Chapter 56
[Title: Ah, lol, Exploration Successful]
Author: Western Pioneer
(Meme showing various gold and silver treasures)
Who am I? The world's greatest treasure hunter.
I went far west past Ellad and explored the old kingdoms, lol.
I've arrived in Adrian and am thinking of selling the items now.
I'm planning to auction them at the capital's market, so please show lots of interest.
[Recommendations9999+] [Dislikes145]
- Is my hobby finally getting its moment!!!
- Wow, you really went far.
- Wow, there are so damn many amazing things.
- I can even see the marks of a few kingdoms that collapsed after deciding to trade, only for the Great War to break out.
ㄴ (Meme of someone struggling to hold back tears)
ㄴ (Meme of a howling cat)
A post like that had gone up a few days ago.
Treasure hunters, explorers, adventurers, and so on.
Known by many names, they traveled through the kingdoms destroyed by the Great War and collected treasures.
Then they returned to the Adrian Empire and made a living by auctioning off the items...
But the Gallery user's next post was the problem.
[Title: Huh, Fuck, What's Wrong with Me]
Author: Western Pioneer
(Meme showing swollen lymph nodes in the groin)
I got something like a tumor in my groin;
My head is hot as a fucking fireball, and my whole body aches. What is this?
- Aaargh, you fucking bastard!
- Don't zoom in, fuck.
- Huh? You too? I've been feeling a little weird lately, too.
- Did you eat some strange fruit? Lol.
ㄴ You must've eaten the Fire-Fire Fruit.
ㄴ Author) Hahaha, fuck, I'm Torch Man.
- Isn't this kind of dangerous?
ㄴ Hey, that's just what treasure hunters are like!
ㄴ You probably just caught a chill after exploring so far, yeah.
ㄴ Isn't it a glorious battle scar?
True to an otherworld where only people with iron constitutions survived, no one complained about ordinary injuries.
And since the image had zoomed in on the groin so excessively, I thought it was some newly developed tactical nuke.
But those were warning signs.
The early symptoms of the Black Death, specifically bubonic plague.
And that Gallery user became an excellent carrier, spreading the even more horrifying pneumonic plague throughout Adrian.
[Title: Rat Meat Sure Is Tasty!]
(Meme of grilled rat skewers)
Want one?
[Recommendations53] [Dislikes42]
- Aaargh, fuck!
- What are you doing instead of working, Sub Mod!
ㄴ ? Why is this a gross-out image?
ㄴ Ah lol, these bastards are Kelleartonites.
ㄴ It's considered a delicacy in Adrian, lol.
- Seriously, rats are the GOAT.
ㄴ You get meat, and they're easy to catch.
ㄴ Go through the waterways once and you can catch dozens of them, ah lol.
Besides, the people of Adrian ate rat meat.
They ate it as a snack when they couldn't buy anything at the market or when they were hungry.
There were rats everywhere inside the city, and after the Great War, rats had become a valuable source of food.
Thanks to that, the Black Death didn't need to spread through rat fleas or the air.
They had all immediately joined the Black Death!
- Uh, my body hurts.
- My head is so hot I feel like I can't move;
- I can't breathe properly, cough cough.
- Maybe I'd get better if I went to a church prayer meeting and prayed once?
- It is God's punishment!
- Come to the church. Let us repent through a gathering.
And to top it all off, there were church gatherings.
“This is driving me crazy.”
The conditions had become perfect for the Black Death to spread.
“When I think of the Black Death, all I know is the plague doctor.”
[Marketplace]
[Category – Medicine / Antibiotics]
But the system knew the answer.
Recalling what I remembered from the Internet in my previous life, I entered the antibiotics tab in the marketplace.
I didn't know much, but I did know the stories about penicillin coming out and killing all the germs.
I went in thinking that searching for antibiotics might bring up something useful.
[Gentamicin100mL] - 8 points
[Ciprofloxacin100mL] - 9 points
.
.
“What is this?”
Names I'd never seen before greeted me.
Gentamicin? Didn't that sound like the name of a skill a wizard in some RPG would use?
Fortunately, the marketplace also supported a search function.
[Please enter the word you wish to search for.]
[Searching for the keyword: Black Death...]
[Results including streptomycin, gentamicin, tetracycline, and more have been found.]
[Usage amounts and instructions will be included with and shipped alongside the purchased product.]
“Wow, I knew I could count on you.”
The system knew even if I didn't.
The system is God, and I am invincible.
*
Following the system's instructions, I bought various things, from disposable syringes to antibiotics.
Judging by the girl I'd picked up coughing blood, it was pneumonic plague.
In any case, that meant it was dangerous.
So I took the syringe and went into the room...
“...I knew it.”
The haggard girl glanced at the syringe, then immediately closed her eyes.
She looked as if she had given up.
“It'll only sting a little.”
After telling her the well-intentioned lie doctors often used, I took hold of the girl's arm.
“Eek!”
She reflexively flinched when the needle went in, but only for a moment.
I finished injecting the antibiotics and pulled the needle back out.
And reused the syringe for the treatment to come.
I didn't. I threw it into the rift.
The girl slowly, very slowly, opened her eyes to slits, then tilted her head when she saw that her body was perfectly fine.
“Weren't you trying to kill me?”
“What a creepy thing to say.”
If I had a headache, did I look like a medieval doctor about to split my skull open?
When I firmly pressed down on the girl's head, it sank into the mattress just like her hands had clutched the blanket.
“Strange. Usually, humans drive out or kill patients infected with the plague...”
Leaving the girl muttering softly, apparently surprised by my actions, I rose from my seat.
I had only treated one person so far.
Of course, I had no intention of going outside myself to treat people, but I had more than enough ways to stop the Black Death.
Just as I was logging into the Gallery and about to go outside, I turned to the girl and asked,
“Come to think of it, what's your name?”
“Name? I don't have one...”
The girl seemed to think deeply for a long while, then spoke as if she had remembered something.
“Lust?”
“?”
What was the little brat talking about?
She must have been living with a hellish persona that even the most likable fixed-nickname user couldn't imitate.
I was wondering whether to give her a flick on the forehead when she somehow noticed and hurriedly hid under the blanket.
I stared at her and said,
“How about Penny?”
“Penny?”
“I was wondering what you thought since you don't have a proper name.”
The girl blinked twice, then gave a small nod.
That name had no particular meaning.
It was simply because she was the first girl with the Black Death to receive an antibiotic injection.
Penny was short for penicillin.
*
The Black Death was such a catastrophe that thinking of the Middle Ages immediately brought it to mind.
Fortunately, I had antibiotics, a counter to the Black Death, but there was a problem.
“There aren't any people.”
There were no doctors to prescribe or administer the antibiotics.
But leaving it to medieval doctors would be difficult, since they were closer to mad scientists studying the mysteries of the human body.
It would also be difficult to distribute syringes indiscriminately through the marketplace.
“Do they know where their veins are?”
They probably didn't know the structure of their own bodies.
Medicine had plenty of treatments that seemed barbaric even if you went back only a few hundred years.
At least, that's what I thought.
- Veins? You mean blood vessels?
- I know about the tubes that blood flows through, though.
- Ah lol, do you really think there's a newbie who doesn't even know that?
ㄴ Head Mod*) Ah.
Come to think of it, these people were from the era of the Great War.
Those who had seen corpses vastly outnumbered those who had not.
Naturally, they were masters of the mysteries of the human body.
In other words, they had a rough idea of what was where and in which part of the body.
That made things much easier.
I immediately wrote an announcement post to be displayed at the very top of the Gallery.
[Announcement: Part-Time Workers Wanted]
Author: Head Mod*
No educational background or experience required.
Applicants who have participated in a war preferred.
Applicants who have seen many corpses even more preferred.
Must have good eyesight.
Job: Go around people's homes and treat the plague, yeah.
- Fuck, that's telling us to go die.
- You want us to examine that disease? That's a little much;
- Even if it's you, Head Mod, I think this might be a little difficult...
- My parents are still alive and need me, so I apologize, but I can't die yet.
But the response was worse than I'd expected.
Come to think of it, I hadn't mentioned the salary or the existence of the treatment.
I wrote and uploaded another announcement post.
[Announcement: Part-Time Workers Wanted (Edited)]
Author: Head Mod*
This disease is called the Black Death, and I have its cure, yeah.
Part-time workers will receive the cure first.
The job is to go around people's homes and treat them.
Protective items from the marketplace that prevent infection will also be provided to workers first, yeah.
The salary is 2,500 gyeongdan per month.
(Negotiable, yeah.)
- Fuck, me!!!!
- 2,500 gyeongdan??? That's insane lol.
ㄴ I definitely have to do it, right???
- Please pick me. It's been my lifelong dream.
- Truthfully, I love the Black Death.
- My parents pushed me to do it. I'm applying.
“That's done.”
First dibs on the medicine and a salary of 2,500? No one could pass that up.
But in truth, 2,500 gyeongdan was about 2.5 million won by the standards of my previous life.
It certainly wasn't a salary you couldn't live on.
But the job involved facing an infectious disease no one had ever encountered before and working as a plague doctor.
It wasn't exactly something worth welcoming this enthusiastically.
- I barely make 500 gyeongdan a month, and 2,500? Please let me do it.
- I can work after sleeping only five hours a day, seriously.
- I just don't sleep.
- I'll be buried there, seriously.
- I want to date the Black Death.
But things were different when the standard was the Middle Ages.
People either barely earned 500 gyeongdan or were paid in food instead of gyeongdan.
There were more than enough people who couldn't find work even when they desperately wanted it.
In that situation, 2,500 was an astronomical amount.
- Tlqkf, so when are you hiring?
- Tell us to come in for interviews, fuck.
- Why are you getting us all excited and then not posting the job listing?
- Head Mod, hurry up and hire me so you can work me like a dog!!!!
ㄴ Head Mod*) ; Aren't you people scared, knowing you'll have to face the Black Death?
So I asked because I was curious...
- Isn't working under Head Mod kind of a rise in status? Maybe?
ㄴ It's an honorary position, but it pays a lot lol.
- Head Mod, you said you'd give us medicine.
ㄴ Seriously, if it's a marketplace item, it's 100% trustworthy.
ㄴ If something new gets listed, you have to buy it without even thinking twice.
ㄴ Medicine certified by Head Mod? It's guaranteed to cure you, yeah.
“No.”
Do they really trust me this much?
Maybe they trusted modern medicine and modern supplies, rather than me.
I thought for a moment, then began writing a new job listing.
*
The slums on the outskirts of Adrian.
Wails, screams, and bloodstains filled every street.
Everyone locked their homes and hid inside, and no one ventured outside easily.
One particular home was no different.
“His fever won't go down!”
“He only keeps getting hotter. How long are we supposed to sit here and watch him like this?”
Two anxious voices reached his ears.
Edmund repeatedly sighed as he nervously ran a hand over his forehead.
His son, who had gone outside, was coughing blood and suffering from a high fever.
It was clearly the Black Death according to Head Mod—the disease that turned the entire body black before killing you.
“Fuck...”
Edmund wanted to do something, anything.
If he could, he would even trade his own life for his son's, but reality would never allow that.
For two days, he had felt his entire body withering away as he watched his son slowly lose his vitality and die.
“Edmund, what about the doctor?”
“He said he'd be a little late. There are too many patients...”
But he knew.
The doctor wasn't coming.
He couldn't bring himself to say that, and was sitting in a wooden chair with his feet trembling when—
Knock knock.
A knock that had no business coming from the door rang out.
Edmund's eyes widened, and he reflexively rushed to the entrance and opened the door.
There was word that a plague was spreading outside, but this was no time to worry about that.
Anyone going around the streets and knocking on doors without a care in the world at a time like this had to be...
“Greetings, doctor.”
“A Gallery doctor!”
“That's right. I heard there was a patient here, so I came to see him.”
They were huge and robust, at least a head taller than an adult man.
They were also remarkably calm, without the slightest trace of fear even in the face of the plague.
“Ah, thank you...!”
“Don't thank us. Thank Head Mod instead.”
They were clearly the plague doctors under Head Mod, said to cure the plague wherever they went.
The so-called Gallery doctors had begun their activities in earnest.