The moment Lisa's trembling voice mentioned her mother, the entire atmosphere shifted.

All the female elves instantly crowded around the little girl, their worried faces pressing close, their soft voices overlapping in panic.

"What happened, Lisa?" One of them asked, crouching down and holding her shoulders gently.

"Can you tell us what happened to Esme, baby?" Another cried.

"Wasn't she stable?" Someone asked in disbelief. "Did her condition suddenly worsen?"

"Oh, I told you we should've kept someone stationed near her house in case something like this happened!"

Another lamented, wringing her hands.

"Oh, poor Lisa and poor Esme too. What will we do now?"

The concern in their eyes was genuine, but the way they crowded the frightened girl only made things worse.

Lisa, overwhelmed by so many anxious voices and faces hovering over her, began to tremble.

"I–I...I don't…" She stammered helplessly, trying to form words but choking on her own breath.

Before she could panic further, a firm voice cut through the chaos.

"Move back." Leona ordered sharply.

The authority in her tone was enough to make everyone step away. Her calm but commanding gaze swept through the crowd.

"Go back to your posts. I'll handle this from here."

The female elves hesitated—worried eyes flickering between Leona and the trembling child—but none dared to argue. Slowly, murmuring to one another, they began to disperse.

Leona then turned her sharp eyes toward the male elves gathered on the opposite side.

"The same goes for you. No disturbances."

Her tone left no room for defiance.

"Of course, of course." Julius said smoothly before turning around and saying, "Everyone, you heard her. Let's not crowd. Give the child some air."

He waved his hand, and it was only then the male elves began to disperse as well. Most of them nodded and backed away—except for one.

A young elf, barely into adulthood, stepped forward. He had short blonde hair, a proud posture, and that same familiar arrogance that Julius carried like a second skin.

"Anyway." Julius said smugly. "This is actually why I came here."

Leona frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I knew something like this would happen. Esme's condition was bound to worsen, I could tell from the last time I checked her pulse."

He straightened his posture, speaking louder now so everyone could hear. "But not to worry. I've come prepared. I've brought a new healing technique—one that will restore her completely."

He flashed a confident grin. "With me here, nothing bad will happen. You have my word."

His arrogance was palpable, his tone dripping with self-importance. It made sense, though—Julius was regarded as the Grand Healer of the village and he never missed a chance to remind everyone of it.

He gestured for the young elf to follow. "Come on. Let's go."

With that, the two headed off toward Esme's home.

Meanwhile, Leona's gaze fell back to little Lisa. The child's bare, dirty feet caught her attention.

For a brief second, she looked like she wanted to lift the girl into her arms and carry her, but something stopped her—a hesitation in her fingers, a subtle tension in her shoulders.

Whatever it was, she withdrew her hands halfway through.

Nyx, noticing that hesitation, let out a small sigh but smiled softly. Without a word, she stepped forward and knelt before the girl.

"Come here, sweetheart." Nyx said gently, and she scooped Lisa into her arms with a tenderness that surprised everyone.

"Don't worry anymore, Lisa. We've got a healer with us now. Your mother will be just fine."

Lisa nodded weakly, her small hands clutching Nyx's shoulder.

But Nyx wasn't done. She lifted the little girl's tiny feet and gave a mock frown. "Still, next time you come running here, even if it's an emergency, you put something on these feet, understand?"

Lisa sniffled softly and nodded.

"You know how small and fragile these are." Nyx went on, pretending to scold her. "Even a tiny thorn can hurt you." She poked one of the girl's toes gently. "Not to mention...there's nothing to stop me from tickling you."

Then, with a sudden grin, she started tickling Lisa's feet mercilessly.

Lisa squealed with laughter, her exhaustion briefly forgotten. "No! Stop! Big Sis Nyx's—stop it! You can't! It's too much!"

Nyx only chuckled. "Will you wear your sandals next time?" She teased.

"Yes! I will! I will!" Lisa cried between giggles.

"Good girl." Nyx smiled warmly and adjusted her grip, carrying the laughing child in her arms as she walked in the same direction the young healer and Julius had gone.

Leona let out a soft, pitiful sigh as she watched them like she wanted to do the same but was sad she couldn't. Then she followed behind them without a word.

Luna and Lulu quickly joined too, Lulu grinning brightly.

"Hey! Wait for me! I want to tickle her too!" She called out, dashing after Nyx.

That left Luca standing there alone, utterly lost.

He blinked, looking around at the dispersing elves and the retreating women. "Wait—hold on!" He called out, jogging after Luna. "What's going on here?"

Luna glanced back at him as he caught up, still walking quickly.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"I mean..." Luca said, exasperated. "...a little girl shows up saying her mother's sick and can't drink water, and suddenly the whole village panics, everyone scatters, and now all of you are marching straight to her house like you already know something!"

"So—what exactly is happening? Because I have no clue what's going on right now."

Luna glanced at him, realization dawning on her face.

"Oh, right." She said softly, nodding with a faint, sad frown. "You just arrived in the village. You don't know what's been happening around here."

Her tone grew heavier as she exhaled deeply.

"Well...what I'm about to tell you isn't just unfortunate. It's genuinely terrible."

Luca's brows furrowed. He could already sense that the atmosphere around the village had been uneasy, but he hadn't realized how deep it went.

"For the past month or so." Luna continued. "Many of the women in our village have been falling ill. It's some kind of sickness. It spreads quietly and no one knows what it really is."

"An illness?" Luca asked, his voice tightening. "What kind of illness?"

Luna shook her head. "That's the thing. No one really knows. The symptoms don't match anything we've ever seen before."

"The symptoms themselves are also...unusual."

He frowned slightly. "Unusual how?"

"Well." Luna began. "At first, it starts with exhaustion. The affected elves get tired easily, even after just a few minutes of walking or working."

"And that's strange, because our people are usually so full of energy that they can work all day without feeling fatigued."

Luca nodded silently, listening.

"So when they started getting tired all of a sudden, we thought it was just some mild fever, or maybe seasonal fatigue." She continued. "But then, after a few days, it got worse."

"They couldn't get out of bed anymore. Their whole bodies became weak, their limbs felt heavy. They said it was like their bones had turned to stone. Some of them couldn't even lift a cup."

Her expression darkened further as she went on.

"Then they began losing their appetite. They'd go for days without eating or drinking. They'd get terrible headaches, and many of them said they felt depressed or empty like something was sucking the life out of them. But the strangest part…"

She hesitated, her voice softening.

"…was how their bodies started to change."

Luca's eyes narrowed slightly as Luna went on remembering all the patients she saw.

"Their cheeks began to hollow out. Their bodies became thin, almost skeletal. You could see their ribs through their skin. But here's the strange part: even though they were getting so thin, some parts of their bodies were swelling."

She paused, then gestured faintly with her hands.

"Their ankles, their cheeks, even their fingers in some cases. It looked...wrong. Their whole body looked wrong."

Her expression was full of concern as she spoke.

"Even when they tried to eat, they didn't gain any weight. They only got thinner. It's like something inside them was draining away their energy faster than they could recover it."

Luca's face grew serious. He didn't interrupt her, but the furrow in his brow deepened.

He had heard of diseases with symptoms like these before—starvation-induced edema, parasite-related wasting—but he couldn't pin-point without a proper examination.

He exhaled quietly through his nose and asked,

"How many people have been affected so far?"

Luna frowned and folded her arms.

"So far, it hasn't spread to everyone. Only twelve have been severely affected and are bedridden. And Auntie Esme, Lisa's mother is one of them. Actually, she's the worst case of all."

"Esme…" Luca repeated quietly.

"She's an artisan." Luna said. "She's the one who makes blankets for everyone in the village. Her work keeps all of us warm during the colder months. But now…" She lowered her gaze. "She can't even move her legs anymore. The last time we saw her, she couldn't stand or walk."

"Her daughter Lisa...she's been doing everything for her."

"I-It's such a pitiful sight, Luca." Her voice trembled slightly. "Auntie Esme and Lisa used to be one of the happiest families here. Every morning, I'd see Esme carrying Lisa on her shoulders, running around and laughing like nothing in the world could ever go wrong."

"And now...it's the opposite."

Luna bit her lip.

"Lisa's the one helping her mother now—feeding her, helping her drink water, even carrying her to the bathroom. She's just a child, barely ten in human years."

"She hasn't even reached adolescence yet, and already she's burdened with something no little girl should ever bear."

Luca frowned deeply, his expression turning somber with thought.

"But why?" He asked. "Why is she taking care of her mother all by herself?"

"Surely there must be someone else in the village—her neighbors, maybe someone from the council who can help her. This doesn't look like a place where people turn their backs on each other. I could see it earlier, everyone was concerned."

Luna opened her mouth, but it was Lulu who came back who answered first, her cheerful tone unusually bitter.

"Everyone did want to help her. Everyone felt sorry for Auntie Esme. They even offered to take turns helping her out. That's how we always do things here, we take care of one another."

Her gaze turned irritated as she continued. "But my father…"

She stared coldly at Julius's back, her voice heavy with contempt.

"He said this disease, while not too contagious, could spread if people spend too much time near the infected. So he ordered everyone to stay away. He said no one should help her or even enter her house."

"And what about Lisa?" He turned in surprise. "Wouldn't that logic mean the disease could spread to her too?"

"Yes, it could." Luna said like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "But my father claimed it was already too late for her. Since she'd been taking care of her mother from the start, he said she was probably already infected, so he told everyone to leave the two of them alone."

Luca's frown deepened. "So he confined a sick woman and her child together...and made the child take care of everything?"

"Yes." Luna said simply.

He was silent for a moment, his expression thoughtful but cold.

"That's...reckless." He muttered finally. "I understand the logic of quarantine, but this isn't how you handle it."

"A real healer, any decent healer would have found a way to treat both safely. You just don't abandon them. Especially not a child."

And in response to that, Luna let out a sarcastic laugh before saying,

"Funny you say that. Because my father isn't even a healer anymore."

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