The Cursedblood Emperor stared down at her, pompous regalia and all.

  He did not react to what she’d just said. Vic abruptly squinted in turn.

  “What are you trying to prove by popping out of nowhere? Yeah, I know, I bet you like to pretend to be omniscient in your city. Who are you impressing, really? No one here. Booh. Poser,” she said, bringing her hands back to her sides. Her fingers curled into lightly clenched fists.

  She saw him slightly turn his head towards the other end of the road. Oh. Was he checking if there was someone around? Should she make a commotion and be noisy to attract people here since he didn’t want a spectacle?

  “I suppose not. There is no one around to impress,” he said.

  Something in Vic wanted to leave scratch marks all over his curtains.

  “I do count. There’s one person. But you’re right about one thing. There’s no one around that’s impressed.” Not what he’d said but it was the thought that counted.

  He sighed.

  “I am not here to find quarrel with you,” he said, and he sounded too detached. His gauntleted hand came out of his robes to hand her three golden coins. Vic stared at him. But she pocketed them. Had he gotten demoted by his own self? Had he become an errand boy? Did he have no one he could trust enough to hand around money? Pathetic.

  “I have a favour to ask of you is the truth of it,” he said.

  Vic blinked, while dropping soundly the coins in her backpack, closing it back, and putting it where it belonged, on her back.

  “Oh really?” she said detachedly, like she didn’t care, because she actually didn’t care and had to very obviously show it as that guy had the tendency to pretend not to notice it when it happened. Fucking bastard. “Is it related to that weak ass shield that your weak ass priesthood keeps putting up daily over your magic school, all while said shield consistently fails to keep out that poop eating monster that’s crawling around in the sewers beneath everyone’s asses? Is there a specific reason your priesthood is so weak? I bet it’s all your fault in the end, all because you’re not a real god in the first place.”

  She saw him unclench a tight fist.

  “I suppose it is related to that,” he said, relaxedly raising that open hand near his face and doing a light waving motion with two of his fingers. “But I’m afraid I have to plead for your help for another reason. There is something only you could do.”

  Vic squinted again. He wasn’t taking the bait. Damn, he had to be desperate.

  “Oh? Something only I could do?” she said. “Is His Majesty not powerful enough t-”

  “Peace.” he said. “Peace.”

  Vic squinted harder. She didn’t want peace. She wanted to hit something repeatedly. This day had started badly and was going to end badly. Fuck this. She was throwing off the towel.

  “I’m not-”

  “There are quarantined incurables who are quite close to death. Perhaps closer to something worse than death would be the truth of it. But maybe… it is merely a hunch, but I believe you have something in your arsenal of spells that could… and I hypothesize, mostly, but I believe you could save them all. And if there is a chance, albeit small, I would take it, even if the price for that is to plead for your… help. If money is the issue, I’d pay for it.”

  Vic frowned.

  She had nothing but combat spells. She had no healing spells. It’d always been one of her major issues. The game system had never given her the choice to pick those sorts of spells. She bit her lips a bit violently like there was a taste of sour lemon on her tongue. Her upper lip quivered. Was he speaking of her shadow armour? Did he think that it could stop magic illnesses since she’d been able to easily cut him off from his own enormous, monstrous spell during their final showdown at the wall? That was the only thing she could think about.

  “What do you want me to even do?” she said. She didn’t hide the slight hostility in her tone.

  “I have need of your syphoning spell,” he said, unmoving.

  Vic stared back blankly, like he was stupid.

  “My syphoning spell,” she repeated.

  What was he speaking about?

  “…the one you used during our last fight. The one that absorbed the mana out of spells,” he said, like that explained something.

  Vic let out a short chortle.

  “I don’t have a mana stealing spell,” she said, glancing away before staring straight up at him. “I’d know it if I had one.” She made tiny gesture with her fingers, making small rotations with them around her ears. “How old are you? Has your brain rotted before your body already? Is it slipping out of your ears?”

  He didn’t reply. He was staring down at her. Vic didn’t react. Was he trying to play some sort of judgemental game of staring your opponent into shyness? Tough luck with that one. There was one person whose opinion was peculiarly unimportant to her, and said person was standing very tall right before her.

  She saw him unclench his fist again. It was the other one this time around.

  “Your magic sword. I am speaking of your magic sword,” he said calmly.

  Vic blinked. She frowned.

  “Wait. That one doesn’t absorb mana,” she said, frowning deeper. “It disrupts spells thrown my way when I hit any with my magically enhanced sword though.” How had he gotten that wrong? Why would he believe that?

  Emperor Alberon stared.

  “That one… absorbs mana,” he said slowly. He was too calm. “A subordinate of mine could confirm it.” His tone had turned sharp, and was turning sharper still. “If you don’t want to help the sick simply because you believe they deserve it for living beneath my rule, say it so. You know my judgement has no hold over you.”

  Again with the silent staring.

  He actually believed it. He actually believed that she had a spell that absorbed mana.

  Vic, shook her head, feeling confused: “That’s not…” She made a disgruntled face.

  She stared away. She turned around, pretending to pace around. Was her magic sword actually absorbing the mana of the spells it came into contact with? Had it evolved out of sight after levelling up some time ago?

  She reread the description of the spell while her back was turned. “Disrupts the flow of any magic spells it comes into contact,” was the line she was searching for. There was nothing about… absorbing mana. She frowned. Wait. Wait.

  What if he was right about that one thing? Her big mana sword had been disrupting spells. She’d always assumed it was doing it by sort of… frying the spell it met, shortcircuiting it and repelling it in one swooping move.

  She schooled her face. No way was she going to show that she hadn’t known about that beforehand. She abruptly turned back towards him.

  “Yeah, so, whatever,” she said. “Fine, if you figured that out, I guess I can help. Just because you figured that out though.”

  “…It was not hard to figure that out,” he said. The tone of his voice was so bland. A bit incredulous, though, in a barely constrained way.

  Then there was a long moment of silence. Vic didn’t break it. That’d be admitting weakness. Vic was many things, but not really that anymore.

  “My expectations were just very low in the first place, Cursedblood Emperor,” she let out abruptly like a snide little Karen comment.

  He snorted.

  “I take it this is your way of accepting lending a hand?”

  Vic let out a dry laugh.

  “HA! No.” she said. She didn’t want to be understood, time to use a bit of internet slang, as a treat. She pointed at him while crouching lower than ever before. “Beg more, you insufferable yapper. Your self-made [brainrot]’s already dripping down your nose to all over your [wizard’s robes].”

  He stared and didn’t answer. Vic sighed. She marked a beat. Ugh, she didn’t care.

  “Yeah, whatever. I’m helping. Sure,” she said, palming a part of her face with her open hand. “You’re so ungrateful.”

  “If you do somehow save just a few, even if you only save one, those people and their loved ones will be more than grateful,” he said. Vic found that his tone was as bland and as plain as organic yoghurt.

  She didn’t answer when she followed behind. This wasn’t about him. She was better than this. Whatever.

  ___

  The walk to the medieval hospital had been fucking awkward. It hadn’t been very long because it was quite close to the docks, but that had been at the cost of passing for some sort of lackey to that big honcho while he was saluted by guards and bowed down by the citizens they crossed paths with. Thank goodness she’d had a hood on. She didn’t want to be associated with this guy. The thought was cringe inducing.

  They’d entered through the main door and although Vic had been glanced at by tired guards near the entrance, obviously the presence of their resident god had made it all good and fine, especially considering that he’d been acting like her presence there was nothing but ordinary.

  Vic didn’t know why all of this made her quietly seethe. She didn’t know why but she fully embraced it. There was something obviously wrong about his undisputed authority.

  They skipped the entry hall where a loud argument between a citizen and a healer abruptly quietened, and stopped by a room that had to be where administrative stuff was happening. This place… didn’t look like a real hospital. She didn’t know what she’d expected in the first place. It was obvious that it’d be nothing like a normal one from home, but still. Gritty dark grey stone walls did not give her the brightest impression of cleanliness. From the hallway, Vic glanced at where she’d just heard some coughing. She looked back at Alberon and saw him sign a paper while barely reading it just as a secretary there hurriedly went at the back.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The bloodcursed emperor raised back up fully and turned his head down to her. What a tall midget. She was going to get neck pain if she talked to him too often, which she wouldn’t. He walked while speaking.

  “We can head straight to the isolation ward. We’ll be joined shortly,” he explained. Beneath her hood, she simply stared back and followed behind as her only acknowledgement that he’d spoken. Thankfully, she was pretty sure that he couldn’t see her eyes when she wore her hood down because of the position of his mask’s eye holes. The angle wouldn’t be right for him. All was as it should be.

  Through a slightly inclined corridor that slowly lowered into the earth, they let pass a bunch of priestesses that were carrying hurriedly someone in a wheeled wooden chair. The elf patient had a tense, slightly open mouth, their hands shaking ever so slightly while numbly looking in the distance.

  It vaguely reminded her of the way the bodies handled by the puppet god slumped over once its control rescinded. But not quite. There was something a little different going on there. Vic also noted that that patient hadn’t been tied down in any serious way, like there was no risk for the patient to turn violent. That felt kind of foolish.

  The two of them took a sharp right corner and quickly stopped before another entrance where standing guards saluted him again. This door looked similar to the one weird door at the exit of the dungeon that the fake god had tried imprisoning her in. There were the same vines there that oozed of wrongness.

  The door opened on its own just as a guard had found their loop of keys. The bloodcursed emperor raised a sympathetic hand that might have been some polite way of expressing that they might be useless but were still appreciated, right before he continued walking on. The guards saluted. Vic followed, hearing the door closing behind her. She walked now on a wooden bridge that overlooked the ward. She stopped a respectable two metres away from where he’d stopped, on the opposite side of the platform. There were so many makeshift beds. People tending to the sick folded within them. Oh. All the healers were wearing holy garbs. This hospital was being run by his holy order. Vic bristled when she breathed in. The air was tainted with divinity. She stared at the emperor. It felt the same as him. He glanced back. Yeah that was his. Ew.

  He raised his staff, and it shone gently. The divinity thickened, and the cries and moans of pain rescinded a little, quietening softly. She flung the notification warning her of the divinity away. It was obvious enough.

  Vic’s nose wrinkled beneath her hood. She didn’t like this sensation. It was heavy on her skin, but did no damage. Maybe she’d still put on a layer or two of shadow armour for her sanity’s sake. She saw a few members of his priesthood raise their hands in praise while looking at them from below. Her nose wrinkled harder.

  “Those are only the ones that can still be healed,” he spoke quietly. He walked again, not even looking back. There was another door laced with the freakish roots, and it opened on its own again. “The ones for whom it is too late cannot be soothed nor aided by my divinity. Worse, the illness’s progression accelerates once any sort of divinity approaches it.”

  He spoke without turning back to face her. Vic stared at his back.

  If she shot a rainbow beam at his head right there everyone would be none the wiser. Oh, intrusive thoughts. How sweet they were.

  She passed through that door and it closed behind her again.

  She eyed the way the roots changed ever so slightly of aspect once the door was closed. No, there were other exit points. The roof up there seemed to be made of normal wood. Wooden beams too to climb on to get a good foothold and vantage point to make a proper exit in the roof. She had exit routes. She was fine.

  The next platform they walked on overlooked another wide expansive room filled with the sick. There was no bridge that continued further on. They walked to the handrail. She frowned. If there’d been about two hundred beds in the other repurposed storehouse, there were double the amount there. About ten of them were each compartmentalised in their own sections divided by enclosing stone walls.

  “I cannot approach farther than this without my presence causing issues,” he said. “My anointed priests and priestesses can come as far as one to two metres close before the infection acts out. Wearing specific garbs and masks allows to reduce that distance some more.” He turned to her, head in its usual head tilt. “Ah. There he is.”

  Vic heard the clanking of an elevator. Maybe it used to be a crane to bring up merchandise.

  “Is this whole thing recent?” she asked.

  His mask remained fixed towards the incoming newcomer in that elevator.

  “It had been a few years since people started falling victim to this… infection. Only the first building we entered used to contain the infected. The nearby storehouses were requisitioned a week ago, when the outbreak started intensifying to unprecedented levels, Victorya,” he said quietly. “There’s about five other storehouses like this.”

  Vic blinked.

  “That’s a lot” she said. She would have whistled, but it felt awkward to in this stifling air. It felt a bit stuffy too. Something smelt very disagreeable. Between tangy piss and ripened, sweaty onions.

  “You do not say, Victorya,” he said. She squinted. Better not acknowledge any of that. She needed to think of something else, quick.

  “Your Eminence,” the newcomer said, bowing his head, the elevator stopping at their level. Vic tilted her head. That was a human with round ears. Hm. She was kind of curious to see if elves fell sick more often than humans with this magic illness. Wait, did they call humans “tallmen” in this city? No, they actually hadn’t so far. Huh. She wasn’t very good with classifications in the first place. They tended to change a lot between cities and cultures which made trying to recall the correct names a bit of a complicated exercise. It was always a mess. Tallmen, humans, whatever. But now that she thought about it, it was kind of weird how the word “humanity” was used here by people to describe both humans as a subspecies and also humanity in the more general sense. Could Alberon be a human? He was very tall for one. She blinked again. She felt like a lizard. She was so analytical.

  “…Victorya?” the bloodcursed emperor said. Vic stared back at him. “Has anything of a consequential nature caught your attention? I was introducing you both to each other.”

  Vic looked away from where she’d been emptily staring. It’d accidentally been on one of the filled beds.

  “Nothing important,” she said. “You were saying?”

  She saw the new guy gulp a little. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in the last few days. Fascinating stuff. The bloodcursed emperor sighed.

  “I won’t ask manners from you, but there could still be a measure of-”

  “I noticed something,” she lied, rolling her eyes, motioning vaguely at the room. “Stop trying to annoy me. Stop, whatever it is you’re starting. Your attempts are pathetic. Isn’t this about your people rather than your ego? Let it go, for fuck’s sake.”

  There was a pause.

  He let out a light laugh. A cringe of horror crawled up her back.

  “You haven’t changed,” he said. What? She stared. She stared back like she was the abyss itself. Had he gone insane? Why was he speaking like this? Her mouth opened with a wrinkle of disgust. Was he being affected by this illness too? She hadn’t been literal when she’d said that she believed that his brain was slipping down his ears. “I have to take my leave, now. I’ll leave you now in the governor’s hands, lest my presence stirs something that should remain dormant.”

  Vic blinked at him. Abruptly, he turned around and took his leave, the drapes of his fancy robes dryly snapping in the air. The door closed behind him with a sound of finality.

  What a fucking drama queen.

  She glanced at the hospital’s governor. Had he seen this? Huh. He’d been readjusting the mask that he was currently using as a hat. Huh, those masks kind of looked a bit like the bird ones that the black plague’s doctors had back then on Earth.

  “So watchu need of me?” she asked, dusting her hands by lightly slapping them together.

  The governor gulped a little.

  “Well, my lady, his Eminence briefly spoke to me of… an experimental spell you could use on the incurables. I barely had the time to prepare a spare room of this building, but we could go down and I would be glad to brief you on the intricacies of this epidemic.”

  “Sure,” she shrugged. No need to be an ass to a guy doing his job. Healthworkers always got a pass for her anyway. Vic pushed down her hood to get a better view. “Lead the way.”

  He climbed back onto the elevator and she walked next to him. She noticed him pulling a lever and the whole thing started going down slowly with a creak. There seemed to be runes at work.

  The guy in the black clothes scratched his throat.

  “When the ailment is caught in the early stages, there is half a chance for the infection to be stopped,” he said, and the elevator reached the ground. “Once stabilised, only a fourth of those successfully recover in full in the following weeks. The rest either relapse sharply or stabilise for a long time while remaining contagious. The latter shouldn’t be let out no matter what. They’ve caused the worst of the epidemic. Those were the written observations of Bishop Millard.”

  Vic nodded but stared. Wait. Was this guy a bishop? Had Alberon not told her because he thought that she’d view negatively anything related to him? Not that he wasn’t right, but still. That was a paltry manoeuvre, considering this guy had just revealed it to her thirty seconds after he left.

  “Your predecessor?” she asked. The guy shook his head.

  “Not quite. The previous governor of this hospital, the recently anointed bishop Lanfrey died four days ago from the infection, not long after he replaced Bishop Millard who died in similar circumstances. It hit him so suddenly too. Terrible omen for things to come for my position.”

  It was said with a bit of a dry humour.

  “So yes, understand that my station’s been elevated alarmingly high since my predecessor’s early departure. I heartily apologize for any inadequacies you’ll notice regarding some of the… sacred tenants, my lady, as I’m woefully underprepared. Might not have the time to do so regardless,” he said just as jadedly. He didn’t seem too affected by the thoughts of his inevitable doom.

  “That’s okay, hate that stuff anyway. It’s pretentious at best,” she said.

  The hospital’s governor stared at her. He blankly looked away. The deep circles beneath his eyes remained deep. He put on the part of his dark mask that went over his mouth but not the one going over his eyes.

  Okay. Better find a subject to distract him from the blasphemy she’d probably just committed. At least he didn’t seem to care that much about it.

  “So, what’s this with the appointed people dying repeatedly? Is the illness conscious or something?” she asked.

  He gulped down, abruptly stopping. Vic hadn’t realised they’d restarted walking for a little while.

  “I sure hope not,” he said. “It could make sense. His Eminence’s certain of the evil, divine guidance it receives, at least. An enemy that wants us all dead, no doubt. A real original too.”

  Heheh.

  “’Bet it’s deeper and worse than that,” she quipped. “Most gods don’t stop just at killing. It’s not absolute enough. They’ll want more, always more. It’s in their nature. They won’t stop at simple death.”

  The governor gave her a side eye.

  “Thank you for your sincerity, my lady,” he said neutrally. “Empty reassuring promises will not get us far.”

  Hm. How fucking dreadful. This champ was as vibrant as a poney from my little poney, pastel colours and all.

  “Eh, we do as we do anyway. It doesn’t matter what we face, it’s not a question of hope, it’s a question of doing and keeping it going. The threats, the unsurmountable odds, the undefeatable enemies, it doesn’t matter, we keep moving forwards anyway. That’s the human spirit.”

  That’s what she’d always done.

  The governor stared at her. His neutral stare seemed to change ever so slightly.

  “Wise words, my lady,” he said.

  Ugh. How formal.

  “Stop calling me ‘my lady’, it doesn’t fit me,” she said. “And I wouldn’t mind being less formal while we work on this. The name’s Vic.”

  She was given a jaded stare.

  “I can’t conduct myself that way, my lady” he said and turned away to unlock a door that’d been in a corridor right next to the main storehouse. Vic bristled internally, but closed back her mouth. He might have meant that very literally. There was probably some type of insufferable etiquette at play. Whatever. He was just a prisoner of social conventions, and he didn’t want to become an escapee. She bit down on the insides of her cheeks. “Here’s the room I had emptied this morning as soon as I knew of the possibility of your visit.”

  They entered it and he seemed to just stare at the state of the room, briefly wide-eyed before something like tired acceptance came over his features. This guy would have loved coffee. Man, if her phone still worked, she’d have absolutely taken a pic of the face he was making. His hand let go of the handle of the door in a limp way before staring again at the state of the room. Vic didn’t comment at all on the latter.

  “It’ll be… properly fully emptied as soon as possible,” he said. Vic didn’t snort, did nothing, didn’t even comment. “I apologize. We have too little hands to deal with too many duties. I apologize for the oversight.”

  Vic wrinkled her nose. No… It couldn’t be.

  She abruptly sniffed the air again. It smelt dry, but the stench was more animal than human.

  She wiggled her fingers and took a hold of one of the wooden large boxes in the corner of the room. She squeezed herself between the wall and the box. She pushed. She accidentally glanced at the governor and he wasn’t moving, simply staring at her with a mix of defeated acceptance and apathetic exhaustion. She invoked a layer of shadow armour to help herself out. The wooden box and the enormous mess that was on top of it was moved without anything falling down from it. Vic removed the planks of wood that’d been beneath it, and uncovered the hole that had been underneath it all. It was wide. Wide enough that a grown child could easily climb down there, if it hit their fancy. She noted how the ground of the entire room was slightly inclined towards it. But despite the thick darkness that hid the depths of the hole, the smell was unmistakeable.

  “This place was the shitroom,” Vic said.

  Septic tank, down below, was the positive thought that came to her mind.

  A deranged smile came over her. It plastered itself over her face.

  That shit was too funny to make up.

  She stared back at the governor. He looked absolutely horrified at the wide view he had on this hole.

  He stammered.

  “I only started working here two weeks ago as an aide. I scarcely know the specifics of the layout of those old buildings. I will… have to review them,” he said, finally breathing but gulping down now, tongue shaking against his teeth. “This room must have been used as temporary storage while the buildings were repurposed. I apologize. I was aware that… was aware that one of the storehouses was used as storage for livestock. A lack of foresight,” he said, quieter and quieter. “Terrible foresight.”

  Vic rubbed her chin. Translation of his speech: “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m gonna die regardless, help, maybe, I don’t know, fuck.”

  That was a little relatable. She’d once been like this too.

  “That’s fiiiine,” she said. “Maybe I should become the patron saint of shit. At this point, too much in my life has happened with it”.

  “I apologize. My lady, I apologize,” he said, he repeated, perfectly unmoving. He sounded absolutely defeated. Vic couldn’t believe that this was what was doing him in. Perhaps it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Vic batted her hand angrily.

  “It’s fine. I don’t care. I don’t give a…” she faltered. “I really don’t care. Let’s get this going.”

  “…I’ll have another room ready right away, my lady,” he said so sternly, like he’d swallowed a cactus and was forcefully being very stoic about the whole thing.

  “No,” she said, firmly grabbing his arm as he was about to step away. “That would be a waste of hands, as everyone’s busy, no? You said it yourself. And I don’t even know if my so called experimental spell will work. There’s no need to waste more time by preparing some other room if this spell turns out to be a dud.”

  She eyed the hole.

  She’d cover it up again before the smell came out and bothered people who had a less sensitive nose than she had.

  “Bring in the sick or something. That’s an order from the lady,” she said, firmly.

  He eyed her. He bowed his head slightly in respect, and put the eye covering part of his mask on. The goggles made him look silly and bird-like.

  “As you say, my lady,” he said, before taking his leave.