the amber sword
CH 10 – Emergency first aid in the battlefield
Sophie stared at his character stats in a daze, but he still did not make a decision in the end.
[One step at a time, since there’s no need to squander it now right?]
But the 10 AP (ability points) that he got when he raised should be used. Under the dire situation now, even the slightest improvement in power was an improvement over nothing. It appeared to Sophie that increasing the sword rank or a combat related skill was a pretty good choice. Anyone else would probably have chosen this option. Still, Sophie hesitated as he had thought of something else.
He dismissed the character window in his mind, and it faded from his retina. He raised his head to look at the militia, only to find them still reveling from the victory earlier. He stiffened for a moment, then his face showed an austere expression.
This was a terrible sign.
He gestured to Romaine to help him up a little, then raised his voice and ask: “I want to ask, do you all really think you are safe now?”
His voice was not loud, but everyone present had their voices silenced, and the forest became silent to the point where one can hear a pin drop.
Sophie’s authority was still present, and the young militia had not forgotten who directed them to victory.
Come to think of it, the earlier warning that he gave became true right?
They suddenly became self aware that it was certainly not the time to celebrate. Their lives were practically controlled by Madara’s undead troops, and they still had the time to make merry. They felt a surreal feeling creeping over them as they realized that fact.
Thus everyone stopped and cast their gazes on him. Sophie was currently very weak, but there seemed to be an air about him that would lead them to victory.
Everyone believed that.
Even Freya sighed quietly. This was supposed to be her responsibility, but she and her squad members were not able to control their emotions, and she had forgotten that she was even the leader and the responsibilities that came along with it.
The ponytail girl showed pangs of regret when she became aware of that.
“Bandage your wounds, clean up the battlegrounds, remember what you have learned in your training. Do you really need me to remind all of you?” Sophie also sighed. These headless chickens were more of a newbie than a newbie could ever be. It was fortunate that their stats were better than a normal NPC.
But they could not compare to a player, certainly. A hero profile was so much better, till the point where Sophie did not want to think about it when he checked his stats every time.
Sophie rubbed his forehead.
Under his reminder, the young Bucce soldiers started to move. They stanched the bleeding from the wounded soldiers, swept up the battlefield, and took the swords and armor from the skeleton soldiers. Their chain armors were much better than their leather armor in protection.
Another person extinguished the campfire under Sophie’s instruction. Sophie wanted to knock his head against a wall when he gave the order, lighting a campfire in the enemy’s rear position, he really did not know what these militia were thinking.
Freya originally wanted to see what she could help with, after all Brendel was not familiar with them. But she soon realized that it was completely unnecessary, and no matter what he did, he had done things far better than what she had considered doing.
She could not help but fidget with her hair, her mind was full of questions; They were both militia, but was there so much of a difference between Bruglas and Bucce?
[How could this be?]
Freya had always thought the people that came from the city could not be any stronger than they were, but in front of Sophie, she started to feel dejected.
On the other hand, Romaine did not care about it too much, and she happily went along with the others to gather the loot. It looked like the future merchant girl was only interested in them.
Sophie eyed the cheeky kid who was called little Fenix, as he went over to the unconscious Jonathon.
“What about Jonathon?” Fenix asked everyone.
This question made everyone look at each other.
For a moment, a strange silence spread everywhere.
Indeed, he was one of the youths in the village, and they were familiar with him and it could be said they were good friends. Jonathon was the most timid amongst them, but they did not expect he would do something like this.
Even though he had no choice, but this action that was equivalent to a betrayal and it hurt them. It was as if their innocent friendship had cracked, showing how distrust between humans came about.
Freya also had no idea to repair the relationship between them. She wanted to protect everyone, but not only did he harmed everyone, he also hurt her deeply. Even if she wanted to speak up for him, she had no confidence to persuade the others.
And if she spoke, there might not be a chance for them to remain as friends.
Everyone in the militia held the same viewpoint. They were just naive teenagers, and their weakness and strengths existed at the same time. As they hesitated, they cast their eyes on the only outsider here.
Sophie.
And our protagonist sighed.
“Miss Freya?” He asked her.
“I, I don’t know……”
“Then bandage him. We don’t know if we can even stop the bleeding, perhaps he will die before tomorrow’s sunrise.” Sophie sighed again. He was puzzled over why he was so calm, was it also not the first time he saw a dying person?
Everyone exhaled with relief at the same time. It was Sophie’s order, and they just needed to follow it. It was an excuse to run away, but even then humans needed to escape from time to time.
On the other side, Sophie beckoned to Freya to come over. She looked puzzledly at him but came over.
“You know how to perform first aid right, Miss Freya?” Sophie asked.
“Just call me Freya,” She nodded: “I learned a little, from Captain Marden.”
[Captain Marden?! The heck, that old dude also teaches first aid here!?] Sophie nearly choked.
In the game, the first NPC that taught emergency first aid in the Grinoires region was Doctor Borg from Fortress Riedon. That NPC would give a mission to collect fifty bundles of flaxseed before teaching the skill, and it was a major pain in the neck; to the point where many people immediately skipped the quest and went to Bruglas, where they simply needed to pay ten silver coins to the Holy Cathedral of Fire.
Even though the market price of 50 bundles of Flaxseed was a huge difference compared to ten silver coins, it was much more of a trouble to acquire them.
This was an undiscovered secret! Sophie got all excited, but suddenly realized he could not go back to his old world. What was he thinking?
His excitement quickly died down, but still asked enthusiastically: “Can you teach me a little?”
Freya took a deep breath and gritted her teeth. She eyed him angrily, did this bastard not say that she sucked at bandaging!
But she was not a petty person to get her revenge back, and she thought for a while before asking: “What do you want to know……”
“The crux and the way how to wrap the bandages.”
Freya did not reply immediately, but went to his side to check on the girl who fainted. Romaine had abandoned her with a face of excitement when she went to gather the loot.
The girl only fainted from a shock and did not seem to have sustained any other injuries.
Freya turned back to look at the pale youth and hesitated for a while.
“Let me take a look at your injury.”
“That’s fine, I know my injury well enough.”
“You—”
“Really, what exactly did you learn?” Sophie changed the topic.
“Mainly to bandage and stop the bleeding as well as washing the wound.”
Sophie’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. It was something from within his soul, not a voice or words, but he clearly received a message:
“Freya is teaching you the skill ‘Emergency first aid’, and requires 8 AP to raise to level 0. Do you wish to learn the skill?”
He exhaled slowly. He wanted this! And it even appeared in the same format as the game, of course he wanted to learn this!
The emergency first aid had the ability to stop bleeding and prevent the infection of wounds. It was a skill that ignored the surroundings and raised the chances to succeed compared to random bandaging, and was something that Sophie urgently needed. He remembered that only the army priests from the Holy Cathedral of Fire were able to perform emergency first aid.
To think that Captain Marden also knew how to do this, what a discovery indeed. He accepted to learn the skill but a message immediately came back:
“There is no suitable profession found for learning emergency first aid, which profession do you wish to assign the skill to?”
This was not important, but Sophie still placed the skill under the Civilian soldier profession. Because the Civilian soldier profession was not a suitable profession, it would require twice the AP to raise the level, and it was still better than the commoner profession, since it was pretty much impossible to raise the commoner level.
A skill level cannot be leveled higher than the profession level. (TL: Commoner level cannot be raised. Probably.)
Freya taught the skill in detail to him, but she quickly realized the youth was staring at her as if he did not react to her words at all.
She looked at him blankly, before a fiery fury burst up from her heart.
This bastard, was he trying to find an excuse to take advantage of her!
The young girl hands curled into fists, and became so angry that even her ponytail trembled.
This bastard, how could he do something like this to Romaine, that girl had her heart practically given to you!
She tried her best to curb herself and waved her hands in front of Sophie, but there was no reaction. If she did not consider him to be an injured person, she would have sent a flying kick. But right at this moment, Sophie’s eyes blinked and he regained his senses.
He checked his skill set again, and was satisfied from learning the emergency first aid. At least he would have the confidence to navigate through the future battles.
It was an important requirement to have the ability to heal the team members. Sophie was someone who planned ahead, and thus abandoned the idea of learning sword skills or combat abilities. But when he came back to his senses, he saw Freya’s displeased expression.
“What’s wrong?” He looked on puzzledly.
“Were you listening?” The girl asked through her gritted teeth.
“Of course, and I learned it already.” Sophie answered naturally.
“You-” Freya nearly fainted from the lack of breath. “I have not even finished teaching, and you already learned it?” She checked him out with a severe lack of trust.
“Yup.”
Freya wanted to punch him in the eye. When she wanted to argue back at him, someone shouted from the sides.
“Boss-neesama. We can’t stop Jonathon’s bleeding, quickly come over and take a look.”
Sophie wanted to swivel her head back to look, but Sophie said: “This is a good time, how about letting me do it?”
“You?”
Freya’s face was of great distrust.
“Help me over.”
“D, don’t overdo things.”
“Then I’ll ask Miss Romaine to help me over?”
“In your dreams, I’ll never let her near you ever again, you shameless lout!” Freya snapped in refusal, but still helped Sophie up.
“Shameless lout?” Sophie paused blankly, why did he suddenly get scolded.
“You know what you did.”
“Hah?”