The Viscount’s daughter, Pandora Dougs!

  To everyone on this nd, that name was familiar.

  But to them, right now, it meant order. Authority. Hope!

  An immense excitement instantly washed away Patrick’s fear and exhaustion. He even forgot his own disheveled state, stepping forward excitedly, his voice strained.

  “Miss Pandora! It’s really you! Thank goodness! You’re alright! Where is Lord Viscount? Did he send you? Is a knight’s brigade coming to save us soon? What about the other vilges? Can this… this terrible sickness be cured? Why did it even…”

  A barrage of questions spilled from his mouth like a volley of crossbow bolts. Each question represented the deepest longings and confusion of every survivor.

  Pandora listened quietly, a gentle smile still on her face, but her eyes were calm, like a deep, bottomless ke.

  “Patrick,” she spoke, her voice not loud, yet easily silencing all the noise. “You’ve asked many questions. I know the answer to some. To others, I do not.”

  She paused, gncing around the devastated street. “But this is not the pce for such talk.”

  Patrick froze, then immediately understood. This pce was too open, too dangerous. The scent of blood from the corpses might attract more zombies, drawn from afar, that they hadn’t yet discovered. This environment was also unsuitable for speaking with someone of her station.

  “Yes! You’re right, Miss!”

  He nodded immediately, a look of earnestness on his face. “Please, come with me! Our vilge tannery is nearby. There’s a celr there, it’s very safe! We can go there…”

  He stopped mid-sentence, a look of difficulty and hesitation crossing his face.

  “But, before we leave… there is someone whose condition requires your counsel…”

  ………………

  Night fell.

  Outside the Calfskin Vilge tannery, a bonfire was lit.

  With all the zombies in the vilge completely cleared, the children hiding in the celr no longer had to huddle in the damp, dark, foul-smelling, cramped space.

  However, the shadow of fear does not easily disperse with a moment of safety.

  The boys and girls didn’t scatter or run around. They remained gathered in the retively open area of the tannery, sitting in a circle, eating a very simple dinner prepared for them by Betty—a “soup” made from torn-up bck bread.

  The firelight jumped, reflecting off a sea of young, still-immature faces.

  Aurora was surrounded by the children, telling them how she had passed the rigorous trials to formally become the knight-squire to Viscount Dougs, telling them of the knightly spirit the Lord had taught them, telling them of the interesting yet arduous stories from the training grounds.

  These children, who had never left their small vilge, were utterly captivated, their eyes shining with adoration. This made Aurora swell with pride; her face, pale from blood loss, seemed to glow ruddy in the firelight.

  Pandora had already eaten her dinner.

  She didn’t join the lively group, instead staying in a quiet corner that was serving as a makeshift medical area.

  She had already changed into a new set of clothes. It was a simple cotton dress, of pin fabric, found in the vilge tailor’s shop. The style was simple, but it was clean and tidy.

  Her previous noble dress, stained with blood and witness to her first kill, had been taken away by Elsa to be cleaned with her consummate handmaiden’s skills.

  Now, she was crouched beside a boy lying on a straw mat.

  There were only two injured.

  One of them had broken his arm in a panicked fall during the earlier chaos. It had already been set with a splint, and he wasn’t her main concern at the moment.

  But the other… he was the key to the problem.

  He was the boy Patrick had mentioned, the one bitten by the zombie at the back of the bakery.

  “How is his condition now?” Pandora asked softly, her gaze falling on a pinly dressed girl who was carefully changing a herbal poultice for the injured.

  This herb girl made her living gathering herbs and had picked up some knowledge of medicine and remedies by osmosis.

  “Miss,” the herb girl’s voice was quiet, with a timid respect. “The wound is deep and the infection is a bit severe, but we treated it with herbs in time. Right now… it doesn't seem to be getting any worse.”

  She paused, then added, “As for… signs of that ‘transformation,’ I… I haven’t seen any.”

  Pandora nodded, then turned her gaze to Patrick on the other side.

  “That companion of yours who was bitten,” she asked, “how did he turn?”

  Patrick was holding a bowl of hot soup. At the question, his body trembled. He had just learned from Aurora that Lord Viscount had already fallen, that the entire Viscount’s fiefdom had suffered that midnight tragedy. Though he had expected it, hearing it confirmed still left him feeling dazed and with a sharp pain in his heart.

  He collected himself and answered in a low voice, “He… he was just lightly bitten. He walked for a little while, and then… he just suddenly colpsed. When he got back up, he… he had become… a monster. We, we didn’t even have time to bring him back for treatment. We could only let him… rest in peace. It seems completely different from this situation.”

  Pandora nodded again.

  This was completely consistent with her own assessment.

  Whether it was the Elsa she remembered or the companion Patrick described, if a person was going to turn, it happened very quickly. And if they weren’t going to… like Betty, like the boy before her.

  But the key question was… Just what determines whether an infected person will turn?

  Is it the severity of the wound?

  Betty was only scratched, and her wound was very light, so that was possible. But this boy before her had been bitten. The wound was deep, deep enough to see bone, yet he hadn’t turned.

  If it wasn’t the severity of the wound… Could it be… individual constitution? Are some people simply immune, like some are naturally immune to certain diseases?

  Pandora felt something was off. She felt she was on the verge of grasping that crucial clue, the answer that could expin everything, but it was just out of reach… She couldn't quite connect the dots.

  “Forget it.”

  Pandora shook her head gently.

  She was a little tired.

  From yesterday until now, her mind and body had been running at high intensity, and they had reached their limit.

  She didn't want to rack her brain any further.

  Some questions, perhaps, couldn't be solved just by “thinking.”

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