Xingyue, is Xiaokai also considered Kai?

For Fujimaru Ritsuka, there has always been a simple wish in her heart: to open a cake shop. There is no special reason; she just wants to.

"It's awesome."

Novia replied quickly without hesitation, "Throughout our journey so far, Ritsuka, you have always been gentle and strong, and this is proof of what you have achieved."

"What...do you mean? Advisor."

"In other words, the reason you are able to do all this is because you are a person who observes others carefully. It is precisely because you have been observing others that you are able to do this."

Novia patted Fou on the shoulder and said, "As long as you remain the same, you will definitely be able to achieve the Grand Order. That's it."

"I still don't quite understand..."

After saying that, Ritsuka raised her arm and grabbed Novia's hand tightly.

"But since you have so much time, could you help me make a cake?"

Finally, the next day, the birthday boy ate the cake while crying.

"Thank you so much, both of you!"

At the same time, she cried out in her heart;

Now that things have come to this, I can't even bring myself to admit that I was secretly writing unhealthy fanfiction about Fujimaru Ritsuka and Novia Advisor as a couple!

……

The fifth singularity.

The Americas, engulfed in war, are now awash in blood.

A soldier was pulled from the corpse by people dressed like natives. The soldier then washed his bronze face with the cold water closest to him, which smelled strongly of blood. Even so, blood continued to drip from his mouth, so he could not speak. He turned to the west, quickly made the sign of the cross on his chest, and began to pray.

The corpses lying face up usually have their arms outstretched, as if defending against danger or praying for salvation. Everyone, whether American or local native, wears a small brass box around their neck, either with a picture of a saint or the name of the local god.

Continuing to look around, several fantasy creatures of unknown species were rampaging across the battlefield, uprooting trees as if to crush the earth. The surrounding area was littered with corpses in various poses, most with their limbs curled up and their faces contorted in pain, with cannonballs of various calibers lying beneath their feet.

On the battlefield a little further away, a coalition of locals and outsiders was resisting an enemy that had been mysteriously summoned. The details of the shouts between the two armies were easy to distinguish, and you could even tell from the sound that they were roaring.

The ubiquitous gale, like a spread-eagle, pressed down on the battlefield, threatening to blow anyone who didn't stand firm into the air, making them a casualty of the aftermath of the great battle.

If the landscape on the ground can be considered somewhat realistic, then the sky is a landscape beyond human imagination.

"Hahahaha! Come on, come on, come on! Burn! Rage! Guardian of the foreign land!"

Clad in armor and radiating flames, the hero of the Mahabharata, the embodiment of wrath, neighs and roars with fury, raising his arms.

Before him stood a gigantic wolf, the guardian spirit of the Native Americans whom Novia had once encountered.

"Ow!"

Not long after, a torrential downpour began.

However, the heavy rain and the deafening roar could not obscure the raging flames rising across the Americas.

Chapter 421 One day, you will understand.

Fifth Singularity, Spirit Particle Transfer—

1783 was the year in which the United States fought its founding war, the Revolutionary War, to establish itself.

At the moment the transfer was successful, this is what appeared before Novia and Mash:

The sounds of artillery fire reaching Gaochao, the deep rumble of the start of the race, the screams of shells tumbling in the air, and the deafening explosions when the shells landed—these sounds, seemingly reaching the heavens, could not drown out the bugle calls and drums.

The entire world was completely submerged in a huge black fog, with thick smoke floating above the battlefield, darkening the sky and making it impossible for conventional artillery to aim at targets.

"It's a battlefield."

Novia murmured, gazing at the surrounding scenery.

Native Americans, numerous animals, and outsiders, along with mechanized devices, all fought against soldiers constructed by magic, dressed in the same ancient ethnic attire, both of whom he was intimately familiar with.

"By the way, advisor, where is the Master now?"

"According to the news from Chaldea, they accidentally deviated by 1km. Let's hurry and meet up."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Ritsuka, holding Fou, was looking around blankly.

The ground beneath her feet trembled incessantly, and the sky was filled with thick fog that obscured the sun, making it feel like nighttime, with smoke everywhere.

"Varied--"

The girl didn't have time to exclaim, because everything she saw left her speechless. For people of this era, the battlefield was not a strange topic, after all, they had all heard of it or seen related texts in history books. But this was a real battlefield.

Braving the crossfire, the light cavalry charged forward at full speed, cannons raining down, blasting the ground apart, and musket bullets raining down like hail, hitting soldiers and knocking down horses. Everywhere, warhorses and cavalrymen fell.

The girl was in the center of the battlefield when she saw a light cavalryman next to her suddenly fall off his horse like a stone and lie on his back in front of her. His right temple had been smashed to pieces by the magic attack, and his brains were spilled all over the ground.

Or perhaps it was the local native soldier who followed closely behind, whose head had been blown off by a cannonball, yet whose headless body remained seated on the saddle, continuing forward for another dozen meters, his spear still tightly tucked under his right arm.

Even so, soldiers emerged like ants from behind them, one after another, carrying guns or spears. They trampled on the corpses of the pioneers, all of them shouting. Some even picked up stones from the ground and threw them, smashed them with their gun butts, kicked them, and bit them after they ran out of bullets.

The sounds of striking, the clash of bayonets and swords, the whistling of bullets, the screeching of shells, the thick fog surrounding the scene, and the smell of gunpowder and blood—the atmosphere here far surpasses anything that words or movies can describe.

Soon, Ritsuka, who was in a daze and nervous, had no time to think anymore, because a cannon was shelling her location.

At this critical moment, one of the thousands of running soldiers seemed to notice the girl about to face certain death. He gritted his teeth, shoved her aside, and the result was—

He fell in front of Fujimaru Ritsuka. In order to save the girl, half of his body was completely blown away, and his facial features were now a blurry mess of flesh and blood.

The locals protected me!

"No! Activate the emergency response with your special costume!"

The thoughts and words were uttered at the same time, which made Ritsuka hurriedly use her Mystic Code on the soldiers, and she didn't even have time to react to the flesh and blood that were blown into her face.

However, the bleeding still wouldn't stop, so the girl immediately used the scroll to successfully stop the bleeding.

"The wound has been sealed..."

"what……"

Before the girl could even catch her breath, the man lying on the ground let out a groan.

"Aaaaaaah! It hurts! It hurts so much! It hurts so much—it hurts, it hurts so much!"

The man's wound reopened, unstoppable. Ritsuka kept using her special healing abilities on him, feeling that it was all her fault.

"That guy over there."

Upon hearing this, Ritsuka raised her head and looked at the white-haired old man who had spoken.

"Are you a medical professional? Are you a nurse? But please calm down a little, because your treatment is effective. If you give up on this patient, there is no hope left."

"You are--"

"Nikolai Pirogov."

Nikolai Pirogov, the founder of field surgery and a physician in the Russian Empire, was the first person to perform anesthesia and surgery on the battlefield. In order to let his colleagues see the effects of anesthetic drugs, he used the anesthetic drugs on himself on the battlefield in front of many doctors.

During the Crimean War, which made Florence Nightingale world-famous, he participated as a doctor on the side of the Russian Empire. Like Nightingale, he valued the spiritual role provided by nurses and encouraged Russian noblewomen to organize nursing teams to come to Crimea. He was also the first person to introduce the term "female nurse" into the history of battlefield medicine.

He instructed the nurses to first classify and prioritize the wounded, who were divided into three categories: those seriously injured but treatable were in one category; those with minor injuries were treated by the nurses and waited until the doctors were available to treat them; and those who could not be treated were sent directly to the Requiem for the Dead, where they were cared for by nurses and priests and given end-of-life care.

Although it sounds cruel, it greatly increases the survival rate.

In the most common lower limb amputation surgery during the Crimean War, Pirogov achieved a 25% survival rate, compared to only about 10% in Britain. His upper limb amputation survival rate was 65%, higher than both Britain and France.

He also saw the inevitable link between poverty, hunger, ignorance and disease, and once said: "In many cases, the prescription I give to patients is milk, meat and bread. Without these things, it is difficult to achieve a curative effect with just medicine."

"Small--"

After regaining her senses, Ritsuka saw an enemy with a weapon leaping towards the old man. Just as she was about to call out to warn him, the white-haired old man easily raised the scalpel in his hand and quickly slashed the man's neck, then stabbed the other enemy in the chest.

"Is this power... a follower...?"

"Huh? You actually know that title?"

Pirogov raised an eyebrow slightly. "Could you be one of those Chaldeans that the people under the Sun King, the president of the Americas, call you? If so, you should hide for now and live well in this world where the glory of the Lord still endures."

In fact, if it were Nightingale who arrived, Ritsuka might have known her identity immediately because she was so famous. But it was different in Pirogov. She had never heard of her before and could only instinctively assume that she was a good person based on her previous impression.

"Woooooooooooo..."

The man's groans brought Ritsuka back to her senses. She had indeed wanted to retreat to safety as Pirogov had suggested, but she couldn't ignore it, especially since it was to save the man who had fallen into this predicament.

Therefore, in this war-torn battlefield, the girl tried her best to use her formal attire and emergency treatment on the soldier. She didn't know if she could succeed; she just wanted to do it.

Even though she knew that using the magic released by her Mystic Code would consume the energy of her body, and everyone in Chaldea tried to avoid using it continuously, she still used it repeatedly without hesitation.

Soon, the smoke and flames on the ground seemed to freeze, and the war in this area came to an end, leaving behind countless corpses and people lying on the ground, breathing and resting frantically.

"It's all over."

Pirogov turned around. "Hey you over there, let me see the patient—"

What came into the old man's view was the unconscious girl on the ground. As a senior doctor, he could naturally tell that it was caused by overwork, all for the sake of the patient.

"What an outstanding person."

Just as the old man was sighing, he met the gazes of Novia and Mashu who had arrived.

For Pirogov, the pink-haired girl was clearly a Servant like himself, and the silver-haired youth beside her also seemed to be a Servant...

Why use "seems"? Because as an Orthodox Christian, he subconsciously felt that it must seem very bad.

Born into a military family, he naturally embraced the Orthodox Church, the official religion of the Russian Empire, from a young age. Later, he dedicated himself to alleviating the suffering of rural people at the bottom of society. In Kyiv, he opened weekend schools specifically for poor children, promoted hygiene among villagers, closely monitored syphilis, treated diphtheria, and would also say a few words about vaccination.

After all, people who reach such a position have more or less heard of or seen the mysterious. For example, Tolstoy and Pirogov both saw them during the Crimean War. Some of the characters in "War and Peace" were created by Tolstoy based on the people he met on the Crimean battlefield.

Are you a priest?

Looking at Novia, who was being carried by a man whose body had been blown up, Pirogor asked with great curiosity.

As for Ritsuka, Novia had Mash pick her up.

"That's it."

Novia nodded in agreement.

"Is that so? In that case, come with me."

Without much conversation, the old man simply led the group to a nearby makeshift field hospital built for patients.

As night fell, the noisy fighting of the day was replaced by the tranquility of the night. The field hospital was surrounded by the banging of muskets. A group of sentries walked by, on their way to change shifts. Some leaned against big trees, swaying, smoking, and cursing at each other.

After cursing, they began to pray devoutly. The mental stress of witnessing so many deaths, as well as the sheer number of wounded and the horror of their injuries, had eroded the soldiers' fighting spirit.

Imagine a person whose head and face have been turned into a mass of flesh and blood, with their eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, and tongue blurred by blasts. Yet, they still stand there, walk, and wave their arms, giving the impression that they are still mentally sharp. In some cases, where the face should have been, only some bloody, hanging skin remains.

These are scenes that are witnessed every day on this battlefield.

Suddenly, Ritsuka, who was lying on the bed, opened her eyes and sat up abruptly.

"Master! Are you awake?"

"Mashu, what happened—"

"Ritsuka, you've overused your magic and passed out."

"Yes, just as the advisor said, I'm sorry I couldn't be by your side, Master..."

"I'm the one who should apologize."

Novia scratched her head. "The reason this happened might be because my modification of the control room wasn't done properly."

The girl shook her head: "It's perfectly fine. By the way, where is this?"

"Field hospital".

"Yes, by the way, advisor, how is that soldier?"

"He survived."

"Oh, I see. By the way, advisor, do you know Nikolai Pirogov?"

As Ritsuka asked the question, Mash also looked at Novia with curiosity.

"His achievements on the Crimean battlefield were almost on par with Nightingale's. Under his leadership, the survival rate of wounded soldiers in the Russian Empire far exceeded that of the British and French armies. That is enough. There is no need for further introduction. He was an exceptionally outstanding person."

During the pandemic, Russia established the Pirogov Gold Medal to recognize healthcare workers and rescue personnel who made significant contributions.

After Ritsuka's question was answered, Mash followed with her own inquiry.

"By the way, Consultant Novia, what do you know about this singularity?"