Black Badger

Ricardo headed down to the office with Ska.

"If you don't want to go to the Hospital Wing, at least take a shower."

His longtime friend nagged him on the way down.

Ricardo didn't argue with that. He had to wash up anyway if he was going to write the report in the office. He wanted to finish the report as quickly as possible, even if it was just a minute faster, and wrap up the mission.

He also needed to check on the condition of his juniors.

"If you submit the report, I can go home too."

Ska muttered as he got off on the floor with the High Command Office.

"Once you're done with work, come up. Let's head out together."

Ricardo followed his advice.

After washing up in the communal shower room, he went straight to the PC. Luckily, no one was in the office where the report PC was set up. He didn't have the mental energy to talk to anyone right then.

He quickly sat down and wrote the report, then headed to the High Command Office.

Fortunately, only Ska was in the office.

His friend gestured for him to sit and wait.

Ricardo sprawled out on the guest sofa.

"Asil will be fine."

Ska delivered the news without even lifting his head from his desk.

"He'll suffer a bit, but they say he'll recover fully without any aftereffects."

"Ahh..."

Ricardo let out a long sigh.

He swallowed the wave of relief that rose within him. Defeat, shame, worry—various negative emotions had been gripping him. In the midst of that, the positive news eased his breathing a little.

As for Barbie, she probably wouldn't get any better.

"But they say Barbie's holding up better than expected."

His comrade didn't need to explain, but he had always had a deep understanding of others.

His casually considerate demeanor hadn't changed even after gaining power.

"She wants to keep working in the field. She'll struggle with phantom pain for a while, but she'll adapt eventually. Her skills have improved a lot too."

"Yeah... I hope so..."

He had no right to chime in.

After all, Barbie was his responsibility too. From then on, every time he saw Barbie Winter's legs, a sharp self-loathing would rake across his heart.

He gave a brief reply and shut his mouth, and silence returned once more.

Ricardo stared at the spacious office, immersed in the quiet.

Dawn.

The space belonged only to the on-duty staff and those pulling all-nighters. The mission should have ended before midnight, but even though he wasn't on night duty, he watched the clock head toward 3 a.m.

In this place where he never felt attached no matter how many times he came, he began retracing the reasons why things had gone wrong again.

As he sat there, Ska looked up.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm full of energy, what about it~"

The aide snorted softly.

Ricardo smiled faintly. He knew it wasn't about his physical health, but he had no intention of being honest about his mental state.

The other man, knowing that pressing further wouldn't yield an answer, sighed.

"They're going to intubate Hilde's chest."

Ricardo furrowed his brow.

He wiped away the habitual smile and looked at Ska.

"Why?"

"Rib fractures damaged his chest wall. His healing ability is better than a normal person's, so it'll heal well."

"Ha."

Ricardo let out a hollow laugh.

He should have stopped him from going to the arena to the end. He'd reluctantly allowed it because he looked fine on the outside. Who could have known that the rookie was enduring the pain with a straight face?

No, maybe he should have known.

He furrowed his brow as he recalled the conversation in the narrow passageway.

The new recruit who had laughed, saying his words were completely wrong.

At that moment, he hadn't seemed like a green rookie but like a battle-weary veteran soldier.

"Anything else~?"

"Aside from the hemothorax? I haven't heard, so I don't know. If they only reported the ribs, the rest should be fine."

"He was injected with a large dose of narcotics..."

The memory from that time soured his mood in an instant.

"I don't think he mentioned it himself~"

"Ah."

Ska made a short sound.

"I'll pass it on."

Ricardo closed his mouth again.

The events in the prison cell pricked at his mood. The memory of the white-haired rookie huddled in the corner, groaning in pain, was still vivid. In the chaos, he'd rolled into the corner to avoid touching the others who had become normal people.

Back then, he'd thought about how to handle this likable but reckless guy.

Now he realized that the pain must have been considerable. The guy who had run around with a straight face despite fractured ribs had buried his head and clawed at the floor.

That idiot didn't know how to take care of himself.

Lost in regret, Ska stepped out from behind his desk.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. Let's head home."

"Ska."

Ska stood up.

In the bug-proofed office, with Ye-hyeon and his second aide Gilbert absent, and Ska having set aside his authority, Ricardo looked at his friend.

He wasn't about to miss this timing.

"What is Hilde?"

Ska didn't answer.

"How did he fall out of the portal?"

"Who knows."

"It doesn't seem that important..."

Ricardo wasn't a fool, and he knew Hilde wasn't ordinary.

From their first meeting up to that point, nothing about him was normal. The unusual augmented body, the Supreme Commander's strange reaction, the exceptional mentor.

Golden eyes like the sun, something that couldn't occur naturally.

Yet the rookie seemed to think of himself as just an ordinary new recruit.

"He seemed to have recalled some memories..."

"...Did he say that?"

"Sort of... I just heard he remembered some parts~."

Until then, he'd let it be.

Because he didn't want to know the details. At his age, he knew all too well that ignorance could be bliss. He was curious about how he'd been ejected from the portal and liked him enough to take him on missions, but he hadn't planned to invest deep emotions to hear his full story.

Unless he gained a proper augmented body.

He was someone who could die at any moment. So even when he became unbearably curious about the rookie's past, or wanted to keep that kind yet steadfast person around, Ricardo had tried not to get too attached.

Recalling the recklessness of charging forward in the typhoon and the wounds that wouldn't heal.

Teach him well, but don't pour in as much affection as he would for a comrade.

But...

"If he remembers, hear it from him directly."

Ska's voice pulled him from his thoughts.

"That would be the most reliable."

"Ah~... So you don't have the authority to tell me~..."

"It's his personal matter."

Even at 3 a.m., his comrade looked as fresh as if he'd just arrived, and he sighed.

"And I don't know the details either."

"He said he's not someone reliable..."

Ricardo still didn't believe Hilde's words.

Now, even more so. Shouldn't he believe someone reliable?

"He thinks people see him as too good... Something like that... Seems like he might be a war or disaster survivor... No matter how I look at it, he seemed to feel the shame of a survivor..."

"Did the youngest say that?"

"Yeah, roughly~."

His condition must have been pretty bad.

Ska walked over to the sofa where Ricardo sat and furrowed his brow.

The aide shoved his hands into his pockets.

"I didn't know. Seems like he's rotting inside like you? I should say something to the HR Director."

"Why drag me into this~?"

"You still look for that revolver sometimes, don't you?"

Ska looked down at Ricardo with a wry smile.

"You probably bought new rounds for the ones I threw away. How long are they going to keep producing those?"

Ricardo didn't answer.

In his living room, the three-drawer cabinet, first drawer: the revolver. It was very outdated. As Ska said, it was astonishing that ammo was still being produced for such an old weapon.

It was cherished by his biological father.

The thing that man always carried. The thing he hadn't let go of even when crushed to death under a collapsing building. Next to the flattened corpse that was hard to recognize, it had maintained its form eerily well, and Ricardo had kept it to this day.

And he sought it out sometimes.

On cold nights.

On nights when the eyes of his sibling looking up from the rubble he'd dug through, his mother's skirt hem, and his father's corpse surged back. He would pull out a wooden chair from the dining table, sit, spin the revolver's cylinder, and stare into the barrel for a long time.

The impulse was always intense.

Jonathan Kudo and Ska Owen would search his house for revolver rounds whenever they visited and throw them away.

But...

"I don't think he'd commit suicide..."

Ricardo murmured as if to himself.

"Even if he doesn't take care of his body..."

"Yeah?"

Ska's voice brightened.

Ricardo nodded slowly.

His judgment was probably right.

He knew several people who had survived the war but couldn't bear the aftereffects and made the worst choice themselves. He also knew those always standing at the crossroads of the worst choice. So he'd developed an unwelcome ability to keenly read their unique atmosphere.

The fleeting glimpses of precariousness.

Hildebert didn't have that.

"I heard he doesn't take care of his body."

"When he's involved with others, sure. But normally..."

That rookie had a strange resolve instead.

A resolve to face the pain that came with self-loathing. A vow not to drown in emotions, flail about, and then abandon everything to run away.

"I get why you're eyeing him as a High Command junior..."

Were the heroes in myths like him?

A fine image of a leader...

"Yeah."

Ska smiled contentedly.

"In terms of character. A very ideal leader image. Ability is another story."

The problem was whether that rookie could maintain that attitude...

He tilted his chin up, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.

That kid had always looked at others' wounds instead of his own, erasing himself to focus on others.

It was so typical of him to show his own vulnerabilities when he was hyperventilating.

For a youngest, no less.

"But we need to teach him how to show when he's hurting."

At Ska's words, Ricardo lowered his raised head.

"He can't die young."

Ha.

So there really was something.

Ricardo sensed something unusual in Ska calling Hildebert "he" and saying emotionlessly that he couldn't die young. Ska Owen's words then weren't those of a senior to Hildebert. They were those of a Black Badger High Command member.

Officially.

As someone responsible for leading this bizarre war to victory.

"I'm heading to the Hospital Wing on the way down. You coming?"

"Of course~."

Since he wouldn't answer even if asked, he'd have to find out directly.

"I need to time when to chew him out~"

He grinned and stood up.

He followed his friend, who nagged him to scold the kid appropriately.

Silently, he resolved to keep an eye on this bizarre new recruit from then on. Teach him how to pretend to be hurt, how to act like a proper youngest, watch him for a long time, and uncover his past.

Additionally, he thought he should advise the badgers who would go on missions with Hildebert in the future.

A warning that the idiot only looked at others foolishly, so someone else needed to watch him.

Fortunately, he had enough seniority to warn most badgers, and Ricardo headed to the Hospital Wing.

*

"Uh."

Lying there bored while receiving painkillers, I blinked at the sight of Ricardo and Ska.

"Still here?"

Hadn't you gone home yet?

I blinked several times at the approaching men. I couldn't believe my seniors hadn't gone home yet.

It was almost dawn then.

Had they gone to Asil and Barbie's rooms and gotten delayed?

I'd heard both were in better condition than expected. Had they talked with them and lost track of time, or was there something else?

Either way, seeing seniors who hadn't gone home yet made me uncomfortable.

I wanted him to go home quickly and recover with sleep.

"Senior."

So as soon as the two seniors stopped by the bedside, I asked.

"You're not just taking a break before coming back, right? Go home and rest now."

Thwack!

I got knuckle-rapped.

My mouth dropped open at the knuckle-rap so fast the finger was invisible.

It hurt.

...And that smiling face looked scary.

I pressed my lips into a line and cautiously checked Ricardo's expression before asking more carefully.

"...Are you mad?"

"You have a talent for getting on people's nerves with words~."

"Ah, Yoon said something similar to me just now."

As I replied, Yoon, who was sitting beside me, looked up.

My mentor.

The grateful being who had rushed to the rooftop as soon as I returned. Despite the emergency surgery at dawn, he hadn't left and had watched the entire procedure...

Choi Yoon had been curious about the surgery process on my body, which Green Dream didn't affect.

"Isn't he the best mentor?"

"This punk is getting ruder to me by the day."

Yoon lazily uncrossed his legs.

"It's proof that I'm treating you comfortably. Don't you think so, Aide?"