I interrupt, “Wait, what do you mean?”

“I mean it literally, everything in its way is getting sick, people bloat and have fevers, some get rashes.”

The chieftain interrupts the man. “This is all wild to hear about, where did you hear all this from?”

“A new family of refugees just walked into town, they were malnourished and tired. They claim to be running away from it.”

They were running away from it? That was weirdly worded. The chieftain continues “Can we have someone from that family come in and talk about it? I want to hear directly from the man about what we are dealing with.”

“Of course, Chieftain Ming. They are currently recovering, but I will provide them with a short meal and some water before rushing them here.” Not hearing any objections, he bows and walks out of the room.

At his departure, an awkwards silence descends the hall as everyone looks uncomfortably between me and the Priest. Now that I have cooled down I decided to break the silence. “I’d like to apologize for my immaturity. I should not have accused you, let alone with nothing to show for it. I would like to request that we stop this dispute for now.”

“Hmph, at least you are mature enough to realize your faults” This fu**er. “But I will take your offer. We should cease quibbling like children.” He made it seem like he was doing me a favor by accepting and it took all my willpower not to grit my teeth.

The chieftain turns to me and the Priest, “Now that you have settled your differences, let’s get back to the deal this city has made with the Sage. Since you have proved the effectiveness of the farming methods, we are to continue our cessation of attacking the surrounding lands in the conquest for food. Is that correct?” I nod in confirmation.

“That deal is thus complete. But I do have an offer, would you be willing to take residence in this city, we will build you your own house to accommodate you. We would appreciate your expertise” The Priest snorted but I ignored him. I could help this city in so many ways, but the politics would end me before even old age got to me. I shook my head.

“I appreciate the offer, but my friends are in the village, I would rather spend time with them.” He nods in understanding but continues, “Well I didn’t want to bring this up, as I didn’t want to upset you, but the village is gone.”

My heart skipped a beat, “What do you mean it’s gone?”

“As you know, we trade with the surrounding villages. Seeing that no representative came from your village after a month, we sent a trader to affirm that trading with us was still available. When he arrived, the village was gone, uprooted. It looked like they moved to a separate spot.” That can’t be right, they shouldn’t have moved unless the plan fell through, which it didn’t. Wait, did it? Did they attack secretly while I was distracted?

“What do you mean they left? It isn’t time to move for the cold season.” He turns to me with a face full of sympathy. “I do not know the reason why they moved, but it is a fact that they did. I’ll even send you with an escort to the now abandoned village at a later time so that you can confirm it.”

If he’s willing to show me the location, maybe it wasn’t the city’s doing. “But for now, I offer you the same deal, even though you rejected me the first time. Stay in this city and help it prosper. I would also like your advice on the plague epidemic that was brought up, and whether it should be something that we should be worried about and how, and if we need to, how to prepare for it.”

“I’m willing to stay through the meeting, but I’ll need a few days to myself.” He nods in understanding. The conversations pick up around me as we wait for the man to come back so that we can get a first hand account of what had happened.

My thoughts race as I try to explain any reason that they would abandon their village. Perhaps they sensed that the city was going to attack? Or maybe the area this time wasn’t as fruitful to be in this year, so they skipped town earlier? There is no way that Mù Zhì would ditch me for no reason… Right? My thoughts get interrupted as the man that originally brought the news, comes in with another man, much scrawnier and sickly looking.

“This here is Níng, he was the one that brought the unfortunate news of the plague. I will let the elders of the council ask him any of the questions you want to get answered.” He stepped away from the poor man.

The chieftain was the first to speak up, jumping straight to the point. “Where did you come from? Explain to me from the start. Where did this so-called plague come from?“

Níng shifts around awkwardly, not being comfortable with the attention that nine elders of the council were giving him. “I-I have no idea of a plague, but I can tell you about the evil spirit.” That caught my attention. He didn’t know what a plague was? “ I-I come from the north. We were living peacefully, always moving away when the cold season came in. This past year, we traveled back to our spot in the far north when we noticed that the plants looked sick. We assumed that maybe we came a little earlier, so we decided to wait for the land to heal from the winter.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“It never did. It wasn’t only the plants that seemed affected. We also struggled finding any animals to hunt for to supplement our diets while we waited for the plants to bear fruit. After a half a moon cycle, we decided it would be safer if we moved back and waited a little more. By then it was too late. The elderly and the young started to be affected. At first we thought nothing of it, our healer supplied them with some herbs and they seem to have gotten a little better.”

“It didn’t last long. The healer kept on giving them herbs, but before long they stopped having any effect. By then we realized something evil was in the air. We tried moving back south, but the sick were slowing us down. We kept walking south before realizing the evil in the air had moved south as well, as if following us. It soon started affecting our healthy men, slowly but surely, before long the whole tribe was affected.”

“There was an accident and my family and I got separated from the tribe. We eventually left the area of influence and took refuge in a nearby village. We spent a week recovering and I told them the tale of the evil spirit in the north, which they did not believe. They did acknowledge that hunting had become difficult as animals seem to have become scarce, but when I pointed out that the animals must have sensed the impending doom due the evil spirit, they laughed, calling me a paranoid man.” He clenched his fists, probably remembering the feeling of being wronged as he was simply trying to help and warn the people.

“I started to notice the plants dying, at the end of the week of my arrival. I decided to take my family and leave before the spirit caught up to us. I haven't looked back and have been traveling since. For almost three months now.” Silence descends the hall as everyone thinks about the story and its potential consequences.

The chieftain turns to the man to let him go, “I appreciate the tale of your travels, but we the council need to talk about what that would entail.” Ning shifts nervously and nods. The escort walks him out of the hall before the chieftain speaks up again.

“Anybody have any thoughts?” The chieftain looks at all of us, as we all think.

I did indeed have a question, I speak up. “The escort claimed it to be a plague, while Ning claimed it to be an evil spirit? Why did the escort say a whole different concept?”

It was an elder that I haven’t heard yet speak up, I think his name was… Yún. “Is it much different?” I turn to him in my confusion. “What do you mean?”

“The tale of the plague gets passed down from one generation to another, about how if a village gets too sick too fast, all the people die. It doesn’t matter what is causing the illness, whether it be an evil spirit or divine retribution, it is happening nonetheless.”

I guess that makes sense. Another elder pipes up. “Could it actually be divine retribution?”

All heads turn to the Priest. He thinks about it before shaking his head. “Why would our goddess punish others that do not know of her? It could be a different god, but the damage seems to be too widespread, it wouldn’t make sense to punish so many groups of villages. It would make sense if it is an unleashed evil spirit.”

While they discussed, I got lost in my head about what it truly was. The plague… didn’t make sense. Nothing kills everything in its path. Diseases can’t just transfer from human to animal to plant or vice versa. Disease stays with one species usually, and sometimes in rare cases it can spread between species, but it doesn’t spread to everything. I call foul. The man probably wanted free food and shelter for a bit before dipping. But just in case, I will at least assist them with stockpiling food, since that would keep them away from attacking villages.

“What do you think, Sage?” I hear the chieftain address me directly. “Uh, I don’t know Chieftain. It doesn’t make sense, A plague shouldn’t be affecting everything. As you know I… was… a healer, and I know what causes illness and disease. It shouldn’t be possible. I don’t think it’s real. I think the man simply wants free food and shelter for the duration of his stay. Of course, I’m not saying not to do anything to prepare. We could transfer the farming methods to my own, which would boost food production so we can stockpile. We should also stockpile herbs or farm them. As the man claimed they worked, albeit for a short duration. These are all good ideas irregardless if the plague is real or not.”

Nobody contradicted me, not even the Priest. Perhaps they didn’t want to believe in such a scary idea, or perhaps they truly didn’t believe it. Either way, we’ll know if it is real once we start getting refugees coming into the city.

Once the meeting was done, I excused myself and headed to my room. Not only to review what I knew about the plague, but also about the situation with the village. Opening my room, I take a moment to observe it. My bed of fur was off in one corner, while my few belongings that I did have were on the small table. Some trinkets that I have made or gathered, some tools for the farm as well. It was a sparse room, with none of the personality that my old hut had.

I arrived here, to this world with nothing. No friends or family. But the village took me in, cared for me and fed me. I got along really well with Mù Zhì, and I thought we had become great friends despite our age differences and my status as a Sage.

I decided that I would distract myself by working out. I started with push ups before moving onto various other workouts I had known of. Sweat rolled down my brows and my clothing got drenched. I grunted in exertion as I felt the burn of my muscles. I kept on going until I failed so hard that I simply dropped to the floor, where I crawled to my bed and decided to sleep away all my worries.

Life truly is unfair.