Joachim gladly accepted Zich’s offer. In their current situation, they needed as much help as they could get. On the other hand, Hans and Snoc were frightened about the epidemic, but Zich hit the back of their heads and lessened some of their fears.
“Hans, you won’t have any problems with your amount of mana! Do you think I made your training that easy? It’s the same for you, Snoc! Do you think someone who made a contract with a magical beast will die from a disease? I have never heard a contractor dying for such a stupid reason. So throw your worries away and focus on working!”
Besides everything else, Hans and Snoc had great faith in Zich’s skills and training. Thus, they casted their worries aside and began to help with the work around the camp. However, the fear of contracting a disease wasn’t the only struggle workers had to deal with in an epidemic.
“Ugh…!” Snoc groaned, seeing the corpses coming out of the village. Hans had a bit more experience than him, but he also responded similarly.
“Hm, they didn’t die peacefully.”
Zich looked down at the corpses below him. There were severe rashes and pus all over their bodies. Their eyes, which were incapable of closing, were yellow, and all the hair on their head was gone. Amputated black regions indicated that those regions had become rotten and fallen off. The pungent odor coming off the corpses seemed to numb his senses.
“Blaargh!”
“Ugh!”
Eventually, Hans and Snoc began to gag, and the soldiers who brought in the corpses glanced at them. However, the soldiers didn’t say much since they had gone through a similar stage like Hans and Snoc.
“Please put this in the pit over there.”
Following the soldier’s words, Zich lifted the corpse and left Hans and Snoc alone for a while. He was giving them some time to get used to the situation.
‘Of course, if they stay like this, I will kick their butts.’
For now, Zich thought it was fine to let them enjoy his generosity. Then he went to the pit while holding all the belongings and felt a faint trace of heat coming out from the hole. Inside the pit, there were ashes of scorched tree branches mixed with burnt corpses.
They were at an incineration plant. As if it was recently built, there were some fresh corpses piled on top, and Zich threw the corpse he was holding in it. A new corpse was added to the pit, and after staring at the corpses, Zich shook his head.
‘This is quite serious.’
An epidemic was already a very serious matter, but looking at the state of the corpses, the epidemic looked worse than usual. Zich headed back to the village. As soon as he stepped inside, he heard all kinds of groans and screams across the area. Doctors and priests were shouting while soldiers were running. It almost felt as if he was on the front lines of a battlefield.
“Are you a bit better now?”
After throwing up for a while, Hans and Snoc seemed better and walked towards Zich like zombies.
“S-Sorry, sir. We couldn’t hold it in no matter what…”
“This is too awful.”
“Among the villages impacted by epidemics, this one is definitely the worst one I’ve seen.” Before his regression, Zich had seen places hit by epidemics a couple of times before, but this place seemed to exceed even Zich’s experience. It was a merciless environment for Hans, who had only killed monsters, and Snoc, who had just begun his journey. But unfortunately for them, Zich had no intention of letting them rest.
“Both of you have rested well enough. Why don’t you help around the village now? I mean, you guys aren’t thinking such a cute thought like playing while I work, right?”
If they had even an inkling of such a thought, Zich intended to change their cute thoughts into a terrifying nightmare. Hans and Snoc shuddered and instantly got up. Although the fear of diseases and nasty corpses still clouded their minds, they were more afraid of facing Zich’s wrath head-on. Hans and Snoc knew Zich’s personality from training, and they quickly moved.
After watching them help the closest people around them, Zich began to also help the people around him.
* * *
Once night fell, they were finally able to rest. Some might have argued that there was no daytime or nighttime during an epidemic, but Joachim was accommodating for the three who had just started work. And as he was also very satisfied with their efforts, Joachim invited the three of them to dinner. Zich accepted the offer and took Hans and Snoc to Joachim’s barrack at the designated time.
Inside the barrack, dinner was already prepared for them. As the frontline of a raging epidemic, the meal wasn’t fancy, but no one complained. Nobody in the group was so out of their senses to complain about their meals in a situation like this.
“We didn’t prepare much, but please eat a lot. If this is not enough, we will get you more.” Joachim said while smiling. The meal was plain but quite satisfying.
“Although I told the three of you before, I am thankful for your help. To tell you the truth, we needed more workers.” Joachim smiled. As a smile appeared on his off-color, fatigue-stricken face, he looked more like a patient. Joachim looked so sickly that Hans and Snoc suspected that he might have also been infected.
“I don’t think we did much. I’m relieved that we were able to offer some help.”
“No, you really helped us a lot. How many people do you think are willing to come to a place like this? We are struggling to get the most important people such as doctors to come here, so it’s even rarer to find volunteers who are willing to come on their own accord.”
Priests could heal cuts or external body injuries with their holy powers, but for matters like an epidemic, they needed doctors. Holy power didn’t work on diseases, and the priests currently helping out the epidemic here possessed medical knowledge.
“It’s because most people value their lives. By the way, the state of the corpses looked terrible. What kind of disease is it?”
Hans and Snoc stopped eating; they remembered the corpses’ gruesome appearances and lost their appetite. They immediately let go of their eating utensils. However, Zich stopped them.
“Eat. To work, you need stamina. Even if the food doesn’t go in, force it down your throat and digest it.”
The two grabbed their eating utensils while looking teary. Then they began to unwillingly stuff food into their mouths. Joachim smiled bitterly while watching the two and responded, “I don’t know. Even the doctors say that they’ve never seen a disease like this. And seeing the multiple, different symptoms among the patients, they say that they think more than one disease is spreading.”
In a situation where he had to juggle multiple difficult issues at once, Joachim’s head hurt.
“This is a significant and dangerous problem. However, in comparison to our situation, I feel that our military aid and general support are lacking.”
Although Zich and his companions had appeared out of the blue, Joachim’s soldiers welcomed them openly now because they were skilled helpers. This meant the place lacked human resources to such a high degree that they even welcomed mysterious strangers. One might think that the situation became so dire because few people volunteered to help, but this was an epidemic. With the slightest mishap, an epidemic could spread across the entire region and cause astronomical harm. Families in the region had little or no choice but to dispatch people by force like this troop that must have also been forced to move here.
Joachim smiled weakly. By that expression, Zich realized that there must be a deeper story.
“Sir!” Somebody came in a hurry.
“What is it?”
“We found a patient with new symptoms!”
Joachim’s face stiffened. He got up abruptly and walked out of the barrack. Zich, Hans, and Snoc followed him.
A couple of torches burned outside the tent and illuminated the area. Inside, they saw a couple of doctors and priests huddled around an infected person with serious expressions on their faces. The infected person’s condition was severe and unsightly; they didn’t have a rash or pus on their body or a rotting body part like the other patients. They were bleeding a tremendous amount of blood. It almost seemed like they were releasing blood instead of sweat from the glands all over their body, and the clothes they were wearing were soaked with blood and stuck to the patient’s body.
Drip! Drip!
Blood slid down the patient’s hair and dropped from the ends of their hair strands. It was difficult to estimate when the patient was brought to this place, but the floor was already wet with blood.
“This…is…”
Joachim bit his lips from shock at the patient’s state.
“…What happened?”
“The patient was one of the villagers quarantined in another area after receiving an assessment that they weren’t infected.”
“What about the progress of the disease?”
“Symptoms began to appear around sunset. And after that, the patient’s condition took a turn for the worst at an alarming rate and progressed until this state.”
“Um…”
Joachim became lost in thought for a short moment. Then, he immediately began to give orders.
“For now, record all of the patient’s symptoms. Then quarantine everyone who lived in the same place as the patient and burn the building they stayed in. Investigate everything—what the patient did after quarantine, who they contacted, and what they ate. Ah, and burn this place too.”
“Yes, sir!”
After receiving the command, everyone moved in unison.
Zich stared proudly at Joachim who handled the situation smoothly in a short amount of time. Joachim was much weaker than the time he had created chaos around the world with Zich. Some of his actions showed his inexperience, but Zich was able to catch glimpses of Joachim’s future self. Thus, Zich began to feel a bit sentimental as he felt like he was meeting his old friend again.
‘Yep, that’s right. As expected of a guy who used to be my subordinate before I regressed.’
After resolving the situation, Joachim approached Zich.
“Although I invited you to a meal, I couldn’t properly serve you one.”
“I’m not such a dunce to complain while knowing the situation. But is this all right?”
“Sorry?”
Zich stared at Joachim’s face. Joachim’s sickly face still looked like he was suffering from at least four to five chronic diseases, but it looked considerably worse than before. He was extremely pale. If there had been a light source around them, Joachim’s face would have reflected the light and made him look like a bodiless ghost with only a floating head.
“Your complexion looks very pale.”
“Ah, that is…” Joachim wiped his face one time, then he looked up at the sky and let out a sigh. “This is something you will find out soon if you keep working with us, so I will just tell you in advance. This isn’t a matter related to the disease. This is something I am personally weak against.”
“What is it?”
“It’s blood.”
“Sorry?”
“Blood. I have hemophobia, and I am terrified of even a paper cut. The last patient’s condition just triggered my phobia again, and if the darkness hadn’t properly covered the patient, I would have probably fainted.”
Looking a bit ashamed and humiliated, Joachim spoke while avoiding Zich’s gaze.
‘…What?’
Zich looked at Joachim like he couldn’t believe him. It wasn’t because he was looking down on Joachim. He had no intention of mocking someone for having hemophobia, but he was shocked that Joachim of all people would have hemophobia.
‘Joachim Dracul has hemophobia?’
Before his regression, Joachim Dracul worked as one of Zich’s four subordinates by the nickname Vampire, and his skill was ‘Blood Domination.’