"Excuse me?"
"Don't try to deny it. First, he gets summoned in the Headmaster's office, then he never returns for dinner or breakfast. And the next day the lessons get suspended. It can't be a coincidence."
Her cold logic made him proud, but the worry he perceived made everything clear.
Puppy love, the thing that he hated the most. Because no matter how idiotic it was, there was no reasoning with it. Yet he had to try.
"His case is different from yours."
"How so?" She snorted, stomping a foot.
"Because he is inhuman! Gods, I wish I could say it out loud, but the Queen would kill me." ¨C He thought.
"With Manohar gone, he is our best diagnostician." He actually said.
"Besides, he has already made several contributions in the theoretical field thanks to his unique understanding of the human body. Otherwise I would have never let him go. Now, if you excuse me, I'm in a rush."
Quylla left Marth's room with a dejected look, the door slamming behind her.
Outside, Yurial and Friya were waiting for her. Her face told them everything they needed to know.
"Why the long face?" Quylla asked, noticing that Friya seemed to be on edge, even more than her.
"My mother just called me. She only said that someone has screwed up big time, and that I must pack my things and be ready to leave the Kingdom on short notice."
***
"First, I want to know who sent you, and why." Lith was very curious about their attempt to capture him. The other team had spared no efforts to kill him, so either the contractor had changed his mind or it was another matter entirely.
The first one to answer was the soldier that had tried to blackmail Lith using Trion's life as a leverage. According to the nametag on the uniform, his name was Vickas Banut, a plain looking man with chestnut eyes and hair of the same colour.
His cheeks were still bright red, since Lith had slapped him multiple times to force him regaining his senses. Puke still dirtied his mouth and uniform, giving him an even more wretched look.
"Will you let me go if I tell you?" His voice trembled, mustering the courage to look in his captor's red eyes.
"Of course not." Lith laughed.
"It would be useless, since you are all already infected." He lied through his teeth. According to Life Vision, the three of them were still healthy, even without the masks and after having been scratched and bitten by the undead.
"Either the parasites do not handle well the coldness of the morgue, or they die shortly after their host. Too bad I have no time to infect them and study the plague's progression. I need to get out of here fast, before someone else comes in." ¨C
"Then why should I tell you? If I have to die, I'll bring my secrets with me in the grave!" The certainty of death seemed to have rejuvenated Vickas spirit.
"Excellent question!" Lith clapped his hands.
"Eat him alive, starting from the feet." His orders were meant for the prisoners to understand their fate, rather than for the undead.
The mindless zombies were like puppets, and Lith needed but a thought to make them move according to his will.
Vickas tried to fight back, twisting and kicking every time he could, but the creatures ignored his pitiful attempts. One covered his mouth with a rotting hand, while the other managed to grab his legs, filling the air with muffled screams and chewing sounds.
The other two prisoners tried to avert their gaze, but the zombies kept their heads blocked and their eyelids open.
"As you can see, they are avoiding all the major arteries." Lith explained with the same voice he would use to explain math to a dumb kid.
"I'm a healer, after all. You can't expect me to kill you by accident. You'll die only when I say so, and in a way of my choice. The first one to talk will win a swift death. The others will join my ranks."
The two first tried to scream, but their mouths were sealed as well. Lith hated to be interrupted by hysterical cries when he was speaking.
When Vickas' feet disappeared, leaving most of the bones bare to see, puke seeped through their noses and the zombies' fingers, preventing them from talking and allowing Vickas to make his move.
Lith noticed his hands waving madly, so he stopped the zombies, using at the same time light magic to briefly relieve his pain.
"Yes?"
"Duke Selimar arranged everything, with the complicity of General Lizhark and Mage Fernath." Vickas blurted as soon he was able to speak, pointing at his accomplices, that managed to stop puking, shocked by his betrayal.
"I never heard of them."
"But they know you. They know that yesterday you said something to Varegrave that forced the King to declare the national emergency. It's the first progress in over a month."
"But why kidnap me?" Lith couldn't see the logic behind their actions.
"Because they are scared of the plague. One of their associates, I don't know who, is the responsible. But he did it behind their backs, they didn't even know it existed. When they understood what had happened, they couldn't trust him anymore.
They don't want the plague to be eradicated, it's an all-powerful weapon. But without a cure, they will be forced to either flee or submit."
Chapter 149 Search for the Cure
"So, let me get this straight." Lith still doubted Vickas's words.
"Among the group of traitors that is trying to sabotage the Queen's work, there is someone that lead them by the nose while preparing this plague?"
Vickas nodded, his eyes always fixed on the army of mouths millimetres away from his bleeding flesh.
"What does this mastermind want? What's the endgame?" A zombie lifted Vickas' head by the chin, forcing him to look at Lith in the eyes.
"I don't know." He squealed. The hand holding him was flabby and sticky, secreting decomposition fluids at every movement. The putrid smell would have made him puke already, but there was nothing left but bile in his stomach.
"Then how come you know so much about your friends and their masters? It seems only a convenient lie to me."
Vickas exploded into a feverish laughter. The dreadful experience he was living, being captured, tortured and allegedly infected, had already pushed him to the brink of insanity.
Lith's naivety seemed to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Gods, how could my liege believe that someone so stupid could find a cure? He must be an idiot too! We're dead! We are all dead!"
Lith tried to make him snap out of his hysteria, first with threats and then with slaps, but to no avail.
"Eat his b*lls." He ordered, cancelling the spell that held the pain at bay.
"Please, no! Anything but that! I'm sorry! I really am!" Vickas stopped laughing, the agony flooding his limbs and the sight of those drooling mouths nearing his nether regions forced him to regain his senses.
"Remember, I still hold what's left of your life. If you are so proud of being someone else's dog, then act like one. I say bark, you bark. Otherwise my friends here will teach you how to play dead."
Vickas had served Duke Selimar for years, joining the military and climbing up its ranks only for his master's sake. His parents had abandoned him when he was just five years old, they already had too many mouths to feed to care for a talentless, whiny kid.
It had been Selimar that had adopted him along with his sworn brothers, saving them from the starvation and the daily abuses at the orphanage. Betraying the Crown had been natural for them, they had no loyalty nor gratitude towards the ones incarnating a system that only treated them as trash.
He didn't do it out of greed, but out of love. There was nothing he wouldn't do for his foster father. Betraying his trust was already tearing Vickas' soul apart, being called a dog was too much to bear.
"If only I could use magic¡" He snarled, baring his teeth at Lith.
"It would change nothing." Lith gave him a slap, but this time with his true strength.
The force of tha
t simple gesture smeared Vickas's nose over his cheek, making him bleed profusely, and dislocated the jaw.
Vickas had never been hit with such strength, not even when fighting soldiers twice his size. His pride and defiance crumbled, realizing that the zombies were innocent lambs compared to their shepherd.
"After the plague was released, Selimar understood that without a cure, he is bound to lose. If the Crown wins, he will be executed for treason, if his faction wins, they'll become the mastermind's slaves.
He fears him, so he didn't tell me anything, to not compromise their relationship." Vickas dropped the honorifics. He was a traitor now. He didn't deserve to call him master anymore.
"The others, instead, are expendable. When Lizhark and Fernath insisted to have their men assist me, he understood they didn't trust him anymore, so he took precautions.
He gave me enough means and information to frame them and their masters, so when necessity arose, I could expose them and destroy their credibility, giving my lieg¡ Selimar the time to get to safety."
"This is good news for the Crown, but not for me. Lith thought.
The accident in Kandria revealed the hidden agenda, which in turn is causing them to infight. These morons are so desperate to put all their hopes on me, and I have yet to do anything. The only way to get them off my back is for the cure to be found, and fast."-
"One last question. How could they know what happened and react so fast? How did you bypass the array?"
"It's actually easy." Vickas swallowed a lump of saliva. 'Last question' meant he was about to outlive his usefulness.
"We were already here, so when you arrived, each of us notified to his master. Whatever you did, made the Crown move fast, and that made you a target. As for the array, Small World is not perfect as they say.
Whenever Varegrave makes a call, anyone can use his communication amulet."
Lith was shocked, but thanks to the mask, nothing transpired.
"Maybe that's because no one uses dimensional items, and why Varegrave refused to grant me privileges. The array is just like a big switch, when it's off, anything goes." -
"And how do you know when he does it?"
"I don't. I only wait for Selimar's calls."
Lith interrogated the other two, but nothing new came up. They were just as Vickas, but with a different master. All of them were plain looking and with the rank of lieutenant.
High enough to be able to move freely though the camp, but not enough to make it hard keeping a low profile.
Lith kept his promise, giving them a swift death and turning both their bodies and clothes into dust.
"There are traitors among the nobles, the mages, the army and even in the royal palace. Without someone reporting exactly when the King is unavailable, it would be impossible to nail the right timing to call inside the quarantine zone.
I'm in hot waters, Solus. I need a cure to be found, but it would be really nice if someone else discovers it. I'm already a magnet for troubles."
"What about those three we now know about? Will you expose them?"
"How could I possibly explain where did I get such information? And even if there was a way, it would paint an even bigger target on my back. The smartest thing to do is not overstepping my boundaries as healer.
Soon their disappearance will get noticed, and by searching their possessions Varegrave will find the evidence on his own." ¨C
Lith sent all the corpses back to their shelves, setting them free from his necromancy spell before going to search for a surgeon. Thanks to the authority his rank as plague doctor conferred him, everything went smoothly.
No one questioned his orders, they only obeyed. Lith had preserved the corpse of the man with the split leg, untouched by darkness magic, because it was the only one he knew where to look for the parasites.
The body was moved to a safe zone, and after wearing full body scrubs made of white linen, the surgeon cut it open following Lith's instructions. Even with Life Vision, Lith wasn't able to find any traces of the parasites or the eggs he clearly remembered they had laid all around the body.
"It seems they are unable to survive without the host. Yesterday this man was a living colony, and now nothing."
"That would explain how they managed to escape detection so far." The surgeon pondered. "These parasites are almost invisible to diagnostic spells when the patient is alive, and after his death, the autopsy can't find any foreign body."
Lith took several tissue samples, sending them to the alchemist to be analysed. Before developing a proper cure, he needed to know if at the moment of their death the creatures released toxins harmful for the patient.
The answer came in quickly. As he expected, the tissues presented a foreign substance, but it was an unknow one. It was impossible to tell what effects it could have in a living body, since its concentration in the remains was barely detectable.
Collecting and using it for experimentation was impossible.
Cursing Hatorne's name and her ingenuity, Lith went to Varegrave asking for a live subject.
"Based on the information acquired today, I have a theory about the cure. It's unlikely to succeed, high-risk and potentially deadly. Yet I'd like to try it out.
Even if it fails, I can gain invaluable data from it."
"What are the odds of success?" Varegrave's hand subconsciously caressed his last will contained in the breast pocket of the uniform.
"Barely 15%." Considering the difference in talent and experience between Hatorne and himself, Lith felt it was still an optimistic estimate.
"I like these numbers. Let's do it."
Chapter 150 Search for the Cure 2
Lith wasn't new to human experimentation, but he usually did it in secret, using as test subjects only people that had tried to kill him or dared to attack his family, that he would have killed anyway after putting them through excruciating pain.
Hearing his proposal being accepted by a servant of the Kingdom, without even raising an objection, was too much even for him.
"Is this guy insane? I mean, I don't give a sh*t about people's lives too, but at least I pretend to care, especially in front of witnesses." ¨C
"What do you need?" Varegrave asked.
"An infected from the anti healing parasite, no matter the progress rate of the infestation, at least three competent healers, and a lot of vials.
Successful or not, during the experiment I plan on extracting the toxins the parasites use to control the mana flow and, with a little luck, those produced upon their deaths.
Since both degrade fast without a host, it would be better if the vials are able to replicate the host's lifeforce, or at least slow down the deteriorating process. I know that dimensional items are off limits, but I need something similar, or half the work will be for naught."
"Don't worry, this is not the first time that we use Small World for containing a disease. We are well equipped for all kind of contingencies. When do you want to do it?"
Lith pondered for a while, trying to make it as realistic as possible. He could actually do everything on his own, but the priority was to not make it seem too easy. Last, but not least, by delegating part of the job, he would get the opportunity to better observe the parasites' reaction to his therapy and react accordingly.
"Tomorrow morning would be great. I'm too tired now, I want to be at peak condition for the experiment. By the way, I need to impart one of my personal spells to the healers that will assist me, but I can't take out the scroll from my amulet."
Varegrave gave him a quill and an inkwell, forcing Lith to show his penmanship.
"This is really a bad idea." Lith said while the quill moved clumsily along the sheet, screeching from time to time.
"Since I have learned water magic, I always write with it. Are you sure you can't grant me water magic, or at least let me access my dimensional amulet, even for a second?"
"Sorry." Varegrave shook his head. "I can't do it unless it's absolutely necessary."
The ink was smeared in several points, making Lith's doctor's handwriting even more mysterious and unfathomable.
"Do you think they can learn it by tomorrow?" Lith asked while cleansing the ink from his hands.
"It would be easier for them to recreate it from scratch, rather than deciphering this gibberish. Turn around, please, and be ready to get that scroll."
Lith did as instructed, keeping his right hand behind his back, allowing Solus to spectate whatever Varegrave wanted to keep hidden. The Colonel took a few steps back, positioning himself at the center of the tent.
His left eyes emitted a faint light, revealing numerous rune marks on it, that moved out of the cornea and in the air surrounding him, allowing Varegrave to operate them like a giant holographic keyboard.
Thanks to her mana sense, Solus could see Varegrave connecting himself to the multi-layered array that surrounded the whole region. She already had an idea of the artifact's scope, but only when the link had been established, she was able to understand its breath-taking complexity.
Now that Small World was activated, Solus could see the countless runes of power that enveloped every single millimetre of space. Its magic permeated even the items and bodies of all those under its influence.
An infinite number of shackles, albeit normally invisible, weighted on them.
"By my maker! This thing is much more complicated that we thought. It's not like a switch, he has to actually rewrite entire strings of runes to make even the slightest change to it." ¨C
"Do it now." Lith could feel the strain in Varegrave's voice, as Solus could see it on his face. He promptly extracted the scroll, raising it over his head, without turning around, for the Colonel to see.
Varegrave silently nodded, reverting the array to his previous status. The runes moved back into the eye, leaving no trace of their powerful magic, except a faint smell of ozone lingering in the air.
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