Second Life as a Soldier

In the morning, I made my way toward the infirmary, trying to remember everything I read last night. My hands were sweating for two reasons. First, I might have overcommitted. The medical texts were far more complicated than I expected. The books covered different herbs, poisons, antidotes, and all their variations, then combined that with mana circulation inside the body. By the time I finished reading, my brain felt like it had stopped working.

Even after spending my free time the next day reviewing everything with [Memory Recall (UC)], I was more confused than before. For example, I read two books explaining the differences between Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 mana systems.

Tier 1: mana is mainly stored near the heart.

Tier 2: seven mana nodes.

Tier 3: a complete mana channel network forms

That part was simple. The problem came after. Tier 3 treatment required stronger herbs and more refined antidotes, but they also had to be applied differently depending on the patient’s Class and skills. My question was basic: how am I supposed to know a patient’s Class, especially if they’re unconscious? And even if they’re conscious, I can’t ask them to list their skills. That’s practically forbidden in the army, especially for someone who has no authority over them.

After reading all that and spending another day trying to make sense of it, I still couldn’t figure out the answer. That led to the second reason for my sweaty hands: the Lieutenant’s warning. Before I could enter the infirmary, I had to report to the head of the medical division, Lieutenant Cicero. He would test me. If he didn’t approve, I wouldn’t be allowed to train here at all.

Lieutenant Fenward made it clear that Cicero holds full authority over the medical division. Even he couldn’t overturn Cicero’s decisions. If Cicero rejected me, there was nothing I could do.

Fenward described Cicero as a man obsessed with order and precision, strict to the point of being difficult. Not just with cleanliness or handling herbs, but with knowledge itself. He often sent new recruits back for full retraining under his supervision. Even when the medical ward was short-staffed, he would rather keep them under close watch than risk mistakes.

Fenward said, half-grumbling, that Cicero would rather lose a patient to an untreated wound than allow one of his medics to botch a treatment and give a soldier a slow, preventable death.

I reached the infirmary entrance, took a deep breath, and asked the guard to direct me to Lieutenant Cicero’s office. He pointed toward a door at the far end. I made my way through the rows of beds and passing healers, and when I reached the office door, I saw an older man standing just outside it. I assumed he was Lieutenant Cicero.

His shoulders were broad, and his arms looked firm under his sleeves, more like a retired soldier than a healer. His face was lined with deep wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, and his skin looked worn from years outdoors. His hair was thin and mostly white, pushed back from a receding hairline, with a bald patch on top. A short white beard covered his jaw, trimmed but rough. His pale gray eyes were sharp and alert.

What stood out even more was his clothing. The coat he wore looked far better than anything at the fort. The fur lining alone was something I had never seen, especially not this far from any city. Even his uniform underneath had cleaner stitching and better material than ours, like someone had made it for a especially for him.

I stepped closer and saluted.

“You are the private Fenward sent?” Lieutenant Cicero said.

“Yes, Sir,” I replied, standing straight. The wrinkles around his eyes tightened into a frown, which only made me more tense.

“State your reason for requesting medical training at this time.” His tone held no patience.

“I have basic training in Field Medicine, Sir,” I answered. “I learned that healing becomes less effective on high Tier 2 or Tier 3 injuries. With the beast tide approaching, I thought advanced techniques might make me more useful in the field and could save lives. I want to—”

“Summarize your field experience.” he interrupted sharply before I could finish.

“Yes, Sir. A few. During expeditions outside the walls, I treated some minor injuries and prepared a basic antidote as a preventive measure for Venelion poison. Yesterday I provided first aid for a fractured rib.”

He didn’t blink. “Very well. Follow.”

He turned and walked deeper into the infirmary. I fell in step behind him.

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The room was quiet except for the low groans of patients and the faint clink of tools from a side table. Beds were lined in two uneven rows, only a few occupied, but each holding someone wrapped in bandages or breathing in short, pained bursts. The air smelled of alcohol, iron, and old sweat. Mana lamps on the walls cast a steady, pale light, with no warmth to it.

Cicero stopped beside a soldier with heavy bruising across the ribs.

“Diagnosis,” he said, eyes still on the patient.

“Rib trauma. No puncture signs,” I answered quickly.

He nodded once and moved on, stopping at another bed where a leg was wrapped badly with dried blood showing through.

“Treatment?”

“Clean, stabilize, then rewrap. Check for infection after.”

“Do the proper steps in order. Inspect only after treating the immediate problem” he corrected.

For the next three hours, he marched me from bed to bed, firing questions, cutting off my answers, pointing at wounds, demanding explanations, and forcing me to justify every step. My back was soaked with sweat within the first hour. The mana lamps made the air feel hotter than it should, my throat dried from constant speaking, and my legs ached from standing perfectly straight.

This wasn’t my first time under pressure. I had answered to Lieutenant-level officers before. The Rune-master had grilled me on array, and when I first proposed my information recording method, Lieutenant Fenward had tested every detail. But Cicero was different. Completely different. He carried a presence that didn’t fit the fort at all. Every action felt deliberate, as if he were walking through a noble court, not a cramped infirmary filled with groaning soldiers and overworked healers.

And he never stopped moving. He tested me while checking a patient’s bandages, while giving instructions to another healer, even while receiving updates about patient’s cases. Yet none of it seemed chaotic. Everything he did was controlled, organized, as if he expected the entire room to match his standard.

Even his speech felt foreign. A measured tone, precise words, and terms I barely understood.

“Your stabilization was improvident.”

“This lesion shows early putrefaction.”

“A Tier 2 malady requires stronger decoctions.”

“His vital essence is stagnating. Why didn’t you adjust the poultice?”

Thankfully he never threw me out. He kept his questions focused on Tier 1 and Tier 2 injuries and basic poisoning. Every time I got something partly wrong, he corrected me sharply, then explained the proper method in clear terms.

After the third hour, he finally stopped and stared at me for a moment.

“You can learn,” he said. “But I am still not convinced you are ready for advanced healing.”

I had no idea how to respond. I was not here to become a full healer anyway. I only came looking for something that could help my squad and me, but I knew saying that would get me thrown out immediately. So I stayed silent and waited for him to continue.

“Do you have questions? I heard you were reading in the library before coming here.”

“Yes,” I said quickly. “In the books, it talks about applying herbs or antidotes and then using mana to amplify the effect. I wanted to understand what that means exactly.”

He nodded once, letting me continue.

“When it says ‘use mana to amplify the effect,’ how do you apply it? Do you use your mana or the patient’s mana? Does it still work on deeper wounds? And with poison, since it spreads through the bloodstream or mana channels, does applying something to the wound even help? If poison is consumed, how does mana work then?” I asked, firing off everything I had stored in my head.

He stared at me like I was a loud child with no manners.

“Do you have [Mana Manipulation] or any skill that allows you to control mana outside your body?” he asked.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Then that’s what it means,” he said flatly. “You guide your mana through the medicine. Healing paste, antidote, herbs, it doesn’t matter. Your mana helps push the effect into the body through the wound and strengthens it. The same applies to poison. Antidotes are often more conductive than poisons. You use your mana to guide the antidote along the patient’s mana channels. That is how you amplify the effect.”

I nodded, some confusion clearing. I asked a few more questions about specific herbs and antidotes, then moved to something I thought was basic but important for Tier 3 cases.

”Sir… if a soldier is unconscious, how do I know what to treat first? The books say to choose based on Class and skills. For example, in warriors, a poison in the upper torso spreads faster due to battle-related mana flow. For scouts or ranger classes, the lower body has similar priority. But if someone is unconscious, how do I know their Class, their skills, how severe the effect of poison is, or what procedure to follow?”

The air in the room changed instantly. His expression tightened into something bitter. It felt like every bit of goodwill I had earned during the last three hours disappeared in a single moment.

He muttered under his breath, “Peasant education will be the death of someone one day.”

Then he looked at me with open irritation. “Come.”

He walked toward his office. I followed. He stepped inside but held up a hand for me to wait outside. After a minute, he came out carrying two medical manuals.

“Your instructors have failed you. Not surprising, given what passes for training in these parts. Take these manuals. Don’t come back here until you know everything in them. And do not treat anyone without reading them first. You shouldn’t even be allowed to walk into the infirmary if you don’t have basic knowledge. If you cannot finish them in two days, don’t come back until after beast tide. We already have too many patients. Nobody has time to babysit you.”

He shoved the books into my arms and dismissed me with a wave.

I looked down at the two thick manuals. The Lieutenant had given me three days of daylight access to train in the infirmary, and I didn’t want to waste that time sitting in a corner reading. That meant I had about five hours before my night shift now that I’d been kicked out. If I didn’t sleep tonight, I could squeeze in a few more hours. I needed to finish these before tomorrow’s infirmary session.