Senium is the name of the sudden disease that appears in the Clovisto kingdom. It feeds people with fear and sorrow as their loved ones walk on into the afterlife before them. Therefore, the cause of it is still unknown. It just continued to spread like a plague even though people believed that it was a karmic punishment for the sinners who lived in the said kingdom and angered the gods.
That is also why they continue to seek for the Clovisto kingdom to fall into ruin.
But even though God punishes those who sin, what people thought the most was: who is the sinner after all that they have to experience the great vengeance of God?
Is it just a holy crisis? To challenge their great faith or...
Does God want the people from the Clovisto kingdom to feel—the sorrow and the unbearable madness of seeing their loved ones die in front of their eyes?
If it is neither of the two, then why would they do such things?
(In the Clovisto kingdom, before the senium plague devoured the land.)
*Cough! * *Cough! *
The dry coughing of the woman wearing a maid uniform from the palace could be heard even from a distance; whenever she coughed, she would feel as if her throat was scratching, which made it hard for her to breathe.
When she took off the white handkerchief that she used to cover her mouth, she was worried. Seeing how she vomited blood continuously while scratching the flesh of her skin, they'd started to leave wounds and scratch marks that were hidden on those long sleeves.
"Maria!"
The other maid shouted as she ran towards her, who was following her all the way to her companion's room.
She helped Maria get up as she fainted on the floor.
As soon as she laid her down gently on the bed, she immediately put ointment on her burned hand after accidentally dropping the teapot on Khalid while serving it in his room.
*COUGH! * *COUGH! *
Her face was immediately painted in distress after seeing her friend cough immensely.
At the same time, the red liquid tainted the clean sheet of the bed. Her complexion didn't look good, and her coughing had turned parched and disturbing; even her flesh was starting to make an unbearable corpse scent as the day went by.
She even tried to buy herbal medicine to cure her, but it didn't work.
After weeks passed, Maria's body started to look wrinkled and dried, along with her eyes.
She desperately sought the temple's help with the belief that she would be cured, but as she ran towards the temple, her eyes almost left her in great shock, seeing how many corpses were being cremated with holy magic.
'N-no..I-i-it can't be...'
That's when she found out that the plague had started to spread. No one knows who will be the next victim of this disease, but the people were sure that the kingdom would soon reach its doom.
Meanwhile, as things got messy, Khalid immediately went straight to the temple as soon as he arrived.
He already saw the others, along with Dal and the other priest, singing a canticle while reciting a holy orison for the people as they bathed the patients in holy water who caught the plague, but surprisingly, he wasn't able to find the head priestess on the scene, and the other priest assumed that he had been praying on the altar for three straight days without even taking a sip of the water or daring to even eat a piece of bread.
"P-lease, please heal my daughter!"
The woman implores while kneeling in front of the priest; others do the same as her, but the priest shakes his head with a hopeless expression on his face, seeing that the holy water can't heal the sick.
The longer Khalid and the others stay in that place, the more pungent corpse scent surrounds the area making Zev cover her mouth in disgust, preventing herself from vomiting, while Khalid just patiently observes the scene as if he were inured to seeing how people die right in front of his eyes.
'Things aren't going well somehow.'
Khalid thought about how gruesome things had become after returning from the war.
He then decided to find the head priest at the altar of the prayer room, but to his surprise, he wasn't there all along. Even Khalid himself thought that he would feel hungry and leave the other to eat alone himself, but as he walked deeper into the temple, he encountered a garden that looked like a paradise in its beauty; fresh green leaves that swayed on the trees could be seen while flowers blossomed in the sun's light.
As he entered, the man who was kneeling in front of the big tree in the middle of the garden could also be seen.
He was patiently praying with his hands clasped onto each other while looking at the bright caelum from above as the blinding colorless butterfly surrounded the area.
"Viktor, are you that guilty?"
Khalid walks towards him as he flinches after hearing his lifeless voice.
The head priest looked at him as he gave a deep sigh.
"Seeing how you wear stoles on the way to this temple..."
He paused, dusting himself off, before standing up in front of Khalid.
"I respectfully admire your respect for our temple, your highness."
Viktor's voice was surprisingly enchanting, just like his appearance; it was like a hymn of a lullaby, soothing and harmonic, yet he could feel grief in his voice as if he were hearing a person singing a melancholic melody.
'Ha! I can't believe this guy.'
It made him think while watching Victor form a smile on his lip.
Khalid then held his chin as he continued to ask him a question that was neither out of curiosity nor to know his opinion about the situation.
"Who do you think is the cause of this plague?"
He asked, and Khalid noticed how the smile on his lip disappeared, but when he looked up, Viktor was maintaining his smile as if he were just hallucinating.
"Who do you think?"
Instead of answering his question, he responded the opposite while his face was brightening up with a smile.
'Ah, did I see it wrong? '
It made him question himself, seeing how he acted in front of him as if he weren't affected by the situation.
While having such thoughts, Khalid immediately changed the subject and stated ambivalent words.
"I heard you didn't eat for three straight days."
Just then, Viktor scuffed before he responded faithfully to him with a believing tone of voice.
"As a head priest, I need to beg for the gods' forgiveness; I can't let the kingdom fall into ruin."
Hearing his reply, Khalid started to wonder about the situation which took the head priest a minute to respond.
"Do you think God would forgive the sinner?"
He asked coldly.
While waiting for his reply, Khalid noticed that his expression abruptly changed as soon as he heard the word sinner from his mouth.
"T-that's…"
He looked straight at Khalid while looking at him with a deep, grave look in his eyes.
"It's not for me to decide, your highness."
Viktor affirmed.
But before their conversation ended, Khalid uncautiously put his hand on his wide shoulder while he patted him slowly with those little hands, and his following words made him change his expression.
"Hmm, you're right.. sinners go to hell after all."
Even though Viktor wanted to say a word, he was always left stuttering and couldn't even finish the words he was saying—not until Reinhardt's voice echoed in the garden while searching for Khalid.
As soon as he saw him in the garden talking to the head priest, Reinhardt rushed and ran towards them, reporting the information he had found out a minute ago after talking to the priestess.
"Milord, the cure for the plague was confirmed to be in the kingdom of Lusdov!"
Reinhardt informed while the two of them listened carefully to every detail that he let out from his mouth.
"We can't guarantee that it will stop the disease, but it would decrease the number of people getting infected."
Looking at Khalid, Reinhardt immediately knows what he is thinking when Khalid doesn't state a response for a minute.
'Ha, do I need to go back to that shitty land?! '
Is what he thought.
'I already knew what he was thinking.'
Reinhardt sighed, but when he looked at the head priest's reaction, it put a big question mark on his head.
'Did I miss a scene?!'
He wonder as he waited for Khalid to make a step out of the garden before he followed him outside, but before Khalid turned his back on Victor, he added one more word from his mouth that left him with a bleak yet mournful expression on his face that even Reinhardt had noticed.
"Don't get me wrong, Viktor, but I admire your F.A.I.T.H. with your god."
He affirmed while waving his hand goodbye, leaving the priest in deep silence.
Before they departed to get the cure for the neighboring kingdom of Lusdov, Dal noticed the small wound on Erwin's cheek.
When Erwin noticed his gaze, he could not help but be annoyed when Dal continued to glance at his face as if he were waiting for an answer on what had happened, but before curiosity devoured him, Erwin looked at him with his grave hazel eyes that brightened up whenever they were hit by the light.
"Tssk!"
He sneered.
"Where do you think you're looking?!"
Erwin stared at him, looking so annoyed that Dal could not look properly into his eyes, while Zev could be seen giggling silently in the distance, seeing how Dal became mute whenever he faced Erwin, who always had a sassier attitude than him.
When Dal didn't respond, he continued to speak.
"I heard you copied my ability to defeat those monsters."
That's when Dal started to startle.
"Ha, even if I were you, I would have done the same; who would ever want to have a feeble ability like you?!"
He added this while mocking him in front of the others.
It made Zev's ears ring as soon as she heard it, but instead of laughing at Dal, she was rather thinking of Erwin's ability that Dal had copied.
'I knew it! That's why I felt an omnipresent aura that day!"
When she spared a glance in their direction, Zev could feel a shiver on her spine like prey could feel in front of a predator after knowing how powerful Erwin's ability could be.
"Argh! Thinking about it made me shiver."
As Zev continued to eavesdrop on their conversation, she could feel entertained, seeing how Dal couldn't speak a word to every word that Erwin threw at him.
"This is fun; it looks like the nail was hit right on the head."
She let out a chuckle after seeing Dal's face begin to get hot and red because of embarrassment.
But her laughter did not last that long. After noticing Dal's death stare at her that was like daggers piercing her flesh, she immediately avoided it and ignored Dal as if she hadn't seen anything.
Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Lusdov, a sumptuous-looking temple covered in gold could be seen standing beautifully in the ruined kingdom, while a woman wearing a blinding white dress with sparkling jewelry could be seen sitting in the room while elegantly sipping a tea that was served in a crystal clear glass.
*Knock! * *Knock! *
Her attention was then caught by the man, who was looking like a priestess.
He walked slowly towards her, looking so mesmerized by her beauty.
"I-i ca-ame to r-report."
He stutters as he maintains his gaze on the ground.
"The kingdom of Clovisto who had just risen was facing an immense crisis."
As he tries to peek a glance at the saintess; he almost loses his thought, for words are ineffable to describe her hypnotizing beauty.
"Continue."
The saintess spoke, which made him come back to his senses.
"Oh- a...and the leader of that cursed land is the one who defeated all those monsters."
He continued to stutter, which made her form a grin on her face, especially after hearing a piece of news from Khalid.
"I see. So we will finally meet, at last."
She stopped and looked at him with a serious look in her calm, lilac-colored eyes.
"But don't you think it's rude to avoid the gaze of someone you were talking to?"
She stated it so calmly, but it was enough to leave him petrified by the tone of her voice.
Seeing how he trembled in her sight made her smile even more as if she was entertained by seeing people get frightened by her.
"It's okay, you can leave now."
She stopped as she put the crystal glass on the table.
"Get out before I poke your eyes out."
She smiled so beautifully that it made the man hurriedly run to reach the door.