After looking at her limbs for a bit, she turned back to me to ask, "Is that why you splashed the water on me?"
I said with a nod, "I wanted to wash off any of the disease that was on you, but…" I couldn't help giving a sigh before saying, "It would have been better if we had some hot water."
Both Ron and Ronnie revealed confused looks when they heard this.
I quickly explained, "Hot water kills germs which causes diseases, so hot water would have helped us sterilize you."
Then after a pause, I said, "At the very least, we know that this isn't a fast acting disease. You might still be affected by it, but it might take a long time to act up…"
After hearing this, both Ron and Ronnie revealed worried looks once more.
Ron couldn't sit still anymore after hearing this, so he immediately stood up and said, "Young miss, let's go back. We will find a doctor to check your body to make sure that you aren't infected."
Ronnie knitted her brows, but she didn't say anything when hearing this.
Ron could see that she was lost in her own world again, so he was about to say something else.
But before he could, Ronnie suddenly said, "Do you know where the source of this infection is?"
I shook my head before saying, "While I don't know what the source of this disease is, I do know where it's coming from. So I plan on following the river back to its source and seeing what's causing this."
I saw that she wasn't saying anything, so I said, "You should really head back…"
Before I could finish, she suddenly cut me off by saying, "I'm coming with you."
We were all taken aback when she said this.
The one that reacted first was Ron who immediately said, "Young miss, that's enough! You cannot keep acting willfully like this! Your life is on the line!"
Ronnie shook her head as she said, "That's why I have to do this. If I go and find the source of this disease, then I'll be able to identify what it is. That will make it easier for me to find a cure for it."
Ron wanted to say something, but he realized that she was right.
Even if they were to find a doctor to look at her, the time wasted trying to figure out what kind of disease she had been affected with would without a doubt be long. Especially when there were delayed symptoms like this.
This might even affect her ability to recover from this.
So finding out what the disease was from the source and then finding the cure was much easier.
But to let her go was just too dangerous…
So Ron was very conflicted at this moment.
Then all of a sudden, Ron said, "Young miss, you should head back to the city and have the master consult a doctor for you. I will go and find out what this disease is with these gentlemen."
Ronnie shook her head and said, "No, I have to go personally."
Ron shook his head as soon as he heard this and said, "Young miss, no matter how willful you are, you can't act this way. There is no doubt that this will be very dangerous and this Ron can't put you in any more danger."
Still Ronnie wouldn't listen as she said, "I'm coming and that is final."
Ron looked at Ronnie like he still had many things to say, but Ronnie had already run off without them.
Seeing this, Ron had no choice but to abandon the carriage and chase after them.
All the while, we just had awkward looks on our faces as we had no idea what to say.
Still, since they had already headed off, we had no choice but to follow.
The four of us quickly made our way down the river, making sure to keep our distance from it to avoid being infected by whatever was in the river.
As we followed this river we found more and more traces of the disease as we saw the rot that had been reported.
It seemed that we had been in a downriver area of the area of rot, which was why we didn't see as much of it. However, it seemed that this rot was spreading very aggressively, even covering large patches of this area in the rot.
When Ron saw this, he couldn't help looking at Ronnie with a worried look.
While there hadn't been any symptoms yet, something that could cause rot at this level was clearly not something that was simple…
Finally, I called for us to stop so that we could move further away from the river.
I had been carefully looking at the area of the rot and I found that most of it was concentrated around this river.
It seemed that as we came closer to the source, the concentration of the germs in the river increased and the range of the rot increased as well.
Instead of following the reverse flow of the river, I started walking away from the bank of the river while looking carefully around myself. Eventually, I came to a stop when I saw that there were less blackened plants around me.
There were still some, but there was far less than the area around the river where it was almost pitch black.
The plants here might have been splashed by a few drops of water from the river, but nothing more.
Still the fact that they had turned black just from this showed how strong these germs were…
I also couldn't help looking at Ronnie with a worried look.
She saw this and said, "Stop wasting time and let's go."
Then she turned and headed in the same direction as before.
But when no one could see her face, she also revealed a worried look.
There was no one that wasn't afraid of invisible germs like this…
After all, there was nothing that they could do to defend against it.