Advance Preparations (3)
"So, Charlotte...? May I ask why you want me to wear this in the first place...?"
"Because you'll be handling something filthy, of course!"
"Mm-hmm... I appreciate the thought, but professors already have their own laboratory attire and gear."
Naturally, one had to exercise caution whenever conducting hazardous experiments in a laboratory, but in most cases, latex gloves and a standard lab coat were more than sufficient. In other words, there was no need to go as far as arming herself to the teeth with the full suite of protective equipment Charlotte had dragged in. Besides, Dahlia was hardly a novice. When it came to years of research experience, counting on both hands wouldn't even begin to cover it.
"And for that matter, why bring this directly to me? Did you honestly think I would accept a personal request from a single student?"
Academic research followed strict protocols, dictated by proper facilities and locations. Her mandate at the academy was that of an instructional professor teaching research courses, not an institutional researcher. If it were a personal project of her own, she could occasionally tinker using the instruments she had brought with her, but accepting a private commission from an individual student crossed a hard line.
A professor undertaking a personal favor for a student was an immediate invitation to accusations of favoritism or illicit connections. More to the point, as a professor who personally drafted the examinations, her impartiality could not afford the slightest blemish.
Charlotte, however, refused to back down.
"I am not asking this of you as an individual student. I am submitting an official commission on behalf of a merchant guild, Professor."
"...What?"
Dahlia tilted her head at the unexpected phrasing. A guild commission? But her confusion did not last long.
The girl standing before her puffed out her chest slightly.
"Charlotte Eshrelt. That is my name, after all."
She was the master of the Eshrelt Merchant Guild, an enterprise already making quite a name for itself throughout the Principality.
It's true that I couldn't accept a private student request, but... If framed as a formal commercial commission tied to a guild's business venture, that provided legitimate academic justification. Dahlia conceded with a gentle sigh.
"Very well. However, my contractual terms can be rather demanding. Are you prepared for that?"
"A one-sided contract is poison to both parties. That is why I was hoping to find some room for negotiation with you as well, Professor. How does that sound?"
Dahlia had to marvel at the sheer audacity. The youthful, innocent countenance from a moment ago had completely vanished, replaced by an ironclad resolve. It was an astonishing amount of worldly grit for a seventeen-year-old girl to possess.
Her client was a merchant. Looking only at her dainty stature and adorable features would be a grave mistake.
"First, let me inspect exactly what task you wish to entrust to me."
"Yes, of course. Provided you put on every piece of that protective gear first."
From what her husband had told her, the girl had suffered a violent mana rampage and wept inconsolably in someone's hospital room. Dahlia had assumed she was merely a fragile child... but to think she hid a face like this beneath the surface. Chuckling faintly to herself, Dahlia fastened the safety equipment into place.
A few days later.
Across the entire expanse of Schytz Province, people displaying strange blue spots began to multiply, and the reported cases surged several times over. At first, those afflicted had dismissed the marks as a trivial rash, attempting to scrub them away with commercial ointments, but when nothing worked, most resorted to simply hiding the blemishes under their clothes.
Now, however, the situation was beginning to unravel.
The press had zero inkling of what the disease actually was, while public institutions couldn't even be bothered to care. Yet the tally of symptomatic carriers was swelling at a terrifying pace.
Though the progression was likely slower than what Lumia had suffered, the early symptoms were manifesting across a vast populace in rapid succession. It was safe to assume that encounters with those carrier rats had already taken place throughout Schytz Province, starting from Lemtert Village.
At this stage, uncovering why the Lemterte Plague had completely devoured Schytz Province in the past timeline was practically impossible for ordinary doctors. The infection began with simple discoloration, but once it advanced into its intermediate phase, the spots swelled dramatically, triggering functional failure throughout the body's mana circuits. Because it was a catastrophic affliction tied directly to the host's own mana after an insidious incubation period, medical practitioners had been left entirely in the dark.
To make matters worse, by the time research belatedly commenced, patients had already plunged into the late and terminal stages, leaving Schytz Province carpeted in human corpses.
Soon, the moment the very first reported patient collapsed with full-blown symptoms, the world would finally sit up and take notice. Junon had met with Charlotte and taken every measure within his power to prepare for that exact moment, but whether it would prove enough remained uncertain. There was no telling how long it would take Professor Dahlia to unravel the pathogen.
He had tried preparing from another angle as well, but neither avenue had yielded real progress.
"A-Aaargh! How the hell are we supposed to make this any more perfect, you bastard?! At this rate, you're practically a drill sergeant!"
"Please, spare us, Drill Sergeant Junon... We swear we'll never overstep our bounds when asking to learn from you again! Okay?!"
If John and Noel couldn't master the combat techniques, any other student at the academy would inevitably suffer the exact same result. The moment that failure was cemented, the option of mitigating casualties during the Schytz Great Subjugation Campaign had vanished into thin air.
Unless he devised a countermeasure, the tragedy would repeat itself. Like a pebble rolling downhill to become an avalanche, if they crumbled at the very first hurdle of the subjugation campaign, only a far crueler reality awaited them down the line. He had sought a clean, harmless solution, yet all he had left was a single scrap of unverified information.
"The name was... no, that hardly matters now."
A blue flower, its shape completely unknown, which Professor Dahlia had stumbled upon in Schytz Province. His only recourse was to locate that flower himself and accelerate the research and production of a cure by a crucial step.
Junon hacked through the dense underbrush, cutting his way across a forest heavy with summer humidity, but a dull throb was already pounding behind his temples.
"This is maddening. How am I supposed to tell what's what in here?"
Even someone versed in herbalism would struggle to identify it under these conditions. A blue flower? Describe it like that to anyone, and they would look at you with utter despair. Was it true blue? Pale azure? Clear sky-blue? Or perhaps a deep navy, or even a violet-tinted indigo? He hadn't the faintest idea.
Unfortunately, it was the only lead he possessed. Scouring this sprawling wilderness on nothing more than vague hearsay was an act of sheer idiocy, and he knew it better than anyone. Yet no other path presented itself. He couldn't preemptively alter the deployment before the subjugation campaign began, and while he knew how to exterminate the enemy, implementing it on a wide scale was currently impossible. His objective had therefore shifted entirely to damage control: find the flower Professor Dahlia had used, and expedite the development of the cure.
"Nothing for it. I'll just have to harvest one of everything and sort it out later."
And so began the absurd, grueling labor of turning an entire forest upside down in search of a flower he couldn't even picture.
Meanwhile, along a certain lakeside, a mother was scolding her daughter, who clutched a pet lizard to her chest.
"No, Nella! How many times do I have to tell you?! There's nowhere for you to run around and play out here like before anyway!"
"B-but it's so boring here... and Chir is bored too..."
"When I say no, I mean no! Are you going to disobey your mother?!"
The young girl understood nothing. All she had been told was that this new home would be far better than where they used to live. Yet in this unfamiliar refuge, she wasn't permitted to run free as she once had. Ever since the relocation, whenever she tried to step outside, someone would block her path with a stern shake of their head, refusing even the excuse of taking her only companion out for a walk.
Faced with constant confinement and her mother's ceaseless reprimands, the pent-up frustration inside the little girl finally boiled over.
"I can't breathe in here!! I hate you, Mom!!"
"W-Wait! Nella! Where are you going?!"
The stifling cage forced upon the child had sparked pure, reckless defiance.
"What's happened?"
"M-My daughter... she ran outside the village boundary! Please, you have to help me!"
"Good grief...! Quickly, gather everyone and search the perimeter...!"
That childish defiance posed an existential threat to everyone living quietly in hiding. The search party mobilized not merely for the girl's safety, but to prevent their very existence from being discovered.
Having slipped past the village borders, the child waited until the distant calls of the searchers faded into the trees. She poked her small head out from the tall grass, checked her surroundings, and scrambled out into the clearing.
"Now we can play all we want, Chir!"
Beaming with childish glee, she began to savor her reclaimed freedom. Only much later would she understand just how perilous her little adventure truly was.
"...Is this the exact same thing as the last one?"
Junon stood with two uprooted plants in hand, shifting his gaze back and forth between them. He had consulted an illustrated botanical guide to avoid gathering poisonous weeds, but no book could catalog every wild specimen in existence.
"I'm losing my mind. They look identical."
Schytz Province harbored an extraordinarily intricate ecosystem on its own, and the uncharted territory north of Lemtert Village was even worse. A standard field guide was practically useless here.
Right then, a sharp rustle broke the quiet of the woods.
Swish, swish—!
At the sound of something tearing through the brush, Junon snapped into high alert, his posture shifting instantly into combat readiness. Given the location, encountering a demonic beast was almost expected, and a mundane predator wouldn't be surprising either. Judging by the rapid rustling close to the ground, it was undoubtedly a quadruped.
Could it be one of those plague rats?
Position: northwest. Number: exactly one.
He was personally immune to the infection. Even so, if a carrier burst, the fluids might contaminate the soil or spread to passersby, to say nothing of the grotesque mess it would make. To neutralize the creature cleanly, Junon held his ground, waiting for the target to draw closer.
Though hidden beneath the foliage, the approaching rustle grew deafeningly loud until it reached his very boots. Now, the moment it leaped on instinct, he would dispatch it the way he always had—
Chirrrr-k!
"What...?!"
He had moved to strike, but paused abruptly. A baby lizard?
Contrary to his grim expectations, what emerged was no diseased vermin. Junon hastily dispersed the mana gathering at his fingertips.
Chir! Chir-k!
The captured lizard wriggled energetically in his grip. Normally, a creature charging blindly like that would be branded a demonic beast, but this little reptile was clearly nothing of the sort.
Wait... isn't this the same creature Senia used to keep?
He remembered it always lunging toward him whenever he was around. Seeing it rub its tiny snout against his palm with apparent delight only solidified the suspicion. But as he stared blankly at the creature, another sound echoed through the foliage.
Another one...?
No. That was wrong. This wasn't the scuttle of a beast—it was the distinct rhythm of footsteps running on two legs.
"Chir! Why did you run off like that all of a sud—Gasp...!"
Bursting through the ferns stood a small child. But in place of human ears, delicate, fin-like webbing framed both sides of her head. Junon had assumed the footfalls belonged to a person, and while that was half right, it was also half wrong.
A demi-human...?
Unlike mindless beasts governed solely by instinct, demi-humans possessed intellect and speech. Aside from distinct racial characteristics, they were virtually indistinguishable from humans. Yet the child before him was neither an elf nor a dwarf, the common species found within the Principality.
Just as he was about to return the lizard to what was presumably its owner, familiar voices drifted through the trees.
"I'm telling you, it's true! I saw it around here with my own eyes!"
"Give me a break. You're just blinded by that bounty money. How on earth would there be Sirens out here?"
Sirens...?
The trembling girl with webbed ears cowering before him. The unmistakable human voices approaching in the distance. And the conversation he had shared with Lumia not long ago.
"We insisted the Sirens were innocent... but we lost the legal battle decisively. That was why the Penarive family was forced to shoulder the blame."
In that fleeting heartbeat, all the pieces clicked into place inside Junon's mind.
"Look! Right here, this is the molted skin Sirens leave behind every now and th—huh?"
"Ha! You call a dried clump of weeds a Siren's shed skin? What a complete waste of time."
"No, I swear! There really was skin here a second ago!"
"If you drag me out here to waste my time again, I'm telling the whole village you're the boy who cried wolf. Got it?"
Before long, the men's grumbling faded into the distance. Their heavy bootsteps receded until only the stillness of the forest remained.
The only thing breaking the hush was the frantic, muffled breathing of a little girl, whose mouth was clamped shut beneath Junon's steady hand.