Chương 59: Vague Clues

The next patient Iris and I visited was a middle-aged man living alone. He had a very modest two-room house with walls adorned with bows, arrows, animal traps, ropes, and canteens. He appeared to be a hunter. This patient was still conscious. His most noticeable symptoms were pale skin and hair that seemed longer than usual - or perhaps that was just his preferred style; I couldn't tell.

"Hello, Mr. Paulo. How are you feeling today?" Iris asked. Paulo grinned.

"Better, young lady. A few more days and I'll be back in the woods hunting again."

"You mustn't do that; you need much more rest. I'm going to continue with the healing magic now, alright?" Iris placed her hands atop the man's, and a faint blue light began to emanate from her palms. I took this opportunity to observe the flow of Iris's mana. Her mana core was located in her lower right abdomen, and it wasn't hard to guess that this was also the site of her Hero Candidate Holy Mark. The house was small but cluttered with belongings; however, I found no trace of beer or wine.

I asked him, "Paulo, do you drink alcohol often?"

"Huh? No, I don't touch the stuff. It gives me a splitting headache. Nowadays, everyone in this town is brewing beer. I can't even stand the smell of it anymore!" Upon hearing this, a look of triumph flickered in Iris's eyes. She had every right to be smug; my and Lealia's theory had just been dismantled after visiting only one additional patient. By the time she finished treating Paulo, Iris appeared visibly exhausted. I checked her mana levels; they had dipped below 50.

It looked like she could only manage to treat one more person at most today. That mana level was certainly low, but not yet at the point of total depletion. Nevertheless, as she rose from her chair, she staggered so convincingly that one of her two assistants had to rush over to catch her.

"Iris, you've treated three people in a row. You have to rest," an assistant urged. Iris shook her head weakly.

"No, there are still so many sick people. I can push a little further."

"You always put others above yourself. You need to stay healthy if you want to help anyone else." I watched the performance before me with growing impatience. I had seen this "fragile saintess" act countless times. I had to admit, it was effective at garnering sympathy and allowed her to do less work while reaping more rewards.

"Iris said she can still manage. Let's do one more before heading back; we'll make it just in time for lunch," I interjected. Her two assistants glared at me as if I were their mortal enemy, but I simply walked straight to the door. If the alcohol theory was wrong, then I needed as much information as possible from other sources. A moment later, Iris stepped outside, maintaining her facade of stoic resilience.

"Let's head to the next house." The next residence turned out to belong to a physician. He was an elderly man, likely over sixty. Between his advanced age and the illness, he was currently clinging to his last breath. The house was also occupied by his son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren, yet he was the only one who had fallen ill. There was alcohol in the house, but the son explained it was his own; his father didn't have a habit of drinking.

"My father came home from examining other patients and started falling sick. The people he treated after that all ended up with the same symptoms," the daughter-in-law lamented.

"We don't know if he spread it to them or if he caught it from them." The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. At this point, I had officially run out of leads. I had no idea where to even begin. If there were a Miasma leak, it should be causing wide-scale effects rather than these isolated, sporadic cases of poisoning. Could it be that this isn't Miasma poisoning at all? Have we been wrong this whole time?

After treating the elderly physician, Iris acted as if she were on the verge of fainting, forcing us to return to the inn to rest. Nathan had returned even earlier than us; according to the soldier guarding him, he had been back since mid-morning. It made sense, given that none of his skills were curative. His most useful contributions were diagnosing through Empathy or easing a patient's stress and pain via Mind Control. The chef had started preparing lunch, but I had no interest in intervening this time.

I was feeling quite frustrated that my most plausible theory had just been debunked. These patients seemed to have almost nothing in common aside from living in the same town. I sat on the front porch, lost in thought for half an hour, until Lealia and Edgar's group finally returned. Contrary to my dejection, Lealia looked quite spirited. She sat down beside me and spoke with excitement.

"We just visited three households, and all three of them either brew alcohol or drink heavily. I think we were right, Asher!" I shook my head.

"But the two houses I just visited had no connection to alcohol whatsoever."

"Oh… Really?"

"Yeah. One was a hunter, and the other was a physician. Neither of them drinks." The spark in Lealia's eyes instantly vanished.

"And here I thought we were close to finding the root of the problem... Should we still tell the Mayor to halt the alcohol trade?"

"Not yet. Based on what I gathered from the local brewers, the next delivery isn't for another week, and it might even be postponed due to the outbreak. This is their primary livelihood; we need to be certain before we cause a panic." Lealia looked crestfallen and sighed.

"So I'm still not helping much. Today, Edgar only had to play a few songs on his flute to make the patients feel better instantly, while I'm not even sure if my herbs are doing anything." I pulled up Lealia's status window to check: her mana was currently at 36/94. Iris's was at 22/205. Looking at the mana consumption ratio, it was clear that Lealia's skills didn't rely entirely on mana like Iris's or Edgar's did.

Her treatments might not yield immediate results, but they offered long-term stability, consistent and uninterrupted. I told her, "Don't think like that. Iris and Edgar won't be able to go out and treat anyone else for the rest of today or even tomorrow. The remaining patients are counting on you."

"Huh? Why?"

"They've been directly treating people since yesterday, and their mana must be drained by now. They'll need time to rest and recover. But even if you run out of mana, you still have your herbs and acupuncture."

"That's true." Lealia looked at me with gratitude.

"I'm sorry for always being so insecure. You came all this way to support me; I shouldn't let my spirits drop like this." I smiled.

"That's the spirit. Be confident. Someone will definitely see your efforts and appreciate them." Lealia's face turned bright red, much like an elementary schooler being praised and patted on the head by their teacher. And I didn't mind the comparison to a teacher at all. Compared to her, I really was like an old man. My psychological age was well into its thirties, after all. Lunch that day consisted of potato oatmeal porridge simmered in mutton bone broth.

It was a dish hard to mess up, yet I still felt the broth could have been prepared with much less gaminess. For some reason, the chef kept watching my face as I ate, as if he were waiting for me to voice some sort of critique. I figured I'd have to eat this man's cooking for the next few days, so I decided to offer a bit of advice:"You should focus more on neutralizing the natural odor of the ingredients; it's vital to the final quality of the dish.

Also, adding a bit of milk or an egg to the porridge would enhance the flavor significantly." The chef nodded frantically. Just as I had predicted, neither Iris nor Edgar was able to go out for house calls that afternoon. There were about six patients left to visit today, and I figured Lealia could handle them. However, since our lead on the source of the poisoning had gone cold, we had to start from scratch. I pondered for a long time before finally deciding to knock on Nathan's door.

After the initial panic of fearing my mind would be read, I had calmed down and truly analyzed this Nathan guy. The thing that made people most wary of him was his ability to read thoughts, but it was only at Level 3. In my experience, Level 3 is the stage where you sometimes can't even tell if the skill is active or not. The next dangerous skill was Mind Control - the ability to influence others' minds to suit his will.

From what I've observed so far, it's highly likely Nathan has been using this skill to deflect attention away from himself. No matter how hard I tried to focus when we were in a large group, I kept overlooking him. Based on these considerations, combined with his extremely lackluster attitude as a Hero Candidate, I tentatively concluded that Nathan was not a threat. All I saw was a young man forced to accept a title he had no interest in, trying his best to show as little as possible to avoid trouble.

Or, at least, that was what Nathan wanted me to see. In that case, I needed to approach him even more to gather information so I wouldn't be caught off guard. And so, I knocked.