Chapter 40

First, the sergeant ripped open the hem of Aethlyn’s trousers. A gruesome laceration, contrasting starkly against her white skin, immediately came into view. It was likely grazed by an artillery shrapnel. He couldn’t tell whether he should be glad that the wound had thankfully missed her vein, or rage at the very fact that Aethlyn had been injured. Gennadi decided not to think about it for now.

He sprinkled the remaining half of the antiseptic onto the wound, applied pressure to stop the bleeding, and wrapped it with a bandage. While doing so, he could see his hands trembling terribly, but Gennadi didn’t think about that either.

Because the current situation was far too urgent to obsess over such trifles and fall into self-loathing.

Having finished first-aid treatment for both Aethlyn and himself, Gennadi stripped the combat uniform off another dead Imperial soldier nearby. Even though it belonged to the largest soldier, it didn’t fit him properly, but it didn’t matter as long as it kept him from freezing to death.

Preparations for escape were now complete. Gennadi carefully lifted Aethlyn. Strangely, she felt as light as if he were carrying empty air, and a wave of anxiety washed over him.

Only the faint heartbeat emanating from Aethlyn and the sound of her shallow breathing let him know she was still alive. Relying entirely on those faint clues with everything he had, he walked forward.

Leaving behind the soaring pillars of fire and ash-gray clouds, he stepped into the pitch-black forest.

And so Gennadi continued to walk and walk. Until day turned to night, and night turned to day once more. Only the warmth provided by his mate, Aethlyn, was holding together his nearly snapping thread of life.

‘Those guys were right.’

The sergeant thought amidst his hazy consciousness.

‘Having your mate right by your side isn’t half bad.’

Had it not been for Aethlyn, he would have collapsed long ago. Though he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.

Had he been running away like that for a long time? Only after becoming certain that the Imperial Army would never follow him did he begin to gauge his location.

The forest, bathed in the setting sun, was unnaturally quiet. It felt as though the aura of the distant battlefield had driven away all the beasts of this place.

Gennadi looked up at the sky, which was gradually being dyed in the colors of dusk, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. The smell of blood came first.

Catching the sweet scent of Aethlyn’s blood made old memories well up like a morning mist.

The smell of blood he had tasted twelve years ago…

‘Focus.’

Gennadi continued tracking other scents. The damp smell of wood, the faint, acrid smell of gunpowder drifting from behind him. The sweet smell of Aethlyn’s blood. The soft scent of skin from the nape of her neck. The smell of clear, running stream water close by.

Beneath closed eyelids, his pupils darted this way and that as if tracking the darkness.

How long had he concentrated like that? A faint smell of smoke drifted through the air. A gentle smell of burning wood, entirely different in texture from that of the battlefield.

‘…A hearth.’

It was the smell of civilization. The smell of people who didn’t eat raw meat building a fire… Gennadi felt a deep, profound sense of relief.

“…Can we survive?”

With his eyes half-open, Gennadi muttered to himself. And right onto the bridge of his nose, something cold landed.

It was snow. The first snow, announcing the fickle winter of Pharos. The relief he had felt just moments ago evaporated in an instant.

“…Damn it.”

Aethlyn’s body temperature had already dropped to a dangerous level. And now, snow on top of that?

Gennadi decided to move a little faster. Though his stride kept faltering and it felt as though his lungs had holes in them, making it hard to breathe, he still had no other choice.

‘Just hold on a little longer. Please. You are not someone who dies here.’

Gennadi picked up his pace in earnest, dashing through the snowy forest. Every joint in his body felt like it was shattering, and his heart felt ready to burst.

And while he was trying his utmost like that, Aethlyn’s condition was deteriorating visibly. Her breathing and heartbeat had grown so faint they were barely audible.

Gritting his teeth as he ran, Gennadi muttered a string of harsh curses under his breath.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Why on earth? Why? Why?!

A frantic rage suddenly welled up inside him. If he had even a shred of strength left, Gennadi would have screamed at the top of his lungs right then and there.

Why on earth did it have to turn out like this?

Unlike Gennadi, who was born a werewolf and destined to live and die in battle, Aethlyn Wintercrown was a mage born and raised in a prestigious family.

Which meant there was zero reason for her to die in such a miserable fashion.

A bitter regret rose all the way to his throat.

‘I should have stopped her. I should have scared her off by barking like a dog or something.’

Gennadi could not forgive himself for failing to properly stop Aethlyn on the train returning to the Kran Trench after her leave. Right to her face, when she was all high and mighty talking nonsense about noble virtues and the responsibilities of a family head, he should have forcefully told her to drop that crap right now.

This isn’t a place for someone like you to come.

“Of course I know that ideals and reality are different. I know that war isn’t heroic like the books say, and that it’s closer to something dirty and ugly. But if a single war can prevent countless wars to come, wouldn’t there be nothing quite as valuable as that?”

It was no place for someone who earnestly repeated such strange, unhinged nonsense to come.

A sigh mixed with anger and resentment spilled from the depths of his abdomen.

Before he knew it, the gentle snowfall had escalated into a veritable blizzard beating down against the forest and the two figures. To shield Aethlyn from the biting cold, Gennadi ran with his upper body bent even further forward. Yet he still couldn’t block away all of the fierce winds lashing at Aethlyn. The face he glanced down at was paler than a sheet of blank paper.

Gennadi realized that Aethlyn’s life was slipping away right from his arms.

“……”

His vision grew blurrier and blurrier, slipping completely out of control. It wasn’t because of the snow; his eyesight itself seemed to be fading.

As if his feet were weighed down by cast iron, his stride grew heavier and heavier. His entire body began to scream at the reality that his mate’s lifespan was running out.

“Don’t die.”

Gennadi muttered to himself unconsciously.

“You haven’t even given me a name yet.”

“You need to get along well with the other dogs from now on.”

“Because I won’t be here much longer.”

“Uncle Ben will take good care of you. Understand?”

“I still don’t have a name.”

‘Gennadi Vilev’ was a name given to him at the mercenary academy. A human name used to facilitate human administrative work. It was a name a senior had used before graduating from the mercenary academy, which Gennadi inherited after the senior died.

“Because you never gave me one.”

So, when they met again, when she called him ‘Sergeant Vilev’—only then, belatedly, did he think that name truly sounded like his own real name.

“……”

Aethlyn remained silent the entire time Gennadi muttered to himself. Yet somehow, it even felt as though her heartbeat had grown more distinct.

No, that must have been just an illusion.

Reality was merciless. Aethlyn and Gennadi were freezing to death right now. In a forest so cold that even blood would freeze.

It was truly a hellish situation. No. Gennadi moved his lips and muttered.

“It couldn’t possibly be hell.”

Gennadi’s chapped lips trembled minutely up and down.

This place, being here with you, could never be hell.

The snowfall was now so fierce that he couldn’t see an inch ahead. When Gennadi blinked, the cold snow that had settled upon his eyelashes tumbled down in a flurry onto his cheeks.

Gennadi forced his freezing legs forward, keeping them moving somehow. A revolving lantern of memories flashed across his eyes.

‘……’

Over the past twelve years, very occasionally.

Gennadi had sometimes pictured a future where Aethlyn became the head of the House Wintercrown. In that future, Aethlyn always wore a confident smile.

An Aethlyn who married a mage with a clear, pale face just like her own, building a harmonious family. The children who took after Aethlyn must have been healthy and cheerful, with not a trace of madness or berserk rages to be found anywhere.

In days to come, Aethlyn would sit in the same conference chambers as the politicians of the Barbaros Empire, becoming a heavyweight figure who signed treaties swaying the lives of hundreds or thousands of soldiers, including Gennadi. The contents would be written in fancy phrases Gennadi couldn’t possibly understand.

While Aethlyn marched along that path of success, Gennadi would breathe his last, crammed into some filthy trench pit in a distant foreign land. A death that wasn’t dramatic in the least, one that nobody would grieve over.

Thanks to his dog tag remaining intact, the surviving family members would collect the survivor death benefits.

That was the sole meaning his death would hold.

And decades later, in the luxurious Wintercrown ducal mansion, Aethlyn would also draw her last breath. Safely, peacefully, with all her family watching over her. Her portrait would hang alongside Arcan Wintercrown and Henry Wintercrown. Rising to that echelon in the great history of the House Wintercrown.

That was the future of Aethlyn that Gennadi envisioned. Two lives ending at completely separate points, like two straight lines intersecting just once and drifting infinitely apart. Up to that point, it had been realistic in its own way.

The real problem was when Gennadi engaged in what you called ‘imagination.’

Swept up in the heat of rutting season as he masturbated with rough hands, or marching day after day under a blazing sun drinking nothing but dew, the imagination sleeping deep within his heart would sometimes glare fiercely awake.