“Leorino…”
Leorino was in his arms. He had retrieved him. He had made it in time.
But the moment Gravis saw Leorino, his heart sank in fear.
He touched Leorino’s cheek with a trembling hand. It was cold as ice. With his thumb, Gravis traced Leorino’s bloodstained cheek and purple lips. He couldn’t feel Leorino’s breathing at all.
Gravis called to him, his voice quivering.
“Leorino, open your eyes…”
The soldiers recognized the filthy figure the general was holding as his fiancé, Leorino Cassieux.
Leorino’s appearance was nothing short of horrific.
No one dared make a sound at the sight of the ghastly state he was in.
His hair and clothes were soaking wet despite the cold, and his entire body was covered with blood and filth. Half of his face was stained reddish brown from the blood flowing from the side of his head. The tips of his limp fingers were also bleeding. Some of his fingernails were missing, likely the result of torture.
Leorino must have been kidnapped by the enemy. The general had rescued him himself.
Finally understanding the situation, the soldiers surrounding them suddenly began to clamor.
“Someone call Dr. Sasha!” Dirk shouted.
Meanwhile, Gravis continued to call Leorino’s name. But the battered body lying on the ground showed no signs of life.
Everyone present thought that the young man whom the general loved had already breathed his last. All they could do was watch them with heartbroken eyes.
“Get out of the way!”
Pushing the soldiers aside, Sasha and his second-in-command rushed to Gravis’s side. Gravis looked at the military doctor with a somewhat dazed expression, as if all emotion had left his body.
“…Sasha, it’s Leorino, he—”
“Sir, let me see him… Excuse me, please.”
Gravis looked like a cornered beast whose mate had been wounded. Trying not to provoke Gravis, Sasha slowly approached Leorino and touched him.
He searched for any sign of life. Sasha brought his face close to Leorino’s mouth and placed his hand on his chest. He hovered around his mouth once more and checked his thin wrists.
At the faint touch of a single moist exhale, Sasha lifted his head.
“He breathes…! Sir, Lord Leorino is still alive.”
“Alive…”
Gravis looked at the thin body in his arms, stunned speechless.
Sasha further inspected Leorino’s body. After checking his head injury, he touched his chest, frowned, then looked at his abdomen and paled.
Then he turned up his soiled jacket.
“…!”
They both gasped at the fresh blood staining his wet shirt. The blood was spreading before their eyes.
“Leorino!”
Gravis roared, looking up to the heavens.
Hit by Gravis’s swelling rage, Sasha paled.
“Sir! Calm down!” Sasha yelled, grabbing Gravis by the arm. “Several ribs are broken. He’s in bad shape. His body temperature is too low and his breathing is faint. If he stays like this, his heart may stop. Every moment counts.”
“…Help Leorino, Sasha.”
Sasha looked into Gravis’s despairing eyes and nodded resolutely to reassure him.
“I will do my best. But right now, we need Madame Maia’s Power. Please take us to Brungwurt!”
Sasha’s words brought a glimmer of hope to Gravis’s eyes.
He carefully lifted Leorino. He pressed a clean cloth to Leorino’s stomach and head to stop the bleeding, while Sasha stood and came close.
“You look pale. You’ve overused your Power… Are you certain you can leap to Brungwurt?”
“Yes, I can… Dirk. That’s the man.”
Gravis gestured with his chin at the man who had fallen a short distance away. Leorino’s dagger was deeply embedded in the man’s chest. Dirk nodded.
Reason had already returned to Gravis’s eyes.
“That man is the proof of the marquis’s betrayal, and Leorino risked his life to capture him. If he lives, do not kill him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do whatever you must so he can never leap again. Do not let him escape.”
“Yes, sir. I swear on my life.”
Gravis exchanged a few meaningful glances with his second-in-command.
“…Begin the recapture of the outer fortress. Lucas and Josef are still there. Don’t wait for me. Dispatch soldiers.”
“Yes, sir!”
“One hour. I’ll be back in an hour… Until then, I’m counting on you.”
“I’m at your service. I still have time to fulfill the promise I made earlier.”
“Now!” Sasha shouted.
Carrying the wounded Leorino, Gravis disappeared, taking him and Sasha with him.
Dirk exhaled. The surrounding officers cautiously checked the situation.
“Adjutant Bergund, the general’s fiancé was supposed to be in the royal capital—how did he find himself in a place like this…?”
Dirk pointed to the man lying on the ground. “This man is an ability user with the same Power as the general. He kidnapped Lord Leorino from his home.”
Dirk’s explanation caused a stir among the soldiers.
“Lord Leorino escaped from the outer fortress on his own, found our soldiers, and tried to seek refuge in the inner fortress. But he was recaptured by that man.”
The officers remembered that a large, wounded soldier had been brought in with Dirk just half an hour earlier.
“The general and the lieutenant general ventured into the outer fortress and rescued Lord Leorino.”
“Lord Leorino’s injuries… Clearly, he was tortured…”
Dirk recalled Leorino’s sorry state. The thought that someone could simply hurt the frail body of a civilian made him want to scream in indignation. His fists trembled as he attempted to hold back his anger.
One of the soldiers tried to comfort Dirk. “But by the looks of it, fortunately, his chastity remains—”
Dirk’s rage finally erupted. “‘Fortunately,’ my ass! Didn’t you hear Dr. Sasha? It’s barely been half an hour! In that time was beaten badly enough to break several ribs, hit over the head, stabbed in the gut, and had his fingernails ripped off! How could they do that to someone so frail…?”
He understood what the soldier was trying to say.
He wanted to say that there were no signs that Leorino had been raped. Leorino’s whole body was wet, and his clothes were covered in blood and mud, but the way he was dressed certainly showed no signs of sexual assault.
The soldier turned pale and immediately apologized.
“I’m sorry. I just…”
“I understand what you’re saying. Just the thought of that possibility is horrifying… I’ll make you regret this, Gdaniraque.” Dirk barked orders to the men around him. “Dispatch troops to the outer fortress. Send reinforcements to the lieutenant general and Josef of Brungwurt who remain in the outer fortress! If you encounter enemy soldiers, you may kill them immediately!”
“Yes, sir!”
Dirk’s eyes were ablaze. The flames of anger spread to the men. “We won’t need to trouble His Excellency. How can the Royal Army remain silent when our general and his future spouse are demeaned? Go!”
“Yes, sir!”
The soldiers scattered. The battle was about to begin.
But first, Dirk approached the unconscious man. He was still out cold, but appeared to still be alive. Dirk beckoned Sasha’s second-in-command, Omar.
“Check on him. Will he live?”
Omar checked the man’s chest wound, then the rest of his body. and nodded.
“His breathing is weak, but he will not die. The wound in his chest is shallow. Lord Leorino couldn’t have inflicted a fatal blow.”
“If possible, I’d like to keep him immobile all the way to the royal capital. Can you do that?”
“…You mean without breaking his mind? What about his body?”
“I don’t care what happens to his body, but he needs to be able to talk. When we make him confess, we’ll use drugs again. He needs his memory intact.”
Omar nodded and left to get the drugs.
Dirk pulled out the blade from the man’s chest. It was Leorino’s dagger. Leorino had struck back at his captor at the very end.
Dirk carefully wiped the blood from the tip of the blade, wrapped it in a cloth, and tucked it into his uniform. Instead, he pulled his own dagger from the sheath at his waist and ordered the soldiers around him to lay the man on his stomach.
“Show me his ankles.”
As the soldiers obeyed the order and exposed the man’s legs, Dirk unceremoniously severed the tendons in both of the man’s feet.
The man’s unconscious body jerked as blood came gushing forth.
The soldiers felt a shiver run down their spines at the cruelty of the general’s second-in-command, who had now abandoned his usual mild expression.
“…He won’t be walking anywhere like this, though he can still escape if his Power returns. Stop the bleeding and keep him alive. You don’t need to treat him.”
Omar, the second-in-command of the health department, opened the man’s mouth and fed him a few drops of two different liquids.
“That should paralyze him. He’ll stay unconscious for a good while.”
“Keep him restrained like this. Have a medic keep an eye on him with the drugs, just in case. Make him bleed just enough to keep him alive, but be sure not to kill him.”
“Why?”
“Abilities require life energy. If he’s just barely alive, he can’t use his Power to escape.”
“…Even if he escaped, he wouldn’t be able to walk.”
Dirk looked down at the living corpse of a man, his gaze cold.
“He does not need to walk. We will keep him just alive enough to bring him back to the royal capital. This man is the key to exposing all the treachery that has taken place until now.”