Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

Chapter 98: What are you? (2)

"Jeanne, are you guys okay? What happened?" I asked as I hopped over to her, careful not to step on an orc's unconscious body.

"Sorry for not coming yesterday! I'm fine, but..." Jeanne answered with a worried tone as she averted her eyes somewhere to her left. Her face looked so tired, judging by the dark circles under her eyes and her pale lips. What happened while they were gone?

"Don't be sorry, it was something unexpected, you handled it well, whatever it was." I patted her back reassuringly so she could calm down a little.

"I-- Uh, over there, Firiell is not okay..." Jeanne stuttered as she pointed towards the direction she was looking at, and I followed her gaze.

"Wha--!"

There, on a rusty and old clinic bed, laid a very thin child, unconscious and unmoving. What alerted me more, though, was the IV line that was connecting her wrist to some kind of collecting bag that was already halfway full with dark red blood.

"They're collecting her blood to make some sort of medicine, and--"

"We know about the orc leader's condition and what she was brought in here for, but dang, this is how they do it?" I exclaimed in surprise before Jeanne finished her words.

"How did you know?" Jeanne looked at us with a surprised look on her face. Oh, right. She didn't know about our peaceful discussion with that poor orc last night.

"We just kinda asked around," general Zhang shrugged, "Jean-jean, why didn't you just kill all of these orcs and run away or something?"

"Hey, didn't you say that we need to keep them alive so we can use them for our army later?" I frowned at general Zhang while I hugged Jeanne.

"I mean, if they're annoying, then..." General Zhang scratched his head.

"I would also kill them if I could," Jeanne answered, "but that little girl willingly agreed to this."

"Huh, what? She agreed to be kidnapped? What in the?" I questioned with wide eyes. Why would anyone want to be kidnapped?

"No, she wanted to save the orc's leader," general Jeanne sighed, "let me paint the picture for you."

"...Okay? But let's release that IV line first, that kid might die with that much blood loss since she's as thin as a dried stick." I said as I reluctantly agreed and walked over to the bed.

"Do you know how to release an IV line, too?" General Emilio asked while he walked closer to me.

"Not really, we've been taught before, but I honestly don't remember anymore. Usually, the medic in my team did that, not me. Isn't it just simply pulling it out, though?" I answered while scratching my cheek.

"Questionable, but go ahead. Fast. Their reinforcement is already coming." General Emilio concisely commanded as he turned around and walked towards the door with his spear out.

"Then I'll go guard the entrance with your friend, kid," Luke said as he gave me a single pat on the head, "we just need to disable them without killing them, right? Should be easy with my poison, I guess."

"Thank you, we'll leave that to you." I nodded and shifted my focus towards the little girl in front of me, who was lying on the bed with a frown on her face.

If she was already pale before, this time she was dangerously too pale, almost as if she was blending in with the bedsheet underneath her. Her hair was dry and messy, sprawled across the bed.

"Let's just do this as clean as possible. I hope I won't do something bad." I grimaced as I opened my backpack to find the alcohol from before and some new, clean gauze to use.

"Huh? What's that behind you?" Jeanne asked when she saw me turn around to open my backpack.

"Behind me? What's behind me?" I questioned back while I opened the bottle of rubbing alcohol and drizzled its content onto one of the gauzes.

"... A human. I've met her here before." Jeanne answered with a confused look as her gaze was fixed on the thing that I had brought along with me.

"Ah, yes. We had a little disagreement, but we still need her for information, so we figured why not bring her along," I answered while I applied the alcohol-soaked gauze around the infusion site on her wrist, and rubbed it in a circular motion from the inside to the outside, "I'll explain the whole thing later, but I'm pretty sure she isn't human."

"Huh? I didn't expect that. She looks and behaves just like a human..." Jeanne stared at the unconscious creature behind me with wide eyes, "just what are you?"

"An idiot sandwich, probably." I replied.

"A what?"

"Nothing," I shrugged, "I'll take off the infusion line now, okay? Let's hope nothing goes wrong."

'Plop!'

With one slow pull, I fished the long needle out of her wrist and threw it on the ground. Immediately after, I followed by pressing the wound with another, new alcohol-soaked gauze and taped it on her arm carelessly using the tape we found on the outside. Not the best and not the cleanest, but hey, it was something.

"Let's keep the bag. Might be useful for something, like bargaining with the orcs, maybe?" I said as I picked up the blood bag, sealed it, and popped it into my inventory while I pretended to store it inside my bag.

"Bargain or threaten, little cub? Hehe~" General Zhang chuckled amusedly.

"Either way is fineee, don't act like you're not thinking about it, too." I pinched both of his cheeks annoyedly.

'SLASH!'

'Grrrr!'

We simultaneously turned our heads to look at the source of the voice, and found that both Luke and general Emilio were now fending off some orcs that were starting to gather at the entrance of the clinic.

Should we help?

"...Nah, they'll be fine." I plopped down on one of the hospital beds, and rummaged through my backpack once again. Both of them should be able to handle a few orcs with ease.

"I'll help." Jeanne said as she grabbed the hilt of her sword and frowned.

"Oh no no, you'll stay here," I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her gently until she sat down on another bed beside mine, and put a bundle of cloth on her hands, "here. I packed some food for you, these are just cooked--well, reheated, probably, this morning and last night. It's just some frozen pizza and roasted bird meat. Not the best, but you gotta eat."

"This..." She stared at the wrapping with shock.

"I also wrapped one for Firiell, but I guess she can't eat in her condition," I sighed and plopped back down on the bed, "anyway, eat and have some rest while we wait for those two to finish, uh, cleaning up."

"...Thank you so much, all of you." Jeanne smiled sweetly as I saw her cheeks starting to flush a bit.

"Here, don't forget to drink, too. We will be doomed if our general is down, right?" I chuckled and tossed her a bottle of water which she caught easily with one hand.

"You guys will do fine without me." She let out a little laugh.

"No, we're not complete without you. So stop worrying about anything else and just rest. It's time for us to take care of our general." I winked at her.

"... I'm one lucky general, huh?" She giggled happily.

I let out a sigh while smiling. She was always so mindful about others, that she often forgot to take care of herself, too. I bet she didn't sleep a wink last night just to keep an eye on Firiell. Heck, the first thing she did after finally reuniting with us was apologizing to us for not popping up during our fight. If that wasn't selfless, I didn't know what was.

'Thud!'

After we rested for roughly 5 minutes while Jeanne swiftly ate and I argued with general Zhang who insisted to share the same bed as me, the last orc's body finally hit the ground.

"Are you guys done?" I asked as I pushed a certain white-haired eel off of my bed for the fifth time.

"Yup. That should be all of them for now," Luke nodded and walked closer to us, "storytime?"

"Storytime!" I exclaimed in happiness, "eel, seal!"

"Now I'm also a walking doorlock? You're mean~" He pouted, but still raised his finger to point at the clinic entrance, and zapped a net of electricity on the entrance, forcing doom on whoever dared to cross.

"You're my multifunction eel, be proud." I grinned.

"Yours? Hmm, I can roll with that~" He giggled.

"I take that back. You're simply an eel." I stomped on his foot, but he quickly moved his foot so I missed.

"Jeanne, report." General Emilio shifted the topic to something that actually mattered. Finally, thank you!

"Yes. I think I should start from where we separated," she started explaining, "I'll make it fast and skip the parts about the leader, since you already know."

We nodded and I shifted my seating position forward.

"The moment we separated, I and Firiell went to hide a bit further from you," she looked at general Emilio, "long story short, we got spotted by an elf, so I eliminated it swiftly by summoning a spear and puncturing his head."

"Nice." I nodded and smiled.

"I thought it was over, but when we looked behind, there was another sneaky assassin elf just about to stab us," Jeanne continued, "it wasn't a problem, and I eliminated it again."

So far there hadn't been anything suspicious, okay.

"But right when we killed it, two orcs came running to us and kneeled down, probably thanking us, since their backs were full of slash marks."

"Oh, were they slaves for the elves?" I piped in.

"I assumed so, and we thought they were probably happy that they were finally free, and we needed them alive anyway so we can rally them against the minotaurs, so I didn't kill them," she sighed, "instead, we told them to stay quiet since we were on a very important mission."

... I would've debilitated them first, but aight. She was nicer than I was.

"But what we didn't expect was, they suddenly grabbed Firiell and snatched her right when I was about to jump down and strike that prince."

"Huh? Right on that timing?" I questioned.

"Yes. At that moment, I decided to chase after them since we wouldn't be able to extract the crest without her, and general Zhang was still there, so..." Jeanne bit her lip.

"Yep, you got nothing to worry about when there's me~" General Zhang proudly chuckled.

"Hey, read the situation!" I elbowed him gently.

"... It was still my carelessness, I'm sorry," Jeanne apologized, "but then, when I managed to get her back, something unexpected happened."