After making preparations to investigate the poison wind, I’ve come to the south of the village.
“We don’t have that much anti-poison gear, so the only one I can take with me is Celine.”
“Yes, understood. Um, I simply need to put on this mask, correct?”
When General Wagelis learned I was going to the source of the poison, he opposed it.
So when I told him there was protective equipment as a safety measure, he next started insisting that I let someone accompany me.
I somehow managed to settle that by saying we only had enough for Celine, but when I arrived at the meeting point, there were still people milling around, so I told them again.
When I asked, I learned Celine’s subordinates were only there to see her off, and the others were sanitation-related personnel.
And the mask Celine mentioned was what you’d call a gas mask.
It had a three-dimensional structure covering the nose and mouth, glass to cover the eyes, and leather straps to fasten it in place.
“Ugh, this is… somewhat hard to breathe?”
“There are several chemicals packed into this protruding canister to keep poison from passing through, and your breath goes out from the part by the jaw, so you can breathe. But it needs to be fitted tightly to your face so no air gets in from anywhere except the intake.”
As I lectured Celine, I got my own equipment in order as well.
Aside from that, I had a coverall-like protective suit, protective gloves reaching to the upper arms, and shoes with thick soles prepared on the assumption they might melt.
We don’t have anything like synthetic fibers, so it’s nothing but thick cloth, but it should be better than nothing.
I’d also brought imperfect elixirs, and the medicinal herbs we’d gathered along the way had been processed into ointment as medicine in case poison got on the skin.
“Um, how am I supposed to explain all this? I was told to report on it, but I do not understand any of it at all… What should I do?”
“Don’t worry. We don’t really understand it either.”
Helkov tossed back words that were not reassuring in the slightest to Celine, who had apparently been told by General Wagelis to keep an eye on me.
Incidentally, I had properly made protective masks and the like in shapes that fit Helkov’s face too.
The ones who’d helped with production from the start were Helkov’s nephew and a former female colleague of his, after all.
“As long as you follow the basic rule of not removing the equipment without permission, that will suffice. The problem is that you do not know what we are going to do from here on, is it not?”
As Wearerel said that, she tucked her ears into her protective hood.
Like Helkov, the two of them had custom-made equipment fitted to their bodies.
“Celine, did you look over the report from sixty years ago?”
“Shamefully, I only looked at the combat sections and the state of the meetings.”
Apparently Celine hadn’t checked the parts I’d pointed out to General Wagelis.
“Then I’ll explain while we head over. We’ll essentially be crossing a whole mountain, and time is precious.”
If we didn’t hurry after getting our gear in order, I would be the one who took the most time to move.
Behind me, I had the porters carrying the baggage, and I’d distributed protection to them as well.
But even if I told them the truth, they’d only get frightened, so officially, we were going to inspect the terrain for mountain climbing.
“There’s a legend here that says people suddenly die when divine punishment strikes. Sixty years ago, people did actually die, and even after investigating why, they couldn’t determine the cause, so it was put down as sudden death from a chronic illness.”
“I reviewed the materials after Your Highness pointed that out. It seems they apparently died of suffocation.”
As Celine said, the inspection of the corpses found cyanosis of the lips, so it was treated as suffocation, but the cause was unknown.
No one had strangled them, and the dead hadn’t choked on anything.
There were no people nearby, no external injuries that could have caused death, and that was precisely the manner of death feared in the village as divine punishment.
“What do you think causes suffocation? It happens because you can’t breathe. Then what is breathing?”
“Taking air into the chest… perhaps?”
Even Wearerel phrased it as a question.
In that case, I’d go straight to the answer.
“Humans die if they can’t breathe. That means by breathing, we take in something necessary to live. And that necessary thing exists in the air, invisible to the eye.”
In short, it was oxygen, but since they’d fallen into thought over something they were hearing for the first time, maybe they needed another example.
“For instance… underwater. Even if you inhale there, you can’t obtain what you need, and you drown by inhaling water you don’t need. In that case, what if, in the same way, the air around the people who happened to die was filled with something different from the air we usually breathe, and they couldn’t take in what they needed to live?”
“Can something like that really happen, Your Highness?”
“Normally, no, Helkov. But the villagers say that on windy days, the god is angry, so you must not go near the White Road. They also say not to pick things up on the White Road or lie down there.”
In other words, the things that were forbidden were the answer.
“The source of the poison wind is stagnating around our feet. When the wind whips it up, it prevents us from breathing the air we need to live, and we die. The people of the village probably know this through experience. That’s why every house in the village has a high foundation, and they don’t keep livestock on the first floor.”
Those features of the village were also recorded in the materials left by the general sixty years ago, and they were exactly as described when I saw them in person.
It was probably also a countermeasure against the cold, but considering the position of the White Road, it was in the lowest place.
All the other roads used in daily life had been built higher than the White Road.
“It is difficult to believe so suddenly. I hardly know what to say.”
In the end, Celine apparently couldn’t keep up with the explanation.
“Well, I suppose so. Oh, Helkov and the others saw me separate air, right? It’s that. Air is a mixture of all sorts of things. Just think of it as something we don’t usually breathe getting mixed in here.”
I had shown them the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen before.
Conversely, nitrogen and carbon dioxide extinguish fire, so they knew that when air was broken down, gases with different properties emerged.
Wearerel nodded once, looked at Celine, and smiled with half her face hidden by the gas mask.
“As you can see, it is difficult for us to understand unless Lady Asha explains it to us as well. With that general, no amount of words would suffice, so you should organize only the main points.”
Was that advice?
“So, once we arrive, make sure you don’t sit on the ground to rest. Let’s tell the porters again once we get up there too.”
After that, conversation became sporadic.
Because the mountain was far.
I could see it, but the distance didn’t seem to shrink at all, and the ground underfoot was steadily sloping upward.
The only saving grace was that we didn’t have to go all the way to the summit, but my stamina couldn’t keep up.
We could go around along the valley, but that made the distance longer.
When we finally reached the southern hole and looked down, it wasn’t the rough circle shown on the map. It was a crater piled with rocks, and here and there white smoke, probably steam, rose from it.
“Whew. Just as I thought. They said hot springs bubbled up here, so I figured it was a volcano.”
“Wha—huh? You had already guessed what the hole was?”
Celine was surprised, but with memories of being Japanese, I could make an educated guess.
The reason the villages fought over the shrine here was that the hot spring worshipped as a blessing from the god was located there.
Even though this place was high in the mountains, with vegetation sparse, people lived here and the lord sent soldiers because there was a hot spring.
Apparently, it was treated almost like a medicine to be drunk.
Since the residents were beastfolk, they probably disliked soaking their whole bodies, but I was a little surprised to hear they drank it.
When I saw the general’s report from sixty years ago, I tilted my head at it.
Supposedly, if it was something like a cold, drinking the hot spring water would cure it, and since people could die even from colds, it had been valued.
And that was likely also the reason two villages with entirely different roots converged here.
“There are two precautions. Don’t sit on the ground, and if a strong wind blows, we withdraw immediately. The gas masks have a limit to what they can handle too.”
I had the porters keep the equipment they’d carried without setting it down and stay together in a place that seemed safe.
Of course, since I wasn’t an expert, there wasn’t much I could do. All I could tell was that it smelled like sulfur.
However, elixirs were medicines derived from minerals.
In other words, past alchemists had left behind knowledge of how minerals should be handled.
“Well, this is my first time using it. I wonder if it’ll go well. Let’s start with the simple parts.”
Facing my first experiment, I found the source spring and, while paying attention to the temperature, scooped some into heat-resistant glass I’d had made.
This was so I could boil it down, examine the weight, color, and properties of the solids left behind, and search past records for minerals that matched.
By investigating the ions as well, the corresponding minerals would change, so I could narrow down the range of possibilities.
I could also examine whether it was acidic or alkaline, so in any case, I intended to collect ore.
The problem was the volcanic gas, but we hadn’t managed to prepare airtight containers for gases in time. This time, we had no choice but to steadily examine the ores, verify what kind of gas was being produced, and devise countermeasures.
“Will you conduct the investigation here?”
“That would be dangerous, so first we’ll bring back the necessary materials. We don’t know when the wind might blow, and we’ll have to pick up things that seem likely. But if we don’t make a guess at what we’ve picked up, we can’t choose how to transport it either. …Oh, the smoke spouting from the ground might be poisonous, so don’t go near it.”
Celine stopped in the act of trying to come closer to me.
Yes, it was frightening.
I had imagined something even more terrifying, but I was glad it wasn’t as hot as I’d expected.
There was no obvious magma, nor any vividly colored water full of dissolved minerals, so the wind was the biggest problem.
“I’m going to hurry, so don’t go wandering around on your own.”
After saying that, I first picked up a yellowish stone that caught my eye with the tongs I’d brought.
Regular update
Next: The Dangers of the Fanaan Mountains 5