Ch.114114. Advance Preparations (3)

“So, Charlotte…? May I first ask why you want me to wear this…?”

“Because you’re touching dirty things, of course!”

“Hmm… I appreciate the thought. But Professor already has lab equipment for experiments.”

Of course, if I were conducting dangerous experiments in the laboratory, I would need to take safety precautions, but most of the time latex gloves and a lab coat are sufficient.

In other words, there’s no need to be fully armed with all the safety equipment Charlotte has prepared.

Besides, how many years of research experience do I have? Counting the years, even ten fingers wouldn’t be enough.

“And you know what? How could you bring this to me? Do you think I would accept a personal request from a single student?”

Research has procedures and requires proper facilities and locations.

The authority given to her at the Academy is not as a researcher but as a professor teaching research courses.

She could occasionally conduct her own research with equipment she brought herself, but she shouldn’t accept requests from individual students.

Think about it. If a professor takes on a commission from an individual student, it could be seen as favoritism and raise suspicions of personal connections.

Especially as a professor who administers exams, her impartiality must not be compromised.

However, Charlotte doesn’t back down.

“This isn’t a request from a single student, but a commission from a merchant guild, Professor.”

“…What?”

What does that mean?

Dalia tilted her head at the mention of a guild commission. But her confusion didn’t last long.

This child before her was,

“Charlotte Ashelt. That’s my name.”

The head of the Ashelt Merchant Guild, quite renowned in the Empire.

‘Certainly, I couldn’t accept a request from an individual student, but…’

If it’s a commission related to business from a merchant guild, that provides legitimate grounds.

“Alright. But my contract terms might be a bit demanding. Is that okay?”

“A one-sided contract can be poisonous for both parties. So I’d like to find some points to negotiate with you, Professor. What do you think?”

What boldness is this? That youthful face, which had seemed so childlike until just now, harbored such great confidence.

It’s a confidence that comes from having tasted much of the world—too much for a mere 17-year-old girl.

She’s a merchant. One must avoid underestimating or prejudging based on her cute appearance and petite frame.

“First, I’d like to confirm what kind of work you want me to do.”

“Yes. But you need to put on the safety equipment thoroughly first.”

I heard from my husband that she cried her eyes out in someone’s hospital room while experiencing magical overload, so I thought she was just a child… I never expected her to be hiding such a face.

Dalia chuckled as she put on the safety equipment.

***

A few days later.

People with blue spots began appearing throughout Schütt Province, and reported cases multiplied several times over.

At first, others tried to remove the spots with over-the-counter medications, but when nothing worked, they simply covered them up.

But now the situation has begun to change.

“Mystery! Mass Outbreak of Blue Spot Symptoms?”

The newspapers have no idea about the nature of this disease. Other institutions show little interest.

However, the number of symptomatic individuals continues to grow rapidly.

Though less severe than Lumia, initial symptoms are spreading quickly, suggesting that people throughout Schütt Province, including Lemtert Village, have encountered these rats.

It would be impossible now to determine why the Lemtert Plague consumed Schütt Province in the past.

Initially, it manifests as spots, but as it progresses to the intermediate stage, these spots noticeably enlarge, causing functional deterioration in magical circuits throughout the body.

A major disease directly affecting a patient’s magical power suddenly appearing after incubation would have left people completely at a loss.

To make matters worse, despite belated research efforts, Schütt Province ended up covered with human corpses as patients entered the late and terminal stages.

Soon, they’ll only take notice when symptoms appear in the first reported case.

I met with Charlotte and took all possible measures, but whether this will lead to significant help remains uncertain.

I don’t know how long it will take Professor Dalia to figure it out.

So I tried to prepare in other ways, but…

Neither approach showed much progress.

-‘Ugh, aaaargh! How am I supposed to perfect this?! You’re practically an instructor at this point!!’

-‘Please spare me, Instructor Junon… I promise never to cross the line in learning again, okay?’

If John and Noel couldn’t master it, anyone else at the Academy would likely meet similar results.

And once this became certain, the option of reducing casualties in the Great Schütt Subjugation was gone.

Without countermeasures, the catastrophe will repeat itself.

Like a small snowball growing into a large one, if we falter at the first hurdle—the Great Schütt Subjugation—only a more brutal reality awaits.

I tried to take action to minimize casualties, but… all I have left is one piece of uncertain information.

“The name… or maybe that doesn’t matter.”

A blue flower that Professor Dalia discovered in Schütt Province, whose appearance I don’t even know.

The only option is to find it and accelerate the research and production of a cure.

Pushing through the dense undergrowth in the humid summer forest, my head was already throbbing.

“This is maddening. How am I supposed to tell what’s what here?”

Even with training in herbology, distinguishing everything is no easy task.

Blue? Anyone would be perplexed by such a vague description.

Is it literally blue, bluish, clear like the sky, deep navy, or a purplish indigo? I have no idea.

Unfortunately, this is all I have to go on.

I know it’s foolish to search this vast forest with such uncertain information. But I can’t think of any other way.

I can’t prepare for the Great Schütt Subjugation beforehand, and though I know how to annihilate the enemy, practical application is impossible.

So now my goal has shifted to reducing casualties.

By finding the flower Professor Dalia used to develop a cure more quickly.

“I have no choice. I’ll have to take samples of everything—what else can I do?”

And so began the absurd hard labor of searching the forest for a flower I barely knew anything about.

Meanwhile, by a lake, a mother was shouting at her daughter who was holding a pet lizard.

“No, Nella. How many times must I tell you! There’s nowhere to play around here like before anyway!”

“But it’s so boring here… and this little one too…”

“When I say no, it means no! Are you going to disobey your mother?!”

The child knows nothing. All she heard was that this place would be better than where they lived before, and that’s why they moved.

But in this new place, she couldn’t play freely like before.

Since moving, her mother would appear whenever she tried to go out, shaking her head, not even allowing her to walk her only friend, the lizard.

Unlike before, her mother now controlled her actions and scolded her, causing the child to finally burst out with pent-up frustration.

“It’s suffocating!! I hate you, Mom!!”

“W-wait! Nella! Where are you going?!”

The frustration of having her freedom restricted naturally sparked rebellion in the child.

“What’s happening?”

“My, my child ran outside the village. Please help!”

“Oh no…! Let’s quickly send out a search party…!”

But this rebellion threatened everyone trying to live quietly here.

Not just for the child’s sake, but to avoid revealing their existence, they had to begin the search.

Once the voices of villagers searching for her died down, the child who had run outside the village peeked out from the bushes where she was hiding, checked her surroundings, and emerged.

“Now we can play all we want, Chir!”

The child, finally grinning, began to enjoy her newfound freedom.

But she would later realize this was a dangerously reckless action.

***

“…Is this the same as before?”

Junon pulled up two plants by the roots and compared them, looking back and forth between her hands. She had consulted a plant guide to avoid poisonous species, but even that couldn’t include everything.

“This is driving me crazy. I can’t tell these apart.”

Schütt Province itself has quite a complex ecosystem, especially north of Lemtert Village.

That’s why even with a plant guide, she couldn’t distinguish between them.

Just then, she heard something approaching through the forest.

-Rustle, rustle!

At the sound of something pushing through the undergrowth, Junon immediately tensed and prepared for combat.

Given the location, there would certainly be magical beasts or predators. However, something crashing through the bushes like this would likely be a four-legged animal.

Junon thought it might be one of those plague rats.

‘Position: northwest. Number: just one.’

She was immune to infection.

But if it burst, people passing nearby might unknowingly touch it and become infected, and the appearance and cleanup would be unpleasant.

To subdue it more cleanly, Junon waited for the target to come closer.

Though she couldn’t see it yet, the sound of rustling bushes grew closer until it was right in front of her.

Now, as if by instinct, when it leaped out, she would handle it as she always did—

-Chirrup!

“What…?!”

She had intended to deal with it… but a baby lizard?

Contrary to her expectation, what approached wasn’t a plague-bearing rat.

She quickly withdrew the magical power from her hand, which she had extended to strike.

-Chirp! Chirp!

The lizard caught in her hand wriggled. Though she thought a sudden approach might indicate a magical beast, this lizard wasn’t that kind.

‘Isn’t this the lizard Senia used to keep?’

She remembered how it would rush toward her whenever it saw her. And seeing how it happily rubbed its head against her hand now, it seemed certain…

As she stared blankly at the lizard, another sound came from the forest.

‘Another one…?’

No. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t the sound of something running on four legs, but on two.

“Chir! How could you run off like that…? Eep…!”

What appeared before her was a child with webbed ears instead of human ones.

The sound she’d heard was of someone walking on two legs, so she thought it was human—half right, half wrong.

‘A different race… is it?’

Different races. Unlike purely instinctual magical beasts, they possess intelligence and differ from humans only in certain physical characteristics.

However, the being before her was clearly different from the elves or dwarves commonly seen in the Empire.

As she was thinking of returning the lizard to the girl who must be its owner, familiar voices reached her ears.

-I’m telling you! I saw it around here!

-Come on, you must be crazy for that bounty. How could there be a Siren in a place like this?

‘Siren…?’

The girl with webbed ears trembling before her.

The clearly human voices coming from afar.

And a story she had heard from Lumia not long ago.

-‘They denied that the Sirens were guilty… but we lost badly. That’s why the Penarive family ended up taking the blame.’

Everything clicked into place in Junon’s mind.

“Look. Here you can see the molted skin that Sirens occasionally shed… Huh?”

“Really? These weeds look like Siren molting to you? We’ve wasted our time.”

“No, really! There was actual molting here!”

“Next time you waste my time like this, I’ll spread rumors in the village that you’re the boy who cried wolf. Got it?”

Soon the voices of the two men faded, and their footsteps died away, leaving only silence in the forest.

Breaking this silence was the startled breathing of a girl whose mouth had been covered by someone’s hand.