The Plague and the Saint's Mercy
"Quiet for a while, and now this. Must be our day for it."
"At least the numbers are small. Small mercies."
Along the border of the Allied Kingdoms where the Barren Lands pressed against civilized earth, the knights on duty watched the monsters rampage near the castle gates and readied themselves, donning their armor.
To knights of their caliber, monsters at this level were hardly a challenge. But it was a truth impossible to ignore—every monster slain brought the Demonic Tree's resurrection that much closer, and the thought left a bitter taste in their mouths.
"Hm. Is it my imagination, or do they look... strange somehow?"
"I see it too, my lord."
Unsheathing their swords and pouring out through the gates, the knights found themselves unsettled by the monsters' uncharacteristic sluggishness, the way they swayed and lurched. Only after closing the distance and finishing the fight did they pause, eyes narrowing at the red spots blooming across the corpses.
"Can monsters... catch diseases?"
"...I couldn't say. There's nothing in any text I've read, but they're living creatures all the same. Regardless—collect the magic stones and report to the Margrave."
"Yes, sir."
With the magic stones extracted, the knightly orders returned to their territory and resumed life as usual, their suspicions laid quietly to rest.
Then, one week later, the catastrophe struck.
A strong body, after all, was no guarantee against disease.
"...Cough! Is it a cold?"
Standing before a mirror and opening his mouth, a knight found white patches lining the inside of his cheeks. A symptom of excessive stress or malnutrition, he told himself—perhaps he'd simply been pushing too hard lately. But the apothecaries' prescriptions did nothing, and when fever began boiling before dawn and red spots erupted across his entire body...
"Plague—!"
In a single instant, they understood: they had contracted an epidemic.
The symptoms of the monsters they'd dispatched weeks ago had already been nagging at the back of their minds, and with disaster now breaking out, the knight commanders immediately ordered quarantine—for themselves and every man under them.
It was a remarkably calm and swift judgment. But measles was the most contagious disease there was, and the week already spent had doomed them. The spread that had taken root in those seven days was beyond all reckoning.
"Lord Margrave! You must inform everyone of this, and at once!"
"Understood!"
Even after the knightly orders quarantined themselves, new cases of the plague kept surfacing, one after another. Soon even the physicians tending the sick became infected, and the entire medical system collapsed.
Measles was hardly among the deadliest of illnesses, but with no way for them to gauge the danger of a plague none had ever seen, panic was the natural result.
And when the reports revealed the disease had already spread to neighboring territories, the lord of the epicenter—the Margrave of the Allied Kingdoms—understood instantly that this was no ordinary affair.
"Your Highness. We cannot contain this as things stand. The Free Trade City borders the Barren Lands directly—stopping the spread is all but impossible. Monsters approaching the walls can be burned, which halts further infection at the source, but transmission between people has already..." He hesitated. "And since there is no precedent whatsoever for a plague originating from monsters, there's no telling how long it will take to develop a treatment."
"What do the casualty reports say?"
"Fortunately, in spite of the pace of the spread, the recorded deaths number around fifty—and all of them elderly. But I cannot promise that will hold if time drags on. Daily life has ground to a halt, which will deal a devastating blow to the economy. With prices already climbing because of the Demonic Tree's revival, a catastrophe of tremendous scale is about to crash down upon us."
It was true.
The Free Trade City. It was one of the regions bordering the Barren Lands, and its merchants moved goods across territories—no, across national borders—buying and selling wherever profit led them. Which meant the epidemic would not stay confined to the Allied Kingdoms. It was already spreading across the entire Empire.
"Infection appears to travel through the air, so quarantine measures at this point would be meaningless... The only comfort is that the mortality rate is low—"
"As I understand it, the Crown Prince of the Empire once used the power of the Dragon Tongue to fully cure Lady Asis of the Asis Duchy, who suffered from total paralysis."
At the words of the King of Asbarok, ruler within the Allied Kingdoms, the ministers assembled at court squeezed their eyes shut and bowed their heads.
"Yes... If that is true, the Empire will likely suppress this epidemic in short order."
"And the reputation of the Order of Iris, which the Crown Prince has been spreading of late, will only rise higher..."
"Absurd! We agreed implicitly to suppress the birth of any new religion! Is this not the Empire's own theater? They founded that sect precisely to worm their way into the hearts of our people! What else could explain such perfect timing?"
As the court erupted into an uproar, the King of Asbarok clutched his throbbing head and let out a long sigh.
"How long until a treatment can be developed?"
"I cannot say with any certainty. The problem is that if it takes too long, people will begin fleeing to the Empire... and if we try to stop them, there may well be a riot."
"The sun does not always shine upon a kingdom."
"I say again—look at the timing! Is it not far too convenient? First they found a goddess's religion that grants the power of the Dragon Tongue, and then a plague breaks out!"
"If this goddess truly exists, might she have received some revelation...?"
"That a plague would come?"
"No—if not that, then it would mean the power of the Dragon Tongue can spread disease as well. It may be pure coincidence, truly. But if it is not coincidence, then for our sake, I'd almost prefer the revelation."
Heard aloud, the reasoning was not without merit, and the sighs filling the great hall only deepened without end.
「 I'll heal you, so just wait a little while. 」
"Don't worry about me. Honestly, red spots like these are so familiar by now they don't even surprise me."
Aria chuckled softly and lowered herself slowly onto the sickbed. Beneath the slip of her loosened clothing, the red blooms of measles showed against her skin, and sweat beaded down her fevered body in glistening trails.
At the sight of her, the guilt I had so painstakingly suppressed back then came surging back like a rising tide.
"Lapis got off scot-free, so now she gets you all to herself. Lucky her."
「 I've hardly neglected you, have I? 」
"Human desire is always a matter of the five senses never being satisfied."
「 You're exhausted. Enough talking—get some real rest. 」
"Only if you stay and put me to sleep."
I saw no reason to refuse the demand. Straightening her rumpled clothes and drawing the blanket over her, I tucked her in.
My hands, comparatively cool against her fevered skin, must have felt pleasant, because Aria slowly nuzzled her cheek against my palm. Like a normally prickly cat suddenly gone docile—it was a strangely endearing sight.
Watching over her as her body gradually steadied and she drifted naturally into sleep, I rose and turned my back on the bed.
Early evening.
Walking out of the pale white mist, Miho transformed into a small fox and leapt up onto my shoulder.
To eradicate the measles that had spread across the whole Empire in a matter of days, I would need to use Miho's_food-spirit dragon as my means of travel.
"Already I look forward to hearing mortals shower my master with praise, I do~"
「 Poisoning the wound just to sell the cure—it hardly brings me joy. I'd be lying if I said I felt no guilt. 」
With a bitter smile, I ran my hand along the bridge of Miho's nose as she sat in her fox-kit form, then stepped out of the room to find Lapis.
I had already told her I'd be leaving the duchy for a time, and her face was full of quiet reluctance.
"...When you go this time, how long until you return?"
「 Not very long. 」
"Please take care of yourself on your journey."
"I will. Look after the territory in my absence—and you take care of yourself too."
Lapis buried herself in my arms, making writing awkward, so I invested my words with the power of utterance as we spoke.
It was only a single phrase. But if it was for the purpose of bidding her farewell, it did not feel like a waste.
With Lapis seeing me off, I walked out into the streets of the duchy and felt the desolate air of the city.
Chillingly so.
With an epidemic spreading, it was only to be expected. But as I walked a little farther and came upon the completed temple, I found a considerable crowd of commoners gathered there.
Some of them were even offering prayers...
Though rather than genuine faith springing up overnight, I suspected they had gathered because I regularly visited the temple to pray, and so they hoped I might be the one to cure them.
"P-Prince...!"
Right on cue, I slipped through the crowd, and the desperate eyes of the people swept over me again and again.
I struck a posture of prayer toward the goddess statue standing tall, sending a small signal to Miho.
At once, a faint radiance welled up from the goddess statue before us, and from the night sky descended the Azure Dragon—Miho's_food-spirit.
The plaza erupted into commotion in an instant, but slowly, gradually, the tumult settled as the crowd beheld the great dragon coiling itself into rest beside the goddess statue.
"We give thanks for accepting our humble and earnest petition."
With the dialogue window's time still remaining, I carried on my shameless performance a while longer—drawing near, stroking the Azure Dragon's scales, then climbing atop its back and taking to the sky.
The moment we were airborne, taking the entire duchy into my field of vision, I poured the power of utterance into a wide-area designation.
The range of that designation was everything my eyes could see.
Designating healing as the wide-area target, its power began to spread across the entire duchy.
The sight of that healing force fanning out through the silent, darkened city like drifting fireflies was, in its own way, a beautiful nightscape.
And perhaps because I was slowly beginning to feel the red spots and fever fading from my own body—
Awe accumulated — 9,480 points in total.
Devotion accumulated — 3,460 points in total.
The results floated luminously before my eyes.
There had, admittedly, been a staged display through the goddess statue beforehand—but it seemed the people knew it was I who had directly cured their illness, for Awe had risen higher than Devotion.
Since I intended to tour the whole Empire in this manner anyway, I nodded, satisfied with the figures alone.
After all, it was more than enough to meet the requirement for Excalibur, inscribed under the Armament category of mycontinental records.
'Now... how will you people respond?'
Once I began riding the Order of Iris I had founded, acting the saint and building renown, it would take no time at all for the faith to seep into the plague-stricken populace of the Allied Kingdoms.
If even then they had no intention of bending the knee... then before the situation grew any worse, I would have no choice but to use the Succubus's power to turn a perfectly sound king into a foolish one.
'I'd expected dirtying my own hands to carry a greater psychological resistance.'
Was that not actually the case after all?
No—when the future I longed for stood at risk of vanishing overnight, right before my eyes, I doubted I was the only one who would feel this way.
Perhaps this, too, was nothing more than a wretched act of self-justification...