Genjitsushugisha no Oukokukaizouki - Volume 15 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Spirit King’s Curse

Some time had passed since Fuuga brought the Spirit Kingdom’s Father Island under his control.

I received a report from Hakuya as I was working on my administrative duties in the capital.

“The Spirit King’s Curse?”

“Yes. We received a report on it from members of the Black Cats staying in the port that Sir Fuuga gave us.”

As payment for delivering support to his forces, Fuuga had given us a port. However, we only deployed the bare minimum needed to use it as a supply base. We couldn’t fully build it up, as the port was a long way from the Kingdom. Our fleet couldn’t get there immediately if anything were to happen; for example, if Fuuga went back on his word and sent in troops to take it back.

While repairs to the port stopped out of caution for a potential attack, we did, however, station a unit from the Black Cats as contacts there.

Reading from the report as he spoke, Hakuya said, “It seems there are rumors of a Spirit King’s Curse running rampant through the Father Island and the Great Tiger Kingdom’s lands near it. The people in the area collapsed for unknown reasons, and there have been many deaths too.”

“A disease... Is it some kind of epidemic?”

“We are currently gathering information. However, given that the disease first appeared on the continent around the same time as Fuuga occupied the Father Island, they say that the Spirit King was enraged, and spread his curse in retribution.”

“I don’t care about this talk of curses. The important thing is that the disease really exists.”

It’s a disease terrible enough that people speak of it as a curse. I rested my elbows on the desk and held my head in my hands.

The damage wrought by epidemics back in my previous world flashed through my mind. Diseases like the Black Death and the Spanish flu had left their horrifying mark on history. Even in my own time, there’d been a variety of epidemic diseases. I knew the harm they could do, and the difficulty of keeping that harm from expanding.

“That curse hasn’t reached our port yet, right?”

“Right. There are some optimistic people who suggest that if it truly is the Spirit King’s curse, it will only affect Fuuga’s forces because they were the ones who took the Father Island.”

“If it were a curse, sure. But a disease won’t pick its victims based on nationality or race.”

Whatever the reason, I needed to act at once.

“Leave only the bare minimum of agents at the port and have everyone else return home immediately. Also, forbid them from carrying back any materials gathered in the area. They can give whatever excess they have to Fuuga.”

“That...would be the same as abandoning the base.”

“It’s an awkward one to use anyway. We haven’t gotten the return on our investment, but I want to shut down any vectors for the disease to come to our country.”

“We still don’t know what kind of disease it is. Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?” Hakuya asked, as if seeking confirmation.

He likely felt the same way I did, but wanted to be certain of my intentions.

I gave him a firm nod. “Ideally, this ends up being a lot of overblown worry on my part. I don’t mind if people laugh at me for scaring easily. The biggest problem would be being too optimistic and leaving the situation unaddressed until it got out of hand. It would be too late for regrets then.”

“Understood. I will arrange it.” Hakuya bowed. “Anything else?”

In response, I fired off orders in rapid succession.

“First, I want you to call in the doctors, Hilde and Brad. I have a ton of questions for them about possible diseases and the ways to deal with them. Hilde was such a hypochondriac that she used disinfectant everywhere, so I think her knowledge will be especially useful in fighting disease. I’d like them to stay in the castle for a while as advisors.”

“By your will.”

“I will hold a broadcast conference with Madam Maria of the Empire, Kuu of the Republic, and Shabon of the Archipelago Union. Since Princess Sill of the Dragon Knight Kingdom is unable to join the broadcast, have her come here. Set all of that up for me. I’ll listen to Hilde and Brad’s opinions, and make a direct appeal to the others about the danger. Depending on the circumstances, we may need to place certain limitations on the freedom of movement for goods and people.”

“I see. And what of the other countries?”

“The countries in the Empire’s sphere of influence can be handled by Madam Maria, and the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria can be handled by Fuuga now that they’re his ally. Madam Tiamat is in the Star Dragon Mountain Range, so they’ll be fine... That only leaves Mercenary State Zem, correct? We can’t be sure they’ll listen to us, but we’ll at least send them a letter warning them about it.”

“Yes, sire. I believe that would be advisable.”

“Oh, and call Yuriga. I want to contact Fuuga to find out the details.”

“By your will.”

With this, the whole castle moved into furious action, trying to gather information on the Spirit King’s Curse. However, in order to avoid needless confusion among the people, I decided to keep this information under wraps until things were more certain. If I wasn’t careful in my handling of it, this could cause interracial strife.

I’d better not count on it turning out I was too worried... I let out a sigh, sensing the murderous workload that was coming my way yet again.

◇ ◇ ◇

A little later, on a day sometime in the 7th month, Yuriga came to the governmental affairs office.

“Sir Souma, a simple receiver has arrived from my brother.”

“Ah...! It came, huh?”

I wrapped up working on my paperwork.

A little earlier, I had sent Fuuga a simple receiver that could be used for broadcast meetings. I had heard from Yuriga that Fuuga had gained hold of several jewels in the course of his expansion, so I proposed setting things up so we could have broadcast meetings.

In Fuuga’s case, he might do something big while I was still spending my time trying to make sure we were on the same page. I wanted a communication channel with him more than anything. I had already sent him our simple receiver, so it was just a matter of waiting for him to send us his. With it arriving, it was finally possible to use them for contacting now.

I rose from my seat and began giving orders.

“Hakuya, contact Hilde and Brad at once.”

“Understood.”

“This is our first broadcast meeting with Fuuga, so I’ll want Liscia in attendance...and you too, Yuriga.”

“Got it.”

We were able to hold the meeting right away. There were five with me: Liscia, Hakuya, Hilde, Brad, and Yuriga.

When Fuuga appeared on the simple receiver, his advisor Hashim and his queen Mutsumi were behind him.

“This is Fuuga Haan...” Liscia mumbled to herself.

Come to think of it, she’s never seen him before, huh? I was going to want to hear her opinion on him later.

We did some quick introductions and then got right down to business. I was the first to speak.

“First of all, I guess I should say...congratulations on liberating the Father Island.”

“Ha ha ha... I don’t know if I should reply by saying thanks or not,” Fuuga said with a wry laugh. I could sense a little exhaustion in his voice. “I thought I’d use those arrogant high elves to expand my forces, but...if you just look at the results, it looks like my luck ran bad.”

“The Spirit King’s Curse...was it?”

“It’s no curse. It’s a disease. An unknown one,” Fuuga said with obvious distaste. “There are rumors saying I ‘angered the Spirit King by touching the Father Island,’ but from what the high elves under my protection tell me, the disease has existed on the Mother Island since before my troops invaded. It’s pretty serious there too.”

So it really was an epidemic disease then?

Fuuga’s shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. “If I’d known the situation on the island, I’d never have touched it. That high elf...Gerula Garlan, was it? He went to you and the Empire with the same offer, right? Did you turn him down because you had information on this?”

“Hardly. I just didn’t want to save a country full of those who think they’re the chosen people.”

“Ha ha ha, that’s a weird way of putting it, but it fits.”

“I’m sure it was the same for the Empire.”

“They got us. I think, more than liberating the Father Island, what Gerula Garlan may really have wanted was to make us do something about this disease.”

“And where’s Gerula now? Is he still at your place?”

“Nah, once we took control of the Father Island, he got angry and left. I assumed he’d gone back to the Mother Island, so I let him be but...that bastard.” Fuuga ground his teeth in frustration.

He was good at making others dance to his tune, but this time, he was the one being made to dance. Even for a guy blessed by the era we lived in, he couldn’t have things go his way all of the time.

“Are you okay, Fuuga? Didn’t you go to the island yourself?”

“Nah, I didn’t... My partner doesn’t like the sea. We’d expanded our power, and it didn’t seem like it needed my personal attention, so I put my trusted friend Shuukin in charge of the expedition.”

Shuukin’s one of Fuuga’s commanders as well as his childhood friend, right? He put his friend and right hand in charge of the expedition. And now he’s looking exhausted despite not going himself.

I put the pieces together.

“Don’t tell me... Shuukin’s...”

“Yeah... He’s got the curse.”

“No...!”

Behind me, Yuriga was covering her mouth. She looked incredibly disheartened.

Liscia placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. On the other side of the broadcast, Fuuga shook his head weakly.

“He was like a brother to me. A second brother to Yuriga.”

A brother... They were like family, then.

“Is his condition...bad?”

“No, he’s still all right. But...that’s only for now.”

“It’s gradually getting worse then?”

“That’s apparently the kind of disease it is, and exactly why I want to borrow your country’s know-how,” Fuuga said, a serious expression on his face. “Yuriga’s told me that the state of medicine in your country is far more advanced than anywhere else. I want you to tell me how to deal with this curse—how to treat it—if possible.”

“It’s not exactly a problem we can ignore... We have no way of knowing when it might enter our country, so we won’t hold back anything in cooperating with you. But we have no information. Please tell us everything you currently know about the Spirit King’s Curse so that we can search for countermeasures and treatments.”

“Of course.”

Fuuga relayed to us about the disease they called the “Spirit King’s Curse.”

“From the reports Shuukin sent...sometime after going to the Father Island, a few men we’d sent started to complain of fatigue. At first, they thought it was just them not taking well to an unfamiliar climate, but...the symptoms worsened by the day,” he explained, seeming dispirited. “When the numbers got out of hand, Shuukin decided something was strange, and talked to the high elves who were collaborating with him about it. And...that’s how he found out about the disease.”

“I see...”

“It starts with fatigue, and gradually more and more symptoms appear, ultimately leading to death. By the time he learned this, Shuukin realized he was already infected. He doesn’t know how, but... Well, whatever the case, he said not to send any more reinforcements. And that I absolutely must not go there to join him.”

It looked like it pained Fuuga to talk about it. Given the state his friend and right-hand man was in, it was only natural.

“For a start, tell us how contagious the disease is.” I’d asked that because it was the first thing we ought to check, and the thing I most wanted to know. “If it’s spreading, it must be infecting other people, right? How fast does that happen? Do people living in the containment area and those treating the patient develop it quickly?”

I was imagining the seasonal flu from my old world. Once one person in a household contracted the flu, it quickly infected the rest. I was told to be careful of it when I was living with my grandparents.

Fuuga looked at Mutsumi and Hashim. They both shook their heads, and his shoulders slumped.

“We don’t know...”

“What?”

“We don’t know how contagious it is. We don’t even know how people get infected by the disease.”

“What do you mean...?”

Wasn’t the disease spreading? I was getting confused.

“There’s a whole lot of guys who’ve caught this ‘Spirit King’s Curse’ disease, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And yet you don’t know how they caught it?”

“Exactly.”

“Seriously, what...?”

“Ahh, may I interject, sire?” Hilde said, stepping forward to stand beside me. “Considering the situation, would you mind if I spoke to the gentleman there directly? It seems like the two of you have different levels of understanding when it comes to disease, so it’s probably faster for me to ask the questions.”

“Oh, uh, sure. I’ll allow it.”

“Very well. Now then, Your Foreign Majesty, I’m Dr. Hilde. Would you answer some questions for me?”

Fuuga nodded. “Yeah, of course. Ask away.”

“I’ll do just that, then. First, there’s a number of transmission routes. The most common in epidemics is person to person. If you’re in the same room as them, breathing the same air, or talking to them and their spit flies in your direction, that’s how it happens. Does this disease spread person to person?”

“I don’t know...”

“Hrm... What about those treating the infected? I know you probably don’t have a lot of doctors like me, but there must be light mages and those providing first aid to the patients. Have they gotten infected?”

“No... We haven’t received any reports like that.”

So there was no infection of medical practitioners...uh, if you could call them that, then?

“How about the patient’s family?”

“We have no confirmation on that.”

“Eh? Hrm...” Hilde seemed to be thinking deeply. “Now, just so I’m clear on this... The disease really is spreading, right?”

“Yeah. It seems that twenty to thirty percent of the soldiers we sent to the Father Island have come down with symptoms.”

“Soldiers? Have any of the common folk been infected?”

“That’s part of why they call it a curse...” Fuuga said, scratching his head in total confusion. “More than ninety percent of the people affected are in the military. And almost none of them were in the rear support group. It was all people involved in the fighting. That’s what got people jabbering about how it’s a curse, divine punishment, or whatever other nonsense they’re spreading.”

A disease that only affected soldiers? That interested me a little.

“Fuuga,” I began, “you guys built a semi-autonomous domain for the liberal high elves on the Father Island, right? If ninety percent of the people infected are in the military, then is that true in the high elves’ territory too? No differences based on race or gender?”

“Yeah. It seems like it. I could go a bit further and say that the disease on the Mother Island is the same way, because they know it as a disease that mostly affects warriors too.”

“Even in the Spirit Kingdom, huh...?”

“Sire,” Hilde said, turning to face me. “Based on what we know at this point, we can speculate that it’s not contagious through airborne or droplet transmission either. The spread compared to the number of patients is just too low.”

“Yeah... It looks like being in the same place doesn’t cause infection,” Brad, who had been listening, agreed.

I cocked my head to the side.

“So there’s no person-to-person transmission?”

“We can’t rule out transmission from close contact or bodily fluids, but...there’s been a large number of cases in a short time frame. Not having examined the patients myself, I can’t say anything for certain, but person-to-person transmission seems unlikely. And with the number of cases...the cause has to be elsewhere, I think. Some foreign element.”

“Could it be in the water? Perhaps something they ate?” Brad asked, and Hilde groaned as she thought about it.

“What gets me is that they’re all warriors. I can’t imagine they keep separate reserves of food and water for the front line fighters and their supporters back in camp. If the supporters have been largely uninfected, food seems like an unlikely cause.”

As I was listening to them, something came to mind.

“Hey, Fuuga. Did the expeditionary force use the monsters as food?”

“Huh? Nah. They were sent with plenty to eat. They’d have to have been pretty desperate to do that. That ‘Monster Encyclopedia’ you gave us said to be really careful when using monsters for food too.”

“Then it’s not food poisoning from eating monsters...”

Remembering Jeanne’s story about eating monsters, I thought that might be a possibility. I figured the kind of tough soldiers who went to fight on the front lines might want to give that sort of thing a go, while the guys in the rear wouldn’t go to the trouble. But if they hadn’t eaten monsters, as Fuuga says, it probably wasn’t that.

That left me even more lost though.

“Monsters...” Hilde started mumbling to herself. “What if the monsters...”

What could that be about?

Suddenly, she looked up, and realized something.

“Your Foreign Majesty! The expeditionary force only fought monsters, right? Not soldiers from the Spirit Kingdom?”

“Yeah.” Fuuga nodded. “We just drove the monsters out of the Father Island.”

“I heard monsters had pushed the Spirit Kingdom to the brink. That means they were fighting them back there too. In other words, the people who fought monsters are the ones who caught the disease.”

“““Ah!”””

Everyone gulped at what Hilde had said.

“So...it’s monster-to-human transmission then?”

“That’s right. And if the supporters in the rear have barely gotten infected at all, whatever the cause of the infection is, it must have happened during direct combat. Either those who were wounded in battle or covered in their enemies’ blood... It should be something like that.”

That makes sense. I could see how that would mean only warriors got infected.

“Hey, Doctor. What should we do about it?” Fuuga asked Hilde with a serious expression on his face. “Monsters are going to attack us even if we don’t attack them. You can’t expect us not to deal with them. Is there any way to heal the warriors, or keep the disease from spreading any further?”

“Not knowing the kind of disease it is, I have no idea how to treat it. It’s purely speculation at this point that monsters cause it, but...if you don’t want any more victims, you’ll keep to long-range attacks, and not get too close to the monsters.”

“Got it. I’ll make sure my men do that.”

“Also, I want to hear exactly what kind of symptoms it causes. I understand that it’s ultimately terminal, but what problems do the patients experience before then?”

“Right... The most typical symptom of the Spirit King’s Curse...” Fuuga looked directly at us as he said this. “Is losing the ability to use magic.”

Losing the ability to use magic?

“Can I understand that as losing the ability to use your own magic?” I asked, but Fuuga cocked his head to the side in confusion.

“What else could it mean?”

“There’s stuff like recovery light magic that has a magical effect from outside the body, after all.”

“Oh, that’s what you mean. It seems like you gradually lose the ability to use your own magic. As for light magic... How was it again?” Fuuga looked behind him.

Looking through a report, Hashim replied, “It seems to work at first, then gradually weakens, and ultimately fails...is what our reports say.”

“Is the magic itself being neutralized? What about magic attacks from enemies?”

“We have no reports of experiments like that, but...there are reports that one of the patients who had injuries from a fire attack was slow to heal, so I suspect attack magic works.”

Their own magic becomes unusable, and so does external light magic... What’s the difference that decides what magic works and what doesn’t?

“Hey, Souma,” Fuuga called out to me as I was thinking.

“What is it?”

“How about your country and my country fight this disease together?”

“Fight...together? You mean do a joint investigation?”

“If we stay ignorant, there’s no telling when it might spread across the whole continent. That’s something you’re worried about, right? So I’m saying we ought to team up.”

“I get that, but...”

His reasoning made sense. But when it came to working with Fuuga’s forces, I was always going to be hesitant. Fuuga was a man who hid nothing and had no ulterior motives when he was on his own, but now he had a shifty guy like Hashim at his side. I felt like we’d just be taken advantage of.

If we acted like we were close to Fuuga’s faction, that might provoke the people of the Empire. In point of fact, after Fuuga turned over that port to us, Maria’s vassals had put some serious pressure on her.

As I hesitated to respond, Fuuga went on. “We’d like to do what we can not to create any more cases, and if possible, find a treatment. You wouldn’t want this disease in your country either, right? The only way to prevent that is studying it together and coming up with countermeasures.”

I remained silent, unable to give a response.

“That’s an awfully self-serving thing for you to say,” Hakuya interjected. “For one thing, if you had never intervened in the Spirit Kingdom’s troubles, you wouldn’t be suffering from this disease right now. This is the result of actions that you took, so it’s not right for you to seek other countries’ help in solving it.”

“I believe we have a difference of understanding here,” Hashim swiftly countered. “Our liberation of the Father Island was done at Sir Gerula’s request. It troubles me that you would suggest it was done for personal gain.”

“You quibble, but the fact of the matter is that the Father Island is now a part of your sphere of influence, is it not?”

“You must not know the circumstances there either. When we actually made contact with the high elves, we found they were divided into a group obsessed with notions of their status as the chosen people, and those who sought reform or liberation from those who held such views. As the liberators of the Demon Lord’s Domain, we merely decided that the latter group were correct, and sided with them.”

“All you did was create a puppet state. It is disgusting to think you call yourself liberators.”

Neither Hakuya nor Hashim would cede an inch of ground in this exchange. They both needed to stay in control of the argument—Hakuya to keep the Kingdom from being pulled into the Great Tiger Kingdom’s situation, and Hashim to prevent any excuses for refusing to help them.

You could have called their war of words a power game between us and the Great Tiger Kingdom...

“Shut up, both of you.” Fuuga tired of it and shut them both down. “In this matter, my will as an individual comes before my will as a king. I want to save my friend Shuukin, as well as the other men who serve under me that are suffering from this disease. If I have to lower my head and beg, I’ll do it. So please.”

With that, Fuuga took off his helmet and bowed his head deeply.

One of us was asking a favor of the other. That should have made our positions clear, but somehow, when he was able to so confidently bow his head to me, it made him feel like the more impressive one here. We had made him bow his head, and yet it felt like he was the one in control. This has to be the difference in our caliber as individuals...

Unlike me, who was able to manage because he was supported by others, Fuuga had incredible capacity all on his own. In one-on-one situations like this, the difference between us was readily apparent.

“Fine... We’ll help you.”

It was the only answer I could give.

“If it’s transmissible through contact with monsters, not air or droplets, the doctors aren’t at much risk of infection. It’s easy to send people.”

“Ohh! Thanks.”

“However, our medical technology is several levels above yours. You’re to follow our doctors’ instructions to the letter. I don’t want you moving around patients and spreading the disease. If you can’t abide by that, we’ll have to decline.”

Fuuga gave a large nod in response to my demands.

“Yeah, you’ve got it. I’ll be strict with my people about that.”

“I’m counting on you... That goes for Hashim too, all right?”

For better and for worse, when Fuuga said he was going to do something, he did it. Now that he had accepted my demands, I could expect he wouldn’t go back on his word. But that didn’t hold for everyone on his side.

“He seems like the kind of guy who’d send the dead bodies of people who died from the disease to an enemy country.”

“I’m not that ruthless...” Hashim said, looking away like my words wounded him. I wasn’t convinced.

“It’s human nature to want to use the tools we have at hand. Even when they’re too much for us.”

In my previous world, there were things like bioweapons and anthrax, after all. Bacteria and viruses were alive. Living things rarely moved the way people wanted them to. For an example that didn’t directly harm humans, I’d heard a story where people had released mongooses to fight vipers, but they instead started attacking some endangered local wildlife.

“If you get arrogant and think you can control this thing, I guarantee it will come back to bite you in the ass.”

Fuuga looked pensive for a moment before saying, “Yeah, I get it. I’ll keep an eye on Hashim so he doesn’t do anything weird.”

He took it on himself because he didn’t want to see the negotiations descend into squabbling again.

Well... I figure that’s probably good enough for now. We had agreed our two countries would cooperate where the disease was concerned.

With that decided, I had to look into what the Kingdom could do, so we decided to end the broadcast meeting there. Once the video cut out...

“This has all turned into...kind of a big deal, huh?” Liscia said, and I nodded in agreement.

“But this time, we really do need to cooperate. Disease knows no borders.”

“Yeah...”

“Um, I’m sorry about my brother,” Yuriga said apologetically.

“You don’t have to be,” I reassured her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “In this situation, it’s not entirely Fuuga’s fault.”

“Right...”

Next Hilde and Brad came up to me.

“Sire, once I hear about a disease, I can’t leave it alone. Let me go there.”

“No, they’ll need someone to perform autopsies. I should be the one to go.”

They both volunteered out of a sense of duty as doctors. But...

“Not happening!” I immediately refused. “You’re the Kingdom’s top authorities in medicine. I’d even call you the king and queen of the medical world. You two are so famous that people know your names even when they don’t know the name of their nearest doctor. If I sent the two of you out and you got sick, what would I do? The country would fall into chaos if it was a disease even the two of you couldn’t overcome. When they found out, there might even be rioting.”

““.........””

“As doctors, you wouldn’t want a riot that broke out because of you to result in casualties, would you? Well, as king, I feel the same way. I can’t send you there.”

“Urgh...” Brad groaned.

“Fame has its price, huh?” Hilde complained.

They looked frustrated, but they were going to have to deal with it. I don’t want to say some lives were more important than others, but the fact is that some deaths have a lot more of an effect. As king, I had to do everything I could to keep losses to a minimum.

“You need to be patient. Ludia’s still little too.”

When I brought up the name of their child, they both had a moment of realization. They couldn’t make an orphan of her. Still, they had a job to do as doctors. I could see the conflicted expression on their faces.

I bowed my head to the two of them.

“I want you here as my advisors. I’ll give you all the information we have. And once specimens are available, I’ll have them brought to you. So please, stay in the capital for now.”

“Fine, I get it...” Brad said.

“I guess we’ve got no choice,” Hilde agreed.

They didn’t like it, but they accepted it. That’s a relief.