The group dispatched from the palace was renting rooms in the lord’s mansion.
Like on the boat ride, I was given a private room here as well and was getting special treatment for some reason. I’ve moved up in the world, but I can’t be happy when I think about Rille-nee in the plague village.
I met Gwen-san at the entrance and reported to him on the spot when I returned to the mansion in the afternoon after my investigation.
“――― So, it wasn’t caused by mana?”
“It wasn’t. I can’t check the undiscovered veins but it’s highly unlikely that they’re the cause of the pandemic since there’s nothing wrong with the veins that are being mined.”
“I see. Thanks for your hard work.”
The first thing he did was pat me on the head with his big hands as if to reward me. He’s using too much force. My hair which I had brushed was now a mess.
“I can arrange a carriage for you right away. I’ve been told by my superiors to send you back to the palace as soon as your investigation is complete.”
“Wait. I still have more to investigate.”
“Huh?”
Gwen-san looked surprisingly cute as he blinked repeatedly.
“You’ve checked all the magic stone veins, haven’t you?”
“I have but there’s still something I want to look into.”
“Is it related to magic?”
“Maybe it does.”
Not.
I was being ambiguous because I didn’t want to cause chaos over something I wasn’t sure about.
“Alright, tell me when you’re done. You could even tell one of the other soldiers instead of me.”
“Okay. By the way, have you heard anything about how the village is doing?”
Gwen-san frowned. Not only had he heard, but he had actually seen it for himself.
“It’s terrible. You mustn’t go near it. Women are especially unhappy to see things like that.”
His expression startled me.
I immediately thought of Rille-nee.
“Is Rille-nee alright?”
“She seems to be alright. The young ones in the village are fine too. Those who are weak get ill first. The ones with the most severe symptoms can’t even get up at all. Poor things.”
“Are you alright, Platoon Commander?”
Gwen-san immediately hit Giedt in the head when he spoke.
“That hurts!”
“I told you to use honorifics during work stupid brat.”
Giedt rubbed the spot where he was hit and apologised in a monotone, “I’m sorry.”
“My dear Platoon Commander, how do you feel right now?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Take good care of her.”
Gwen-san laughed heartily, then immediately called his subordinates and was off.
I wanted to hear more about the village.
“Say.”
I was about to go and report to the lord next when Giedt spoke to me.
“You’re sure it wasn’t caused by the magic stones? Do you have any idea about what could have caused it?”
“Not for sure, so I’m going to the village tomorrow.”
“Hah?”
Giedt immediately started to panic.
“You can’t! You’re not supposed to go close to the village!”
“I just need to stay away from Kikus Village, right? We’re going to check out another village. I’ll ask the lord to lend us a horse and we’ll sneak out.”
“Don’t cause any trouble!”
“Then me being here is pointless.”
“You came here to cause trouble?!”
Giedt shouted behind me as I quickly ran to the lord.
A chestnut horse galloped across the plains.
There were a few clouds in the sky, but it was mostly sunny and pleasant.
I could easily ride horses for long distances by supporting myself with my knees and moving my hips forward in time with the horse so as to not interfere with the horse’s running.
The other thing I had to do was not to keep the reins too loose but also not to pull too hard.
The lord’s horses were well-trained and were very comfortable to ride. The sore muscles I had from the previous day had recovered nicely due to my youth and I was comfortable.
It seemed the memories from my previous life didn’t just contain knowledge.
I hadn’t ridden a horse since I was in the equestrian club in college, but my body remembered how to ride even if the saddle was in an unfamiliar shape.
My major was plants, but I joined an animal-related club because I was curious. At any rate, I realised that dabbling in different things comes in handy someday.
I wanted to move freely, so I gave the lord a reasonable excuse, borrowed a horse instead of a carriage and set out in the morning. It was about time we reached our destination.
The village we were heading to was downstream from Kikus Village.
Villages that were engaged in agriculture were scattered mainly along the river. I was told that sick people from other villages had already been quarantined and only the healthy people were left.
If we follow the river on the plain without any troubles, then we can reach our destination in an hour or two.
Giedt caught up to me.
“Don’t run ahead…”
He was slumped on the horse who he had managed to stop. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. It just feels so good.
I thought a soldier would be able to ride a horse, but he wasn’t a cavalryman.
So, I suggested that we could ride together on a big horse, but he firmly refused. He said that it would damage a man’s honour if he held onto a woman’s waist.
Respecting his tiny pride, or rather, his noble spirit, I taught him how to ride the horse. He was either really fit for being able to follow me on a horse for a long time or he was great with horses.
We tied the horses to a nearby tree and quickly entered the village.
My goal wasn’t to talk to the people but to inspect the fields which were spread out around the houses.
I believed that the crops might have been affected in some way if it was pollution.
My speciality is plants. I can’t examine people, but I can examine plants.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to find out, but don’t take too long. I’ll be the one who gets yelled at if the Platoon Commander finds out.”
It was a little funny to see Giedt frowning and warning me.
“You’re surprisingly kind even when we showed Princess Philia around. You know the Platoon Commander would get mad at you, yet you still followed me.”
“It’s pointless to stop you or the Princess. I’d rather follow and keep an eye on you rather than stop you and have you leave on your own.”
You don’t need to care if I leave on my own. He was quite serious and hardworking.
I didn’t have to go through the trouble of persuading him.
“Thanks. I’ll buy you a meal when we get back to the capital.”
“Then I’ll have a big bowl of rice with all kinds of meat from Salua’s.”
“You don’t hold back. Alright.”
“Quickly finish what you came here to do.”
“Okay, okay.”
I immediately spotted a young farmer lady sowing seeds in a field and stopped in my tracks.
She was holding a small basket of seeds and was placing the seeds in random spots on the soil.
Wait.
“Excuse me!”
She backed away in surprise since I had suddenly called out to her.
I explained that I was a mage and that he was my guard and that we had come from the capital to investigate the plague and she dropped her guard.
“Oh? You’re a mage? You’re a commoner, right? So even a commoner can become a mage~.”
I excused myself from the young lady who was quite impressed and examined the soil.
As I expected, the soil was hard and there were no ridges.
“Did you ‘plough’ this field?”
“What?”
The lady seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.
“Do you dig up and mix the soil before sowing the seeds?”
“Hah? Why do I have to do something like that?”
“… Are you using the scattering method?!”
I fell to my knees, hit the ground and shouted.
I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn about the agriculture of this world… The crop yields will decrease if you don’t plough the soil even if you use the slash and burn farming method.
Fertilizer won’t be evenly distributed! The Chinese have been doing this for millennia! I just noticed that the word ‘plough’ doesn’t exist in this nation!
“Do you have any farming tools that can dig deep?”
“I have something to shovel the dirt to remove weeds.”
The lady showed me a rake-like tool.
They must be ploughing weeds into the soil, but that tool won’t allow me to dig deep. The hard soil makes it difficult for plants to grow roots.
“I’m going to make a ‘hoe’! I’m going to make one when I get back to the capital~~!”
“… You should be making magic tools, you’re a mage engineer.”
My determination was met with a small rebuke from Giedt.
“Don’t shout all of a sudden. You frightened me.”
“This is also a serious problem. My workload has increased.”
“Why did you come here?”
Oops, right. I almost forgot my purpose for coming here.
I brushed the dirt off my knees and turned to the lady again.
“Are those seeds for autumn sowing?”
“Yes, because I couldn’t harvest most of the plants I planted in spring.”
She frowned at her empty field.
“It didn’t rain much this year. I watered the plants, but it seems like I didn’t water them enough. Many of the leafy plants have withered. This has been a common occurrence for the past few years. So, I have to sow spring seeds in the fall as well or else I won’t have any reserves.”
“They don’t wither when it rains.”
“Of course not. They wither because there’s no rain.”
“When it doesn’t rain, do you get water for the fields from the river?”
“Where else would I get water from? You see the irrigation canal over there? I use more water than what’s in there.”
We were still in the middle of our conversation, but the lady drew closer to me and asked.
“Is the plague caused by magic stones?”
“No, it’s impossible for the magic stones to have caused this. I have confirmed that the mana in the magic stones mined from the mines are properly sealed.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
After some persistent questioning and explanations, the lady was finally relieved and started talking a lot.
“I’m glad to hear that. You know, this area is well off thanks to the magic stone mine, so we don’t want anything to happen to it. My father works in the mines too. But you know, there’s the ‘Wastelands’. Everyone believes that something bad happened there.”
“Is the Wastelands close to this village?”
“It’s a little further south. Sands from there fly over here sometimes.”
The ‘Wastelands’ was a wilderness that straddles Traus, Galesh and Tilney Kingdom.
The forest where the Mitoan people lived was located there.
Not a single blade of grass had grown there in a hundred years and no kingdom has claimed ownership of that lifeless land. It was like a hole in the middle of the continent.
The plague may have been caused by magic ――― people must have spread this rumour because they fear mana which has the power to kill the earth.
This plague, however, had nothing to do with magic at all.
“How did the plants wither? From the lower leaves? Or the new leaves?”
“Hmm… It’s faster for us to go to Seg’s field than talk about it. I’m sure he hasn’t cleared up his field yet.”
“Can you show me where that is?”
I asked her to take me to Seg’s field. I found that many of the green leafy vegetables, which looked similar to Japanese mustard, had withered just like she had said.
I squatted down and had a closer look. Strangely enough, the crops were fresh up to the stem, but the ends were withered and shrivelled up after the part where the leaf meets the stem. Or some were green up to the middle of the leaf but withered beyond that.
It was as if something was stuck in the middle of the tube and water couldn’t get through.
This was what happened when plants withered.
I selected one of the symptomatic plants and snapped off the stem near the ground and found no problems there. It was a clean white section.
There was something called wilt disease. It was a disease that killed plants and was caused by mould, but wilt disease also attacks the stems. So, this was probably something different.
I saw this kind of strange wilting a long time ago.
“The crops aren’t wilting because of lack of water.”
Rather, it was the opposite.
The crops probably died because it kept being watered.
I had to quickly confirm my hypothesis. I got up and ran to my horse.
“Where are you going?”
“Kikus Village!”
I said without turning back and picked up my pace.
“What?! Wait!”
As expected, I couldn’t outrun Giedt. He caught up to me when I was half-way to the horse and was very angry.
“I ain’t gonna let you go that far.”
The wrist that he was grabbing ached.
I promised that I wouldn’t go to Kikus Village, but the situation had changed.
“It’s alright. This isn’t a plague. At least, not the kind that can be passed from one person to another.”
“… It’s not a disease that passes from one person to another?”
Giedt raised his eyebrow in suspicion. His grip on my wrist loosened a little.
“That’s right. The source of the disease is probably water.”
“Hah, water? You were just looking at plants. I don’t get what you’re trying to say.”
“Then answer my question. What do these dead crops and the sick have in common?”
It was something that existed within all life; even those who don’t know much about science should know about this.
I didn’t wait for Giedt’s answer and continued to speak.
“Please Giedt. I know about this disease. Let me just take a look. I won’t touch the patients and I’ll go back straight away. Just let me take a look. I’m sure I’ll be able to identify the cause of the plague if I see it with my own eyes. I came all this way for this.”
Giedt hesitated, but he finally agreed reluctantly after staring at me.
“Only for a minute. I’ll carry you home if you don’t do as I say.”
“Thanks!”
We mounted our horses and hurried to Kikus Village.
We were stopped by the lord’s soldiers when we arrived at the village, but I convinced them to let me in so I could investigate. I was dispatched by the palace, so I was in a slightly higher position than them.
I looked for the house that was being used as a first-aid station as soon as I entered and saw patients being brought in and laid out on the floorboards which were covered in cloth.
“Ah…”
I was speechless.
Their skin was red from the inflammation, blackened, covered with white spots and the worst of them were missing toes.
My mind calmly concluded that my hypothesis was correct while my heart was crushed by this tragic sight.
I know what has caused this.
――― Arsenic.