CH-01

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Lilian firmly pressed down on the patient's abdomen.

Even so, it was impossible to completely stop the blood from seeping out.

'But if I don't at least do this, they will die shortly.'

For soldiers of an abandoned unit, the flesh would mostly begin to rot right from where the bullet was lodged, leaving them destined to ultimately die of infection.

Even so,Lilian moved busily, desperately wanting to somehow save even just one lucky person.

"Medic!!! Medic!!!"

The metallic smell of blood mingled with the scent of gunpowder, making her stomach churn.

If there was any consolation, it was perhaps that she hadn't eaten anything, so she didn't even have anything to throw up.

"Bring the patient over here!"

"It's a gunshot wound!"

"Shut up and just lay him down first."

No matter how hard she tried, the wounded kept piling up endlessly. Since most of them were trauma cases, it was a situation that desperately required a highly skilled surgeon.

The problem was that Lilian specialized in internal medicine, and it hadn't been long since she learned the skills to amputate and stitch up a human body. Oh, though she did at least learn how to extract bullets from wounds that were horrific just to look at.

Was it a relief that the senior military doctor taught her that much before dying?

Thinking indifferently, she held a blade in her hand with an expressionless face.

"A brazier."

"Yes!"

No matter how much they were in the middle of a war, and even if this was a temporary barracks for the wounded rather than a field hospital, Lilian maintained what needed to be maintained.

Instead of looking for antiseptics and anesthetics that didn't even exist, she ordered her assistant to heat the blade over the fire and poured strong, cheap alcohol over the wound.

Truthfully, rations and supplies had been cut off a while ago, leaving them in a position where they wouldn't even be able to use this starting tomorrow. However,Lilian's goal was simply to save whoever could be saved.

"Hold the patient tightly. I'm extracting the bullet immediately."

"Understood."

The assistant, who had watched her perform surgeries multiple times, was pale but remained brave. Without so much as a single blink of an eye,Lilian sliced through the flesh as quickly as possible.

"Lian... please, gently..."

"Shh."

Beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead.

While she focused on digging into the wound, the blonde officer let out a groaning sound, but she—Ibel, whom he had called Lian—didn't even pretend to hear him.

It wasn't a situation where she could accommodate every single request anyway.

*Clatter!*

The piece of metal she extracted quickly dropped into an iron basin.

Honestly, under normal circumstances, it would make no sense for an internist to do surgical work, but right now... it was impossible to find anyone in this unit more skilled than Lilian.

Because they were all dead.

If you could afford to be choosy about every little thing, would this even be a war? It would be a playground.

"The treatment is finished, so bind the affected area for now. If there's any alcohol left, give him some to drink. Since there's nothing more I can do for him right now, the only option left is to at least ease his pain."

"Understood...!"

Was it because she had focused so intensely? Her vision blurred. Her body also shivered from the cold wind.

'Perhaps the one who needs the alcohol is me.'

However, Lilian never let a single drop touch her lips.

Because if she were gone, there would be no one to grind the medicinal herbs, and no one to extract the bullets.

She did have one person as an assistant, but even they were unreliable...

'Ah.'

*Blink.*

She had only sat down on an empty supply box for a brief moment, but she must have dozed off. A beat too late, Lilian realized the reason she had woken up.

A man who looked as though he wouldn't shed a single drop of blood even if stabbed with a military knife was draping his jacket over her shoulders.

Instead of just roughly throwing it over her and leaving, he showed a meticulous care by tying the sleeve parts to secure it firmly in place. She knew exactly who he was.

"Your Grace, Grand Duke Ceasar."

"Because you were shivering."

"Thank you for your consideration."

It was warm. Due to the substantial difference in their physical build, the jacket felt almost like a blanket. Or perhaps it felt that way because it was still infused with the man's body heat from just moments ago.

...might be.

Anyway, because she was grateful, she offered her greetings, but Ceaser von Reinhardt replied dryly as he straightened his posture.

"There is no need to be grateful. It would be highly problematic if the only doctor on this front line were to die."

It was quite a blunt retort, but consideration was still consideration. No matter how you looked at it, he had taken off his own jacket for her, hadn't he?

Of course,Lilian didn't interpret his kindness in any other way. There was no way that this iron-blooded man, whose very name made the German army tremble in fear, could be interested in men.

That's right.

In this horrific place,Lilian was completely misunderstood as a 'man.'

Naturally, she had no intention of correcting this fact.

Because she had stolen her older brother's name to become a doctor, she had been conscripted and dragged all the way here, but she didn't want to complicate matters any further than this.

"......."

Meaningless glances were exchanged in the silence.

She was pretty good at maintaining a blank expression herself, but she was no match for Grand duke Ceaser .

Perhaps whatever part of him handled emotional functions had broken when he was young; he was the only man who hadn't let out a single groan even when Lilian removed a bullet lodged in his chest with her clumsy hands.

Well, after rolling around in this absolute dumpster of a place together for nearly a year, she was now at least able to read the subtle movements of his eyebrows.

That expression seems to say, "Go ahead and say whatever you want."

"Seeing that no support has arrived from the homeland despite sending telegrams multiple times, it seems we are certainly an abandoned piece on the board."

Watching her calmly spit out words that essentially meant they were just waiting for the day they would die, the man's eyes narrowed.

The fact that Velencia's young king, who was little more than an immature child, felt an inferiority complex toward the Grand Duke was a truth so famous that even the commoners in the back alleys knew about it.

When she was assigned to the army corps he belonged to,Lilian had already kept a situation like this in mind.

"You do not seem afraid of death."

"Since I didn't exactly live while receiving wonderful treatment at home either, dying like this doesn't feel all that... regrettable. There's no reason for me to suddenly be afraid of dying now."

"Do you not feel wronged? Half of the reason you are here is likely because of me."

"Well, working myself to death to become an internist only to end up in this state does feel a bit unfair. Suddenly being forced to perform surgeries... and looking back, the fact that my very first surgery happened to be on you, Your Grace... that feels a bit unfair too."

Because it was wartime, the chain of command had to be clear. Normally, sitting brazenly in front of Grand Duke Ceaser, or even accepting and wearing his jacket, would have been an offense punishable by death.

However, Ceaser von Reinhardt was a more generous man than the grim rumors branded onto his name suggested, and he was particularly straightforward when it came to debts of gratitude.

Even after that first surgery, Lilian had saved his life about three more times up until now, and Ceaser had not forgotten the value of that debt.

In particular, the fact that she was a doctor completely untangled from things like the justification for the war or the current political situation.

The fact that he was younger than him.

And... the fact that his body was slender, looking fragile enough to break with just a slight nudge compared to even the youngest officer in the military camp—these became additional considerations, causing Ceaser to simply overlook it whenever Lian crossed various lines.

Now that he had been discarded by the king after outliving his usefulness, it was good for him to have at least one person with whom he could comfortably open up.

"How many family members did you say you have?"

The man asked in a voice that was pleasant to the ear.

It was something she thought every time she heard it, but it was a low, quiet voice that truly seemed to tickle the inside of a person's chest.

Shaking off the strange thought, she answered her superior's question faithfully.

"Both of my parents are alive, and I have one pathetic older brother above me."

"Why is he pathetic?"

Along with the question, a large hand reached out and wiped away the dried blood on Ibel's cheek.

The hand, which seemed to hesitate for a moment, soon poked Lilian’s cheek as if it had just made a grand resolution.

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