After removing her gauntlets, Catherine's long, slender hands quickly unfastened Leo's knight armor. She was especially careful when removing the breastplate and backplate.
Looking at the marks of battle across Leo's backplate, Catherine felt a moment of emotion. In places she had known nothing about, Leo had endured so many attacks. There were four or five dents left by lead balls, three crossbow bolts still embedded in the plate, and one hole where a bolt had punched straight through.
Once the backplate was off, Leo took it and carefully studied the problem with the armor himself. Overall, the knight armor simply was not thick enough. It was only half a centimeter thick. Leo estimated that if he had armor with localized reinforcement, particularly over the chest and back, and those sections could reach one centimeter in thickness, then he would not have much to fear from the crossbow bolts of a C-Grade Haste Mage.
The five schools of magic had relationships of mutual countering and reinforcement. That was why Leo, despite being only a D-Grade Mage, could still think about ways to counter certain attacks from C-Grade Mages. Cipher spells countered Haste Magic particularly well to a certain extent. It did not matter how far an attack could reach if it could not penetrate the defense.
Catherine helped remove the leather garment beneath Leo's armor, revealing the injury underneath. Brad looked at him from both front and back before finally breathing a sigh of relief. The crossbow bolt had not pierced Leo's heart. It had merely scraped along his side and carved open a wound across his ribs. His life was not in danger.
Brad said from the side, "Beautiful Miss Catherine, let me handle the wound! We cannot let Leo's blood dirty your sacred hands!"
Leo could not help rolling his eyes. For someone as slow as Brad, it really was remarkable that he had managed to grow this old alive.
Catherine, however, said, "No! Leo East was wounded for Blackport County. How could the blood he shed on the battlefield possibly be dirty?"
Caleb Winifred had already ridden over nearby, but he knew he could not say anything now, even though he was very unwilling to see Catherine bandaging another man. Caleb did not even lift his visor. He did not want anyone seeing an expression he might fail to control.
"Let me do it, Miss Catherine!"
At that moment, the "battlefield atmosphere crew," a three-person medical team made up of Soul Mages, arrived beside Catherine. Two of them began examining Catherine. Her condition was extremely important to the Count. The Soul Mage who had just spoken prepared to treat Leo instead.
The woman had light golden hair. She was also a Cadet Officer from the Military Academy, and Leo knew her name.
Soul Mage, Lydia Murray...
Lydia Murray looked into Leo's eyes and said, "Mr. Leo, I am going to cast a Soul Spell and relieve your pain first."
With that, Lydia reached toward him. Leo instinctively pulled his hand back, preventing her from touching it. The evasive movement left Lydia's hand frozen in midair.
Leo was afraid of a Soul Mage's touch. It might expose some of his secrets. If Lydia's Soul Magic Power entered his body, or even entered his Soul Sea, what would happen if she discovered the bell hanging in the spire there?
Taking a step back, the spire bell was obviously something extraordinary. An E-Grade Soul Mage might not necessarily be able to detect it. But what about the Intimidation ritual? As a mage advancement ritual equivalent to the Final Entrustment ritual, did the Intimidation ritual leave any obvious signs that Lydia might discover?
Gray-black mist still drifted through Leo's Soul Sea, residue left behind after he completed Kozmo's Intimidation ritual. Countless thoughts flooded Leo's mind. He desperately tried to find a suitable excuse for dodging her touch, but for a moment he could think of nothing.
Brad said from beside him, "Leo, what are you doing? Hurry up and let Lydia treat you!"
Embarrassed, Leo said, "I'm sorry, Ms. Lydia. I've never been this close to such a beautiful young woman in my life... I didn't mean to dodge you... I'm a little nervous..." Leo could only wipe his hand on his clothes, as though trying to make it cleaner, while also covering his embarrassment.
Brad immediately said, "Leo! Aren't you thinking too much? Miss Lydia is only trying to stop the pain so she can treat you!"
Leo did not want to pay any attention to the noisy Brad, but then he saw Lydia Murray's face redden across from him. He leaned forward and spoke softly.
"Miss Lydia, I am not a believer in the Lord of the Eternal Sun. I have some resistance to Soul Spells. I hope you can agree to simply bandage me directly. I don't need a Soul Spell for pain relief."
Lydia Murray looked at Leo in puzzlement. Staring into Lydia Murray's deep black eyes, Leo suddenly thought of someone: Koliver Enwey! Lydia's gaze resembled Koliver's in a certain way. Both possessed a power that seemed able to penetrate the human heart.
No... More accurately, it was a power that crossed distance.
That clearly violated the First Law of Order Superstring Mages. It violated the Principle of Mandatory Contact. Leo had an intuition that Lydia Murray was not nearly as harmless as her delicate appearance suggested.
Lydia looked slightly surprised, but she did not ask too many questions. She replied, "Mr. Leo, you are under a misconception. The clergy of the Church of Radiant Prayer are all Soul Mages, but not all Soul Mages belong to the Church of Radiant Prayer.
"The Soul Spell I would use on you has nothing to do with your faith. Right now, I am a member of the field medical team. My duty is to relieve your pain and treat your wound." With that, Lydia simply took Leo's hand.
The two of them were very close together now. To everyone else, it merely looked as though Leo and Lydia were whispering to each other.
Caleb Winifred, still seated on his tall warhorse nearby, instantly felt much less hostility toward Leo. Leo and Lydia were the ones whose status and position actually matched each other.
Catherine saw the scene as well. She did not know why, but she found herself somewhat unwilling to look at it. She turned her head away, then turned back again under the pretense of surveying the battlefield, glancing from the corner of her eye at Leo sitting on the ground and Lydia Murray crouching very close beside him.
Leo knew nothing about what the people around him were thinking. He was extremely tense.
A fluctuation of Lydia's Soul Magic Power appeared and rushed directly toward Leo's central nervous system. His head and spine both felt the fluctuations of the Soul Spell to different degrees.
Just as when Koliver had used a Soul Spell to attack Leo's Soul Sea, the Calamity Bell was stimulated by an outside force and suddenly rang violently within his Soul Sea. Lydia's incoming Soul Magic Power was annihilated in the sound of the bell. Her expression stiffened for an instant, as though she had noticed something.
"I am not afraid of pain. Please just bandage me directly," Leo said. "My situation is somewhat unusual. If possible, I would like to get to know Miss Lydia... Of course, not in the way you're imagining. I mean that perhaps we could establish a relationship one step beyond merely being classmates."
Lydia raised her head and met Leo's gaze. Their eyes were less than fifteen centimeters apart. Leo could even see his own reflection in her pupils.
After thinking for a moment, Lydia said softly, "Mr. Leo, I understand your situation. Perhaps you have some misunderstanding about the Church of Radiant Prayer, and as a result you resist Soul Magic Power extremely strongly.
"Although this situation is unusual, it does exist. Some people with powerful wills can resist Soul Magic Power through the strength of their souls.
"Perhaps you have your own stories. Everyone does. Right now, I am a field doctor, and I will not investigate your stories. But I have no intention of establishing any other kind of 'relationship' with you!"
Lydia believed that Leo refused to let her use Soul Magic Power for pain relief because of a "misunderstanding" about the Church of Radiant Prayer, or perhaps even hatred toward it. That misunderstanding was far better than exposing Leo's real secrets.
He said softly, "Miss Lydia, you are the first Soul Mage I have ever known. I believe in fate, and right now I need a beautiful Soul Mage to answer some of my questions. After the battle, if I am fortunate enough not to die, I hope I can pay the beautiful Miss Lydia a visit."
Lydia did not answer. After applying medicine to the wound, she simply began bandaging Leo.
The disinfectant and hemostatic medicine were extremely irritating, but Leo endured it without showing anything unusual. By now, he was bare from the waist up, and the bandage wrapped several times horizontally around his chest. It was a little tight, but Leo did not dare say much about it.
He silently put his leather undergarment back on. The marks left by the straps of the plate armor were still visible across it.
He had no idea whom he could talk to about the abnormalities in his soul. If he could get some information from Lydia, that would be excellent.
Once Lydia finished the bandage, she left with the other two members of her team. Leo watched Lydia's back as she walked away and stared blankly for a while.
It was a habit Leo had brought out of the spire with him. Whenever he was thinking about something, he tended to go still and drift off into a vacant daze.
Brad came over and nudged Leo with his elbow. "Lydia is our senior at the Academy. I know what you're thinking. We're both men. I understand."
Leo sucked in a sharp breath. "Your elbow just hit my wound. What do you think I'm thinking about right now?"
"Oh, oh, oh! Sorry, Leo!"
By then, Catherine's four retainers had returned. They were carrying a thick pole and a bundle of rope.
Before the retainers tied up the falconet, Leo made a show of studying it for a while. In truth, he did not really understand what he was looking at.
First, he checked whether it had rifling so he could estimate how far along the West Empire's technology tree was. There was no rifling. It was only a smoothbore cannon.
Then he examined the casting of the barrel, but he could not tell anything from that either. Finally, he looked at the touch hole, the structure of the ignition point, and ended his performance there. After all, at the moment, no one had more authority to speak about this cannon than he did.
Brad chose the right moment to ask, "Leo, did you figure anything out?"
Leo thought for a moment, then said, "No. The specifics should be left for the Count to decide. But the barrel has the words 'falconet' engraved on it. That should be its name."
Every cavalryman nearby began thinking about what the name meant. What a pity. This weapon was destined not to become Leo's spoils of war... He could only hope the Count of Blackport would recognize the cannon's value and give him more rewards in exchange.
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