I found myself in an unfamiliar bed when I came to.

"You sure are a deep sleeper."

Next to me was general Batinu, sitting on a stool, with very tired looking eyes. It seemed as if she was monitoring me for most of the time I was passed out. Judging by all the soldiers lying on beds and stretchers behind her, I was most likely inside the field hospital.

"What happened?"

"You passed out for a full day after that fight against the dragon."

"I'm still in Border Town, right?"

"Yes."

If this was still Border Town, then that meant that the dragon was successfully defeated, and the town was now safe again.

"So the army was able to take down the dragon in the end?"

"That's right."

"Could you tell me what happened after I passed out, then?"

"Long story short, the dragon lost track of where Denato was knocked towards, so it decided to switch its target to you since it most likely noticed a large amount of mana being channeled."

"Wouldn't I have been dead if that were the case?"

"Your temporary staff exploded at the same moment the dragon used its breath attack, causing you to get knocked back, so you luckily narrowly avoided a direct hit."

"Still, that would have meant I took a heavy blow, though, since its breath attack would have landed really close."

"Yes, you were in a very bad state after that. It took us the whole night to recover you."

I reckon I had a big stroke of luck there.

"I'm not missing any body parts, am I?"

My biggest concern now was whether taking a breath attack that close would result in injuries so severe that amputations would have been necessary.

"Well, we were prepared to amputate you and stitch you up with a few replacement body parts from the zombies."

"What?"

I started feeling my body to see if there was anything abnormal.

"But your magic resistance was surprisingly high. You only had some gashes and bone fractures, which healed themselves after we injected half a dozen recovery potions into your body."

"I can understand recovering from gashes, but isn't one day a little too short for bone fractures?"

Healing potions only sped up one's natural recovery process. There was no such thing as a miracle drug or spell that instantly healed people.

"…"

"Miss Batinu?"

"…"

"Hey, say something please. I'm getting a bit concerned now."

"…"

"Don't tell me you replaced my bones with those from a zombie?!"

I was going to get up from the bed, but one of the trolls gently pushed me back down.

"No, no! It's nothing like that!"

"Then why did you remain silent?"

"All your bone fractures were in the leg area, since they were closest to where the breath attack hit."

I tried moving my legs a little. They seemed to still be functional, although I did feel a slight bit of pain doing so.

"Is there still something wrong with my legs?"

"Under the effect of your potions, it took your gashes about 10 hours to heal. Bone fractures take about four times as long, so they most likely won't recover fully until tomorrow morning."

"That explains why my legs still hurt when I move them, but why did you stay silent earlier?"

"Well… We ran out of supplies to make casts, so we reinforced the fractures with cement instead to keep it in the right spot…"

"Cement?! Are you out of your mind!?"

I really wanted to get up and slap someone, but the troll was still keeping me lying in bed.

"I'm sorry! It was either that or amputation! We'll do surgery on you tonight when the bones heal a little more to remove the cement!"

"Seriously, though, couldn't you people have used something normal instead, like an armor plate?!"

"I'm sorry! You were in a critical state, we didn't have time to think it through!"

I took a deep breath to calm myself down a little.

"Well, what's done is done already. Please don't do anything bizarre after my surgery tonight."

"We won't. I promise."

"Anyways, back to the topic of the dragon, how did it die?"

"Its breath attack split into two, and one of the two halves of the beam hit the spot where your staff was wedged. The dragon paralyzed itself."

Kind of ironic how a thunder dragon couldn't withstand a direct hit from its own thunder element attack. Come to think of it, though, a powerful beam of energy hitting an open wound would probably cause a serious injury to just about any living being.

"And the artillery units were able to blast it afterwards?"

"Quite easily so, yes."

"So I guess my idea worked in the end."

"It did. Denato gave a toast to you last night when we celebrated taking the dragon down."

"Speaking of that general, is he doing fine? He looked like he got roughed up yesterday."

"He didn't take any close hits from the breath attacks like you, so his wounds weren't as severe. He recovered after a couple hours."

"That's good to know. Is he still here? I want to thank him for believing in me when I brought up that bizarre plan."

"His province's rotation ended, so he marched home with his troops this morning. He did leave you a note, though."

General Batinu took out a piece of paper and gave it to me. It was written in the Demon language, as expected, so I could only read it but not understand it.

"Um… I'm a little disoriented, so could you please read it to me?"

I'd be a bit ashamed to admit being unable to read to this person that looked like a little child. There was a chance the content was urgent, so I couldn't really wait until Amber reappeared to have her read it to me.

"The note says, 'You still owe me a beer, so come visit Mitana city some time. The badge I gave you yesterday grants free access to the southwest province's towns.'"

To think that guy could still joke about a beer like this. I slightly chuckled and made a mental note to myself to visit his home city some day.

"Thank you."

"Well, now that you're awake, I'll leave you alone to rest up. Commander Mavuto wants to talk to you, so we'll move you into a private tent."

General Batinu got up from her stool and hovered off somewhere. The troll who was previously keeping me in bed pushed the bed over to another tent.

Five hours later, around 8 in the evening, I heard some rustling sounds outside of my tent.

"Are you still awake, Blaze?"

General Batinu was calling for me.

"I am!"

"Can we come in?"

"Yes!"

I guess commander Mavuto was going to see me now. I repositioned my pillow a bit to prop my head up, just to make it easier to talk.

…Except the commander wasn't there. There was instead a team of two fairies, two vampires, and a medusa coming in with the general.

"The commander isn't here?"

"He requested that you come see him before dawn tomorrow."

"And why are there so many people behind you?"

"I told you earlier, didn't I? We're going to remove the cement from your legs now."

"…"

The surgery was painless. The medusa petrified me the entire time, so I wasn't even conscious during the time it took place. As an extra measure of caution, the venom from the vampires' teeth got me into such a euphoric state that I essentially blacked out the entire night. Supposedly, my surgery finished within half an hour, and all the incisions they made healed up completely by the time I woke up the next day.

At around 4 o'clock, one of the trolls was supposed to push me over to the commander's office via wheelchair, but I felt like my legs were fully healed by that time. I opted instead to slowly walk over to the fortress while being accompanied by a nurse in case anything went wrong.

Taking into account the dragon's coiling around the observation tower and its violent movements throughout the fight two days prior, I expected the fortress to have been damaged in someway. Surprisingly, it was still completely intact. Either the dragon was a lot gentler than I thought, or the soldiers were forced to tirelessly repair it. One thing stood out, however: there were multiple carriages waiting outside of the fortress, and boxes and crates were scattered all throughout the fortress's interior. Seeing my confused look, the nurse explained the situation to me.

"Our troops were able to advance forward 20 kilometers across the border, since our military camps weren't destroyed like theirs. I heard that we were going to relocate our base of operations to somewhere closer to the new frontier."

I can't help but think that moving to a recently occupied enemy camp was a strategically idiotic idea. Border Town was surrounded by allied territory, so reinforcements could come over from any direction and surround the enemy in case of a takeover. The same could be said about the camps they were relocating to on the other side of the border: Kitrod's troops could come from any direction and surround the base.

Oh well, the commander and generals were more experienced in fighting, so there's no point asking. They probably had some elaborate important or plan to justify that stupid relocation idea.

The nurse accompanying me quietly left after I knocked on the door to the commander's office.

"Come in!"

"Good morning."

Except for a working desk and a few chairs, commander Mavuto's office was devoid of any decorations. There were a few boxes of documents placed next to the door.

"Ah, good morning, Blaze. Please take a seat."

I pulled a chair over and sat down on the opposite side of the commander's desk.

"How are you feeling? Did you get enough time to rest and recover?"

"The medics and nurses did a good job at fixing me up. I think I'm fine and healthy now."

"That's good to hear. I have a few things to give you."

The commander first took out a staff from under his desk and placed it in front of me. Looking at the oak wood pattern and the slightly oddly shaped mana stone at its tip, I could tell that this was my staff. I was in slight disbelief that the thing could still remain intact after getting hit by so many of the dragon's breath attacks, but considering how it remained undamaged after going through so many absurd events in its existence, I ended up suspending that disbelief.

"That's my staff."

"We were going to put this in an artifact museum to honor the slaying of a dragon. Will you let us do that? We will try to craft a similar staff to compensate you."

"I've had it for so long that I feel kind of attached to it. Besides, it's hard to replicate all the enhancements I've placed on it, so I don't think I could ever replace it. Could I please have it back?"

"Certainly. Let me know if you change your mind, though. We'd love to have it displayed."

While I feel somewhat honored that they were planning on putting my weapon on display, I really didn't want the world to figure out the staff had all sorts of embarrassing enhancements applied and ridicule me for it. Besides, the staff already saved my life so many times that I felt reluctant to replace it with something else, especially when I had no idea what sort of monster drops and materials I used in the first place to get the enhancements that thing currently had.

"There's one more thing I'd like to give you, but will you answer a few questions first?"

"I don't mind."

"Alright, come in!"

After the general made a slightly loud call, two military police officers came into the office.

"I'm not in trouble, am I?

"Of course not."

I hope that other thing he was going to give me wasn't a beating.

"Please answer all of these officers' questions truthfully. Nothing will happen to you, so keep calm."

It's hard to remain calm with two scary looking guys in this room about to interrogate me, you know.

"Your name?"

"B-Blaze."

"Family name?"

"I… don't know…"

"What?"

"I was an orphan…"

"Nobody ever adopted you?"

"No…"

"Then what was orphanage manager's family name?"

"I… I don't know that either…"

As embarrassing as it was to say, I didn't even know most of the orphanage guardians' first names, either. It was run by the local church, and all the guardians were people of the clergy, so the children would almost always address them as "sister," "father," "reverend," or "sir."

"Did you have any guardians whose family names you know?"

"No, but I had a mentor who taught me magic, though. His family name was Luto."

"Fine, we'll use that as your family name."

"Um… Actually never mind. His family isn't even here to complain about that."

"Your birth date?"

"The day of the summer solstice, 21 years ago."

The nuns in the orphanage told me my parents decided to name me Blaze because it was so hot that day, and the sun was up for so long that they felt like everything was being set ablaze in flames.

"That puts your age at 20 years and 9 or 10 months currently, correct?"

"Yes."

I wouldn't know exactly which day in the sixth month I was born without checking historical records for the annual solstice, but I could at least estimate my age. Today was supposedly the sixteenth day of the fourth month.

"Hometown?"

"Chosira town."

"Your height?"

"170 centimeters."

"Gender?"

"Male."

Was that question even necessary?

"Alright, thank you for answering."

"Wait, that's it?"

"Yes. The commander provided all other information we needed already."

The two officers promptly walked out and shut the office door.

"So what exactly was the point of that?"

I felt like it was a waste of time to bring in some officers just to ask me five questions. If the commander already gave them most of the information they needed, he could have just asked me those questions himself and relayed the information to the two.

"We were worried that you might try to run away after bringing you this close to the border."

"But those questions I was asked earlier had nothing to do with that matter."

"However, after seeing the things you did at the field hospital and in the fight against the dragon, we became convinced that you had no qualms about working on the Badoth side."

Well it's not like I could go home in the first place. I'd probably get killed on sight in Kitrod if someone knew I just came from the other side of the border.

"Along with Denato's endorsement, we will present you with a citizenship card in a few hours. With it, you should be able to travel around this land without issues."

"Shouldn't I be warned or punished for putting people's lives in danger with a 'lightning rod' staff?"

"What? No. Your staff split the breath attacks in half, so the attack effectively became weaker. Because of that, you actually unknowingly saved a lot of the soldiers' lives."

Sometimes I feel like things were just going too well to be true here.

"By the way, there's something else that you should see."

I was expecting him to take out something else from under the desk, or call someone in, but he instead got up and walked towards the door. The commander signaled for me to follow him.