The Bone-Chilling Horror of Otherworldly Folk Remedies (Part 2)

Otherworldly folk medicine was truly an awe-inspiring marvel.

It was potent enough to drag unfiltered profanities out of a man who normally avoided swearing like the plague. How was this any different from pressing a loaded revolver to your own temple and demanding I watch you pull the trigger?

If they were acting suicidal while knowing the consequences, that would be one thing. But because they were doing it out of sheer, unadulterated ignorance, I couldn't bring myself to simply look away. I initially intended to just hand out some medicine, but a fundamental question suddenly nagged at me.

I was finally beginning to understand why this fantasy world had gone to ruin.

"These bastards were playing a no-hit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠run this whole time."

It didn't matter how overpowered your character build was. If your hit points dropped by even a single point, this culture immediately purged your character file using every brain-dead folk remedy in existence. There was simply no other way to explain this level of collective madness.

As I sat there stunned into silence, unable to type a single reply, the Church decided to step into the ring and stir up trouble.

A throbbing ache bloomed behind my temples.

When someone is moderately ignorant, having a conversation is difficult. But when someone is completely and utterly illiterate, it leaves you thoroughly struck dumb.

"Is this the legendary otherworldly rhetoric?"

I swallowed the urge to unleash a torrent of colorful obscenities and typed out a calm, measured reply instead.

In other words, thirty percent.

Honestly, that was the most shocking part.

"Wait, how the hell did three whole people survive that?!"

They poured raw milk over open flesh, slathered sticky flour across the wound, and thirty percent of them still managed to walk away alive. It turned out this world was just packed to the brim with human cockroaches built like brick walls. Perhaps that ridiculous biological resilience was the only reason humanity hadn't gone extinct despite their barbaric medicine and the Great War.

A truly miraculous leap of logic.

I navigated back to the earlier post, opened a barter request with the knight who claimed to be injured, and dropped a message in the chat.

Yet I had drastically underestimated one crucial factor: the terrifying depth of generational religious conditioning.

I practically served salvation on a silver platter, and he slapped it away. Several other users even began putting up doubt-riddled threads across the board.

"All right, I've had it."

My patience finally snapped like a dry twig.

Aside from Vampire Till I Die, who remained entirely immune to such trivial optical assaults, the rest of the forum writhed in agony, rolling across the metaphorical floor while nursing internal trauma.

"Man, should I just give up on treating them and wash my hands of this?"

You lead a horse to water, and the bastard files a formal grievance. A part of me genuinely wanted to drop the whole affair right then and there. Yet, not everyone in the gallery was blindly devoted to ancient superstition.

The gallery user who had traded me her bed in exchange for canned tuna was timidly reaching out.

Evelyn Ophelia.

The noble scion of the Ducal House of Ophelia. But those grand titles belonged to an era long gone.

"Ugh... it hurts..."

Evelyn slumped upon her bedroom floor, trembling violently as crimson spilled from a deep gash along her thigh. Fresh blood seeped downward, soaking into the threadbare weave of the opulent carpet beneath her. While the laceration wasn't necessarily fatal on its own, leaving it untreated was a death sentence. Lacking proper supplies, she had torn a strip from her velvet curtains and bound it tightly above the wound, but such an improvised tourniquet did little to stem the seeping agony.

"Sob... I shouldn't have stepped outside... I shouldn't have been curious..."

It was supposed to be a day like any other: an uneventful cycle spent peering through narrow slits in the drapery, counting the intricate plaster moldings across the ceiling, and drifting into fitful slumber.

"I miss my family. Anyone... I just want someone by my side."

A suffocating wave of loneliness had suddenly washed over her. Her kin had been conscripted into the devastating maelstrom of the Great War, and the servants had scattered to the winds. Where were they now? Were they even drawing breath?

"...Mother."

Was seeking that comfort such a grievous sin? All she had done was muster a sliver of courage to step into the overgrown manor garden. Yet, of all days, a wandering demonic beast had crossed her path, tearing her flesh and nearly claiming her life.

Panic constricted Evelyn's chest, leaving her gasping for air.

"I... I feel sick..."

The bleeding was accelerating. Dizziness clouded her vision in dizzying spirals, but she knew that the moment she let go of her fading consciousness, she would never wake again. It was precisely while she sat stranded in despair, shivering upon the floor, that she spotted the new exchange on the forum.

"...?"

The Head Mod had offered strange provisions to an obstinate forum member with blatant exasperation. Bizarre contraptions, odd sheets of paper layered with sterile cloth, and a clear liquid labeled 'Antiseptic'.

"Can such tiny trinkets truly mend flesh...?"

She remembered watching wounded knights undergo treatment in her youth. Even when an entire porcelain tub was filled to the brim with precious milk, the results had been dismal at best. That knight had survived by some miraculous stroke of divine grace, yet he remained permanently crippled, never to walk again. Could these meager articles truly accomplish what vats of holy milk could not?

"No. The Head Mod is the savior who preserved my life. Something like this must be mere child's play for him."

Evelyn shook her head faintly. Right now, petty skepticism was a luxury she couldn't afford; what she needed was the humble courage to plead for help.

Enduring the searing throb in her limb, she pressed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠send.

Without demanding a single concession, the Head Mod registered the supplies into the barter exchange and slammed the confirmation button.

"...He granted it so willingly."

Hesitating for a fleeting moment, Evelyn placed a single delicate blossom she had plucked from the garden into her trade slot.

A solid medical kit materialized before her, packed neatly with bandages, waterproof strips, disinfectant, and tubes of soothing Fucidin ointment.

The fallen noble lady had essentially posted an empirical clinical trial of her recovery onto the board. Seeing a mortal injury knit together like a fairy tale within hours completely shook the community to its foundations. The hardened dogmatists who swore their lives on the milk remedy found their worldviews violently shattered, and one by one, they began scrambling for my attention.

Then, a very familiar handle crawled back into the limelight.

"See? Why didn't you just trust me from the start instead of paying for your own misery?"

The knight who had eagerly slathered milk over his laceration only realized the grim reality when his flesh began turning an ominous, putrid shade of bruised blue. Even so, I wasn't keen on extending charity with a broad smile. I wasn't running an international relief organization, nor did I harbor any burning desire to continuously rescue someone who had outright rejected my initial offering.

"Still... I can't just leave him to rot and die..."

And for occasions like this, modern civilization had gifted mankind with an exceptionally fitting cure. A wicked grin crept across my lips as I drafted a new thread.