Red Spots Erupt
When I rushed to the Zone 3 construction site following Cassel, the scene was already utter chaos.
"Aaah! It's burning! Save meee!"
"Chancellor has arrived! Clear the way!!"
As the private soldiers parted to make a path, I saw about a dozen laborers writhing in agony on the dirt ground. Beside them, the doctors I'd assigned from the Chancellor's office were examining them, sweat beading on their brows.
"What happened? How'd they get hurt?"
At my question, the elderly head doctor shook his head, his face pale as a ghost.
"Your Excellency, it's not an external injury. Look at this."
The doctor cautiously lifted the shirt of one patient. My brow furrowed instantly. From the man's chest up to his neck, hideous red spots were erupting grotesquely. The patient, eyes rolled back from boiling fever, was hacking up blood-mixed phlegm.
"……Red Spots?"
"Yes. Sudden ultra-high fever, respiratory distress, and red spots covering the entire body…… They were digging away fine just an hour ago, then collapsed one after another. This is undoubtedly……"
The old doctor's lips trembled.
"A contagious disease. A highly virulent, malignant plague without a doubt!"
Contagious disease. The moment that word hit the air, the slum dwellers encircling us recoiled in horror. Terror swallowed the construction site in an instant. My mind raced.
Contagious disease? Was there an event like this in the original story?
Oh, shit. Right. Red Spots.
Imperial Year 153, spring. The horrific zoonotic plague that started in the outskirts of the Imperial Capital, plunging the entire Empire into fear with a 70% fatality rate.
Damn it. Why's it breaking out now!
In the original story, it only happened after Caleb got his head chopped off on the guillotine. But because I'd forcibly sealed off the slums and crammed everyone together for the canal project, the outbreak had jumped forward by a whole month.
Fuck, my retirement plan's already getting splattered with shit.
If this plague spread through the site and wiped out the laborers? Not only would my precious retirement funds evaporate, but the canal project would grind to a halt. And the second it reached the noble houses in the capital, those Valer bastards would pin it all on me: "The cruel chancellor who squeezed the slums dry brought this curse upon us." Twenty days to the guillotine? Nah, more like tomorrow I'd be torn limb from limb by Princess Chloe and the noble coalition's blades.
"Doctor."
I spoke in a low, steady voice.
"Time from symptom onset to death?"
"At this brutal progression…… three days at most, maybe not even one if it's short. And the contagiousness is likely extreme!"
Back in my modern accountant days, I'd been a specialist in ruthless restructurings—severing and isolating subsidiaries to stop toxic debt from zombie companies from spreading. Viruses were the same as debt. Fail to quarantine completely at the start, and everything goes under.
I shot to my feet.
"Cassel!"
"Yes, Your Excellency!!"
"Arm all private soldiers right now and seal every entrance to the slums' outskirts. Block every last rat hole."
"Yes……? B-but that means……"
Cassel's eyes wavered. His gaze flicked to the thousands of healthy slum dwellers staring back in terror. A full lockdown meant trapping them in the plague pit too.
Horror washed over the slum folk's faces.
"Y-Your Excellency! We're fine! Let us out!"
"Yeah! We can't die locked up in here!"
As the crowd surged toward the exits, I yanked the pistol-type magic tool from my belt and fired into the air.
BANG!!
A deafening crack split the air as a red mana bullet streaked upward. The mob froze like stone.
I glared at them, killing intent rolling off me.
"Any bastard who steps one foot past the checkpoints gets their head blown off by my hand first."
My roar sent the slum dwellers crumpling to the ground in fright.
"The slums are under total lockdown as of now. Laborers, families, even my own soldiers—no exceptions. Not a single soul leaves this place. Cassel, shoot to kill anyone who tries to climb the barricades, no matter who they are."
"U-understood!"
The eyes of the slum folk—who'd just been mistaking me for some tsundere savior and pledging loyalty—began to waver.
So he's abandoning us after all. Planning to bury us here with the plague.
Despair clouded their faces. But I had no time to clear up their misunderstanding.
"And pull healthy laborers from Zones 1 and 2 to build isolation wards immediately. Doctors, stick to the patients and find ways to ease symptoms. Request any herbs or potions you need."
I stared down at the bloodied dirt from the fallen patient's mouth. We had to trace the plague's source. It couldn't have spawned naturally in this cut-off site. Someone had deliberately spread the pathogen.
Whoever this rat is trying to torpedo my retirement funds, I'll hunt them down and legally skin them alive.
"Your Excellency, where are you going?!"
Cassel shouted urgently as I headed for the office. I clutched my fluttering coat and glanced back. Behind me lay a hellscape of spreading red spots and despairing slum dwellers.
"Where else? To see Her Highness the Princess."
To resolve this and save my precious laborers, I needed the Empire's treasury and the Imperial Knight Order's public authority. Time to prep a killer presentation to win over the prickly Chloe, who was already sharpening her knife for my neck.
—
"……Red Spots, you say?"
In the office at Valer's Mansion, Marquis Valer's brow narrowed. He'd been leisurely puffing a cigar moments ago. Before him stood Count Root, pale-faced after inspecting the site days earlier.
"Yes, Your Excellency! That mad dog Caleb sealed the entire zone with his private soldiers the instant the plague hit the slums! Blocked every hole so tight, the folks inside are rats in a trap."
"Tch. Just when that dumb rat pup was learning money laundering and getting useful."
Marquis Valer irritably ground out his cigar in the ashtray. They'd funneled tens of thousands of gold in slush funds into that slum site. If the plague halted construction and locked it down, that cash was either frozen or gone.
Count Root fidgeted desperately.
"Y-Your Excellency! My 15,000 gold slush fund's stuck there! We need to send soldiers, grab Caleb by the throat, and recover it now……!"
"Shut your idiot mouth!!"
Valer bellowed, making Root flinch and shrink.
"It's that Red Spots from back when it turned the Empire's south into living hell! You wanna send soldiers for pocket change and let it spread to our territories?!"
"Th-that's……"
"And you think the Princess will let this slide? She crammed the slums like livestock, bred the plague—someone's gotta take the fall and hit the guillotine."
Valer smirked.
"Write off the money we sank into Caleb as a sunk cost. Cut the tail clean before the shit splashes us. Summon the faction nobles now—lock down our zones, erase every link to Caleb."
Ruthless profit calculus. The gold stung, but his safety and power came first.
"B-but Your Excellency, you're really okay eating a loss of tens of thousands of gold?"
"Who said anything about eating it?"
Valer grinned like a sly fox.
"The gold Caleb took? We'll raid the imperial treasury and get back tenfold."
"Pardon? How……?"
"Buy up every Silver Leaf Herb and fever-reducing herb in the capital right now. Stockpile 'em in our warehouses. Pay double market price if you have to—drain the city dry."
Silver Leaf Herb was essential for cooling the high fevers of Red Spots. Root finally got it, eyes widening at the marquis's vicious scheme.
"Brilliant! Once the plague hits the capital, herb prices will skyrocket. Sell to the palace at ten or twenty times the price, and we'll more than cover the loss!"
"Money's just the start. It's a chokehold on the palace. The Princess will beg us for herbs, handing over throne powers to save her people."
Valer let out a greedy chuckle.
"And spread rumors across the capital. This whole disaster? All because of 'Chancellor Caleb's' savage greed. Fan the flames so the angry mobs' arrows fly at the Princess and that bastard!"
Cutting ties with Caleb, turning sunk costs into a hoarding scam, political incitement. The nobles' selfishness and greed wove a massive conspiracy, plunging the Imperial Capital into shadow.