A Night Visit

Elin first heard a series of disordered and intermittent footsteps coming from inside the house, followed by Amy's voice, "Who's out there?"

"Elin, the Seven Eyes agent who came with Flint this afternoon. Do you remember?"

"Uh, oh... I remember. What's the matter?"

"Please open the door, Miss Amy."

"I'm sorry, it's late."

"It's an urgent matter. If you don't open the door, I'm afraid I'll have to find my own way. Wait a moment, let me find where I put my tools..."

When Amy opened the door, Elin pretended to take his right hand out of the leather armor pocket. "Luckily, you opened the door. I forgot to bring my own tools," he said.

She looked at him perplexed, only opening the door halfway, keeping her right side hidden behind it, seemingly ready to slam the door shut at any moment.

"You're dressed to go out," Elin said. "Are you planning to meet someone? It doesn't seem as late as you told me."

"I was getting ready to sleep. Of course, I put on clothes to open the door for you."

"Did you really need to tie up your hair as well?"

"Mr. Elin, coming here late at night is not only disrespectful but also unsafe. You mentioned an urgent matter, if you don't explain it immediately, I'll have to ask you to leave."

"That's the thing. I was sent to Andorhal, one of the purposes being to investigate and assess the treatment and management of frontline plague-infected individuals, including the working conditions of medical personnel like yourself. I didn't intend to disturb you so late, but the investigation report needs to be sent out tomorrow. If it weren't for Bishop Nehari's hospitality... not that I'm complaining. Anyway, I hope you can cooperate with my work."

Lying 101, Chapter One: Adaptation to the Situation. Elin looked at her with an expectant and understanding gaze.

"But shouldn't this kind of thing be handled by the inspectors from the Holy Light Cathedral?"

"It seems you don't fully understand the work of the Seven Eyes. We are also conducting targeted research on diagnosing and treating the plague, focusing on alternative treatment methods under limited conditions, such as the frontlines of the Western Plaguelands. So, understanding your room is important to us. It doesn't conflict with the work of the Cathedral."

Elin breathed a sigh of relief when Amy said, "Understood, please come in." He felt somewhat guilty for telling too many lies to a female devotee of the Light who worked alone in such dangerous circumstances.

The interior structure was as he had imagined. Amy's room was directly ahead, and a metal gate to the right blocked access to the rows of small compartments.

"Let's start by looking at your workspace," Elin avoided using the word "bedroom."

"Sorry, it's quite narrow here." Amy led him into her room. A small bed occupied a third of the room, and even someone as petite as Amy would have to curl up their feet to lie down completely. Apart from a wardrobe opposite the bed, a kerosene lamp and a bonsai on the windowsill, there was hardly anything else. Elin had to turn his body sideways to move between the wardrobe and the bed.

He leaned over to observe the bonsai—though that term was not entirely accurate, as it was just a few grasses growing in a small ceramic pot. Outside the window was the severely eroded land, and the touch of greenery in such an environment seemed insignificant rather than precious. Nevertheless, the long-awaited green color tempted Elin to extend his index finger, wanting to touch the leaf veins.

"Please don't touch it," Amy said. "It's delicate."

Her excitement in her words made Elin quickly retract his hand. "I apologize. By the way, where are the medications and medical tools?"

"In the cabinet."

The cabinet had sliding doors. If it had been a hinged door, it would have been impossible to open in this cramped room. Elin awkwardly turned around, intending to push open the door and start examining the right side. However, Amy held onto his hand.

"That side is where my clothes are."

"Oh." Elin paused for a few seconds and, after uttering a "sorry," Amy released her grip on his hand. Elin pushed the door to the right and inspected the left side. It had three tiers, containing files, medical instruments, and medications, respectively. He casually opened the largest medicine box, which contained vials of medication. He noticed that some of the vials had official labels for Alliance-specific drugs, while others did not.

"You have quite a variety of medicines here," he remarked.

"No," Amy shook her head, "not enough. Really not enough. Are you going to see the patients now?"

"See the patients?" Elin almost forgot the lie that allowed him to enter the room. Since he had never actually come into contact with plague-infected individuals, he hesitated. However, if he acted abnormal, the lie would be exposed. So he could only say, "Sure, of course I will."

"But I can't let you enter the compartments and directly interact with the patients."

"That's fine, that's fine, I understand."

Amy took out a bunch of keys from the cabinet and walked out of the room. Before she was about to open the iron gate, Elin said, "I noticed that these compartments don't have any windows from the outside. Why is that necessary? The plague doesn't spread through the air."

"For safety. If... if they didn't make it and eventually became puppets of the Scourge, they might break the windows to escape. By using iron grates, although it prevents that, people outside would see their condition and become afraid... so afraid that they might throw torches through the windows, regardless of whether there are others inside who still have hope of being saved."

"But I saw a single window. And there was someone inside."

"...You saw it?"

"Yes. A young girl, probably around thirteen or fourteen years old."

"You want to know why she has a window?"

"Of course. It's crucial for our research in the MI7..."

"You've already said it yourself, Mr. Elin," Amy looked into Elin's eyes. "Because she's just a fourteen-year-old girl. Someone requested to seal that window, but I said if that happened, I would resign from my position. Now, let's go inside. Please be quiet, they should all be asleep. It's better for them to get more sleep because if an infected individual suddenly becomes agitated, extremely excited, their fate may already be sealed."

She opened the iron gate and walked in, holding the oil lamp in her right hand, with Elin following behind. Although the light from the lamp was enough to illuminate the far end of the corridor, the narrow plague-infested passage seemed much longer compared to how it appeared from the outside. Elin wasn't sure if this was an illusion caused by psychological pressure. The peculiar smell in the air reminded him of rotting fish bones on the seashore. He could hear the sounds of people sleeping, but unlike ordinary sleepers, these sounds were filled with extreme exhaustion.

Each door had a small window for observation, and at knee level, there was another semi-circular opening that could be closed from the outside. Elin asked, "Why are these access points for delivering food arranged at knee level? If it's for convenience, they should be roughly at chest height, and if it's for safety, they should be close to the ground."

"Mr. Elin, you..." Amy paused.

"What's wrong with me?"

"You're not here to understand the treatment environment, are you? These access points are not just for delivering food, they're also for the patients to conveniently reach out and receive injections. They're placed at this height so that they can sit down while receiving injections. It's common knowledge. It seems that either the MI7's research is severely outdated or you lied to me."

"Curiosity led me to lie to you," Elin knew that the best way to remedy the situation now was to be honest. "I'm truly sorry. But honestly, Amy, I am genuinely interested in understanding your work..."

"Never mind, it's fine. It's always good to have one more person willing to understand them. There are a total of ten men and five women here. I have all their information. If you truly want to make amends, I can lend you the files for you to review. Please write down the names of all the individuals. Can you do that?"

"I'll do my best."

They arrived in front of the little girl's room.

"You really saw her just now?" Amy asked.

"Of course."

"Well, maybe she's not asleep yet." She glanced through the observation window and then said, "Oh, she's asleep. Mr. Elin, would you like to take a look at her? There's moonlight in her room."

Elin hesitated for a moment and then said, "Alright." Amy stepped aside, and he leaned closer to the window.

The girl with long hair lay with her eyes closed directly beneath the window, illuminated by the moonlight. There was an old high stool beside her, and Elin thought it must be what she used to climb up to the window. He couldn't connect the girl before his eyes with the term "plague-infected." Blood, pus, screams, decay—these were the things that came to mind when people heard the word "plague," not a pale-faced girl peacefully sleeping under the moonlight.

Elin felt that he had seen enough. "Let's go out," he said.

The two returned to the door of Amy's room, and suddenly Elin remembered something.

"Wasn't it said that these people were infected with the plague during the battle with Arlaki? How could this little girl..."

"She is an exception. We found her when demolishing a house, and that house was heavily contaminated. She was staying in the underground granary, the most severely affected area, and it seems she had been living there for at least a few months. No one knows why she ended up there."

"She stayed in the most contaminated area for months? But I didn't see any symptoms on her just now."

"The incubation period of the plague varies for each person, but perhaps..." Amy paused for a moment. "I shouldn't jump to conclusions. Please go back, Mr. Elin. Oh, and one more thing, wait here for me."

She fetched a stack of documents from the room and handed them to Elin.

"As agreed, consider it my compensation for deceiving you. It's not much to ask, but please write down the names of each person. They may die or turn into something even more dreadful, but... I hope that more people will remember that they were once living human beings."

Elin immediately took the documents.

"Goodnight, Mr. Elin. May the Light be with you."

After leaving the house, Elin took a deep breath. Even the air of the Western Plague felt refreshing compared to the atmosphere inside. Amy worked day after day in such a place, and he couldn't understand why she didn't appear the least bit despondent. It was as if she was in a bright cathedral adorned with colorful stained glass windows.

As Elin walked a distance, he suddenly noticed a figure standing about ten meters away to his right. The person was extremely tall, their upper body completely shrouded in the shadow of a diseased tree, initially making Elin mistake it for another tree stump. Was it a guard? No, from the silhouette, it seemed that the person had intricate adornments on their body.

The figure seemed to realize that Elin had noticed them and turned to run. Elin chased after them, while also ensuring that the important documents given to him by Amy were securely tucked inside his armor, so they wouldn't be lost.