* * *
When they completely sealed the rift to the Demon Realm and returned to the city, the place was wrapped in a troubled atmosphere, contrary to expectations.
The two hurriedly made their way to the lord’s manor where Arkan was said to be. Not only Arkan was there, but also Guard Captain Oderic and Butler Dorbella.
“Lord Taeyon!”
Arkan ran over as if meeting a savior.
“The butler is making a fuss saying we need to find the lord. Please do something about it, Lord Taeyon.”
Taeyon nodded and approached them. Oderic, who stood up abruptly to greet him, wore a troubled expression, and Dorbella looked at him with fervent eyes.
“Lord Taeyon, please find our lord. He must be somewhere in there. There’s no way the lord wouldn’t be there when the young master ended up like that.”
“A search team will come from the castle.”
“But time…!”
“Wait.”
Taeyon commanded firmly.
Dorbella seemed to think the lord must be alive after seeing the beastkin who returned alive today, but Taeyon’s thoughts were different.
He wasn’t where his son’s corpse had been, and couldn’t be seen at the location where the other beastkin were either, so it was more likely he had died during the kidnapping process. Because the demonic beast’s condition had been very poor.
The rat demonic beast was different from other demonic beasts. Let’s say the kidnapping itself could happen. Other demonic beasts also sometimes dug traps, waited, then attacked. But this demonic beast hadn’t even dug a trap, nor had it kidnapped them to eat. It seemed to be obsessed with the beastkin it kidnapped for unknown reasons.
Such a demonic beast wouldn’t have distinguished and hidden the lord separately just because he was the lord.
Still, not for Dorbella’s sake but for the sake of the beastkin of this city who loved their lord, they couldn’t end the search at this level.
“Captain.”
“P-please speak comfortably, Lord Taeyon….”
“That’s enough. The guard can send out a search now. Because Arkan and I will be here for a few days.”
“Ah… about that.”
When Oderic rolled his eyes as if troubled, Dorbella shouted excitedly.
“You’re hesitating about the search just because of demonic energy? When the lord might be in there? And you call yourselves Centanid’s guard?”
Because of demonic energy? What’s that about?
When Taeyon looked back at Arkan, he scratched his head and explained.
“Actually, as soon as we brought the beastkin out earlier, they all collapsed in front of the cave. According to the doctor, it’s demonic energy poisoning.”
“Demonic energy poisoning? They looked fine though….”
Kaniel asked back in surprise.
When poisoned by demonic energy, your strength drains completely and you can’t move properly. If that was true, it was a miracle they had walked out of the cave on their own.
No, maybe it was possible because they were beastkin, far more robust than humans. Kaniel was once again impressed by beastkin stamina.
“They have to recuperate at the hospital for a while. They say it’ll take a few weeks of rest while eating nutritious food to fully recover. Everyone said they felt cold, like they’d caught a cold. Fortunately, the kid who was kidnapped recently had almost no symptoms, so we could send him home.”
A few weeks? Why would they need to stay for weeks? Kaniel rolled his eyes in bewilderment. Of course, demonic energy poisoning was a dangerous illness, but that was when symptoms progressed to vomiting or diarrhea. If the symptoms were just chills and fever, they’d get better with medicine.
“We’re not refusing the search itself. But we can’t expose the guards to demonic energy poisoning. Half. We’ll mobilize exactly half for the search.”
“When we don’t know what might have happened to the lord…!”
“And two days later, we’ll deploy the other half in shifts, repeating rest and search. For now, I think that’s the best method.”
With that, Oderic turned to look at Taeyon. It was an attitude of passing over the decision-making authority. Dorbella also cried out as if realizing who truly held the authority.
“We need to deploy everyone right away. Two weeks have already passed. The lord’s life might be in danger!”
When Taeyon frowned at the somewhat emotional reaction, Oderic stepped forward again.
“The butler was originally the lord’s wet nurse….”
Having a wet nurse in the Beastkin World wasn’t common. Usually they preferred to raise children directly. If they went so far as to have a wet nurse, it was usually when one parent had died and there was no family to care for the child.
When Taeyon glanced at Oderic, he nodded.
And in such cases, the wet nurse usually cared for the child like her own. If the wet nurse had a child, they would grow up like siblings with that child.
So Dorbella was less the butler of the lord’s manor now and more like a bereaved family member who had lost her grandchild and might have lost her son as well.
“Then….”
Just as Taeyon was about to say something, Kaniel raised his hand as if to gain the right to speak.
“What is it, Kaniel.”
“I know how to make medicine.”
“…Medicine?”
“Medicine that works on demonic energy poisoning symptoms. I need medicinal herbs, and I saw them on the way here. They’re in the forest, so it’ll take some time to go get them….”
“There’s medicine that treats demonic energy poisoning?”
At the reaction of surprise at the very existence of medicine, Kaniel nodded, thinking “As I thought.” He’d suspected it from the moment everyone took early-stage demonic energy poisoning seriously, but it was clear that on the Surface, the very concept of using medicine for demonic energy poisoning didn’t exist.
Probably because they didn’t get demonic energy poisoning often in the first place.
Conversely, humans, for whom rifts to the Demon Realm opened frequently and who were easily harmed by the aftermath, needed to develop medicine through research. And the method of using that medicine was common knowledge for humans living on the Floating Island. When a rift to the Demon Realm suddenly opened, anyone had to respond as quickly as possible.
Of course, you could also use magic to quickly detoxify demonic energy poisoning contamination. This used a lot of magical power, so it wasn’t normally used unless absolutely necessary.
“I don’t know the name of the plant.”
Taeyon guessed that meant he didn’t know the name on the Surface.
“So I think I’ll have to go gather it myself.”
“Alright. Let’s go together.”
At those words, Oderic reached out in confusion.
“Wait, Lord Taeyon. Didn’t you clearly say earlier you’d be here…?”
“Arkan will guard the city.”
Suddenly designated, Arkan looked bewildered but soon nodded. There was no way he would refuse Taeyon’s order.
“For now, tomorrow we’ll deploy only half for the search as the captain said, and when we make the medicine, how about we all go in then.”
Taeyon’s proposal silenced both Oderic and Dorbella. They accepted the proposal.
* * *
During the night, Kaniel and Taeyon left for the forest and returned to Centanid around the next afternoon. Carrying many medicinal herbs wrapped in a large bundle.
Making the medicine didn’t take very long. In fact, it was somewhat embarrassing to even call it medicine. All they had to do was gather several herbs, burn them, and breathe in the smoke.
Less than an hour after burning the smoke in the hospital room, the beastkin began to show reactions.
“…Am I… home…?”
At the girl’s dazed question, the child’s mother burst into tears. When her daughter, whom she’d thought she might never see again, returned unconscious, she hadn’t been in her right mind. The joy that her child had returned alive mixed with anxiety that something might be wrong with her body, and she’d nearly fainted.
Yet before even a day had passed, her daughter was opening her eyes perfectly fine and even speaking.
The girl, who had been carefully looking at the wall and ceiling behind her crying mother, complained.
“This isn’t home…. I want to go home.”
“After treatment. Let’s go home after you’re all treated….”
“Okay. Mom, did you miss me?”
“Why are you asking the obvious? I thought… you were dead….”
“I missed you too, Mom.”
The child’s mother pulled the girl lying in the bed into a tight embrace. After that, the other beastkin also began to slowly wake up, and before that evening passed, everyone was able to get up.
Kaniel handed the remaining herbs to Oderic and said.
“If you put these in a mask and wear it, it’s effective in preventing demonic energy poisoning. It doesn’t work against very thick demonic energy, but the inside of this cave didn’t have such dense demonic energy, so it should be enough.”
“Thank you, Kaniel. This will be a great help.”
“If you can get more, dry them, grind them to powder, and scatter it in the cave. The accumulated demonic energy will slowly detoxify too.”
“I’ll definitely get some and scatter it.”
Oderic, holding the bundle, nodded with a face making a firm promise. Actually, when Kaniel first said he could make medicine, he hadn’t looked particularly convinced, but after seeing people gradually wake up, he’d changed like this.
Kaniel felt strangely pleased by that change.
After briefly checking that there were no listening ears nearby, Oderic looked at Taeyon and opened his mouth again.
“Actually, personally, I don’t think the lord is inside the cave.”
That was Taeyon’s thought as well.
“If the lord were alive, the young master wouldn’t have ended up in such a state. He really loved the young master very much.”
“So the search.”
“Yes. That’s why I reduced the search party. I’m planning to select the remaining members and send a search party outside as well.”
