"…Hey… can you hear my voice?"
Osmond, wounded and depleted, stroke a conversation with a man who stretched out near his feet. The man held his wrecked abdomen as tight as he could, blocking a hole to prevent blood from coming out, and failed. But, instead of anxiety to a feasible end from blood loss, Arte chuckled while thumping the ground, amused by his pathetic state, and threw insults at himself.
The commander, backed by decades of life experience, was incapable to guess the storm of thoughts swirling in the platinum ranker's mind.
"Hahahaha! You fool!!… Ah? Sorry, I was too engrossed in my condition just now… What were you saying again?"
"… Can you hear my voice?"
"Sure, I can! Loud and clear! I'm fatally wounded, not deaf!!"
Arte showed an energy and laughter unbecoming of a defeated person. Osmond remained on guard, the commander could not shake the possibility that the platinum ranker might be acting, waiting for an opening to launch a surprise attack.
