Second World

Jack watched the patient in front of him, the patient's facial expression kept on changing, as if he was having a vivid dream. Jack observed the others and found them to be the same. They must be experiencing the hallucinations that Guss had informed him about.

Jack pressed his forefinger and middle finger to the side of one of the sleeping man's neck, trying to feel his pulse. Jack was not a nurse, but he knew what a normal pulse rate was. The man's heart rate was not slow enough for a sleeping person, but normal enough for an awake one.

"Who are you?" He heard someone asked.

Jack turned and saw one of the healers he had seen attending to the patients.

"He is an outworlder adventurer that is helping us to find out about the cause of this disease," the guard who took him here explained to the healer.

The healer gave a condescending look at Jack and said, "you are not even a healer, what can you do?"

"I was asked to find the cause, not heal these people. Why do I need to be a healer for that?" Jack spoke back.

The healer was clearly displeased by Jack's reply. "Hmph, don't you touch anything if you don't understand. If any of them got into complications, I will hold you responsible!"

"Are you saying there have been such cases?" Jack asked.

"Of course not! With me in charge here, I will not allow such a thing to happen."

"Hm, I see. Are they always this peaceful? Apart from when their health had decreased too much, is there any instance when they need special attention?"

"There is not… Wait! Are you interrogating me? Who do you think you are?"

"I am the adventurer that is helping you to find out the cause of this disease. Didn't you hear what he said before? You certainly have a problem with your memory."

"You..! I am not talking to you!" The healer barged away irritably.

"Hey, I still need to ask something!" Jack called out. He scratched his head. Well, maybe what Red Death said was not wrong. He indeed was easy to piss people off, sometimes even unintentionally.

He then saw another healer coming at him. It was a young woman, a beautiful one at that. "I'm sorry for that," the woman said. "he had been a little stressed over this disease. A healer who can't cure the sick is nothing sort of useless, and we have all been rather helpless at that."

"But with you all keeping their healths on a safe threshold, none of the patients here were in a danger to their lives, correct?" Jack asked. Since another healer had conveniently shown up to offer herself to be interrogated, he was not going to pass this up.

"That's correct," the healer woman said. "They will eventually wake up by themselves. They might have a problem moving their bodies at first because they have been immobile for quite some time. But otherwise, they are not in any danger as long as we kept their health up."

"How long does that usually take?"

"You mean until they wake up? It is usually three to four days."

"When has this started?"

The healer woman tried to recall her memory, "I think it started around twenty days ago. It was just a couple of cases at first, but it soon escalated."

"Even now? Do the number of the victims continue to increase?"

"Yes. That's why we need to find the cause soon. The disease might not appear fatal, but if it keeps increasing, we will end up with a major problem. We won't have enough healers and potions to keep everyone's health up. Another issue, this is a border town. We might not know if an enemy decided to attack when most of our soldiers are afflicted with this disease."

"That will certainly be bad. Have you checked if any of them had a wound on their bodies?"

"They are soldiers, they regularly have wounds even from training."

"I mean a peculiar, unusual wound. For examples like needle hole, or something like that."

"Nothing unusual for me. Their wounds were what I usually see on a soldier."

"Do you know if the disease is contagious?"

"We know it was spreading because the victims kept increasing, but not by touch, nor through the air. None of us healers or others who came in contact with them here got the disease. We still don't know how these soldiers were infected. I guess that is what you are here to find out."

"Hm, you are right," Jack mumbled as he was deep in thought.

"I hope you can find out the cause. If you need to know anything, just ask away. I will do my best to assist."

"That is very kind of you," Jack said. "Do you keep any files on these patients? Like which unit they are from and what they do before they are contracted by the disease?"

"Yes, since this is a military town, most everything is recorded. I will bring the files to you."

"That will be awesome," Jack said.

The healer woman went away. Jack continued to observe the patients. As he was waiting, he heard some footsteps entering the building. Jack turned and saw several soldiers there.

"These are the soldiers who were most recently cured of the disease," the guard informed Jack.

Jack nodded and said. "Have them wait for a while, I will talk to them soon."

The healer woman returned not long after, with a box filled with paper.

"That is a lot of paperwork. Do you mind if I take them away for the day?" Jack asked. Not proper for him to study through all these papers in this infirmary. He would take his time later at the inn.

"As long as you return them later," the healer woman replied.

"Noted," Jack said as he stored the entire box into his storage space.

"That is convenient, so what I heard about outworlder is true. Well, if you can so easily take them, might as well follow me to take the rest."

"The rest?"

"Yes, there are still six boxes of them."

"… Lead the way."

Jack followed her to a small warehouse. She indicated which were the boxes and Jack stored them all inside. Each box was full of papers, he had a headache already thinking about reading them.

He thanked the healer woman and asked if there was any room he could use for a talk with those former patients. She apologized and told him all the spaces in this building had been used to allow beds for patients or for keeping medical tools, supplies, and records. There was no empty room available.

Since it was so, Jack asked the guard guide who brought him here if there was any tavern nearby. The guard took him and the soldiers to the place. Jack went in and decided that it was not the place for a serious talk, it was too noisy. He asked the waiter if there was any private room for rent. The waiter ridiculed him instead, "Do you think you are in a big city? Private room, hah!"

Jack asked the guard guide again if maybe he could use a room inside the town hall, or if that did not work, maybe he would go to the inn and rent a vacant room just for the interrogation. But then he glanced at those soldiers who had been following him. They were disciplined enough to not show dissatisfaction, but Jack could sense their irritation. The glint on their eyes as if saying, 'what does this guy want? Making us accompany him walking all over town?'

Feeling bad about it, he called the waiter and asked if he could borrow some of the empty chairs outside. The waiter rejected at first, before Jack added that he would pay 1 silver coin for 1 chair. The waiter asked, "where do you want me to put these chairs?"

So the group ended up sitting outside the tavern beside the street. Giving them an outdoor setting like those of the European outdoor restaurants, except without the elegance, nor the scenery.

The street was quiet so it was better than the inside. Jack had wanted to have an interview with the former patients one by one, but circumstances made this into a group discussion instead. It was fine also, save his time, he thought.

He called the waiter and ordered some beverages for the soldiers. The waiter said since it was outside, there would be an extra charge for special outdoor service. Jack was sure there was no such thing, but he did not want to argue with the waiter so he just agreed with it. He was not short on coins.

Jack started by asking each of their names. Although he could simply inspect them for it, it helped to add a sense of familiarity with them. He then introduced himself and let them know that he was tasked to find out the source of the disease which had afflicted them.