Chapter 58 - Fifty-Eight ... The Cursed Well

Chapter 58: Chapter Fifty-Eight ... The Cursed Well

Chapter Fifty-Eight ... The Cursed Well

The village Captain Lampard led them to was a rather pleasant place. For mountain country, it had a fairly broad stretch of flat land, and it seemed to sit in a basin.

It had the peaceful, pastoral air of the high valleys he remembered from his past life.

If he hadn’t come on business like this, it was the sort of place he’d have liked to rest in for a good long while. In any case, the moment they spotted Jan’s party, a crowd of dwarves came pouring out of the village.

"Wh-who goes there! No visitors are allowed here right now! Turn back at once!"

A dwarf with a magnificent beard stepped forward and shouted in a booming voice. He seemed to be something like the steward in charge of the village.

"Oh?"

To be honest, Jan hadn’t expected a grand welcome, but he had at least expected to be received courteously. That was the custom, after all. It was exactly why he traveled with his house’s banner held high, announcing who he was.

And yet this was the reaction he got.

It was refreshing, to say the least. Of course, their bishop didn’t seem to see it that way.

"Ah! You rude lot. Can’t you see this banner?"

"Banner? What banner? We’re in no state to receive outsiders right now! Get off our land this instant!"

"Oho...?"

At the dwarves’ downright hostile reaction, Jan turned his head and looked steadily at Captain Lampard. Captain Lampard cleared his throat in embarrassment.

"Ah, ahem. I’ll take care of this, human lord."

Clip-clopping forward on his horse, Captain Lampard bellowed at them, his face gone bright red.

"You idiots! Don’t you know who’s come?"

"Who? Some human lord, that’s who! And who do you think you are, you dwarf, talking like... Huh?"

"Hwuh?"

"Master... Lampard?"

"That’s right, you louts! Lampard, the rightful heir of this village, has come!"

"But Master Lampard, what on earth are you doing with those humans?"

There was quite a commotion, but in the end, the situation was settled well enough. Jan’s soldiers would camp outside the village, while Jan went to the village hall with a few of his attendants, Captain Lampard, and Bishop Graham.

He would have liked to station his soldiers inside the village to ease the weariness of the long journey, but once he actually saw the village, the thought vanished entirely.

"Ohh, ohh."

"I’m dying."

"Ugh, ugh, ugh."

The village was in no better shape than the dismal road.

It was full of sick people wailing in every corner, and dark smoke rose along with the smell of burning bodies, as though they were cremating the dead.

If he stationed his soldiers in a place like this, they would surely all be laid up before long.

"What in the world is going on here? Steward!"

Having seen the state of the village, Captain Lampard shouted in a rage. He had led Jan here with such boasting, and now that things were like this, he had lost face badly.

Sweating profusely, the dwarf steward began to speak with a pitiful look.

"W-well, young master. A curse has fallen on the entire canton."

Jan stared at him.

"What?"

"Aaah! A curse?"

"Yes! That’s right. A curse has fallen on us. A truly terrible curse. Not just here, but in the other villages and even in the central city of the canton, people are falling sick with an unknown illness."

The dwarf steward hastily made the sign of the cross, as if frightened.

Jan let out a hollow laugh at the absurd talk of a curse, but no one around him seemed to share his view. Ridiculously enough, from Captain Lampard to the ever so devout Bishop Graham, they were all solemnly making the sign of the cross.

’A curse? Nonsense. If people are falling sick, shouldn’t the first suspicion be a plague?’

His head ached, but what could he do? That was simply what people here believed.

Then again, with what anyone knew, a disease they couldn’t cure was surely no different from a curse. All they could do was cling to their faith and pray. Sighing inwardly, Jan told the dwarf steward to calmly explain what had happened.

"W-well, it happened like this, my Gold-rank lord..."

From what he said, it had begun no differently from any other winter.

Apart from a few more people than usual coming down with minor colds or fevers. But at some point, people suddenly began collapsing one after another.

There was no fever or chills.

Without any of the usual signs of illness, they would simply collapse, suffer endless vomiting and diarrhea, and then start to die.

Listening to all this, Jan couldn’t help but frown.

"This... isn’t it a plague?"

No matter how he looked at it, it was the infamous wasting sickness. It was a disease he could never forget, the one he had seen tear through whole cities in his past life. The one people there had called the blue death.

Besides, if a disease was spreading like this, the reasonable thing was to suspect a plague first.

Even in a world full of mysteries and monsters, superstition was best kept at arm’s length, wasn’t it?

"No, my lord! If it were a plague, how could it have symptoms like these?"

"Hmm, hmm. It truly is a curse."

"Ah! That’s right. A sickness where people just collapse with no fever or cough? This is a curse!"

Captain Lampard and Bishop Graham agreed with the dwarf steward. From their point of view, it was far too strange to be a plague.

Jan could only sigh.

Of course, for Jan, standing there watching them, it was nothing but a headache.

"So that’s why the roads have all been sealed off?"

"Yes, that’s right. The slums and the wealthy quarters of the city alike have all been exposed to the curse. The canton council has blocked every road leading to the canton and ordered a lockdown until the situation settles."

"So there’s no way into the canton until this is over?"

"I’m afraid that’s so, for now, my lord."

He had come all this way only to waste his time. Clicking his tongue, Jan rose from his seat.

If what the steward said was true, the blue death had probably already spread to this village too.

If he caught it by staying here, it would be a disaster. It seemed he would have to pull his soldiers back, turn around, and head for the Papal See by the other road.

"Well, it’s a shame, but I suppose that’s what we’ll have to do, human lord."

"That’s right! It’d be better for us to hurry to the Papal See and ask them to exorcise the curse."

"Good. Since we’re all agreed, let’s head back. I’m truly sorry about what’s happened to your canton, Captain Lampard."

"No need, human lord. It can’t be helped. To be honest, I think dragging you into the heart of that curse would be the bigger problem."

After talking it over among themselves and telling the dwarf steward, they sent a messenger out of the village.

To tell the others to get ready to turn back.

But then...

"C-could it be... the Gold-rank lord of Lupton?"

A group of hollow-faced people spotted Jan’s face and came running over in shock.

"Hey, what’s the meaning of this rudeness! Get back!"

"Back off, you lot!"

The startled dwarf steward shouted at them, but they didn’t budge an inch.

Instead, they rushed toward Jan and strained with all their might to take hold of his hand.

It was a widely held superstition that merely taking the hand of someone of noble blood could bring healing. And if that person was a saint who worked miracles, the belief was stronger still.

It was, in fact, one of the miracles the Papal See actively promoted.

So it was only natural that the sick, wasting away as they were, would come running to him.

Thanks to a certain bishop, Jan had already become famous as a worker of miracles.

"It’s really him, the Gold-rank lord of Lupton! I saw him once when I worked for a merchant company!"

"Oh! Save us from the curse, worker of miracles!"

"My lord, blessed with holy grace! Please, take my hand!"

The System’s messages appeared before Jan.

[The religious renown you have built up has filled these unfortunate poor with longing. Save them. If you do, you will earn even greater renown.]

[Notice: If you lift the curse, the Church’s favor toward you will rise.]

[Notice: If you ignore the poor, your Infamy will rise. Be careful.]

’Wait, what? Damn it.’

He’d meant to just pretend he hadn’t seen anything and leave, and now this?

This was no different from forcing him to do it. Why did something always come along to trip him up every time he moved?

With a groan, Jan glared at Bishop Graham, the root of this whole mess.

"Heh heh."

Bishop Graham let out a sycophantic chuckle with an awkward look on his face.

That useless bishop. How many times had Jan told him to stop spreading rumors? And he’d gone and sold Jan out as a worker of miracles and whatnot?

"Wh-what should we do, my lord?"

"Ugh..."

Better to get it over with than groan about it, honestly.

"Captain Lampard. Would you mind if I tried to... treat your village?"

"What? Is that really possible? Lifting the curse, human lord? Oh..."

"I knew I was right. Our lord will show us a miracle!"

"..."

Now that it had come to this, there was nothing else for it. Jan called his soldiers into the village and hurried to get things moving.

He had the sick sorted roughly by how bad their condition was, into severe cases and mild ones, and had them isolated separately in the village monastery. Then he went around the village with his soldiers, doing his best to get to the bottom of what the people were calling a curse.

"Hm. Is this the only source of water?"

Looking at the well in the center of the village, Jan asked the dwarf steward. Sweating profusely, the dwarf steward nodded.

"Yes, that’s right, my lord. This well is the pride of our village. The water comes up from deep underground, cold as ice and perfectly clean. Heh heh."

"Oh. So everyone draws their water here for daily use?"

"Yes, and the washing place is right next to it, so we do the laundry around here too. Ah... of course, we don’t dump dirty water or waste here. We dump it waaay over there, in the stream. Ahem."

Perhaps he had seen the grave look on Jan’s face partway through, because the dwarf steward said it as if making excuses. Paying him no mind, Jan slowly looked over the area around the well.

’They say they kept it clean, but it’s just as I thought.’

A washing place right next to the well. Whoever had first come up with the idea of doing laundry beside the source of their drinking water, he didn’t know, but it was truly something.

’This is probably the cause.’

He had been no physician in his past life, so of course he had no expert knowledge. But he had led armies, and any commander who had watched a camp rot from within learned certain rules the hard way.

Diseases carried by water spread easily once the water was fouled.

Every seasoned soldier knew it. Never throw filth into the water you drink. Boil water before drinking it, however clean it looks. And when a plague breaks out, burn everything stained with the sick’s bodily fluids.

But people here had no such notions of cleanliness. There was no way rules like that were being followed.

’Someone must have caught the blue death going around the canton and brought it here...’

And then, while washing clothes soiled with filth near the well, they must have fouled it.

Having sorted out his thoughts, Jan gave the dwarf steward an order.

"Seal off the well."