Chapter 61

“...Are you out of your mind?”

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion pressed the handset to her ear and cautiously gauged the mood on the other end.

“How dare you volunteer for a transfer into a conflict zone?! Have you actually lost your mind?! Do you even know what kind of place that is?!”

To head off the Count’s lawsuit, Erabelle had confessed that she had volunteered for a transfer to 80 Colony.

Transfers between divisions were generally impossible, but conflict zones were an exception.

Fortunately, that gave her an excuse to hide behind.

Erabelle told the Count she had come to the conflict zone for world peace and a better paycheck.

She was not so sure about the first part, but even to her own ears, the second sounded like fairly convincing nonsense.

Fortunately, the Count bought it. He apologized to the 41st Division Commander, whom he had been blaming all this time, and promptly turned his fury on his adopted daughter.

“Then let’s cut ties right now! Go on! If you’re going to do whatever you damn well please anyway, what’s the point of keeping me around?! Just cut ties!”

Erabelle hurried to explain.

“No, I really didn’t think it would be this dangerous, okay? You know I’m a little lacking in common sense...”

At times like this, it was surprisingly useful that she really had been the one to request the transfer.

“...”

The Count seemed to forget that she had already been in the military for fourteen years—one of those spent in a coma—and allowed himself to be persuaded.

That did not mean he had calmed down.

“Then why are you even living that damned military life in the first place?! Why?! If you just stayed home, you’d have food and a roof over your head! What exactly are you lacking?!”

Unable to come here himself, the Count only grew more furious.

The entire 2155 planetary system was under lockdown. Civilian access anywhere near the conflict zone was strictly prohibited, and even nobles were no exception.

“Well... money, mostly...”

Erabelle squeezed her eyes shut.

She could not even pull the handset away from her ear at the right moment. Commander Dezeb Avganis himself had connected the Count’s call and was holding the phone for her.

Erabelle lacked the strength to resist this particular cosmic disaster.

“I’m sorry...”

Her eardrum was nearly blown out.

She sat there in solemn silence, allowing the Count to shout himself hoarse. Only then did she put on a weak, dying voice.

“I really messed up. I won’t do it again. Okay?”

Commander Dezeb watched her shameless performance.

For some reason, Erabelle felt as though one of her secret, highly practical survival techniques had just been exposed.

Not that he’d ever have any reason to use it.

Still, it somehow felt as though a perfectly useful trick had just been struck from her private inventory.

“I really won’t do it again. A video call? That’s difficult because of the signal...”

Erabelle continued making excuses, practically tethered to the IV stand.

“Ah, don’t—don’t cry. You can yell instead. No, wait, don’t cry... Ah, okay. I’ll see how things are here. No, I really do need to check the situation before I can take leave or anything. Ah, please don’t cry. Hm? If you keep crying, it really breaks my heart... okay? Please don’t cry.”

As she gently soothed him, Dezeb smoothly took the phone from her.

“This is Avganis.”

Erabelle froze and watched as he began speaking to the Count.

“The lieutenant is doing much better now. Her treatment is progressing well. You don’t need to worry too much.”

She could hear the Count apologizing for the misunderstanding.

“No, sir. I should have stopped her from coming to a conflict zone in the first place...”

At Dezeb’s continued apology, Erabelle began to tremble.

“I completely understand. Your daughter was out of contact for over a year. Of course you were upset. I’m only sorry I couldn’t brief you beforehand due to operational secrecy.”

Why... why is Dezeb apologizing?

“I’ll make sure to protect the lieutenant from now on.”

Protect me... from you? No. It’s probably just something polite people say.

As Erabelle shivered uneasily, Dezeb leaned closer and whispered in a low voice.

“Tell your father you’ll be back soon.”

Erabelle blinked, then repeated his words exactly, like a recorder.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“And tell him I’m taking good care of you. That I’m treating you well.”

Erabelle obediently parroted the whisper.

“C-Commander is taking good care of me. Yes, really. He’s treating me very well...”

Something seemed to amuse him.

Smiling, he pressed his lips to the space between her brows.

Whatever the case, there’s no way I’m getting back anytime soon...

Erabelle glanced at the dark IV line running into her arm.

“Um, Dezeb. As a test subject, is there anything I should be careful about?”

“No, Erabelle.”

Dezeb’s smile deepened slightly.

“You never deviate even an inch from my expectations. And I don’t have a hobby of cutting open my own body for experiments.”

“You mean... your body?”

Without thinking, Erabelle looked at him—and flinched.

He had begun unbuttoning his shirt.

“Does it feel good, hearing your father’s voice again after so long?”

“Y-Yes...”

From his collarbone down to his solar plexus, and lower still, he opened his shirt one button at a time, almost as though deliberately putting on a show, revealing the lean, smooth lines of his torso.

“Your father was worried sick.”

He tossed the shirt onto a chair.

“I mean, his only daughter disappeared off the grid for more than a year. Of course it hurt him. Be better to him from now on.”

He said it despite knowing perfectly well that she was adopted.

As though adoption were not one of the Nobles’ most common business strategies for absorbing high-grade signum holders into their families.

He, of all people, should have understood the system better than anyone, yet here he was appealing to the supposedly natural paternal love an adoptive father felt for his adopted child.

And Dezeb himself was known to be a biological son.

Whether biological or adopted, it was hardly his place to lecture her.

It was as unsettling as watching a crocodile imitate human speech.

But what drew her attention even more was his exposed arm.

It was not the first time she had seen it, yet every time it struck her the same way.

“And call him more often.”

His arm was still black and cold, like charred wood.

So were his left leg and part of his right.

Just like me...

“Stop thinking about things that don’t matter.”

He caught her by the chin and kissed her.

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion held her breath.

Commander Dezeb Avganis climbed onto the bed, his knees sinking into the sheets.

As his weight settled over her, her breathless body trembled.

“Let’s bring the Noise down a little.”

“W-Wait, all of a sudden...?”

“Because you suddenly started staring.”

“I really didn’t mean to...”

“You couldn’t take your eyes off me. It was embarrassing.”

Coming from a man who stripped at the slightest opportunity, the accusation was outrageous.

“And your Noise spiked.”

“I... if you give me a sedative...”

“Ah. You want medication?”

He said it as he unbuckled his belt.

The chill in his voice made Erabelle clamp her mouth shut.

The metallic click of the buckle coming undone beside her ear sent a shiver racing down her spine.

“I don’t want to take medication.”

I wasn’t asking you to take it with me...

He chuckled right against her ear.

“Indulge me. I want you now. We can check your sensation while we’re at it.”

And soon, Erabelle could no longer say anything at all.

***

“...Ha.”

My head is a mess.

Erabelle swallowed a sigh.

Dezeb was taking care of her with an almost maddening level of attentiveness.

He managed her Noise and even waited on her personally.

“...”

Suppressing another sigh, she looked down at her regenerated arm.

Rehabilitation was tedious and grueling.

Not a single day passed without him slipping his hand into the Reforge Unit to check her sensation.

“Can you feel this?”

His cold, blackened hand pressed against the severed area inside the unit, testing her responses.

Day by day, the boundary of numbness receded by the tiniest amount.

Before she realized it, sensation had returned from her shoulder to her elbow.

Then, before she knew it, from her elbow all the way to her fingertips.

Slowly, but steadily.

That was how her limbs returned to her.

Dezeb alone guided her through that long, monotonous process with those cold fingertips.

And when sensation finally returned completely, warmth seemed to return to his touch as well.

After that, the Reforge Unit was removed, and they moved on to physical therapy.

She still could not get rid of the IV.

Erabelle watched the dark red liquid travel through the tube and seep into her body.

The ominous color looked strangely familiar.

She was almost certain Dezeb’s blood had been that exact shade...

She shook her head.

Even with the IV still attached, she powered on her tablet with the hand she could finally move with relative ease.

Of course, with her thoughts tied in knots, even James failed to lift her spirits much.

And the show had already ended.

Apparently, a year was much longer than she had realized.

The drama had finished airing, and newer romance series were already available on VOD.

Still, Erabelle could not put the tablet down.

Purely because she wanted to know how the story she had been watching turned out.

It really was nothing more than curiosity.

“Miro...”

She started a complete rewatch, tossing empty snack wrappers into Miro’s open mouth as she went.

Naturally, she began with episode one.

If she wanted to understand the later parts properly, she needed to refresh her memory of the beginning.

Perhaps because her treatment was not yet complete, she still felt as though the Noise hung thick in the air even when there was none.

Her spirit summoning lagged slightly, which bothered her, but curiosity soon won out.

Before long, all of her attention was fixed on James’s face.

And then Dezeb caught her.