Chapter 149: Chapter 149 - Lady Of the Rosario ( Part 2 )
Despite all the calm of Rosario Village which prevailed at dawn, Jennie could not shake off her anxiety.
She stood outside the inn watching people starting their usual day.
Laughter of the children who chased Snow around the square.
Villagers who unloaded vegetables on wooden stalls.
The blacksmith working steadily in the background.
It was all normal.
But Jennie could not get rid of the sight of the red stain on Derresa’s glove.
Of the cough which she tried so hard to suppress.
There was something wrong.
Something very wrong.
Inside the inn Roxy shut the dusty medical book with disappointment.
"... Nothing."
Surrounding her were piles of medical books which she borrowed from the village.
There were descriptions of ordinary fevers.
Poisonous herbs.
Magical curses.
But there were no symptoms of Derresa’s illness.
Jennie looked at Roxy.
"Anything similar?"
"No."
"Coughing blood can indicate dozens of different diseases."
"But..."
Frowning, she added.
"I never heard about people who hide their whole body due to a fever."
Snow put down his meat and looked at them.
"Maybe she is cursed?"
Roxy considered it.
"It might be."
"But curses always leave mana residues."
"I did not feel anything."
Jennie nodded.
"Nether I."
Silence prevailed inside the room.
In the end the innkeeper who was silently listening to them while cleaning glasses said.
"If you are looking for ancient diseases..."
"You should talk to Old Gareth."
Roxy raised an eyebrow.
"Who is he?"
"Village physician."
"He retired years ago."
"But if there is anyone who remembers the ancient diseases..."
"That is him."
Old Gareth lived on the northern part of the village.
His house was rather small, the walls were covered with dried herbs.
The air was full of aroma of mint, pine tree resin and roots.
Beside the open window sat an old man with white hair and ground some herbs in stone mortar.
Not glancing up, he said.
"I’ve been waiting for guests."
Roxy blinked.
"You have?"
"No."
But he smiled.
"But that sounds impressively."
Snow snorted.
"I like him."
Jennie bowed politely.
"We are sorry to bother you."
Old Gareth waved.
"If someone comes to ask for medicine..."
"They are not bothering."
Looking at them at last, the physician with clouded gray eyes said.
"What do you need?"
Jennie chose her words carefully.
"We saw a woman named Deressa."
The hands of the old physician stopped for a second.
And then silently started grinding herbs again.
"I see."
"You noticed."
Jennie nodded.
"She is coughing blood."
"And..."
"She is hiding something under her gloves."
Old Gareth closed his eyes.
In a long pause when he finally spoke...
His voice became softer.
"So..."
"It has already reached that stage."
He slowly got up and went to an old bookshelf.
Taking the thick leather-bound book from the highest shelf he brought it to the table.
"Dust covered the faded cover of the book.
"I hoped..."
"I will never need this book anymore."
Curiously Roxy opened it.
It contained hand-written notes for decades.
Illustrations of unusual diseases.
Ancient herbs.
Magic illnesses.
Near the middle of the book...
Something caught Roxy’s eye.
Drawing of human arm.
Covered with black scales.
Roxy stopped breathing.
"What..."
With a soft voice the old physician answered.
"The disease is called..."
Gently touching the page he added.
"Dragon Shell."
Complete silence prevailed inside the room.
Jennie looked at the picture.
The scales were disturbingly similar to the scales of an ancient dragon.
Thick.
Black.
Metallic.
Snow frowned.
"I’ve never heard about it."
"Few people have."
Old Gareth sighed.
"Because almost everybody who learned about it..."
"... Lost his relatives."
Roxy carefully opened another page.
"What causes it?"
"No one knows."
"There are many theories."
"Few believe it is an ancient curse of dragons."
"Some people think it is a magical disease."
"Some believe it is an inherited disease."
But after centuries..."
"No one managed to find the answer."
Silently Jennie asked.
"Can it be cured?"
The physician did not say anything.
That silence was the answer before words came.
Roxy lowered her eyes.
"So..."
"No."
Old Gareth slowly shook his head.
"There was never a cure."
He continued to explain.
"The disease starts invisibly."
"One dark scale appears under the skin."
"On hands."
"On arms."
Jennie suddenly remembered the gloves of Deressa.
"It spreads?"
"Slowly."
"Painfully."
"Scales continue growing."
They cover arms."
"Shoulders."
"Back."
"Chest."
"In the end..."
"All the body."
Roxy looked horror-stricken.
"The scales..."
"They are real?"
Old Gareth nodded.
"They are not ordinary skin."
"They are harder than steel."
"They continue spreading until..."
He stopped.
Snow finished the sentence quietly.
"... There is nothing left."
The old physician closed his eyes.
"Yes."
Turning another page, Jennie saw more and more horrifying pictures.
They showed how the disease progressed.
First one arm.
Both.
Half the body.
Till...
Whole human being looked like a statue made of dragon scales.
Whispered Roxy.
"How long?"
"It varies."
"Some live for five years."
"Some die for one."
"The disease is unpredictable."
Thinking about that, Jennie recalled that Deressa hid all the skin which was exposed.
Not because of shyness.
Because of the disease.
Snow looked at the physician.
"She is coughing blood."
"What does it mean?"
Old Gareth sighed.
"The scales no longer remain on the outside."
Silence.
"They start growing inside."
"Lungs."
"Heart."
"Organs."
Roxy covered her mouth.
"No..."
"When blood starts appearing..."
"The disease has already progressed."
Complete silence prevailed inside the room.
Outside children laughed while playing.
Ordinary sounds of the village life contrasted with their conversation sharply.
Roxy clenched the edge of the table.
"There has to be something."
"A rare herb."
"Ancient magic."
"A Divine blessing."
"There must be..."
"I was searching."
Gentle voice of the old physician interrupted her.
"For forty-three years."
His tired smile contained regrets of decades.
"I traveled across the kingdoms."
"I asked saints."
"Royal healers."
"High priests."
"Archmages."
No one found the answer."
His voice became barely audible.
"I could not save my wife."
Roxy froze.
The old physician glanced at the journal.
"She was the first Dragon Shell patient that I had ever treated."
Jennie quietly lowered her head.
"I am sorry."
"So am I."
After several minutes of silence, Jennie asked her final question.
"Does Derresa know?"
The physician smiled sadly.
"Better than anyone."
"She visits me every month."
"Not because she believes I can cure her."
But..."
He glanced at the window.
"Because she does not want to face her disease alone."
These words struck Jennie.
She remembered Deressa’s smile.
Her kindness.
Her calmness.
Despite knowing that she had a terminal disease...
She invited the strangers into her house.
She served them tea.
Laughed with them.
Made them feel comfortable.
Never asked for pity.
Never complained.
Roxy quietly shut the journal.
"We will not tell anyone."
Old Gareth nodded.
"I think..."
"She would appreciate that."
Going out into the sunny day, the warmth of which now seemed somehow far away, Jennie looked at the flower-covered cottage in the distance.
Now she understood.
The gloves.
The long sleeves.
The cough.
The blood.
Deressa did not hide herself from the world because she was ashamed.
She protected other people from watching how she disappears.
And none of them still knew that Dragon Shell kept an even crueler secret...
Much more terrible than the scales themselves.
The trip back to Old Gareth’s cottage seemed strangely silent.
Rosario Village bustled just as actively.
Children were playing hide-and-seek around the village.
Someone shouted about today’s new bread.
The sounds of the blacksmith’s hammer echoed.
All things being equal.
And yet...
Something was different.
Roxy firmly pressed the old physician’s journal to her chest.
There was no trace of a smile on her face.
Snow walked with his ears drooping, unusually silent.
Jennie glanced towards the distant garden of flowers around Derresa’s cottage.
Now she knew why Derresa was always smiling.
And why her smile never truly reached her eyes.
Without saying anything they went to the inn.
Right away Roxy opened the old journal and placed it on the table.
"There should be something Gareth forgot."
She turned page after page.
Ancient herbs.
Healing ritual.
Magic recipes.
Nothing.
Jennie silently took her seat opposite Roxy.
Snow laid down near the window looking outside.
Some time passed.
Finally Roxy stopped on the very last pages of the journal.
"...There is something."
Jennie raised her head.
The handwriting in the end was different.
The neat medical notes were replaced with rushed ones.
Some of the words were crossed out.
Others had dried tears marks.
It was clear that Old Gareth had added these notes much later.
Roxy began reading aloud.
"Forty First Year."
"Dragon Shell is progressing."
"The scales are not the worst."
Her voice gradually died down.
Jennie shivered.
"What does it mean?"
Roxy turned another page.
Then...
She stopped.
"...No."
Jennie got up instantly.
"What is it?"
Roxy slowly handed her the journal.
Jennie read the page herself.
Her eyes grew wide.
An elaborate description covered almost the whole page.
Final Stage Symptoms
Total body calcification.
Organ failure.
Heart deterioration.
And then...
The final paragraph.
Jennie read it silently.
Every word was heavy with meaning.
"Several months before physical death..."
"The patient’s memories start vanishing."
She stopped breathing for a while.
Even worse were the next lines.
"This process cannot be foreseen."
"First disappear small memories."
"Names."
"Locations."
"Faces."
"And eventually..."
"...the people they loved the most."
Nobody said anything.
These words were too cruel.
Jennie witnessed hundreds of deaths during her lifetime.
Warriors falling in battles.
Friends burying.
Entire kingdoms burnt to the ground.
Death...
Was terrible.
But this...
This was different.
Not only Dragon Shell takes the life of its victim.
First of all it takes his memories.
Piece by piece.
Until there is nothing left.
Snow was the first to break the silence.
"So..."
"Do they forget everyone?"
Jennie nodded slowly.
"It seems so."
"This disease..."
She looked at the journal again.
"...destroys not only the body."
"It destroys the soul."
Roxy looked helplessly at the pages.
"That’s..."
"Worse than death."
Nobody disagreed.
Suddenly Jennie remembered something.
Brief hesitation when Derresa introduced herself.
Sometimes she was hesitating before answering trivial questions.
Distant look in her eyes when talking about the past.
At that moment...
Jennie thought that it was just her sadness.
But now...
She was not so sure.
Could it happen already?
Unable to remain inside Jennie went out into the street.
Warm evening wind touched her face.
Across the square...
She saw Derresa.
She was kneeling in her flower garden carefully watering the plants.
Just like she did yesterday.
Little girl came up to her holding a basket.
"Miss Deressa!"
"I have some fresh apples for you!"
Deressa smiled warmly.
"Oh?"
"Thank you."
Girl tilted her head.
"You forgot."
Deressa blinked.
"Forget?"
"I gave you apples yesterday too."
For a moment...
Confusion appeared in Derresa’s face.
But then she softly laughed.
"I am sorry."
"I suppose I did."
Girl innocently smiled.
"That is all right."
"I will just bring more tomorrow."
She happily ran away.
Jennie stayed where she was.
One basket of apples.
So small thing.
Any common person could forget.
But after reading the journal...
It suddenly lost its meaning.
Quietly Roxy joined Jennie outside.
"You saw it."
Jennie nodded.
"Yes."
They both were unwilling to admit what they thought.
Soon Snow joined them too.
"...Can we save her?"
This question hung in the air.
Jennie closed her eyes.
Then slowly answered.
"I don’t know."
It was the first time for a long while that she said these words.
Not because she was not strong enough.
Not because she was afraid of battle.
But because this was an enemy she had never faced.
No blade could cut the disease.
No Divine Sword could defeat the fading memories.
That evening...
The three of them paid a visit to Old Gareth for the last time.
The old physician greeted them quietly.
"You read the final Chapter."
Jennie nodded.
"You left it on purpose."
"I did."
Roxy looked at him.
"Please, tell us honestly."
"Has anyone..."
"...ever recovered?"
The old physician did not say anything instantly.
He simply walked to the window.
Outside sunset painted Rosario in the colors of orange and gold.
Finally...
He started speaking.
"In all my years..."
"I explored every kingdom."
"I studied every surviving record."
"I asked saints."
"Archmages."
"High priests."
Even...
"A dragon."
Snow’s ears rose sharply.
"A dragon?"
"It pity humans."
"But even it knew no cure."
The room fell silent again.
Old Gareth turned to them.
In his tired eyes there was dozens years of helplessness.
"There is..."
"No known cure."
Roxy lowered her head.
Jennie silently clenched her fists.
She was not willing to believe that nothing can be done.
There had to be something.
Some ancient magic.
Some forgotten relics.
Some miracle somewhere in the world.
She simply had not found it yet.
When darkness fell over Rosario Village Deressa was sitting alone in her garden.
She was watching how the stars appear in the sky.
For a moment...
She frowned.
"...Strange."
She looked at one of the flowers that was blossoming around her.
"I do not remember..."
"...when I planted this one."
But then she smiled to herself.
"I suppose it does not matter."
She carefully watered this flower.
Under her gloves...
Black scales climbed higher along her arms.
And somewhere in the depths of her fading memories...
The first fragments of her past started vanishing.
True horror of Dragon Shell had only started.
