29 - Side Story - Alf's Perspective - Manning the Fortress 1
He reflected the information he had just received in the report onto the map spread across his desk. On the map, which showed simple topography and the positions of towns and villages within the country, three colors of marks had been inscribed. Blue marks meant no anomalies, yellow marks meant infected persons present, and red marks meant total annihilation. For now, the red marks were limited to just three, including Mey Village. Since the full-scale investigation had only just begun, it would probably increase from here.
"...The infection source is moving along the highway. That much seems certain."
When compiled on the map, it was easy to understand. The yellow and red marks advanced southeast from the neighboring country along the highway. In the letter from Leonardo that had been delivered via the Restham Order of Knights, though it was just speculation, something like that had been written. That a merchant might be carrying the infection source.
"The destination is the capital, I suppose. Well, exotic pets would not sell unless the customers were nouveau riche merchants or nobles, after all."
His own family was in the capital, so it worried him a little. Even if by some mistake, he did not think his parents would buy goods directly from a merchant, but still, worry was worry.
"Along with investigating the infection range, we need to secure the merchant too. Apparently he stopped by Mey Village at the end of autumn, but..."
If he had continued his business smoothly, he might not even be in the country anymore. For a merchant who did business with a wagon, he would have sold off his goods by autumn and returned home for winter. There were traces of movement along the highway, but the possibility remained that he had moved from within the country to the neighboring country. If he was already abroad, that was another country's problem. He could not say it did not matter, but that did not mean he could do anything about it either. About all he could do was send a warning from the Sedovara Church within the country to the Sedovara Church in the neighboring country. However, if the merchant was still doing business within the country, they needed to secure the merchant and the infection source and quarantine them to prevent further spread of the infection.
"Vice Commander! Jean-Jacques, reporting back, yo!"
With barely a knock, Jean-Jacques poked his head into the office. His face and clothes were covered in soot everywhere.
"Completed the burning of Mey Village. Not a thing left behind."
A village that had been destroyed by a mysterious infectious disease, since no one knew where the pathogens might be hiding, they could not just leave it alone even if there were no villagers. It needed to be burned and purified once. There had been one survivor in the village, a girl named Tina, but her guardian had already been decided. Even if they burned down her family home in Mey Village, the home she should return to was already elsewhere, so there was no need to worry.
"The other two villages as well, Teddy's squad and Randol's squad are scheduled to complete burning and return the day after tomorrow!"
At Jean-Jacques, who continued his report briskly though his wording was somewhat rough, Alf felt a sense of wrongness and furrowed his brow. The man Jean-Jacques was not a particularly well-mannered man. He respected that he could absolutely never beat the Commander, Leonardo, but he lacked respect toward his superior officer, thinking that he might someday be able to beat the Vice Commander, himself. Normally, by the time the report was finished, Alf would end up earnestly reprimanding Jean-Jacques for his bad conduct, listing everything from the knight's code to the morals of living as a member of society. But today, that did not seem necessary.
"You are strangely well-behaved today. Normally you would be more..."
"Because the Vice Commander said the other day that if I behave well, the report would end quickly!"
His face, breaking into a full smile, was not slightly but considerably creepy. His words came out crisp and sounded good, but Jean-Jacques's eyes were darting restlessly. Still, since there were no problems with the report, there was no need to detain him and lecture him as usual. When he permitted him to leave, Jean-Jacques started saying he wanted time off.
...So that was why he was being so solemn today.
His uncharacteristically docile attitude had been unsettling, but once the reason was understood, it was simple. Since returning from Mey Village, the knights had been running around collecting information on the infectious disease, forced to give up their days off, Jean-Jacques included. It was about time someone started crying uncle.
"...Take turns in a rotation system. You can go first. If the higher-ups do not take time off, it is hard for those below to rest."
"Yeaaahhh! Love ya, Vice Commander!!"
"Stop that, you are creeping me out."
Jean-Jacques thrust his fist toward the sky and let out a battle cry, then declared, "First I am off to the bathhouse!" and dashed out of the room. What Jean-Jacques called a "bathhouse" was not actually a bathhouse, though it had baths. It was a place where women provided sexual services in exchange for money, in short, a brothel. In a knight order full of energetic men, it was inevitable that some would avail themselves of such establishments. He had no intention of spouting pretty nonsense about how one should not have immoral relations with anyone but the woman they had chosen as a wife.
When Teddy's squad and Randol's squad returned from burning the destroyed villages, he gave them time off in rotation just like Jean-Jacques. If he worked them without sleep or rest and even the knights collapsed, it would not even be a joke. As expected, it seemed Jean-Jacques was the only one with the energy to go to a brothel, everyone else seemed to spend their days off sleeping all day, trying to recover their strength.
The anomaly within the fortress occurred on Randol's scheduled day off. As Randol came to report that he would be taking his first day off in weeks after finishing his work handover, the military doctor came rushing in.
"Jean-Jacques has fallen ill."
The atmosphere froze in an instant. This was work involving a village destroyed by disease. They had been careful enough about infection prevention. If they had said that Tina, who had lived in the village, or Leonardo, who had touched Tina, had fallen ill, that would be understandable. But fortunately, no such report had come. And yet, within the fortress, Jean-Jacques, who had never even touched Tina, had shown signs of infection.
Why, his mind went blank, but he immediately switched his thinking. There were things to do before being stunned.
"Immediately shut down the brothel Jean-Jacques frequents! Quarantine the prostitute who serviced Jean-Jacques."
While listing instructions and points of caution as they came to mind, he organized his thoughts.
...Giving him time off had backfired, had it not.
The first place Jean-Jacques, now with time off, had dived into was a brothel. Securing the brothel was basic. The prostitute who had serviced Jean-Jacques, the customers that prostitute had taken, the fellow prostitutes who shared their lives with that prostitute, and furthermore, their customers. He had also bragged about hitting up a dining hall and a tavern during his long-awaited holiday. If so, similar measures would be needed for the dining hall and tavern as well.
"In the city, we cannot burn down houses that have produced infected people. Request cooperation from the Sedovara Church. The Church should at least have some disinfectant."
After firing off as many instructions as he could think of, gathering the infected including Jean-Jacques, and isolating them in a corner of the fortress, it was nearly evening. He wondered about the wisdom of quarantining sick people, people with an infectious disease no less, in a fortress meant to protect the country with soldiers in times of emergency, but conversely, there was nothing else to be done since they could not let them out either. Normally, one relied on the Sedovara Church for medical matters, but the Sedovara Church was also a facility open to the common people. They could not, under any circumstances, allow the infection to spread within the Sedovara Church. If the disease spread to the common people who visited the Sedovara Church seeking medicine, there would be no point in quarantining the infected, nor any meaning in visiting the Sedovara Church seeking treatment.
He listed the quarantined individuals and checked for any omissions.
...Should I be quarantined too? When I spoke with Jean-Jacques when he came asking for time off, I was not wearing a mask.
Perhaps among the knights who had been in squads with Jean-Jacques or other knights he was close to, there might be infected individuals.
...All knights will wear masks for a while. That should at least somewhat prevent unknowingly spreading the infection during the period before symptoms appear.
He turned around to notify everyone about wearing masks, and remembered Randol standing behind him. Randol was supposed to have been given time off, but there was no room for that anymore.
"Randol, I am sorry, but make a run to Waiyakku Valley. Go check on the Commander's condition."
"Yes, sir!"
The prostitute quarantined in a corner of the north wing fell ill, and the spread of infection was confirmed. He had wanted to send an express messenger to Leonardo to convey this, but he felt reluctant to ask Randol, who had only just returned. However, Randol silently accepted the role of express messenger, and Leonardo returned to the fortress with a small amount of medicine.
Regarding the fact that Tina and Leonardo, who had secluded themselves in the valley out of caution for infection, were not infected, while Jean-Jacques, who had been careless, was infected, Leonardo tilted his head in puzzlement. However, regarding the spread of infection to the prostitute, he seemed exasperated, saying it was just too typical of Jean-Jacques.
"According to Tina's account and the cases Aurelia found, it should be about time for Jean-Jacques's fever to go down once."
Once the fever went down, apparently it was accompanied by intense itching next. If one gave in to temptation and scratched, pox would form there, and the itching would increase further. Since he had seen the body of Tina's father, who supposedly had not lost to the itching, he did not have much of a real sense of it, but he had also heard about the condition of the bodies that had been left exposed in the village where all the people who should have been buried had died.
The medicine Leonardo had brought back was a rather unreliable item that could be expected to be effective only in the extremely early stages of infection. Moreover, it needed to be taken continuously, and the quantity itself was small. Even if they selected people with mild cases, they could give the medicine to at most ten people. If they reduced the dosage, the number of people they could treat would increase, but then there was a possibility it would not be effective, and the medicine itself would go to waste.
"The reply from the capital says to prioritize giving the medicine to the knights. In particular, it says not to discriminate against Jean-Jacques just because he brought in the infection source, but to give him sufficient medicine."
"But that medicine is only effective in the early stages..."
If Aurelia's words were to be believed, giving medicine to Jean-Jacques would be a waste. Jean-Jacques was already at a point that could no longer be called the early stage.
Looking down at the letter that the envoy sent to the capital had brought back, all he could do was sigh. The cost of the medicine he had Aurelia make was mostly covered by taxes. Since they were putting up the money, it might be only natural for them to demand that they choose who it was distributed to. Soldiers over commoners, men over women, adults over children, abandon infants and the elderly. As a judgment of those in power, it was only natural.
...Given the limited quantity of medicine, even I would say the same thing.
The world does not run on pretty ideals alone. Knowing that, I have my thoughts, but I can follow the instructions from the capital. However, for the still-young Leonardo, it would probably be hard to come to terms with it. He had been clenching the letter from the capital with a bitter expression on his face.
From Tina, the child's perspective, the adults block things and do not convey what is happening, so I am preserving it in a side story...
I will correct typos and missing characters at a later date.
I have added some text when correcting typos and missing characters.