The Peerless Kobold - Chapter 75
“Mom, it’s raining.”
“Oh, you’re right. We have to take the laundry in… Eh!?”
As she spoke, the young mother turned to her child and stiffened.
She looked up at the sky because the raindrops that fell on her son’s face were reddish-black.
“… Mom, I don’t… feel so good…”
“Zenos, hang in… there… aghh…”
The mother propped up her collapsed son as she lost strength and laid on the cobblestones as well. Beyond her darkening vision, the people walking down the street until a while ago also started dropping like flies.
… The day after one of the Seven Plagues, Alvesta of the Black Rain, caused an outbreak in the Royal Capital of Selkram, rains of black blood fell sporadically all over the city, which caused over a thousand people to fall victim to the bloody disease.
Because of this, all of the Holy Cathedrals in each section of the city seemed like a bloody battlefield.
“Listen closely, don’t let the patients’ blood get on you or you’re going to catch it as well!!”
“B-but Father!! Holy Attribute Magic doesn’t work!”
“I know that. It’s the same even in the records from the past!!”
“I-it hurts… h-help me…”
“Then what should we do about them?”
“… The only way we have is to pray for them. It takes a month or so until the patients reach the end stage and die… so we can only hope that the Lord would somehow make a miracle…”
“…”
At the words of the priest, the nuns realize that there is nothing more they can do.
It was something that was beyond their feeble powers.
In the two hundred years since Alvesta appeared on this continent, very few people had survived the bleeding disease. However, their survival was random, and not because they underwent a treatment process.
The clergymen looked nothing short of ridiculous as they prayed in the middle of the groaning and suffering people in bed inside the treatment center of the Holy Church.
The deputy court mage who visited to inspect the area watched the scene coldly.
“Shouldn’t they try to do something before succumbing to prayer first…”
Fundamentally, all the medical treatments used in the continent mainly used Holy Attribute Magic in combination with medicinal herbs and holy water. However, that alone was not enough to cure all diseases.
Then, what happens if healing magic does not work?
The answer was right in front of her.
In other words, the clergymen could only pray while being surrounded by the suffering people.
However, most of them would die in vain.
Among the families that have attended to their loved ones until the end, it was understandable that they were unable to accept this situation, and poured their hearts and souls into pursuing something called medicine, which was another method of treatment besides pharmacology and magic.
Court Mage Ernesta was one of those who aspired to practice medicine.
But for some reason, she was only able to use Wind Attribute magic. Her foster father advised her to enroll in the Magic Academy in the Royal Capital where she tried her hardest to learn all the magic attributes but all the methods she took to learn them failed.
She became a court mage not just because she benefited from the influence of her foster father who is the head magician, but because no one in the castle thought that she would become something else because her Wind Attribute magic was in a league of its own.
However, such power was not enough for her.
If the time came when she was powerless to save a “life that could be saved”, then she would surely regret it. And, thinking that if it were someone dear to her… Ernesta turned her attention to learning medicine.
