By Zephyria Rainer sat in front of a bonfire lit at the entrance of a large tent, wrapped in a blanket, and kept sneezing. While others were about to collapse from the heat, he was shivering all alone, making Charlotte think that the muscles attached to his body were of no use whatsoever.
She looked at her superior, who had jumped off the cliff following the Supreme Commander at the risk of his life, looking foolish but cool, and filled a canteen with warm water and handed it to him.
When his saliva splattered on her hand as he tried to receive the canteen, she wanted to pour it all over his face, but she highly valued his difficult return alive and simply wiped his combat uniform hanging on the chair with her hand. Instead, she handed him the canteen and said to him in a slightly disapproving tone.
“Stop being so dramatic. The Supreme Commander isn’t showing any signs, so why are you the only one, Squad Leader?”
“You really, you should be there with me. You’d die of hypothermia before you ran out of oxygen.”
Rainer glared at Charlotte, who sat next to him and spoke casually. Charlotte avoided his gaze and turned her head towards the inside of the tent where the Supreme Commander was.
“Still, didn’t you survive thanks to the Supreme Commander?”
“What are you talking about? We both survived because I followed him.”
Rainer, who had stubbornly retorted, took a sip of water and followed her gaze.
There, the Supreme Commander and the members of the 1st Division, as well as the medical team, were gathered.
Rainer was basically a person with exceptionally strong physique, so he had no major problems with his body except for some oxygen deprivation symptoms and hypothermia.
The reason why Hugo and Rainer were able to withstand even the pouring rocks was not only because of Hugo’s solid ice wall that created a space to secure oxygen and protect their bodies, but also because of Rainer, who blocked the rocks and broke through the path with his ability to harden the substances and parts of his body that touched them.
However, unlike Rainer, who was relatively fine, the medical team gathered near Hugo was quite busy.
This was because a rather deep wound remained on Hugo’s right arm, which had been grazed by sharp rocks, and it was too deep to be healed with ordinary recovery magic. Because of this, the medical team officer was in a state of tension, performing surgery for the first time in a while.
Fortunately, there was one good thing. If it had been an ordinary person, bacteria would have multiplied in the wound at the point of being buried in the hot ground for a long time, leading to tetanus and skin necrosis, but Hugo had rapidly cooled the area as soon as the wound occurred, so the preservation state was quite good.
Thanks to this, the medical team officer, who washed and disinfected the wound area, sewed the skin several times with a large needle, and then removed the trauma with regeneration magic, looked satisfied with the surgical results and looked pleased with the Supreme Commander’s arm.
However, since the internal injuries had not yet fully recovered, the officer wrapped a compression bandage around his arm and repeatedly urged him not to use his right arm excessively.
She immediately checked Squad Leader 8’s forehead and swollen wrist thoroughly, and then moved out of the tent to treat other injured people. After the medical team disappeared following the officer, a suffocating silence flowed inside the large tent.
Seeing that the atmosphere of the 1st Division members was unusual, Charlotte, who was sitting near the entrance, gestured to Rainer to go somewhere else. Rainer’s face was reluctant, but he also read the atmosphere and followed her.
Hugo put on the compression armor and combat uniform that he had temporarily taken off for treatment. Only the sound of his clothes rustling echoed in the silence.
Flynn did not cry, but he handed a handkerchief to the Squad Leader with a face that seemed to be holding back tears. This was because Hugo’s forehead was covered in cold sweat due to the short suture surgery, which was performed without anesthesia.
Hugo, who had fastened the last seam of his combat uniform top, took the handkerchief that Flynn handed him and sat on the cot, lightly wiping his face. His shadowed eyelids looked quite tired.
The atmosphere was extremely gloomy.
After hearing about the situation just before the canyon collapse from the Squad Leader, all the members of the 1st Division were filled with guilt.
Most of them had heard Kenneth’s radio call, and some had gone to the scene to provide support, but the only people who were actually by his side were the Squad Leader and Leonardo Blaine.
Because the demon beasts seemed to be chasing the rookie in particular, most of the members who went to support chose to stay by his side and kill the beasts instead of staying by his side.
It couldn’t be said that this decision was wrong, but it became a decisive factor that they were tied up and couldn’t arrive in time in the most urgent situation.
It was a big mistake for the Council not to regard the outsider who was with the rookie as a target of vigilance at all. If he was a guy who was suddenly found alone in the middle of the peninsula, he wouldn’t be an ordinary guy at least, but as a result, they left such a guy alone with the rookie.
Moreover, in a situation where the guy even committed terrorism against the Council, the fact that the person who disappeared while trying to save the rookie was Leonardo Blaine, whom they couldn’t say they hadn’t ostracized, made them wallow in guilt even more.
The members of the 1st Division were unable to say anything, each looking back on their mistakes. Among them, Squad Leader 8 hesitated, moving her lips as if she wanted to say something.
She knew very well that she was not in a position to ask. Moreover, the situation was all the more clear at the point when only the Squad Leader and Squad Leader 9 of the Southern Branch had returned, but she still had a glimmer of hope and wanted to ask something.
After looking down at the floor for a while and biting her lip, she raised her head as if she had made up her mind. Then, looking at him in front of her, she slowly opened her mouth.
“Squad Leader.”
At Squad Leader 8’s voice, the hand holding the handkerchief stopped as it passed over his straight forehead. His hand lingered around his eyebrows for a moment before moving down. Then, his covered blue eyes were revealed, and his gaze slowly turned towards her.
As she met his slow gaze, Squad Leader 8’s mouth, which she had worked so hard to open, was suddenly blocked.
The revealed eyes were very cold, as if they had sunk into the abyss. The always upright eyes were stained with deep despair, representing his state of mind.
Even though he was looking at her after she called him, her closed lips did not think of opening easily. Unable to face his heavy gaze, she lowered her head as if avoiding his eyes.
The words she was about to say only lingered in her mouth and disappeared. This was because she felt that she could know without having to ask.
She couldn’t dare to ask, ‘You couldn’t find him?’
Her face gradually distorted with a sense of futility. She quietly opened her mouth, trying to hide her trembling voice.
“I’m sorry….”
Hugo silently stared at her.
“I should have stayed focused until the end, but I have no excuse.”
Her inner self was constantly blaming her own incompetence for not being able to protect them. And the more she blamed herself, the more complex her feelings for Leonardo, who had held onto her and Kenneth and never let go, grew.
She was just frustrated that she became so pathetic whenever she got involved in things related to him, whenever she was assigned to missions related to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
Following the Squad Leader, the members repeated “I’m sorry” one by one in a parade rest position.
Seeing the members acting as if they were receiving punishment on their own, Hugo couldn’t easily say the same words he had used to encourage Rainer this time. It wasn’t because he thought it was their fault.
His eyes, which had been trying to find composure, were once again mixed with worry and confusion. He also lowered his head, looking at the members standing in front of him. Then, a deep shadow fell on his tired face, as if it were covered in darkness.
He lowered his head and quietly opened his mouth, looking at the members’ muddy combat boots that came into view.
“It’s my fault.”
As his low voice echoed, the members of the 1st Division, including Flynn, all looked at the Squad Leader. Hugo, who had been sitting on the bed, leaned his upper body slightly forward, clasped his hands together, and stared quietly at the floor.
The handsome eyebrows on his profile that could be seen at a glance were furrowed, and although he couldn’t see properly because he had his eyes down, it was obvious what kind of emotions would be in his eyes. The Squad Leader’s appearance, which had always been calm and firm, looked quite precarious.
In Hugo’s mind, everything was more vivid, from Leonardo’s back as he left looking tired, to his last appearance reaching out to him.
He was clearly falling, and he could barely feel any magic. If he had fallen in that state, even with the minimum barrier deployed, the impact would have been considerable. Moreover, he was carrying an unconscious injured person, so the load Leonardo felt would have been more than twice his own weight.
Thinking that far, Hugo’s hands clenched tightly, and thick veins rose menacingly. Soon, his thoughts turned to regret for his previous actions.
When Hugo pulled the stream of water from the cliff, he saw that only Squad Leader 8 was tied to the end, and he assumed that Leonardo had hung her there and voluntarily let go.
And he also speculated that the reason was to save Kenneth, who had disappeared due to some unexpected situation.
However, once he confirmed that hypothesis through Squad Leader 8, he had to realize once again that his previous thoughts and actions were wrong.
Leonardo Blaine was a person who thought of the well-being of others before his own if there was someone he wanted to save.
So, even if Leonardo’s control had been unstable before and an unintended situation had occurred, he would have thought of others first and prioritized their protection even in that situation.
And his complacency in being relieved by that had become the decisive trigger and poison that led to Leonardo’s departure.
It was because he had never even imagined that he, who was trying to save someone, would be in danger instead.
Hugo released his clasped hands and rubbed his crumpled eyebrows, a little roughly. His thick Adam’s apple moved slowly along with his hand.
‘I shouldn’t have sent you alone.’
Hugo’s low breathing sounded unusually loud.