The Second Escape (2)
What kills the most people in war is not bombs, not machine guns, not holy arts or magic.
Influenza. Trench foot. Dysentery. The Black Death. Tetanus.
For every soldier who dies in an air raid, ten more perish from fever and necrosis. Disease is the true enemy a soldier must fight.
I was no different.
My temperature climbed. My body went stiff. A searing, brand-like pain rose from the spots where the iron barbs had struck my gut and near my wrist, growing sharper with every passing hour.
In the end, before I could attempt anything at all, I was flat on my back again.
"Mage?"
The Valkyrie pressed a hand to my forehead, then startled and called for the Saintess.
"Why is the mage suddenly like this?"
"One moment."
"Don't tell me it's tetanus."
"No — the incubation period would be far too short for that. And yesterday I placed an Antibiotic Blessing on the battlemage. Infection should have been impossible…"
The Saintess's eyes took on a dull, watery hue.
"It's the mana."
Mana.
I had expected as much.
Yesterday I had burned through more magical power than I had any right to. Never in my life had I loosed so many spells in so short a span.
"Overusing magic must have gutted your immune system. You caught a cold on top of that. Looking at this fever, you're going to be properly sick."
The Saintess set about cooking. She steeped herbs into a tea.
"Drink this. It's brewed from leaves with antibiotic properties. There are flower petals in it that boost immunity as well — chew those too. Drink up, then rest."
I was in no position to refuse kindness. I nodded.
And so I spent an entire week doing nothing but resting. Naturally, I cast no magic at all.
In the meantime the Valkyrie handled hunting and water, while the Saintess took charge of cooking and foraging.
The two of them rotated night watch without a hitch — and even accounting for the sharp drop in monster sightings, their efficiency was seamless.
A sudden fear crept over me.
"You two might just escape just fine without me at this rate."
I said it half-joking to the Saintess as she tended me. I expected her to laugh it off.
Instead, her expression hardened.
"Don't say things like that."
"It was a joke."
"Don't even joke about it. It drains the will right out of nursing you. I go out of my way to look after you and you can't even read the room. Hmph. Are you an idiot?"
The Saintess's irises edged toward violet.
For a Lumina, the color of the iris carries a great deal of information. When they are frightened, anxious about the future, or simply unsettled, their eyes turn purple.
"Look at my eyes. Can you see that I mean it?"
"…Yes, well."
"I've never particularly liked being a Lumina. Everyone can read your feelings, after all. But at times like this, it's genuinely convenient. If I weren't one, you'd have decided I wasn't serious, wouldn't you?"
"…"
"You have to live. Because of you, the milestones of my faith are starting to shift. What the true path of a devotee is. What the difference is between a mage and a battlemage… You are going to take responsibility and show me."
"I'm sorry, but I don't understand a single word of that."
"Then stop talking nonsense and just drink this!"
The Saintess held out the herbal decoction. Behind the bitterness came a faint sweetness. Not bad at all.
"How's your body?"
"Definitely better than last week."
It wasn't only the Saintess who had nursed me.
The Valkyrie had gone so far as to feed me by hand. Mortifying — but I had so little strength I simply accepted it.
"Come to think of it, Miss Caston."
"What is it?"
"Are your injuries all right?"
"Don't worry. I'm fine."
The Saintess offered a faint smile. For someone claiming to be fine, the dark circles under her eyes were deep. Looking closer, she was sweating heavily. Her face was flushed.
"Pardon me."
I brushed the hair from her temple and touched her forehead and cheek.
Hot. The temperature was climbing by the second.
This was a furnace.
The Saintess, irises painted orange, shoved my hand away hard.
"Wh-what do you think you're doing?!"
"Look. You have a fever."
"How dare you — so filthy…! That's a sin worthy of divine punishment! No one but a spouse may ever touch a Saintess's face!"
"You're about due for the same cold yourself. Better rest before it gets worse."
"Hmph. I don't want to hear that from a sick man."
And exactly half a day later, the Saintess collapsed into bed.
It took roughly three weeks from that day before we fully recovered from the battle with the ghouls. Given our circumstances, the aftereffects that should have resolved in a week at most dragged on for nearly a month.
At any rate, we were well now.
"Wrist and stomach — are they all right?"
"I should be asking you. Have all your wounds healed?"
"…Why are the two of you talking as if I'm not even here."
All three of us were in acceptable condition.
From here on, it was time to begin the real work of escaping the island.
We started by relocating. We moved the lifeboat from the lakeshore to a flat clearing a short distance away. Over the top of the boat we lashed thick branches into an A-frame skeleton, then packed palm fronds densely over it to finish the roof.
"Shelter done."
Next came food.
Ever since we had brought down the ghouls, the island had begun to change. Birdsong had started to reach us.
"I've been eating nothing but fish for a whole month. I feel like I'm going to throw up."
"There might be a way to hunt birds."
Even a water elf wouldn't live on fish alone to this degree. We were long past due for some real meat.
"Battlemage. Pay me back for the nursing."
"Yes, ma'am."
I quickly built a snare — a classic bird trap of lightening stone, a basket, wooden sticks, and a few lengths of cord.
With a touch of automation added.
I picked tree fruit, finished setting the trap, and before long a flock of birds came twittering down one by one.
They hopped on plump little legs under the basket and pecked at the fruit. Their last supper. The moment one finished eating and tried to leave, the lightening stone released a pulse of vibration.
Wooooom!
The stone's force transferred tension through the cord. The wooden stick bound to that cord toppled of its own accord. The basket followed, flipping over and trapping the birds inside.
"Got them!"
We lit a fire at once, stripped every feather, and set the birds over the flames.
"Sorry. No hard feelings. But what am I supposed to do when I'm this hungry?"
"Merciful Goddess, we thank You for granting us this day our daily bread."
The Valkyrie and the Saintess began to pray, so I folded my hands with them.
Out in the wilderness, you end up seeking a god whether you want to or not. Just hoping you'll make it through tomorrow.
When I tore off a bite of the roasted bird, tears pricked at my eyes.
"Whoa."
It was delicious.
"How long has it been since we had meat?"
"After nothing but fish, even the smell of it was giving me a headache."
"People really do need a balanced diet. You think so too, right, battlemage?"
After the meal we spent one more night, then began the climb up the mountain in earnest.
Everything was still there. The tree stumps. The altar for the Burnt Offering.
Even the people reduced to bare bone.
"What do we do about them? They never even got a proper burial."
If it had been a dozen or so, we might have managed headstones — but time made even that impossible. As a stopgap we built a cairn of stones, offered a prayer, and began our search.
First we recorded the mana signature of the area into Origin Stones. Injecting a pattern into one stone caused it, true to its nature, to influence the others.
With that, the mana compass was complete.
"Major."
That was when David whispered.
"The former battalion commander's presence is drawing closer. I don't believe I was mistaken."
"Is that true? Where?"
"That way. No — not there. Yes. The direction you're looking now."
As if possessed, I started walking.
"Mage? Where are you going all of a sudden?!"
"At least say something before you leave! Ugh, seriously! What's wrong with him this time?"
A mana signature special and familiar. Following that scent, I arrived at a small clearing behind the altar.
All that met the eye was a bundle of old papers on a stump, outdated scrolls and candles, a few alchemical tools, and a handful of artifacts.
The Saintess and the Valkyrie came panting up behind me and let out soft gasps.
"To think there was a place like this behind the altar…"
"Come look over here. There are ancient documents everywhere. All written in Whieon."
"Can you read them, Colonel?"
"I can understand them spoken, but I can't speak or read the language myself. Limits of the Holy Spirit Eye. We'll have to ask the mage to translate."
I could hear the two women murmuring behind me, but that hardly mattered now.
Something sat in a corner of the stump.
"A… a stone."
A perfect sphere.
A stone of ideal symmetry, like the moon in the night sky, spoke to me.
Looking at its shape, I simply could not hold back.
On impulse I picked up the stone and rolled it this way and that in my palm.
Not artificially carved. One hundred percent natural.
It was soft!