BSW 243

“Here, water, please drink some water.”

Carefully lifting the wounded soldier’s head, Ho-eun pressed a brass bowl to his lower lip. The soldier struggled to open his mouth. Every time he swallowed the water with a gulp, blood surged up from the deep hollow carved into his chest.

Ho-eun desperately tried to ignore it, focusing only on the soldier’s face. However, mid-swallow, the soldier coughed up blood. Ho-eun dropped the brass bowl and instinctively caught the blood in his hands. Warm, clotted blood quickly filled his palms.

Ho-eun swallowed hard. This was not a wound that could be fixed with mere ‘treatment.’ Even without medical knowledge, he could tell.

“By any chance, is the… Bondmate…”

Ho-eun asked, meeting the soldier’s eyes. For a moment, the soldier’s pupils seemed to go blank, and his focus shifted toward the sky. A thick tear rolled down from the corner of his eye.

All the tragedy was encapsulated in that single streak of a tear, leaving Ho-eun unable to ask anything more.

“…”

The descending silence was oppressive. Unable to do anything, Ho-eun simply held the blood the soldier had spat out in his cupped hands. Every time blood leaked through his fingers and dripped down, his shoulders flinched in tandem.

It was then.

Bwooooooo…

A sudden blast of a conch horn shook heaven and earth. Startled, Ho-eun looked around.

Yaaaaaaa!

A thunderous roar erupted.

Dududu, dudududu.

The sound of powerful galloping horses followed, shaking the ground.

Standing up awkwardly, Ho-eun looked down the mountain. The reinforcements, who had been impossibly far away a few hours ago, were now rushing up the mountainside.

Without a moment’s rest from their long journey, they joined the battlefield immediately. Charging in a sharp triangular formation, they collided with the Devouring Ghouls with a thunderous crash.

Some pierced the Helmet Bones of the ghouls with massive crossbows, while others seized and tripped them with what looked like whips or ropes. Others fired guns—Bang! Bang-bang!—and some hacked away at the ghouls’ heads with axes.

Everyone seemed proficient at killing Devouring Ghouls. Their movements and forms suggested they were soldiers every bit as strong as the Crimson Rain Brigade.

And behind those five thousand soldiers, massive wagons appeared. The wagons, as large as houses, carried a dozen cannons each. Positioned at the very rear of the line, they fired shells—Boom! Boom!—while still loaded on the wagons.

The cannons varied in type; some shells flew in heavy arcs, while others shot straight ahead. Regardless of the trajectory, the target was the same.

A dozen shells rained down upon the ghouls crossing the river. With heavy thuds, explosions erupted, and the river water surged high into the air, scattering like rain. The bodies of the Devouring Ghouls shattered like fallen vases.

With the reinforcements pushing in with such overwhelming momentum, the situation reversed in an instant. The ghouls, who had breached the defense line and pushed up to the foot of [Read on Read BL Novels[Read on Read BL Novels]style="font-size:0;position:absolute;left:-9999px;">]the mountain, began to be pushed back. From his vantage point above, Ho-eun could see the shift in momentum at a glance.

He didn’t know if it was appropriate to call it a spectacle, but that was the only way to describe it. It felt as though the real battle had finally begun.

“Haa…”

Watching this, Ho-eun let out a sigh of relief. It was okay now. Everything would be fine. He just had to save the wounded. Just as he pressed his lips together and turned back to tend to the wounded soldier…

“Move aside.”

Someone approached Ho-eun.

“Ah, yes.”

Thinking the person was a medic, Ho-eun immediately stepped back. But once he moved, he noticed the man’s attire was strange. He wasn’t wearing a military uniform. The long, white coat was the specific sanitary garment worn by doctors.

Neither Yeonggam nor the medics wore such clothes. Who was he?

Ho-eun tilted his head slightly, examining the doctor’s face. The features were strangely familiar. An expression that looked somewhat exhausted, pale skin from a lack of sunlight, and thin glasses that looked as if they would shatter if touched the wrong way.

As he stared, Ho-eun’s eyes slowly widened.

“Uh…”

It was him. The doctor he had seen in Ramjae Town. The one who had treated Jeong-woo’s leg and was [unauthorized copy]unauthorized copycontent" style="display:none;" aria-label="stolen content">stolen contentlater escorted to Myeonghwa Town by the Crimson Rain Brigade.

While Ho-eun stared at him in bewilderment, the doctor examined the wounded soldier with his narrow eyes and spoke in an incomprehensible foreign language. At that, the nurse—the same nurse who had been with him in Ramjae Town—began taking various medicines out of a bag as large as Ho-eun himself.

“Is this man a God of War?” the doctor asked, stripping the soldier’s clothes.

“Ah, yes. But his Bondmate…”

Ho-eun couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence, and the doctor replied while pouring disinfectant onto the soldier’s chest.

“He should still be able to live, so don’t worry too much.”

“Yes.”

Ho-eun nodded, still looking dazed. The doctor treated the wounded soldier with skill. Ho-eun watched his movements as if possessed, before asking belatedly:

“But how… is the doctor here…?”

Myeonghwa Town wasn’t far from here. The Crimson Rain Brigade had gone up north and then come back down to the Yalu River. Still, it didn’t make sense for a doctor from Myeonghwa Town to be here.

“A doctor comes to treat people; why else would I be here?” the doctor answered as if annoyed.

“…”

Ho-eun stared at him. He was incredibly grateful, but he still didn’t unauthorized copyunderstand. unauthorized copyHadn’t these people already experienced misfortune? The memory of the Devouring Ghouls invading right before their eyes should have been painful enough once. How could he come back to a battlefield?

As Ho-eun remained unable to take his eyes off the doctor’s profile, the doctor spoke while stitching the soldier’s torn flesh.

“The money the Young Master gave me at the hospital back then kept flickering before my eyes.”

“Pardon?”

“Didn’t you give me money at the hospital back then?”

At those words, Ho-eun blinked rapidly. He recalled the conversation they had in the consultation room of the Ramjae Town hospital. He had handed over half of the money he had on him as a token of gratitude.

‘Thank you. This is for the treatment. Please let me know if it’s not enough.’

But the doctor had shaken his head.

‘It’s fine. In a world like this, does a day ever come where saving such things is useful? When we might be eaten by a Devouring Ghoul tonight…’

Looking back, the doctor had seemed very pessimistic at the time. Of course, it was an unavoidable situation. Ho-eun felt he had been quite naive to thrust money upon such a person.

“Ah… yes.”

“I spent days regretting it, thinking I should have just taken it if I knew I’d be alive and well like this.”

“…”

“But then one day, a thought occurred to me.”

“…”

“That I only regret it because I’m alive and well.”

“…”

“And thinking that, didn’t I feel truly grateful to the Young Master and General Lee who saved me?”

“…”

“So, I came.”

Ho-eun smiled faintly. He was truly grateful that the man had willingly returned to the battlefield to repay a kindness. He felt that thanks to him, many soldiers of the Crimson Rain Brigade would be able to save their lives. Just as he was about to bow in thanks…

“To get the money I didn’t get back then.”

The doctor said something completely out of left field.

“…What?”

Ho-eun’s jaw dropped. He came… to get money? All the way here? Uh… I guess that’s possible? But did he have any money right now? No, he probably did, but he didn’t know where it was. Since there [visit our site]was [visit our site]no use for money on the battlefield, he had stuffed it somewhere in a chest. It would take some time to find…

As Ho-eun blinked in confusion, the doctor chuckled.

“I’m joking.”

The nurse beside him chuckled with the same expression.

“It was obviously a joke, and you fell for it?”

“…”

Ho-eun couldn’t laugh. He just stood there blankly, as if he had been slapped across the cheek. The doctor gestured with his chin toward the blood Ho-eun was still holding in his hands.

“Go wash your hands.”

“Oh, ah, I’m… I’m fine.”

“While you’re at it, bring me some clean cloth.”

“Ah, yes!”

At that, Ho-eun spun around and ran off. “Clean cloth, clean cloth,” he muttered to himself. Then, like a fool, he almost slipped on a puddle of blood. His fine silk hair tie fluttered in the wind, and a passing soldier caught him by the arm. Barely regaining his balance, he thanked the soldier and ran off again, chanting, “Clean cloth, clean cloth.”

The doctor glanced at Ho-eun’s retreating back and said to the nurse, “He’s [stolen [Read on Read BL Novels]content]style="position:absolute;left:-9999px;font-size:0;">[stolen content]a very strange Young Master, isn’t he?”

The nurse, who was pouring disinfectant, nodded.

“Indeed. He’s the strangest Young Master I’ve ever seen in my life.”

A subtle smile played on the lips of the two as they exchanged words.