By Zephyria Flynn, watching the scene, somehow couldn’t approach any further. He felt a strange feeling that he shouldn’t be in this place right now.
He stood blankly, unnecessarily clasping his hands together and scratching the back of his hand with his fingernails, then pressing down on his skin meaninglessly. He kept racking his brain about what to say, keeping his eyes on the floor. It was a behavior that came out when he didn’t know what to do.
However, even that small gesture sounded loud in the silent space. Because of that, Flynn stopped his actions and raised his head again.
Two bloodless faces, like a preserved painting, painfully tightened his heart. Flynn’s eyebrows, which had been pretending to be calm, were already wrinkled on their own.
‘No, I need to pull myself together more than ever in times like this.’
The warm temperature and soft lighting did not fill the emptiness that filled this place. Rather, it made the two people in front of him look even more precarious, so Flynn gathered his troubled heart and resolved inwardly.
As the medical officer said, there wasn’t a single part of either of their bodies that was unscathed. Among them, Leonardo’s poison spreading through his left shoulder and the Legion Commander’s fractured ribs and internal injuries were particularly severe. Moreover, though it wasn’t outwardly apparent, both of them had fluid accumulating in their abdominal cavities, I heard. The amount was quite significant, mostly blood from damaged organs.
However, in addition to the physical damage, the scars of the long battle must have been deeply etched into their hearts as well. Flynn had also witnessed countless scenes of the battle’s devastation while traversing the peninsula, but hearing the news coming from the front lines now, what he had seen was just a drop in the bucket compared to the harsh reality.
So, the Legion Commander, who was at the scene, must be wearing that kind of face. In the end, I had to be more attentive.
Hesitating, Flynn clenched his fists tightly in both hands. Having steeled his resolve, he cautiously uttered the words that had been lingering in his mouth.
“Um, Legion Commander.”
His voice flowed softly, breaking the silence. It was surprisingly calm for something that came out after such hesitation.
However, the person Flynn called out to remained unresponsive for a while afterward. He couldn’t have not heard, Flynn thought, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
After a while, just as he was about to call out to him again, thinking he might not have heard, Hugo’s eyelids, which seemed frozen, slowly moved. The blue eyes that slowly rose mixed with the orange light, shining with a strange color. The eyes, glancing only with the pupils lowered, looked quite fierce, perhaps because his head was bowed.
He had served as his superior for a long time, but at that moment, even Flynn’s mouth felt parched. He swallowed hard, then cautiously opened his mouth with a worried expression and tone.
“I heard it’s not good to keep sitting. Please lie down, even if just for a little while.”
At Flynn’s words, Hugo, who had been staring blankly ahead, lowered his eyes again without a word. Even so, he nodded his head slightly. It was a sign of understanding, but he didn’t actually move.
It was what Flynn had expected, but he couldn’t help but sigh. From the moment he first arrived here, the Legion Commander had been like that.
Even when Leonardo’s emergency surgery was underway, he coaxed and soothed him whenever his faint consciousness returned, putting in so much effort that it was embarrassing to watch. From morning until midnight, he hadn’t rested even once.
But the look on his face as he looked down at Leonardo was so dark and pained that Flynn couldn’t dare to say anything more. He didn’t know the details of what had happened, but the Legion Commander seemed to be blaming himself for Leonardo’s hypothermia.
Everyone was too exhausted to ask about the situation, so Flynn decided to do what he could first.
“…I’ll go out and get some more medicine and bandages. I’ll be right back. Please rest.”
After saying that, Flynn bowed his head. He turned around immediately without waiting for a response. Since he didn’t expect one anyway, he quickly approached the door.
At that moment, Hugo’s voice, lowered and even more subdued, caught Flynn’s shoulder.
“Flynn.”
“Yes?”
Flynn stopped reflexively and answered. As soon as he turned around, he met the eyes of the Legion Commander, who had already raised his head. There was no particular expression on his face, but at least he looked more relaxed than he had a moment ago.
Hugo, blinking slowly, offered a short word instead of a long explanation.
“Thank you.”
Hearing that, Flynn’s lips twisted again uncontrollably.
Whether it was for discreetly leaving to get medicine, or for being considerate of his exhausted superior and holding back his words. It was unclear exactly what he was thankful for, but with that one word, Flynn could understand Hugo’s heart.
Seeing him say such things with a strained look he had rarely seen in his life, Flynn instinctively looked up, as if something he had been holding back was about to burst.
After rolling his eyes around like that, he lowered his gaze again, feeling like the silence had stretched too long. Then, he slightly curled up the corners of his lips and forced a smile.
Since he hadn’t cried in front of him since he was a child, Flynn desperately gathered up the stinging emotions and turned his body again. But a low voice, echoing as if from inside a cave, added more words, as if the matter wasn’t over yet.
“Did the 3rd Battalion complete its return?”
At the sudden question, Flynn, who had grabbed the doorknob, turned back to Hugo. Since ‘3rd Battalion’ naturally brought one person to mind, Flynn briefly rummaged through his memory to see if he remembered seeing Meterion. However, he couldn’t quite remember, perhaps because he was so out of it, so he scratched his cheek and answered uncertainly.
“Um… some personnel seem to have returned… but the detailed headcount hasn’t been done yet, so I’ll check it out while I’m out.”
Hugo seemed to think about something for a moment, then nodded lightly.
“Okay, go and come back.”
Flynn gave him a brief bow and quickly went outside.
Thud—
The door closed again, and the air from the outside was cut off. A chilling silence filled the warm interior.
Hugo’s gaze, which had been fixed on the door for a while, returned to Leonardo as it had been all day. It was difficult to hear his faint breathing if even a small noise leaked in. He didn’t know if Flynn had left on purpose knowing that, but he knew that Flynn had deliberately gone out.
Once they were alone, Hugo put his hand inside the bedding and carefully grasped Leonardo’s wrist. The faint but clear pulse, indicating that he was alive, gently caressed Hugo’s stiff body and mind. It was ironic. That the unconscious man was giving him a sense of relief.
‘But it’s still less than 50 beats per minute. We have a long way to go.’
Hugo closed his eyes tightly with a low sigh, then opened them again. The slow pulse, not befitting his age, made him anxious as if it could stop at any moment.
If he were to keep looking down like this, he would at least furrow his brow once, but Leonardo showed no movement, his eyes closed peacefully. As if he were really dying.
But when he cut open the skin on his shoulder and removed the poison earlier, he had been in so much pain that he had even shown intermittent seizure symptoms. Compared to that, his face now looked peaceful, even if it lacked vitality, so Hugo convinced himself that it was at least part of the process of getting better.
He released Leonardo’s wrist and rearranged the bedding again. Then, he carefully examined his complexion and slowly stroked his white forehead and cheeks with his fingertips. But sometimes he would pause, withdraw his hand, and clasp his hands together, warming his palms.
He was worried that the chill that his instinct created to protect his body would actually be poison to Leonardo. In fact, his Magic Power had succeeded in stabilizing him just before the rampage, but at the same time, it had become another poison, threatening him.
The shadowed eyelids were stained with deep emotion.
“I want to protect you properly, but it doesn’t work out as I want it to.”
Hugo lowered his eyes and muttered to himself, as if confiding his innermost thoughts. The veins on his clasped hands were raised sharply.