7 – Fairy Soldier (1)
“You want to rest today?”
“Yes…”
With her head slightly lowered, Chloe looks at me carefully and says she wants to rest today.
I saw a dead body this morning, so it’s no wonder.
“That’s about it, well, you can take a day off tomorrow too.”
“Thank you… Master. But I’ll be sure to work tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes.”
Chloe bowed her head at me, opened the door and left.
Chloe usually showed her face when she greeted me, but just now she bowed so deeply that she couldn’t see her face at all.
There was a slight sense of incongruity, but I passed it because I wanted to draw it.
“Hmm…”
Come to think of it, this is the first time I’m alone at this time of day.
Chloe has stuck by my side until now, except during breaks.
Today is a day without classes, so I’ve been locked in my room since morning, but I’m really bored since Chloe isn’t there either.
“What happened…”
To be honest, I’d like to go to the duke to find out how things turned out, but… That won’t work.
The Duke is a party to this case, and he can be very angry with his parents who lost their child and took the wrong approach.
Well, he must have died while peeing.
“…Let’s go for a walk.”
I was a bit reluctant to go out because there was the third brother’s body in the garden until this morning, but I’m sure it’s all gone by now.
I need to take a walk to change my mood.
“Ahhhhh…”
The weather is very nice.
There were a lot of clouds up until dawn today, but now it is clear without a single cloud.
The atmosphere inside the castle is literally a house of mourning, so the sky and the ground are in stark contrast.
“Well, did you hear that?”
“Really? In Nevers?”
“…?”
So, while taking a walk, I overheard the chatter of the maids.
Never… It is a place that takes about 6 hours by carriage to the west.
“Is genie disease prevalent in Nevers?”
It’s a fairy disease… It’s been a while since I’ve heard of it.
Fairy disease has a low fatality rate for children, but for adults it is a disease without mercy, literally like a grim reaper sweeping away a scythe. It is transmitted through coughing, so it is highly contagious.
The fairy disease got its name because killing only adults while leaving children alive is like a fairy saving a child just like herself.
People who don’t like the idea of a fairy being put in the name of the bottle sometimes call it an orphan bottle because it only produces countless orphans.
“Me and Chloe got caught when we were kids too.”
If you suffer from a fairy disease once and get cured, you will never get it again.
When I was young, my mother took care of me and Chloe, who had a fairy disease. I was worried that I would be infected. I remember what you said.
The same words my mother told me were written in the books I read after entering the castle, so it seems that fairy disease was originally a disease like smallpox on Earth, in which once you get the disease, you will not get sick again.
So, some people say that when they were young, they deliberately let their children get genie disease, but once the genie disease itself occurs, the surroundings go into chaos, and no matter how young they are, there is no fatality rate, so it is said that it is only a part of the eccentricity. .
Above all, the time from infection to onset of symptoms is very short, and it only takes a day or two to get better or die, so it is quite difficult to obtain pathogens.
“Hmm… Well, it doesn’t matter to us.”
It’s not in the capital, Dijon, but in another province far away, isn’t it?
To begin with, Chloe and I already have immunity.
Above all, if the maids heard it like that, even the superiors would know about it. Whether it’s a blockade or a quarantine, they’ll take care of it.
“Hmm… Shall we take some grape juice?”
While taking a walk like that, feeling Chloe’s absence, I decided to bring some grape juice to Chloe, who was resting in her room on the way back.
Grape juice is sweet and sour, and Chloe likes it very much. If you go to the kitchen, there will be leftover grape juice barrels.
“Chief, do you have any grape juice left?”
“Oh, yes. Here it is. Take it.”
The chef is a servant who behaves politely even to me, an illegitimate child.
The servants don’t show off because I’m basically a commoner, no matter how much I’m an illegitimate child, but since there are many people with lower aristocratic titles, there are many people who have an attitude of ignoring me, but this cook doesn’t do that and treats me warmly. Treat
Hmmm, when you succeed in life, you should repay them well.
“Thank you.”
“Are you going to Chloe?”
“Ah… Yes, I’m off today.”
Perhaps it’s because we talk often, the chef knows our brother and sister’s tastes very well.
Only seeing my order of grape juice, the chef immediately realizes that he is bringing it to Chloe.
“It’s not too much, how heartbroken it must be for such a delicate child to see the corpse of a person who was still alive and well as of yesterday.”
“Hmm… I guess?”
Chloe is one of the few witnesses who saw the third brother last night.
Apart from Chloe, who was cleaning the hallway, two servants testified that they saw the third brother staggering in the hallway drunk in the middle of the night.
The only one among them testified that only Chloe had a conversation with her third brother.
‘I thought you were looking for the bathroom, so I tried to guide you, but I ignored it and went upstairs.’ Said.
“Chloe…”
To think that the person I was talking to until last night was dead in the morning with a horrible face. How much did it hurt Chloe?
Since older brother Sejae looked at Chloe with f*cking eyes every day, I didn’t have any good feelings for Chloe either, but if a person died, he died.
I wish I hadn’t seen people die in this lifetime… Ehh.
I sighed, took the grape juice, and headed to Chloe’s room.
Smart –
“Chloe, are you there?”
But even when I knocked, I couldn’t hear Chloe’s answer.
“…I see you’re sleeping?”
Chloe seems to be exhausted physically and mentally. It doesn’t matter if you’re sleeping.
Hmm… I’ll have to drink this grape juice instead.
You could carefully open the door and leave the grape juice on the table, but it would be rude to sneak into her sister’s room without answering.
I passed the time that day by reading a book I hadn’t read, practicing swordsmanship, or going for a walk.
The next day, today, the fairy disease spread in the castle.
…………
“What is this!!”
The Duke’s roar pierces the office and jumps out.
“A fairy soldier? Why is a fairy soldier here!? Didn’t he apparently give orders to blockade Nevers and quarantine all wagons entering Dijon!?”
“Yes, as soon as I received the order, I gave the Duke’s order to the lords and soldiers of Nevers… But it seems that I couldn’t block it completely.”
“…Damn it.”
Yesterday, yesterday my son died.
But if the fairy disease spreads like this, you can’t even hold a funeral.
If you do something like that, you’ll literally have a streak…!
“By the way… There’s a bit of an odd corner.”
“Huh?”
“The fairy disease did not spread in the city, but only in the castle…”
“…What?”
Dijon consists of three structures: the outer wall, the inner wall, and the citadel.
A city is created by building buildings outside the outer wall and between the outer wall and the inner wall, and between the inner wall and the citadel where we live, there are gardens and barracks.
Since Dijon has such a structure, it is possible for a plague spread in the city to spread to the inside of the castle, but it is structurally unlikely that the plague spreads only within the castle while the city is intact from the plague.
“Kuh… Find out about that later and start by isolating people! Evacuate out of the castle little by little!”
You can find out about that after the situation is over. Fairy disease is very contagious, so its power is very strong in such a small castle.
I got immunity to fairy disease when I went outside with my father when I was young, but my children have never had anything like that because I raised them with pampering.
If my children who are not immune have fairy disease—
“Your Highness!! Louis-sama and Anne-sama are in fairy disease—”
…A bad feeling is never wrong.
A fairy disease? I don’t know who said that, but… It’s better to call this an orphan disease.
…………
“Boss, it’s very chaotic outside.”
“Hmm… Well deserved.”
Chloe, who has light dark circles around her eyes, glances out the window and says that.
Since it is the notorious elf soldier, it is only natural that it caused such an uproar.
Even if you have immunity, you can become a vector, so people with immunity, including me and Chloe, were ordered to lock themselves in their rooms and not come out unless there are special occasions such as eating or going to the bathroom.
“That… Boy, that’s a relief.”
“Huh? Good luck?”
“We don’t get fairy disease.”
“Ah…That’s what it sounds like.”
Umm… I can say it’s fortunate.
It’s kind of uncomfortable because we can’t go outside, but people who aren’t immune are literally at risk of death.
Of course, if you openly say that you’re lucky, you’ll get glare from people who aren’t immune, so you have to be careful.
“Chloe, but you shouldn’t go around saying you’re lucky?”
“Yes, of course.”
After that, Chloe smiled and sat down beside me, leaning on my shoulder.
I wasn’t like this before, but now that I’ve definitely grown up, I feel a little more weight.
“It’s okay… It’s okay…”
“Oops…”
Chloe uses my shoulder as a pillow while sitting on the sofa and immediately falls asleep. A thin breath escapes through the thin nostrils.
I had no choice but to stay still for eight hours so that my sister would not wake up, and eventually I myself fell asleep.