Chapter 49

What a strange, erratic woman.

Commander Dezeb Avganis hastily adjusted his uniform, struck a fresh match to his cigarette, and cast another dismissive glance across Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion’s quarters. The space had looked marginally habitable back at division headquarters, but here, tucked away in the shadows, it felt indistinguishable from a cell.

He scanned the room before sinking into the chair behind her desk, casually sifting through her papers. A quiet rustle came from the bed.

"Awake?"

Erabelle froze, her shoulders tense, offering no response. The lingering effects of the previous night were clearly still holding her under. A faint, cruel smirk touched Dezeb’s lips.

"...Yes."

The answer was dragged out of her, barely audible. The amusement was already wearing off.

Given how severely insubordination was penalized, few officers were ever this submissive. Military discipline existed to break resistance; if everyone broke as easily as she did, the entire apparatus would be redundant.

He flipped through a few bound notebooks, then pulled open a lower drawer. It was crammed to the brim with medical supplies.

Ample rows of ampoules, regenerative bandages, surgical suture tape, high-grade emergency stimulants... and disposable syringes wrapped in plastic, crammed tightly into every available crevice.

Liver failure, renal sclerosis, acute blood dyscrasia—the side effects of these contraband pharmaceuticals were as varied as they were fatal. Yet she burned through them like pocket change. Was she clinging to some desperate hope of survival? The effort was laughable; she wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter.

He scoffed, moving to open the second drawer.

"W-Wait! Not that one!"

Erabelle’s voice cracked, sharp with a sudden, genuine terror. What on earth was she hiding?

Dezeb narrowed his eyes. The lock was cheap; with a single brute yank, the mechanism snapped, and the drawer flew open.

"What is this?"

Silence.

"...And who is this supposed to be?"

Inside, arranged with meticulous care, were rows of pristine DVD box sets.

She stockpiled illegal narcotics like scrap metal, yet preserved these relics as if they were holy relics. Dezeb pulled one from the stack, studying the cover.

"Never seen this one."

He tossed it back onto the pile. I’ve discovered more useless celebrities because of you than I care to count... now there’s another?

"Practicing... humanism, are we?"

"Oh. Yes. It’s... charitable work. That’s why I kept it hidden..."

"Spare me," he spat.

Erabelle immediately retreated beneath the heavy covers, hiding from view.

Quick on her feet when it suits her.

Gritting his teeth, Dezeb threw the box back into the drawer. He stood up, unbuckled his belt, and turned back toward the bed.

Ugh... ngh...

The following morning, Erabelle dragged herself awake, her spine throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Fighting off the aftershocks of the night, she crawled toward the bathroom, slumped onto the toilet, and offered a silent, desperate prayer.

Uuugh...!

Clinging to the cold porcelain, the simple act of sitting still felt inexplicably merciful. For a fleeting moment, the world seemed almost tolerable.

Haah—

That second drawer had been her undoing. Some people held the most venomous grudges over the trivial hobbies of others, though why anyone cared about her personal °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° distractions was beyond her.

I am actually going to die...

...Is this room even soundproof?

The thought arrived far too late.

Even if the walls were paper-thin, what difference did it make? Her life was already buried under wreckage. Still, the humiliation left a sour taste. Even the dying deserved a sliver of dignity.

Trembling, she forced herself to her feet and leaned over the basin. Reaching for the shelf, she retrieved her stash, driving a needle loaded with sedatives directly into her spine before administering a second injection—a fusion agent—into the soft skin of her inner arm.

The room tilted violently.

She collapsed against the edge of the sink, waiting for the vertigo to clear. Fusion agents were notorious for their volatile, unpredictable side effects. She had spent the last month dodging scheduled surgeries, but perhaps avoiding the knife had been the wrong call after all.

...Ugh.

Her entire body felt fundamentally broken. A thick, metallic stench filled her nostrils, and she pinched her nose shut with a groan.

Blood still managed to leak between her fingers, dripping onto the porcelain. She lowered her head into the basin, kneeling there like a condemned prisoner awaiting the block. Staring with dull, unseeing eyes at the drain, she waited for the hemorrhage to stop.

Click.

The bathroom door swung open.

A long, oppressive shadow fell over her bent form.

"...Uh..."

Aware of his presence, Erabelle pressed her hand tighter against her face, but the red line continued its slow descent down her wrist.

"I-I’ll make you some coffee..."

Her voice was muffled, thick, and raspy, attempting a tone of mundane hospitality despite the gruesome scene. She turned the tap on full blast, frantically scrubbing at her blood-stained hands and face. The bleeding refused to slow down.

"Th-There are two coffee beans left. Just give me a second..."

"Take your time."

"...I’m sorry."

"Sorry? For what? Because I didn’t stay to play with you longer?" he asked, a light, mocking chuckle cutting through the sound of running water.

"N-No, that’s not it."

Of course it wasn’t. A nosebleed was hardly a deterrent for a man like Dezeb; he was the type to press on regardless of his partner's condition if the mood took him.

The apology itself was merely a muscle memory—a reflex polished by thirteen years of survival in an alien world.

"I just... didn’t want you to see me like this," Erabelle muttered, an excuse offered as blood traced a slow path down her throat, dripping onto her collarbone.

He shrugged, offering another dry laugh. "I’ve seen worse."

That, at least, was true. When her military identification tag had been updated, her condition had been significantly more ghfully ruined. The only distinction was that she had been unconscious then. Today, she had to endure it awake.

"Take your time getting cleaned up. I’m leaving."

He turned on his heel. His shadow vanished from the tiles, followed by the heavy thud of the outer door latching shut.

Did he... actually just leave?

It appeared he had. The silence left in his wake was suffocating, as if a localized hurricane had swept through the small room and abruptly dissipated.

"......"

Erabelle stood frozen for a long moment, keeping her nose pinched tight. Absentmindedly, she took a sharp breath through her nose, instantly wincing at the taste.

"...Ugh."

The metallic fluid had run down the back of her throat. She quickly rinsed her mouth, spat into the drain, and jammed several rolled tissues into her nostrils. The area around the sink was painted with crimson spatters.

She switched on the shower, using the stream to wash the evidence down the drain. As steam began to rise from the hot water, a fleeting thought crossed her mind about the cost of replacing the heating unit’s energy pack.

Once the surface mess was managed, she threw on a clean uniform and stepped out into the living area.

The room wasn’t stripped bare, but it carried the quiet violence of a disaster site. The storm had passed, leaving its debris scattered in plain sight.

"Miro."

She gathered the damp, ruined bedsheets and fed them directly into Miro’s gaping maw. The creature swallowed the fabric whole, entirely unbothered by the contents.

Smuggling contraband drugs and stolen military-grade hardware, yet I’m worrying over the ethics of ruined linens? The realization that she still possessed a functioning conscience came as a mild surprise.

She cracked the window to flush out the stale air and set about clearing away whatever debris remained visible. The small footprint of the room worked to her advantage; within minutes, the visible signs of the night had been scrubbed clean. Given a few more seconds, she could erase any proof that she inhabited the space at all.

Her stomach let out a low, hollow growl, prompting her to head for the mess hall early. Before stepping into the corridor, she pulled the blood-soaked tissues from her nose and tossed them into the incinerator unit.

With the silence restored, her lungs finally felt clear enough to breathe.

"Did the 41st Division actually deploy here?"

"I’m telling you, their flagship is anchored in orbit. That Antares vessel can wipe out a planet-class entity on its own... Oh, look, the lieutenant’s here."

"I heard she was locked in with the division commander all night..."

As Erabelle approached the mess hall, the muted chatter of the lower-ranked personnel drifted across the corridor.

"Spent the entire night alone in her quarters with him, didn't she?"

Fuck...

So much for maintaining a clean record—not that her reputation had much standing left to lose anyway. Just her usual luck. Erabelle set her jaw, keeping her eyes fixed ahead, but pulled up short a few paces down the hall.

"Whoa—what the hell?"

Majia was crouched against the cold wall, looking up at her with a flushed, miserable face.

"Lieutenant..."

"What are you doing sitting on the floor? Wait—have you been crying?"

The girl’s eyes were swollen and bloodshot.

"Were you really with him all night?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Is it true... Lieutenant? Were you really with the division commander the entire night? Is that... is that real?"

Erabelle stared down at the tear-streaked girl, her face tightening into a grimace. "I have no idea what nonsense you’re listening to."

"Everyone’s talking about it."

Fuck, I know.

"What is this, a tabloid press? The moment anything happens, everyone turns into wild animals."

"There’s nothing else to do around here anyway," Majia muttered, wiping her nose.

A fair point. Erabelle let out a weary sigh.

The true identity of the division commander’s Compat—his designated match—was classified at the highest clearance level. If the command structure wished to keep it hidden, those high-ranking Military Dogs could raise a biological horror in her front room without her ever knowing. The recognition-blocking technology they deployed was absolute; not even the handlers could bypass it, and external observers were blocked entirely.

There was a reason this world felt so thoroughly irredeemable. In practice, it meant she was denied even the baseline protections guaranteed to standard personnel.

Why bother wondering? It wasn't as if understanding their motives would alter her reality. Even if the rumors spread across the entire base, her situation couldn't grow much worse than it already was.

Well—aside from the sheer, grating embarrassment of it all. That part was universally unpleasant.