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The quarantine encompassed a large region between a Duchy and two of its neighbouring Marches. Within it, there were multiple villages and a township that stood as a key trading hub. Unfortunately, because of the epidemic and the subsequent collapse of the economy, the entire region was closed off and effectively excised from the trade links. This should have affected the Duchy and Marches greatly, and it did, but unlike businesses, Clans ran their profit-loss analysis in years to decades, rather than months to years. After all, once all the sick and infected were gone (which should take about six months through some estimates), this area would be free to use once again. Furthermore, there was never a shortage of people in this world.

Jean wasn't willing to subscribe to this line of thinking. Which was also why she was here, fitting herself into a puffy and uncomfortable personal protective equipment.

"You should also wear yours," Jean said to Josie, who was trying her hardest to suppress her laughter. The outfit was a full bodysuit that went over regular clothing, with strings wrapping around the cuffs of each appendage and hood to tighten and tie so that nothing could go in. A mask of similar gauzy material was wrapped around Jean's face, with a glass mask over her eyes.

"This slave does not need it, Young Miss," Josie responded with a bow, less to be respectful, more to hide the rising corners of her lips.

"It's not for you, it's for others. As long as we cover ourselves, we limit the chances of the illness nesting within our clothes. It's easier to dispose of this than our clothes!" Jean reminded. An extended, stern stare down later, Josie found herself hugged by a garish white and gauzy outerwear with all facial protection, just like her Young Mistress.

The duo trudged through the sparse forestry for an hour before they stumbled upon the first sign of possible human habitation - a dilapidated village. The place looked like a ghost town with its collapsed or half-broken homes, and overall eerie atmosphere. Clearly, this place was only a settlement in name as its inhabitants had long since abandoned it. This was further corroborated when their sights fell on the burnt-to-a-crisp and charred mountain of corpses at the village's centre.

"Do you think they did this after they died or before?" Jean muttered in disbelief.

"We can only hope that it was after. To be burnt alive... Maybe it was a better release than the inhumane death the disease offered?" Josie theorised.

"Do you sense any living beings here?" Jean inquired. Josie extended her mana sense and zoomed through the village's perimeter.

"None that are human. Though these rats sure are making my time harder," Josie grunted as she fired a razor of wind towards a congregation of large black rats fighting over a chunk of flesh that barely resembled an ear. The spell hit the congregation and shredded them until they were all turned into an explosion of blood and gore.

"Was that necessary?" Jean groaned.

"Filthy creatures!" Josie spat in disgust, not bothering to hide her clear disgust of the rodents.

Jean shook her head and moved through the village in search of anything pertinent to her healing pursuits. Sadly, the whole place had been ransacked by its previous inhabitants, leaving nothing for her to use or to make any deductions.

With that, the duo moved one. They navigated in a counterclockwise path, moving progressively inwards with each circulation. They managed to find another village in their trajectory, but this one was also completely abandoned. This one, however, did not practise the method of burning away dead bodies. Instead, the corpses remained, left to rot. These emaciated, rotted and half-eaten corpses were covered in black pus oozing out of the grape-sized boils.

Josie scrunched her face at this ghastly visual and proceeded to cremate the bodies, barring two that appeared recently deceased. Jean separated these two bodies and proceeded to take samples of the fluid stored in the boils and ran a thorough inspection of the deceased's condition at the time of death. After an external check, she charged mana at the tip of her index and middle finger and performed a large Y-incision, spanning shoulder to shoulder and chest to the abdomen.

"The heart has necrotised completely, even before death! The other organs have varying degrees of necrotic tissue," Jean exclaimed. "The disease targets the heart first."

"Should I conduct an autopsy on the brain as well?" Jean questioned while turning towards Josie, who flicked her finger and exploded another horde of rats swarming on a corpse.

"Filthy creatures!" Josie spat venomously. "It is not necessary. I can sense that the brain is sufficiently unaffected by the illness from here. Besides, we should at least honour these bodies with an intact mien for their funeral, even if it is delayed."

Josie moved the bodies remotely and lit a burgeoning pyre to consume them. While the pyre bloomed, she diverted her gaze once again and started to explode more rodents that entered her line of sight. At one point, she pointed at an empty field and cast a quick spell causing a small explosion of dust and gore (apparently a rat had hidden underground).

Turning her head, Josie noticed that Jean was looking at her pointedly. "Something you want to talk about?" Jean probed. It was clear that Josie nursed some sort of grudge against rats in general.

Josie looked at the girl's face, which was unperturbed but held eyes that were oozing with concern. After a second of thought, she released a sigh and said, "I hate rats."

Jean exhaled through her nose to mimic a mirthful laugh, "I can see that."

As the duo moved on, Josie stewed in her thoughts. Even Jean could see the internal turmoil her attendant was going through as it started to show on the woman's face.

"When I turned six, a war-ravaged our lands," Josie started. "One day, the war reached our village. My parents hid me away in the village's well that had dried up during a particularly brutal drought. The invaders came, raped and pillaged, but forgot to open the covered well and check within. I was only six back then. I stayed in the well for a year and a half, in complete darkness. The only things to keep me company were my thoughts and the occasional rats that were just as starved as I was."

Josie reached towards her left eye and popped the orb out of her eyes.

"What in the world!" Jean exclaimed.

"Hunger turns even the most fearful of creatures into berserk beasts," Josie confessed with an angry grunt. "They took my eye. In turn, I vowed that I would kill every single rat that crossed my path."

"I-It didn't grow back? When you broke through into Core Formation?"

"Your body can only be what your mind believes it to be, Young Miss," Josie responded with a wry smile. "In many ways, I never really escaped that well, did I?"

At that instant, Josie flicked a finger and a cloud of gore exploded from the root of a nearby tree.

"All rats care about is survival," Josie affirmed. "I guess I see myself in them. I see that little girl crawling in the darkness, clawing away and sucking at the stone walls of the well to extract as much groundwater as possible, eating anything she could get her teeth on like a feral animal. It makes me sick!"

Josie raised her open palm and a hefty rodent rose from behind a bush. It was charcoal black with a crooked snout and wiry tail. It squeaked and yelped in a frenzied panic while trying to escape from the invisible grasp Josie had over it.

"They have no honour. They would rather kill everyone around them if it means that they can survive," Josie murmured. Her eyes turned dark as though she were recollecting a distant and suppressed memory. "They will even eat each other if it means that they can survive!"

"Josie..." Jean said as she stroked her attendant's arm.

"Apart from all those rats, I wasn't alone in that well," Josie revealed with a low voice. "Not at first."

And with that, Josie squeezed her hand into a fist causing the suspended rodent to disintegrate into a bloody mist. She then walked forward at a quicker pace leaving Jean to digest what she had just heard. She swallowed a gulp involuntarily as she looked at Josie's figure.

"Y-You only did it to survive," Jean said, hoping to assuage her attendant.

"I know," Josie affirmed casually. "I was so willing to give away my humanity for the sake of survival. How does that make me any different from a rat?"

"Would the Young Miss do it, if she were in my position?" Josie proposed.

Jean couldn't provide an answer to that question.

"I asked the Mistress the same question when we first became close partners," Josie said with a chuckle. "What does the Young Miss think that the Mistress' answer was?"

"She... She wouldn't," Jean denied with certainty.

Josie reached forward and placed her hand gently on Jean's shoulder. She then looked deep into the girl's eyes and shook her head apologetically, and Jean's entire worldview shattered around her.

She'd placed her mother on a pedestal, one that she herself could never hope to reach. But-

"Survival is a state of mind, Young Miss," Josie reminded. "Do not think little of the Mistress. She only answered a hypothetical. It is not a sin to choose one's self over another."

Jean nodded absent-mindedly. However, a thought struck her, "But you still disparage yourself for what you did when you were in that well."

"That is because those that survive must ultimately live with themselves and bear the weight of their actions. The price one must pay to survive is often steep and unforgiving," Josie concluded.

At that moment, the duo approached the vicinity of the trading town that was smack dab in the middle of the Duchy and its two neighbouring Marches. It used to be a bustling town, and it still was. Except its occupants were much smaller, dark-furred and with long scaly tails. This was a literal kingdom of them! A live wave of rats swarmed everywhere coating the place in a carpet of wriggling black mess.

Jean turned her gaze towards Josie, only to realise that the woman had long since disappeared leaving the shredded remains of her personal protective equipment.