Alright, we are not panicking. No panicking at all.

"Rosalia? Are you feeling ill again? Oh papa get her the sick bag." I can hear mother fuss.

For some odd reason, my grandfather has decided to take us on another one of his crazy hot balloon field trips. No biggie. Let's not panic...

...Why are we heading to the leper colony?!!?!?!

Alright, let's still not panic. It's just a little lower on oxygen up here, and thus harder to breathe. Panicking is very bad.

Breathe Rosalia girl, breathe.

I have the power of reason and an actual brain on my side. Let's just breathe and think things through. No I do not need a barf bag!

Afterall Gable is here. Nothing too horrible can happen if Gable is here. Even if we are headed into a disease outpost of quarantined and ostracized people suffering from a seemingly incurable and honestly very frightening looking disease.

Made all the worse by being in this world!

Imagine if one day you wake up, feeling not so well.

Maybe you have a rash, some swollen limbs, feel a bit faint, or are covered in lesions and infected wounds? By chance, you go see whatever constitutes as an actual medical professional in this world. By chance they are not an amazingly magical healer, by chance, they diagnose you with the classic case of leprosy, possibly by screaming and backing away.

Well faster than you can ask just what it is you have, you've won a one-way all-inclusive ticket to the leprosarium! Effective immediately! Return trip not included.

It is known as the place the infected go to die. To be sent there is practically a death sentence, a grim isolation to protect the healthy.

If caught, if rounded up, anyone with even the mildest confirmed symptoms, by general law, gets sent to the leper colony. Which is why so many people hide it. The disease itself seemingly incurable, highly infectious, and an ultimate mark of sin and sickness.

Or so is the belief.

Coming from another world, I have a bit more knowledge on various fields. Including but not limited to, not getting scared shitless by just anything.

Really everyone? Infectious diseases can be terrifying yes, deadly in many instances. But they don't have anything to do with morality or some angry gods giving out plague worthy deaths like talk show hosts give out free cars. You get leprosy! You get the bubonic plague! Everyone in the audience gets a voucher cruel and painful death!

Now I do have to take a mental step back. Perhaps the disease in this magical world is not the same one I'm thinking of?

Once again I am a modern tourist, what I know may not be what's going on here.

Rosalia Ventrella may have been educated but was no medical physician. In fact who needs a medical degree when you have 'poof poof kiss and make it all better' heroine Lilyanne? Well not like physicians here all had it right and good either.

One of the cures for noblemen was literally to drink gold? Since gold was a 'pure' substance'. Uh huh, how did that work out everyone? It didn't? No shit. What about bathing in the donated blood of virgins or infants?

Yeah, let's not trust the maniac medieval doctors too much.

From what I do remember of the symptoms and the public revulsion to the disease, it sounds to match up.

Until the balloon touches down, and I see first hand just what horrors my grandfather and Gable have planned, I shall continue staying shocked still with Georgie here. Praise be Gable, just believe in Gable. I am a safe, reasonable and intelligent girl. I can deal with this in a sane manner.

Perhaps it is the lack of oxygen but at this exact moment, a random scene, and very random conversation makes its way to my recollection. The kind that can only be possible with the internet, alcohol, and dumbasses.

"Just don't lick an armadillo." another voice rings out in my head.

Thank you brain, for that wonderful contribution.

As much of a good student I'll give Jung-Joon credit for, he was, is, a very big dumbass sometimes.

"Seriously, just don't lick an armadillo? Generally, it's impossible to catch it as fast as a zombie outbreak. Did you know 95% of the population is actually immune to Hansen's disease?"

He would state casually. Interrupting the not so scary, ha I've built an immunity to your horror shit, show we were binge-watching while stealing my snacks. It was very rude how he always reached around my shoulders and stayed there for easy but awkward access to the snack bowl. But persistent to the point, I just gave up.

"...Why armadillos? Who licked a damn armadillo and figured that out?" anyone would ask, myself included.

Not like, why the hell would he know this? It was the age of the internet. Access to the widest amount of information. Oh, I miss the internet so much.

"They just have the perfect low body temperatures to naturally carry the bacteria. Other than humans. Oh my god, Mycobacterium is just..."

He would wave, unable to put into words just how ....exciting bacteria was. Sometimes even run his hands through his lazy hair in a way that could be called very cute, if whatever he was saying wasn't so distracting.

"We can't grow them in cell cultures? Labs? It only survives in living cells, we use mice, well just the footpads to grow them, and-"

"Can we go back to watching bad historical fantasy zombies in peace?... And you never answered me, who licked a damn armadillo in the first place?!"

"It spreads through the droplets in the nasal cavity and-"

"Who licked a damn armadillo to figure this shit out?!"

"I...honestly don't know? Wikipedia it?"

I may have tossed off that information, begged even, to end it. But now I mentally dig to recall everything I can. Not just that random conversation, nor how the fucker stole all my good popcorn, but literally any relevant information I can regarding the disease. Documentaries. Stereotypes and myth-busting. General health common sense.

Let's list it out.

Hansens's disease as it was named in my world, and not like some ancient scary leprosy, was a very old skin disease caused by bacteria.

"Mycobacterium. The same thing that runs tuberculosis. It's mycobacteruim leprae-"

Alright, shutty up annoying other voice in my head. Go grow bacteria in space or some shit.

That's not actually relevant right now. I need stone-cold medieval useable facts.

-It was very treatable with multiple antibiotics.

-It does not actually cause your limbs to fall off, but causes numbness. Making a person much more suspectable to infection and amputation of digits and limbs.

-It attacks the nerves but most noticeably swelling in the hands, feet, and face. Late stages are often marked with very visible disability.

-It's actually not very contagious and takes a very long time for the bacteria to grow or spread. This may make people carriers if they're in that lucky 95%, but that number might not be relevant here. Or people can have the dormant disease but not know it for years due to the slow growth. Symptoms may never show at all before they die of something else.

-It's spread usually from the mouth or nose of an infected person after a long time of close exposure, such as living in close quarters and poorer sanitation...or contact with animals like an armadillo.

Do armadillos even exist here?

Right. Facts.

Not a curse. Not divine wrath and retribution for your mortal wrongdoings. Not even hereditary as some more reasonable scholars suspect.

A lot of the information known in this world is incorrect from many standpoints. Medically. Scientifically. Common sense. Even the kind in the original Rosalia's education.

It's a whole different world, far far back in time!

If I published a medical pamphlet right now with my shoddy memory, it would probably cause the world to go into shock and uproar. If it was taken seriously that is.

Understandably most people, the illiterate public especially, wouldn't have the resources or education to understand nor process that. If someone started spotting lesions all over their body, losing parts, and going blind, well then off to die you go!

We even have some strange discriminatory customs. Such as a special type of robe. Or it being mandatory for the diseased to wear a bell or clapper wherever they go, to warn people that a 'diseased' was coming.

Of course, that's if they haven't already been caught and sent to the leprosarium.

They exist in every country, every land, as far as I know from the original's knowledge. To be fair, some did act as medical facilities to try and treat the 'patients'. But it's hard to say, they're so varied and isolated far away from the rest of society.

It's mostly known that there were terrible disease-ridden places where people can only await death. At most, they can pray for a little less pain. It's better to live out the rest of your days wasting away than beaten by an angry mob or burned and buried alive by your own fearful village. Perhaps the worse part of the disease is how people fear it.

The one in the mountainous edge by the 'badlands' of my family's territory is supposedly one of those medical facilities. Of course, Rosalia knows about it. There are costs and upkeeps to keep it running after all.

But I've never seen it personally. Never stepped foot near it! I'm a pampered little noble lady that died the good old fashioned schemed against with murder way.

"I don't think Rosa is ok!" points Lukas without any consideration.

I am very ok for any toddler on the way to the leprosy colony. Just feeling faint.

"Oh dear! Rosa just use the sick bag." mother fusses.

To be fair the barf bag is very useful.

More for Georgie than me though. He's the one that ends up hurling on the hot air balloon. Not me.

Ha! I know better than to eat before rides.

I didn't learn that from hard-earned experience on the balloon or anything. The only witnesses to those shameful times are a crazy old man, some unreliable brats, and blessedly silent Gable. My honor is safe!

Let's just hurry up and get this over with.

The ride ends in the usual way, with grampa touching down gently. Though the pressure change does give me an uncomfortable sensation in my ears sometimes.

Apprehension aside, it doesn't look like a scary place?

At least so far?

Grampa parked the balloon outside on a field of nothing. As is the standard safety procedure. So far we passed over even more nothing. The badlands being filled with eroded and drying up lake and river beds. As well as empty mountains. It's a very desolate place with no people, perfect for the quarantine colony away from society.

But where is it?

"Where exactly are we?" I ask, allowing mother to scoop me up in an overly concerned manner after undoing my seatbelts.

She acts as if I'm already ill. To be fair, I do not have a great history after long rides on anything.

My very normal and much older assistant, however, is clutching onto the solid ground in great relief after getting out the balloon. He's fine on carriages? Geez, he acts like some country bumpkin that's never been on a car let along a flying vehicle propelling the human body at an unstable height generally unknown to man.

"Well....it's somewhere...that some very unfortunate people live. They've taken ill." mother tries to answer my question in the most age appropriate manner.

"Pssst, Maria. Big girl! She already knows that part!" grampa fails at whispering over from where he started deflating the balloon.

"Why do I feel as if you didn't tell her the way I told you?" Gable taps at grampa's side.

"Trust me, Gabe. This is the most effective way."

"The last time I trusted you was nearly 30 years ago."

"It's been 30 years?"

Worriedly mother fusses in a basket from the balloon while Gable and grampa do another one of their comedy skits. She has her 'aha, found it' moment when she pulls out something that resembles a perfume bottle. While it is very pretty, I don't see the point. Nor when she tips the open mouth to a handkerchief to rub the stinky stuff all over us helpless kids. Lukas and Lilyanne already gagging from where they get assaulted.

Bleh, I don't think we smell very good?

"Alright, nice and safe! Oh and Georgie too! Can't forget you, oh. Oh dear. You're so fragile, oh dear this might not be enough." she spritz and rubs more perfume all over him, from his hands to behind his ears.

Is this sanitizer? Bug spray? Melted magic gold? Am I any cleaner or safer with this stuff?

A horn blows in the not so far distance, while a dust cloud approaches closer and closer to us. Before long a carpentum carriage arrives. It's much larger and noisier, with metal shodden wheels, but rounder, more streamlined and sturdier than the average. With not one but two drivers, recognizable with the troop's emblem and higher rank issued pieces of leather and carapace armor.

Without leaving the vehicle they stand to respectfully salute and greet their Lord Commander, sliding open the large carriage doors. The interiors I see are not cushioned or decorated, but very comfortably spacious.

Well, that license plate matches up. Guess our ride is here.

Mother takes the first step in, not only by scooping up three live kids at once but somehow dragging along Georgie. I don't know how and I won't think about it. I just take my sliding seat and stay good.

Not mentally panicking at all.

"Do we need face masks?" I ask out loud, though more to myself than anyone.

"Why! Are we gonna do a super-secret mission? That's not what Cap told me!" Lukas responds, being right next to me in this squishy kiddy pile.

He, like my mother, does not understand the concept of personal space.

Two arms length! Keep away! Social distancing!

From the front, Gable calls back for us to behave, and that's that. The rest of the ride is rather unassuming. I can't say it's relaxing, with the outside window sight of nothing, nothing and more nothing, but fine enough. I even have time to rummage my baggie for some cloth to tie into face masks!

One for me. One for Georgie. Everyone else without common sense or magic protecting them can die I guess.

"Rosalia, take that strange thing off your face. You need to breathe. You shouldn't play like that." mother tries warning.

"People can breathe fine even if it's uncomfortable! Co2 retention and face masks is misinformation. Prevent infection! Slow the spread! Protect yourself and others! Be considerate!"

"Oh dear....why is she like this?"

Excuse me mother, that is my line.

As I forcibly tie one to Georgie, my confused assistant looks down to me. Confirming that his only link to survival, and knowing anything, is with me.

"Are we...going making soap again?" he asks, fiddling with the protective face mask. "Should I cover up?"

I gasp at the revelation.

"Georgie, you're a genius. Soap! " I start rummaging through my bag, mentally calculating how much stock is in there.

"...Okay? About what?" he still hesitatingly asks.

"Grampa! What are the sanitation standards inside the leprosarium?! " I yell out. slightly muffled.

"The WHAT?! "

Before anyone can answer Georgie, or before mother can get her hands on me, we approach to pass by a large constructed gate. However, it looks more like one of the troop's military outposts than anything, but with more rock, stone, and plastery concrete built to suit the terrain. Nothing but functionality and stationed soldiers.

The roadway is cleared, and the carriage does not stop. It goes further and further into the outpost, past courtyards, buildings, more walls, and to a desolate warehouse looking district. Like a direct transport freeway until we reach the edge of a cliffside wall.

Yet we still don't stop?

At this point, I know things aren't always what they appear. But Georgie is new to all these sights and wacky experiences. I comfort him by mutually clutching and silently screaming as we ram cart first into the mountainous wall.

Darkness. But we keep trotting along, the carriage wheels noisily bumping down the hidden tunnel. How the drivers can see anything in their compartment must be hidden a secret, some night vision functions, or something. Because the air is stale, cold, and pitch black.

Feels haunted, no lie.

A great yelping sound immediately comes out too close to my ear. Much like how one accidentally steps on a dog's tail and it cries out in pitiful shock and pain. A familiar kiddy sized mochi mass huddles over me and Georgie, squishing us further.

"Lukas?" Georgie fumbles, steadying the boy blindly.

But light comes slowly in the way the edge of a tunnel always ends. I can make out an extra pale face in a sailor suit, shaking in unfamiliar territory. It's a very odd sight, for normally Lukas runs headfirst into everything without care. But his palmy hands brush and clutch at everything, messing up my face mask. All until I can't take it anymore and maneuver take them into my own.

The sudden darkness is scary down here. It would be to anyone.

"Lukas. Lukas can you hear me? You say I'm loud right, can you hear me? You can hear us all around right? It's not so scary. " I try imitating my speech in a comforting way I've heard before.

Another brat's warnings immediately playing in my memory. Matching up with the unsaid hints, all adding up. Ah, where's Amar when you actually need him? He would be better at comforting the other boy.

Oddly, I don't know what else to say. Shocked still the same way Lukas shivers silently, an anxious look of restrained terror on his face. It doesn't suit him.

It looks too much like his other-self. The not so grown boy that was there at my death.

He's scarred. He was scared?

My sister oooos and aaahhhhs in my mother's arms while she hums lightly. Grampa whispers something a little too loudly to Gable, who hums back in response. The wheels clicking on the rocky road still sound out too loud, especially when Lukas of all people is so silent.

He finally clutches back, fingers gone cold but the light returning to his eyes the same way light stars shining in all around. Steadily returning back to the little monster that I've gotten used to.

"...Uh huh. Didn't bring my jars." he doesn't nod, but burrows his head to Georgie's chest.

"Stupid," I say, but I don't really complain when the cold grip in my hands borders on painful.

"Nuh uh." the brat squeezes.

Maybe he's already had enough with reacting today, but Georgie simply signs and readjusts us more comfortably in his hold. Waiting to see what it all unfolds to.

It gets brighter eventually. It always does.

If I peek up from where Lukas attempts to hide, catch just a hint of Gable looking back on us. The world opens up to blue skies and sunlight once again, and I didn't notice.

"Huh! Lily too. Lily huggles too."

My sister makes to escape mother's arms the moment the carriage stops. A tiny force jumping to squeeze her weight onto Georgie's poor lap. She wiggles a space in between us, grasping apart Lukas' slowly warming up hands and mine to cuddle for herself. Giggling in happiness as she rolls back and forth between us.

Did she just?

Oh my god, Lilyanne no. Bad Lily! No aiming for a harem this early on!? Or ever! Is it the sailor suit?!

No one else understands. They only sigh or coo, or in my mother's case, 'kyaa~' over a cute little girl. But the knowledge of the future is as much a curse as it is my blessed cheat. Lilyanne no!

Lukas, slowly returning back to his normal state like a plant exposed to sunlight, is far from understanding just how close he is to being a cannon fodder capture target. Instead, he scrunches his cheeks and complains out to the adults.

"Gaaable! Cap! The stinky baby trying to scent mark me again!" he tattles.

You know, I don't think that's why it is but sure.

"Assert dominance Lukas! Overwhelm by scent or grapple the intruder for your territory and-"

"No! Ron! Do not? Lukas put her down right now."

"Papa...we're not..." they all react.

Luckily, we all manage to get off the carriage in one piece, and no one goes flying out the window. Though Lukas did attempt to throw my twin in his efforts to 'assert dominance'. Never let grampa raise a child everyone. God knows how they'll turn out.

Outside the other side of the tunnel opens up a beautiful valley. This is some land before time shit. Where were the empty barren lakebed and unforgiving terrain? What the hell, where does that waterfall go or come from?

On closer inspection, it's technically isolated yes. With harsh hills and mountains on all sides, seemingly no exits. But the valley is so huge and open that it doesn't seem to be much of a problem at all.

Against the closest cliffside, buildings and homes are built right into the mountain. Descending down like a scenic staircase. Paved and built roads, an obvious design plan in place, little oddly modern details that came right out of the troops. On the overlooking outskirts, plowed fields and food production could be seen.

Rather than a dismal leprosy colony, it looks like any other scenic stone and brick self-sufficient town. Hell, it's much better than most of the farming villages I've toured!

There are even large multi-story buildings that could be apartments, hospitals, mess halls, community centers, and in-between stations for the troops guarding and working outside.

Especially ones resembling larger but plain industrial building in the troops. Tall, flat, and strong, as if made out of concrete and actually has piping running water through each upper floor.

Okay, I feel like I really need a good talking to with grampa and how much he's holding out.

"Oooooooh." Lilyanne babbles, still being held back by my hand holding hers.

She seems more interested in running wild in the opposite direction of civilization. Which, as nice as it looks, is still a quarried town of isolated people stricken with diseases. So that's good.

I know my sister's strengths best.

Even in her prime, as a young woman who had full control and grasps over her amazing powers, she had her limits. She could only heal so many people in a single day. Even then it was a case by case basis, wounds, and illness each taking a different amount of effort. Push it, and it was a risk to her own health and life.

Besides, it was never going to be enough. She is only one person, with only two hands. Against the floods off all the people ever, begging for her magic touch, how would she ever be able to survive against that neverending wave?

There are many reasons why my family isolated us from the world. Why we held our stance, even against protests. Why they were so against free, let alone public, healings. Something she wouldn't be able to showcase until after my parents passed.

It would take Lilyanne some tiring weeks to cure a population of a village this size. But that was then. I can't say considering her current too young age, and the unknown conditions of the residents.

Besides, I don't think that's what they brought us here for. Grampa would never. He believes in being a hero for the sake of it, in lending a helping hand, in saving one more life, one more chance. But not like that.

The Ventrellas don't do handouts. We cannot save those who cannot help themselves. No one can. Nor are we responsible for that. Never were.

"That's right Lily-poo. We're heading that way!" the crazy old man, younger than he should be, holds out his hand for the little princess to take. And she does, dragging me along.

I have a lot of things I'm still not brave enough to ask about. Because I don't know if I can ever get an answer.

Where did you go?

Why did you leave us alone for so long?

Was it me? Did I do something wrong? Not enough? Or really...was it just me, something I can't help. I don't know. I won't ask stupid questions, I won't selfishly go 'me too'. It's not my place, never was.

The road we take is still paved, even as it leads to orchards and trimmed forests. Gnarled dark trees that don't look familiar, or even native to the local lands, grow in their plots. The fleshy star-shaped flowers bloom so greenly. So close to the trucks rather than the branches that they look like a type of moss of mushroom growing along the main body.

We walk deeper and deeper into the green, out of sight of the village and the troop's outpost there. Though there are plants still around us, something feels off. Wrong.

It feels like a bad crop.

A wooden clapper sounds out, deeper in, until the orchard runs out to barren land and an overreaching tall tree, shading the whole section.

"Give your worship good morrow', gentlemen. My Lords. My lady. I thank yee for answering the call."

A plain cloaked figure greets from the far side of the tree. The voice was of a still young woman, but her figure that of a crooked elderly. It was impossible to see much under the dark corner of shade, but peeks of bandages covered her vaguely shaped hands. Most likely missing fingers. While modest veils further concealed the bottom of her face. She makes a praying gesture with those bandaged hands and bows from the distance away.

"Multa Melitta. It's good to see you again." grampa nods and regards her.

The title of 'multa' can be regarded with the same meaning as a mother. Indicating this person before us is a community leader or overseeing figure of some kind. Before grampa can take a step closer, Gable resolutely stops him. Pulling out a palm that grows a small light with an incantation, grampa smiles wryly, snapping in a lighting spark of his own.

Together it quickly branches an invisible barrier over our small party, ending at the edge of the shaded woman's steps.

Safety precautions.

"Such wondrous little ones. Gifts of the highest order. Are they all yours?" she asks kindly, not taking offense. There is an undercurrent to her voice that is not dissimilar to my own mother or any of the women who aww over how cute we are.

"Unfortunately yes." Gable sighs. "My charge, and well..."

"Ah yes, a "charge". Pardon your graces, the uncanny resemblance almost had me making my congratulations. The world is a strange place. If anyone could make the impossible possible, well..."

"Multa Melitta." my mother ends up walking to the titled woman first, bowing humbly but a few steps away.

"Little Maria, my how you've grown! How wonderful. If feels not all that long ago when you were small and accidentally ate the fruit here. Oh it was only a large bite but you were fevered and moaned so wretchedly. They still speak of you when warning the children not to forage here."

"...Oho... yes...I certainly recall." mother smacks at grampa before he could start laughing.

Ahem, mother. I think this is a story I would like to hear more of. Who eats random things and poisons themselves hmmm?

"To think you're already old enough to partake in the fruit. " the woman sounds to be sighing, stroking a withered branch of the tree.

There is no fruit. No blossoms. Though it is summer. It's not hard to understand what she means by that sigh.

"This is only a temporary solution," Gable says, hiding Lukas behind his leg. A solid hand to keep the boy from wandering or interrupting.

"Isn't it all? Even this one here. It is only a temporary solution in keeping people alive, even just a little longer. Waiting to treatment to work. If that little bit of extra time could buy back someone's life. Even a temporary solution is priceless. " the woman sighs partly circling the tree.

"The Hydnocarpus wightianus were incompatible with the land." Gable looks back to the grove of foreign trees.

"No. Already every year it produces less and less. A treasure like this was already too good to exist in this world. Those green stars did no wrong, they were uprooted from their homes and planted here to be used as medicine. It's our own fault for not figuring out something sooner. We humans only know how to take. "

I think I know what's kinda going on.

Hydnocarpus wightianus? I don't know much about that but they look more like tropical plants than something that should be growing around here. Placed this close to this old tree, the plants are competing for nutrients in a very limited environment already running dry.

Most importantly, the fruit of this tree is extremely valuable, life saving even.

Perhaps that's why it's hidden all the way out here. Unknown to even me. The multa isn't wrong, humans only know how to take.

"The last of them?" Grampa asks.

"Dried or already sent away by your men, for preservation. The chance of another one b-->>

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