Chapter 217 The cause of the disease
Roland and the witches had finished, but just as he decided to return to his room and take an afternoon nap, Carter stormed into the dining hall.
“Your Royal Highness, the ships transporting the Eastern Region refugees from King’s City just arrived at the pier!”
“So fast?” It seems that Theo’s work efficiency is quite high, Roland thought, pleased, as a man who has relations to the black and white side of the society, his time serving in the patrol wasn’t wasted. However, when he looked at his sweating Chief Knight and saw his pressed brows, Roland immediately felt that there was something wrong.
“What happened?”
“The people on board have caught a strange disease,” Carter described the patient’s characteristics quickly. “At first, it was only a few individuals, but by now the disease has spread over two to three ships, even the soldiers of the First Army have been infected!”
An illness which causes black spots all over the body, which also spreads on contact? This sounds very similar to a plague, similar to the famous Black Death. However, the bubonic plague bacillus didn’t change the color of the infected’s blood, not to mention making their skin break apart.
Roland wrinkled his brow.
His first thought was Lily, but they had not fully grasped the scope of her new ability yet and making her handle an infectious diseases which had never been heard of before would be very dangerous. If she were unable to cure them, it would be quite probable that she would also get infected. So he had to make his decision very carefully, but according to Carter’s description, it seemed that these people couldn’t hold out for much longer.
In any case, at least I have to first blockade the area.
Thinking up to here, Roland ordered Carter, “Go and send out the First Army; they should set up a restricted area outside of the pier, forbidding anybody from entering or leaving it. Additional tell them: Miss Nana and I are also already on the way.”
“Yes!”
“Is it going to be very difficult?” Nightingale asked.
“That’s still unclear, everything depends on Lily’s ability,” he said. “Call all of the members of the Witch Union, there will be no afternoon naps today.”
…
Through the whole journey to the pier, Roland thought about how to verify the effectiveness of Lily’s ability while keeping her isolated from the patients.
Fortunately, her ability to protect freshness belonged to the summoning category, with a range of five meters like that of many other witches, it allowed her to use and efficiently control her ability over a distance without the need of actually touching the target.
Thus he brought two carpenters along, and with the help of Anna they quickly built a rectangle box. The room was split in the middle, and it was possible to see the opposite side through a window embedded within the barrier. Within the lower half of the wall two symmetrical holes were cut, on top of which Soraya had painted a flexible curtain, so that when Lily stretched her hands through the hole, the coating would tightly wrap around her hands. Furthermore, the soft sky colored curtain would also cut off the air circulation between the two rooms. With this, as long as she later washed her hands with alcohol, all possibility of being infected should be eliminated.
During all this, it were still the 100 soldiers of the First Army who maintained the order on top of the ships. That they were still able to uphold discipline wasn’t due to their strong willpower, but because most of them believed that the angelic Miss Nana would certainly let them recover like she always had.
As soon as the box was prepared, one of the soldiers who had shown the black spots but could still walk was selected.
According to instructions he entered the room and stood still, Lily then stretched out her hands through the barrier, and made full use of her ability. At the same time, Roland stood beside her and observed the soldier’s situation through the window.
The magic power took effect silently, and when the little girl nodded, giving Roland the signal that she was done, he opened his mouth and asked, “How do you feel now?
“Your Highness?” When the soldier heard Roland’s voice, he excitedly raised his hand to salute, then froze on the spot, “Hey, I feel like my strength has been restored. Oh my God! Your Highness, I already feel much better now!”
Roland also saw that the dark spots on the soldier’s hand were rapidly fading; this definitely isn’t a plague symptom. If I remember it correctly, the soldier’s black spots should have come from a complicated sepsis and a high degree of cyanosis. Even after killing the bubonic plague bacillus, these spots should have taken a long time before they faded away. After all, Lily doesn’t possess the ability to heal.
However, her new ability had an effect on the unknown infection, which made Roland feel a little relieved.
“Once you have fully recovered, go and call for the other soldiers to come in. Let the next ten people enter, whether they show symptoms or not, they all have to come here for treatment.”
“Yes! Your Highness,” the soldier shouted, paused for a moment, then saluted again. “Thank you, Miss Nana.”
“It wasn’t Miss Nana, this time the one who saved your life was Miss Lily,” Roland corrected him laughingly, “Only in the case of the illness already advancing so far that the skin has broken open, will you need Miss Nana to heal you.”
“Yes… well,” he touched his head. “Thank you, Miss Lily.”
By the time when the soldier had left, Lily glanced at the Prince, “I didn’t mind that he thought it had been Nana, I do not need to be thanked.”
Well, if that’s case, why would you suddenly stand up so straight? When Roland looked at her and saw her swing her two ponytails, he couldn’t stop himself from rubbing her head, to which the other side unexpectedly didn’t show any sign of protest, but stifled a hum.
Since this wasn’t a plague, in the end, what is the cause of this disease? The moment he left the box, Nightingale appeared at his side and leaned over. “Your Royal Highness, I have just seen a strange phenomenon, the blood flowing out of their wounds… it contains signs of magic.”
“What?” Roland stopped shocked.
“Within the fog, it seems like I’m looking at the stars in the night,” Nightingale explained, “Until now, I’ve never seen such a tiny magic glow.”
This came unexpected. But as long as something involves magic it has to be closely followed up, not because of the witches, but because it means that the Church could likely be involved. Now, I’m at least sure of one thing; this disease wasn’t caused by a natural bacteria or virus.
“I got it!” After thinking for a moment, the Prince continued, “Since it is like this, I have to get some drops of blood to observe.”
“No, you may get infected!” Nightingale interrupted nervously.
“Rest assured,” Roland smiled at her, “Lily’s new ability has completely restrained the disease.”
The blood samples had been taken from a coma patient, then he covered the glass slide with the blood and placed it on the stage, afterward adjusting the distance. When the scene through the lens gradually became apparent, he thought in case the symptoms were caused by something with only the size of a bacteria it may be that he couldn’t see anything. But when the object came into focus, Roland could hardly believe his eyes.
Within the narrow line of sight, he saw a number of fat bugs with tentacles slowly moving through the blood, from time to time, they were spraying out some sort of mucus from their rear, which resembled thin hairs. Their size was nearly of the same dimension as single-celled algae, but just like Lily’s mothers, their body wasn’t transparent, making it difficult to distinguish between whether it belongs to a single-celled organism or not.
Fortunately, the magical glow of the bugs didn’t affect the ability of the little girl, letting her mother’s playing their role. When a copy was mixed into a sample of blood, it would even give priority to attacking those strange insects, and turn them into one of their own kind.
When all the soldiers of the First Army had been healed, to avoid any accidents, Roland ordered that all the fugitives when stepping into the box should wear a hood and would be led by the soldiers to help them enter. At the same time, another box was also set up, which was mainly there for Nana to treat the seriously ill patients with the open wounds.
The treatment continued from noon until evening, and when the more than five hundred people from the ten ships had fully recovered, the crowd burst into cheers. Many people kneeled on the ground, shouting one wave of “Long live His Highness” after the next, unable to quieten down for a long time.
“You don’t seem to be happy?” The Nightingale winked at him.
“The one who cured the disease wasn’t me, but Lily and Nana, who are witches,” Roland shook his head. “They should be the ones to whom they cheer for.”
Having said that, he, of course, knew that it wouldn’t be wise to tell it to those who haven’t fully accepted the witches. So he just sighed softly and hoped that one day witches could also come up to stand on stage.
It seemed that Nightingale could understand the thought within Roland’s heart, she generously patted his shoulder and said, “It is unlikely that anyone cares about it, you have already done enough. Besides, the day will come sooner or later, won’t it?” She paused for a moment “Well, there’s a good news that I forgot to tell you.”
“Which one?”
“There might soon be another member added to the Witch Union,” Nightingale revealed with a grin.