Working as the knights’ order’s physician turned out to be easier than I’d expected. My main duty was to come by whenever I had a spare moment and check whether anyone had gotten hurt during training.
From what Eugene told me, the elite knights, including the Vice Commander, were currently away on a mission.
Perhaps because of that, the order’s days were passing mostly in training, with no special assignments.
“Hyah!”
“Faster! Don’t leave an opening!”
Over the past several days, I’d watched not only the apprentices’ training but the full knights’ training as well.
But watching it, I understand now. The training of apprentice knights and full knights is a completely different atmosphere.
Where the apprentices, full of passion, still carried a certain awkwardness, the latter had an air of danger that felt like the real thing.
“Sir Eugene, I request a sparring match!”
Sitting on a bench outside the training grounds, I watched the full knights spar.
Blades of sword energy cutting through the air whipped up a fierce wind. Sparks flew every time their swords clashed.
The knights swung their swords without hesitation. As if the opponent before them were an enemy that absolutely had to be cut down.
Training so close to the real thing inevitably came with injuries, too.
They themselves didn’t seem to mind at all.
Skin splitting open, blood spattering—they all treated it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
A response clearly different from the apprentice knights, who came running the moment they got so much as a scratch.
It was at that moment.
Unable to withstand a blade of sword energy, Sir Craig fell backward, scraping his arm against the dirt. The abrasion covered a fairly wide area, and blood seeped up.
Ugh, that must sting. A wound like that isn’t deep, but it hurts something fierce.
“Wait a moment, Sir Craig! Let me treat that.”
I got up on reflex and went over to him.
But Craig only wiped his bloodied arm roughly on his sleeve and picked his sword back up.
“Ha, Miss Viola. Not at all! This much is nothing!”
“Pardon? But you’re bleeding like that?”
And this was dirt underfoot. What if it got infected with something?
But Craig only answered heartily.
“Oh, come now, a little spit and this’ll heal right up!”
That astonishing indifference felt familiar, somehow.
It closely resembled Cain, who didn’t care in the slightest whether monster blood got into a wound.
I knew the knights admired Cain, but of all things to pick up from him, they’d learned exactly the wrong habit.
Tsk. This wouldn’t do.
I narrowed my eyes.
It had been a while, but it looked like the nagging demon queen needed to make an appearance again.
When I fell silent for a moment, Eugene stopped his own sparring match and came over to Craig’s side.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Sir Eugene! It’s nothing. Just scraped my palm a little.”
Seeming to mistake my slightly bowed head for distress, he tried to comfort me.
“Now, now, Miss Viola. No need to be sad. A knight with not even a small wound like this? That’d mean he wasn’t training hard enough.”
Are you serious?
Sure enough, it wasn’t just Craig—the whole order seemed to think the same way.
I lifted my head and looked over the knights, still absorbed in their sparring.
Being a full knight, unlike an apprentice, meant being called up often for subjugation expeditions as well.
Looking closely at the sweating knights training there, their bodies bore all sorts of scars.
Face, neck, arms… scars carved without regard for location were easy to spot everywhere. There were surely even more, hidden under their clothes.
Even Sir Eugene, right in front of me, is like this.
I looked at his arm with a heavy heart.
Partially hidden by his sleeve, a scar running up along his wrist caught my eye.
Skin puckered and warped.
Even though it looked like quite an old wound, it was still swollen and red in shape.
A monster bite.
Suddenly, a scene from the original flashed through my mind.
In Future Saintess, the Silver Dragon Knights were Melody’s most reliable shield.
They cherished Melody with all their hearts. That was why they protected her with everything they had.
But the process hadn’t been peaceful, by any means.
The time a swarm of monsters, sent by a Temple scheme, had attacked Melody.
In that life-or-death moment, the knights had desperately protected her.
Thanks to them, the child hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch, but one knight who’d shielded Melody had been left unable to ever hold a sword again because of the injuries he took that day.
I never learned his exact name, so I didn’t know who it was…
That distinctive scar running up his wrist. It had been described, if only in passing, in the original too. Only now did I feel certain.
That unlucky knight, standing right in front of me, was Sir Eugene.
A man who loved the sword this much, and he’d ended up losing it forever, protecting a child.
My heart aches.
Since I’d stepped in and changed the flow of the original, the exact same tragedy might not happen again, but…
Haa. A deep sigh escaped me without meaning to.
Ever since my days living in the country village of Heiron, I’d carried a vague sense of admiration for the Silver Dragon Knights.
Because it was thanks to them fighting monsters on the front lines that ordinary people like us could live in safety.
To most people, the Silver Dragon Knights were as good as invincible guardians.
Beings who dispatched monsters in an instant with overwhelming power, on a level entirely different from ordinary humans.
Everyone had always been busy praising their victories, but…
All that protection was accomplished by them throwing their own bodies into harm’s way, without sparing themselves at all.
Perhaps noticing how long my gaze had lingered on the scar, Eugene quietly cupped his wrist with his other hand.
He gave an embarrassed, good-natured laugh.
“Well. I did try to hide it. I suppose it showed after all.”
“…You were bitten by a monster.”
“There’s no fooling your eyes, Miss Viola. But there’s no need for such a sad look. I was treated with holy power, too.”
Eugene went on, as if it were nothing.
“To me, it’s a badge of honor. A knight ought to have one or two scars like this, haha.”
Craig and the other knights nodded along in agreement with Eugene’s words, but I couldn’t bring myself to nod along with them.
I knew it. In battle, moments where injury was unavoidable would inevitably come.
And that this was exactly why they’d grown numb to it.
But as someone under their protection, I had no right to take their suffering for granted. At the same time, something surged up from deep in my heart.
“…Your badges of honor are the sweat you’ve shed, not your blood.”
“Miss Viola…”
Even knowing it wasn’t my place to say, my mouth wouldn’t stop.
“To me, the Silver Dragon Knights are people I’m grateful to. Because you protect the safety and happiness of people like me.”
“…”
“But if everyone knew you’d protected it by neglecting your own wounds like this, it would sadden them. Just as it saddens me.”
The Silver Dragon Knights specialized in fighting monsters rather than fighting people.
And the terrifying thing about monsters was the miasma they carried.
Whether in the form of blood or saliva, once it entered the body, human flesh would rot. The pain that came with it was beyond imagining.
I looked at Eugene’s scar again.
Thanks to treatment with holy power, it seemed things hadn’t come to the point of amputating his arm, but the scar still occupied a large space, regardless.
However much he calls it a badge of honor, it must ache from time to time.
The same was true for the other knights.
“…I just wish all of you would treat your own bodies with a little more care.”
A brief silence fell over the surroundings. Only then did I realize my mistake. Swept up in my feelings, I’d said what I wanted to say, but I regretted it a little now.
It wasn’t my place to say such a thing, being an outsider to the order. Embarrassment washed over me belatedly, and I hung my head low.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I think I got too worked up. Please forget you heard that…”
But it was at that very moment, as I carefully raised my head again.
The knights were all looking at me, their eyes shining.
