Chapter 138 – Sanitary Measures

Lilyth

There was something off about the carcasses of the cow things. Other than something having burst out from the inside. I gave them a once over and then it hit me.

‘Their organs… why are they intact?’ I asked.

‘What do you mean?’ Caei asked.

I wanted to answer but Dhelmir cut me off.

‘The princess here is right…’

Princess?

He pointed to the chunks that were ripped off the carcasses.

‘Something tried to eat the viemoos, but the entrails weren't touched. I don’t like that.’

I looked at the intestines and stomachs of these and saw that they were distended in certain places.

Remnants of their last meals?

Still, they felt wrong. I don’t know if that was the Huntress or my subconscious telling me that, or if there was any difference between these too at that point, but if a part of myself was telling me not to fuck around with the entrails of animals that had something burst out of it, I sure as shit would listen. Veenaya’s soft growling, something I rarely heard, only enhanced that feeling.

This is why when Dhelmir took out a knife and started approaching the pile of meat, I ran over and grabbed his wrist.

‘We are not touching those,’ I told him trying to keep my voice even.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘We have no idea what's inside of them,’ I explained patiently. ‘Could be whatever caused this mess.’

‘Yes,’ Dhelmir said. ‘That’s what I want to check for.’

I heard Caei facepalm, so I rephrased my warning.

‘What I meant was that if whatever caused this is inside AND still active, you could be the next one with your guts on the ground.’

Blood drained from Dhelmir’s face. He sheathed his knife and stepped back.

Good boy.

Still, the man was a hunter, at least this is what I had surmised from him being a “tracker”, meaning he likely acted from habit. I imagine if you saw inexplicably dead animals in your stomping grounds, you would want to figure out why because your other game could be affected, too.

There not being any animals, as far as I knew at least, living in the pockets of quiet made whatever this was spreading fairly unlikely. Had there been any, I would have to explain the wonderful topic of “we have to put down every single living thing here and likely within like ten to twenty kilometres radius just to be sure” to my friends.

I think Aki would understand as I imagine she is aware of how dangerous animal sickness outbreaks are handled. Caei and Ren though…

Then, a terrifying thought struck me with the power of lightning.

‘Umm…’ I began. ‘What the fuck was munching on those? Shouldn't those have been left untouched?’

My companions all looked at each other, understanding dawning on their faces.

‘I think we should go,’ Ren said in a pleading tone.

‘A moment,’ Aki said while drawing her swords. ‘Let's check the camp for clues and then get out of here.’

I mulled it over, looking around the camp. I could see splatters of blood here and there.

Not good.

‘Just don’t touch anything,’ I finally conceded.

My companions looked at me in confusion.

‘But… why?’ Dhelmir asked. ‘We won’t find anything that way.’

My mind blanked looking for an explanation. Then, when I looked at the bloodstains again, a perfect one occurred to me. I just needed to phrase it right.

‘In my homeland, we have this disease that…’

Ren

I felt intensely dirty after hearing Lilyth's explanation of eeboula. It was enough to make us all lose our stomachs for rooting around too much. We didn't even protest when Lilyth suggested we should all burn our clothes and not touch anyone until we all took a good bath after we got back to the village.

We didn't find much, but a few things were of note. First, Caei spotted a weird gap in the placement of the bedrolls.

‘Either there were seven of them and someone left or these two didn't like the other four,’ she surmised.

Only three of the bedrolls had bloodstains on them and Dhelmir noted dragmarks leading from them to the river. Lastly, the final three of the Red Masks didn't leave as an orderly group. Two of them fled towards the exit from the grove and appeared to have made it. The third… his tracks abruptly ended a few minutes away from the area. It was almost as if he disappeared between steps. Lilyth noted a disturbed large patch of earth in the rough area where that happened.

‘I wonder if this is tied to what happened to Aki with that root,’ she theorised.

You’d be amazed at the speed at which we left the Murdergrove.

We spent the next day in a way that quickly threatened to become our routine here. In the mornings, we would go over the village books with Lilyth, at least me and Caei did. Aki would occasionally join, especially after Lilyth pointed out that if the girl wanted to be an alchemist sooner or later she would need to learn data analysis. And all credit to her - the girl honestly tried, but it was clear she wasn't a good enough reader yet to decipher the often god-awful handwriting of the previous village elders. Adding up births and deaths was increadibly tedious. I could see it tired out all of us, after a while even the gummy fox began to complain about the data not making sense, so I spent a few afternoons helping Aki to develop her reading skills using those detective novels Lilyth brought with her. It was fun to see her get frustrated at the stupid mistakes the characters made and say how some situations should have been handled instead. The fact she usually said that with regards to the villains, and I could find no issue with her feedback, told me that the Yamaoka clan missed out on a criminal mastermind.

Perhaps it is for the best. Some talents should never be unleashed.

Afternoons we would spend exploring the surroundings as Aki was more than pleased to show us around her old stomping ground. I have never seen the girl that happy, and when Lilyth expressed genuine interest in some landmark or other, she was positively ecstatic.

I wonder if Leera would react this way to me showing her around Mer-Cas, I thought sadly. Will need to test it with Caei.

Still, the tours gave me ample opportunity to get the lay of the land for our future investments, which I would then spend hours hashing out the details of with Bergia. A nice plan was starting to emerge. Of course, this would need to get approved by the villagers here, my mom and the Viscount, but I was feeling hopeful. There was also a weird amount of pleasure in doing something that would actually benefit people.

There were, of course, a few incidents, the most serious of which involved Lilyth and Milla’s boyfriend Zanis. It was on the second evening after we got back from the Murdergrove. The three of us were sitting at the countertop, drinking - me and Caei what passed for beer here, while Lilyth contented herself with water.

To my surprise, Lilyth didn't drink alcohol. When asked about it, she explained that she completely abstained even in her old body and now that she couldn't even experience the effects there was no reason for her to start because “the local stuff likely tasted even worse than the shit from Earth.”

Note to self: ask Ereshkigal for Terran alcohol next time I see her.

Anyway, so there we were, enjoying some light conversation and, in general, minding our own business. Zanis, apparently taking offence to Lilyth's choice of a drink, approached her and said:

‘Hey, since you took care of Aki, let me treat you to a real drink. It’s the least I can do.’

The man always gave me a weird vibe; he definitely was a womanizer but he was friendly enough. But then he made a huge mistake. He, unprompted, put his hand on her shoulder. I saw one of Lilyth's knives materialise in her hand, and her eyes turned from normal to slitted.

Uh oh.

‘I’m going to give you until the count of three,’ she growled through gritted teeth. ‘Either you will remove your hand from my shoulder or I will remove your arm from yours. One…’

The man quickly retreated, mumbling apologies and something about him only trying to be nice. Luckily, Lilyth accepted that and her eyes turned to normal.

I could tell from Jirrin's expression that he realised the actual cause of the outburst and that, as such, what we told him about Mer-Cas was… not the entire truth, but to his credit the innkeeper said nothing. In fact, he gave Lilyth a small bowl of fruit, compliments of the inn. She shared them with us. They were delicious.

Time passed quickly, and before I realised it, it was the afternoon of the eighth day of our stay in Dan-Hem. I grew quite fond of the village and it saddened me that we were planning to leave in two days. As Bergia would be joining us on the trip back to talk with my mom and Lady Malika, I decided to make the most of the time we still had in Dan-Hem.

That day we decided to have a lazy afternoon at the riverside, just cuddling together and resting. We never got to our destination as Aki suddenly groaned from pain and stopped, holding her temple. Lilyth was at her side immediately.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘My head…’ Aki hissed. ‘It hurts!’

Lilyth

‘How is she?’ Caei asked as I left the dark room in which we placed Aki to recover.

‘She’s resting,’ I sighed. ‘Headaches fucking suck.’

Carrying Aki to the village on Caei’s [Floating Disk] made quite a scene, but we didn't care about that. My blue-haired lioness was more important.

The worst part was the fact we couldn't diagnose her properly. All we could do was treat symptoms and pray Aki would recover. Headaches rarely were serious, but a sudden severe one… that made it worrying. Still, it didn't seem to be a stroke, at least from what I could remember about the symptoms, nor did it seem to be hypertensive in nature. Thanks to having extensive experience with these, I was fairly confident it wasn’t a migraine. If anything, it seemed like the pain originated from her neck, leading us to believe it was likely caused by her injury in the Corridors. Alas none of us were doctors, so it was just speculation. Still, [Soothe Pain] somewhat helped, and that was all that mattered.

A few minutes of awkward and tense silence later, Bergia left the room and said

‘Aki said she wants you to join her, Lilyth.’

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘I thought she would want you to stay with her.’

“The exact quote was "Want Lilyth”,’ the woman smiled sourly.

So I spent the next few hours with Aki, holding her hand, telling her stories and when she fell asleep lying next to her and hugging her. Veenaya was on my Dark Lady's other side, keeping us company.

I was woken up by the rapping of fingers on the door. Groggily, I looked towards the source of the disruption and saw it was Bergia with a bowl of stew in one of her hands.

‘I made supper for the girls, so I thought I would bring some to you too,’ she whispered.

I nodded in thanks and she placed it on a small table by the covered window. She then retreated from the room and brought in an extra chair and a second bowl of food, this time for Veenaya.

‘May I join you?’ she asked. ‘I wanted to ask you a few things.’

I nodded and carefully got up. Veenaya didn't bother with subtleties and simply rushed towards the offered food. Luckily, judging by the slow rise and fall of her chest, Aki was still asleep.

‘I know about the two of you,’ Bergia suddenly said as I started to eat. ‘Or is three?’

Not one for beating around the bush.

‘I’m not sure I…’

‘You do. I wouldn't have found a pair of friends the way I found the two of you. In general, I noticed something was off pretty quickly. Aki felt more… alive whenever the three of you were around. She acted normally but it felt performative. I also heard rumours about you and Caeileera, so I just want to know… I guess… whether…’

‘I am together with Aki, yes,’ I admitted. ‘And so is Caeileera. The three of us are married.’

That took Bergia aback.

‘And Ren?’ she finally asked.

‘For me? She’s a dear friend.’

‘And for Aki?’

‘Not my place to say,’

‘Fair enough, I guess.’

It was clear Bergia wasn’t happy with the answer.

‘Don’t worry,’ I quickly added with a smile. ‘I love your daughter. She saved me. Gave me a reason to continue. I would never deliberately hurt her.’

‘You have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear that, Lilyth,’ she sighed. ‘You have no idea.’