Chapter 71 – Sacrifice (1)

The Magic Engineering Department and leadership buildings, the only high-rise buildings in the Ember, which was mostly made of shacks.

Although the hunting squad lacked the commander, vice commander, and even Aylen Vale, who should have been the focal point, they succeeded in a long siege using those two buildings as their strongholds.

Thanks to the relative geographical advantage, they finally won the battle against the mutants.

“W-we won! We lived!”

“Uwoah!”

Although it was a deep night when dawn was breaking and black snow was falling, they were overcome with emotion by the relief and joy of living another day.

However, there was no victory without a price.

“Daddy… I’m hurt.”

“Tiara, Tiara! Pull yourself together! You mustn’t close your eyes. You mustn’t fall asleep!”

“Daddy, it hurts. I… Daddy…”

Around the two buildings, it was filled with those who had died or were dying.

The hunting squad members had to shoot the mutants from the second floor, which was an advantageous position, but it was because numerous citizens went out to the streets prepared for death to buy them time to shoot their arrows.

They had no choice but to block with their bodies without a decent weapon, and this was the result.

“Argh!”

“S-save me! I have no sensation in my arm…”

“…”

Casualties in the hundreds, amounting to a tenth of the total population, had occurred.

An emergency on a large scale had erupted in this small Ember.

“Mia, where is Mia!”

With many people bleeding and hovering between life and death, what people looked for was, as expected, a doctor.

Mia Silas, a female doctor who was twenty-five years old this year and a novice doctor with less than five years of medical experience, was that very person.

“Head Nurse, I need more disinfectant and gauze!”

“Yes, coming. Mia!”

“I need more! Bring everything, including the spares!”

“Understood!”

Mia Silas, who dyed her white coat with blood, moved busily with three nurses after putting on surgical gloves.

There were dozens of patients, but the staff to handle them was only four, so even four hands were not enough.

“Sullivan!”

“Yes? Yes, speak to me.”

“There is no time to stand around. Lead the hunting squad and classify the patients according to the severity of their injuries!”

“Leave it to me.”

Although she was a novice doctor at a young age, Mia, who was in charge of all medical practices in this small Ember, had exceptional skill.

She filled the lacking manpower by even mobilizing the hunting squad, and began to classify emergency patients who needed immediate treatment and treat them step by step.

Most of the injuries were lacerations from wolf claws or teeth.

“How can her hand movements be so fast…!”

“It’s not something she has done once or twice. Every time the hunters returned with injuries, she did only that.”

“Still, does that look like an ordinary skill in your eyes?”

The speed of disinfecting and suturing wounds was out of the ordinary.

Although her career was short, Mia possessed compressed experience.

Just when it seemed like the treatment would continue smoothly like that, a problem erupted.

“Doctor, the amount of bleeding is higher than expected!”

“For now, hook up the remaining blood packs.”

“T-that… the blood packs were not managed properly, so they are all frozen and unusable.”

Since there were many lacerated patients anyway, blood packs were in short supply.

But to make matters worse, the blood packs were not managed properly and became unusable.

“What? What do you mean… then quickly perform a transfusion at least!”

The urgent Mia shouted.

However, this could not be seen as the fault of Mia or the nurses.

To prevent deterioration, blood packs must be stored at a constant temperature, and that temperature was ultimately regulated by the Eternal Embers, the heart of the Ember.

If it were a normal Ember, there would be no problem.

Management was finished by calculating the distance corresponding to the appropriate storage temperature from the Eternal Embers and building a storage facility.

However, that applied to an Ember of a ‘city’ size, and this Ember, which was not even a small town, was different.

“If only they managed the Eternal Embers properly…!”

The Eternal Embers of this nameless Ember broke down frequently, and the blood packs could not be managed properly due to the erratic temperature changes.

In other words, it was the fault of the Magic Engineering Department.

“So why play political games in this corner-store-like Ember to grab some grand power…!”

Mia, whose hands were moving busily, complained.

She had chosen to immigrate to this Ember solely looking at Demian’s reputation, but upon arriving, she could not hide her disappointment at the friction with the leadership.

As a citizen and as a doctor, her complaints were not small.

“Doctor, we have temporarily plugged the urgent patients. It’s a relief that people are gathered in one place.”

“That’s good. Still, use the hemostatic agent without sparing it. I cannot stand to see people die to save medicine.”

“Do not worry about that. Medicine is a problem because it’s lacking, not because it’s overflowing.”

“Alright, Rien. Please do the basic treatment well until I arrive.”

“Yes. Leave it to me, doctor!”

Nevertheless, this place was now her Ember.

Although she had settled down for only five years, she, the only doctor in the Ember, had completely blended into this place.

She was the savior of life who saved the Ember, where people used to die from even a trivial wound due to the lack of a doctor.

The citizens all owed their lives to her.

“Doctor. Please save my child, please save my child!”

“Jane, I’m coming!”

“Doctor, here too…!”

“Gabardine, don’t exaggerate and wait! You are not even seriously hurt.”

Like that, Mia and the nurses struggled hard against the background of the patients’ screams and groans.

Although the battle with the mutants was over, they carried the sacred duty of medical professionals to collect and treat the wounded, standing on another form of front line.

Under the command of the veteran surgeon Mia Silas, the operations were proceeding steadily.

However, as this was also a battlefield, unexpected variables were bound to pop out everywhere, as was always the case in battles.

“Mia! Y-you should come here quickly!”

Rosabel, the head nurse, shouted loudly, even stuttering.

For her, who was eighty years old and a veteran with 45 years of nursing experience, to behave like that, there had to be a reason.

An ominous reason.

“What’s the matter?”

Mia, who was continuing the surgery with scalpels, clamps, and needle holders that had now become conventional medical tools, was swept by ominousness but shouted without turning her head.

Because whatever happened, she had to finish the surgery she was performing.

However, at Rosabel’s subsequent words, Mia had no choice but to stop her hands with a start.

“Mrs. Katrina is in danger! Her abdomen is torn open, so we don’t know what to do…!”

“…!”

Katrina Vengard.

The wife of the blacksmith David Vengard and mother of two children.

She herself was a valuable talent as a tailor, making all the clothing and bedding used by the citizens.

The gown Mia was wearing now was also handmade by Katrina to welcome Mia’s settlement, with her name neatly embroidered on the chest.

“I’ll go… right away.”

Mia’s voice trembled like an aspen leaf.

Mrs. Katrina was a person of special significance to her.

Back when Mia had not been settled long in this Ember and was drifting, Katrina had gifted her everyday clothes and bedding along with the doctor’s gown.

She had treated her literally like a daughter, even making and bringing side dishes, saying a doctor shouldn’t walk around starving.

However, in medical practice, personal feelings or individual relationships could not intervene.

“Quickly, quickly…!”

Mia, with hands that had begun to tremble violently, moved the needle holder, the clamp holding the thread.

However, was it because her mind was shaken once?

“Ugh… why won’t this work!”

Her hands, which used to move smoothly, kept making mistakes.

Her mind had grown impatient at the thought that she might lose a precious person.

Only after the treatment took more time than expected did Mia finish and run straight to the head nurse.

“Katrina…!”

She let out a gasp of horror upon seeing Katrina lying on the floor with her abdomen split open, groaning.

Her condition was much worse than expected.

Internal organs were spilling out through the split abdomen.

Although the head nurse Rosabel had performed emergency treatment perfectly, there was a limit due to the sheer size of the wound area.

“Since when has she been like this? How many minutes have passed in this state?”

“According to Mr. David, since thirty minutes ago! At first, she seemed fine, but then she suddenly collapsed…!”

Mia, who lost her composure, roughly pushed away David and the two children, who were covered in tears, and inspected the wound.

The wound had a clean-cut part of 3 and a roughly torn part of 7.

“…The wound grew larger because time passed.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the initial tear just opened up further.”

Her abdomen, sliced by claws, had torn because it could not bear the weight of her internal organs.

“If only the initial response was done well, it wouldn’t have become like this…!”

If the abdomen was split, one had to lie flat to prevent the wound from growing larger due to gravity.

However, would the citizens of this small Ember know such a thing?

Common sense was also something that could only be taught to citizens living in a ‘city’.

“Mrs. Katrina, why did you endure it? Why didn’t you get treatment right away…”

Mia, who blocked the wound with both hands, asked tearfully.

Katrina, whose breath grew thin, gasped and replied.

“I didn’t… know it would… turn out… like this.”

“Katrina…!”

“And… there were… many people… more urgent… than me…”

“…!”

The people who were surrounding her with anxious minds gasped in shock.

The initial injury must not have been a pain that could be endured at all, yet she had borne that extreme pain for the sake of others.

“Why did you act so foolishly, why…?”

Mia ended up shedding tears.

It was the same not only for her but also for all the surrounding people.

Just as her husband David was a person who sacrificed for the Ember, Katrina was also a person who helped neighbors in difficult situations with all her heart and soul.

“Wait. It’s not too late. I’ll make you better quickly.”

It was the moment Mia, who changed her gloves, grabbed the surgical tools in her hand.

“Doctor, where is the doctor!”

Someone’s voice echoed in the space that had sunk into silence at Katrina’s pitiful story.

Jeremy Scott, carrying the tattered Aylen Vale in his arms, was the owner of the voice.

“A-Aylen?”

“Aylen is alive…?”

“T-that can’t be! Three mutants chased Aylen, what nonsense!”

Although unconscious, Aylen was clearly alive and breathing.

The mouths of the people who saw him fell open.

The moment he became a decoy, his death was as good as inevitable, so it was natural since he returned alive without dying.

However, as expected, was there a price for survival?

“Why is there a hole in his arm?”

“A mana gun…! It’s a gunshot wound!”

“How is the gunshot wound that big?”

There was a large hole in his right arm which had suffered a gunshot wound.

It was a size that was hard to call a typical gunshot wound.

It was because Jeremy’s mana gun was a monstrous thing that used large-caliber mana bullets despite being a pistol.

“…Save him.”

Jeremy, who pushed through the crowd, pushed Aylen toward the female doctor Mia.

Even though his eyes briefly lingered on Katrina, who was hovering between life and death.

Was it because of that?

“No.”

“What?”

“There is a more critically ill patient. Wait for your turn.”

Mia refused Aylen’s surgery.

“There is no patient more important than this guy today. Treat him immediately.”

Jeremy, who took a step closer, glared at her fiercely.

Katrina Vengard, who was dying with her abdomen split, and Aylen Vale, whose arm was in tatters and dangling.

“…”

It was the moment a tension incomparable to the time of the battle with the mutants began to flow between those two, as well as between Jeremy and Mia.