How Not To Summon a Modern Private Military Company in Another World Chapter 31: One of the Patients Awake

Darkness.

Then—

Screaming.

No, not screaming. Echoes. Echoes trapped in cold stone.

Her own voice? Soone else’s?

She couldn’t tell anymore.

She had been a party leader.

Her na—at least the one she used outside—was Serin.

Level 22 mage. Practical. Cautious. Good with barrier spells.

Their four-man party wasn’t elite, but they were steady earners in the Adventurer’s Guild.

Ralm, Bren, Darius, and her.

Ralm the spear-fighter.

Bren the knife rogue.

Darius the heavy shield.

Serin the mage.

They weren’t heroes—just people who took quests, hunted beasts, escorted caravans, and went ho alive. Most of the ti.

Two weeks ago, the Guild posted an urgent request:

Unusual goblin activity near the old temple ruins.

Low rank. Easy money.

Their party took it imdiately.

She rembered stepping through the moss-covered archway.

She rembered Darius saying, "Stay behind , Serin. Goblins love traps."

She rembered Ralm tapping his spear against the stone tiles...

...and then the ground bursting open beneath them.

Wooden stakes. Rusted blades. Rope snares.

Ralm fell first, his throat caught on a jagged spear.

Bren didn’t even get a scream out before a spiked log slamd into his skull.

Darius fought—gods, he fought—but even he couldn’t survive a dozen goblins dropping from the ceiling beams like insects.

Serin tried to breach them with fire magic, but—

A net. A blow to the head.

Then darkness.

Darkness that lasted... she didn’t know. Days? Weeks?

Then ca the worst part.

The sll of the room.

The buckets.

The pale, hollow-eyed won chained beside her.

The scratching hands.

The guttural laughs.

The weight of bodies.

The helplessness.

There was no fighting in that place.

Only enduring.

She rembered begging the gods to kill her.

She rembered losing track of her own voice.

She rembered praying that the next goblin would at least be quick.

She rembered her own magic burning inside her chest, crushed beneath fear until she couldn’t feel anything at all.

And then—there was a sound like thunder.

Voices she’d never heard before yelling commands she didn’t understand.

She curled up, thinking it was a new raid, a worse raid, so new monster.

But the chains were cut.

Her arm was lifted.

She was carried.

And for the first ti in... she didn’t even know how long...

She saw the sky.

Serin jolted awake with a gasp, sitting upright so fast that pain shot across her ribs.

The ceiling above her wasn’t stone.

It was cloth.

Canvas. Beige and unfamiliar. Lit by a soft white glow she didn’t recognize.

Her breath ca quick and shallow.

Where—?

She looked down.

A thick, warm blanket covered her from shoulders to ankles. Her wrists were wrapped in soft fabric instead of chains. Her arm? There was a thin tube stuck into it.

She panicked imdiately.

Her pulse spiked. Her breath turned ragged.

No. No, not again. Not again. Not again—

She grabbed the tube and yanked.

Pain shot through her arm and dark red began filling the line.

"Hey—! Stop, stop, stop!"

Serin flinched at the voice.

A young woman—a nurse—rushed to her bedside. She wore strange green clothing and gloves. Her face looked alard, not angry.

"You can’t pull that out!" the nurse said, grabbing her wrist. "You’ll hurt yourself!"

Serin reacted on instinct.

Her fingers snapped up in a small arc, magic flaring for the first ti since the temple.

"Restrain."

A gravity bind—weak, shaky, but it hit.

The nurse froze mid-motion, eyes widened in shock as her limbs locked in place.

"Wha— I can’t move—?!"

Serin scrambled off the bed, bare feet hitting the cold floor. She stumbled—her legs were too weak—but she caught herself on a tray stand.

Her heart hamred.

Her vision blurred at the edges.

Where am I? Who are these people? Why am I hooked to tubes and wires? Why does the air sll clean? Why are the lights so bright? Why—

She tried to steady her breathing but failed.

There were other beds in the room—other won she recognized from the temple. She saw one twitch in her sleep, another curl into herself, another breathing shallowly under blankets.

All alive.

All treated.

But Serin couldn’t believe it.

Not yet.

This could be another trick. Another illusion. She went to the exit, towards the flap of the tent where lights seeped through.

The mont Serin pushed through the tent flap, the world hit her like a hamr.

The air was cold, but clean. Too clean. No rot, no blood, no damp stone. And the sky,bright, blue, open, not the ceiling of a dungeon.

But what truly froze her wasn’t the fresh air.

It was everything else.

She staggered out onto a wide, flat expanse paved in strange stone—smooth, gray, perfectly leveled. It wasn’t cobblestone. It wasn’t brick. It was... sothing else. Sothing she didn’t know how to na.

And it stretched far. Farther than any castle courtyard she’d ever seen.

What is this place...?

She took another shaky step forward, and then her breath caught again—this ti violently.

There were people, dozens of them, running in perfect rows and columns. They were all n and won wearing matching black uniforms, boots thudding in perfect rhythm.

And they were chanting.

Not prayers.

Not spells.

Sothing like... a marching song.

"HUP—TWO—THREE—FOUR!

HUP—TWO—THREE—FOUR!"

The voices were unified and disciplined, nothing like the rowdy groups of human soldiers she’d seen before. Every movent was synchronized. Every step asured.

Soldiers... but not like any she had known.

She took a step back without aning to.

Then her eyes snapped to the right—

And her mind almost shut down.

A giant tal beast rolled across the concrete. It had no horses. No oxen. No visible engine she recognized. Yet it moved—rumbling, steady—as if animated by magic.

Except...

There was no magic coming from it.

None.

What... what in the gods’ nas is that thing...?

It was huge, taller than two n, long, boxy, painted desert tan with black wheels thicker than her torso. Strange letters were painted on the side. Atlas.

She didn’t know what those words ant.

She didn’t know how it moved.

She only knew one thing:

It was powerful.

Her heart slamd against her ribs. She backed away from the rolling monster and bumped into sothing soft, a stack of crates covered in canvas.

She spun, startled, hands raised to cast, only for her voice to stop dead in her throat.

Above her...

A shadow swallowed the sun.

A massive tal creature roared overhead, wings wide as a castle gate, body long as a river barge. Its belly opened, revealing a cavern inside, as if it could swallow entire wagons.

Its engines scread, almost shaking her bones apart.

Serin collapsed to her knees, hands over her ears.

A dragon.

A tal dragon.

Except it wasn’t alive.

It had no mana. No heartbeat. No spirit signature. Yet it flew.

It flew so high.

What kind of magic could do that...? No—not magic. Sothing else. Sothing foreign.

The "dragon" circled the base once and climbed higher, vanishing into the clouds like it had never existed.

Serin could only stare, trembling.

And then—

Two smaller tal creatures shot across the sky like silver arrows, slicing the air with shrieks that made the ground vibrate.

Fast.

Too fast.

She couldn’t even follow them with her eyes.

They twisted, rolled, dove at each other in a deadly dance—like two wyverns in a duel, except sharper, faster, impossibly agile.

"What... what world is this...?" Serin whispered.

From a modern perspective, what she had seen was the C-5 and the F-22.