After three days, the nurse gave him a quick checkup, and told him he was "Good enough." and booted him out of the hospital. He had mostly recovered, he was slightly weakened still, and his eyes still felt a bit of pressure, but he could see thanks to the poultice he had been given, and he could move freely again, so, considering how little the military cared about him, he figured that was good enough. He wasn't really injured enough to warrant any healing spells or anything, so it was fine, bedrest was really all he had needed.
Thus, Felix waited in the lobby of the hospital wing of the fort for a few minutes, until another low-ranking member of the environmental engineering team he hadn't yet met came to pick him up. He was unusually silent, and looked at Felix as if he had a second head, but he tried to hide it. Along the way back, Felix heard a lot of muttering, and people stared at him strangely.
"...t's him."
"Look, it's the La..."
"...fe material..."
Felix got a bad feeling, very quickly, but he kept his head down and simply followed the other member of his team back to their unit, the same building as before, with the insignia of a rock on it. They entered. There had been some chatter going, but when Felix entered, it stopped, and everyone was giving him strange looks. One guy in the corner was blushing.
Felix furrowed his brow, and the bad feeling continued to grow in his chest.
Toby, who had helped Felix before when Felix first came to the unit, broke the awkward silence. "W-welcome back, Felix. Good to see you're better. We were all devastated when we heard the Intel Unit say they thought you deserted!" he said, and several of the guys nodded vigorously.
"...Toby, right. Can I have a word? Alone?" Felix asked him. Toby blushed, and some of the guys in the unit started hollering, and one of them clapped him on the shoulder. Felix was greatly confused by this, but kept it to himself. "S-sure Felix." he said, and they walked to the dorms.
Felix sighed. "Toby, what the hell is going on? Everyone has been looking at me like I have two heads and five arms ever since I got out of the hospital unit." he asked directly.
"W-well..." Toby said, hesitantly.
"Toby, come on, it's weird." Felix said.
Toby sighed. "Fine, fine. So, um, after you came back, we were curious, of course, about what happened. But we didn't have to wait long to find out, because uh, there was this guy from the Intel Unit, Lecter... he uh, he's being disciplined about it right now actually, but, after he interviewed you, he couldn't keep it to himself. He said you had the most beautiful and powerful female spirit he's ever seen in his entire life, and that the queen and the royal courtesans souls would look like ragged potatoes by comparison to your, quote, "majestic spirit, blacker than the moonless night, grander than the splendor of the entire royal house, and unmatched in all the land.". He sung your praises loudly in the middle of the fort for all to hear, and even declared his love for you. In fact, the internal guard unit had to restrain him because he got so worked up, he started marching to the hospital unit to declare his love to you directly..." Toby said, unable to look at Felix directly.
Felix was dumbstruck. Was this Lecter guy insane?
Toby continued. "That was 2 days ago actually... so, naturally, word spread quickly because after the battle people were very happy to change the topic of conversation away from war plans to gossip, so, a stunt like that spread to every inch of the fort in no time flat, and of course, since you're from our unit, we've been getting pestered with questions about you for a couple of days now..." he said, while not looking Felix in the eye.
"So... what are you saying Toby?" Felix asked, with a dark expression.
"W-well... because everyone apparently had nothing better to do, this issue was talked up a storm, to the point everyone is convinced...uh... well, everyone has been calling you "The Ladyboy"..." Toby said.
Felix's expression grew darker.
"And actually... it gets worse." Toby said.
"How the hell could it possibly get worse?!?" Felix asked him exasperatedly.
"Well, you might not know this, since you were underground, but, the battle was a huge victory for us. I mean, obviously, since we're calmly standing here in the fort right now, right?" Toby asked.
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"Right, but what does that have to do with me?" Felix asked.
"I'm getting to that. So, you probably don't know this because it was kept under wraps until after the battle ended, but, the battle was set up by the Royal House ages in advance. We lost the Battle of the Crimson Plains on purpose, in order to lure the demon army into attacking Fort Basil in order to bleed their resources, before they got too big and powerful that we couldn't defeat them even with the defensive prowess of the Fort." Toby began.
Felix's eyes went wide in shock. "You mean to tell me we sacrificed an entire army just to bait the demons into attacking us?" he asked in disbelief.
Toby nodded. "We did, yeah. And the dark mage blockade of the capital? That was a sham orchestrated by the Royal House too, to make the demons believe our high-grade mages would be holed up in the capital, further emboldening them to attack us now, rather than later. In reality, the Royal House got more than 80% of all royal mages from the capital, and from the three High Houses out here in secret, and when the demons attacked, they got absolutely obliterated." Toby continued.
Felix was dumbstruck again. Just how deep were the royalty's schemes? "Okay. But again, what does this all have to do with me?" Felix asked.
"Well... the battle only barely just ended. The fields outside are still littered with demon corpses as high as a mountain if they were to be piled up. We can't even clean it all up yet, we have to wait for the residual magic from almost the entire royal mage group to dissipate... and this was all headed over by Her Majesty, Queen Charity herself, along with several of the royal courtesans, while the King is back in the capital holding down the fort. And uh, they're still here. And they have almost definitely heard about this incident, especially since that Intel Unit guy boldly declared your soul more majestic than theirs in the middle of the fort." Toby said nervously.
Felix immediately felt a sense of panic. What he needed right now was to lay low and grow powerful silently, not to challenge the femininity of the Queen! He angrily cursed Arboro in his mind.
"So because of that... everyone has been directly comparing you to Her Majesty, the Queen, herself, half jokingly, but, to say everyone is curious would be an understatement." Toby finished.
Felix's expression was as dark and furrowed as it could possibly get at this point. How did things turn out like this? He needed to keep his Yin Spirit as inconspicuous as possible, but now he could scarcely think of a way he could possibly shine a brighter spotlight on it!
"I-I see. Thank you for the information, Toby." Felix said, and he started to walk away.
"Wait!" Toby shouted out, and he grabbed Felix's hand. "I... I have to ask, or I'll die of curiosity. Do you, you know...? Are you like that?" He asked, with a strange look.
Felix's expression somehow transcended it's mortal limits and became even darker. "No, I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm quite male, and quite straight, and quite a normal guy." he said coldly.
Toby had a disappointed and hurt look on his face, and it was all Felix could do to stop himself from punching him.
"Oh right, what happened to Lecter?" Felix asked, suddenly remembering the guy who started this whole mess.
Toby immediately brightened up. "Well. That's uh... you need to speak to Unit Leader Louis about that. He'll be waiting for you right now, actually." Toby said.
Felix wondered why Toby brightened up at that question and looked at him suspiciously, but decided he wouldn't get any answers until he spoke to Louis, so he left the dorm and returned to the lobby where everyone was chatting again. This time everyone mostly ignored him, Felix presumed it was because they would simply gossip about whatever happened with Toby later. Felix swiftly found Louis.
"Unit Leader, sir, Toby said you wanted to see me?" Felix asked him.
"I do." Louis said with a smirk. "This is for you." he said, and he held out a scroll, with a seal of the Royal House on it. The bad feeling in Felix's chest continued to grow by untold magnitudes.
"Actually." Louis said, as he held back the scroll. "You're an illiterate farm hand. I'll read it for you." He said, and he unfurled the scroll.
"I can read just fi-" Felix started, but Louis simply started reading the scroll out loud in front of everyone, while ignoring him.
"Felix, from the Environmental Engineering Unit, you are hereby formally invited to dinner with Her Majesty, Queen Charity, on this day, blah blah blah." Louis said, and tossed the scroll to Felix.
"Looks like you've got dinner with the Her Majesty, herself. But uh, my superiors wanted me to tell you something too." Louis said with a smirk.
"What's that...?" Felix said, wondering how this situation could possibly get any worse.
"Well, Mr. Lecter, your apparent beloved, will be there as well. It seems the Queen is going to force him to compare your souls side by side in order to make him retract his bold declarations about how grand your soul is." Louis said, and the guys in the unit behind them laughed uproariously. Felix fervently wished he could bury his head in the ground.
"Anyway lad, you're supposed to be there in an hour, so, go wash up quickly, and just show up in your uniform! It's being held in the central tower, so don't be late!" Louis told him, and shoved him in the direction of the dorms. Felix walked out, face red in a mix of shame and anger, as the rest of the guys from his unit continued to laugh, and went to the baths. Not having any choice, he cleaned himself quickly, and got his uniform on, which the Unit had given him a new one, on account of his old one being ruined in his time underground, and due to the fact of his dinner, which they actually knew of in advance even before the scroll had been opened.
He put on his cloak and chevron pin, sighed, and walked out of the Unit, while some of the guys were still somehow chuckling. He heard one guy whisper "Wife material", and chucked a nearby rock at his head, which was dodged. He then walked to the central spire of the fort, where a pair of royal guardsmen were waiting, and showed them his invitation. They read it, gave him a strange look, nodded, and let him in.