entire legion over the past ten days."
"Right here."
The officer slid another document across the table.
"Both the cavalry and infantry have seen a drastic drop in secondary infection mortality following wounds. The rate at which soldiers with fragment wounds or simple lacerations return to combat positions within three days has jumped nearly fourfold. Especially…"
The officer paused to choose his words and swallowed dryly.
"Especially, the troops who passed through the tent assigned to First Aid Station surgeon Ruan Hese are returning at an abnormal rate. Among the soldiers, rumors even circulate that he resurrects the dead."
On the officer's face, it was evident that even he was somewhat shaken by the rumor.
Yet Aizen's gray eyes did not waver by a fraction.
Aizen pressed his fingertip to the casualty return chart lying at the map's edge.
To him, war was neither song nor prayer.
It was a matter of enduring by who could stand in the same spot again, spear in hand.
"It's not a miracle."
Aizen lightly tapped the command rod resting on the war table.
"Sir?"
"It means this is not the holy water or blessings the soldiers prattle about. That brat merely cuts, washes, instructs, and sews with thorough precision. He controls the flow lines that no one cared about to block the stench and keep men alive."
"But Commander. It is dangerous for the soldiers' blind devotion to concentrate on a mere common-born military surgeon."
An elderly deputy staff officer standing behind cautiously interjected.
"The survivors treat him like a saint. If the Church or high command catches wind of these heretical miracle rumors, the main camp may be held responsible. At the legion level, suppressing and disciplining this rumor…"
Aizen turned his head.
Cold, sharp gray eyes clamped the elderly officer's mouth shut in an instant.
"Discipline."
A chilling edge laced Aizen's voice.
"You mean to slap the label of blind faith on the one who sends men back alive to a dying front and cast him out? With the legion's shield tearing apart, you intend to speak such bloated words of blasphemy?"
"That is not what I—!"
"To us, it matters not one whit whom the soldiers pray to or worship right now."
Tap!
Aizen brought the command rod he held crashing down on the corner of the war table.
A dry, heavy crack froze the entire command tent.
"A soldier who believes there is a hand behind him endures one more time."
Aizen pressed the tip of the rod against the table.
"Meaning there is no reason to break that faith."
The staff officers all bit their lips in silence.
Without turning another page of the reports, Aizen picked up the blue flag from the map.
The soldiers worshipped in frenzy, but Aizen saw the flow.
This was not sorcery, but force preservation.
Thus, Aizen set one more black horse marker beside the blue flag.
"Did you say the royal surgeon Elric Seine has been circling that tent continuously?"
"Yes. He appears to be digging for inconsistencies in the recovery records, trying to get a grip on him somehow. The more the soldiers' blind devotion grows, the worse the friction."
Aizen's fingers lightly plucked the blue flag from the map.
"Leave Elric Seine be. There is no need to carelessly cut the nobles' excuse to chatter."
The tactical flag was moved and planted behind the fiercest apex of the central front on the map.
"But do not let them truly harm Ruan Hese."
The officer bowed his waist deeper.
"Understood. Shall we attach more shadows?"
"Yes. Plant a few more troops disguised as patients. That tent is no longer a rear facility. It is part of the front line."
Aizen set another small black horse marker beside the blue flag.
"Change the entry controls as well. The triage order sorted by Ruan Hese himself must not be shaken."
Aizen pulled the flag back one square.
He treated it not as an aid station's location, but as a line to be defended.
"The soldiers have begun to swarm. If we block them, there will be backlash."
"Don't block them. Filter."
Aizen spoke curtly.
"Those who can be saved must enter. Do not let faith form the lines."
Only then did the officer bow his head deeper.
The commander had not broken the rumors.
But he had no intention of letting the rumors replace command either.
Aizen's gaze dropped coldly.
"While he is of use, do not let anyone break him."
Having finished calculating how to exploit Ruan thoroughly while appropriately tolerating the threat,
The officers who had finished reporting slipped out of the tent in silence.
Once they had gone, the tent sank even lower.
At the same time. Far from the main camp, at the muddy edge of the front.
Inside the mobile medical tent, boiling water and the stench of blood reverberated.
"Boil more thread and bring it!"
Ruan ordered curtly, biting his lip.
Ruan's gaze was locked firmly on the soldier's deeply gouged shin and the severed vessel.
From the wound where pale bone was exposed, blood gushed ceaselessly like a fountain.
Sera pressed down on the compression band with both hands, but it was not enough.
"Press harder. Put your full shoulder weight into it and clamp down!"
"Y-yes!"
Sera gritted her teeth and bore down, weighing the patient's leg with her full body.
With nothing but the sensitive feeling in his fingertips, Ruan fumbled for the tiny invisible fragment and torn vessel.
In the slick blood, thumb and forefinger precisely snatched the end of a minute artery.
"Thread."
Sera hastily fished a fresh length of plain thread from the boiling water and passed it over with the scissors.
In a blur, Ruan's wrist circled twice as he tied off the vessel.
The moment the blood stopped as if by a lie, the patient's rigid body convulsed violently.
The blue flag moved from the main camp,
And the black horse set beside it—neither reached this tent.
Before Ruan now stood only one spurting artery.
If he did not tie it off, this soldier would stop breathing before he could count to ten.
With a blood-stained gloved hand, Ruan twisted the muscle gap fiercely and pulled out the remaining fragment.
The inside of his wrist throbbed and stung as if breaking, and cold blood seeped black beneath his short-trimmed nails.
"Scissors."
Ruan snatched the scissors from Sera's outstretched hand and clipped the suture knot short.
"Done. The bleeding is completely stopped."
Ruan exhaled long and raised his head slightly.
Cold sweat trickled down his deathly pale cheeks and pooled at his chin.
Dark fatigue clung thickly to the corners of his unfocused eyes; he had not lain down once since dawn yesterday.
Sera carefully held out a fresh towel soaked in boiling water.
"Surgeon. Please sit down, even if only for five minutes. You've already surpassed twenty patients today alone."
"Next patient. Lay them down. Determine whether they have fever from the start, and queue them at the entrance."
Ruan tossed the bloodied forceps into a squat basin and pulled out fresh surgical gloves.
The main camp's calculations remained outside the tent.
All that remained for Ruan was the next vessel.
He changed his bloodied gloves and extended his hands once more.