Chapter 217 (1/2)

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.