Jack’s wound burned with a fiery pain.
Several teams had chased after the Hedelin Medical Team during the day. No matter how careful Jack had been, he could not escape unscathed. A bullet had grazed his side, leaving a gash as long as a finger, though fortunately not too deep.
Duke Wilson was feverish and delirious. Jack did not want anyone to know about his new injury, lest it shake the duke’s resolve, so he bandaged it himself. He planned to find a professional doctor to treat it after dark.
Heaven knew Adrian would drag him into helping, hoping he could join him in convincing Duke Wilson’s other advisors.
By now, Jack’s side hurt so badly that his vision blurred and his head spun in waves.
Dragging his feet, he went to where Hedelin’s Angels were stationed. As soon as Jack lifted the tent flap, he saw Gloria Hedelin.
Having finished her immediate tasks, Gloria was tossing the collected dirty gauze into disinfectant.
Over the past year in the epidemic zones, she had developed the habit of always carrying a bottle of tablet disinfectant in the pocket of her white coat. That was how she could mix water with the tablets to make disinfectant solution.
“Is there anything I can help you with? Ah…”
Gloria turned and paused when she saw it was Jack. She quickly washed her hands with clean water and asked him to sit and wait a moment.
In Jack’s impression, Gloria had always been warmer toward him. He thought she would be happier to see him, but her attitude was lukewarm, as if that moment of eye contact at the city gate had never happened.
“Where is your injury?”
Without meeting Gloria’s gaze, Jack unbuttoned his military uniform.
Beneath the uniform, the wound on his side had soaked the gauze red. The blood had spread into a stain on his white shirt.
Ignoring Jack’s pleading, ‘comfort me’, ‘pity me’ look, Gloria sighed softly. “…Next time something like this happens, please seek a doctor’s help right away.”
Gloria’s calm indifference left Jack stunned. He had thought the woman before him would—
Would what? Cry out of worry for him? Or hug him and say she was glad he was still alive?
‘…What was he thinking? He and the girl before him had never been close enough for that.’
He was not the sentimental Adrian. He never fell for anyone. He was a born soldier, Duke Wilson’s blade and sword. There was no room in his world for weak emotions. …Nor should he crave something that disrupted reason.
“The wound isn’t deep, but it’s long. It might be infected. Did you sterilize the gauze you used to bandage it with high heat?”
“It was sterilized…”
Jack felt a bit dazed.
In less than a year, the fragile young lady in his memory had vanished. In her place stood a professional female doctor.
“Then the sterilization was incomplete. This might hurt a bit. Bear with it.”
There was no alcohol in the Tarafa Port army camp, but there was strong liquor. The strong liquor stockpiled in the Tarafa Port warehouses had originally been meant for export to Tartafu, but when the war began, it was abandoned in the port warehouses.
“Ah…!!”
The liquor seeped into the wound, causing intense stinging pain. Jack’s sturdy body trembled under Gloria’s hands. She disinfected without mercy, as if deaf to Jack’s pained groans and blind to the twisting of his face. Only after tightly binding the wound on his side did she spare him, leaving Jack—ears ringing, head spinning, slumped like a puddle of mud on the examination bed.
Perhaps his reason had flown away with the pain, for Jack heard his own voice ask, “Weren’t you always writing letters to me? …Now I’m here in person. Aren’t you going to say something?”
Gloria paused in cleaning up. Then she said slowly, “I thought you didn’t want me to bother you.”
Gloria had written many letters to Jack, writing from every city she reached. Jack’s replies had been few and far between.
Though Gloria understood that, due to the war, letters might not reach their recipients. Jack might have replied, and she simply had not received them. But she trusted her intuition more: Jack simply had no interest in her.
So she stopped writing. And when she saw Jack again, she did not greet him first.
—Jack was alive. She could see him alive again. That was already a gift from the gods. Happy as she was, she was willing to ask for nothing more.
She would put an end to her first love like this.
Better to pass as acquaintances brushing shoulders than to bare her heart only for it to be unwanted—that would just embarrass them both.
“Come with me!”
Jack’s voice carried some anger as he grabbed Gloria and pulled her out of the tent.
Outside the tent, soldiers were everywhere, all eavesdropping—starting with one who came to bring food to Hedelin’s Angels, who were too busy to eat. Then a crowd came, wanting another look at the angels who glowed with warm light like the Madonna in a painting.
When they saw Jack, the soldiers scattered, afraid to be spotted by his stern, rule-abiding face.
Once Jack entered the tent, the soldiers could no longer contain their curiosity, and so…
“Private Second Class Rodney, Private Third Class Marvin, Private First Class Mackey—you lot wait for me tomorrow—”
With a chilling remark delivered through a darkened face, Jack—having noted which soldiers were present—took Gloria back to his private quarters.
“What is this…?”
“Take them.”
Jack could not tell if he was furious or simply throwing caution to the wind. He pulled out stacks of letters bound with short strings—from drawers, cabinets, everywhere—and shoved them all into Gloria’s hands.
Gloria’s hands soon filled up, and she had to hug them with her arms.
Even so, she could not hold all the letters.
One stack fell to the floor and scattered with a clatter.
Every envelope was addressed to: Gloria Hedelin. Gloria crouched to pick one up and flipped it over.
The sender on the back was always the same: Jack Tyran.
Gloria glanced at Jack—coat draped over his shoulders, shirt open, breathing a bit heavily. She opened a letter. The handwriting was familiar; it was indeed Jack’s.
But the words in these letters were very gentle, nothing like the ones Gloria had received. Those had been sparse and simple, devoid of personal emotion—just cold, objective statements.
“…Pretty disgusting, huh?”
Unable to stand it, Jack pressed one hand to his face, his brows furrowed enough to crush a man.
The Tyran Baron’s House came from a military background. Jack’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been soldiers. From childhood, Jack had been taught that “men must be men.”
A man could not confess love to a woman he liked, for that was weakness.
A man could not treat a woman sincerely, for that was weakness.
A man could not show a gentle side, for that was weakness.
He had been trained into a “real man” who was “never weak.” Thinking of the letters he had written to Gloria, they became proof that he was not a “real man.”
“You can say it straight. It’s fine.”
“…All right, then I’ll say it straight.”
Jack’s head drooped, and he closed his eyes tightly at Gloria’s reply.
“I like you.”
The warm softness scented with disinfectant brushed Jack’s lips like flower petals.
Jack’s eyes snapped open as Gloria threw herself into his arms.
…
The day after arriving at Tarafa Port, Cinderella keenly sensed the sour tension between her two sisters, Adrian, and Jack.
As her mother Ye Tang was still caring for Duke Wilson, Cinderella—unable to confide in anyone—wrote a letter to Charlotte.
Two days later, Duke Wilson visibly improved. Cinderella began taking her mother’s place, frequently entering his room to treat him.
Several days after that, Tartafu announced a ceasefire—the anti-royal faction had killed the young emperor and seized power. The new regime would not retain the position of “emperor.”
The war was over.
Spring came to Osnabrock amid great rejoicing. Countless people let out excited roars and ran through the streets. Children smiled once more, waving wildflowers picked from the hills at their parents.
On the day Cinderella wrote her third letter to Charlotte and received a reply, Duke Wilson announced he would lead the army toward the Capital Vitril.
The Crown Prince’s forces—who had previously disguised themselves as Tartafu troops attacking Tarafa Port—now openly clashed with Duke Wilson’s main army.
In less than half a month thereafter, Duke Wilson fought his way to Vitril.
The Crown Prince wanted to crown himself king before Duke Wilson entered Vitril, but most nobles of standing had been killed by him. The clergy, disbelieving Hedelin Medical Academy’s epidemic prevention methods, either held large gatherings without masks to baptize believers or bury the dead, or merely washed with holy water after touching patients, never using soap. Most clergy caught the Spanish Flu, and few survived.
In Vitril, no one remained who could legitimately crown the Crown Prince. In desperation, he crowned himself, only to be betrayed by the surviving nobles that very day.
As the Crown Prince placed the crown on his head under the nobles’ gaze, those nobles ordered the city gates opened, welcoming Duke Wilson’s troops.
That day, the war truly ended completely.
It concluded at Frederick VI’s coronation ceremony.
“It’s the angels! Hedelin’s Angels!!”
Vitril’s commoners cried at the sight of the Hedelin Medical Team’s banners.
They had waited so long for this day… They had heeded the reminders from Hedelin Medical Academy students, always wearing masks and buying soap to wash their hands even if poor. That was how they survived the plague’s resurgence.
Now, seeing the Hedelin Medical Team return home, the commoners could not contain their excitement.
Countless people surged forward, offering the flowers they carried to Hedelin’s Angels.
Emily and Kim were garlanded with flowers. Adrian and Jack helped Claudia and Gloria carry the flowers they could not hold. Cinderella, Emma, and May rushed toward Hedelin Manor—the Duke and Duchess of the North, having heard of the Hedelin Medical Team’s feats, agreed to return the manor to Ye Tang without demanding repayment.
After all, Ye Tang’s money had gone toward epidemic prevention. In truth, not only the duke and duchess, but even Osnabrock’s national treasury owed her compensation.
Ye Tang was intimately lifted by one hand by Duke Wilson, and she advanced at his side throughout.
—To Osnabrock’s people, the war had not ended by Duke Wilson and his army. It ended by the miracle created by Hedelin’s Angels.
Duke Wilson displayed his closeness to Ye Tang to win the common folk’s hearts.
Ye Tang had no opinion on this. Duke Wilson was not a bad leader. Osnabrock’s regime was far stronger in his hands than if it had fallen into others’.
Cinderella was truly preoccupied with her Little Beech Tree.
She really wanted to know if the Little Beech Tree planted in Hedelin House’s courtyard was still doing well, if it had grown taller, if it had gotten bigger. So when someone offered her flowers along the road, she merely gave a brief response before clutching the bouquet and running ahead.