Between Your Letter and My Reply

Chapter 16

[Translation By Divinity]

Damian decided to accept this reality for now.

He had faced countless near-death experiences in numerous battles, and it was truly a miracle that he had remained unscathed until now. But his luck had finally run out.

No, on second thought, maybe this was still lucky. A grenade exploded right in front of him, and he only lost an arm? He was still alive. That was a good deal.

‘I’m right-handed, so it would’ve been better if I lost my left arm instead.’

Thinking such carefree thoughts, he groped his body with his left hand. He felt a tightness under his clothes, as if his entire body was wrapped in bandages.

There wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hurt, and he couldn’t even tell where or how he was injured, except for his missing right arm. He was wondering when the doctor would come to explain his condition when…

“Damian!”

He heard loud footsteps outside, and then Paul Jeska burst through the door, followed by someone in a white coat who appeared to be a doctor.

Damian stared at Paul with a dazed expression, as if in a dream, then turned his gaze to the doctor.

He was more curious about his own condition than Paul’s sudden appearance. But Paul wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Damian, you bastard! I was writing your death notification, and then I almost fainted when I heard from the hospital! You little…! How did you survive this? You really have nine lives!”

Paul’s loud voice made his head ache. He instinctively tried to wave his hand dismissively, but his right arm was still missing from the elbow down.

Damian looked at the empty space where his right hand used to be and then glanced at Paul, feeling awkward. Paul sighed deeply and continued.

“Well, it’s better than being dead.”

“I agree.”

His throat hurt even though he had barely spoken. Damian asked for water, and Paul handed him his canteen. While Damian drank, the doctor explained his condition.

In short, Damian was barely alive after the grenade explosion when he was luckily found by refugees leaving the village.

They had taken him to the hospital, and he had been unconscious for an entire week.

Fortunately, they were able to identify him through his military ID tag, but the administrative system of the Istarica army was a mess due to the war being fought in a foreign land. It took several days to confirm Damian’s identity.

In the meantime, they had to remove a quarter of his liver and stitch and patch up other wounds. They tried to save his right arm, but it was beyond repair and had to be amputated.

“So, he’s out of immediate danger?”

At Paul’s blunt question, the doctor replied with a hesitant expression.

“If his wounds don’t worsen, he should be fine, but honestly, his condition is still unstable, so…”

“Well, he’s alive, so things will work out somehow, right?”

Paul, standing next to the doctor, covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head.

“Are there any other disabilities or aftereffects besides his right arm?”

“Since he lost a quarter of his liver, he needs to be careful. It’s best if he avoids alcohol.”

Damian wasn’t a heavy drinker, so that wasn’t a problem. Losing his right arm was a bitter pill to swallow, but he was grateful to be alive.

“You little…! Do you know how worried your platoon members were? Right after we rejoined the main unit, they wanted to form a search party to find you, and I had a hard time calming them down. Well, I did inform them about you, so they’re probably crying their eyes out right now.”

“Haha…”

Damian gave a wry smile. He felt guilty for burdening them with worry, but there was nothing he could do.

“Oh, by the way, didn’t Sergeant Nicole deliver my message to you, Major?”

Paul blinked and shook his head at Damian’s question.

“Message? I didn’t hear anything specific?”

“I asked her to tell you, ‘You didn’t even listen to my requests for reinforcements, are you happy now, you bastard?'”

Damian subtly added a few words to the original message. But he didn’t spit.

“…”

“That’s the message I asked her to deliver.”

Paul was momentarily speechless, needing to find an excuse because Damian delivered the message with an indifferent expression instead of outright anger.

He sighed deeply and finally spoke.

“They bombed the airfield first. They must have figured out our plan.”

“Ah, I see.”

Paul didn’t elaborate, so Damian kept his response short.

If it sounded sarcastic, it wasn’t his imagination. While Paul was internally questioning why he was being treated this way despite being Damian’s superior, Damian stared at his right arm, still feeling a sense of unreality.

“I guess I won’t be able to hold a gun for a while, huh?”

Paul was dumbfounded. ‘He just lost an arm, and all he’s worried about is not being able to hold a gun? That’s not the important thing right now.’

“Returning to the unit… seems difficult.”

Damian said, and Paul nodded with a complicated expression.

“I grant you a discharge, Lieutenant.”

☆

After his condition stabilized, Damian was transferred from the civilian hospital to a military one.

He continued his treatment there, gradually getting used to his missing right arm. When he was finally able to receive outpatient treatment, Paul visited him again.

Paul was holding Damian’s discharge papers, his belongings left at the barracks, and a train ticket to Istarica.

Damian stared at the discharge papers for a long time.

The idea of leaving the military felt even more unreal than losing his arm. While he was fixated on the papers, Paul rummaged through various documents.

“You’ll receive a pension. Just write your bank account information here, and the address where you want to receive related documents here.”

Damian slowly raised his head.

“Come to think of it, I don’t have a home to go back to…”

“…?”

“I enlisted right after leaving the school dormitory… and I can’t go back to the orphanage as an adult.”

Paul scratched his temple and said,

“Why don’t you just write down the Marquis Jeska’s residence as your address for now?”

Damian’s face contorted.

His firm refusal to be associated with Marquis Jeska was clear, and Paul smiled bitterly.

“Can I register my address later? I have some money, so I can find a boarding house once I arrive in Istarica.”

“Sure, do that.”

Damian received a pen to sign the documents Paul handed him. But then…

“I’m right-handed…”

Damian mumbled, and Paul’s face fell.

Damian had never written with his left hand, so even signing his name properly was difficult. It was common for him to spill food while eating with his left hand.

But since he needed to sign, he managed to scribble something resembling his signature with his trembling left hand.

“It’s inconvenient without my right hand.”

While Damian mumbled, Paul wrote something on a blank piece of paper and handed it to him. It was an address.

“This is the best prosthetic arm and leg maker I know. I’ve seen many people missing limbs, so I often connect them with him. Mention my name, and he’ll take good care of you. It won’t be as good as your original hand, but it’ll be enough for daily life.”

The prosthetic Paul was talking about wasn’t just a simple replica of a limb.

The workshop he recommended created mechanical prosthetics that could be connected to the nerves at the amputation site, allowing for precise movements like a real limb.

It was the best option for people missing arms or legs, but the downside was the astronomical price.

“Okay…”

Damian imagined how many zeros would be attached to the price of the prosthetic and carefully folded the paper, putting it in his wallet without refusing.

Once the paperwork and handover procedures were mostly complete, Paul extended his hand with a hint of sadness.

“Congratulations on your discharge… Let’s meet again in Istarica when the war is over.”

Honestly, Damian didn’t want to see anyone from the Jeska family again. But… Paul seemed okay. Damian smiled and shook Paul’s outstretched hand.

“Sounds good.”

Paul shook his hand firmly up and down and then asked,

“Now that you’re discharged, is there anything you want to do?”

“Something I want to do…”

‘Something I want to do?’ For Damian, who had enlisted because he had no desires, it was like asking him to catch clouds.

Then, for some reason, he remembered the sentence that someone seemed to have whispered in his head right before the grenade exploded.

[So please come and see me safely.]

Why did he think of Lady Lintray’s words at the moment of facing death?

He had never intended to keep his promise to visit her.

But when he remembered Lintray’s plea, he thought, ‘I don’t want to die’. Damian, who had been living just to avoid dying, now wanted to live.

Damian hesitated, then said,

“It’s not something I want to do, but… there’s someone I want to meet.”

Once he said it out loud, his decision was made. He nodded with a lively expression he hadn’t shown in a long time.

“I need to go see her.”