>>5306048"Surely Guts will figure out the rest of the story if he's going there personally. We can deal with those questions later if it means asking you why you haven't eradicated this disease already. The Mandragorans wouldn't have come this far if you didn't let them spread all the way over here. Why is that?"
"Have you taken a look at what's happening outside, Vlad? Demons, invasions from different lands, wicked plagues, despair after despair. You might be able to deal with these predicaments while you are young. Lord knows I did... With Cromwell being so close to the border, this land has been captured an seized well over a hundred times. I managed to establish peace and stay afloat for a long time... But time was not kind to me, it changes who you are, and as my wife turned ill, I came to the conclusion that I needed to leave something to the following generation."
"Which was?"
"This Mandragoran disease. While leaving much suffering toward my people, if properly controlled, could raise an army that would make even the weakest child capable of dealing with my strongest soldier. A counter measure for all the pain and suffering plaguing our fallen kingdom. After so many deaths, sharing a cure without having an army would make their deaths entirely meaningless."
"Those people never consented to being mutated, Bolzack! You lied and told them you were working for a cure, when you were just looking for a way to fully brainwash them."
"Brainwash? That's the exact side effect I've been trying so desperately to cure... Be it diseases, dismemberment, even when the victim's heart has already stopped, the Mandragora can revive them and return them to the world of the living, but it comes at a great cost... Their mind is never the same. Such was the cost of curing my dear wife from her sickness."
This magical elixir I've been marketing to my people is nothing but snake oil... An easy fix to all their troubles can't come without a cost, and I know that better than all of them."
Truthfully, Bolzack did not want a cure for the disease, for it would either give their people the same fate as his wife, or render his plan of a private plant army pointless and devoid of meaning of his massacres, even if he doesn't seem sorry for the lost lives or for lying to their faces
>So you'd rather let them all die than tell them the truth?>You deserve being shunned by the rebels, you heartless fiend.>There's still time to turn this around, Bolzack. Let me grow this Mandragora tree. 