Inside the fort, dozens of soldiers bustled about. The first thing I noticed was the weaponry. One in fifteen carried special shields, while about one in sixty had one of the eerie swords. The rest of the army had regular shields that looked well-made, but no affixations. I wasn't sure whether those shields would be useful in battle, but it was better than nothing.
The second thing I noticed was the sick bay. Just to the side of the entrance lay dozens of soldiers squeezed into a large room. Some of the soldiers looked sick, which caught me by surprise. Potions that cured specific diseases were easy to manufacture, so I had almost forgotten illnesses existed. To see disease rampaging through the camp made me realize just how bad the supply situation was. Even basic disease-curing potions weren't abundant. If it was that hard to secure basic medical supplies, how hard was it to get other materials?
There were also two doctors and a nurse tending to the patients, but they looked exhausted. There were three medical practitioners, and over a hundred patients. They were severely understaffed and running on low supplies. The sick bay was a disaster zone.
No wonder the military was eager to get me to the front lines. If their medical situation was this bad, they needed any help they could get. Someone like me, who could cure most diseases with few supplies, must have seemed like a godsend.
I looked at the rest of the soldiers who had traveled in the supply train, and then gave them a quick nod. “I’m going to get started on healing. I spent a lot of my essence, but I still have some left," I said.
"Sounds good. Please keep as many of the soldiers alive as you can," said the leader of the logistics team.
"While I'm doing that, can you help me look up a friend of mine? He should be in this fort. His name is Markus, and he's a soldier," I said.
The logistics leader nodded. "I'll look through the books for you. I probably won't have time right away, but I'll have someone give you the results by tonight." With that, I made my way into the makeshift hospital.
One of the doctors turned towards me and frowned as I stepped into the sick bay. “This isn’t the place for soldiers who aren't injured. If you want to visit someone, please fill out a form. We don't need any more diseases spreading around. I still need to check -” the man frowned. “Why in the world are you wearing a dress of all things? Shouldn’t you be in uniform?”
I looked down at my {Lake-Gazer’s Dress} and winced. In a warzone, my blue dress stood out much more than usual.
“I’m Miria. I came to volunteer. I have a healing ability.”
The doctor’s gaze sharpened, as if he had seen a rare treasure, and he gave me a smile that was probably supposed to look kind. However, with the obvious fatigue on his face, and with the way his eyes shone unnaturally, his smile looked horrifying.
“A healing ability? Fantastic! Nice to meet you, Miria!” he stepped over to me and pumped my hand up and down a few times. “How much essence do you have? When can you get started? I can lead you to the worst-off soldiers immediately. What are the limits and specialties of your ability?”
“I can heal most wounds, and I can even regrow limbs. There are a few conditions though. First, my healing ability is a bit high on essence cost. Second, the patient needs to be touching water or my ability won't work. Apart from that, there are some wounds I can't heal.” I started listing injuries I couldn't fix. As I spoke, the doctor's grin grew wider and wider. It almost looked like he wanted to pick me up and hug me.
“That’s it? Those are all of the restrictions?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Your ability is amazing! Who made the potion for you?”
“Sorry, but I can’t talk about that.” Mostly because they don't exist.
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“Hmm... well, I suppose it's your business. Still, it's a shame. I would have loved to get another twenty people with the same ability. Well, forget it! We have patients to save!”
With that, the doctor started leading me towards the injured patients. I got started on the healing process. The doctor helped me remove any debris remaining in wounds before I started healing. He also carefully observed every single patient I healed, as if he was trying to analyze how my ability worked. I wasn't sure if that would give him any results, but I wished him good luck.
Most of the patients had an eclectic mix of wounds. The types of injuries they had sustained were far more varied than I had expected. There were gunshots, strange burns, and wounds that looked like part of their body had suddenly died. There were also several different types of nerve damage.
“What caused these wounds?” I asked, as I healed my eighth patient.
“Those black balls of essence the enemy likes to throw around during fights,” said the doctor, grimacing. “Well, and some gunshots. The enemy has changed and adapted their attacks several times during the war. It's an incredible pain in the neck. Sometimes they obviate one model of shield completely and force the alchemists to create something new. Other times, they just make it hard to heal the wounds. It's never a good thing when new types of wounds start appearing again."
“I see,” I said. The worldstriders adapting and improving wasn’t outside of expectations, but it didn’t lift my spirits much. An intelligent, experimenting enemy was an enemy that had more room to grow.
Around my fifteenth patient, I started to run out of essence. Luckily, I had treated most of the severe injuries by then. Most of the soldiers were still injured, but there were no patients in critical condition. Everyone would survive until I regenerated some essence.
“Thanks for healing me, miss doctor. Your ability is amazing,” said one of the soldiers, catching me off-guard.
"It's what I came here to do," I said. "It's too bad I couldn't heal everything, I ran out of essence."
“No shame in that. Everyone has their limits.” The soldier’s expression turned sour, as he grimaced and looked at the other injured. “Things have been hard to keep stable ever since the damned Zelyrian monsters started attacking supply lines instead of forts."
“The Zelyrian creatures are quite adaptable,” I said.
“Ain’t that the truth. Recently, some of their balls of black essence are lethal enough to kill soldiers with even a minor injury. If you don’t amputate the cut limb on the spot, the energy crawls through your veins until it reaches your brain, and then you die.”
I shuddered at that statement. I hadn't realized the worldstriders had made their attacks so lethal. I sighed, as I thought about the history of the war so far. Human forces had lost over and over again. The humans on the continent had adapted… but their adaptions still weren’t enough. Humans were losing ground, and I had no idea if there was a way to break the stalemate. The three of us couldn’t turn the war around by ourselves, and the humans here were struggling to manage the war.
“Is there any hope at all for our human forces?” I asked, not expecting the soldier to answer me. Deep in my heart, I started wondering when we would die this time. I was reluctant to say goodbye. Dr. Trish, Old Mo, Markus, Iselde, and Vance… they were precious friends and family members. But soon, I might not have a choice anymore.
“There might be hope. Recently, I’ve heard rumors of battlefields turning our way,” said the soldier. His eyes shone with a certain level of excitement that I found surprising.
“What do you mean?” I asked. "Did the human nations find a way to fight back more effectively?"
“I've heard that recently, on some battlefields soldiers have heard eerie singing in the middle of the night. The next morning, several of the enemy will be fond on the ground, comatose. They don’t fight back, even if soldiers just stroll up to them and stab them. I haven’t heard any official announcements, but I’ve heard the military is working on some sort of super weapon to turn the tables. If the rumors are correct, the military should be in the final testing stages of their secret weapon. Otherwise, there's no way it would show up on the battlefield." The soldier's eyes grew more excited as he spoke. "That would explain the weird singing, followed by the unconscious enemies. Either way, we just need to hold out long enough. Once they finish testing that weapon, the entire war will turn around. So don't give up hope, miss doctor.”
I nodded thoughtfully as I ended the conversation with the soldier and moved out of the sick bay. I wasn’t sure whether to believe the man’s words - after all, rumors passed between soldiers were hardly a reliable source of information. Still, the soldier's words did make me feel better. If the rumors were correct, maybe there was hope for this war. I had been thinking that the humans were adapting to the worldstriders surprisingly slowly. Perhaps they had been focused on creating a trump card instead?
I felt a smile tug at my lips at the thought. If the war ended, we wouldn't have any major threats left to us in this world. Anise and Felix had already gotten their keyword abilities, so all we would have to do is farm Achievement until we died. We could avoid taking any more major risks, and we could just enjoy life. It would suck that Sallia wasn't with us, but I wouldn't mind having some time to relax and train. I felt a little bit more hopeful than usual as I made my way to one of the resting areas and drifted off into a light nap.