Pentathrones

9. The City of Idaris [3]

When the sun was already to the west, Raido disappeared into the Zelicia Forest, carrying a bottle of water around his waist as a weapon just in case.

For the past two weeks Raido has been there secretly. Since before everyone was excited, Raido had first realized the water level of the river in the city of Idaris was declining.

Without abundant water, the City of Idaris would lose its charm as a city of water, and just become a city full of amateur waterbenders.

The city's main water source is the Covendale River. The river is very long, of course, the city of Idaris is not the only one that gets water from there. It's just that, incidentally, the Covendale River circles around the city of Idaris like a fence, so the city gets the most extensive river area than other cities.

After two or three days of checking the condition of the Covendale River about two weeks ago, Raido found a point where the river was blocked. That point was in the Zelicia Forest.

The Amethyst Village should have been affected as well, but the opposite. Because the waterway to the city of Idaris is blocked, the water in the village of Amethyst so overflowing.

It seems they didn't notice. Normal people will not bother to check the level of river water without a clear purpose.

People in the city of Idaris only began to wake up about a week later, when the fountains everywhere began to weaken. However, instead of doing something useful, they were busy crying at the temple, asking for the help of the Water Goddess.

Raido glanced at one of the temples at the corner of the street he had just passed. The temple is being visited more and more these days. They just pray, pray, and pray.

Those people aren't even looking for the source of the problem. Raido is nobody in this town. He could not move people, or even just announce that the source of the problem was at one point in the Covendale River.

No one will believe him. Raido instead imagined himself paraded around the city, touted as a sinner who would not get a place in the afterlife because he did not believe in the Water Goddess.

The repair process that Raido had done in the Zelicia Forest did not produce anything impressive. He had only managed to get rid of a little bit of the pile of something that was blocking the flow of the river to pass through.

He did not even manage to lift a little bit of it to the surface because it was too deep. All this time he had trouble because he was alone.

On the path entering the Zelicia Forest, Raido stopped for a moment, then looked back. "What are you doing?" tanyakanya.

Saina, Lato, and Arden walk to tiptoes behind the bushes, trying to hide. Their voices have been heard since five minutes ago. They scream in shock when they are found out.

"Ah-itu-begini-" Arden stammered.

"Saina said, through the window of her dorm room, she often saw Kak Raido coming out of the house, disappearing into the road that only ended in Zelicia Forest. He was very curious, so he asked us to find out. By the way, she was curious this way because she liked pa-" Saina smothered Lato's mouth tightly. Her face flushed.

"I'm just curious! Why go to the forest almost every day!" The girl instead covered her face with her hands, then ruffled her hair, looking very wrong.

Raido stared flat and sighed softly.

"You wanna come?" ask Raido. The three disciples immediately nodded in beaming light once.

The three of them stopped in the middle of the Zelicia Forest, right in front of the Covendale River, following Raido who along the way told him what he was doing.

Saina, Lato, and Arden are children with no experience. They are very excited like they are on a mission and for the first time their water control ability will be really useful.

"Try focusing on something at the bottom of this river. Tell me that you already feel that something is there" Raido said.

Raido looked at the three of them closing their eyes. Three pairs of outstretched hands parallel to the surface of the river. The surface of the water gave off noisy ripples due to the energy from them.

His third breath went up and down, struggling hard to feel the water up to the bottom of the river. About five minutes later, their hands began to tremble, a sign they were starting to struggle.

"HUH!" The first Arden opened his eyes again and sat on the ground, followed by Lato and Saina. They're snosering. "Well crazy, you feel it too, don't you?" Arden glared in disbelief.

"How's it?" Raido was half proud to see his protege succeed in doing something quite difficult.

"There's a pile of solid stuff and a lot of it's really a lot-crazy. What is that?" Lato looked in horror at Raido. "The effect of scooping river water so far is not too significant, but the pile could have contaminated the river water without us knowing."

"Well, that's right." Raido was satisfied to hear the analysis.

"Sir Raido, what should we do? The pile was too much and deep once," Saina said, anxiously rummaging through the river water.

"For now, actually I just want you to help me pick up a little bit of debris, to investigate. A small hand is enough. How's it?"

With Raido's cue, they set their breath and began to try to adjust the motion of the river's water to move a small chunk of foreign body slowly rise to the surface.

Collaboration to do this was actually not an easy matter, but it happened that they had often trained together in the lake behind the east building of the academy.

For a few minutes, their hands stretched out perfectly even though they trembled somewhat trying to maintain their firmness.

There was a small blub on the surface of the water, and Raido shouted, "Lato, now!"

They dropped to the ground, panting.

"So here it is." Arden raised an eyebrow. "This is what?" On top of his palm, he displayed many stones the size of a thumb that were pitch-black. He asked, they both don't know.

All the stones were pocketed by Raido, and they returned to the city with Lato's pouting face because Raido did not want to give her the stone.

**

Kaylis knocked on the door of Lukario's inn room interspersed with calling her name many times. After the door creaked open, Lukario's sleepy face poked out from behind it. "I'm sleeping" he said, with long golden hair in a mess.

"How are you doing? Is the medicine I'm giving you any use?" Kaylis asked worriedly. They moved to the balcony in front of Lukario's room.

Lukario held his head and moved in all directions. "Lately my condition has never been this good. Well, even though this row of hooves was still clamped to the door all," he replied, revealing his bluish nails to Kaylis.

Kaylis smiled sumringah. "Good then. I can't be sure if it's just a coincidence or if the drug does relieve symptoms a bit. In the meantime, I'll try to make a little bit of backup" he said.

"Well cool are you too. The medicine experts in the palace will definitely be happy to meet you later. They're also working hard to find an alternative treatment right now." Lukario patted Kaylis on the shoulder with a small smile.

Kaylis felt her face heat up for being praised like that. "What the hell? You want to make me happy, huh?" he said, repelling Lukario's back while laughing. "Speaking about that, have they found the cure yet? It's gonna be a little easy if I just reproduce it from the recipe."

"They can't be underestimated, but I'm a bit hesitant because they're currently working while sickly. Not only them, our royal army also began to weaken drastically - in the middle of heavy training can be up to dozens who fainted. The outbreak began in the capital, then spread slowly to other areas.

The people in the capital are actually sicker than in your village, their condition is much worse. We have not been able to do anything, so keep everything secret about the curse - imagine mass panic residents can make more dizzy. Who knows only certain people in the palace." Both eyes of Lukario were fixed on the sky.

"Oh deserved it" Kaylis murmured, remembering how weak Arius, Scato, and Lukario had been since the first time they met. "What that means is. soon people in this city will start having outbreaks too right?" muttered. The village of Amethyst is very close to the capital, no wonder it was first infected before the City of Idaris.

"And by the way.." continued Kaylis as she frowned. "I was just wondering why all this time, but I was really curious. Why don't I get sick like you?"

"You're just asking now? I thought you knew from the beginning. Gosh." Lukario even shakes annoyingly. "People who could potentially be candidates for the king were immune to this curse," he said, looking at the aghast Kaylis. "See the condition of King Unus' team - except Daniel - when visiting your village, right? They look fine, 'cause they're immune, too."

"So it turns out, it's weird this curse, anyway" Kaylis murmured. He tapped the tip of his toe on the floor grimly.

"No need to feel burdened" Lukario said. "While you're an invulnerable future king and happen to have medical knowledge, that doesn't mean you hold the greatest responsibility. All these things are roots of the past, have become like this. We can only do the best we can right now."

Whatever Lukario said, Kaylis's head did not stop raging around the plague. All night yesterday, he read old books from his grandmother that he brought from his home in the village. Kaylis discovers a disease whose name is so foreign that Kaylis cannot spell it correctly.

The symptoms of the disease are very similar to the symptoms of the disease due to this curse. Hopefully, Kaylis tried to make her medicine with potion and gave it to Arius, Scato, and Lukario this morning.

"I want to check on Arius and Scato first, see you later" Kaylis said. He walked to the door beside his room Lukario, and knocked again while calling.

Arius opened the door bare-chested. His muscular body was soaked in sweat. "Oh, hi," he said.

"Where's your book going?" Kaylis ruffled her waist, but she wasn't really curious about it, so she continued, "how are you guys doing?" From the door slit, Scato was reading the book on his bed quietly.

"Er.. To be honest, I feel a lot better now. I'm in physical training. I'm not used to being cooped up in this idle state, usually I always practice. After all around here there is no large field," replied Arius cengengesan. "The nerd was going to bed after throwing up all his breakfast, but he said he was now a little better after taking your medicine." He pointed at Scato.

Last night, they had another meeting, discussing a million plans, but none of them were crazy. Their work was completely hampered due to the declining condition of the body.

Since this morning, the condition of these three men was a bit worrisome - Scato threw up into his own breakfast bowl, Lukario fell rolling down the stairs - so they decided to rest until noon while being Kaylis' new drug guinea pig.

"Oh, good to hear that you're okay. By the way, it just so happens that you've been bored here. Come with me to Zelicia Forest yuk? I want to collect ingredients so I can continue producing these drugs" Kaylis said, trying not to look afraid of getting lost.

"really?" Arius was suddenly excited. "Come, come! Although I know, you're just afraid of getting lost, but I really want to go for a walk now, too" he continued. He wore just any clothes and carried his sword on his back, not forgetting to pull Scato.

"Who am I saying I'm coming?" scato's nagging with annoyance. Arius did not want to know and kept dragging him.

They use a map belonging to Scato as a guide to the forest. On the face of the forest that was only full of crickets and birds chirping, the sound of shoes stepping on the grass sounded crisp.

Among the desolate atmosphere, the three of them were gazing with a familiar figure.

Raido walked alone, out of the forest. Kaylis strangles. The three of them stopped their way, while Raido only glanced at a glance without a care, and darted past them.

***

To be continued.

Published: 20 July 2020