A Plague Maiden cracked the Black Death?
That's an interesting claim. Fighting poison with poison?
Or is it due to miraculous magic?
Looking at the sorceress, her face flushed with excitement, her petite body trembling slightly from the thrill.
Guilliman wasn't in a hurry to attend to other matters; instead, he patiently listened to Keira's explanation.
During the ambush of the Wild Hunt last time, the Plague Maiden hid in the basement at the beginning of the battle, thus escaping.
Considering that this monster was quite intelligent and easy to control,
after the battle, the witcher, as agreed, handed this special Plague Maiden, who harbored ulterior motives, over to the sorceress Keira for research.
Now, over a month later, with Keira's unremitting efforts, she had indeed achieved significant results.
First, the source of the Catriona Plague's infection was confirmed to be primarily rats, specifically the fleas living on the rats, which then transmitted to humans.
This plague, which could easily cause death, was harmless to rats. Instead, due to the rats' migration and activity, humans in villages and towns suffered.
The underlying reason was that the common people were too unconcerned with personal hygiene, or rather, they lacked the conditions to maintain personal hygiene.
This led to rampant rats, fleas everywhere, and the spread of the plague.
After all, in an era of undeveloped productivity, firewood was a very precious resource. Taking a hot bath was an extremely luxurious affair for commoners.
Firewood, rice, oil, salt – why was firewood placed first?
In cold seasons, the importance of firewood even surpassed food.
Throughout history, even in today's developed modern society, countless people still die from the cold.
Cooking, heating, and warming all required firewood.
In most human settlements, the timber closest to them had long been cut down. Further afield, there were not only wild beasts and bandits but also monsters. Even the time and physical exertion of traveling and transporting would not be worth it.
So, many things were not because the common people were unwilling, but because they were unable to do them.
Just like many ancient cities in past European civilizations, did the citizens willingly throw their excrement into the streets, with everyone living by stepping on feces?
It was simply because productivity was not developed enough, and there were no Supporting facilities sewer systems built for the cities.
"I see. Confirming the source of infection is indeed a major step in combating the plague."
"But even if it's confirmed to be the plague, what method do you have to control this plague?"
Actually, the theory that the Catriona Plague was a rat plague, spread by rats, was not first proposed by Keira. Years ago, shortly after the plague spread, scholars and doctors had put forward this view.
But unfortunately, while rats are ubiquitous and weak in combat, these small creatures are incredibly good at hiding, and they are fast and agile. When you truly want to control them, it is exceptionally difficult.
Even in modern society, this is true, let alone in the medieval period with undeveloped productivity and order.
Neither kings nor other rulers, not even a village chief, had the ability, or rather, the determination and motivation, to make everyone prevent and eliminate rats.
They couldn't even command everyone to maintain personal hygiene, not to dump excrement indiscriminately, and to bathe frequently.
However, preventing a plague, if not done on a large scale, is very difficult to achieve with the efforts of only a small number of people.
That's why this plague continued unabated, even after claiming the lives of village after village, it could not be stopped.
Hearing the witcher's question, Keira proudly puffed out her chest and said:
"It is indeed difficult to actively kill the rats hiding in the sewers."
"But have you forgotten? When we dealt with this Plague Maiden, she controlled thousands of rats to protect herself."
"While it's uncertain if all Plague Maidens have this ability,"
"at least the one we have can make those hiding rats come out voluntarily for us to eliminate."
"I have already developed a special magic circle that can enhance the Plague Maiden's ability to control rats."
"As long as she is in our hands, eliminating large numbers of those plague-carrying rats will not be a problem."
Keira's words did indeed inspire the witcher.
As one of the recognized four pests, although eliminating large numbers of rats would disrupt the ecological balance and cause a reduction in the numbers of other animals,
in extraordinary times, if the rats, as the source of plague infection, could be eliminated on a large scale, it would indeed effectively reduce the spread of the plague.
Furthermore, medieval transportation was inconvenient, and the plague was difficult to spread between different settlements. Basically, eliminating rats in a town or village was equivalent to eliminating the hidden danger of a plague outbreak in that area.
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