<CHAPTER 1>
What Someone Who Returned from Death Surprisingly Has to Do
I swear before God that I shall uph
Ivel pressed down firmly on the patient’s abdomen.
But even that could not stop the blood from seeping through.
If I don’t do something—anything—he’ll die soon.
Most soldiers in an abandoned unit were doomed to die from infection, the flesh around their bullet wounds slowly rotting away until there was nothing left to save.
Even so, Ivel rushed about, determined to save at least one of them if she could.
“Doctor! Doctor!”
The nauseating smell of blood mingled with gunpowder, churning her stomach.
The only fortunate thing was that she had eaten nothing, so there was nothing left to throw up.
“Bring the patient over here!”
“It’s a gunshot wound!”
“Shut up and lay him down first.”
No matter how hard Ivel worked, the wounded continued to pile up. Most of them had suffered external injuries, making a skilled surgeon desperately necessary.
The problem was that Ivel was an internal medicine physician, and she had only recently learned how to cut into and stitch up the human body. Ah, she had also learned how to dig bullets out of wounds that looked horrifying enough just to glance at.
It was probably fortunate that her senior military doctor had taught her that much before he died.
Ivel thought about it indifferently as she took a sharp instrument into her hand, her expression devoid of emotion.
“Brazier.”
“Yes!”
Even though they were in the middle of a war, and this was nothing more than a makeshift barracks for the wounded rather than an actual field hospital, Ivel still observed whatever standards she could.
Instead of searching for disinfectants and anesthetics that did not even exist, she ordered her assistant to heat the surgical instruments over the fire and poured harsh, cheap liquor directly into the wounds.
In truth, their supplies had run out some time ago, and even this would no longer be available starting tomorrow.
But Ivel’s goal was simple: save whoever could still be saved.
“Hold him tightly. I’m removing the bullet now.”
“Understood.”
The assistant had watched her perform surgery countless times. Though his face had gone pale, he remained surprisingly spirited.
Without even blinking, Ivel cut through the flesh as quickly as she could.
“Abel… please… be gentle….”
“Shh.”
Cold sweat beaded across her forehead.
As she concentrated on probing the wound, the blond-haired officer groaned in pain. But Ivel—who everyone called Abel—paid him no heed.
She simply did not have the luxury of listening to every complaint.
Clink!
The piece of metal she extracted dropped into a steel basin.
Under normal circumstances, it was absurd for an internal medicine doctor to perform surgery.
But now…
There was no one in this unit more skilled than Ivel.
They were all dead.
If you could afford to be picky about who did what, could you even call this a war?
It would be a playground.
“The treatment is finished. Bind the wound for now. If there’s any liquor left, give him some to drink. There’s nothing more we can do at the moment, so at least ease his pain.”
“Understood…!”
Perhaps it was because she had been concentrating too intensely.
Her vision began to blur.
The cold wind made her body tremble as well.
Maybe I’m the one who needs the liquor.
But Ivel did not let a single drop touch her lips.
Without her, there would be no one to grind the medicinal herbs, and no one to extract bullets.
She did have an assistant, technically.
But even he was hardly reliable….
Ah.
Blink.
She had only sat down for a moment on top of an empty supply crate.
She must have dozed off.
Ivel realized a beat late what had awakened her.
A man who looked as though even a military knife driven into him would not draw a single drop of blood was draping his jacket over her shoulders.
Rather than simply handing it to her and walking away, he had even tied the sleeves together to secure it firmly around her.
Ivel knew exactly who he was.
“His Grace, the Grand Duke of Bayern.”
“You were trembling.”
“Thank you for your consideration.”
It was warm.
Because of the considerable difference in their builds, the jacket felt almost like a blanket.
Or perhaps that was because it had absorbed the man’s body heat until moments ago.
Either way, Ivel was grateful, so she thanked him.
Victor Bayern merely answered in his usual dry tone and straightened.
“There is no need to thank me. It would be extremely troublesome if the only doctor on this front died.”
It was a rather blunt response.
But consideration was still consideration.
He had, after all, taken off his own jacket for her.
Of course, Ivel did not interpret his kindness in any other way.
There was no way the Iron-Blooded man whose very name made the Fran people tremble would be interested in men.
That was right.
In this horrific place, Ivel had been perfectly mistaken for a ‘man.’
Naturally, she had no intention of correcting anyone’s misunderstanding.
She had been drafted and dragged here after stealing her elder brother’s name to become a doctor.
She had no desire to experience anything worse than this.
“……”
Meaningless glances passed between them in the silence.
Ivel herself was quite expressionless, but she could not hope to compete with the Grand Duke of Bayern.
Perhaps something in him that governed emotions had broken when he was young.
Even when Ivel clumsily removed a bullet lodged in his rib cage, he had been the only man who had never once groaned in pain.
Well, after nearly a year of rolling around together in this hellhole, she had at least learned to read the subtle movements of his eyebrows.
That expression looks like he wants me to say something.
“I’ve sent telegram after telegram, but since no support has come from the homeland, I suppose we really have been abandoned.”
The man’s eyes narrowed as she spoke matter-of-factly of the fact that they had already been handed their death sentences.
It was common knowledge, even among the lowborn of the back alleys, that the young King of Richter was practically childish in his jealousy toward the Grand Duke.
When Ivel was assigned to the legion under that king, she had already anticipated a situation like this.
“You don’t seem afraid of death.”
“I wasn’t exactly treated well at home, either. Why would I suddenly be afraid of dying now?”
“Doesn’t it feel unjust? Half of this is probably because of me.”
“I suppose it is a little unfair. I worked myself to the bone to become an internal medicine physician, only to end up like this. Then I was suddenly ordered to perform surgery. And now that I think about it… having Your Grace as my very first surgical patient was rather unfair too.”
During wartime, the chain of command had to be even more rigid.
Under normal circumstances, simply sitting so brazenly in front of the Grand Duke of Bayern, let alone accepting his jacket and draping it over herself, would have been enough to earn her a death sentence.
But Victor Bayern was more generous than the vicious rumors branded onto his name suggested.
And when it came to debts—both owed and repaid—he was particularly straightforward.
Even after her first surgery, Ivel had saved his life roughly three times since then.
Victor had not forgotten the debt.
Especially since she was a doctor who had absolutely nothing to do with the justification for the war or the current political situation.
Especially since she was younger than him.
And then there was the fact that she was thinner even than the youngest officer in the military camp, looking as though a single careless shove might snap her in half.
Taking all of that into consideration, Victor simply overlooked the various boundaries Ivel crossed.
Now that he had been discarded by the king after being used and betrayed, it was probably good for him to have at least one person he could speak to honestly.
“How many family members did you say you had?”
The man asked in a pleasant voice.
Ivel had thought this every time she heard it, but his voice really was low and soft, almost as though it gently tickled something deep inside a person’s chest.
She pushed the strange thought away and dutifully answered her superior.
“Both of my parents are alive, and I have one older brother. He’s a hopeless idiot.”
“What makes him hopeless?”
As he asked, a large hand reached toward her and wiped away the dried blood on Ivel’s cheek.
The hand hesitated for a moment.
Then, as though he had finally made some great decision, he poked Ivel squarely in the cheek.
