Hidden deep in the mountains, a series of agonized screams kept others from daring to approach.
"How is it? How is my face? Can it still be healed?" Cuba gritted his teeth against the searing pain, urgently asking the pharmacist before him.
In the final moments of the battle against Oro City's army, he had ordered his men not to pursue the garrison but to put out the fires on the supplies. Unexpectedly, the supplies were buried with explosives—ones he had never seen before. The blast nearly wiped out half of his subordinates. If he hadn't grabbed two men beside him to shield himself, he would have lost limbs too. But even with that, the powerful shockwave, carrying red-hot iron shards, pierced through their bodies and struck his face.
Half of his face was now a bloody mess.
It throbbed constantly, and he dared not scratch it. One eye was already swollen shut, and he could see pus oozing from the torn flesh.
"This..."
"I don't want to hear that. Can I be healed or not?" Cuba roared furiously at the healer, nearly startling the cloth from his hands.
"If... if the captain follows my instructions and cleans the wound with medicine daily, and uses magic to heal it, it should recover in less than half a year."
"Half a year?"
Cuba reached out to grab him, but with only one eye working, his focus was off.
"And my eye?"
The man said nothing.
But that silence was answer enough.
*Slap!*
Cuba slammed his fist onto the table, nearly punching through it, gritting his teeth against the pain in his face.
"Captain, Oz and the others are back." A surviving subordinate reported softly from the doorway.
The mountain camp was built by the first group to arrive in the Oro region, looking like a remote logging camp. Previously, hundreds patrolled this area daily, but now there were fewer than a hundred—and that was all that remained of the Revolutionary Army in Oro.
"Oz, let them in," Cuba said.
The pharmacist withdrew, and a tall, sturdy man with a small mustache entered.
"Captain, your face..."
Oz couldn't believe his eyes at the sight of Cuba.
"We were careless. I didn't expect the Count of Oro City to be more cunning than the rumors suggested." Cuba suppressed his earlier rage as best he could. There weren't many revolutionaries left in Oro, and Oz—a hunter skilled in disguise and infiltration—was a vital asset to the organization.
"That count is no simple man. I found out this afternoon that he returned to Oro City long ago, unharmed. Even the supplies we gathered weren't sent out—they stayed in the city. Using the excuse that we're entrenched nearby, they probably won't be sent out again."
*Slap!*
Hearing this, Cuba punched the table again, this time shattering it completely.
"Bastard! Vile! Filthy!"
He spat out every curse he could think of, then looked at Oz.
"Did he foresee we'd raid his supplies and set a trap? Did he deliberately let some of us escape, so he could use that as an excuse to tell those imperial fools that there's an enemy here and they can't send troops or funds?" Cuba had thought his narrow escape was lucky, even silently mocking the count for not finishing them off despite having such an advantage.
Was he keeping them alive for revenge?
But now, with Oz's words, it all clicked.
This count—young as he looked—was ruthless to the core, even using the people's patriotic fervor to shift the blame onto himself.
Brilliant.
"We don't know that for sure yet, but this Count Vigor is definitely not as easy to deal with as imagined. He has no real experts around him, yet he's hard to beat." Seeing Cuba's fury, Oz chose his words carefully.
"Hmph. One day, I'll make him pay tenfold, avenging our fallen brothers." Cuba couldn't let it go, but every burst of anger made half his face ache, and the pain only fueled his rage.
Their conversation was overheard by others standing at the door.
"Tatsumi, you're out? Feeling better?"
"It's nothing. This pain is nothing compared to the anger in my heart."
The newcomers were the ones rescued from the count's mansion days ago, still recovering from their injuries.
"Rest well first. Only when you're fully healed can we fight Count Vigor again—and this time, we'll use more effective methods," Oz said.
More people gathered at the door. Cuba was still recovering, so Oz dismissed everyone and led Tatsumi, Datsuki, and the others back to their rooms.
Datsuki kept staring at Ulysses, who was among the crowd.
"What's wrong?"
"Hmm?"
Oz suddenly stood beside her.
"You've been in a bad state since you got back. Did you suffer in the prison?" He looked at the short-haired girl. Few women in the Revolutionary Army could keep fighting, and even fewer had Datsuki's skill and charm.
"That pain is nothing. I'm just thinking about something else."
"What is it?"
"Oz, do you remember when we were in the north and heard a Borg officer talk about those ancient artifacts? The Lovecraft pendant and the silver key?" Datsuki asked.
"Oh, that..."
"Hiss—that falls under their church's domain. Borg is a nation of believers. I reckon those items are like the Cain tablets—some kind of holy relic from ancient ruins, not easy to find. Especially the silver key, which the Borg call the 'All-in-One.' They say possessing it lets you understand the world's truth. Who'd believe that? But I did hear something about the pendant."
"What?" Datsuki pressed.
"In the royal treasury of the Basharan Empire, there might be some special artifact hidden. That's probably why the Borg started the war," Oz whispered in Datsuki's ear.
Meanwhile, at the Count's mansion in Oro City.
Sean had Luke write a report on the city's situation, stating that Oro City was under constant harassment from rebels, making it impossible to send supplies to the front. He requested imperial assistance, or the newly built Oro City might fall to the rebels.
Luke wrote down everything Sean said, looking at him with awe.
"My lord, did you foresee the rebels would strike, so you set up the trap for them to take?"
"I considered it, but I wasn't sure. Still, our situation isn't good. I wanted to hold onto more supplies—winter's coming soon," Sean said.
He gazed northward out the window.
Winter was near.
He wondered how the frontlines were faring. He hoped nothing would go wrong.