~Chapter 21~
Bang! The door burst open.
“Director Nilsen!!”
“Oh, Rinnegrim!”
“Uh…?”
Calling out Nilsen’s name so urgently and rushing in suddenly felt pointless.
Nilsen greeted me with a completely calm face, and that left me standing there with a dumbfounded expression.
“Director, a-are you okay…?”
“Of course! But! Don’t come any closer just yet! They say it’s a highly contagious disease, so I can’t relax just yet! Stay outside the room!”
When I hesitated and started to step forward, he stopped me firmly. Then, backing away a little, he held his palm out toward me.
“The medicine you made works very well! Look at this!”
He pointed at his fingertips, which still had some black discoloration.
“The black spots on my fingers had been spreading quickly over the past three days, but after taking your medicine yesterday, they’ve been fading! My body feels so light that I already feel completely better!”
I let out a huge breath. Relief made my breathing shaky, and my knees felt weak.
“That’s a relief… How are the others doing?”
When I looked past him to the other infected patients, they eagerly answered.
“The fever made my throat feel like it was burning, but it’s much better now!”
“I felt like I was going to die from nausea, but I can live again now…”
Seeing their faces so much better than yesterday gave me relief, but I reminded myself there was still one more concern.
“Are any of you feeling strange symptoms? Hearing issues, or—well—problems with your kidneys? I mean—any issues with urination?”
“Anyone have that?”
“Hey! How can you ask a lady something like that!”
“No, no! I mean hearing issues!”
“We can hear your voice just fine! Why?”
“Talk quieter! You’re hurting my ears!”
As the staff bickered behind him, Nilsen shrugged.
“As you can see, they seem fine.”
“I can’t relax yet, but the prognosis isn’t bad, so that’s a relief.”
I handed the bottles of medicine to the attendants.
“For strong adult men, give them the whole bottle. For thin men or women, give about seventy percent of it.”
The attendants immediately began moving in an orderly fashion. There were still many infected people quarantined in other prayer rooms.
“Then… why exactly did you call me so urgently?”
I turned to the Administration staff member still pacing in front of the other room’s door. At my question, he grabbed the doorknob and urged me over.
“It’s Marienne! Please check on her!”
“Marienne? Who… ah.”
A face flashed in my mind — the only early-stage patient who had refused my medicine, a Finance Department employee.
“Marienne! Just wait a little! I brought—”
But the moment he opened the door to her room—thud! A bucket flew and hit him in the chest before falling to the floor.
“Get out! I told you not to let anyone in! I don’t need it!”
“Marienne! What do you mean you don’t need it?! Your condition—”
“What does that have to do with you?! Get out!!”
Her voice was sharp with irritation. I pushed past the flustered staff member gripping the door and stepped inside.
“W-what! Get out! Didn’t you hear me say leave?!”
She had her face and head covered with a long veil, but under the bright light her features were fully visible.
“…Strange.”
At my muttering, her shoulders flinched. Her fists trembled for a moment, then her arms dropped and she began sobbing loudly. The veil slipped down.
“I-I know! My-my face… my face—!”
Indeed, like the others, her face was dotted with black spots from the disease.
But that wasn’t why I said it was strange. I shook my head.
“I wasn’t talking about your face, Ms. Marienne.”
Necrosis usually began at extremities far from the torso. But in Marienne’s case, her cheeks and forehead were affected. Judging by her infection time—about four days ago—it was progressing too quickly.
I stepped forward toward her.
“Don’t come any closer!!”
Marienne backed away in fear.
“I understand you don’t trust me. My medicine could have side effects. But if this continues… your life could be in danger.”
Her breathing grew harsher, filling the small prayer room with the sound of her panting.
“You can hate me if you want. Just please, stay alive so you can.”
“Uuuh… uhh…”
She glared at me through tears, then finally broke down and began crying in earnest.
She must have truly distrusted my medicine.
“I’m… I’m not refusing because I want to hate you… I… I’m scared people will point fingers at me… I’m afraid…”
“What do you mean? Why would people—”
“Because… I’m the one who spread this disease!”
Clutching her chest in anguish, Marienne shouted. I couldn’t understand.
“That’s not possible. This disease is spread by fleas from infected animals—”
“Exactly! And I’m the one who brought that animal into the palace! Waaaah!!”
Thud! She collapsed forward, sobbing into the floor.
Bang bang! The staff member outside pounded on the door hard enough to break it.
“Marienne?! What’s going on?! Can I open the door?!”
“Waaaah!!”
“Why isn’t it opening? I’m breaking it down!”
Between her sobbing inside and the shouting outside, my headache from lack of sleep throbbed harder.
“Unbelievable…”
I calmed the staff member outside and then asked Marienne for the full story.
After some time, she stopped crying enough to speak.
Marienne’s hand crumpled the paper into a wrinkled mess. She spoke in a hollow voice.
“What’s the point of working so hard to get into the palace… when all my pay just disappears into interest?”
Coming from a poor family but dreaming of entering the Academy had been overambitious. If she could, she’d smack her younger self for it.
Her salary as a Finance Department employee was good, but most of it vanished to pay the high-interest loans she’d taken for tuition.
It was already hard just paying interest, but covering her younger siblings’ tuition too only worsened the burden.
“Another month in the red…”
But she couldn’t show weakness to her family. She had gone to the Academy against her parents’ wishes, so she had to show them she was doing well.
The next day, she went to town to send her family living expenses. Leaving the money transfer office empty-handed, she bumped shoulders with someone coming the other way.
“Ah! Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention—”
When she looked up to apologize, she met an oddly unsettling pair of black eyes.
Somehow, without realizing, she and the stranger had moved into an empty alley.
“W-what is…?”
Startled, she looked around, but the stranger held something out toward her — a small, boxy container just bigger than a hand.
“I-I don’t know what that is, but I don’t want it.”
“Didn’t you say you needed money?”
She froze. Had she told him that? In just the brief moment since they entered the alley? Her mind felt foggy.
“If you take this box, you’ll never have to worry about money again.”
A nameless dread crawled up her neck. She turned and ran — but just before she reached the end of the alley, a wave of dizziness crashed over her.
“Ugh!!”
She collapsed to her knees, groaning, while the stranger walked slowly toward her. His pale lips opened, and strange, unfamiliar words spilled out.
When she blinked, she was suddenly standing at the palace’s back gate.
“…Why am I here…?”
As she rubbed her eyes, she felt something heavy in her hands — the box the man had offered. In the other hand was a pouch.
“This is…”
It was filled with gold coins.
“…It really is money.”
“Are you going in?”
The gatekeeper’s voice startled her. Her face burned in embarrassment.
She decided to just go inside for now.
“Y-yes! I’m going in!”
She went straight to her room and set the box and pouch on her desk, staring at them.
“I don’t remember anything… Did I really agree to take this? From someone I don’t even know?”
She shook the box.
—Creak!
“What was that…?”
It sounded like a small animal.
“Oh no. Did they lock an animal inside this tiny thing?”
As a palace worker serving the Divine Beasts, she couldn’t ignore this. She opened the window wide and lifted the lid.
The moment she did, a small squirrel shot out and bit her hand hard.
“Ah!”
While she clutched her hand, it jumped out the window. She only caught a glimpse of its tail — covered in black spots.
She checked inside the box and grimaced — it was crawling with tiny fleas. She ran outside and dumped the box in the trash.
“…Forget it. The palace is full of squirrels anyway. What could happen?”
But the bite marks on her hand kept reminding her of it.
Three days later, her fingertip began to blacken.
“Marienne, what’s with the gloves? Don’t they get in the way of work?”
“Ah? Oh… it’s fine. My hands are just a bit chapped…”
Wearing gloves, she continued working as usual. The discoloration worried her, but there were no other symptoms — yet.
She thought it would get better soon.
When one joint turned completely black, she finally went to a healer — but their prayers had no effect. The illness spread quickly, covering her in red rashes and constant nausea.
Three days later, palace servants began reporting the same symptoms.
We need a police officer here! Arrest the susipious guy~