The Summoning at Devil's Den : Realistic Isekai

Chapter 3 - Down with the Sickness

Knight Commander Alexander walked down the stairs of the torture chamber to see the "interrogator" dead. 

"I am assuming this is the same illness that has taken him?" he asked the guard.

"Yes, my lord!" the guard replied with a bow.

"Take the body and burn it with the rest then." the Commander said as he walked out the door toward the surface. "Serves him right! If that idiot didn't keep messing with the slaves he would still be alive." he thought as he walked.

The sickening sweet smell of burning meat was in the air as piles of the dead burned all around. Healers continue to cast spells on survivors, but it did little for their condition. This is something completely different from what they are used to. 

"Report!" the Commander yelled to one of his healers.

"Sir, we have made no progress yet. All we know are the symptoms: Sneezing, coughing, a high fever, and just before death fluid fills the lungs. This is like no illness or curse we have seen before!" the healer stated.

"Okay. That is fine. Do what you can and don't over do it." the Commander said with a concerned expression. "If we don't get this under control we wont have much of a kingdom to protect."

"Understood sir." the healer said as she got back to work.

"All this started with the slaves that interacted with that strange man. I wonder if there is a connection." The Commander thought to himself as he walked on.

He walked through the city as the pitiful site unfolded before him of a child weeping before her recently deceased mother. He tried to comfort the little girl, but to no avail. He left her in the care of the church and continued on. 

As he arrived at the guards' barracks, the stench of death in the air was thick. As he walked inside more than half of the cities protectors were laid up sick while about a quarter of them were already dead. He walked up to the group of healer inside the compound and asked for a report of the situation.

"Sir, there has been no improvement. In the past 12 hours we have lost more than 75 men. we cannot burn the bodies fast enough to keep up with the amount of dead we have."

"Has there been anyone to recover?" the commander asked grimly.

"As of now, we have about a 10 percent recovery rate." the healer replied.

"Have we learned anything at all about this yet?" the Commander asked.

"So far, not much is know. It effects ages 20-40 the worst. You already know the symptoms. It seems to be spread through physical contact as well as being sneezed or coughed on by a person carrying the illness." the healer stated.

"May I suggest we separate the people who are sick from the ones who are not sick then?" the Commander asked.

"That is an idea, but that would be a tremendous undertaking. Not to mention, with our already strained forces it may put more people at risk." the healer stated.

"At this point we may not have much of a choice. Either that or everyone could pay the price." the Commander responded.

With that decision, a quarantine was put in place for the sick within the region, but that only served to slow the rate of infection.

More than half the city was burning with the corpses of the victims of this new "plague" and it was quickly spreading to the countryside. Knights from all over the kingdom tried to contain the sickness only to fall ill themselves. The plums of smoke could be seen as an omen of death  from extremely far away.