For the Sake of You Who Care for Me (1)
For the Sake of You Who Care for Me (1)
─ SYSTEM : Current <Black Death> Trial progress is 95%.
"Hoo...."
Vermel had barely managed to calm the situation.
─ SYSTEM : Current probability of Bad Ending is 81%.
The clear probability was still on the low side. But considering that it had once climbed as high as 93%, the situation could be seen as significantly improved.
There were two main ways to pass the First Trial, commonly called the 'Black Death', without incident.
One was for Teacher Sepia to produce a cure after countless trials and errors.
'But that takes too long.'
Nothing was more agonizing than simply enduring a crisis with no end in sight. The first route was the orthodox approach, but at the same time, critics pointed out that it made the player passive.
Most importantly, the quarantine net had already been breached. Even the medical staff, who practiced rigorous personal hygiene, had begun to fall ill. The disease's incubation period was erratic, making it difficult to establish an isolation period for close contacts.
They had mounted the maximum initial response, but only the academy had been successfully defended. If things dragged on like this, he thought we might fail to meet the Happy Ending conditions.
That was why Vermel decided to put the second strategy route into action.
The Hidden Route that clears the Black Death scenario. At the center of that route stood a certain individual.
'Aether.'
A character who originally had little to do with this Trial.
However, as the story progressed after the Black Death Trial, the player would learn that the perpetrator who spread this plague had a close connection to Aether.
'In terms of "hierarchy" alone, Aether was several steps above that Plague Doctor. Aether might not remember it, but that Plague Doctor would have known what Aether truly was from the beginning.'
The method to execute this route was simple.
[Lure 'Aether of the Black Day' and 'Entero the Plague Demon' into contact.]
Just doing that would make the Plague Doctor jump to his own conclusions and withdraw from the capital. First-round players who stumbled onto this route by accident could be forgiven for walking around with question marks over their heads and criticizing the developers over plausibility.
'The problem was, I didn't have a good excuse.'
He lacked a solid reason to bring Aether to the Underground Waterway at No.672, where Entero appeared. Since mosquitoes were the vector for the Black Death, entering a sewer teeming with flying insects was practically suicidal.
─ Why would I? What reason do I have to go to a place like that?
Anyone would react that way. In fact, when he proposed it to the main cast, including Rote and Frey, they gave similar answers.
But there was no time to spare. Vermel racked his brains, struggling to come up with several ways to persuade Aether.
Originally, no matter what reason he gave, the probability of Aether accepting his proposal was less than 1%. He had to beat the abysmal odds that had forced countless players into a reset marathon in a single attempt. Vermel called Aether, offering a suitable pretext.
And then.
─ If you pay me, sure.
That absurdly low probability was broken through with ridiculous ease.
He had been certain that the persuasion process would be a serious struggle. That expectation was laughably off the mark.
'Is she really the same person I knew?'
Vermel had ultimately found himself thinking that again.
He had considered the possibility that Aether was a possessor. If so, it would be the best-case scenario, and achieving a Happy Ending would be far easier.
But if Aether were a player, she would have tried to delay the development of Flare as much as possible. After all, even day-two newbies knew the widely circulated fact that the Black Death Trial was triggered through Flare.
Conversely, what if a non-gamer had possessed her? That made even less sense. The magical comprehension the girl displayed in class reached a level rivaling a Spirit King.
Above all, seeing as she had completed Flare at least three months ahead of the original timeline, the original soul was confirmed.
'You never know. Maybe a Nobel Prize winner ended up inside her.... No, the odds on that are astronomical.'
No matter how he calculated, she was an entity he couldn't gauge.
Aether readily agreed to accompany him into the underground waterway. In return, she demanded one Gold Coin.
Since Vermel had a sum of money he had brought from Kaurelia, he could easily spend a Gold Coin or two. If anything, driving out the Black Death for the price of a single Gold Coin was an unparalleled bargain.
─ SYSTEM : Current <Black Death> Trial progress is 98%.
"Done."
Vermel returned to the dormitory, a satisfied smile on his face.
Two more weeks. That was how long Teacher Sepia needed to produce a cure. If they could just hold out for that period, no one at the academy would die.
"Now I can focus on the First Prince."
The second trial following the <Black Death> was the <Guillotine>. To skip that trial, he had to rescue the First Prince, imprisoned in the Imperial Palace Dungeon.
Vermel was sitting at his desk, contemplating concrete countermeasures.
─ Whirr.
The Hotline connected to the interior of the dormitory began to ring.
**
"Keh-heuk, kek."
Rote collapsed.
Bright crimson blood, like red flower petals, seeped through the cracks of her lips. Rote barely tried to rise but couldn't keep herself upright. The girl clutched the bed railing and crumbled powerlessly.
Until now, Rote had been such a healthy child that I'd never even seen her catch a cold. My mind briefly stopped at the sight of her face, now utterly pale.
"Wh-what's wrong with you...?"
"Vo-voi...."
"Voice? You can't speak?"
Rote barely managed a nod.
Why was this happening all of a sudden...?
Rote clutched her throat and gasped for breath with difficulty.
When I felt around her neck, I detected hard lumps. Next, I checked her forehead. It felt like touching the lid of a cauldron heated to its limit.
"I-I-I, I...."
I felt as if I'd been shot in the head.
Clearly, I knew in my head what I was supposed to do at a time like this. But my body wouldn't move as quickly as I thought it would. It took several seconds for me to come to my senses.
Even though it already seemed too late, I hurriedly put on a quarantine mask and snatched up the receiver in the dormitory. Following the directive to connect via Hotline in an emergency, I called someone.
The Hotline didn't connect to a general hospital with plenty of medical staff, nor to the Imperial Disaster Response Headquarters crowded with quarantine experts.
It was the one person who understood this entire situation and would deliver the optimal answer.
Vermel Horde.
No, the fellow countryman I had pegged as a possessor. He alone would know the answer.
I took the deepest breath I could manage, then spoke in a calm tone.
"...Horde, I think Rote has the Black Death."
[...Wait there.]
That was the end of the conversation. The receiver cut off after the sound of someone sprinting outside.
In the meantime, there wasn't much I could do. Practically nothing. I could only bite my lip as I watched my roommate's condition worsen by the minute in real time.
How much time passed? Vermel arrived sooner than I had expected.
Leading two or three people clad in fully sealed quarantine suits.
Only ten minutes had passed from the moment the Hotline connected until his arrival. The initial response was insanely fast. So this was how the academy had avoided any fatalities so far.
One of the people Vermel brought was Teacher Sepia Gliston. The laid-back health-and-physical-education teacher with two-toned hair and a citrus perfume. She examined Rote's condition, then spoke.
"It's still the early stages. If we take the right measures, we can prevent it from progressing to 'Ironblight.'"
Ironblight was the symptom that earned this parallel-world Black Death its name.
When the illness reached the terminal stage, skin tissue transformed to resemble iron or briquette ash. As a non-specialist, I didn't know the mechanism. But one thing was certain: it was a symptom that, once it manifested, modern medicine could not cure.
"I'll teach you how to make a patient-specific Oral Rehydration Solution, so watch carefully and learn."
The oral rehydration therapy Teacher Sepia taught me was slightly different from what I knew on Earth. I learned that, in addition to salt and sugar, an extract from Yuzu Tree peel had to be mixed in.
"Were you by any chance not wearing a mask?"
"...Yes."
The primary cause of this parallel-world Black Death was a flying insect similar to a mosquito. But like the pneumonic plague on Earth, it could also transmit directly from person to person. In such cases, the average incubation period was four days, accompanied by additional symptoms like coughing and chest pain.
Rote and I had lived together for at least three months. If Rote's symptoms were only starting now, it meant I should begin showing the same symptoms within a week at most.
"...Huh."
A brief silence. The air in the room settled heavily.
I was wearing only a mask. The three people before me were clad in thick full-body quarantine suits.
We had held out so well until now. Was I going to die right at the end? I didn't know. I felt no scratchiness in my throat, no stiffness spreading through my body. But the fact that my head had been throbbing every single morning bothered me.
"......."
Unlike primary Black Death transmitted via mosquito bites, secondary Black Death transmitted through droplets had a significantly worse prognosis.
Rote would have known that as well. I could tell from her eyes. She was the one suffering pain right now, and yet she was clearly worrying about me, who still retained some small probability of not being infected. I truly... disliked that.
Idiot.
If I had to describe the young Saliere lady in a single word, that was still the only one that fit.