Camp Starfall was a lot quieter, now that the main body of troops had begun their long advance. The pockets of resistance in their way had been cleared out by the Locomotives a few days ago; the North had been hard at work in forging a path for the allied forces to march forward.

As Aziz landed at the gates, an unconscious Marie in his arms, a few medics rushed towards him with a stretcher. Laying her down on the stretcher, Aziz watched on in silence as they worked rapidly, taking down the vital signs of his boss and then hooking her up to a bunch of artefacts and medicinal equipment.

After she was connected to a tube that led to a huge water bag, Aziz saw it fit to clear his throat.

“How’s she?” Aziz asked.

“Fine. Exhausted her qi, that’s all. She’ll be up and running in a few hours, but it is imperative that she gets a few days’ rest,” one of the medics, a slender young man with a mask on, replied. “We’ll place her under intensive observation until she wakes up.”

“Alright.”

Snapping out a few instructions, the young man led his team and took Marie away. Aziz, who had nothing better to do, decided to tag along — besides, his boss was still clutching on to her Lance of Light like a baby. He would be scolded if anything happened to the Republic’s Zeroth Armament.

The medics cast amused glances at him as he tagged along, but they didn’t say anything else.

“There’s quite a lot of people,” Aziz said out loud, breaking the silence.

He was referring to the small crowd of medial personal that had appeared at the campgrounds earlier.

“We’re the left-behinds,” the young man replied. “Most of us medics were sent off with the allied expedition; only around three hundred of us were left behind here. Not really a lot, if you ask me.”

Aziz glanced at the crowd of fliers watching over the advancing infantry of the Five Lands, and then nodded. After exchanging a few more words, he pulled out his Display and started looking for any news about the advance.

“Anything interesting on the news?” asked the young medic that had replied him earlier.

“News?” Aziz fiddled with the little artefact, and then shook his head. “Nothing much. There are some articles about the Abyss Sovereign and our war, but they’re all just opinion pieces. Useless fluff. Hmm. I wonder if there’s anyone streaming it on the Internet.”

“That would be an egregious breach of security, sir.”

“Considering that there’s nothing much in the way of regulations regarding the use of Displays and the Internet, I don’t think there’s much we can do for now,” Aziz replied. “I suspect it’s because most owners of the Display are rich and important people.”

“So the whole of Upper Elysium, then.”

Aziz paused for a moment, thought through the youth’s words, and then nodded. “Makes sense. Maybe the Mortal Light Dynasty might even have threatened the other nations to not set up any regulations against the Display too. Who knows?”

“You make them sound like a bad guy, sir.”

“Deal with it.” Aziz rolled his eyes at the medic, and began to look through the latest addition to Displays — a video-sharing site available to everyone. Anyone could take a video and upload it for other users…but as for why anyone would do such a thing, Aziz didn’t quite understand. Most of the videos here uploaded so far either dealt with cute critters like mice and kittens…or the battles that had taken place so far in the Central Circle.

“Sir? Are you alright? You look horrible.”

“Only because someone had the bright idea of recording the battles that occurred recently, up to and including the naval landings,” Aziz replied. “There’s actually a livestream about the current advance too. What an egregious breach of military secr—”

His eyes fell on the name of the uploader — Lord Sir Warmaster Minister Eventide — and Aziz clammed up immediately. This was, if the over-blown name and the impossible bird’s eye view of the approach was of any indication, something that Marie’s boss was actually livestreaming. Naturally, it was not in the place for him to refute Minister Eventide’s actions...or be heard doing so either.

“What a responsible livestreamer,” Aziz corrected his words hastily. “They wanted to show that the true situation at the warfront to raise both accountability and morale.”

“That wasn’t what you said earlier,” the medic replied.

“Soldiers must learn to be flexible with most things,” Aziz replied. “Especially when it concerns your boss’ boss. Got it?”

“…Oh.”

Aziz returned his attention to the ongoing advance. From Eventide’s point of view — which was on-screen right now — the whole thing looked like a bunch of ants moving forward, with the Locomotives as extra-large ants. Making a mental note to pay more attention later, he followed the medics as they entered a communal ward.

It didn’t take long for them to detach most of the artefacts that they had stuck Marie to. After transferring the unconscious Marie onto a bed and telling him about things to take note of, the little group of medics made a beeline for the door and vanished.

Casting a glance at Marie, whose Exo-Skeleton was still in its fully-activated form, Aziz sat down on the corner of her bed, giving the small tube that connected a bag of what seemed like water to her arms a wide berth. As tired as he was, Aziz couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep or to walk away, since his boss was unprotected right now.

“Stupid boss. Only knows how to do more work,” Aziz mumbled, before looking around the communal ward. Of the hundred-odd beds here, only thirty or so were filled. “Could have just dragged me away, but she insisted on killing it. Bah.”

He eyed Marie, and took the chance to thank her before she could wake up and hear it. Aziz had a feeling that Marie wasn’t going to let this go if she heard his words directly, so…

After mocking himself for a few seconds, Aziz glanced at the Display, where a small skirmish had just broken up onscreen.

It was going to be a long fight.