52 - Side Story: Jean-Jacques' Perspective - The Death God's Ring 1
A village wiped out by disease cannot just be left alone. You never know what kind of illness might be lurking there. If some unaware traveler or merchant wandered in and picked up the infection, that would be trouble too.
For that reason, twenty five knights and soldiers including myself visited Meiyu Village. The purpose of course was to burn down the village where all the villagers had died from disease.
"Make sure to check one more time if there are any survivors. Drop the roofs on houses you have finished checking."
It would be faster to just set the houses on fire as is, but for safety we drop the roofs first. Considering how a collapsed roof in a blazing fire can act like a bellows scattering flames all around, dropping it beforehand ensures the safety of the workers. Unlike houses in the city, the roofs in poor farming villages are simple in construction and easy to break apart, so repairs can be done easily.
"Number three, check complete!"
"Number one, roof removal complete. Ready to set fire at any time."
The knights and soldiers proceeded with their work in the order of the numbers we had assigned beforehand. These houses were once lived in, but now they are just empty ruins. Counting them as numbers instead of as individual houses makes the destruction work easier without having to think about it too much.
"Number twelve... that is the village chief's house, huh."
Normally if you are the captain leading the unit, you do not need to do the work yourself, just supervising the other workers is enough. But this is a village wiped out by disease. You want to finish the job as quickly as possible and get out. That means even the captain needs to move and help with the work, finishing things up faster.
I peered into each room and confirmed there were no people. Since there were survivors in Meiyu Village, the bodies had been buried before they could rot. The rooms and sheets were not stained with the smell of decay.
"...What is that? I hear something?"
I heard a small object fall and pricked up my ears. A noise coming from a house where no one should be. If there is a survivor I need to pull them out, and even if not, this house is about to be set on fire. Better check it out.
"...Footsteps?"
Pitter patter... I heard small footsteps from the ceiling. Once I knew the direction of the sound, the rest was easy. I focused my attention that way and listened again.
"Those are not human footsteps, but there is something... something small up there. Guess I will take a look."
I followed the footsteps and stuck my head into the ceiling cavity. From the dim attic I could hear the sound of something gnawing, but there was not enough light to see around. We were going to tear the roof off anyway, so I pried off a roof board. Sunlight streamed in, and in the now visible attic, countless black pellets were scattered about.
"...Some kind of animal droppings, these are."
Stepping on the droppings was a bit unpleasant, but they were small enough not to be a problem. There were too many to avoid, so I gave up quickly and walked over the tiny droppings. Looking around, besides the droppings I saw a place where wood shavings were piled up like a mountain.
"This it?"
As I got closer I realized the pile was not just wood shavings. It was a corner where small soft things like rags and threads had been gathered. As I stared at the collection of wood shavings, I noticed that part of the pile was moving up and down gently.
"Gotcha!"
I covered the rising and falling part with my left hand, and whatever was hiding in the wood shavings struggled a little. But I had reached in intending to catch it, so a little squirming was not enough to let it escape.
"What is this? Never seen an animal like this before."
Its distinctive teeth were visible at its mouth, so I could tell it was a rodent type. A little bigger than my palm, with dark brown fur. It looked kind of like a rat, but its fluffy tail was as long as its body, with a curled tip.
"...Women would probably like something like this."
By the time that thought crossed my mind I was already opening my bag. Maybe I could take it back and use it to cheer up one of the prostitutes I knew.
"Ow!"
When I stuffed the little animal into the bag, it bit my fingertip in the brief moment I let go. I jerked my hand out of the bag to find a small hole in my middle finger. Blood swelled up in an instant, covering the wound.
"Bastard."
I licked the wound to disinfect it. Out of irritation I tightly closed the bag's mouth and gave the trapped animal a light smack to scare it.
The inspection work was mostly done, and we set fire to each house. We still needed to watch to make sure the fire did not spread to the forest or mountains, but once this was done we could head back to the city. I left the watch to another knight who was also free, and decided to take a walk around the area. The village did not seem to have anything particularly noteworthy, but it was still less boring than staring at burning houses.
...What is that? A stray dog?
In a corner I recognized as the cemetery, a dog was frantically digging at the ground. Judging by the spacing of the raised mounds of earth around it, I could tell what smell was attracting the dog.
...Well, since I have spotted it, might as well drive it off.
Knowing there were bodies underneath, I would not be able to sleep well leaving a stray dog to dig them up. I would hate to be visited night after night by the owner of a grave whose face I did not even know.
I easily chased off the stray dog using some trail rations, and peered into the hole it had dug. Luckily, it did not seem to have reached the contents yet.
...Guess I will fill the hole back in.
I could have just left it, but I was in that kind of mood today. Maybe it was just because I was bored waiting for the houses to burn. Still I hesitated to do the work with my bare hands, so I looked around for some kind of tool. I found a shovel lying on the ground a little ways away.
"What is this? A ring?"
A small ring was lying next to the shovel. I picked it up. It was wooden, with letters carved on the inside of the band.
"...Ti...na? Shit, there is dirt in the way, I cannot read it well."
I picked up the shovel, wondering why there was a toy ring in a place like this, and tossed the ring away. A wooden ring would not be any use even if I picked it up.
I filled in the hole the stray dog had dug, and piled on more dirt so it would not be dug up again. It was something I did on a whim, but I had worked up a light sweat. Not exactly a refreshing sweat either. I did not feel any sense of fulfillment either. It really was just a way to kill time. Now that the work was done, I felt stupid for doing something so pointless.
"...Well, rest in peace."
I said that to the owner of the freshly piled grave, and tossed the now useless shovel into the grass.
When I returned to the fortress after finishing the job, I looked up the name of the little animal I had bagged. Well, "looked up" is a bit of a stretch. I just asked some of my fellow Black Knights. When becoming a knight, Black Knights are made to acquire a certain level of education, so even common born ones are surprisingly knowledgeable. I asked a few people and found out the name of the small animal right away.
...An Ushiri, native to the great forest in the southern part of the Saenard Kingdom.
I knew the name now, but just taking it out of the bag and presenting it as is would lack style. If I was going to give it to a woman, I should at least put it in a cage or a basket. I thought about which shops might have a nice basket and decided to check out the wholesale district. The wholesale district is where craftsmen's goods are gathered. Better to find good things quickly than to browse each shop one by one.
I walked through the wholesale district, peeking into shops looking for a decent basket. I know I do not have much taste, so I decided to pick based on price. I had some extra income today, so I did not need to worry about cost.
"Oh? This one looks pretty good, does it not?"
Not too expensive, not too cheap. Some decoration on it, and it looked nice. I found a basket that seemed just right, put the Ushiri in it, and headed straight to the brothel where one of my regular prostitutes worked.
I first noticed something wrong with my body around the time the extra income was running out. At first I thought it was finally a hangover from drinking too many days in a row. I figured I would just sleep it off and recover, so I holed up in the fortress's break room. But instead I developed a fever and ended up bedridden for days. By the time I thought something was off, I was getting thrown into the quarantine section set up in the north wing under Alf's orders.
...Me, infected? Yeah, right.
Becoming a contagious disease patient? No thanks. It had to be some kind of mistake. I insisted that over and over, but Alf would not listen. Since he just would not get what I was saying, I got a little rough, but Alf calmly pinned me down and shoved a piece of paper at me. When I looked at what the paper was, it was a list with the names of all my friends, acquaintances, and the people from the brothel with my regular prostitute, written out in a long row. Alf said that every single person on the list was now suspected of infection and would be quarantined in the north wing. Sure enough, every person brought to the quarantine section was someone I knew. But having only familiar faces gathered there caused a different problem.
...Me spreading the infection? What kind of sick joke is that? Damn it all.
The quarantine section had been set up centered around my acquaintances, the ones who had first shown symptoms, so that rumor spread immediately. Naturally the relationships between the quarantined people turned tense. A good natured fellow Black Knight, a prostitute with a great ass, a friendly old man from the diner... the looks in all their eyes changed. Their eyes said it all. It is your fault we were thrown into quarantine. That was what their looks told me. I was suffering from a persistent high fever myself, and they were on edge, so we even came to blows. By that point my fever had come down a bit, so it was not the one sided beating I had taken from Alf.
Around the time my fever had completely subsided, the prostitute I knew came down with a fever. I thought it was just a regular fever, but the pharmacist from the Sedovara Church who had come to examine her declared it was Ward's disease. Once that happened, the people gathered in the quarantine section went completely wild. A real infected person had appeared among those brought in as suspected cases. Everyone gradually started going mad, gripped by the fear that they might be infected too.
...And the timing of the Commander's return could not have been worse.
Around the time my fever went down and I started feeling itchy all over my body, Leonardo returned to the fortress. He had accidentally picked up a suspected infected child in Meiyu Village, and worried about his own infection, Leonardo, the lord of Grenore Fortress, had holed up in Wiyak Valley for about half a month. He must have thought that if he really was infected, the witch living in Wiyak Valley could do something about it with her medicines. I would never agree to hole up in some remote valley with nothing there, but Leonardo chose to go to the valley with the child he had found in Meiyu Village. He could not bring the infection back to the city of Grenore.
...Why did I get the disease, not the Commander? I did not touch that kid.
When Leonardo returned from Wiyak Valley, he brought some medicine, though not much. Of course there was not enough for everyone, and based on orders from the capital, they picked who would get the medicine and who would not.
...Well, of course I would be one of the ones given it. I am third in command at Grenore Fortress.
Knights are soldiers sent to the front lines in times of war. If the third in command of them collapses, of course the kingdom would provide medicine. By that time more people were coming down with high fevers, and several were bedridden just like me. But I was the only one among them given medicine. I was being taken care of. I could feel that sense of superiority, until I saw the prostitute's red, swollen, festering face.
The medicine Leonardo brought back was simply too little. It is not quite right to say only chosen people were given medicine. I was the only one given medicine. By the time I realized that, the quarantine section was overflowing with people developing symptoms. People who had come down with the illness later than me started dying one after another, and the prostitute I had known for so long died too. At first I thought I would be the only one cured thanks to the medicine, but the disease did not heal. Instead the itching got worse. Eventually the fever came back too, and there was nothing to be done. Everywhere on my body was so itchy, so unbearably itchy that my mind went blank. I could not think of anything. With the high fever and violent itching I could not sleep, could not think straight, and could only groan every day. Eventually my groaning started affecting the others' morale, so they moved me to the basement.
...The basement? That is a prison cell, not a basement. No way in hell!
That is what I thought, but I could also see that the move was meant to protect me. Anyone could see that as the one who had spread the infection, and the only one given medicine, I was resented by the other patients.
When they started tying me to an old musty bed in the basement to keep me from scratching myself raw, I remembered the bodies I had seen in that abandoned village. Meiyu Village had been tidied up by someone, so it was clean, but other villages were different. The villagers had died off with no time to dispose of the bodies, and when we stopped by to investigate, bodies left unburied were rotting everywhere.
...Am I going to die like them too...?
Before I knew it, all I could think about was dying.
Let me just say this here. People used to say you should lick a wound to disinfect it, but that does not actually disinfect it!! Even knowing that I still end up licking it anyway though.
I will fix any typos or misspellings later. Since it was never ending I will split it into two parts at a good stopping point.
I have fixed any typos and misspellings I found. There were a lot this time... orz I will take a break from updating on September 1st.