Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

"You've fought well, Barn," Banjay kneeled over a simple stretcher with a heavily wounded man on it.

Two nurses hurried around, trying to stop the bleeding from his wounds… but the dark yellow piece of cloth wrapped around his arm pretty much sealed his fate.

Minor injuries wouldn't even make it to the main dressing station. Explore new worlds at empire

Major injuries that were an easy fix were the first in the line for the doctors and nurses to take care of and were marked with green.

Major injuries that were troubling to deal with were marked with yellow, dark yellow if there was little hope to save the man, and bright yellow if the case was solvable but needed urgency.

Then, there were those marked with a black piece of cloth, who the doctors could only try to bring some relief.

"D-did we…" Barn struggled to get his words out, his chest rapidly moving up and down as his heart tried to compensate for all the blood the man lost by pumping what blood it had left a lot faster.

"Yes, you managed to push those damned imperials back," Banjay smiled, leaning over the man while keeping a hold over his bloodied hand.

"So we did…" A strange light shone in the soldier's eyes, his face regaining some of its liveliness.

Banjay gritted his teeth.

'Why is it always the best of us?'

The light in the soldier's eyes dimmed, and the movements of his chest calmed down.

The faint smile Barn produced on his lips proved beyond any doubt he knew his fate.

"So we did…" Barn whispered with the last of his breath before the grip of his hand relaxed and his chest came to a stop.

Banjay closed his eyes before gently putting the dead man's hand down on his chest.

Taking a deep breath, Banjay stood up and moved over to the next stretcher.

"Kirie," one of Banjay's aides whispered right before the man knelt down on one knee and reached out for the wounded soldier's hand.

"You've fought well, Kirie."

Banjay's eyes glanced over to the stump of the man's right arm, currently wrapped in a bandage and marked with brown cloth.

'Case solved, huh?' Banjay allowed a small smile on his face while ignoring the half-conscious expression on Kirie's face.

He was drugged to the point he could no longer get a grip on the reality, a small price to pay to remove the pain of amputation and the grief that was bound to come later. For this soldier, his career as an active soldier was over.

'At least you will get to rest easy, now,' Banjay thought, tapping the man's shoulder in an appreciative gesture before standing up and moving on.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

There, at the twenty-fourth stretcher he attended to, Banjay found the first surprise of the day.

"Sateo," the aide whispered right as Banjay was about to fall down on his knee as usual, only to realize the wounded man wasn't lying down.

Looking slightly up, Banjay met the man's eyes, locking himself in the awkward position of halfway kneeling down, not sure whether to continue or to stand back up.

"General," the soldier greeted, taking the initiative and even going as far as to put on a small smile.

Sateo's left arm was missing, leaving just a few inches worth of a stump by his arm.

Strangely enough, though, despite having the wound dressed already, the man still wore a bright yellow piece of cloth wrapped over his right arm, proving he had yet to receive what little medical aid the main dressing station could offer.

"Did you cover your wound yourself, Sateo?" Somehow able to tell that the usual set of pleasantries would fall on deaf eyes, Banjay decided to approach the man differently.

"I did, general," the soldier nodded his head while maintaining an unnatural peace of mind despite the loss of an arm and the intense pain he was bound to be in. "If not, I would bleed out before my men could carry me here."

Banjay glanced up, only to see drops of fresh blood ooze out of the neat bandage covering the man's wound.

'If anything, he had to be lucky for it to be such a clean cut…'

Even with the wound covered, Banjay saw enough in his life to judge the wound in its covered state.

'Lucky, or had balls bigger than his sense of pain…'

The problem of amputation lay more in the process than in the loss of a limb on its own. Often, the soldiers wounded heavily enough to warrant an amputation would lose so much blood before reaching their turn on the cutting table that they would grow too weak to survive the process, even or especially with the help of the painkiller drugs.

Most of the time, the wounds themselves forced the amputation despite how minor the injury could seem on the outside.

And the near-perfect cut of the man's arm that severed the limb right at the shoulder joint…

The chances of it being a result of an enemy attack were extremely unlikely. And with that possibility out of the rooster, the only other way in which Sateo's wound could be so clean was…

'It's disturbing to even think about,' Banjay shivered, struggling to imagine the level of determination and courage to sever one's own arm, even if it was the only way to keep one's life.

The perspective of the immediate torture of cutting one's own limb often appeared as worse than just lying down and resting one's fate to others or the grim reaper itself.

"That's one impressive feat," Banjay admitted while nodding over in the direction of the man's missing arm. "To… dress your wound right on the battlefield like that."

Sateo raised his eyes… And for the first time, Banjay saw the same expression as most of the other soldiers that he would visit would show when he brought up their names.

The man in front of him didn't budge when Banjay called out to him with the man's own name. Judging by the disillusioned look on his face, he either knew or, at least, suspected that's what Banjay's two aides were for.

No.

Calling his name wasn't enough to gain this particular soldier's recognition. And yet, when Banjay brought up his own suspicions over what the man did to survive…

The look of recognition finally appeared in Sateo's eyes.

"I just did what was necessary, General," Sateo muttered, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks.

"Either way, you fought well, Sateo," Banjay smiled a bit when the man looked at him with an expression screaming 'Really?' "Now, though, your fight is finally over. So stay strong and await your discharge," Banjay stood up and looked down at the man with a complicated expression on his face. "You are going home, soldier."

'Why is it always the best of us?!'

This was the one question Banjay's genius couldn't help him answer. And seeing the man tough enough to do what he did, now reduced to a mere cripple.

"I'm sorry, general, but my right arm still works," Sateo protested while swinging his right around as if to prove the point. "It's not yet time for me to leave my men and take it easy all by myself."

Sateo's face was full of determination… The determination that soon went to the back burner when the soldier suddenly looked down, right towards Banjay's hand.

"Sir General…" Sateo suddenly hesitated, the change in his behavior catching Banjay by surprise. "Was your ring always shining like this?"