Struggle in the Steam Age

Twenty minutes later, the door of the office was pushed open, but it wasn't just Priest Carter who came in, but a group of priests wearing robes. The one in the lead has the impressive white beard.

"Your Excellency Julius." Lawrence immediately pulled Fatina to stand up after seeing the old man, and then bowed deeply with his right hand on his left chest, because at this time he recognized the leading priest identity of.

As the High Priest of the Scepter of the Northeast Diocese of the Church of Knowledge, this old man rarely appeared in front of everyone. Lawrence lived in St. Gutenberg Cathedral for such a long time before, and the number of times he saw the high priest of the scepter is also very few.

The appearance of the high priest of the scepter is not a good sign, because it means that things have reached a very troublesome point. So much so that it is necessary to mobilize more than half of the power of the Church of Knowledge in the entire diocese.

"Sit down, child." The High Priest Julius Scepter walked behind the desk and sat on a chair, and then motioned everyone present to sit down. "Okay, let's talk about what you found and the analysis again."

"As you wish, Your Excellency." Lawrence lowered his head slightly, and then tried to describe all the facts he and Fatina knew without any subjective ideas, but in the end he expressed his suspicion .

"Everything we both found pointed to the fact that this outbreak was caused by typhoid bacillus spread by contaminated water. But what struck me as strange is that typhoid has a long incubation period and this case was in The sudden outbreak in less than a week is completely inconsistent with the characteristics of this disease."

"Are you sure?" The high priest of the scepter, Julius, opened his eyes suddenly after hearing Lawrence's words. As the high priest of the scepter of the Church of Knowledge, Julius' mastery of knowledge can be said to exceed most But it doesn't mean that he is omniscient, so he really doesn't know the characteristics of typhoid fever.

"I'm sure." Lawrence nodded. "As an epidemic disease that often breaks out, the characteristics of this disease have been studied by everyone, and the research results can even be found in the library of the university."

"Sure enough, you still need to ask a professional about this kind of thing." The high priest Julius smiled after hearing Lawrence's words. What a shame, but it is a joyful thing, because it means that there is new knowledge to learn.

"Brother Arthur, tell this kid the results of our investigation just now. Maybe he can see something different." After thinking for a few seconds, the High Priest of Julius Scepter spoke to Ya of the Faith Department. High Priest Arthur signaled, and High Priest Arthur immediately took out a map of Eagle Fort and put it on the desk in the office.

"Before we asked the staff of charity schools in Eagle Fort, the number of people asking for leave in many schools has soared in the past two days. Some students themselves are sick, and some students have relatives who are sick at home, and they have to go home Taking care of loved ones. Two of the worst schools are in the cog area and 1/3 of the people are off work, even a few teachers."

As he spoke, he pointed to the map on the table. On this map, the location of each school is marked in red. And beside these red dots are some numbers that look like they have just been written in pencil.

"The number before the slash is the number of people who have asked for leave in the past two days, and the number after the slash is the theoretical number of people that this school should have." High Priest Arthur explained to everyone present. "The situation is not optimistic right now."

"Why didn't we find out about this before Lawrence reminded us?" Priest Carter asked a little puzzled. "Just looking at this data, I think anyone would think something is wrong."

"You are right, but for grassroots charitable schools, many people often ask for leave for various reasons, and there is very little communication between schools. So this large-scale leave of absence did not cause any attention."

"What's more, people don't pay attention to the situation in this area at ordinary times. So under normal circumstances, if something goes wrong and no one discovers and notifies in advance like Lawrence, it may take us a week to know what happened in those areas. And this The outbreak of an infectious disease was so fast that the situation deteriorated to the point where no one could react." High Priest Arthur explained to everyone present.

Having said that, High Priest Arthur turned and looked at the high priest with Julius' scepter sitting on the main seat: "If it is true that there is a long incubation period for the spread of typhoid fever as Lawrence said, then this outbreak of typhoid fever It's clearly not normal."

"So now we have to find out the possible culprits behind the scenes." The High Priest of Julius Scepter said that after learning about the normal transmission speed of typhoid fever from Lawrence, everyone present was aware of the typhoid fever. The sudden outbreak of the epidemic is not a normal outbreak of infectious diseases, and it is very likely that there are supernatural beings behind it.

"The first thing to do is to find out the source of the infection." Lawrence suggested, "Whether it is to stop the further deterioration of the problem or find the guy behind the scenes, the premise is to find the place where the epidemic first broke out."

"Do you have a solution?" The High Priest Julius looked up at Lawrence. "If there is no better way. We can only choose to notify other churches and the city hall of Eagle Fort to lock this location through a comprehensive and large-scale search. Of course, this will easily lead to the trouble behind the scenes Those who want to know the news of our intervention in advance and make corresponding preparations and countermeasures."

"I have a way." After obtaining permission, Lawrence came to the table and looked at the map and analyzed, "The overall situation is very bad now, but the only good news is that this time we discovered it when the typhoid fever just started to break out. The situation is not right, so according to the proportion of the number of people who are sick in different places and the characteristics of the disease's transmission through water sources, we can greatly narrow down the possible scope of the source of infection."

On the map of Eagle Fort, Lawrence first used a pencil to draw the locations of six ratman lairs where the disease broke out, and then drew the direction of the sewer on the map while asking Fatina. Soon, the lines representing the sewers stretched into a web.

"Huh?" Looking at the sewer pipe network gradually formed on the map, many priests present found some clues. Because these sewer pipes connected many epidemic outbreaks together, it can also be seen from this that the several lairs where the Ratman outbreaks were all located downstream of the ground epidemic area.

"In other words, this eruption started from our human settlements, and there are three eruption points." After simple statistics and connecting those eruption points with a pencil, a fact clearly appeared in front of everyone.

"Yes." Lawrence nodded. "If I'm not wrong, the water supply in these three places is likely to be uniformly supplied through some kind of pipeline system. For example, I have been to this epidemic outbreak in the Gear District. Most of the water sources in several blocks come from several places. Concentrated water supply points, and the water for these water supply points comes from a single water tower.”

"Call Hans and Lisa over here." After hearing Lawrence's words, High Priest Arthur turned to look at a priest standing at the door, "If I remember correctly, their home was in two other places where the epidemic broke out. point nearby."

Soon, two young priests, a man and a woman, entered the room. After a brief inquiry, everyone learned that the other two possible epidemic outbreak points, Hudson Street and Fraxel District, also have their own water towers. the surrounding neighborhood.

"Then what we should do now is to go to those water towers." The High Priest Julius Scepter concluded, and then he looked at Lawrence and said, "However, in order to avoid arousing the vigilance of the enemy, we will Need your help."