“Lucimia… him…” Desty stepped forward, lips pressed like a sealed letter, and the words wouldn’t come.

The woman had kicked the man out, the door spitting him like a splinter. They’d lived together—once close as two cups on one tray—and now the plague staged its cruel theater.

Grief pooled in Desty’s chest like rain under eaves. In her world, two people tied by trust should share the storm. Why cast one overboard?

This wasn’t the only act. As the plague erupted like black mold, more scenes spread across town like damp stains.

Men booted sick women from the threshold like winter thrown from a hearth. Young sons and daughters drove out infected elders, fear wielded like a broom.

Between life and death, people dropped their “important” ones like stones from a boat, just to ride out the waves.

Not only that—

A knot of youths brandished clubs and smashed a food shop. They swarmed in like hornets while the owner’s hopeless cries cracked like a broken drum, stripping the shelves bare.

They felt famine looming like a bloodless moon, so they grabbed others’ grain, laying stones against the hunger to come.

“The plague’s coming,” Lucimia said, face flat as river stone under still water.

She had released the Fuzzy Orb too late; before its haze could spread, worms had inked the whole town like a spilled bottle.

The streets boiled into porridge. Smashing, looting, fighting surged like a dirty tide. Those cast out gathered like a ragged flock, went mad, slammed doors, stormed the healthy, spitting wildly and biting like rabid dogs.

They howled, voices like rusted bells, “If I’m dying, you won’t live either!”

Some had no strength to infect. They stood and vomited, purged like broken cisterns, then fell like felled trees and lay still as ash.

A few, faces blooming with pustules or studded with fleshy growths, saw Lucimia and Desty untouched in the road. Their eyes turned venomous, and they clawed forward like boars.

“Hmph.” Lucimia’s breath frosted the air. She caught Desty’s wrist, and with a twist of self, turned into a mosquito—thin as a dusk needle—and flew to the roof.

Below, people blinked when the two girls vanished, thinking the plague had painted a hallucination. They shrugged and nosed after new prey like dogs changing scent.

Where chaos brews, order strides. The Adjutant led a mass of soldiers into town, boots drumming like rain on stone. He saw the chaos, drew the greatsword from his back, and cut.

A crescent blade, white as a winter moon, flew and gouged a crater, the earth drinking silver and opening a three-meter wound.

The sick and the healthy split to two sides like oil and water.

At the sight of soldiers, the crowd quieted, wind dying over fields. Eyes turned to the Adjutant like sparrows fixing on a hawk.

He dragged the greatsword, grit rasping like sand, stopped before them, lifted the blade high, then drove it into the ground with a thud like a temple bell. He drew breath and thundered:

“What are you trying to pull? We’re the Independents, we fight for humankind. And you? One side throws the sick overboard to save your own skins; the other dives into ruin, infecting others without care.

“Are you staging a show for the Plague Followers? Letting them hide in the dark and laugh at us?”

Heads drooped all at once like reeds after frost.

“Those who abandon companions break the Independents’ creed and feed the God-worshippers’ mockery. Those who infect others are helping the Dark Deity of Plague. Do you grasp the weight of what you’re doing?”

Ten seconds of silence held like a tight drum. Then a sick man screamed, spat blood like a crimson spray, and yanked every gaze back like a snapped line.

He pitched forward like a felled ox, his body jerking like a hooked fish.

“Move, away from him!” the Adjutant snapped, voice cracking like a whip.

The nearest scattered at once. A heartbeat later, a thicket of worms spilled from the man’s mouth, ears, nose—threads crawling like a living skein.

Panic sparked like dry grass. The Adjutant raised a hand. A Fireball Spell streaked out like a sun-seed and hit the corpse, burning it to nothing in a blink.

He cleared his throat with a drum tap and shouted, “All the sick to the right. All the healthy to the left. We isolate now.”

People obeyed, stepping into place like chess pieces finding their squares.

“Good.” He nodded, calm like anchored stone. “The sick—don’t fear. We’ll take you to sealed rooms filled with Mystic Return Smoke. The haze will blanket the space. Stay inside a while, and you’ll recover.”

The infected lit up like lanterns; death stepped back like a shadow at noon. Joy fluttered in their hands like sparrows.

He turned to the healthy, steady as a plumb line. “Some of you may be sick and not know it. You’ll go to another sealed house and receive preventative treatment.”

“And those who abandoned companions or spread infection will face punishment afterward—justice like a cold blade, and deserved.”

The healthy gave no pushback; relief slid in like warm tea. A preemptive cure soothed the heart. As for punishment, they’d take the sting—better a bruise than a grave.

Once the pieces were set, the Adjutant signaled, and soldiers guided both groups away like shepherds parting twin flocks.

Lucimia and Desty watched from the rooftop, two swallows perched on a beam.

“They handled it fast, no panic at all,” Desty breathed, awe kindling like a small flame.

“Yeah. True,” Lucimia nodded, approval ringing like a quiet bell.

If the frenzy had run on, the Plague Followers would laugh in the shadows like cats in the granary; they wouldn’t even need to move—people would carry the disease like wind through dry grass.

The town soldiers worked not just fast but right, stitching a torn sail before the storm.

They didn’t crush with force. First they warned, then they scolded, let truth sink like ink into paper, and after the bitter, offered a sweet.

They also handled the agitators, steadying hearts like stones in a river.

“Looks like being Adjutant takes real skill. I wonder what tier of Swordmaster he is?” Lucimia eyed the pit—three meters deep, twelve long—measuring his weight like a blacksmith weighing steel.

“Probably Tier Five or Six,” Desty said, words flying like arrows.

“Huh? For real? I remember you’re only Tier Four.” Lucimia glanced back, curiosity padding like a cat.

“It’s true. I can tell. I know Swordmasters,” she said, certainty taut like a drawn string.

“Oh…” Lucimia lifted her gaze, thoughts drifting like cloud-banners, then asked, “How do Swordmasters actually use their techniques? Not simple forms—I mean the ones that look like magic, like your White Sword.”

“Mm… we use raw mana, enchanting the blade, and we pull and steer the mana itself,” Desty said, her tone smooth as a whetstone on steel.

“The difference is how we use mana. Mages treat it as fuel—through complex Magic Arrays and structures, they cast matching powers. Swordmasters wield mana itself—no array—striking with its raw destructive force, like lightning bound to a blade.”

Desty spoke fluently, her words practiced like brushstrokes, lessons learned back at the academy where the halls smelled of ink and pine.