It was two days later when Tral formed a special attack team and carried out the operation.
Dunkel was excluded because he was slow-footed.
Manjin and I stayed behind to watch Tral’s actions.
And Tral showed an amazing performance.
“Uooh…”
At first, I thought he was joking.
Tral approached the fire carefully with squinted eyes, and when he arrived in front of the fire, he stood still for a while in a daze.
“Uoh, uooh…”
Then he dropped the water bucket with a thud and crouched down in front of the fire.
The special attack team (laughs) following him was the same.
“That, that idiot!”
I agreed with Pelerian’s comment.
‘The plan to approach with squinted eyes and extinguish the fire is abolished.’
I solemnly declared the failure of the plan.
It seemed that dwarves simply couldn’t resist being bewitched by that flame.
Even so, to change into such dazed zombies. I wonder if the ability to resist mental attacks differs according to intelligence.
Dunkel let out a sigh.
“We can no longer solve the problem with just the dwarves of our mine.”
Only a few, including Dunkel and Manjin, remained sane from Tral’s group.
The rest had all been bewitched by the fire in the meantime.
“Before, they only burned critically ill patients, but today they burned people who could move well enough!”
Manjin was getting anxious.
The atrocities of Blue Beard and his group were getting worse.
An unknown strange disease had been spreading among the dwarves of the Red Anvil Mine for a long time.
It was a disease where the skin turned pale, the eyes sunk in, and blood flowed from the mouth.
Blue Beard isolated those patients, saying they were spreading an infectious disease, and started throwing the most critical ones into the fire pit.
Usually, the dwarves would have risen up in this situation.
But instead of starting a revolution, the dwarves were just crouching in front of the orange flames.
It’s not like they’re having a campfire or anything.
“If we go into the mountain range, there’s the Gray Hammer Village. We should go there and ask for help.”
That was Dunkel’s assertion.
He was saying that we can no longer handle this on our own.
Rozena said to go to old man Helmut for help.
Even I don’t think he could do much even if we did.
“Let’s quietly slip out.”
Manjin said that.
Manjin’s group of four, Dunkel, and me.
The six of us started climbing up the levels quietly.
It was very difficult to get to the entrance without being discovered, but ironically, it was easier to escape now because the dwarves were just sitting in front of the fire.
However, when we arrived at the mine’s door.
We realized that the situation was already hopeless.
“It’s completely collapsed…”
The entrance had collapsed.
“Did they blow it up with explosives?”
“Why on earth…”
“They didn’t think about the consequences at all.”
Blue Beard had sealed off the mine’s entrance with explosives used for blasting rocks.
We might be able to break through the entrance if we took time, but there were also guards watching the collapsed entrance ahead.
‘Let’s listen to Grandma Rozena’s words for now!’
I patted Dunkel’s dejected shoulder.
“Yeah, let’s go to Grandpa Helmut.”
I wonder if Blue Beard had already gone to the pig farm.
Fortunately, he hadn’t.
However, a problem we hadn’t even thought about had occurred here.
It felt ominous from the moment I saw the Steel Hogs gathered in one place.
They were poking at something with their snouts.
And there, an old dwarf had collapsed.
“G-Grandpa!”
Dunkel screamed and ran over.
I quickly ran over too.
Fortunately, the Steel Hogs hadn’t harmed the old man.
The one snorting was the Steel Hog King that I had subdued.
When the old man who fed them collapsed, these guys were protecting him.
Helmut was lying with a pale face, blood flowing from his mouth.
Fortunately, he was still breathing.
“Oh no…”
However, it was hardly a situation to be happy about.
“Don’t tell me, he was hiding that he was sick?”
Helmut had exactly the same symptoms.
It was the typical appearance of someone infected with the strange dwarven disease that’s been going around lately.
If Blue Beard had come here first, Helmut would have probably ended up as firewood too.
“This is troublesome, sigh.”
“What should we do…”
“We don’t even know what kind of disease it is… Do you know, Brother Dunkel?”
Dunkel shook his head heavily at Manjin’s question.
Even though he had more medical knowledge compared to other dwarves, he wasn’t a proper doctor.
Not knowing what the disease is, there’s no way to know how to treat it.
Dunkel shed tears.
It was understandable, as the grandfather who raised him had collapsed.
Seeing that makes my nose tingle.
My parents in my previous life were scary, but my grandparents were good to me.
I can fully understand Dunkel’s feelings.
‘Um, all-knowing great magician Yeokcheon.’
“…”
‘Do you perhaps know what kind of disease this is?’
“Hmm, I don’t know…”
Pelerian shook his head as if his pride was greatly hurt.
How disappointing.
‘Since we don’t know the cure, wouldn’t it get better if we at least feed him a potion?’
“Potions can’t cure diseases.”
‘Sigh.’
“Don’t sigh. …Ah!”
Pelerian suddenly spoke as if he had just thought of something.
“It would be good to get plenty of sleep, eat nutritious food, and rest well.”
‘Sigh…’
I thought he had some great idea since he was so confident.
‘…Hmm.’
Suddenly, a part of my brain starts to tingle.
It feels like I’ve caught onto some clue.
Among the information I gained from swimming in the vast sea of the internet and YouTube.
Something useful now…
Plus, I was the reading champion in elementary school.
It means I’ve read numerous books.
At that moment, Dunkel lamented.
“How on earth did he get infected? He never goes out of here and there’s no one he could have met…”
Ah!
Getting infected with an infectious disease in an environment where infection is impossible.
In other words, doesn’t that mean it’s actually not an infectious disease?
Plus, what Pelerian said earlier.
‘You need to eat nutritious food in a balanced way.’
“That’s obvious.”
‘But the dwarves don’t do that, right?’
Originally, the dwarves of the Red Anvil Mine also traded.
They brought in food from outside, and ate fruits and other things too, they say.
But even that gradually decreased, and for the past few years, they’ve been living on just potatoes, ham, and cabbage grown underground.
Well, cabbage contains vitamins, but I wonder if it’s different when grown underground.
I can’t be sure.
Blood flowing from the mouth, pale face, sunken eyes… these symptoms remind me of one disease.
‘Dunkel.’
A terrifying disease that once drove sailors who ate only preserved food for a long time to death.
However, a disease that quickly recovered with just a few oranges.
‘I’m not an expert, but I’m just saying this because I have a hunch.’
“Yeah?”
‘Could it be… scurvy?’
By the way.
It is said that the animal symbolizing the god of medicine was a ‘snake’.
