Shadowed Gaze: The Highserk War Saga - Chapter 63

Even when the defenses were organized and steadfast, the flow of people to the infirmary never ceased. After the Flame Emperor Dragon breached the castle walls and the tower with its breath, Ayane, overwhelmed by fatigue, closed her eyes, thinking that all the prior chaos was mere child’s play.

Triage was being conducted—a cruel necessity to prevent total collapse. Priority was given to soldiers who could return to the front lines, while injured civilians, children, and women lay in unbearable pain.

The sensation of lives slipping through Ayane’s fingers, lives that could have been saved under normal circumstances, wore her down both mentally and physically. Her magical power, already pushed to its limits, was running low, causing intermittent dizziness and nausea.

“Please, save this child, save them!”

“I understand but get back in line.”

Parents, likely the father and mother, tried to bring their suffering child to Ayane, but they were sent back to the waiting line by a Highserk soldier.

The injuries were indeed severe. The child’s back was torn by a wolf, and the arm was mangled. Though stoppable, the bleeding was not the only concern. There were other lives that needed prioritizing. That’s when Ayane realized something.

What difference was there between her and the despised Highserk soldiers? Both were assigning priority to lives, deciding who could be saved and who could not.

A large adventurer burst into the infirmary, carrying a man on his back.

“Move! Make way!”

“What’s going on?”

The Highserk soldiers, slightly delayed, forced their way through the crowd. Moritz, who had been both caring for and surveilling Ayane, asked what was happening.

“The knight, the battalion commander!”

Though no name was shouted, there was only one knight in this besieged ancient castle. Moritz, his face pale, moved around to the back of the adventurer carrying the large shield and heard groans.

“Put him on the bed, gently.”

Moritz’s voice was heavy, choking with emotion. Ayane felt her heart race.

“Oh no… Sir Walm.”

The man laid down was familiar, but his appearance was shockingly different from their last encounter.

Looking directly at Walm’s face, Ayane struggled to suppress the rising nausea.

When they first met, Walm’s eyes had been filled with murderous intent, but at times, he had also smiled at her, making Ayane feel a range of emotions. Now, his eyes were gouged out, leaving two dark, deep cavities exposed.

The holes were so deep it was hard to even probe them, a mix of brain matter and blood oozing out. It was a miracle he wasn’t dead already.

“This is just too much.”

Even Maya, an experienced healing mage, couldn’t hide her dismay.

“Miss Maya, can you heal him?”

Moritz asked in a suppressed voice, but Maya didn’t respond. Her silence was the answer. The surrounding soldiers shouted.

“We need Battalion Commander Walm! Without him, the castle will fall!”

“The commander was concerned about the soldiers and civilians caught in the melee and fought the Ogre Lord alone.”

“The enemy is disorganized, but they’re starving and targeting humans. The castle gates are nearly breached. Without the knight, we can’t hold out.”

One of the soldiers, as if cursing, threw the head of a great monster, which they had slain in a mutual kill with Walm. The head rolled on the ground. Despite being decapitated, the face of the ogre king did not show agony in death.

Instead, it wore a creepy smile, its mouth twisted grotesquely. Perhaps there were exceptions, but it reminded everyone that monsters and humans were fundamentally incompatible.

In the chaotic infirmary, amidst the surrounding noise, a faint murmur was heard.

“Is Sir Walm conscious?”

Regretting it immediately, Ayane leaned in close to hear better. Perhaps it would have been better not to hear, to remain ignorant of the cruel reality. But she heard it.

“Ahh, the train, the time for the train. I’m going to be late, for work. Ahh… the alarm, it doesn’t stop… won’t stop. The crossing… weird… Ah, the shadow… it’s coming. Stop it…”

To those of this world, these might be meaningless last words. But to Ayane, a transmigrant, they meant something else. Walm had used words like “high school student” and “clock hands,” things that shouldn’t exist in this world. The discomfort in their previous conversations now made sense.

The words, likely from his hometown, struck Ayane deeply. How could a mere civilian, once uninvolved in war, end up so wounded and close to death in battle?

“Help… me… uhh…”

“The blood, it won’t stop… Ah, someone, please stop it…”

“It hurts. It hurts so much!”

“My arm, my arm is gone! It’s gone!!”

Even now, from behind Ayane, the cries for salvation echoed, desperate voices seeking help. In terms of chances for survival, Walm’s was one in a million, a low priority. It should have been low.

“Ugh, what? Oh, I need to fight, the castle, the people, the country, I can’t see anything, it’s cold, dark.”

His trembling hands wandered through the void as if searching for something, his fingers grasping nothing. Ayane firmly caught them with both hands.

“Sir Walm, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“Ah…”

When Ayane took his hands, his delirious mutterings stopped, and he weakly squeezed back.

Ayane berated herself as selfish and terrible. She had used the excuse of ‘priority’ to justify her actions. Now, she was simply trying to save someone she wanted to save, regardless of their chances of survival or recovery.

Their meeting might have been the worst, but their current relationship was comforting to Ayane. Whether it was the suspension bridge effect or a nostalgic feeling for a fellow countryman, Ayane herself wasn’t sure.

“I will close your wounds, I will do it.”

Ayane spoke with determination.

“Lady Ayane, even if you close the wound, his eyes…”

Maya said sadly. The eyes that should have been in the sunken sockets were gone. Even Ayane, who could heal missing parts, found it impossible to fully regenerate the complex structure of an eyeball.

“Can they be healed if we get the eyes?!”

“Use my eye, my eye!”

“I only need one eye, and I won’t get lost in the underworld!”

One after another, soldiers who had fought under Walm’s command stepped forward.

Maya tried to calm those caught in the madness of rationality.

“If the magic power difference is too great, even if we transplant the body, it will just rot away. It has to be an eye that can withstand sir Walm’s magic power, and whether it’s compatible or not…”

It was unlikely that there were even ten in the Highserk Empire army with magic power comparable to Walm’s. Inside the castle, worn out by repeated losses, there was no soldier with such an eye.

As they realized the severity of the condition, those surrounding the treatment table looked down. Amidst this, Moritz glanced at a rolling head.

“What about the eyes of the Ogre Lord?”

“Moritz, are you insane?!”

“He’s the very cause of the battalion commander’s injury. Impossible.”

Soldiers crowded around Moritz, hurling insults. Yet, only Maya and Ayane were considering the option.

“Miss Maya, is there a precedent?”

“There are legends of transplanting the eyes of monsters as a form of dark magic. However, there are no successful official cases in the Kingdom of Crest.”

“To transplant a monster’s evil eye into a knight…”

Faced with the rejection from the Highserk soldiers, Ayane confronted them.

“Either way, these are the only suitable eyes we have, right? Is there any other way to save Sir Walm?”

She knew it was selfish, but Ayane wanted to save Walm. The soldiers recoiled from the girl who lifted the head of the Ogre Lord.

“I will heal him, I will heal Walm.”

Ayane, not even reaching the shoulders of the trained Highserk soldiers, exuded a sense of intimidation she should not have possessed. There were no more objections.