Liar's Tongue was, thankfully, automatically swapped with his own tongue. Otherwise, he'd have had to see a surgeon to do so, which was risky for several reasons, the biggest being disease. Based in a Medieval-Fantasy setting, the world of End of Days was riddled with diseases that only the Church of Polysis could heal. Most were so deadly that it was rare to last a week, and it quickly spread through the neighbourhood. Obviously, the Church charged for treatment.

All of this to say that he now came upon one of those villages. Each house was burned, likely to be rid of the disease, and there were no obvious survivors. They all must have moved away, but this was a huge problem nonetheless. Especially with his new Task, which he glanced at.

Find out why the outer villages are continuously becoming plagued, one after another. You have three days.

He wiped his eyes, dusting off the sand in his eyes. When was the last time he slept?

"I can keep going," he said, feeling a new burst of strength flowing through his veins.

He moved to a house, searching its interior, only to find nothing but ash. Most of the houses were like that; the ones that weren't contained bodies.

Either way, none of them contained any clues. "I can keep going," he repeated, stumbling a little. How long had he been walking? The small energy boosts had been getting weaker.

Sighing, he found a house that was mostly clean of ash, one that he hadn't checked yet. He froze in the doorway, noticing that there was barely any ash on the ground, looking like it was dusted out the door.

Walking backwards, he did his best to trace his footsteps, until he was far enough away to leave the path. Tiredly, he moved to another house with clear sight on the previous one, and sat down on a small chair that somehow escaped the fire.

He waited, and waited. And waited.

He kept repeating the same phrase, quietly. "I can keep going, I can keep going, I can keep going..." Finally, his eyes shut, and he fell asleep faster than lightning.

Only a little bit later, a little girl stopped before entering the other home, noticing the fresh footsteps. Carefully, she scanned the area, her eyes narrowing when she noticed Greg. Intently, she waddled over, studying Greg all over.

Finally, she grabbed him, easily lifting his entire body above her head, and ran, looking like a penguin, to the hut she was going to enter.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Several hours later, Greg opened his eyes, sharply taking in a breath. His body was in severe pain, cramping everywhere there were muscles, and his stomach rolled, roaring loudly. His mouth, too, was a desert. Still, he managed to scan the room, finding nothing weird beside a moving pile of clothes...

Wait, that was a person. "He-Agh!" he coughed, attempting to greet it.

The pile turned around, surprise clear in its movement, and Greg found that he was now looking at a little girl in layers of puffy clothes.

"You shouldn't try moving," she said, her voice just as intense as her expression.

Ignoring what she said, he tried to sit upright, though he quickly gave that up. Nevertheless, he spoke, asking her, "What happened here?" The words struggled out of his throat, which hurt so much.

"Stop it," she ordered, moving back to her desk covered in objects he didn't recognise. "You aren't well."

"I'm fine," Greg countered. With the help of Liar's Tongue, he was feeling only slightly better, still in pain everywhere. It was, however, enough for him to sit up. "Who are you, and what happened here?"

"I told you to-" she started, turning around, but stopped, shock clear on her face. Instantly, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're dehydrated, starving, injured everywhere... How are you better?"

"I asked first." Greg returned her stare, if more intense from pain.

"Fine," she relented, swinging back to her project. "My name is Kleo Patara, and I've been wandering around, researching this plague. I know that it's manufactured, because I've never seen anything like it. Your turn."

"My name is..." He hesitated, questioning if he should call himself Greg. The answer was probably no. "Michael. I'm better, because I can trick myself into being better." Explaining it like that made him cringe; he was able to explain most Traits, Skills, and Items, but the pain still dominated him.

She nodded along. "I didn't ask your name, Michael, but you should leave this town soon. As you can see, it was burnt to stop the spreading."

Greg groaned. "I'm actually searching for the source, too. Why don't we cooperate?"

"Why don't you rest?" she immediately responded.

"I'm..." he started, about to stand up, before immediately wincing and sitting back on the bed. "I'm going to rest."

For the rest of the day, he rested, drinking the water and food Kleo gave to him. Occasionally, he said to himself, "I am getting better." Hopefully, those words had an effect on him; otherwise, he'd be bedridden for at least a week.

After staring at the ceiling for at least an hour, Greg finally asked, "What are you working on over there?"

She didn't stop while answering, "Just a tool for surgeries, because some idiots have been using the same tiny swords to cut into people. What we really need is a medical revolution, especially while diseases are so common you can get it just from living. See, the weird thing with diseases, is that it's actually transmitted by-"

"Contact and closeness, I know," he finished.

"Showoff."

Another few minutes of silence passed before Greg, once again, interrupted it.

"I only saw a few bodies. Surely there must've been more, if it was so infectious."

"I agree. So, the obvious question, where must they have gone? Rotting bodies wouldn't be able to make it very far, even if they were zombies."

Greg flinched; he knew, for a fact, no one in this world used the word 'Zombie'. Instead, Ghoul was how it was referred to. "Zombies?" he asked.

She, too, flinched when he mentioned it. "I meant... What were their names, again? Zombies are what my colleagues and I call them."