Mob no Longer

Ch.4 | Corridor of Death

I struggled with staying alive for a few days. The front lines were ruthless and the bullet wound on my side didn't help my odds of survival.

Piles of dead bodies at my feet as I moved forward reminded me of the countless lives I'd taken. The numbed emotion I felt looking at them proved to me I was in there for too long. I took one

I couldn't collapse now. Morale was at an all-time high and the men didn't feel crippling fear while fighting. They could be relied on for bigger tasks than before. I didn't have to use my eyes as often, leading to fewer headaches during the day. We couldn't back out, so we slowly made our way to the commercial city.

The bullet in my side forced me to stay completely still as I slept and to move as little as possible during battle. Every movement made it feel like the bullet was digging deeper into my flesh. The burning pain felt like something was pinching an open wound inside my body.

We advanced to the commercial city. Taking it down had never been done in the history of this war. There were two main reasons why.

The first was the fact it was deep in enemy territory, it was a miracle we'd gotten this far to begin with. We managed to fight our way through the enemy territory and conquer several towns. There was no doubt in my mind that the enemy would pincer the conquered villages the moment Holfort tried to settle in. Even if that wasn't the case, the neighboring villages would still be the Principality's thus relationship would be strained.

The second reason was its natural defenses. The kingdom was built extremely high up in the sky, on a floating island above what is naturally possible. That meant there were only two ways of getting there, one was through space-time magic, which none of the aboard our ship had. The second was through using a ship, but this couldn't be just any ship, it had to be specially made and thus was more expensive.

The duke was kind enough to give us a ship that was built for spying and thus was made to go as high up in the sky as possible. The ship was smaller than normal military ships but for a squad like ours, it gave more than enough room.

The men slept in the cargo hold while I slept in a comfortable room next to the pilothouse. They used army portable sleeping beds while I slept in a noble's room with a comfortable soft bed. It didn't feel emotionally good, but if I slept on any harder surface, my wound would painfully press against the bed.

I stepped into my room and locked the door behind me. I took off my cloak – clearly, bleach inspired – and looked at my wound. The bandages were slowly getting soaked with my blood. The wound didn't have time to clot, every time it would try I would go fight and move again making the process try again.

Unwrapping the bandages around my torso felt like I was trying to pet a sleeping lion. I carefully and slowly unwrapped it. It looked ugly, my stitching needed some work. I opened the door near the bed and saw the expensive, practically pure alcohol. I was sure it wasn't meant to use that way, but I grabbed it, opened it, and very carefully poured it on my wound.

The burning and stinging felt like a knife had stabbed into the wound and managed to poke into every tiny corner of the bullet wound. I grabbed the nearest table and tore its edges off using magic reinforcement. I kept my teeth clenched and grunted while closing my eyes shut.

After the pain lessened – it felt like it would never truly leave. I dressed the wound with clean bandages. Once again, I patted this sleeping dragon – lion felt like an understatement – and put my clothes back on.

Most would attribute my lack of armor to idiocy, but wearing armor greatly hinders speed. I thought it was a good idea to not have any... until I got shot. Still, I doubted if having armor was really effective at all, it was better to know how to dodge rather than rely on it. If someone with similar powers as mine appeared, armor wouldn't do anything.