The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

113 - Not One of Us - Part 1

By the time I woke again it felt like the inside of my body was burning up. My muscles were screaming and aching like after an extended training day in my former life. Best news of the day is that I can still feel all of my limbs...

I slowly sit up and look around. As far as I can conclude... I'm in what I suppose is one of the only actual guest bedrooms... like Castle Celeste, the guest rooms are furnished sparingly. Only a bed, a scroll of the code of chivalry on the wall, and my armor on an armor rack... I move an arm up to look at myself under the cover, and conclude that I'm practically undressed, wearing different girl's underwear than I did yesterday. I've been wiped down too... at the end of the bed is Helena. She's sleeping while being bent over the bed and is clutching a handkerchief with Jesmaine's initials on it...

I gaze around the room and lock my eyes onto a set of clothes placed on the night stand. Judging by the light from the window, it's morning, and the battle for the day should already be starting. I have too many things I need to know, and too many things I need to do before we start the day properly!

I need to find out what was going on with Peony, I need to heal the injured, I need to find out why I was falling yesterday, the number of casualties, find out why they were trying to capture me rather than kill me at first.

I get on my feet to get dressed and glance to Helena. Should I trust that she's tried to keep my gender a secret?... but if she did... then why was she allowed in here in the first place? I slip into the shirt and pants first and leave the armor behind. I'm not going to the front-line today. If I'm targeted to that extent, then it is better I stay behind for a while. As bitter as it is to say, it may be a good distraction to make the enemy wait for us, but that is as much as it'll be. I just barely open the door before being face to face with Vitis. His hands are clenched and his lips curled into a scowl. The hints of guilt are gone, and replaced solely with anger and disappointment.

"Celeste-sama. I accuse Peony Roselia of cowardice."

—-*—-

Vitis' Point Of View

I spent the entire night considering what to do about what happened while trying to keep people's guts and limbs the right places in the infirmary. Since the Lady can heal them, we struggle desperately just to keep them alive rather than just amputate. I was one of those in our unit that got out of this the best... Asher is in the infirmary. Apparently his lung got hit just before he and the Tepet heir found the Lady... he stopped coughing and vomiting up blood thanks to our lady... but he's not doing well. Mike's arm is more off than it's on, and knowing the Lady's magic has limits, he probably won't be able to move it again. Spence and Arven got trapped on their own, and they're both crippled... A few Tepet soldiers managed to pull them back, but... Spence at least had his guts on full display as we got him to the infirmary... according to Darius, they mostly got a handle on Spence's guts when the Lady used a healing spell before passing out... Even then, Spence is in overhanging danger of dying from the complications of the injury. Parts of his guts had been cut open after all. We tried sewing it closed... but he probably won't live... Arven knee bent the wrong way when we got him back... we've tried to put it back, but the bleeding wouldn't stop until after the healing... even now we don't dare touching it... it's too close to an artery... He's still throwing up blood regularly as well... 

All of this... all of this is relatively fine... we were in the very front, so we took the hardest hits and was the unit that got split up the most. I expected this and I can deal with this. Thankfully almost all other of our units hardly even got a step away from the Tepet front line so they're fine, but... when I looked to my side to find Peony, a wall had appeared... and when I removed it, Peony and Rudder were surrounded by enemies... they were back to back fighting bravely, but they were being overwhelmed. It was just the two of them with more than six opponents. It was not a reasonable fight... and of course the Headal soldiers tried to prevent us from regrouping with the two of them... Rudder always secretly didn't like Peony, but he was fighting alongside him and made sure Peony never got stabbed in the back.