Year 768, 6th Of April, at the investigation site.

Late at night, all the doctors were trying their best to discover all they could discover from the dead body that they had at hand.

The head of the doctors kept giving motivation and support to the team while also helping them, keeping the other doctors' barely visible will alive.

One doctor who was still sitting, depressed, with many thoughts going through his mind, "Say, Mr. Oxif, what are the chances we get out of this alive?" he asked, to the head of the doctors.

"I don't know, but if I were to be bluntly honest with you, probably low." replied Oxif, with a stern face, as he didn't see much hope in the situation.

As he said this, the same doctor who asked became even more depressed, but eventually picked himself up and got to work.

"If I can't get a grip on myself how can I call myself a doctor, damn it!" he motivated himself.

Night engulfed the skies, torches were now being used to navigate through the streets, and the news of the disease reached the Mayor, whose face was unsightly to see when he heard it.

"Sh**, I just had to mess up while the armies are out there fighting for us..." he thought, as horror covered his face, as he realized the implications that could follow due to this.

"I'll lose my job... no, f*c* the job! I don't know if I'll retain my life after this!" he thought, sweat was visible on his face.

"Maybe if I try and keep the situation under control, it'll help me keep my life!", he had already given up on his job, attempting to salvage what he can out of this situation.

He immediately rolled out orders of a severe lockdown on the whole northern area, at least the area he controlled.

He had already sent a messenger to each of the other mayors of the other regions of the kingdom about the disease, he could only hope for the messenger to reach them as soon as possible.

Of course, he was no fool, and made sure the messengers were men who hadn't come in contact with any of the participants of the investigation site, and himself, even though the guard who carried the news was covered up, he still couldn't mess this up anymore, and he ordered for the messengers to cover themselves like they would cover a corpse, only leaving holes for necessary places like the eyes.

Other guards that were not in contact with the guards that were at the investigation site -the ones that are in other posts-, immediately set out to spread the news, the lockdown and the disease.

"No one is to leave the perimeter of their house, and no one is to be in contact with any other human in their vicinity! Breaking any of these following rules will result in immediate jailing for two months! This will last for at least two weeks! We'll be updating you with the situation, in the case that it does last longer than that! Value your life, and your kingdom!" Papers were stuck with these words on the doors of all the residents of the area.

Massive spiked walls were put around the town in order to prevent people from leaving, and entering.

This was done at night, so this was all too sudden for the people who were night owls, though, they weren't many, as many of the people in the kingdom have their work and life oriented around the day, the streets were mostly empty, which definitely helped the guards as there wasn't much resistance, or cluttering for that matter.

Other people who were still awake, protested at the actions of the guards, but were immediately warned and told to go back to their home instantly, most of them cooperated, but others who kept their stance, were arrested and thrown in jail, three people were jailed that night.

Meanwhile, back at the investigation site, the doctors were working hard, by themselves, on site, with only the guards that had stayed with them before the corpse had come in.

"Ah, Sina! I forgot about her! Listen, you!" Oxif said, as he pointed towards a doctor, "Go bring her some food and water and avoid any contact with her, quickly now!" he ordered, now that he remembered that Sina was still in her sealed room.

Going to back to Sina, she had been by herself for more than ten hours now, and the loneliness of the situation was lessened by the sound of the doctors outside scrambling, their tools, their movements, their talking, all of it helped Sina a bit.

It was quite lonely though, Sina had a window with metal bars high up on the back wall of the room, similar to how a jail's cell would look like, it was night, and the stars shone through the window, bringing light to the originally dark room.

Sina was now beyond her original panic, it had lasted for more than seven hours, but afterwards, she managed to keep it in, though unfortunately, it was only keeping it in, it was still there.

Looking at the star's light, all the noise from the outside seemed to have vanished from Sina's ears, as she laid down on the floor, hands spread on the ground, facing up, as she tilted her head downwards to get a good look.

She wasn't thinking of anything, she just laid there. Staring at the night sky through the small window in her room, negative thoughts would creep up every other second, but she would mentally block it from breaking her further than she already was.

This was one of the only somewhat peaceful times that she had that day, after the news of Joseph Ixavior came in.

However, this was interrupted a moment later when a doctor, knocked on the door, and opened the slider that was used to look inside, and saw Sina moving, to sit straight, and said "Sorry we forgot about you, the situation has been hectic outside.".

"I've heard." replied Sina.

"Anyways, here's your food and water, I'm sorry you have to go through this." said the doctor, trying to empathize with Sina, he opened the door slightly, pushed the food plate on the floor to push it inside and closed the door.

"Don't worry, I can deal with this much. Don't mind that now, what's the progress outside, can you tell me?" asked Sina.

"Oh... yeah... the man had the same disease as the rats, so it spreads, but I'm sure you've heard that, we also found out that the disease does spread from corpses, so the corpses will have to be dealt with, we've been covered incredibly tightly, leather beak shaped mask, all the stuff, you know it, so we don't think we've contracted it, but we can't be sure, anyhow... What else... oh, yeah. We also found out that it spreads by touch, coughing, and rats. And from the testimony of the lady back then, it indicated that the disease kills within five days, starts with normal coughing, then it spirals uncontrollably, then it's followed with sneezing, then as she described it, a feeling of 'knives stabbing through the body' would spread, we've deduced there's also probably headaches, and probably for many others vomiting as well. Nausea might happen too, as well as occasional fainting, but we still have to test many of those out."

"Damn... that's a whole lot to learn about in one day... good job and stay strong out there..." Sina replied, her voice a bit dry as she didn't drink water the whole day.

"Thank you... we're trying our best out there, with you sealing yourself willingly here without much resistance, we can't slack off either... Anyways, I'll be off now, need to go back in order to sleep to be ready for my shift, goodbye." said the doctor, with a voice that seemed once to be a very pleasant voice, but now dwindled due to the tiredness and the situation.

"Goodbye." replied Sina, as she bent over to grab her food and returned into observing the stars while she ate her food, the food wasn't much, a hot soup, a piece of bread, not too old, not too fresh, and a bottle of water, all the necessities for survival.

She finished her food, and by the time she did, she felt tired, her eyelids were occasionally closing, prompting her to sleep, and as she fell into deep sleep, she dreamt of many happy things, a blissful sleep in such tough times.

Going back to Leo's place, and going an hour back in time, Leo was also staring at the night sky, observing it's beauty as he was thinking of when his mother would return.

His stomach was aching, the food he ate wasn't the best food out there, and his stomach wasn't too happy with the situation, his stomach ruined his mood, as he grumbled off to sleep, awaiting, unbeknownst to him, a much, much more heated tomorrow.

The next day, very, very early morning, 4 AM.

The messengers sent by the northern area's mayor arrived at their corresponding target location, they delivered the news, and the reactions of the mayors varied, one had very visible worry ,as his face implied. The other listened to it with very little change in his facial expression, maybe a twitch in his eye when he had heard about the disease's information, but it slipped by the guard, and the last one just was deeply 'pondering', he didn't have any major reaction, he just listened to the messenger, and when the messenger was done, waved for him to leave.

That morning, all the regions of the kingdom had underwent significant changes as they were also locked from the outside, all of them announcing a lockdown on the residents, through similar ways to how the northern areas did it, though the severity of the lockdown varying.

It was now 6 AM, Leo had woke up to eat his breakfast, it was a miracle that a kid his age woke up at this time, and especially by himself, but Leo had followed a strict schedule from very early on, and waking up this early was normal to him.

One thing he heard at 5 AM, while he was half conscious, half asleep, was a subtle knock on the door, but dismissed as he thought he might've been making sounds up in his mind as he was very sleepy at that time.

Remembering this Leo went to just make sure that his assumption was right, only to be surprised by a paper, containing words talking about the disease, the lockdown implications, and other useful information, as for the lockdown, in his area, the western one, the breaking of the regulations was punished with jail and a fine, more severe than the northern area.

He had also read about where the disease originated from, the northern area, and remembered a casual talk that his father and mother were having, and it mentioned that her work was in the northern area.

"That area! Mom's there! No... No!" he panicked at the thought that he wouldn't see his mother for two weeks extra, and god knows how many extra weeks this might last, if not months.

He wanted to go out, but didn't know where to go, neither would he be allowed to go, and he'd probably be captured by the guards and thrown back in his house if he did.

A tormenting feeling of helplessness and languish took over him, as he was grinding his teeth, crying, he fell down to his knees, bending his back and punched the ground in an attempt to release these negative feelings, but to no avail.

It's very hard to describe this feeling of helplessness, the feeling of wanting to help someone you love so much you could die for, but reality facing you with cold eyes, no mercy, as things mercilessly continued to progress, with no sign of time stopping any time soon.

While Leo was facing his own problems, the many morning people were waking up now, realizing the notice on their doors, many after reading the contents felt despair.

With many of them having families to take care of, and a house to retain, stopping all outside activity was devastating, many taking the option of going out to riot, only to be met with a worse end, of being punished by their area's law regarding breaking the seal-off.

One hundred and three people were arrested at the very beginning of the morning, not a good sign for the mayors as this revealed that the stress limits of the people were being put to the test.

The mayors didn't expect obedience, but they didn't expect it to be that many from the beginning.

"Reporting to sir! One hundred and three people have been arrested this morning across all regions, fifteen being here, two reports have just come in making it one hundred and five! This was only for the people who rioted! As for the rest..." he continued as he gave the full report to the southern region's mayor. Multiple reports like that were being told to other mayors with varying numbers as they wrestled themselves mentally to find the optimal solution for their areas, they didn't want to have the armies, winning or not, come back to absolute mayhem in the kingdom.

Speaking of the battle, compared to the kingdom's inner situation which was grim, the situation at the battle was much, much better.