Chapter 50
The border between the Orange Zone and the Yellow Zone.
The vacant lot in front of Jeongja Station's restroom.
Hundreds of Stalkers had lined up in a long queue once again, gathered to relieve themselves and wash safely.
“Damn, why aren't the people ahead coming out? Are they doing the full shower course in there?”
“Using all ten minutes is kind of an unspoken rule.”
“When I get in, I'm going to drink tap water until my belly bursts too.”
Just as everyone was waiting their turn, chatting with fatigue etched across their faces.
Whirrrrr-!
The empty air right beside the restroom cube warped, and blue gridwork began to spread outward.
“Huh...?”
“Uh, uhhh?! That!!”
“It's System-nim!! System-nim is patching things again!!!”
“It isn't the Black Zone, is it...?”
The survivors who remembered the day the restroom first appeared all cheered at once and backed away.
When the light faded, what appeared was a cube-shaped, all-glass vending machine as large as the restroom.
“A... a vending machine?”
“Does it sell snacks or drinks...?”
“Even so... isn't it way too big...?”
“It's almost three times my height...”
"It's even bigger than the restroom..."
One of the survivors in line cautiously approached and peered through the glass.
They hoped they might finally be able to eat the foods only Shop members could eat.
But.
“Huh...? Huhh...? Huh?!!!”
The contents were far beyond the survivor's expectations.
“M... medicine...”
“What? What kind of snack is it? Yakgwa?”
“System-nim has yakgwa...!!!"
“I haven't seen yakgwa in so long!”
“No! Med... medicine...! It's medicine!!!!!!”
“What? You mean medicine...?”
At the trembling voice, the people rushed over frantically.
“Medicine?”
“You mean medicine??!!!”
Densely packed goods were displayed behind the glass.
The pinnacle of modern medicine, no longer manufacturable, greeted them.
Tylenol, cold medicine, disinfectant, antibiotics, bandages, ointments, and more.
All those dazzling goods were inside the vending machine.
“Move! Everybody move the fuck aside!!!”
A heavily built Stalker shouted as he pushed through the crowd and reached the very front of the vending machine.
His gaze locked onto the [Disinfectant] in a transparent plastic bottle behind the glass.
[Disinfectant (250 ml)]
[Price: 50 mana stones]
“F-Fifty mana stones...? A whole bottle of disinfectant for only 50 mana stones...?!”
Thick tears dripped from both of his eyes.
As soon as he shoved the mana stones into the slot on one side of the vending machine, disinfectant shot out of the dispenser.
“It... it's really disinfectant... Disinfectant...”
The man collapsed onto the ground as if his knees had given out and muttered.
“Aaaah... We survived... My little brother can disinfect his arm... He doesn't have to have it cut off... Waaahhh!!”
His desperate sobbing, as he clawed at his chest, served as the starting signal, and the crowd's stunned rationality evaporated completely.
“Fuuuuuck!! I want!! I want antibiotics!!!”
“My party member's burning up with a fever, fuck!! Please, let's buy just one antipyretic!!”
“Don't push!! Get in line!”
“I said get in line, you bastards!!!!”
The vacant lot instantly turned into a cauldron of madness.
*****
The scene in the Survivors Gallery was not much different.
Title: Medicine!!! Medicine!! Fuck!!! The System patched it!!!!!
It's a pharmacy!! A pharmacy vending machine appeared next to the restroom!!!
I just bought red medicine!!!! I was going to wait it out a little longer and cut off my infected toe if there was no hope!!
Maybe I don't have to cut it off after all!!!
??
ㄴ Huh??
ㄴ Holy shit!! A real pharmacy appeared?!
There's a pharmacy?
ㄴ Don't bullshit me, fuck, I'll really kill you
ㄴ A pharmacy vending machine appeared next to every restroom, you idiot!!!!!
ㄴ Fuck, you put in mana stones and medicine comes out!!! You bastards!!!!!
Don't fuck with me...
ㄴ Don't fuck with me...
ㄴ There's medicine? Stop fucking bullshitting...
Go to the restroom, you bastards
ㄴ A pharmacy appeared next to every restroom just now!!!
ㄴ You bastards!!! Get in line right now!!!!!
Title: I just saw it in a Yellow Zone plaza...
The vending machine even had antibiotics and painkillers.
The prices are genuinely humane too.
Our party member was infected, burning up with fever and dying, but we just barely managed to get them to take some medicine;;
There are antibiotics??
ㄴ Even when looting general hospitals in unexplored areas, they're hard to find?
ㄴ Antibiotics <<< This stuff is genuinely impossible to find...?”
ㄴ Exactly
Do they have painkillers too? My tooth is rotten and I need to have it pulled...
ㄴ They have painkillers! They have painkillers!!! Hurry over and buy some!!
ㄴ [Troll NEET] How many are you getting pulled?
ㄴ Five
ㄴ [Troll NEET] Hey.
ㄴ Not pulling many, huh?
ㄴ That's cheap for that many.
They even sell compression bandages!!
ㄴ Do they sell casts too?
ㄴ Yep, they sell casts too
ㄴ Can I just wrap this around my broken arm?
ㄴ No, the price is insanely cheap to begin with!!!
The prices make no sense at all ㅇㅇ
ㄴ Seriously, does this have health insurance applied to it?
ㄴ No idea;;
System-nim, are these prices covered by health insurance too??
ㄴ [Troll NEET] Dunno
ㄴ Not you, you bastard
ㄴ [This user has been banned]
ㄴ ?
ㄴ Troll NEET is an administrator now too lol
ㄴ Ah lol that's right lol
Drip-drip-drip-!
Seeing mana stones trickle down from the air alongside all the users who liked me...
“Ehehehehehe.”
A smile began blooming across my lips.
Actually, I'd considered acquiring a tile first and selling medicine before anything else.
I even wondered whether I should have opened this before the restroom.
“But I couldn't help it back then.”
There was an order to things, and helping with hygiene meant solving the fundamental problem first.
But since I got this one for free this time, I think I copied it at just the right moment.
Wow, but the fact that it's a vending machine is the real kicker...
ㄴ Seriously, you just pay and pull one out, so it's insanely convenient
You don't even have to wait in line long
ㄴ The lines move quickly too
“Hmm.”
I hadn't expected it to be copied as a vending machine, either.
[Blueprint Copying Lv.6 Achieved!]
[The maximum number of copyable tiles increases: 20 → 40]
[Passive: Copied offline areas automatically transform into the most efficient form based on the selected tile's number, shape, and purpose.]
I'd forgotten, but Blueprint Copying did have a passive that automatically transformed things into the most efficient form.
The restroom was fine as-is because that was the most efficient form, while a pharmacy's most efficient form was apparently a vending machine.
“The System bastard is pretty smart.”
Smarter than me.
Fuck, they even have eczema ointment!!
ㄴ Seriously? My skin is completely fucked up..
ㄴ It doesn't cost much
ㄴ They even have athlete's foot ointment lol
ㄴ Kya!!
ㄴ Kya!!!
Zombies are nothing compared to athlete's foot <<< This bastard is genuinely scary;;
ㄴ Seriously, I can't sleep because I keep scratching
ㄴ Honestly, more than one or two people have completely fucked-up skin right now
ㄴ At least there's ointment ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
Go wash yourself clean in the restroom right next to it and apply the ointment lol
ㄴ Kya... now this is the good life lol
ㄴ Ahh, so refreshing, ahh
Even so, since the vending machine was so large, it seemed to carry quite a variety of medicines.
“I told you, the vending machine is as big as a restroom.”
[External Copied Tiles (Pharmacy Vending Machines No. 1–5)]
[Until offline inventory refill: 23 hours 59 minutes]
[Main Branch (Starplex 2F Pharmacy)]
[Until main-branch inventory refill: 68 hours 12 minutes]
“Oh.”
When I checked the status window, the pharmacy vending-machine tiles I'd copied and placed outside had completely different inventory-refill timers from my main-branch tile.
My base has a 72-hour cycle, but are the offline vending machines refilled every day on an exact one-day cycle?
[- The physical inventory of tiles copied offline is treated as independent inventory]
[- The inventory of the main branch and externally copied tiles is not linked; each is consumed and refilled separately according to its own quantity.]
“Ohhhhh!!!!!!”
This is fucking great! This is really fucking great, isn't it?
“It really is?”
When I ran to the pharmacy on the second floor to check, not a single item in its stock had been depleted.
“Then medicine won't be quite so scarce outside, either.”
The fact that it refills every day is the real kicker.
“This... is actually pretty good, isn't it?”
Then, in theory, the more of my owned tiles I copied outside, the more profit I could make.
“I shall work hard so that you can enjoy even more infrastructure!!”
Still, with medicine like this, there could be emergency situations where someone needed it too urgently to even make it to a vending machine.
I separately set aside basic emergency medicine kits and red medicine and registered them in the online Shop as well.
-Starplex-
[Complete First-Aid Kit (Disinfectant, Antibiotics, Painkillers, Bandage Set)]
[Price: 100 mana stones]
[Stock: 20 / 20]
[Disinfectant (250 ml)]
[Price: 50 mana stones]
[Stock: 200 / 200]
[Time until Shop opens: 31 hours 12 seconds]
The quantity was woefully insufficient, but there was nothing I could do.
Even at a large pharmacy, I'd stripped the warehouse bare, down to the last thing, and registered everything for sale.
“The online Shop hasn't opened yet, so the kids will have to wait a little, but...”
I wanted to copy the Medical Center too, but
[Mana Stones Currently Held: 125,500]
“The cost is increasing exponentially.”
I had spent 100,000 mana stones raising Blueprint Copying to Lv.6, and another 100,000 on construction costs, so it was impossible for now.
Still, with the medicine vending machines in place, this should be enough for now.
Okay, then?
I picked up the pork belly and pineapple skewers cooling over the gas burner.
“Let's finish eating the meat first.”
*****
Meanwhile, in a corner of the Myth Guild's temporary barracks in the Orange Zone.
“Si-yeon. From now on, you're out of Farming Party Two.”
The party leader, a veteran guild member, delivered the cold verdict to Si-yeon.
“Huh...? S-Senior! Now that the medicine vending machines are here, I can take those medicines and heal really well...!”
“That's exactly the problem.”
The senior frowned and sighed.
“Your trait only lets you heal or buff effectively when you consume medicine or Awakening food, right?”
“Y-Yes...?”
“Disinfectant costs 50 mana stones. Of course, that's absurdly cheap compared to the market price.”
What, then, was the problem? Couldn't she just consume the cheap medicine and do her share?
“Other healers and support classes can cast area-of-effect heals and use combat-boosting buffs without spending a single mana stone.”
“Ah... yes...”
“Your cost-effectiveness is awful. You aren't efficient enough.”
Si-yeon couldn't refute the senior's cold calculation and merely bit her lip.
‘Cost-effectiveness...’
In a world brought to ruin, every little thing was tied to survival. It wasn't that she didn't understand, but...
‘You're... so cruel...’
Si-yeon lowered her head.
“I've already spoken to the officers. We'll bring another healer with our party. For the time being, clean the barracks and stand by.”
After he left, Si-yeon buried her face in her knees, gripping the broom he had handed her.
There wasn't a single thing he had said that was wrong.
“I need medicine just to pull my weight... So it's true that my cost-effectiveness is the worst... Hoo...”
She'd been happy for nothing over a patch that made modern medicine available through vending machines.
“I'm such an idiot...”
Si-yeon sighed and looked at her unique quest window.
[Saint of Pharmacology Main Quest 7: Consume disinfectant and cold medicine]
[Reward: ???]
“...Right. I'll clear the quest first.”
Even if the guild had abandoned her, perhaps a path would appear if she kept clearing quests.
Si-yeon gripped the pouch of mana stones she had received as her daily pay from guild work and hurried out of the barracks toward the pharmacy vending machine installed in a nearby plaza.
“Oh... I guess you really can get disinfectant...”
“Hurry... I wish it were my turn already...”
After waiting in the long line, Si-yeon finally dispensed a bottle of disinfectant and a bottle of general cold medicine, then slipped into an abandoned building tucked away in a corner.
“I hope clearing the quest at least raises my healing ability...! Or gives me a buff...!”
If her stats increased, she would at least have an excuse to beg them to let her rejoin the party.
Si-yeon shut her eyes tightly and steeled herself.
She poured the cold medicine into her mouth, then drank every last drop of disinfectant from the bottle.
“Uee... It tastes awful...”
Just as she was savoring the bitter taste of the chemical medicine sliding down her throat.
Pop-!
“Huh, huh...?!”
A sacred, shimmering red light gathered between both of Si-yeon's hands, and a cheerful notification rang inside her head.
Ding-!
[Saint of Pharmacology Main Quest 7 Complete!!]
[Reward 1: 10 Lesser Health Potions granted]
Poof! Poof! Pobbobong! Poof!
Along with the notification, glass bottles filled with dazzling red liquid poured ceaselessly down from thin air.
One, two, three...
Exactly ten glass bottles poured into Si-yeon's arms.
“W-What is this?”
With a dazed expression, Si-yeon lifted one of the bottles in her arms and checked its detailed information.
[Lesser Health Potion]
[Crafter: Lee Si-yeon]
[Effect: Immediately and rapidly regenerates all external injuries, including abrasions and lacerations, upon consumption]
[Feature: A consumable item that anyone can drink, regardless of whether they are Awakened]
“Huh?”
Si-yeon's pupils shook wildly.
Then new system alerts filled her field of vision.
Ding-!
[Reward 2: The crafting recipe for Lesser Health Potions is permanently unlocked!]
[From now on, you can combine disinfectant and general cold medicine to craft and mass-produce the potion yourself]
[Warning: Crafting too many medicines at once may inflict a debuff]
[Reward 3: Combining disinfectant and general cold medicine unlocks the Infection Resistance Aura skill. For a set period, people nearby will resist diseases more effectively]
[The efficiency of this skill increases by 25% for two hours!]
“!!!”
After checking the rewards, Si-yeon immediately returned to the Myth Guild's barracks.
Patter-patter-patter-!
“Huh? Hey, Lee Si-yeon. I told you to clean, so where have you been running off to—”
Si-yeon answered the senior who was laying into her in a dry, businesslike voice.
“One red potion costs 120 mana stones.”