Multiple Pathogenic Factors

"Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock."

At the break of dawn, a loud but steady knocking echoed through the air.

"Hello? Is Mr. Blade at home?"

"Wait a moment, I'm coming!" The young woman, wearing a soot-stained apron, set down the half-sliced bread, wiped her hands on her apron, and walked to the door to open it. "Who are you..."

"My Lord! What is going on?!"

The sight outside the door left her utterly terrified.

In the dim morning light, two bird-headed figures in black robes stood at her doorstep, carrying wooden crates. Their metallic beaks and red lenses reflected a chilling, eerie light.

She instinctively moved to slam the door, but a black-gloved hand shot out, bracing against the door panel. "Please, don't do that, madam. We are doctors! Don't close the door."

It was quite bizarre; at the transition between night and dawn, two figures resembling legendary demons had shown up at her door, speaking human language and claiming to be doctors making a house call.

Realizing he had been misunderstood, Kraft hurriedly explained his intent. "We are here to see the baker, Mr. Blade. He came to the clinic earlier saying he had been sleeping too long, so we are here for a follow-up visit."

Seeing the expression on the woman's face shift from terror to mild suspicion, Kraft withdrew his hand from the door and pointed to the badge on his collar.

"My name is Kraft, a lecturer at Wenden Port Academy. Don't mind this foolish mask; I don't like it either." He forced a polite smile, though it was hidden behind the mask, failing to utilize the advantage of his young, handsome face.

"Uh?" The woman remained wary. This bird-headed man knew her husband's name and his profession, and while he wore a badge she didn't recognize, that wasn't enough reason for her to let them inside.

Especially since her husband hadn't woken up yet.

It was a difficult situation. Kraft reached up to scratch his head, only to clatter against his red lenses. He reorganized his thoughts, trying to sway the lady.

"Are you Mrs. Blade? You see, we believe that not being able to wake up in the morning is interfering with his work, which is quite a serious matter. You wouldn't want your husband to be so distressed, would you?"

The woman's expression wavered. Kraft pushed his advantage. "Our work is very busy; if we miss today, we'll have to wait another half a month. Could you ask Mr. Blade to schedule an appointment for two weeks from now?"

"Oh, I didn't mean that. Please, come in. It's just that my husband is still asleep and it will take a moment; it's getting harder and harder to wake him up." She pulled the door open, letting Kraft and Lucius into the house.

"Thank you, understanding madam. Mr. Blade is truly lucky." Kraft offered a polite compliment, and this friendly attitude made Mrs. Blade relax a little more.

Progress was smooth, but the conversation and the scene gave Kraft a subtle sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen this somewhere before.

Carrying this feeling, he and Lucius stepped into the Blade residence, and Mrs. Blade led them to the table.

"I am so sorry, my husband hasn't woken up yet. He's been waking up later and later lately, so you'll need to wait a while to see him."

"That's quite alright. Perhaps we can start by checking if the house is the problem." Kraft observed the room; everything looked uncomfortable through the pale red filters, and the air filtered through the bird beak lacked its original scent.

"Madam, you wake up quite early. Have you not been affected by your husband?"

"Why do you say that?" She sliced two thin pieces of bread and placed them on a wooden tray. "Sleepiness isn't contagious. We have always woken up early; it's just that Blade has been waking up later recently."

Lucius and Kraft exchanged a glance and shook their heads. They hadn't expected their hypothesis to be debunked so quickly.

If this were an epidemic, his wife, who had the most contact with Blade, should have been infected several times over by now. There was no reason for her to show no signs at all.

The theory regarding the living environment was also shaken. The two lived together, sharing the same food, clothing, and shelter, so that didn't hold up either.

"Do you know of anyone else in the neighborhood who has experienced similar situations recently?" Kraft continued to ask.

Mrs. Blade stopped her knife and recalled for a moment. "No, at least not on this street. You can ask Blade; he knows more people than I do."

"Thank you. It might be a bit presumptuous, but may we try to wake him?"

Kraft was very curious about this "difficulty in waking." He wanted to know just how severe it was for the patient to describe it that way.

"Actually, that would be a huge help to me. Waking him up every day is no simple task. He's in the room over there."

Mrs. Blade pointed to the bedroom door with her knife.

Kraft and Lucius pushed the door open to find a slightly plump man sleeping soundly in bed.

He took hold of the chubby hand protruding from under the quilt and applied slight pressure. "Mr. Blade, wake up."

"You won't wake him up like that." Mrs. Blade's voice came from outside the door. "You have to be louder, use more force, but don't bruise him."

Kraft gradually increased the strength in his hand, gripping Blade's hand firmly and squeezing.

This level of pressure would cause obvious pain to most unprepared people, but Blade remained fast asleep, showing no reaction. His chest rose and fell rhythmically, completely unchanged.

Kraft pressed his fingers against the side of his neck. Without a timer, he could only estimate the carotid pulse at about fifty beats per minute, which was within the normal range.

The bird-beak mask prevented Kraft from leaning in to shout in his ear, so he could only shake Blade's body vigorously. However, even amidst such violent shaking, the man only paused his snoring without any intention of waking up.

"He is indeed hard to wake. I have an idea, but I don't know if it's appropriate." Lucius watched Kraft struggle for a moment before reaching out to take Blade's other hand.

"What is it?"

"I don't think someone with such thick body hair would mind losing one, would they?" He pinched one of Blade's arm hairs and yanked it hard.

"Don't!" Kraft tried to stop him, but it was already too late.

"Hiss." The effect was immediate. It was more painful than a needle prick, and Blade let out a faint gasp in his sleep, showing signs of waking.

Kraft seized the opportunity to shake him even more violently. Under the torture of this "wake-up package," Blade finally opened his eyes.

"Who are you?!" He sat up and scrambled backward until he hit the wall.

"Relax, we are doctors." Kraft spread his hands to show he was harmless. "Dr. Liston said you were having trouble waking up, so we decided to pay a visit."

Waking up to find two bird-headed men in his house was such a massive shock that Blade was fully awake the moment he sat up. He clutched his chest, trying to soothe his racing heart, before getting dressed and sitting at the table.

"Thank you, but next time, please just let my wife wake me up," Blade said, still shaken.

"My deepest apologies, but it was necessary to intuitively understand what 'not easily awakened' truly means. To be honest, I don't think this is normal at all." Kraft took the wooden tray containing bread and placed it in front of Blade. "If you don't mind, we can chat while you eat."

"Would you two like some?" Eating breakfast while chatting with a bird-headed man clearly did nothing to improve one's appetite.

"No, it doesn't have that function yet." He tapped his knuckles against the mask, producing a hollow clack-clack sound.

The eyes behind the red lenses scrutinized Blade carefully. Blade's mental state upon waking was perfectly normal—one could even say it was better than Kraft's own state lately; he hadn't even yawned once.

Setting aside the fact that it would gradually worsen, this quality of sleep was quite enviable.

"Have you been sleeping well lately? Have you had any dreams?"

"I've slept well indeed, perhaps a bit too well—I can't even wake up." Blade tore a piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. "Dreams... I haven't had any, or perhaps I just don't remember them. I only have an impression of the moment I wake up."

He rubbed his arm, feeling a lingering, faint stinging sensation. "It's strange, actually. Sleeping this soundly, yet never having a single dream."

"It's as if the entire duration of your sleep was erased, and you have no idea what happened during that time?" Lucius interjected.

"Ah, yes, that's exactly the feeling." Blade agreed with the analogy. "It's different from how I used to sleep."

Kraft noted this down on his paper and glanced at Lucius. "No idea what happened during that time"—those were the exact words Lucius had used to describe his experience after drinking the diluted solution.

He only needed to make a slight effort to recall the excited expression on Lucius's face and the fervor in his tone at that time.

With Lucius's face hidden behind the mask, his expression was likely not much better.

"Have you heard of anyone else nearby experiencing similar situations? Waking up later and later, being impossible to wake, or perhaps both?"

"No, I know half the people on this street, and they've never mentioned anything like this." Blade shoved the last piece of bread into his mouth, swallowed, and continued, "It's not a big deal, is it? Once I got used to it, I actually thought it was nice to be able to sleep in a bit longer."

"It makes no sense, absolutely no sense."

Kraft and Lucius walked out the door and returned to the street.

"I still believe it has something to do with the Clear Clarity Potion. Even if it doesn't make sense logically, I'm sticking to my view." Lucius felt somewhat agitated by the contradiction between his intuition and reality.

He felt this was a problem caused by the diluted solution, but among the current feedback, this was the only patient with such symptoms after taking the Clear Clarity Potion, while Kraft had at least two examples who had never come into contact with the solution.

"Actually, I have that feeling too, Lucius." Kraft stopped in his tracks and stroked his metal bird beak. He had no beard to stroke, so he had to use the beak as a substitute while thinking.

"If there is a conflict between a hypothesis and reality, reality is certainly not the one that is wrong. One possibility is that our observation of the phenomenon is flawed, and the other is that our theory is incomplete."

"What do you mean?" Lucius asked, confused.

"I think it's the latter. This hypothesis is too simple; there might be more than one risk factor for the illness. The Clear Clarity Potion is merely one of them."

Kraft recalled the map from yesterday and compared it to his physical sensation of walking on Elm Street today. "If my sense of distance isn't too far off, and Liston's map scale is correct, the dashed line I drew yesterday..."

He made a rough calculation. "If I walked in a straight line, it would only take five to ten minutes."

"I also have to return to my initial guess: there is a factor that can exert influence within a certain range. It may not be an infectious disease, but it covers a much larger area than the few houses I first imagined."

Kraft spread his arms, gesturing a large circle.

"Its center is not here; the influence is already very weak by the time it reaches this point, so it only manifests when combined with another risk factor—the Clear Clarity Potion."

"If that's the case, to find it..." Lucius mused.

"The Salt Tide District." Kraft picked up his wooden case. "We need to go to the Salt Tide District and take a look."