My shield rang as I braced myself against the Shadow Cat. The impact rattled through my arm, bone deep, familiar and wrong all at once. We exchanged blows in a blur. Steel. Claws. Breath tearing from my lungs. Then, after a few frantic exchanges, the cat faded into the darkness as if it had never been there.
I turned.
Jack was on the ground behind me.
He lay on his back, armor cracked and smeared with blood. His eyes were wide open, glassy, fixed on me. They did not blink. They simply stared, empty and dead, as if still searching for an answer I had failed to give.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
I turned to my right, desperate.
Walter.
He was on his knees where he had fallen, his body slumped forward, spear slipping from limp fingers. His throat was torn open, flesh shredded by claws. Blood soaked his chest, still dark and wet. And yet, impossibly, there was a smile on his face. Calm. Proud.
I took a step back.
Another.
I looked around for the others. For Sergeant Fenward. For Colin, For anyone. For a shout, an order, something to cling to.
There was nothing.
The battlefield was gone.
Darkness swallowed everything beyond a few paces. No wall. No formation. No sound of steel or screams. Just void. Jack and Walter lay where they had died, their bodies half swallowed by shadow, their open eyes still tracking me as I turned.
I backed away, heart pounding.
Then I ran.
The darkness stretched endlessly ahead, my boots striking ground I could not see. My breath came fast and shallow. Every instinct screamed that I was too slow, that something was already behind me.
A shadow moved.
I spun.
The Shadow Cat burst from the darkness, mid leap, jaws wide, fangs aimed straight for my throat. I felt the heat of its breath, the certainty of claws closing in.
Pain exploded.
I gasped and snapped awake.
My whole body jerked as if struck. Pain, as if my entire arm were burning, ripped through my right side, sharp and relentless, tearing a groan from my throat. I lay there for a moment, drenched in sweat, my chest heaving.
I stared at the ceiling, blinking hard.
The pain was real.
Slowly, painfully, memory caught up.
I was alive.
Jack was dead.
Walter was dead.
And the Shadow Cat was not here.
I slowly woke up and forced myself into a sitting position. My right arm was still injured. I could manage small movements, but many muscles were torn and would heal slowly over time. I was not allowed to pass any mana through my right hand. The healer had said it would take more than fifteen days to heal completely.
Sitting there, I stared at the books lying beside me, still trying to recover from the nightmare. They had become normal over the last two days since I woke up.
After waking up, the healer informed me that I had been unconscious for ten days. On the day I regained consciousness, Colin and Owen came for what would be their first and only visit. They told me what had happened after I passed out.
I remembered Jack’s death. But when it came to Walter, I was not sure what had happened. I remembered his smile, and nothing else. When Colin spoke of Walter, he confirmed what I had been avoiding. Walter was gone.
I had hoped that I had at least managed to save Michael after all the patching I had done, but even he did not survive. Colin also explained how the beast tide had ended, and how House Petrae had saved us all.
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That was the last time I saw them.
I did not blame them for that. Colin had been promoted to sergeant, filling the gap left by Sergeant Fenward’s death in Company Three. I assumed Owen was helping him build a new squad. His unit would be made entirely of new soldiers.
Even knowing all this, I still felt a profound sense of loneliness. The two remaining Tier One recruits came to check on me once, and then the room fell quiet again.
Colin was not the only one promoted.
I had been promoted to sergeant as well.
I was not sure how any of that had happened. All I knew was that when I woke up, someone told me I was now a sergeant. For Company eleven, I was still classified as an infantry sergeant, but my posting was confusing. My initial squad mates were conscripts from sergeant Fenward’s squad: Garran, Varric, Barry, and Kael. Yet my reporting officer was Lieutenant Cicero from the infirmary.
I did not understand how that was supposed to work. What was an infantry squad meant to do under an infirmary lieutenant? When I asked for an explanation, I was told that once I was fit for duty, Lieutenant Cicero would explain the role my squad was meant to play. For now, he provided me with a small book outlining my duties as a sergeant.
As expected, the lieutenant proved himself obsessed with procedure. He did not give me just one book. He gave me several. Manuals on duty, strategy, important forts across the kingdom, and various other topics. I had not read any of them.
There was one more thing I had not checked.
I had not checked my status. I had not looked at the [Field Medicine] upgrade that occurred during the battle.
Thinking about any of it reminded me of my failures. Accepting the position of sergeant, opening those books, all of it dragged my thoughts back to the Shadow Cats. I was responsible for sensing threats. I had always taken pride in that ability. And I failed. I failed so badly that I was directly responsible for the deaths of nearly half the squad. I failed to save Walter, even when he went beyond his limits trying to protect me.
I was afraid that checking my level gains and skill upgrades would trivialize their deaths. Afraid that I might feel even a hint of satisfaction at my progress instead of mourning my friends.
So I spent three more days walking around the fort.
Everywhere I went, I was reminded of who we had lost. Not just from my squad, but friends I had made in intelligence, construction, and rune work. No matter where I walked, I found people I used to know who were no longer there. Even Leif was injured. His fate was uncertain. I saw him near the command building, inside a temporary infirmary built after the main one had overflowed. He was alive, but he had not woken up since the battle.
Slowly, I began to question my decision to stay in the army.
I was not sure I could keep losing people like this.
I even started daydreaming about running. Becoming a fugitive. Leaving the kingdom behind.
Even after three days, I still had doubts about my future in the army. I decided that I would not think about it until after the mourning ceremony. I had been informed by one of the intelligence privates that the Captain would hold a ceremony in ten days to honor the fallen soldiers and reward those who had performed exceptionally. I would pay my respects then, and only after that decide what to do next.
There were many things I could avoid.
My status was not one of them.
I could not keep running from it.
Taking a deep breath, I finally opened my status screen.
Status
Class Progression:
[Junior Officer (Cadet)] – Level 20 (11100 / 2000 EXP)
+6000 XP — Threat elimination outside Fort
+750 XP — Healing fellow soldier
+5500 XP — Leading squad and surviving world level event
Level 19 → 20
Initiate Class Trial Available
Find a secure location to undergo your class trial. Any excess experience will be assigned to your class level after completing the trial.
[Field Medicine (C)] → [Triage Ward (UC)]
[Triage Ward (UC)]
Type: Support / Emergency Medical Technique
Associated Attributes: Wisdom, Intelligence, Willpower
An evolved medical skill formed under extreme battlefield pressure, where survival depends on prioritization rather than perfection. The user instinctively establishes a localized mana domain that enhances medical judgment, stabilizes critical patients, and improves the efficiency of healing techniques within its influence.
Effects:
? Generates a limited-area mana ward centered on the user.
? Automatically highlights critical injuries and life threatening conditions within the ward.
? Improves efficiency of healing and stabilization skills by 25 percent while inside the ward.
? Slows bleeding, toxin spread, and organ failure effects on critically injured allies.
? Reduces mana wastage when performing rapid consecutive medical actions.
? Enhances the effectiveness of emergency treatments such as wound sealing, toxin neutralization, and shock stabilization.
Skills
- [Memory Recall (UC)] – Level 37→ 40
- [Applied Military Theory (UC)] – Level 35 → 45
- [Perceptive Instinct (UC)] – Level 17 → 30
- [Mana Manipulation (UC)] – Level 8 → 18
- [Mana Reinforcement (UC)] – Level 27 → 40
- [Flowing Spear Style (UC)] – Level 20 → 35
- [Vital Restoration (UC)] – Level 5 → 12
- [Unbroken Stride (UC)] – Level 7 → 17
- [Triage Ward (UC)] – Level 1 → 7
Physical Attributes
Constitution: 34.9 → 40.5
Strength: 30.1 → 31.9
Agility: 23.1 → 25.9
Spiritual Attributes
Intelligence: 34.4 → 39.6
Wisdom: 26.5 → 30.2
Willpower: 26.2 → 32.8
Name: Edward
Class: Junior Officer (Cadet)
Rank: Novice (T1)
Level: 20 / 20
EXP: 11100 / 2000
Elemental Affinity: 0.1% Wind
Mana Cultivation: Tier 2 (0 / 100)
Mana Nodes: 0 / 7
HP: 305 / 405
HP Regen: 98.3 per day
MP: 1553
MP Regen: 162.1 per hour
Class Skills
- [Applied Military Theory (UC)] – Level 45
- [Unbroken Stride (UC)] – Level 17
- [Flowing Spear Style (UC)] – Level 35
- [Perceptive Instinct (UC)] – Level 30
- [Vital Restoration (UC)] – Level 12
General Skills
- [Memory Recall (UC)] – Level 40
- [Triage Ward (UC)] – Level 7
- [Rune Analysis (UC)] – Level 10
- [Siege Rigging (C)] – Level 25*
- [Map Reading (C)] – Level 25*
- [Mana Manipulation (UC)] – Level 18
- [Mana Reinforcement (UC)] – Level 40
Closing my status screen, I took a deep breath and postponed one more decision, the decision of taking the class trial.