In his office, Aleron bit back a groan as he stared at the documents piled up on his desk.

And it wasn’t just his desk, either.

There were even stacks of papers on the floor around his desk. Just by looking at them, he could already feel a migraine coming on.

Jeorge stood next to him, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m sorry, Captain… we really did try to keep on top of your duties while you were away, but...”

“I understand. You did your best, Jeorge,” Aleron replied, going over to his chair to sit down. “It’s my fault for being away for so long.” In addition to paperwork, Aleron’s duties included overseeing training and the overall organization of the Castle Guard. It was unrealistic to have expected his vice-captain to handle both Aleron’s duties and his own.

Resolving that this was entirely his responsibility and he had no one to blame but himself, Aleron took a sheaf of papers from the nearest stack and looked at it, thumbing through them. His expression shifted; he took down the next set and flipped through them as well. “Who organized these?” he asked after a moment or two, seeing the way that the documents were neatly arranged by date, topic, and relevance, as well as neatly clipped together.

“That would be young Conrad, sir,” Jeorge replied.

“Conrad?” Aleron repeated. The name was unfamiliar to him. Seeing it, Jeorge’s smile widened a bit.

“He’s our youngest recruit, sir. If you recall the house fire in the capital some years past, he was the eldest child from the pair of siblings that we saved at that time.” Aleron’s slightly rueful look told him that his Captain could not recall the events of that day, so he added, “He’s the cadet Miss Astraea was tutoring in knifework earlier today,” and saw a light dawn on Aleron’s face. Gesturing to the stacks of files, he added, “He’s always been eager to please, and he’s surprisingly detail-oriented, so I had him help me organize these in anticipation of your return.”

Aleron looked down at the papers in his hand in no little appreciation; with them so sorted, his work time could be cut in half, as he didn’t need to spend all his time searching around for the next needed document. “I’ll have to thank him later. Thank you as well, Jeorge.”

His vice-captain saluted him once. “Allow me to help you, sir.”

He didn’t need to offer twice, and together the two men silently began to sort through the paperwork bit by bit. Aleron was relieved to see that many of the documents had already been checked by Jeorge, and only required a signature to proceed. “You seem to have already looked through them,” he commented as he shifted a stack of now-finished papers aside and reached for a new one. Already, there were ink stains on his fingers.

“Yes, sir.” Jeorge lifted one of the towers of files from the floor to put it atop his desk. “Up until a month ago, the crown prince gave me temporary authority as Captain in order to handle the necessary work.”

A month ago had been when Aleron had sent the crown prince news of his return, so the prince must have revoked the temporary authority in light of that. This paperwork must have been what piled up in the course of the month that he and his travelling companions had been making their way home to the capital. Inwardly, he wondered if this was some kind of retaliation from the prince for taking so long to complete his errand, but he had no way of confirming his thoughts.

“There seem to be an increasingly large number of incident reports,” Jeorge added, gesturing to a particularly thick stack of papers, “and the crown prince sent orders to forward information on any particularly strange incidents to him.”

“Strange incidents?” it was a vague descriptor, enough to make Aleron curious, so he set aside what he was working on to look through the reports.

Appeals from the general citizens were overseen first by the Castle Guard, who handled what requests they could as they were often simple things like bandits or wild beasts, small property feuds, or kidnapping cases. Larger incidents that the Guard could not handle were sent to the crown prince, who either mobilized his Raven Knights to assist or reported the matter to the king. However, a great majority of these requests for help were handled by the Castle Guard and the Raven Knights alone – rarely did the king mobilize his personal Guard, and Aleron could count the number of times he had seen it happen on one hand.

Leafing his way through the recent reports, Aleron’s brow soon furrowed. “… There are many complaints regarding sickness, as well as crops and beasts suddenly dying,” he commented, sliding a few reports out of the pile and beginning a separate stack for them.

Jeorge was nodding. “Yes sir, and a few of those incidents have already resulted in death. We’ve also been seeing an increase in criminal activity on the outskirts of the city, as well as in the slums.”

The slums. How Aleron dearly wished that part of the city did not exist. For a country as wealthy as Ateole, he could not understand how their capital city somehow managed to have an area which was so poor that the people living there could not even afford daily necessities. He donated a portion of his wages to the slums each month, and he was relatively certain that Jeorge quietly did the same. Every time he was on patrol in the area and saw the helpless, sorrowful eyes of the people who lived there, his heart ached. Not only was it a breeding ground for various diseases, there were plenty of unsavory characters who ran wild, leaving the innocent to suffer the consequences. Aleron had been petitioning the king for years to let him bring a squad into the slums to clear out the crime dens, but had not gotten permission since, to his frustration.

“Have there been any changes to the slums since I’ve been gone?” Aleron asked, but his vice-captain shook his head.

“I wish I could say the situation has improved, but I cannot, sir,” Jeorge replied quietly. “If anything, it has gotten worse.”

Aleron clicked his tongue in anger as he continued to sort through the reports. One particular incident caught his eye, and he paused to read through it properly. “Crops are withering and turning black?” he muttered, sliding the paper across the desk to let Jeorge see it. “Were you aware of this?”

His vice-captain craned his neck to read before nodding slightly. “I was aware of the crops dying, but I did not know about their turning black…” something dawned on his face and he pointed to the sheaf of papers still in Aleron’s hands. “Captain, is there a case regarding a sick child? If I recall, there was something similar mentioned in that report.”

Aleron looked down and thumbed through the reports until he found what Jeorge was talking about. A child from the slums orphanage had suddenly be stricken with an unknown illness and had died not two days later. “This?” he asked, pulling the sheet out and laying it next to the other report, and together they read through it.

The child had been a young boy, fourteen years old. He had been a relatively healthy child until he suddenly fell ill, and had died after growing strange black patches all over his body.

Aleron’s expression fell. “This…”

Crops withering and turning black. A strange illness that left black spots on the corpse.

The symptoms were similar.

No, it would not be a stretch to say that they were the same.

“Jeorge, hand me those files.”

Perhaps his vice-captain understood what he wanted to do, because he picked up the cases regarding illnesses that Aleron had been setting aside, and handed half of them to him.

Together they began to carefully read through each report, paying special attention to the listed symptoms and details of the afflicted beings.

Of the fourteen reports, ten of them contained details on strange dark patches or shadowy marks left on the remains of the victim. However, the symptoms beyond that varied with each case. In one incident, a bull which had been perfectly healthy suddenly went wild and rampaged despite it normally being quite placid before it died. Another said that a young woman with a frail body had suddenly collapsed, with black patches appearing on her body, and breathed her last within a few hours. Others talked about known criminals going on a killing spree within their own dens, murdering friend and foe alike, before coughing up something black and dying immediately after.

The cases listed all types of incidents and symptoms, with death and that ominous ‘darkness’ being the only common factor, though even that seemed to materialize in different forms as well.

“Now I see what his highness meant by ‘strange’.”

Indeed, there wasn’t any other way to describe it. What kind of blight affected crops, beasts, and people alike, and was capable of reducing even the healthiest of bodies to death in the space of a few days?

Jeorge could feel his heart beginning to beat faster as the weight of their discoveries began to push down on him. Though they had little information, he knew that this was not a simple matter. He would know that even if his Captain wasn’t staring at the documents with an expression like the world was ending. Though his anxiety was rising, he found himself being innately thankful that his Captain had returned – not only because it meant that the responsibility for this matter did not fall entirely on his shoulders, but also because he had every faith that the man Jeorge trusted and admired would know what to do.

Aleron was raking his brain for something. The list of reports was stirring a memory in his mind, particularly in regards to the descriptions of the odd dark ‘infection’ that seemed to involved in each one. He had seen or heard something similar before, so when…?

A moment later, it hit him like a blow to the back of his head.

“Astra.”

Jeorge tilted his head to regard his Captain. “Sir?” he asked uncertainly, and Aleron started as he realized he had unconsciously blurted out the name. “Sir, does Miss Astraea have something to do with…?”

“No. She has nothing to do with this.” Aleron immediately regained his wits and cut him off sternly. “Do not involve my guests in these matters, Jeorge. Do not speak of it to anyone.” He had to make sure that no hint of this reached the noirette’s ears.

Though Jeorge looked a little confused at his vehemence, he accepted the order without complaint. Aleron knew he was acting suspicious – anyone would think so, seeing how firmly he had denied Astra’s connection to these incidents.

But he couldn’t let her know.

Because if Astra knew… if Astra knew, Aleron had no doubt that she would definitely involve herself. No matter how he told her not to, no matter how he tried to reiterate that it was dangerous, the Astra he knew would bulldoze her way into helping out regardless of what he wished.

“Sir?” Jeorge was still looking at him uncertainly, and Aleron swiftly regained his composure.

“Jeorge, ignore the other work for now.” This was urgent; even if they only had a few small incidents to correlate that, Aleron’s instincts told him that he would regret it if he took this lightly. “Help me look for any other similar cases, whether it be crops, beasts, or people.” They would compile the documents and send them to the crown prince as per his request. “It seems that his highness was aware that there is something going on. Focus on finding similarities between the cases, as well as tracing them back to find when they started happening.” Those would be their two biggest clues, if they could successfully find them. “And make a list of the symptoms to give to Rain, just in case. He may know more about this disease.”

Rain was the Castle Guard’s only designated healer, a talented young man who had graduated at the top of his class and received all kinds of honours from the Healer’s Association, a well-renowned organization responsible for the training and raising of famous doctors and apothecaries. If this truly was a disease of some kind – which indeed seemed to be rapidly spreading – they would need his prowess before this was all over.

The blonde vice-captain sighed as he readjusted his ponytail and sat down on the other side of Aleron’s desk. “It looks like we’ll be up all night, Captain.” Though it was demanding work, he did not sound particularly annoyed; this was a part of their job, after all.

“I’ll buy you a drink when we finish,” was Aleron’s reply. He heard Jeorge laugh in response, and with a grim smile the two settled down to work. 

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Author's Note:

Will you guys believe me if I say this is probably the farthest I've ever written a story without immediately deciding that I hate it and trying to rewrite the whole thing? (#￣ω￣)

My worst habit while writing has always been that I never like it when I reread it. And then I decide to do everything over again and delete the old writings. Thus began the vicious cycle of my writing never reaching past three chapters or so... (〃＞＿＜;〃) 

I actually wrote and rewrote this particular chapter several times, because there were too many things I wanted to write about going on inside the palace... but I had to pick just one. 

I guess this is the pain that writer's feel, when you have to cut away some of your favourite ideas for the sake of the story (><;;;) I won't forget you, my friends... 

Anyways, those ideas are definitely being saved for another time, so don't worry. ^w^ 

I'll see you all in the next chapter! (ﾉ´ з `)ノ~♡