“No!” A woman yelled. She held a baby wrapped in orange cloth and fell in front of Iris. The lady must’ve crawled past the guards, who then quickly tried to block her, but she was faster than them. One could say that she was risking her life to get to The Queen.

“Your Highness! Please save my child!” She pleaded.

“Security!” Elena In Sethang shouted angrily, not understanding how the security had allowed the public to block The Queen’s path.

At her command, the guards hurriedly tried to grab the woman. But she resisted the guards with all her strength, and the cloth covering the baby fell to the ground. At that moment, screams spread through the crowd, and someone shouted, “It’s a disease!”

The crowd of the thousands of people was about to go into a panic, and as they burst into a frenzy, the royal knights surrounded Iris forming a small circle. They then positioned themselves so that they could easily pull their swords if need be.

Iris’s pale hand reached between the guard’s shoulders, and she said, “Wait, excuse me. That baby, I want to see.”

“Your Highness!” Elena exclaimed, as she now understood what everyone had said about Rosemary going crazy! She was glad the toxins in the Haran’s River had made her crazy, in a good way, but there was no way that this was good. If this went on, they would lose The Queen because of a plague. Elena tried to stop her, screaming with all her might, but Iris was too fast. She stretched her hands out, and the mother all but threw the baby into her hands.

Everything happened in a flash as Iris grabbed the baby and inspected the disease. From a distance, she’d suspected what the illness was, but she was now positive as she looked at the tiny baby up close. It’s a Honshi fungus.

The magical treatment was a professional’s job, but the people wanted to use self-learned magic. People with no magic power could not achieve anything, but sometimes some people had sloppy magic skills and could only perform poor magic. And that kind of magic came with consequences. These consequences often appeared in the form of a curse, which usually floated in the air until it found a suitable host. It was called “magic fungus,” and there were many variants.

The problem was that this Honshi fungus was not a common variant, and it wasn’t an infection that was seen often among the population.

“Kill it! Just kill it!” Someone in the crowd yelled.

“Yeah, kill it!” Another person shouted. “Kill the mother too!”

“That’s the only way! Kill them!” Someone else shouted, sounding terrified. The mass madness spread instantly among the fearful crowd.

Iris shook her head, “It is not an infectious disease.” Her voice was barely audible above the noise of the crowd, and she felt flustered and unsure of what to do next.

Noticing her pink cheeks, Elena asked, “Your Highness, are you sure it is not an infectious disease?”

Iris nodded, “It is not! I’m positive!”

“It is not infectious! Knights, repeat together! Guards shout with me! It is not infectious!” Elena roared. The knights and guards all yelled, and the sound was transmitted through the crowd, making them stutter.

“It’s not?” Someone asked.

“No,” came the reply.

“How do they know?” Another person questioned.

“The Queen says it’s not,” someone else whispered. The crowd quietened as the people then talked among themselves.

But Elena knew that the panic could rise again at any moment, and so she signaled to Lily En Oswald, the commander of the guards, who then nodded and whispered to the knights, “We are retreating.”

As the knights stepped back, Iris got swept backward also. While she was walking backward, Elena swiftly took the baby from her hands, handing it over to the guard, and Iris shouted to the lady, “Go to the tower! They will provide treatment there!”

It was difficult to know if the woman had heard her above the noise of the crowd, and she frowned deeply as the guards continued to push her backward. Iris was able to get a glimpse of the woman, and it seemed as if she’d heard her because her face brightened with hope for a moment before she sobbed from relief.

The mother of the child bowed countless times and shouted, “Thank you, thank you.” Iris couldn’t hear her voice, but she knew what she had meant.

***

A brown-haired lady fell at the sword of a knight. Her long hair swayed like dry grass, and her thin body fell to the ground with no strength. At that moment, Iris dropped the teacup in her hand and stood up.

“Your Majesty! Your Highness!” Lily and Elena simultaneously exclaimed, and Iris sat back down, looking embarrassed. The head maid flicked her finger with a sigh, and the other maid quickly picked up the broken pieces of the teacup from the ground and then replaced the tablecloth.

Elena’s nagging continued, “Your Highness, I have told you countless times before. Even when someone is dying, you should not pay them attention!”

“B-b-but,” Iris stuttered.

“And that girl is only a knight!”

The brown-haired girl’s name was Wendy, and she was a member of the royal knights. Except now, she had taken off her armor and was playing the role of the victim in this play. She smiled bitterly, as she’d already fallen to the ground several times, and The Queen had bolted up every time.

“I know, but still,” Iris mumbled, unable to hide her perplexity. She couldn’t turn away when she saw someone was dying.

No matter how toxic the Haran’s River was, Elena still wondered if it possible that The Queen had lost her mind. “Again.” Elena flicked her finger, and the play started over. Soon after, The Queen jumped up from her seat, and this time, it was before the maid had even given her a new