Chapter 31: Rational Pandemic Response

In the quarantined village of Holz, time flowed slowly—but steadily onward.

The medical team Zenon had brought worked tirelessly, day and night, tending to the isolated patients. They gave them herbal fever-reducing medicine, wiped their bodies clean with fresh cloths, and spooned warm, nourishing soup into their mouths.

It wasn’t a miraculous cure.
It was simple, relentless care meant to help the patients’ own strength and immunity hold out a little longer.

The rest of the villagers followed Zenon’s orders with near-military discipline.

The wells were sealed tight. Instead, people lined up quietly to receive rations of clean water.

The men spread white lime around every house and along every road, until the entire village looked as if snow had fallen.

Even the children were taught to wash their hands with soap before every meal—without exception.

The entire village functioned like a single, vast hospital.

But the atmosphere was far from bright.

Families wept at being separated from loved ones.
Fear—of infection, of death—hung invisible but suffocating in the air.
And with all contact to the outside world cut off, the village sank into a quiet, oppressive despair.

From a hill overlooking Holz, Liliana watched the scene below every day, hands clasped in prayer.

Again and again she tried to enter the village.
She wanted to heal the suffering with her sacred power, even if only one at a time.
Again and again she begged Zenon for permission.

But his reply never changed.

“Denied. Your intervention would only introduce unnecessary variables into the plan.”

Liliana was powerless.

All she could do was kneel on that hill and pray for the people’s salvation.

A saint in name—yet unable to save anyone. The helplessness gnawed at her heart.

“Is Zenon-sama’s way truly the right one?”

She asked weakly, turning to the captain of her knights beside her.

“To isolate the people and force them simply to endure—can that really be called salvation? Surely, what they need more than anything now… is kindness. Hope.”

The captain had no answer.
He, too, was troubled by Zenon’s unflinching logic, colder than steel.

Five days passed since the quarantine began.

And things were not going according to Zenon’s simulations.

The number of new infections was rising faster than predicted.

The medical team was stretched to its breaking point.

“Report! Five new infections confirmed—two of them children!”

Marc’s voice cracked in anguish as he burst into the command hut in the center of the village.

Zenon silently updated the map before him, marking new red dots with steady precision.

(Something’s wrong. There must be another transmission route…)

He reviewed all the collected data—human movement, water flow, the transport of goods—
and then, suddenly, realization struck.

“…Rats.”

Holz, surrounded by forest, had always suffered from rodent problems.

If the rats were carrying the pathogen, that would explain everything.
They could move freely between infected and healthy areas, contaminating food and water through their droppings.

“Gray,” 

Zenon said sharply.

“Summon every skilled hunter in the territory. Have them bring bows and traps.”

“Hunters… my lord?”

“Yes. We will exterminate every rat in the village. Every last one. This is war.”

That afternoon, a quiet but deadly battle began in Holz.

A dozen hunters, led by Gray, slipped into the village and started their grim work.

They set traps beneath floorboards, in granaries, in attics—everywhere.
One by one, they felled the vermin with silent arrows.

It was not simply pest control.
It was a cold, calculated campaign to eliminate the vector—the true enemy in this war against disease.

Liliana could only watch, speechless.

While people still lay sick and dying, these men devoted themselves entirely to killing tiny monsters.

To her, it seemed heartless, almost grotesquely absurd.

But from that day onward, everything began to change.

As the rats were wiped out, the number of new infections visibly declined.

On the seventh day of the quarantine, not a single new case was reported.

And on the morning of the tenth day—

A message of joy reached the command center.

“Report! All patients’ fevers have subsided! They’re out of danger!”

The moment the words were spoken, cheers erupted through the hut like a bursting dam.

Marc, Gray, and the villagers who had helped with sanitation threw their arms around one another, tears streaming down their faces.

The long, grueling fight was finally over.

Zenon merely nodded at the report, his expression calm as ever.

He picked up a quill and began writing the final data onto parchment.

[Holz Village Epidemic Case: Final Report]

• Total Infected: 35
• Deaths: 3 (two early-stage, one elderly)
• Success Factors: Complete early-stage lockdown; strict hygiene enforcement; and early extermination of the infection vector (rats).

The worst-case scenario—complete annihilation of the village—had been avoided.

Casualties were minimized.

By all measures, it was Zenon’s victory.

Yet Liliana’s heart was far from at peace.

From the hill, she watched the villagers below weeping with joy as they reunited with their families.

It should have been a beautiful sight.

But in her chest, she felt no joy—only a heavy, suffocating sense of defeat.

What she had wanted to do was heal each person herself with divine power.

But if she had entered the village, she might have spread the infection further, just as Zenon had warned.

And she would never have discovered the true source—the rats.

Her good will and ideals alone could not have saved anyone.

In the end, it was Zenon’s cold, rational pandemic measures that preserved those lives.

(The results… are everything…)

Zenon’s words echoed in her mind, heavy and inescapable.

What is justice?

What is salvation?

Everything she had ever believed in as a saint began to waver, crumbling from its very foundations.