The Black Death (2)
The Black Death (2)
The best way to stop an epidemic apocalypse was prevention. Cutting off the source of infection, ensuring there were no patients at all.
Now that the Black Death episode had begun, blocking the transmission route at the source was almost impossible. That was the rule set by the game, a transcendent law unalterable by human will.
However, if one could control the number of initial patients and buy time for an initial response, the probability of clearing the trial perfectly rose exponentially. Vermel threw open the door to the Alchemy Club room to create a drug that would eliminate the mosquitoes, the intermediate host of the otherworldly Black Death.
"Huh?"
And there, Aether and Frey were already present.
'Why are they in here doing this?'
Normally, right after the Flare episode ended, Aether's presence in the main story became that of a background character. There was no way she'd appear out of nowhere in a place the player was headed.
"What are you two doing?"
"Hobby."
"Making a scroll as a hobby...?"
"What of it. I paid my own tuition, so I can use the club room for a hobby."
"What are you making?"
"A mosquito killer."
"......?"
At the unexpected answer, Vermel's thoughts ground to a halt.
"So, you're making a tool to catch mosquitoes with that scroll?"
"Yeah."
His mind was a mess. A scroll-based low-grade magic-beast distractor was part of a new build Vermel had originally planned to craft. Yet Aether was trying to develop it first.
'Could something like this happen when two trials overlap...?'
The currently ongoing Black Death scenario corresponded to the 'First Trial.' On the other hand, the event that randomly occurred if one failed to properly manage Aether's stress level chronologically corresponded to the 'Fourth Trial.'
The sight of the Fourth Trial's protagonist seemingly about to smash the First Trial's protagonist was more than enough to bring the old idiom "use one enemy against another" to mind.
According to the system, the Fourth Trial had not yet occurred. That meant Aether was likely doing this not out of stress, but out of simple curiosity.
Perhaps she was a character who spent her time this way while the player was busy with other things. Just because she didn't appear in the main event didn't mean she had no academy life. Thinking that was better for his mental health.
"I think this should do."
"Wow! It's done!"
In any case, Aether was doing the work he'd intended to do. In all his life as a veteran player, he had never seen a case like this, and it made him feel like he was back in his newbie days.
Vermel followed the girl out. The place Aether headed to was a nearby puddle surrounded by ornamental foliage plants.
"Why did you come to a place like this?"
"You know mosquitoes are mechanical, right? But I read in a book that these things have their own habits."
"Habits?"
Even Vermel had never heard that mosquitoes had detailed habits.
In the game, the only obtainable information was that mosquitoes were the intermediate host of the Black Death, and that the bark of a tree from the Rutaceae family was needed to cure it. He had never been interested in how specific fields of study had developed in this world, nor did he have the time to accumulate that much learning.
But Aether was different.
"The reason mosquitoes, even though they are mechanical magic beasts, are rarely seen in winter is because they too breed and spawn. It's not that the mosquitoes themselves can't withstand the cold, but rather that the environment isn't right for laying eggs and rearing young, so they disappear to undergo a sort of hibernation."
Aether acquired and applied knowledge whenever she wanted. This level of detail was something Vermel had never seen even while playing through all the game's content.
"If there's liquid water and a place with Sapindales, the breeding conditions are complete."
"Sapindales?"
"I'm talking about the plant classification system. Specifically, research results show that swarms of mosquitoes converge on plant groups within the Citrus genus. You know, the ones commonly called citrus? Lemon, lime, yuzu, mandarin orange, that sort of thing."
'Yuzu, no way...!'
One of the ingredients composing the cure for the otherworldly Black Death was the peel and fruit of the yuzu tree. And the Black Death of this other world was an unreal plague capable of infecting not only humans but most living creatures.
'Right, that's why.'
Everything fit. He now understood why mosquitoes sucked sap from these trees during the non-spawning season, and why Teacher Sepia, who had been mad for citrus scent right after the actual trial struck, survived the Black Death. Vermel nodded and gazed blankly at Aether installing a scroll by the water.
Controlling Aether was difficult.
But as long as he didn't let her fall into corruption, she would be the best possible card for reaching a happy ending.
**
The road to the north was cold, arduous, and lonely too.
Soldiers dragged off to war at least had comrades beside them, but for Kleis, moving alone, every step she took was nothing short of hell.
It was certainly the road home, yet her heart was uneasy. In the quiet northern mountain ranges, ordinary people feared only the cold wave and magic beasts, but Kleis had one more source of terror.
Her father.
"Please enter."
Despite the butler's dry demeanor, Kleis maintained her silence. In the weather, where white powder like rice cake flour swirled, she removed her boots and stepped inside the foyer.
A ducal house had an artistic standard each family pursued. In a word, the aesthetic sense of House Haspelt was 'minimalism.' Simplify what could be simplified, economize what could be economized. Thanks to such austerity, Haspelt had been able to fund Flare research with the money that would have gone to art and luxury goods.
That was why the main house's corridors were so barren, without a single ceramic piece. Finally reaching her father's suite, Kleis took a deep breath and knocked.
Knock, knock. There was no answer.
"...Excuse me."
The door, made of modest solid wood, opened and shut with a gloomy sound.
The interior of the office was also difficult to call luxurious. A spruce desk with a lacquer finish was the only piece of furniture one might call an extravagance. A sofa or shelves? At best, their quality was similar to products used by low-rank nobles.
At the desk, a middle-aged man was working through paperwork, his chair creaking. He then raised his eyes slightly and looked at Kleis.
"...Kleis, do you know why I summoned you?"
In this era, most matters were resolved by landline telephone. If it had been a simple matter, her father wouldn't have summoned Kleis to the main house.
Her father's reason for wanting to face his grown daughter in person was only one.
When she had damaged the family's prestige.
"I tried to cover for your blunders whenever possible. But what is this?"
With a thud, a bundle of rough paper landed on the carpet, laden with cold air.
It was a newspaper article.
[Tillet Academy succeeds in developing top-grade Fire Magic 'Flare'... Undergraduate revealed to have identified the core principle]
"Let me hear some excuse. Did your research materials get stolen by that member of the Gold-Eye Tribe wench in the paper?"
"Huh?"
At the absurd question, Kleis lost her composure and stammered.
"Didn't you tell me that on a call before? That three years ago, you took in a Gold-Eye slave and sat her in your lab."
"That—that is true."
"'That is true?' Are you seriously asking because you don't know? I'm asking if there is any other Gold-Eye in the Capital City besides your slave in that article. Is there, or isn't there?"
"Th-there, isn't...."
"Then that means you not only let that slave enroll in the academy but also let her snatch away what the family was researching. Is your father wrong about anything?"
Before her father, the daughter could only tremble. She had to offer some protest, but the words wouldn't come. It was obvious that anything she had prepared to say would only be dismissed as an excuse.
To quell a parent's anger, a child instinctively had to lower her eyes and observe the patterns on the wooden floor.
Kleis had a stratagem she used often at times like this.
Just bow her head first.
"...I was careless. I apologize."
Kleis bent deeply at the waist. Her upper body bowed forward so much that her cascading hair touched the floor.
A hazy plume of smoke drifted over Kleis's crown. Her father, who had somehow approached to stand right before her, was holding a Mana Cigarette with the same grip she used.
"Right, what's the use of the family's long-cherished wish or whatever? The important thing is that the Empire now has a means to fend off extinction-class magic beasts. Even if the capital we poured in for 80 years can't recoup its principal, it probably doesn't matter. Yes, it won't matter if the patent is released, right.... You think so too, don't you? Kleis."
"......."
That single sarcastic remark stabbed into her heart like a dagger. But that wasn't the finishing blow.
"By the way. Why are rumors of plagiarism going around?"
"...What?"
Kleis's expression went slack. Plagiarism of a paper, that was the first she'd heard of it.
"Someone told me the rumor has already spread throughout the Capital. Who is responsible for letting it reach my ears that you almost copied that Gold-Eye brat's paper, whom you once kept as a slave, and got desk-rejected?"
She truly didn't know. Could it have spread by landline while she was traveling here? Information traveled fast these days, so that was possible.
"I could endure everything else, but I absolutely cannot ignore plagiarism. Kleis, because of you, the family's prestige has been dragged through the mud so thoroughly it could bore through the continent's inner core."
"That's a misunderstanding...! I really... I truly didn't plagiarize...!"
She was mortified. But she had no means left to prove her innocence.
"Kleis. In this matter, I cannot protect you even if I wanted to. Even if you didn't reference that brat's paper, if the similarity is high, you're finished."
Of course, even Kleis had some inkling. The process and method by which she completed Flare were mostly a downgraded version of what Aether had created.
The fact that she had built the various theories of Flare from the Maso-Energy Exchange Theorem, that she had expanded and arranged the scroll into a 3-dimensional shape to make something similar, that both had conducted experiments using mana waves of the same wavelength.
Every single point matched uncannily well, so even though Kleis felt a boiling indignation inside, she could offer no excuse. No one knew better than her that no matter what she said, the academic world would only treat her as a thief.
But even amid that, the head of House Haspelt continued the conversation in a calm tone instead of throwing an ashtray.
"I did not call you here to rebuke you. Rather, it is to make you choose."
"What do you mean, choose...?"
"You have two choices. One is to leave this household, taking responsibility for disgracing the family's prestige. The other is...."