I saw the light fade from his eyes. His mouth slacked open, and his arm went a little limp. But he wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t brain-dead.

“Uh… uhh…” Rat muttered. A little bit of drool went down his chin. “Muh… Mommy? Mommy. Hello. Uhh… Muhh… Help. Hello?”

There we go. That’s proper. That’s how it should be.

I go down on one knee. His face slowly adjusts to keep looking at me, but his expression is like that of a dog. A really dumb, unaware dog. “Hey,” I say. He blinks at me. But it looks as though he could comprehend that—mostly, at least. “Can you walk?”

“Wuh, wuh… Uhh…”

“Right. Heh. Guess not, huh…” I crouch down in front of him. It’s so strange. Alter the brain just a little, and a face that was once so intelligent and full of life becomes… this. He doesn’t even look like himself. He looks like… like if someone took a bit of clay, made a lifelike imitation of his face, and then smooshed it up just a twinge.

I inch closer to him. I don’t really want to look at his face. So, looking at the ground, I say, “Do you… do you think Moleman will agree to leave? I really hope he will. You were right when you said it’s unlikely, that he’ll probably want to work to death, but… But I don’t…” Hot burning scalding heat rises to my cheeks and my eyes and the world blurs again. Gritting my teeth, I raise my face to look at the stars. Maybe then I won’t have to cry. “I don’t want him to die. If he hates me forever, that’s fine. I’ll do anything for him. Even if it means I’ll never get to see him again. But—but if he dies, then…” Damn it. I can’t breathe normally. Can barely even talk. The stars are blurring into triplets.

“Then… what was all this for…?”

A pair of arms reach out and pull me in with mechanical, rigid movements. Like an animatronic. I blink the tears from my eyes. Above, Rat’s stupid face beams down at me, half-paralyzed muscles contorting into a fool’s impression of a smile. But he’s crying, too. “N… nuhhh… Is… okay… Uhh. Uh. Life… good… M—muhh…”

His arms aren’t especially strong. I could escape easily, if I wanted to. But I don’t. I stay. For some reason I don’t understand, I stay. Curling up, I stay in his arms. My voice choked by tears, I croak out, “Th—thank you, Rat.”

It takes almost an hour to work up the strength to leave.

“Can you stand up? Here, like this…” I pull him to his feet. He stumbles a little.

He holds up the hand I mangled. “Hurt. Owwh. Oww…”

“Sorry about that. I was just… You startled me. Here, let me see that…” I pull some bandages Moleman gave me from my inventory. A while back, Jazz taught me how to wind them. I hold out my hand. “Here. Your hand, please.” Nodding, he puts his mangled hand in mine. Let’s see, the rabbit goes out of the hole, over the log, under the log, over the log, under the log, over the log, under the log… Hop hop hop hop…

“Uhh… Uhhh…!”

“I know it hurts, but I need to bandage it. Or else it could get really hurt.” I click my tongue. If only I had a heart on hand, I could heal him fully. But I don’t. All I have is my own hands and my stupid abilities. Do I have a single ability that’s useful outside of killing things? I can’t heal. I can’t help. I can’t do anything. Why does Moleman bother to keep me around? Not that that’ll last much longer. He’ll get fed up with me soon. He has to. Otherwise…

I tie together the last part of the bandage. “There, all better. How does it feel?”

“Heh,” Rat says, smiling.

I smile back at him. “Okay, good. Great! And you can walk, so…”

He takes a step, stumbles, and takes a bite out of the ground.

Alright, maybe it won’t be that simple. Hmm, let’s see here…

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I pull him back to his feet.

“Uhhh… Uhhh…!”

“There, there,” I say. “You’re fine. Don’t cry over something like this. Here, let me have your hand. See? It’s okay.” Gulping back tears, he nods at me, resolutely keeping himself from sobbing. I smile. “Alright. Good. Now, let’s go. I’ll hold your hand so you won’t stumble or get lost. Okay?”

“Ohh… Okay… Th—thank… thank…”

I smile at him. “No problem.”

We walk all through the night. Sometimes, he got tired and we had to take a little break, but that was okay. We reached the city just in time for dawn. A little sigh escapes my lips, but not Rat’s notice. He tilts his head at me. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

“Nuhh… uhh…”

It seems I can procrastinate no longer. I turn to him, letting go of his hand as I do. “Hey, Rat? Could you please climb onto my back?”

“Uhh? Uhh-huh!”

I kneel down, and almost excitedly, he clambers onto my back. He’s not as heavy as I thought he’d be, so I’m able to stand up without much issue. I glance over my shoulder at him. He looks so excited. “Now,” I say, my voice only wavering slightly, “close your eyes. It’s a surprise.”

“Ahh… Yuh! Thank—thank!”

He squeezes his eyes shut. How silly. Since he’s got his hand on my shoulder, I don’t have to reach far. Steeling myself, I touch his left hand.

<[Touch of Reversed Disease Resistance (Lv.5)]>

“Hk—”

And that’s the only noise he can make before his entire body goes limp, his head slumping down across my right shoulder. Is he… No. I can feel his breath growing haggard, and his skin turning feverishly hot. He’s alive. But not for long. Normally, I would hope that Moleman wouldn’t take it too badly. But not now. Not with this. I want… No, need him to react. To scream and cry and wail at me to save him no matter what. Then I can tell him that there’s no saving him this late, and since I’ve discussed the matter with Benevil, he’ll get a no from him, too. So he’ll understand that this is it. He has to get out of here. Or else, he’ll die. And I won’t be able to stop it.

I approach the city gates.

“Halt! Who goes—”

I shoot him a look. He freezes in place. I enter the city, shifting Rat slightly as I do.

Moleman isn’t there to greet us, even though I sent him a message explaining that I would be here around this time. Weird. Just in case he missed my message, I send him another one, explaining that I’ll be bringing Rat to the hospital. That should get him going.

Reaching the hospital is easy. The streets are pretty much deserted, nowadays. Almost every single doorpost has been marked, so basically everyone is under quarantine. The ones who aren’t are the people forced to do the work needed to keep the city on life-support. Rationing, latrine-emptying, guarding… Standard stuff.

The hospital has honestly become kind of superfluous. It’s just a place where people die. And, frankly, why go to the hospital to die when you can do it from the comfort of your own home? Still, there’s nowhere else to put Rat, so that’s where we’re going. I hope Benevil cleaned up the room Jazz trashed. I’m not sure where else I could put him.

Benevil meets me in the courtyard, Mitt at his side like usual. She looks weirdly haggard. Now that I’m looking at him, even Benevil comes off a bit more stressed than usual. I hesitate to ask them. “Uh, is everything…?”

“Sorry, not quite,” Benevil says curtly, his voice harsh with grief. “Pinn didn’t last the night. We hoped you could, but it…” He shakes his head starkly. Mitt looks like a haunted porcelain doll. “Let’s not dwell on it. Come—we have prepared the room again.”

“Great, thank you. And…” Mitt looks at me. Eyes like saucers. BLACK. Ah, so she hates me, then. I can understand that. In that case, it doesn’t matter what I say. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

I put Rat to bed, discuss things with Benevil, and then I bid him goodbye. I send another message to Moleman, telling him that we’re in the usual room. Waiting for him.

And then, I wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

A hour passes. Two. I send him another message. Another hour passes. And…

“Hey! Sorry I’m late, I had to attend a meeting with the new chief of guards regarding the latest batch of executions. Do you think you’ll have time to do them alongside the rationing and everything else? I know it’ll be a large workload, so I’ve actually received the name of a highly respected secretary and assistant who’ll be able to carry out a large portion of the work you’d otherwise do. Is this okay? I know it’s sudden, but—”

I stand up, my eyes glued to what he’s wearing. To what he isn’t wearing. “Why…” I swallow dryly. My trembling eyes find his. “Why aren’t you wearing the hazmat suit?”

“The…” Smiling, he shakes his head slightly. “Oh! You think…?” He laughs. “Oh, no, don’t worry about that. See, I’ve thought about it, and I’ve figured out why I haven’t been sick yet. Or, rather, why I’m immune. It’s pretty simple, see, I—”

Rushing forward, I grab him by the shoulders and throw him out of the door, following closely after.

He falls to the floor. “Kitty, what are you—”

“You aren’t immune,” I say, breathing heavily. “You seriously aren’t. So being close to people sick with it, especially Rat, is—”

He slowly rises to his feet, dusting himself off. “Let me speak fully, please.” Years of obedience chokes the words out of me and I fall silent. “Thank you.” He smiles lightly. I wonder when he last stopped smiling. “See, it’s simple. I’ve figured out what this plague is, and why I haven’t fallen sick. It’s the same reason you haven’t fallen sick, either! Simply put—my resistance is too high.”

“Your… resistance…?”

“Yes, exactly. My divinity resistance. It’s at level three. And since this plague isn’t actually a disease, but rather a spell, it means I’m too strong for it to affect me.”

“What do you mean, a spell?”

“It’s a spell. I analyzed it. With some help from the God of Knowledge, I was able to get it narrowed down. I still don’t know what spell caused this, or who cast it, though of course my primary suspect is the God of Kings—or maybe even the king of Acheron. He’s known as a great sorcerer, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he did something like this as a test to see if we could handle even a challenge as grand as this.”

I can feel my head shaking back and forth. What the heck is he on about? What is this?

I clench and unclench my hands.

When did he become like this…?