Chapter 318
When I got up, my head spun.
It was from lying down too long.
I staggered for a moment but quickly regained balance.
The senses honed from countless repetitions of today adjusted for the subtle differences and stabilized my stance.
‘Not bad.’
A familiar feeling washed over me again.
Standing up, I turned my head left and right. Beside me, Ragna, with bandages wrapped around his shoulder and torso, was scooping porridge with one hand.
After swallowing, his eyes swept over my whole body.
Sinar’s gaze did the same.
Both were thinking the same thing—something had changed.
They hadn’t noticed while I was lying down, but now that I stood, it was obvious.
Of course, it made sense.
Through countless repetitions of this same day, I hadn’t just learned how to dodge.
They didn’t question it, though.
Ragna, if anything, looked eager. His desire for sparring hadn’t waned.
“Good?” I asked.
Ragna nodded.
No one fed him, but that soldier—Helma, I think—and her friend had made the porridge.
It wasn’t the usual flavor.
This time, they’d added eel meat.
I stretched lightly. Two days had passed.
Ragna stood too.
You’d think they’d take the chance to rest, but these lunatics weren’t that kind of people.
There was no point trying to read their minds.
“You feeling better?”
“It was just a sprain.”
If “just a sprain” meant being bedridden for three days, then a broken bone must mean death.
I kept that thought to myself.
They were all like that—Rem, Ragna, Jaxson, Audin.
Pointing it out wouldn’t change them.
Instead of talking, I started moving.
I performed movements from the [Isolation Technique] that aided recovery.
Feeling each muscle, I stretched my arms, raising my body temperature slowly.
By stimulating uninjured areas, I quickened blood circulation.
Even in the cold winter air, faint steam rose from my body.
“Cold? Move and warm up.
Fracture? Move and warm up.
Laceration? Move and warm up.”
That was Audin’s philosophy for treating wounds.
Even Rem had laughed at how absurd it sounded—but it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Once the body was forged through the [Isolation Technique], it became possible.
The technique enhanced basic stamina.
Such a body circulated blood efficiently even at rest.
And blood circulation meant faster healing.
I’d already proven that firsthand.
Still, the speed of this recovery was remarkable—monstrous, even.
Of course, Esther had helped too.
She’d slept pressed against me, her presence unconsciously triggering my regenerative energy.
A minor trick, barely considered magic, yet effective.
That explained why Sinar had been so surprised.
“You really do have an amazing body,” Sinar said from the chair beside me, one knee raised, her arms resting atop it.
I nodded casually.
My upper body was bare except for a short-sleeved shirt, and her gaze traced the faint heat shimmering off my skin.
“So I’ve been told.”
Eat, sleep, recover, repeat.
Reenact the battle in my head while everyone watched—it was just routine now.
Being surrounded by them no longer felt strange.
The infirmary tent was large enough to hold twenty men.
A big brazier burned at the center.
Esther slept curled up beside it.
Ragna sat near her. I exercised close to the fire.
Sinar rested near the entrance, and Dunbakel was nodding off deeper inside.
She still had a few scratches but nothing serious.
I’d heard she charged forward like a madwoman when she heard I was caught in a trap—ran straight to the front lines, apparently.
A beastwoman who once worked as an enforcer for the Black Blade Bandits was now one of us.
Why, though?
I sometimes wondered why they all gathered around me.
A few steps from the fire, Krys—nicknamed “Big Eyes” for obvious reasons—sat on a chair.
“My mistake,” he said abruptly.
I paused mid-stretch and looked at him.
“What was?”
“I failed to predict the situation. It was dangerous.”
He didn’t elaborate, but I understood enough.
He’d been the one desperately trying to read the enemy’s intentions, after all.
“Not predicting that isn’t strange,” I said truthfully.
The enemy had been insane.
At that, Krys’s wide eyes snapped to me, full of emotion—confusion and disbelief.
“Even after nearly dying because of it?”
He searched my face, baffled by the lack of resentment.
How could someone’s gaze remain so clear?
How could a human be like that?
“I lived. Not a ghost, right?”
In other words, I was still breathing. That was all that mattered.
“You really are something…”
Krys felt a wave of dark emotion but buried it quickly.
What was the point of complaining?
He already knew what kind of person his captain was.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ he thought, watching me as I bent to stretch.
No bitterness, no blame.
Even though I’d almost died because of his plan, I held none of it against him.
Next to me, Ragna looked just as indifferent.
When I met his eyes, he merely stared back as if to ask, “Why are you asking?”
“Forget it,” Krys said at last, shaking it off.
No sense clinging to emotion.
That man wouldn’t care anyway, and getting worked up would only hurt himself.
Krys hated losing more than anything, even in small ways.
He steadied his thoughts with logic.
Then, following what I’d taught them, he began to review the battle.
He went over how I’d escaped danger, what happened with Ragna, how the enemy had moved.
He realized just how badly he’d been outplayed.
He wasn’t some master strategist. He’d only done what he could.
Still, his failure had nearly gotten me killed.
And I’d once saved his life.
He’d nearly repaid me by killing me.
Even ignoring my unnatural calm, it sent chills down his spine.
‘To predict a battlefield… is to risk everything.’
That was the lesson he took.
He’d learned firsthand that anything could happen in war.
The enemy’s plan had been sheer madness.
‘Sending in junior knights would’ve made us wary… so instead, they used regular soldiers to take one elite down?’
Madness.
Sacrificing a thousand soldiers for a single enemy?
Not even a knight?
And yet—it worked.
That was the terrifying part.
He should’ve anticipated it. That was his role.
But he hadn’t.
Why?
Lack of experience.
No, that wasn’t enough of an excuse.
Such things could happen again.
So what now?
He needed to think bigger—to stretch the limits of imagination.
He couldn’t dismiss even the strangest possibilities.
‘Except dragons flying overhead,’ he thought.
That would be delusion, not prediction.
Though I hadn’t intended it, my very existence had made him reflect deeply.
He vowed silently—‘Never again.’
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
After organizing his thoughts, he muttered, “We should’ve opened a salon.”
A pointless comment.
No matter what, I wouldn’t take it seriously.
“If you do, I might drop by,” I said.
As if I ever would.
He’d probably train instead of relax even there.
‘Unbelievable,’ Krys thought. ‘He just says things he’ll never do.’
Still, he’d come—just because he said he would.
That was the kind of man his captain was.
Although, he might end up swinging a sword inside the salon anyway.
‘Worst case. Absolute worst.’
He stopped his imagination before it went further.
As I bent down, grasping my toes in a stretch, I noticed Krys’s shifting expressions.
It was amusing to watch.
He shook his head finally, pulling himself together.
Regret was regret, but he’d learned his lesson—time to move on.
That had been his childhood creed.
No one offered comfort, but he didn’t need it.
What was done was done.
‘Did I even contribute anything?’ he thought.
He had. A lot.
If not for Krys, I might have fallen into Avnaier’s layered trap.
Esther had done her part too.
By killing Galaf, the enemy mage, she’d erased their fallback option.
Ragna had helped as well.
The junior knight he killed had probably been meant to block our retreat.
Sinar and Dunbakel had both fought hard.
Without them, the first battle might’ve tipped against us.
The enemy’s rear assault could’ve turned from feint to real threat.
That would’ve cut off our supply lines—and our escape.
All of them had protected this battlefield.
That was what I truly believed.
If there were ever words worth saying aloud, this was the kind.
I stopped moving.
I knew how to speak sincerely.
So I did.
Straightening up, I looked around, gathering their attention.
Then I spoke.
“You all did well. You should hear that.”
Ragna froze mid-bite.
Krys blinked.
Dunbakel lifted her sleepy head.
By the entrance, Sinar looked straight at me.
“You say that without a hint of blush. Maybe that’s what makes you so dangerous.”
She clasped her hands before her chest, lowering her raised knee.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I countered her elven humor, and Krys spoke next.
“You’re the one who did all the work, Captain.”
His tone was incredulous.
Esther stirred, looked at me briefly, and tapped her paw on the floor—as if to say, ‘No need to thank me.’
Ragna gazed at me silently, as if to say, ‘I fought for myself,’ then went back to eating.
Dunbakel nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, I did well too,” she added.
An amusing mix of elf, human, beastwoman, and mage.
I genuinely thought so.
“Where’s Jaxson?” Krys asked.
“Said he had somewhere to go.”
“Where?”
“No idea.”
“You just let him?”
“Why not?”
He had a point. These weren’t people you could restrain anyway.
From the beginning, my philosophy with this squad of troublemakers was simple—
‘Do your job, and I won’t interfere.’
Ragna didn’t care at all.
What did it matter if that sly cat went missing?
He sat there lost in thought, reflecting on his own lessons.
His fire hadn’t gone out yet.
Sinar quietly observed me, and Dunbakel began sharpening her scimitar.
Scrape, scrape.
She poured a little water from her canteen and ran the blade against the whetstone.
A mercenary’s practiced hands maintaining her weapon.
Krys, watching it all, thought it strange how such eccentric people had gathered under one roof.
Everyone was absorbed in their own world.
As I continued my stretches by the fire—
Riiip.
The sound of tearing canvas.
Sinar reacted first.
Ting!
Her daggers were drawn before the sound finished.
She was already on her feet.
Esther’s eyes snapped open.
Ragna gripped his spoon like a blade.
“Oh? Yeah, looks like him. Black hair, blue eyes, fairly handsome face.”
A chill wind swept through the torn tent flap, carrying a voice.
Whoosh—
The brazier’s flames flared, casting wild shadows.
Dusk had passed; the sunset was long gone.
The red firelight met the blue moonlight seeping in from outside, blending into a strange glow.
And at the point where those lights met—someone stood.
“Sorry about this,” the man said.