The Cholera Outbreak (5)
"Hurry up! Faster!"
Inside the quarantine zone, I spoke as if I were selling water, but until the quarantine was lifted, both water and food were provided free of charge. Of course, even after the quarantine ended, the contaminated wells couldn't be used, so eventually people would have to buy water to drink. Still, that was a problem for later.
For now, the priority was surviving.
"Uuuuugh..."
"Ugh—!!"
The doctors shook their heads as they watched patients continue to vomit and suffer from diarrhea. These were physicians who had learned through bitter experience that this terrible disease could kill a person in just a few hours. They even knew what medicine worked as a specific cure.
Shockingly, the cure for this illness was a potion.
The very same potion that mercenaries called their second life, renowned for its exceptional effect on external wounds. According to what Gemmel had discovered, drinking it restored the body's vitality and granted the strength to overcome illness. The problem, however, was the price.
As the saying went, it wasn't outrageously expensive like a mercenary's second life. But continuously administering it like one would drink water was essentially the same as pouring money straight onto the ground. At that point, it would be faster to beg a priest for a miracle.
That was why, even though the doctors agreed with Gemmel's decision to enforce quarantine, they felt utterly depressed at their inability to save the dying patients. This disease had a mortality rate comparable to the Black Death. Once contracted, there was nothing to do but pray to the gods.
"I've prepared medicine. Make the patients drink this continuously."
"Lady Gemmel! You made medicine?"
"Yes. Quickly!"
The doctors, who had hastily set up a command center by erecting temporary tents with help from the soldiers, widened their eyes at the news that Gemmel had returned with medicine. Medicine? The only specific remedy they knew for this disease was potions!
"Th-this is transparent?"
"Hurry! I'll explain what it is later. Just get the patients to keep drinking it right away."
"Yes!"
The curious doctors looked at the medicine Gemmel had distributed and wondered if it wasn't just water. But that thought lasted only a moment. At Gemmel's urgent voice, the doctors and soldiers rushed off to administer the medicine to the patients.
"Will this really help?"
Watching the doctors run off, Gemmel muttered with clear suspicion. It was nothing more than water mixed with salt and sugar. She couldn't believe it would cure that fearsome cholera.
"Huh...?"
It didn't even take a full day for Gemmel's doubts to vanish.
"The medicine really worked!"
"The diarrhea and vomiting haven't stopped yet, but except for one elderly man, all the patients are still alive!"
Cholera was infamous for its terrifying speed—once symptoms appeared, people could die within hours. Yet only one person had died so far...!!
A day passed, then two. After administering the medicine I had given them to the patients, the number of deaths dropped sharply. While some still died, they were mostly elderly patients who had already been too weak to overcome the disease.
"Hah... I think I'm starting to feel a bit better?"
After a week had passed, the first patient who had consistently taken the medicine finally stopped suffering from diarrhea and vomiting and rose from his sickbed.
"It's done!!"
"Waaaaah!!"
The doctors cheered wildly. These were people who had lived as physicians with the single-minded goal of saving others, despite receiving no support from nobles because miracles belonged to priests, leaving them perpetually poor. The fact that they had conquered a disease they hadn't even known the name of—only calling it a plague—sent an electrifying thrill through them.
'Ah...!'
Watching the patients rise, Gemmel shed tears of overwhelming emotion. How many times had she watched people who could have been saved die right before her eyes? She had already turned her back on her ducal house. She had enough money to live alone, but nothing more. Because of that, she couldn't save people who could have been saved if only she'd had the funds. People who would have lived with just one priestly miracle.
But now, those very people she wouldn't have been able to save were rising from their beds one by one. If there was such a thing as a miracle, it was unfolding right here, right now.
"The reason you all fell ill is because of the contaminated well. From now on, when washing your bodies, always use water that has been purified at the Osu Treatment Plant."
"Understood, Doctor. Thank you for saving us...!"
Thud—!
The rough hands that grabbed hers in gratitude sent a tingling rush of pleasure through Gemmel. This was exactly why she had chosen the path of a doctor. To treat diseases that threatened people's lives and receive their thanks. How many people had she watched die from cholera, blocked by the wall of reality? How many had she saved with expensive recovery potions, only for them to catch the same disease and die shortly after?
But now, there was no need to worry. People had been freed from the terror of cholera thanks to medicine so cheap it was practically nothing. No one could possibly understand just how deeply moved Gemmel was now that her long-held dream had come true.
'The one and only mentor I will follow...'
What was clear was that she now felt such immense gratitude that she had come to regard me as her one true mentor.
*
"I see. Tell Gemmel she did well."
"Yes!"
I answered the messenger who had come to report to me without much emotion, then returned to my work.
"Why do you keep increasing the military budget?"
The matter currently occupying my attention was expanding the army. Leona looked at me as if she couldn't understand why, and while I didn't necessarily need to explain it to her... no matter how much she was my female, she was also the knight commander. If war broke out between the Bicken Territory and another domain, she was the female who would take overall command or serve as deputy commander. I had no intention of leaving someone in such a critical position completely in the dark, only for problems to arise later.
"Higgs visited a week ago, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"If Higgs delivers the current state of our territory over there, what do you think will happen?"
"... I'm not sure. Are you saying Higgs was a spy? Did he learn about our vulnerabilities?"
"No. Those details were already exposed when Wellington betrayed us."
"Then why wouldn't they have attacked?"
Leona's question was reasonable. After all, the lord himself had betrayed his own territory. So why hadn't the Kerens Territory invaded?
"Take a good look."
I pulled out one of the documents. It was a compiled report of information I'd ordered spies to gather since the moment Wellington was eliminated. It detailed exactly how many people had died in the Kerens Territory from the Black Death.
"See how devastating the Black Death's damage is here?"
"Is this considered devastating? Our territory was in a similar state until recently."
Leona remained calm even after reading a report showing that over ten percent of their population had died from the Black Death. Since hundreds or thousands had died every day even after I arrived... it was possible she felt no particular emotion from the report.
Or so one might think—!
Bang—!
"Hyaah...!!"
"You stupid bitch. Do you only think with your cunt? You're not Ertia. Why don't you try using your head for once?"
I immediately punished her by spanking her ass hard. Leona's face flushed with arousal the moment her buttocks were struck, turning into the face of a bitch in heat. One might wonder if this could possibly count as punishment, but surprisingly, it worked on females. It was their instinct—once their ass was touched, they craved their breasts being fondled, and after that, their cunts.
Smack—!
"Ah!"
After being spanked repeatedly, they would eventually realize it. The indescribable sense of loss for something they wanted but couldn't have.
"Mmm... So you're saying that since we're both collapsing together right now, there's no need for them to attack us?"
"That's right. Correct answer. Pucker your lips."
Chuuuup♥ Chuuuuurup♥
I gave the female who answered correctly a deep, passionate kiss as a reward. Leona trembled all over as if that alone was enough to satisfy her, experiencing light orgasms in succession.
"Moreover, Wellington believed the Black Death had died down not because of the soap, but because so many had already died. He must have passed that belief off as fact to the Kerens Territory."
In other words, while both territories were falling apart, there was no reason for Kerens to bother invading Bicken. No matter how much they were in cahoots with Wellington, what value could there be in a Bicken Territory devastated by war and the Black Death?
But now, things were different. The mage Higgs who had visited this place. If the current state of the Bicken Territory reached them through his mouth, the probability of war would skyrocket. A territory growing stronger day by day thanks to soap sales. Citizens already liberated from the terror of the Black Death. And even the training of mages, known as the flowers of war...
If they learned that the Bicken Territory was becoming healthier with each passing day, the Kerens Territory—which was living a wretched existence day after day—would want to devour it immediately. Before we could make up for the vulnerabilities Wellington had revealed.
Therefore, we needed to prepare as much as possible before the enemy started a war. After all, preparing for war during peacetime was only natural.