Thirin Cannot Earn Gold. "Because Silence Is Golden!!!!!"
Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. A look of resolve hardened his features as he gave a firm nod.
"...Understood. I'll guide the two of you into the village." He added, "But keep this in mind. The Empire cannot take any responsibility. From this point on, I'm not acting as the Imperial Army outpost commander—I'm simply one individual helping you both."
It was a clear line in the sand. An official declaration that the vast system known as the Empire could offer no assistance against this disaster. Yet Thirin simply nodded. Marcus could have just let her and the priestess inside and washed his hands of the matter. He had no obligation to personally escort them.
"Better than I expected. He's actually a decent old man."
"...Why are you calling me an old man?"
"You've been in the military. That automatically makes you an old man, doesn't it?"
"......"
Marcus looked genuinely confused. Why am I getting criticized like this... Wait, is it even criticism? From her age group, do I really look like an old man?
The priestess quickly stepped in. "We are grateful for the commander's kindness. I'm sure our sister meant to express the same sentiment."
At the priestess's polite words, Marcus gave another stiff nod. Without further comment, he led the pair past the crudely erected wooden palisade and into the village proper.
"......"
It was larger than expected. Over a hundred homes clustered together in reasonably organized blocks. At the very least, it was far more civilized than the backwater hamlet where Thirin had first crash-landed. The streets were paved with stone, and many of the buildings were sturdy two-story wooden structures.
"......"
But the village was dead.
There wasn't a single trace of life or energy. Thirin's instincts immediately sent her searching for a bakery. The smell of freshly baked bread was, in her experience, the most reliable measure of a settlement's vitality. A survival sense honed from her days as a professional beggar.
Yet the bakery door was firmly shut, and the display shelves visible through the window stood empty. The communal village oven had gone cold long ago, leaving only rain-hardened, icy ash behind. Almost no one walked the streets. The few people they did spot moved like ghosts—pale faces, keeping their distance from one another, sliding along the walls like shadows. A scattered archipelago of isolated islands where even a neighbor's cough became an object of terror.
"This place used to be quite lively," Marcus said, his voice tinged with bitter nostalgia. "For a mining village, it had an unusual number of children. Merchants from outside were always coming and going. In the evenings the miners would clink their cups together while their wives haggled over fresh bread."
"What could possibly draw so many people to a mining village?" Thirin asked indifferently. "And I don't even see the actual mine anywhere."
"...This isn't an ordinary mine that digs up regular ore," Marcus replied.
Thirin's eyes narrowed. "Not ordinary ore?"
"It's a mine that excavates Labyrinths."
"Labyrinths?"
At Thirin's question, Marcus fell silent. A faint look of discomfort crossed his face. Is he doing something shady?
The priestess beside her spoke up instead. "Didn't you call yourself a bounty hunter, sister?"
"So what?"
The priestess offered a subtle smile. "In that case, I believe you should consider retiring from bounty hunting for the time being."
"Why?"
"Gathering a bit more knowledge would likely benefit you more than catching criminals."
"......"
Thirin suddenly felt extremely, intensely annoyed. This woman was straight-up calling her ignorant!
Completely ignoring Thirin's mood, the priestess continued her explanation. "The term 'Labyrinth' doesn't refer to any single specific location. It is a collective name for the ruins left behind by the countless ancient civilizations that existed on this land before the Empire rose."
Her green eyes turned toward the dark blue Sea of Trees beyond the village. "Forgotten temples of ancient gods lost beyond that forest. Treasure vaults of nameless kingdoms from the distant past. Caves embedded with fragments from other worlds. People lump all of them together and simply call them 'Labyrinths.'"
"Treasure?" Thirin's eyes sparkled. Her greed instinct had just woken up.
Marcus poured cold water on her excitement. "There are no grand treasures like that in the Labyrinths here. The main source of income for this village is dismantling the materials that make up the Labyrinth walls and selling them."
He added, "The materials from old Labyrinths are sold at high prices to nobles because of the superstition that they contain divine power. They're also popular as ordinary building materials since they're incredibly sturdy and beautiful."
"......"
Thirin clicked her tongue inwardly. Such barbaric, capitalistic fantasy archaeology. She was starting to suspect that one of Oppert's descendants might have arrived here before her.
She said it outright. "That's just grave-robbing."
"You could see it that way," Marcus admitted surprisingly easily. "But we cannot simply leave behind forgotten temples or places imbued with a vanished god's power. Those spots become power vacuums. They're perfect nesting grounds for sinister things. If something takes root there, it becomes a disaster."
"Hmm."
Thirin suddenly remembered the temple of the sand demon she had smashed to pieces. That too had been a forgotten god's temple, turned into a den for cultists.
"In that case, shouldn't the Empire be handling it?"
"......"
Marcus didn't answer, but Thirin felt like she understood. The priests of the Pantheon seem ready to worship even gods who haven't joined them. The Empire can't openly oppose the Pantheon, so they don't touch these Labyrinths? They let civilians dismantle and devour them to eliminate potential threats?
"......"
Marcus changed the subject. "The village chief here is an extraordinary man. He discovered a Labyrinth and practically built this entire village by himself."
"Where did this amazing village chief go?"
"...I don't know. He's a rather busy person in his own right."
Marcus stopped talking and walked familiarly toward one of the houses. "It would be best to start with the patient showing the most severe symptoms."
Watching his back, Thirin thought, This outpost commander works pretty hard. But there's supposedly an infectious disease going around. How is he running around without a mask and not catching it? Does he have immunity or something?
A cliché from a disaster movie back in her beloved home world flashed through her mind. Guys like him usually get bitten by the first zombie and become the main culprit behind the infection's spread.
When Marcus knocked on the weathered wooden door, a faint sound of a child crying leaked out from inside.
"......"
Thirin's face scrunched up in distaste. The sound grated horribly on her ears. Beside her, the priestess was staring intently at Thirin's expression.
"Then I'll head inside," Marcus said, opening the door and stepping in first.
As Thirin moved to follow, the priestess blocked her path.
"Sister."
"What?"
The priestess's voice had lost its usual annoying tone and had grown gravely serious. "There is a plague patient inside."
"And?"
"Once you go in and face the patient directly, it may become impossible to turn back. It's not too late yet. Wouldn't it be better to leave now?"
Here we go again. Thirin clicked her tongue inwardly.
"What nonsense are you spouting at this point?" Thirin snorted. "I absolutely have to learn how to destroy a Divine Core from you, priestess. Until then, I'm not going anywhere."
"Is that truly the only reason?"
The priestess's green eyes deepened, as if trying to see through Thirin's mask and into her very core.
"Of course. What other reason could there be?" Thirin answered shamelessly.
"......"
"......"
The priestess looked at her, then smiled brightly. For some reason, Thirin really didn't like that expression.
The priestess suddenly said, "It seems you won't be able to earn any gold, sister."
"Why?"
"There's a saying that silence is golden. It appears to be the concept most distant from you."
Thirin was dumbfounded. "What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that now?"
At Thirin's irritated outburst, the priestess simply smiled silently and entered the house. Thirin followed after her, grumbling in annoyance.
Marcus opened the door with a stern face and stepped inside. Thirin and the nun followed behind him. The air inside the house was heavy and damp. The smell of musty mold mixed with faint medicinal herbs and the scent of resignation.
There were four family members in the room. On the bed, a wife drenched in sweat held a newborn to her chest, letting out shallow groans. Beside her, a boy who looked about five years old clutched a scrap of cloth in his hand and stared up at Marcus with hollow eyes. Even when strangers suddenly burst in, the child didn't seem surprised. His face simply held a weariness far beyond his years.
The husband, who appeared to be the head of the family, stood up the moment he saw Marcus and bowed his head.
"Commander. You've come."
"How are your wife and child doing?"
Marcus's voice had lost its usual stiffness and was now heavy with compassion. He approached the wife and newborn with practiced familiarity and placed a hand on their foreheads. It seemed the commander had been visiting this house regularly to care for them.
The husband shook his head. His voice was thick with moisture. "There's no improvement. After the village chief visited yesterday, she seemed to get a little better for a while, but the fever rose again during the night. Now even... the baby..."
His gaze turned to the newborn in his wife's arms. The infant seemed too weak even to cry properly, managing only faint, kitten-like whimpers.
Marcus clenched his fist tightly. He turned to Thirin and the nun to explain.
"This plague started about a month ago. At first we thought it was just a bad cold." He gestured with his chin toward the wife lying on the bed. "She was the first patient. But within just three days, the entire family except the husband had caught it. Now more than thirty percent of the village is in the same condition. The number of dead has already exceeded ten."
The nun asked quietly, "What are the symptoms?"
"...It's hard to pin down."
"Hard to pin down?"
"It begins with high fever and coughing, but it gets stranger as time passes." Marcus lowered his voice. "The patients gradually lose strength and only want to sleep. Even when awake, they stare blankly into space as if wandering through a dream."
Thirin said, "Isn't that just a normal symptom? Don't people get like that when they're sick for a long time?"
Marcus shook his head. "That's not where it ends."
His voice grew even heavier. "Some patients, while suffering from the illness, suddenly explode with rage as if they've encountered their mortal enemy. They destroy everything around them—people, objects—without discrimination, then collapse from exhaustion. When they wake up, they repeat the same behavior. Eventually their hearts stop."
He continued, "Others become abnormally sad for people who are merely sick. They cry day and night until they collapse from exhaustion, then wake up and cry again... In some cases, they eventually took their own lives."
"......"
Thirin frowned. This didn't seem like a simple infectious disease. Something about it felt off.
The priestess silently took the wife's pulse, then withdrew her hand and spoke quietly. "I'll start with what I can do. First, I must break the evil energy."
She raised her fist.
"!"
Confusion flashed across the husband's face, quickly turning to horror. He had realized what the priestess intended to do. The five-year-old boy simply stared blankly at the priestess's fist rising toward his mother.
Even Marcus cried out in panic. "What do you think you're doing?!"
But the priestess didn't hesitate.
-Thud!
With a dull sound, the priestess's fist struck the wife's abdomen with perfect accuracy.
"Cough, cough...!"
The wife coughed and vomited dark red blood.
"You crazy—!"
Marcus shot to his feet, hand flying to his sword hilt. "You said you came to treat them! What the hell are you doing?!"
But the priestess didn't answer. Her usual bright, relaxed demeanor had completely vanished. To Thirin's eyes, the priestess looked quite exhausted.
"Wait a moment," Thirin said, stepping between the agitated Marcus and the weary priestess. "Look at her first."
At Thirin's words, both Marcus and the husband stared at the wife as if entranced. The violent coughing had stopped, and her irregular breathing had grown calm. The husband tremblingly placed his hand on his wife's forehead. The burning heat had subsided considerably.
"......"
The husband silently bowed deeply to the priestess. Marcus also sat back down without a word.
With trembling hands, the husband then offered the newborn he had been holding to the priestess. But she shook her head.
Marcus couldn't hold back any longer. "Why not?"
The priestess answered in a tired voice, "My ability is still shallow. This is the only method I have to break the evil energy. The child would not be able to endure it."
Her treatment method could not be used on a newborn. It might kill the baby from shock rather than the disease.
Once again, deep despair clouded the husband's face. The five-year-old boy continued staring with hollow eyes, using his small hand to wipe the cold sweat from his mother's forehead.
"......"
Silence filled the room.
Thirin really didn't like the pathetic scene. What kind of melodramatic nonsense was this? She hated melodrama.
"......"
After thinking for a moment, Thirin asked, "Is there a blacksmith nearby?"