Chapter 3097 - 1031: War in the Mire (Part 3)

Chapter 3097: Chapter 1031: War in the Mire (Part 3)

"Aargh."

Ron’s hands were shaking as he drove the injector into Fraser’s heart, pushing the alchemical fluid into it.

The stuff took effect fast. Fraser, who’d been on the brink, suddenly got his breathing and heartbeat back, the heart hammering even stronger now. The amputation was already done, the medic was staunching the blood and working on the wound, but with just a glance Ron could see Fraser’s blood had turned into a strange dark red.

"I’ve never wanted to be a vampire as badly as I do right now!"

He swore.

The medic shot back at once:

"Wouldn’t help even if you were a vampire, Captain. I said already this isn’t a simple infection. A vampire’s midnight blessing might not be enough to hold off this filth toxin from the Warp. Talk more to the Brigadier General. If his symptoms keep getting worse, then... look, you see, no matter how good my skill is, there’s no way to amputate anything below his eyebrows, you get me?"

"Shut up. Can’t you say something good for once?"

Ron cursed the medic savagely.

But the latter didn’t care in the slightest. Back when he’d been interning in the field hospital, every single patient he amputated cursed him out. So what?

They lived. That was all that mattered.

Half an hour later, Fraser came to. He looked a bit better than before; his temperature was still burning hot, but at least his Spirit had cleared a little.

"My pocket, Ron, left pocket."

Fraser rasped:

"Take the thing inside out."

"Hold on."

Ron brought over a bowl of broth fortified with alchemical drugs and fed Fraser a few spoonfuls, then reached into the breast pocket on his coat and fished out a letter that had already been soaked through by the downpour and the mud.

"If I die... send it to Crimson Castle for me. You know who it’s for."

Fraser, leaning against a rock, glanced at his amputated arm. He shook his head and said:

"But only deliver it once you’re certain I’m dead, you hear? I really don’t want my junior seeing me in this pathetic, broken-down state."

"Look at the situation we’re in and that’s what you’re thinking about?"

Ron helplessly folded the letter and tucked it into his own inner pocket. While he kept feeding Fraser the meat broth, he sighed and said:

"You really are a hopeless romantic. I just don’t get it, why are you so fixated on Milian? You know, even if you pull through, the life you’re bound to now will never allow you two to end up together.

Governor Milian will absolutely be turned into a vampire in the future.

That’s not even something she gets to decide. She’s already become a symbol of Transylvania, while you’re nobility from an enemy nation. I still think it’d be better for you to give up sooner rather than later."

"I’m almost dead; can’t you at least let me keep a tiny bit of hope?"

Fraser, whose face was already showing some strange blotches, weakly grumbled:

"You don’t need to ship my remains back home. Someone will collect the body for me. It’s just a pity about my four Guards and my warriors. They all died protecting me. I owe them a lot.

Sigh. I’ve realized I’ve been too stupid. I used to pride myself on being a rational man, yet I never really understood where the hidden threat came from. Only now, when I’m truly feeling the corruption of Chaos, do I finally see how utterly meaningless those old squabbles between nations were.

In the shadows of this world, there’s no shortage of malice watching us.

The filth from the Warp is our true final enemy. In that contradiction, the reforms and conquests of King Louis—whom I once took as my guiding rule—look so trivial. After all, no matter how great a King is, he can’t rule over a wasteland."

"Governor Morphy has been fighting those things all along."

Ron drained the bowl of meat broth in one gulp.

He wiped his mouth, then pulled the last two cigarettes from a crumpled pack, lit one for himself, and stuck the other between Fraser’s lips, helping him light it.

He blew out smoke rings and said quietly:

"Back at the taverns in Charldo Harbor I’d often hear those foreigners analyzing the ’plot’. You know, those mumbling weirdos always treat everything happening in our world as some kind of game. They’d say the story hidden beneath the main line in this world is the binary opposition between the Camp of Order and the Chaos Faction.

From the Divine Spirits above down to us below.

Every individual is trapped in that system of opposition, and every problem we’re facing now can be explained through this. The struggle with the Warp is the primary contradiction hidden under the ’plot’.

Iron Hand and I are rough men; we don’t understand that stuff. But I have to admit those guys weren’t wrong in their analysis. For example, if you dig into Dune’s tragedy, you can see it’s all that damn Dusk’s fault. And now these Filthy Jackal People are definitely something they cooked up.

Crushing those bastards is definitely the right call.

Huh?

Fraser! Don’t you fucking scare me!

Say something!

Don’t fall asleep!"

"Shit, I’m not dead yet, let me doze a bit... I’m not dead yet, Ron, don’t panic! I won’t die in this damned mud pit, at least not now... I haven’t finished my war yet. Marshal Loren promised me I could retire after this battle is done.

Heh. This really is my last fight."