"Answer me, Grimwald."
Schnellia glared.
As though a secret that must not be discovered had been discovered.
She looked out of sorts.
"You were looking at all of it? That......"
She drew closed the towel barely clinging to her body.
A flush rose in Schnellia's cheeks.
"I am a one-eyed man."
"What?"
I did not know what was going on, but I absolutely could not be found out as two-eyed.
My instincts warned me so.
"It is supposed to be invisible, correct?"
"That...... is right."
"Then I cannot see it."
Schnellia made a dubious face.
"Is that so?"
"If Your Highness says it is so, then anything is so."
"Do you intend to toy with this one?"
"How could I. How would I dare play games with one so exalted."
"Answer without falsehood."
"Yes."
"How does this one's aura look to you?"
What aura.
That is the exclusive property of knights.
An incised wound heals fully in a day, and they drag several hundred kilos of supplies around like light exercise.
How would an ordinary person like me know anything about it.
Was it not some supernatural energy only you lot can feel?
Going by every conversation I had held with Schnellia until now, the answer was already decided.
"Like a sun shining upon the earth. A mighty majesty befitting the Empire's Greatest Sword."
"......It is not a lie, I trust?"
"It is sincerity welling up from the depths of my heart, without an inch of falsehood."
The present me was confident I could pass a lie detector.
Because my survival instinct was warning me that I would die if I answered otherwise.
"......Hmm. Then it is fine."
Schnellia relaxed her posture as though reassured.
"Then again, there is no chance of it."
"Of what?"
"I suspected you might possess the Eye of Dark Discernment. A ridiculous fancy for a moment there."
"That is a word I am hearing for the first time."
Schnellia snickered, her expression steeped in a sense of superiority.
"You have all that mysterious medical knowledge and yet you do not know that."
"One cannot know what one does not know. I am a complete outsider to the world of aura users."
"Your modesty pleases me."
Schnellia plucked a poppy pod with a snap and held it in her hand.
"You do know what aura is?"
"The insanely broken thing."
"A vulgar way to put it, but not incorrect."
Schnellia turned to look at me.
"All things in the world, every living thing that breathes, possess mana."
"Like blood. Indeed."
Since plants do not have blood, should it more precisely be called body water?
"Some people have a 'Ring' in the heart. A loop that passes through the heart and hangs there. This loop converts mana into a special form."
Schnellia fiddled with her fingers and wound a poppy stem around into a loop.
"It accesses the rules of the world...... so I have heard."
"Correct. The properties all differ. Some clad themselves in iron, some breathe flame, some call the wind."
Charlotte had said "North Wind." Every time she used aura, wind blew.
"Then Your Highness's aura is 'Radiance.'"
"Exactly. Pure light itself, able to erase darkness."
Schnellia looked proud.
Then again, thinking back to the original work, allies with light or dark attributes were few in number.
They were special limited banner pulls. And the rates were terrible on top of it.
You might luckily get one copy, but dupes to level it up were near impossible.
I could not say for certain, but it must be a rare attribute of aura.
"How mighty an aura is, is determined by the number of loops. It varies with innate talent and with the effort one has trained."
"Then for knights......"
"Ordinarily one. Two if they work hard. Beyond four they are called an Expert."
What, so Charlotte is seriously strong.
Going by output, four loops did not seem to be four times as strong as one.
It felt more like it increased by squares.
"Then how many does Your Highness possess?"
"Heh. It is a secret."
Schnellia swayed her hair with a maddening expression.
Having been told it was a secret, the thing I had not cared about suddenly became interesting.
'Diagnose.'
I carefully tried using it on her.
[Schnellia von Kondenburg / Age 18 Female ●]
[Symptoms : ■ ■■■■ ■■ing, ■■■, ■■ and ■■■ with au■ ■■ observed. Of the six and a half Rings ■ ■ are ■■■■, ■■■ conjectur■]
The letters were all broken and unreadable.
Was it the effect of the aura, or did it mean that at my current level even Diagnose was impossible?
"Six and a half......?"
I read it aloud without thinking.
At the same moment Schnellia's eyes flashed.
"What did you just say?"
"Pardon?"
"How do you know that?"
The mood turned savage in an instant.
Hm, I could not say for certain, but it seemed I had touched a reverse scale.
If until now it had felt like play, now I could feel real killing intent.
Ugh, terrifying.
"I said Yeosu gukbap. I was deliberating over the lunch menu. My apologies for letting my mind wander."
"What is that?"
Schnellia snorted as though dumbfounded.
"Yes. There is no chance that you are a possessor of the Eye of Dark Discernment."
She handed me the poppy pod and murmured as if to herself.
"An eye that pierces not only aura but the essence of all things. Only the heroes of legend carry the blood to manifest it."
Schnellia said one last thing as she left the cave.
"Dunker Grimwald. I will be waiting for your next performance. And."
She added it with a sharp look in her eyes.
"Do not forget your contract with this one."
It felt like a collar meant to tame a loyal hound.
***
"Charlotte, hold this for me."
I came out of the cave having harvested a great deal of poppy. Schnellia and the knights had already left the spring.
The supply unit was setting up an encampment in order to resupply spring water.
"I wondered what you were up to, and here you come lugging in something strange again. Potion ingredients?"
"That's right. Hammer!"
"Yes, sir."
"Trim these. Collect the seeds. They must not be cultivated carelessly, so make sure none of it leaks out."
"Oh, that important an ingredient? Now I am curious what you will make."
I left the sorting to Hammer and instructed the supply unit on water management. If the whole spring turned out to be eroded it would be a disaster, so I had them store and use it in the hide skins we had brought.
"So that is why you brought so many skins."
"Yes. Water is needed everywhere. The further the main body descends, the busier the supply unit will get."
"An excellent strategy. In the previous attempt you were often flustered, but you have grown enormously. You have the constitution of a commander. I will give the order to see to it."
I placed Grimwald's Third Platoon here as the temporary encampment's defensive strength, and organized First and Second Platoons to enter the lower-floor assault alongside the Lionheart.
I had experience clearing this dungeon in play, but the time period was different, so the structure was certain to differ as well.
Since there was no telling what might happen, we would explore while rotating with a reserve unit. Above all, it was difficult to move two hundred men at once.
With the situation settled, I had a moment of leisure.
"I held out a long time wanting to make this."
I set down the poppy pods and cast the spell.
My mana wrapped the fruit and drew a circle, and the spell soon activated.
"Your magic is fascinating every time I see it, Young Master. I have never seen a spell circle this clean."
Hm, is it that much?
I had hardly seen any mages and never studied it, so I would not know.
But this time it came on slowly.
Unlike when making vitamins, the spell lit up gradually.
"Why is this so slow?"
"The time it takes naturally differs by potion type. Going by this pace...... it will take thirty minutes."
"Are you telling me to sit on a cold stone floor for thirty minutes?"
"Shall I fetch you my doll?"
So mass production is difficult.
Being able to make any anesthetic at all was something.
While the spell was casting I got bored and struck up a conversation with Charlotte.
"By the way, Charlotte."
"Yes."
"This aura thing. You said it leaks out of you even when you are still."
"It does. In fact, with a knight of this caliber around you scarcely need a torch."
Ah, so that is why there are many knights of commoner origin.
If your body shines and glitters, there is no missing it.
"Then Princess Schnellia."
"I could not look at her properly. It must be more than six Rings, surely."
Coming from Charlotte, Grimwald's finest, that would be credible.
But why had I not been able to see it all this time?
'Then that woman.'
Had she been flashing my eyes out like a rude car driving at you with its high beams on the whole time?
It would be good for displaying imperial majesty, at least.
"Do you know what the Eye of Dark Discernment is?"
It was a term I had not seen even in the original work.
Charlotte shrugged.
"It has been a while since I heard that. It is a common rumor."
"What sort of rumor?"
"They say it is a special eye that manifests only in the chosen, out of one particular bloodline."
"An eye?"
"Yes."
Charlotte nodded.
"Eye of Dark Discernment. It means an eye that discerns darkness. They say it sees through all creation, and that nothing impure works on the one who possesses it. Even...... the Erosion."
"How convenient."
"Yes. It is supposed to have belonged to a hero of legend, but the truth cannot be confirmed. There has never once been anyone who survived an Outer God's attack without being eroded."
Charlotte's attitude was that of someone recounting a far-fetched old tale.
"Would it not be a story made up by citizens who wished to hold on to hope? The hero of legend was probably at the level of having fast dynamic vision."
"That interpretation makes far more sense."
"If in this era there truly were someone with such an eye who could see through even an Outer God...... it would certainly be no exaggeration to call them a hero."
Charlotte scoffed.
"But why the sudden curiosity about aura and the like?"
"I thought it might be useful as reference when treating."
"You leave no gaps."
While we were chatting, the casting completed.
[Opioid Anesthetic]
[Makes you woozy!]
"Oh."
There it was.
A colorless solution held in the flask.
"Good. With an anesthetic."
I could treat patients with major injuries.
There is nothing as important as pain management.
It was a drug that had brought a revolution to the medical world, so my expectations were high.
I carefully put the anesthetic into the medicine chest and got up from my seat.
***
"Scatter, evade! Dragon-Tooth Soldiers, twenty of them!"
At the platoon leader's shout, the Lionheart knights reset their formation.
—Shaaaah!
The moment they entered the sixth floor, the dungeon's lower region, the atmosphere changed. Everyone tensed at Accident-class monsters appearing already.
Grotesque bone dolls the Erosion phenomenon had created using dragon horn as material. Like skeletons, but headless. An unpleasant form in which the Outer God's will had merely imitated a human.
Clang! The sharp bone blades they swung struck the knights' swords and threw sparks.
Close-quarters combat began in the narrow passage. The knights concentrated aura in their weapons and smashed and tore the bone soldiers apart.
'Already this many Accident-class on the sixth floor.'
The medical corps followed behind. The Physicians swallowed hard. They too had experience accompanying subjugations from time to time and were used to monsters themselves.
But Accident-class were powerful specimens normally seen only on the lowest floors. They sensed instinctively that the Swamp of the Abyss was far more dangerous than the dungeons they had experienced.
"Haap!"
"Yah!"
The Lionheart fought the melee calmly. They deserved the name of the imperial court's finest strength. A pack of Accident-class was not enough to halt their advance.
The frantic battle passed.
"Subjugation complete!"
"Each knight report. Are there any contaminated?"
A knight came running in a rush to the platoon leader.
"No contaminated! However......!"
"Damn it, medical corps!"
Five Physicians ran quickly. In the middle of the battlefield, one knight lay collapsed on the ground.
The Associate Physician examined his condition and clicked his tongue.
"A bone blade went in through the gap in the breastplate. Help me get the armor off."
"He is lying down, so it will not be easy. Let us open the pauldron first and examine the injury."
Journeyman Physician Marcen assisted.
The Associate Physician's face hardened when he saw the bare flesh through the gap in the armor.
The bone blade had pierced deep into his chest and bleeding was occurring through the gap.
"Hff, hff."
The breathing was strange. The Associate Physician had seen symptoms like this several times in carriage accidents and the like.
"The lung has certainly been pierced."
"The lung?! That is."
"There will be rib fractures as well. Of all places to be struck, the chest rather than a limb. Poor luck."
When they tried to force the armor off, the knight groaned in agony and thrashed.
"Aagh, aaagh......!"
The Associate Physician clicked his tongue. The broken ribs seemed to be stabbing the organs.
Journeyman Physician Marcen too sensed instinctively that there was no answer for this patient. The pain of having one's innards pierced and stirred is beyond words.
Because the Tower of Special Medicine studied the body through autopsy, they possessed theory on treatable traumatic chest injuries.
"Associate Physician, the lung injury......"
"There is research saying that if you extract the blade precisely and resect the nonfunctional lung, he could live. But such a surgery has never once been performed."
At the Medical Institute, even the Tower of External Medicine had a record of refusing the Tower of Special Medicine's treatment methods in astonishment.
The reason was simple.
The pain accompanying the treatment could not be endured by the patient. Literally, they died of the pain.
Rather than that, for a lung injury it was wiser to administer a Breathing Potion and pray for natural healing.
"What should we do?"
"Having come this far there is no particular means...... nothing but to bet on his fate."
The Associate Physician said it calmly. It was effectively no different from a death sentence.
The moment the Physicians were clicking their tongues.
"Traumatic pneumothorax?"
He appeared as if on cue.
Dunker Grimwald.
"Young Master Grimwald."
"Start by getting the armor off. Do not touch the blade."
At the same time he pulled a colorless flask from his bag.