Editing Tytania:Volume 2 Chapter 4 (section)

=== IV ===
The gastric lavage had been carried out while he was unconscious; it was the sound of a voice calling his name that dragged Fan Hyulick back up from the depths of unconsciousness.

“Admiral Hyulick, Admiral Fan Hyulick!”

“I’m not an admiral, I’m a colonel. I’m only paid a colonel’s wage. And yet they just keep piling all the responsibility on me…”

He vented his grievances with the petty grumbling of a commoner, hardly befitting a public enemy of Tytania.

“I’ve come to save you.”

The meaning of those words seeped into his subconscious and exploded there; at last, the ill-fated hero opened both eyes. He was lying on a stretcher used for transporting corpses, with a white cloth draped down to his chin. His vision was hazy, and the face of his saviour lay beyond a white, ethereal veil.

“Was it you who put the note in my meal?”

“Yes. It seems you followed our instructions to the letter.”

The low, subdued voice stripped away any trace of individuality.

“Yeah, but honestly, it was agonising.”

“It was merely an emetic. Please consider it far better than being brutally murdered by Duchess Zarlisch.”

“Yeah, I suppose I’ll take your word for it. But I haven’t asked yet, who are you?”

“An enemy of Tytania.”

“I see. That’s all I need to know.”

Although he was not entirely free of unease, Fan Hyulick forbade himself from asking any further questions or harbouring any further suspicions. Whatever the doctor’s true identity might be, one thing was certain: he was not on the side of Zarlisch Tytania.

As the hotel lacked the necessary facilities, Fan Hyulick was transferred to a hospital. It was, of course, a Tytania-affiliated hospital, but no one had anticipated that a half-dead man might attempt to escape, and security had been relaxed.

Everything had gone exactly according to plan. As far as this incident was concerned, the mastermind had accurately read Zarlisch’s mind. They had predicted that the very person who had “poisoned” Fan Hyulick would be held responsible for his treatment. The probability was not necessarily high, but the outcome proved favourable.

“Shall we then raise the curtain on the second half?”

“I do have one concern, though.”

“What is it?”

“What if I start hiccuping?”

In response to this question, which lacked any sense of urgency, the doctor’s reply was cold.

“It simply means you’ll stop pretending to be dead. Don’t worry, I’ll make a swift getaway if that happens.”

And so Mr&nbsp;Fan Hyulick was covered from head to toe in a white sheet and wheeled away in a trolley towards the mortuary. For the living, it was an experience hard to describe; specifically, it was the sensation of the dead people’s bodies against his skin, and it was by no means a pleasant one. Just as he had counted about 140 sheep, the doctor whispered:

“It’s the guard. Go limp!”

He’d meant what he’d said to the doctor earlier as a joke, but it seemed his prank had angered some deity or other. A strange sense of unease welled up from Fan Hyulick’s chest to his throat.

Before he could even think ''“this is bad”'', a sensation exploded within him as if a dwarf had kicked him deep in the throat, and a sound like “Hic!” escaped him, as if his name had been compressed too much. The soldier in grey standing in the corridor stirred and cast a suspicious glance over the white cloth. Just as the masked doctor, without slowing his pace, was about to pass in front of the soldier, the soldier’s suspicion overcame his hesitation, and he let out a threatening growl.

“Show me that corpse…”

The soldier’s words trailed off as a wave of sound, louder than his own voice, flooded his ears. It was the sound of an explosion. The doctor had pressed the detonator switch in his clenched fist.

The explosion occurred in the unoccupied linen room, sending a spectacular burst of fire, smoke and sound into the air. It was a type of explosive designed to intimidate rioting crowds; while it caused no real harm, it was more than enough to throw people into a panic.

The soldier’s suspicions were blown away on the edge of the blast, and he grabbed his holster and ran off in the direction of the explosion. At the same time, the doctor also began running, pushing the trolley, and just as he was about to break through the maelstrom of chaos and disorder and emerge from the hospital, he was spotted by another soldier.

“Hey, wait, stop!”

Stringing together three very short syllables, the soldier aimed the muzzle of his incapacitating gas pistol at the doctor. However, the muzzle failed to fulfil its intended purpose. With his finger still on the trigger<ref name="ftn7">“Trigger” (引金) is pronounced “trigger”.</ref>, the soldier’s expression went blank; without uttering a sound, the intruder slumped to the floor and was forced into an unwanted kiss with the marble.

Shaking off his momentary bewilderment, the doctor pushed the trolley, flung the hem of his white coat behind him, and dashed off. Left behind was the unconscious body of the hapless soldier. It was then that Louis Edmond Pagès appeared.

“I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but it seems a rival in our line of work has beaten us to it,” muttered Louis Edmond Pagès, tucking his short-barrelled pistol into the inside pocket of his work coat.

Out of every hundred shots he fired, he could demonstrate the skill of a master on about seventy-seven occasions. Relieved that this time he had avoided becoming another example from the seventy-eighth onwards, Pagès crouched low and began to run down the street.

The streets were teeming with ground vehicles, half of which bore Tytania’s crest. Around the hospital, grey military uniforms formed a living wall, radiating hostility and a sense of duty, much like white blood cells that had detected the presence of pathogens within the body. As he ran, Pagès shrugged inwardly. Tytania was not incompetent. On this occasion, a matter of seconds and a matter of milligrams of luck had not been on her side. That was all. That was all there was to it, yet someone would surely be held accountable for this situation. It would be quite a spectacle if that someone were Zarlisch Tytania himself, though…

And so, the wandering hero, Mr&nbsp;Fan Hyulick, was freed from the jaws of the God of Death which had closed in upon him. It was the second time this had happened, but there was no guarantee that this would be the last.

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