The medic’s daily routine gradually settled into a monotonous rhythm, much like when Lin Yu had first begun her medical studies under Sister Nangong’s tutelage, filled with the tedious tasks of surgery and suturing.
Beyond that, her days were occupied with tending to the wounded, changing bandages, applying ointments, and even assisting them to the latrines.
More often than not, it was the injured soldiers who felt bashful in such situations, instinctively turning away so she wouldn’t see.
Lin Yu herself remained unperturbed; after all, she had witnessed plenty in her twenty-four years of a previous life.
She was no fragile maiden, unlike those little girls such as Diacla, who would blush crimson at the sight of a bare-chested man.
A fundamental difference separated her from them.
Even if the fundamental distinction were absent, there was at least a superficial one.
Her memories from a past life proved to be a considerable advantage, though occasionally they morphed into a vexing dilemma: what excuse could she possibly concoct to remain single in this life?
Yet, despite her musings, the immediate tasks at hand remained paramount.
The Lanforthians had launched two nocturnal assaults, their combined tactics of creeping barrage and infantry charges crippling the units rotated from the right bank.
Now, it was the reinforcement troops holding the line on the left bank.
By the third day of the Battle of Mang River, the bridge still stood resolute, yet the defensive positions lay in utter ruin.
The Lanforthian artillery had expended every shell, unleashing a devastating torrent upon the left bank’s fortifications, reducing them to little more than rubble.
Soldiers stationed within these shattered defenses were now effectively as exposed as if they stood on open ground.
The enemy commander, it seemed, was a stubborn and tenacious old man, fixated relentlessly on that single bridge.
Not only did magic fluctuations reverberate throughout the night, but the incessant roar of explosions echoed all the way to the right bank, robbing Lin Yu of an entire night’s sleep.
This indirectly led to her mistakenly handing the military doctor a pair of tweezers instead of hemostatic forceps, resulting in her being angrily ejected from the operating room.
*****
Gazing up at the front lines beyond the mountains, where the sky was usually cloudless… ah, this time there were clouds, thus the sunlight appeared somewhat muted.
The military doctor himself was a picture of utter exhaustion, looking as though he’d been worked to the bone.
Furthermore, due to an overdose of magic potions, his face was considerably more haggard than any of the wounded, making him appear, at first glance, to be the one truly in need of lying on the operating table.
Therefore, it was best not to provoke his temper and simply wait patiently outside the surgical tent.
Standing outside like a student punished by a homeroom teacher, she waved a greeting to Sister Nangong, who was passing by the adjacent tent.
Suddenly, the urge to slack off (TL Note: ‘Mōyú,’ literally ‘to touch fish,’ is a Chinese slang term for slacking off or procrastinating.) struck her.
“Lin Yu, come here for a moment.”
Just as she was preparing to slip away unnoticed, Sister Nangong from the neighboring tent suddenly called her over.
“I’ve gained some insight into your sudden collapse that day.”
Sister Nangong casually tossed the bloodied bandage from her hand into a basin of water, then abruptly pulled Lin Yu, who had just approached, into the narrow space between the two tents.
“Hmm?” After being tugged along, her curious gaze drifted to Sister Nangong’s face.
“It seems like a waste of time to discuss such an irrelevant matter right now, doesn’t it? With so many wounded soldiers evacuated from the left bank, Sister Nangong, you should focus on your work first.”
She twisted her right wrist, attempting to free her hand from Sister Nangong’s grasp, but Sister Nangong only tightened her grip further.
“Aren’t you also standing here with nothing to do? And you have the nerve to lecture me,” Sister Nangong paused.
“What I want to discuss is the reason for your collapse the day before yesterday, and why you’ve been so dispirited lately.”
“I just haven’t been sleeping well, it’s nothing major.”
Such assurances clearly failed to alleviate Sister Nangong’s concern.
“It’s a huge problem.
If you don’t pay attention now, don’t suddenly collapse on the battlefield when it matters most.”
“…Alright, tell me why.”
“The Lanforthians’ shells and magic stones were transported together, weren’t they? When you blew up those shells, did the explosion affect the magic stones used to fire them?”
Lin Yu rested her chin on her hand, pondering for a moment.
“They must have been stored very close together.”
At the time, they had seen the Lanforthian ammunition trucks from afar, observing boxes of shells and magic stones in front of the soldiers responsible for unloading them.
The shells were piled up, with the magic stones, acting as ‘propellant,’ right beside them.
An explosion powerful enough to affect an area so far away would undoubtedly have impacted the magic stones as well.
“How close, precisely?”
“Right next to them; the wooden crates containing magic stones were directly beside the shells.”
“That’s the reason then,” Sister Nangong concluded after hearing Lin Yu’s answer.
“The sympathetic detonation of the shells triggered all the surrounding magic stones.
Since the magic wasn’t released in the form of a spell, the accumulated magical energy within the stones coalesced, forming a concentrated magic zone.”
“Concentrated zone?”
As a complete novice, having only recently become a mage and knowing but a single spell, every term related to magic was entirely new to her.
Sister Nangong, on the other hand, was like her mentor… No, Sister Nangong *was* her mentor, the sole guide on her journey to learn healing magic.
As her only instructor, Sister Nangong patiently expounded upon knowledge she had never encountered before.
“For instance, people who have lived for a long time on the Turu Plateau experience ‘oxygen intoxication’ (TL Note: A phenomenon where individuals accustomed to high altitudes feel unwell when exposed to lower altitudes with higher oxygen levels.) when they descend to lower elevations.
Similarly, a mage long accustomed to an environment with low ambient magic concentration will exhibit a similar reaction when confronted with such a high-concentration magic environment.”
“Of course, there’s also the factor of the industrial magic stones being of poor quality.
The accumulation of harmful substances within them reached a critical point, transforming quantitatively into a qualitative change that affected your body as well.”
Lin Yu nodded, a sudden realization dawning upon her.
“Oh, I see now.”
In truth, she hadn’t fully grasped it.
Magic, after all, should ideally be abundant; with such a rich supply of absorbable magic in the environment, she should have been overjoyed, not collapsing.
Why would she faint?
Perhaps this alternate world truly had a concept of ‘magic intoxication,’ or perhaps ‘magic intolerance,’ as she mused.
Lin Yu felt she was quite the linguistic genius, having conjured up numerous idioms laden with ambiguity, from ‘food and s*x are human nature’ to ‘magic intolerance’.
But the problem isn’t over yet.
“Even so, an overload of ambient magic shouldn’t cause you to faint for such an extended period, should it? I heard you were unconscious for a full four hours, and developed a high fever during that time.”
“Eh?”
‘Not over yet? Is there more to this?’
“Besides blowing up a day’s worth of their ammunition, what other magic-related things did you do? Think carefully now.”
“Hmm…” After a moment of contemplation, Lin Yu informed Sister Nangong that she had used magic before losing consciousness.
“I also cast a healing spell on myself.”
“A healing spell? Where were you injured that day?”
Lin Yu raised a hand and pointed to her temple.
“There was no external injury.
I just felt dizzy, so I suspected it might be a concussion and used it here once.”
“You—you idiot! Listen closely: healing spells absolutely must not be used on the head, especially not on the brain! Do you understand?!”
“Why?”
“The essence of a healing spell is to promote cell division to heal wounds.
You had no wound on your head, so in such a situation, accelerating cell division without cause would merely lead to premature cellular aging, wouldn’t it?”
‘Ah… there’s such a theory?’
While in a daze, Lin Yu had simply regarded healing spells as a quick recovery method from fantasy works in her previous life, completely overlooking the scientific principles they entailed.
From Sister Nangong’s explanation, Lin Yu seemed to have uncovered the truth behind her collapse: a sudden healing spell had accelerated the aging of her brain cells, causing her to instantly fall into a deep, heavy slumber.
‘Her brain received a solo “time acceleration” spell; it’d be strange if she *didn’t* faint.’
“I know…”
Learning from her mistake, she vowed to engrave this lesson firmly in her mind, certain it would prove invaluable for future encounters.
‘An enemy mage, witnessing her use healing magic, might stand there openly scoffing, only to be met by one of Lin Yu’s healing arrows, resulting in an instant, high-quality sleep via headshot.’
‘This time, it truly would be ‘sleep,’ the kind one doesn’t wake from for quite a while.’
‘Wait, I’m only fifteen.
After a healing spell, shouldn’t it be ‘accelerated development’ rather than ‘aging’?’
Lin Yu’s whimsical thoughts drifted on the breeze; even as she plotted her escape to slack off, intriguing ideas continued to occupy her mind.
‘If I used a healing spell on these two uncooperative things on my chest, would they rapidly grow and rid me of this washboard figure?’
Of course, these were merely fleeting thoughts.
Commander Yang’s whereabouts remained unknown, and she currently had no compelling reason to shed her flat-chested physique.