Not long before the ambush occurred. Seraphina, having returned to the command tent, stared blankly down at her own two hands.
The inside of the tent was chilly. Normally, this cold would have transformed into an icy agony that seemed to burrow into her bones, tormenting her. But now it was different; the night air merely felt refreshing.
"……Unbelievable."
She hugged her own shoulders. The events that had transpired in Max Jaeger's tent moments ago came vividly to mind. The sensation of him stroking her back.
"Uuu…."
Just thinking about it made her body feel as if it were burning up. Not only had she exposed her upper body before a subordinate officer, but she had even moaned and gone limp at his touch.
But she didn't regret it. No, quite the opposite.
'So this… is what ordinary people feel when they share a bed?'
She carefully lay down on her cot. Normally, she would have tossed and turned countless times, adjusting her posture due to the pain, but today, for the first time in so long, she could spend the night without agony. Her eyelids grew heavy as lead. Max Jaeger's voice lingered in her ears.
["It's a secret I'll take to my grave."]
["You should be fine for the time being."]
"…Impudent man."
With a faint smile touching her lips, she sank into the swamp of deep sleep.
She dreamed.
She stood alone in the middle of an endlessly stretching snowy plain. In the raging blizzard, she trembled and crouched from the cold and pain. As always, she had to endure it alone.
Then it happened. Someone walked from beyond the blizzard. A man in a black military uniform. His face was hazy and hard to see, but the aura he exuded was all too familiar.
Without a word, he approached the crouching Seraphina and embraced her from behind. His embrace was warm. His touch melted Seraphina's cold back.
The Seraphina in the dream did not resist, but craved his touch and burrowed deeper into his embrace.
["It's all right now, Captain."]
His low voice tickled her ears. Intoxicated by that voice, Seraphina thought that she never wanted to wake from this dream.
"Ambush! It's an ambush!!"
"All personnel awake! To your positions!!"
Sharp shouts shattered that sweet dream.
"…Hup!"
Seraphina opened her eyes as if screaming. Cold sweat ran down her spine. To think the commander had slept until the enemy was right at her nose. Without even taking time to fix her appearance, she grabbed her pistol and rushed out of the tent.
"2nd Company! Don't panic!"
The moment she shouted and stepped outside.
"……Huh?"
A blank sound escaped her lips. The scene unfolding before her eyes was not the hellish pandemonium she had expected.
Fwhooooosh-! Boom!
A flare shot up into the night sky, illuminating the pitch-black darkness as if it were broad daylight. What was revealed beneath that light was a one-sided massacre.
"Kuaaack!"
"Krugh!"
The heads of the charging orcs burst like watermelons.
Ratatatatat! Bang! Bang!
Machine gun muzzles spat fire without rest, and riflemen mechanically pulled their bolts. The orcs were melting away without even being able to approach.
Seraphina lowered the hand holding her pistol and stared blankly at the scene. There wasn't even a gap for her to intervene.
"1st Squad, 11 o'clock direction! Concentrate fire where the flare dropped!"
"2nd Squad, don't spare the machine gun ammo! Don't let them lift their heads!"
"3rd Squad on the right flank! I see ones trying to flank us! Throw grenades!"
A calm and clear voice echoing from within the darkness.
Max Jaeger stood in the middle of the soldiers. As if he had known this entire situation beforehand, he gave precise firing orders the moment enemies appeared.
Seraphina's gaze fixed upon his broad back. The figure she had seen in her dreams, and now the cold, composed back standing in the middle of the battlefield.
The moment the two images overlapped, she felt a strange dizziness. It was different from the pain caused by [Mana Reversal]. An unfamiliar sensation of her lower abdomen growing numb, and her heart beating irregularly.
Seraphina bit her lower lip.
*
"Situation resolved. Check for casualties."
"Yes sir!"
The soldiers moved at my order. Thanks to the [Minimap], the ambush ended in a perfect counter-ambush. As the darkness of the forest lifted, the orc corpses lined up before the 3rd Platoon position were revealed.
I relaxed and slung my rifle over my shoulder. And when I turned around, I found Seraphina standing in front of the tent. Her complexion was bright, as if she had slept deeply.
I slowly approached her and saluted.
"Loyalty. Captain, are you awake?"
"…The situation?"
"It was an enemy night ambush. Scale was about one platoon. Presumed to be a reconnaissance force of the Ashclaw Tribe. Friendly casualties were only two lightly wounded; all enemies were annihilated."
At my neat report, she let out a small sigh. It was a sigh of relief.
"…Impressive. To think you cleaned all this up while I was sleeping."
"I was merely lucky. I was looking around the forest and the atmosphere seemed suspicious."
I covered it up with a suitable lie. I couldn't exactly say I saw it on the Minimap.
"…That luck of yours again. You're always saying you were lucky."
Seraphina looked half-like she believed my excuse, half-like she didn't. But unlike before, she didn't particularly look displeased.
She holstered her pistol and asked.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"You seemed to be sleeping deeply."
I added with a grin.
"Isn't a commander's condition management part of the operation as well? I judged there was no need for the Captain to step out just to deal with small fry."
Seraphina's blue pupils shook slightly.
"…Impudent."
Seraphina deliberately spat it out coldly, but there was no edge in her voice.
'Status Analysis.'
[Emotions: Admiration for a subordinate who perfectly filled her absence, sense of duty to establish authority as a commander, embarrassment at having slept deeply.]
Her inner thoughts were plainly visible. I deliberately bowed my head with a serious expression.
"By protocol, I should have reported immediately and received instructions. I acknowledge this was a clear overreach of authority. If you punish me, I will accept it gladly."
"……."
When I groveled so excessively, Seraphina instead looked flustered. She coughed hollowly and averted her gaze.
"…The results were good, so we'll leave it at that. I'll write the report myself. …But wake me next time. Understood?"
"I will keep that in mind."
"And…."
Seraphina hesitated for a moment, then checked that there were no soldiers nearby and added in a very small voice.
"…Thank you, Lieutenant."
She spoke in a much gentler voice than usual.
"Thanks to you… I slept deeply for the first time in a very long while. Without even… having dreams…."
Her cheeks flushed very faintly red.
"…That's a relief. It seems the treatment… no, the tuning was effective."
When the word 'treatment' passed my lips, her cheeks turned noticeably red.
"……! Well…, my body does feel lighter, but……"
She coughed hollowly and deliberately avoided my gaze. Then, as if trying to change the subject, she pointed toward the forest.
"I'll leave the aftermath to you. I… need to go in and change my clothes."
"Understood. Please go in and rest."
Seraphina disappeared into the tent as if fleeing.
And not long after, dawn began to break. As the darkness of the forest lifted, the scene of the massacre we had committed overnight was revealed in all its grotesque candor.
Only then did the other platoon leaders arrive, having finished their preparations and run over.
"Did you… stop all of this alone?"
Lieutenant Walter and Lieutenant Franz couldn't close their mouths as they looked at the mountain of corpses. Erika, who had arrived the latest, bit her lips as if frustrated.
"Unbelievable…."
She, who had been fully prepared for battle yet ended up being too late, couldn't say a word with her face bright red. I brushed off their reactions appropriately and ordered the unit to reorganize.
Then it happened. Gunter, who had been searching the bodies, urgently called out to me.
"Lieutenant! I think you need to come over here for a moment! Their equipment is rather unusual!"
"What is it?"
I asked as I approached where Gunter was pointing. The soldiers cleared a path, revealing a grotesquely twisted orc corpse.
"What's unusual about it?"
"Look at this. They have these hanging around their necks."
Gunter held out what he had torn from the corpse. It was a necklace of blackened bone fragments hanging from a crude leather cord.
I took the necklace Gunter handed me. A discomfortingly lukewarm heat traveled up my fingertips.
'Status Analysis.'
[Target: Token of the Ashen Blood Oath]
[Grade: Shamanic Artifact]
[Effect: Upon the bearer's death, transmits location information to the Great Shaman.]
[Details: An item issued only to the Elite Guard of 'Gromnar Ironfist'.]
"……!"
The moment I read the status analysis window, a chill ran down my spine.
'It sends location info when they die…?'
Then these guys weren't just a night raid party. In that instant, the daytime battle flashed through my mind.
'It was strange.'
Come to think of it, that monster Kardor had plunged without hesitation into the 2nd Company's vulnerable flank. As if he could see through all the trees in the forest, he had charged in knowing our exact location.
It wasn't because his senses were exceptional. It was because the vanguard troops we had killed earlier had marked the coordinates with these necklaces. Surely, one of their corpses had a necklace hidden on it that our search party had failed to discover.
'To think something like this was hidden.'
It was truly an efficient method. If they sent reconnaissance teams one by one to search the forest, even orcs would find it difficult to locate the human main force. But if they distributed these necklaces to reconnaissance teams and searched the entire forest simultaneously….
'Then, the main force can head straight for the coordinates sent by the dead reconnaissance teams.'
Gromnar, he had essentially set a sure trap at the cost of his subordinates' lives. And our unit had walked right into it, quite nicely.
What the current situation meant was cruelly clear.
'Soon, their main force will arrive.'