Chapter 1704 - 237 - The Moral Regret (2)

I immediately headed back toward Milham Castle. Since Lilia could handle the current battle by herself now that the enemy forces had already been thinned out considerably by our attacks, I figured I could leave her there for the time being without having to worry too much about things suddenly falling apart. Still, walking away in the middle of a battle when I was supposed to be one of the commanders wasn't exactly something I could call proper, especially when there were still plenty of things happening on the battlefield that could potentially go wrong, but this was one of those situations where I needed to put some things ahead of military etiquette.

Considering the possibility that Sakai might actually die, I wasn't willing to take any chances.

Truthfully, I didn't particularly care whether Sakai survived or died. It wasn't as though we had some incredibly close relationship that would make her death personally devastating to me, but I still couldn't bring myself to simply ignore the situation when I knew there was something I could potentially do about it. I had known her in my previous life, after all, and even if our relationship wasn't exactly something worth writing a dramatic poem about, that connection was still enough to make walking away from her death feel wrong.

If she died while I was in a position to help her, then I knew I would probably end up blaming myself for it later.

That was something I wanted to avoid.

I hurried into the castle and immediately began searching for Hasegawa-sensei. I didn't have time to wander around and politely ask everyone where she was, because the longer I spent looking for her, the less time Sakai had left. Fortunately, I spotted her soon enough, and the moment I found her, I walked straight over and grabbed hold of her before she could even properly ask what was happening.

"Hasegawa Chiaki," I said as I looked directly at her.

"W-What is it?" she asked, her face immediately turning red from the suddenness of me grabbing her.

"Can I have some of your blood?" I asked without bothering to waste time getting around to the point.

"B-Blood?" she stammered, looking at me with obvious confusion. "W-Why do you need my blood all of a sudden?"

"Sakai is dead."

The moment those words left my mouth, the color drained from her face almost immediately, and she became noticeably pale as though someone had suddenly pulled the floor out from beneath her feet.

I knew I probably shouldn't have delivered the information quite that bluntly, especially when I could already see how badly it had hit her, but this wasn't exactly the sort of situation where I could afford to spend five minutes carefully choosing the perfect words. Sakai's condition was already critical, and every second mattered.

"D-Dead?"

Hasegawa-sensei stared at me with an expression so shocked that it looked as though her entire understanding of the situation had just been turned upside down.

"Why?! How did that happen?!" she demanded, her shock quickly turning into anger as she stared directly at me. "Why did this happen?! H-How could... How could you not have been able to save her?!"

Her voice was filled with anger, and honestly, I couldn't blame her for reacting that way.

From her perspective, she had placed the five of them under my care. She trusted me to protect them and bring them home safely, so hearing that one of them had died was naturally going to feel like a complete betrayal of that responsibility. She probably wasn't even thinking clearly anymore, which made sense considering the news I had just dropped on her without any warning.

"If I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have entrusted them to you!" she shouted, her voice trembling as she struggled to keep herself together. "It's my responsibility to get them home in one piece! I was supposed to make sure all of them returned safely! Now... now I can't even do that anymore!"

As the only legal adult among them who had been transported to this world, and as their teacher, it was only natural that Hasegawa-sensei felt responsible for the five of them.... no, for all the heroes. summoned here. She had been their teacher before all of this happened, and she had apparently taken that responsibility very seriously, so learning that one of her students had died while under my protection was obviously going to hurt.

Still, I hadn't come back here just to argue with her.

There was something far more important that needed to be done.

"There's still a way to save her," I told her firmly.

Her expression changed almost immediately.

"If you help me, we might still be able to bring her back."

"I-Is that really true?" she asked, her voice suddenly becoming much quieter as the anger on her face gave way to desperate hope.

"She's being examined right now," I explained. "She doesn't have a pulse anymore, but there's still enough time to revive her if we act quickly. The problem is that she's badly in need of blood, and the blood has to come from one of the heroes."

Hasegawa-sensei stared at me for a moment before apparently realizing what I was asking from her.

Since the people native to this world didn't seem to be compatible with Sakai's blood, the heroes were the only ones who had a realistic chance of providing what she needed. That was why I had immediately come looking for Hasegawa-sensei instead of wasting time trying to figure out some other solution.

"W-What kind of blood type does she have?" Hasegawa-sensei asked anxiously. "I'm AB."

"Unfortunately, we have no way of determining her blood type," I replied. "Those blood-type classifications don't exist in this world, so there's no way for us to identify it using the methods we're familiar with."

Something that would have been relatively straightforward in my former world had suddenly become complicated simply because we are now in a a completely new world with completely different rules.

"However, there may be someone who can determine whether your blood is compatible with hers."

"W-What is it?" she asked, staring at me expectantly.

Before I could answer her question, a familiar presence suddenly appeared right beside me.

"Hello!" Beelzebub greeted us cheerfully.

She sounded as happy as ever, almost as though she had just walked into a casual conversation instead of appearing in the middle of a situation where I was already stressed out of my mind.