When I opened my eyes again, the familiar smell of disinfectant stung my nose.
“Mm…!”
“Max!”
“Max Jaeger!!”
“Captain Jaeger!”
“Captain! Are you conscious?!”
As my blurred vision returned, the first things I saw were an IV bottle hanging from the ceiling, and four women looking down at me.
Hanna, clutching my right arm and crying.
Seraphina, standing at the bedside with her arms crossed, letting out a sigh of relief.
Erika, glaring at me from beside her while wiping at her reddened eyes.
And Captain Elise, holding a chart as she checked my pupils.
[Name: Hanna Meyer]
[Status: Extreme fatigue, relieved after confirming the captain is safe]
[Name: Seraphina von Reinhardt]
[Status: Relief, a complicated state of mind mixed with guilt and affection]
[Name: Erika von Stahlberg]
[Status: Relief, resentment over reckless behavior, frustration at her own helplessness]
[Name: Elise von Kleist]
[Status: Medical curiosity rising along with bewilderment]
“…Is this heaven?”
Considering I was surrounded by beautiful women.
“Hngh! I thought you were going to die! Captain, I’m so glad you’re safe!”
Hanna buried her face against my chest.
“…Seeing as you have the energy to joke, I suppose you lived.”
Seraphina spoke as if trying to sound cold, but she couldn’t hide the redness around her eyes. She quietly took the back of my hand, then, seemingly conscious of the others’ gazes, hurriedly let go.
“Honestly… you really are insane.”
Erika spoke through a sniffle.
“You chased after a fleeing enemy in that condition? Were you that desperate to die…?!”
Her tone was as sharp as ever.
“Thank you for worrying about me, Erika. I’ll gratefully accept the sentiment.”
“Wh-what! Who said I was worried about you!”
Erika’s face flushed bright red as she turned her head away.
Seraphina stepped in to settle the situation.
“All right, that’s enough. The patient is awake, so treatment comes first.”
Seraphina took Erika by the shoulder.
“Let’s go, Captain Erika. If we stay here now, we’ll only get in the way. Sergeant Hanna, Captain Elise, please take good care of Max.”
“U-understood. …Hmph. Just focus on recovering, Jaeger.”
Erika kept glancing back as she left the hospital room. Once the two of them disappeared, a strange silence settled over the room.
“Now, move aside. I need to examine him.”
Then Elise moved. She had Hanna step back for a moment, then lifted my upper garment.
“Mm….”
When the cold stethoscope touched my chest, a groan slipped out reflexively.
[Name: Hanna Meyer]
[Status: Wary, jealous]
Hanna’s eyes narrowed as she stood beside the bed. …As though, like a quarantine officer, she wouldn’t miss a single movement of Elise’s fingertips.
“How is it? Do you feel any pain?”
“A little… stiffness.”
“I doubt it’s just a little.”
Elise’s brow furrowed. She flipped back my eyelid to check my pupil response, then took the pulse at my wrist. Serious, yet close.
Elise’s gaze swept over the scars left on my upper body. The marks I had received from the orc in the Ashen Forest, the wounds scraped open by shrapnel in this urban battle, and the skin that had turned dark red from frostbite.
“…This makes no sense.”
Elise murmured softly.
Her hand slowly ran down my upper body.
“Medical officer? This examination seems to be getting a bit… long.”
Unable to hold back, Hanna snapped at her. But Elise, deep in concentration, paid her no mind. Her expression gradually filled with shock.
‘Status Analysis.’
[Name: Elise von Kleist]
[Status: Cognitive dissonance, shocked by the condition of Max Jaeger, who resembles a rag doll.]
A rag doll? Is it that bad?
This time, I used Status Analysis on myself.
[Name: Max Jaeger]
[Status: Muscle tears, nerve damage, early symptoms of multiple organ failure.]
…It seemed about right.
Elise gulped. She looked like she had many questions she wanted to ask me, but she was conscious of Hanna beside her.
“…Sergeant Hanna.”
“Yes?”
“Go to the medicine storage and bring me some painkillers and an IV set. Right now.”
“But that’s….”
“There are no available personnel at the moment. And the captain’s condition is critical, so I need special medication. Hurry.”
At the words that my condition was critical, Hanna’s expression hardened. She looked at me once with concern, then bit her lip and turned around.
“…I’ll be right back, Captain.”
After Hanna left, silence circled the hospital room.
“…Captain Jaeger.”
“Yes.”
“Please be honest with me.”
Her hand rose to my chest.
“You… are practically dead right now. Your muscles have all but melted down, and your nervous system is on the verge of burning out from overload. Medically speaking… it wouldn’t be strange if your heart stopped this very moment.”
Elise met my eyes without looking away as she asked.
“And yet how can you calmly open your eyes, make jokes, and even….”
Her gaze briefly dipped downward before rising again.
“How can your pulse be this stable? This is… not something you can endure with painkillers or willpower.”
If I were an ordinary person, it would have been normal for me to have died of shock or fallen into a coma. But [Indomitable Mind] was forcibly preventing my brain from shutting down, and the [Touch of Attunement] I had cast on my body during lulls in battle had forcefully stitched together the lifeline that had been on the verge of snapping.
“What is the military doctor’s opinion?”
“My opinion is….”
But from the perspective of someone who didn’t know about cheat skills…
There was only one cause she could infer.
Elise hesitated for a moment, then took something out of a box on the bedside table. A transparent crystal sphere. It was the magic-measuring crystal orb she had used once before on Sergeant Hanna.
“…This is impossible without some special power intervening. For instance, Mana.”
The hand holding the orb rose over my chest.
“…May I confirm?”
I answered obediently.
“Of course.”
At this point, she was already half-convinced anyway. Even if I tried to hide it, it wouldn’t last long. Rather than struggling to protect a secret that was certain to be exposed… it would be far better to win her over.
The crystal orb touching my chest began to emit a faint blue light.
“Th-this is…!”
Elise’s eyes trembled.
“There is… a magical response. There is, but… it’s terribly crude. No, crude isn’t even enough to describe it. This is like….”
Her eyes were filled with disbelief.
“It’s as if the mana flow was forcibly torn apart and punctured. No, as if that wasn’t enough, the entire magical circuit was… ripped to shreds and then reattached in a grotesque… ragged….”
[Name: Elise von Kleist]
[Status: Thrill, intense intellectual curiosity]
‘Oh?’
I twisted the corner of my mouth ever so slightly.
Doctors were all the same breed. They grew bored of ordinary patients, but when faced with a bizarre case that had crossed the threshold of death, their eyes turned wild.
Pretending to be sprawled weakly on the bed, I suddenly grasped Elise’s hand resting on my chest.
‘Bewitching Eloquence.’
[Skill ‘Bewitching Eloquence (Lv.3)’ has been activated.]
“Captain Elise. I would like this to remain a secret between the two of us.”
“…A secret?”
Her voice was cold.
“You don’t seem to understand the situation. This is… an enormous emergency. The magical circuits inside your body right now are… extremely precarious.”
She set down the crystal orb and poked my chest with her finger.
“What if the magical circuit entangled with the aorta near your heart bursts? Then you’ll die instantly, without any chance for treatment.”
“And so?”
“What do you mean, ‘and so’! You need to be transported to the capital immediately for a thorough examination. Your condition is one that only someone on the level of the imperial chief physician could even attempt to treat!”
Elise’s diagnosis was extremely realistic and reasonable.
An acquired opening of magical power. And not through precise training, but a case where I had forcibly torn it open by grinding down my body in the middle of battle. From the perspective of the Empire’s medical community, there would be no precedent for me.
In other words, I was that abnormal—and that dangerous.
I shook my head and refuted her.
“You’re wrong, Elise.”
“What exactly am I wrong about?”
“The moment I go to the capital and receive a detailed examination, my life ends there.”
I smiled bitterly and continued.
“They won’t see me as a simple… patient.”
“What… do you….”
“Think about it. What would the imperial medical community or the magical academy do if they learned of this? Would they treat me? Not a chance. They would lock me up like a stud and try to extract data from me.”
“Th-that can’t be. You’re a hero of the Empire. Even His Majesty the Emperor has his eye on you….”
“You know it too, don’t you? Just how filthy the imperial court is.”
I delivered the decisive blow.
The Empire was not some romantic fantasy world. On the surface, railways spread across the land, steam engines roared, and the innovations of magic and engineering seemed to promise wealth and glory, like the height of a belle époque.
But beneath that surface, strict divisions of status and class had begun to take root, and politics were rotting away in an age of polarization.
“I go to be treated, and either I’m deprived of my freedom for the rest of my life, or I die far from home for political reasons. That is my diagnosis.”
“Ah….”
Elise could not refute me. She, too, was the daughter of a noble family. She couldn’t be unaware of the dark side of imperial society.
“That still doesn’t mean I can simply leave you as you are. Are you telling me, as a doctor, to just stand by and watch a patient die?”
I gave a faint laugh and pulled the hand I was holding deeper toward the area near my heart.
“That is precisely why I need you.”
“…Pardon?”
“Not the famous brigands in the capital. I’m asking you—the one who understands my physical condition best, and who possesses skills superior to anyone else’s—to become my personal physician.”
Gulp.
I heard the sound of Elise’s throat moving as she swallowed.