The Epidemic That Never Arrived
There had been talk of an epidemic. Then there wasn't.
“Bwahaha!! Hehehehehe!!”
Karl Hansen’s latest hobby was fetching the morning paper from the capital and showing it to me.
“Bwahaha!! Hehehehehe!!!”
Whenever he did, I burst out laughing right along with him.
How could I not?
The front page today showed the fat pig Ronald II being dragged off to San-tokki Prison, the empire’s most notorious penal facility in the south, while bawling like a baby.
“The Healing Sect raked in more dirty money than you can imagine. Hehehehe! They held people hostage with their lives and fleeced them rotten. Hahahaha!”
“They had it coming. Where exactly were they planning to squeeze people dry?”
“So many priests took bribes that over two thousand of them got arrested, including high-ranking ones. The entire sect is basically finished.”
“Serves them right.”
No one even asked whether the prison could handle two thousand new inmates without expansion.
San-tokki Prison.
A massive vertical pit hundreds of meters deep in the middle of the southern jungle, known as the Green Hell of the Empire.
Built during the reign of the first emperor, it could supposedly hold over a hundred thousand prisoners. Countless tiny solitary cells lined endless spiral staircases.
Even corpses from decades ago were left to rot where they lay.
No magic, blessing, or miracle worked inside. Escaping with holy magic was impossible.
Recalling the novel’s description of the horrific prison life made me laugh again.
“If they bankrupted families with outrageous fees, they should have seen this coming.”
“They got too cocky thinking they were the only ones who could heal anyone. It’s refreshing. The remaining priests were caught by Prince Adran and now have to provide free treatment for the same length of time they were skimming money. Public healthcare in the capital is about to improve dramatically! Puhaha!”
“Send every incurable patient the hospitals couldn’t treat straight to the capital. Make those bastards cough up everything they stole. If they don’t want to end up in San-tokki Prison, they’ll have to work their bones off! Hehehehe!”
“Bwahaha!!!”
After another round of laughter, Karl Hansen and I got back to work.
“Pay maximum attention to public hygiene, Karl Hansen. Consult the epidemic doctors and prepare for a large-scale outbreak.”
“An epidemic? Out of nowhere?”
Yes. We didn’t have much time left until the massive epidemic outbreak.
“Blocking initial infections is the top priority. Build more prisons and stockpile masks.”
“Masks…?”
“Just supply as much tightly woven cloth as possible. Got it? Remember this well. This city is packed with people. Once an epidemic spreads, it’ll be uncontrollable. We have to prepare thoroughly.”
“Understood.”
So I made various preparations to prevent the spread of disease and spent each day on edge.
An epidemic.
What an absolute pain of an event.
If it spread and collapsed the western part of the empire, we’d be forced back into a ruined storyline again.
And if that happened…
‘I’ve already won over a lot of hearts, but I could still end up drawn and quartered in the plaza.’
That outcome was absolutely unacceptable.
I wanted an ending where Karia and I lived happily together.
I prayed silently and prepared for the large-scale epidemic outbreak from the original novel that was fast approaching.
Then one month passed.
Two months passed.
Three months passed.
“……Why hasn’t the epidemic broken out?”
I had begged the Sultan to bring Maldina School doctors, built hospitals, humiliated the Healing Sect, and worked myself ragged raising the level of public healthcare, yet the epidemic I had been waiting for never happened.
No matter how long I waited, I couldn’t understand it.
It was clearly the date described in the original novel.
I still vividly remembered the episodes where the epidemic broke out on that exact day and the protagonist Adran went through all sorts of trouble convincing the various sects to stop it.
“I can’t figure out the reason.”
Curious about the cause, I decided to disguise myself and go out into the streets myself.
“A new movie opens in two weeks! Oh my god!! What kind of movie will it be?!”
“I’m so excited!! What’s the story this time?! Let’s come back to watch it together!!”
A couple walked out of the theater arm in arm, chattering excitedly amid the smell of buttered popcorn from my new business venture. I passed by the theater.
“Oh my god!! Thank you so much!! Thank you so much!!!!”
“Please tell him not to do that. I was only doing my job as a doctor.”
At the hospital, a middle-aged farmer who had finally received treatment for a long-standing illness was kneeling and bowing in gratitude to a Maldina School doctor, tears streaming down his face. His family members were crying with emotion as well.
Still in disguise, I continued walking through the city unnoticed.
“Don’t forget what you learned today!! There’s a test tomorrow morning!”
“Aaaah! A test!!!”
Peasant children poured out of the elementary school with their teacher. Apparently, hating tests was the same everywhere. When the children grimaced, the teacher winked and pulled something out.
“Any child who scores ninety or above on the test gets chocolate shipped straight from the capital! You’d better study hard, right?”
“Ch-chocolate?! Whoa!!!”
“It’s all thanks to Lord Landor. Everyone, say thank you to Lord Landor before you go home.”
“Thank you!! Lord Landor!!!”
My portrait hung prominently on the school wall, and the children bowed toward it.
……I didn’t order that.
I definitely didn’t order that.
Even after the children left, the teacher stayed instead of going home. When evening came, farmers who had finished work began arriving at the school one by one.
“Um…… Can we start the night class now?”
“Of course! Come on in!!”
“Haha. Thank you!”
Surprisingly, the elementary school also ran night classes for the farmers. The farmers seemed a little embarrassed to be learning letters at their age, but they entered the school with determined expressions.
They had been scammed and exploited too many times because they couldn’t read, so their enthusiasm for education was high.
I watched quietly from a distance before continuing down the street.
Before long, I reached an area filled with restaurants.
As expected of a district where people from all regions gathered, every kind of cuisine was available.
Southern regional dishes.
Northern regional dishes.
Dishes popular in the capital.
There were even western continent dishes prepared for the western merchants.
“Come on, let’s eat! Let’s eat!!!”
The Golden Plains had just completed their first harvest.
Only about thirty percent of the land had been cultivated so far, but the power of fertilizer was truly remarkable. Thanks to it, the dramatic drop in grain production caused by the reduction in Vineyard Party territory farmers had been more than offset.
The climate was mild year-round, allowing two harvests annually. It was obvious that an enormous amount of grain would soon flood the market.
Anyway.
Because of that, the common people could eat their fill without starving, even if the food was simple.
“Dad, I’m full. I can’t eat anymore.”
While I was blankly watching the restaurant alley, a peasant family walked past me.
A haggard-looking farmer who had clearly suffered greatly in Vineyard Party territory stopped at his young son’s words, visibly moved.
“Dad?……”
“Are you full, son?”
“Yes. I’m full.”
“Good…… Good. My son is full. That’s enough.”
The father wiped his eyes for a long time before leading his children home with a bright face.
Only then did I understand why the epidemic hadn’t spread.
“They’re eating well now.”
They ate well. They slept well. And thanks to my obsessive attention to hygiene and cleanliness, the city was spotless.
I had hired a large number of cleaners to create jobs and swept the streets every day until not a speck of dust remained.
That wasn’t all. The water and sewage systems were built to capital standards, so clean water was always available and wastewater was discharged far from the city.
The city was remarkably clean. Doctors were on standby for immediate treatment when people fell ill. Food was abundant. People worked reasonable hours and had enough time to rest and play, so no one was overly exhausted.
“Cough!! Damn it. I must have caught a cold lately.”
“They say colds are going around these days, dear. Let’s go to the hospital and get some medicine.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Ah.
A few people were suffering from colds. Of course, because they ate and rested well, their bodies held up, so it stayed at the level of a simple cold. And when they got sick, they went straight to the hospital for treatment.
There weren’t many of them.
‘Is that the epidemic? No way.’
The possibility was high.
The only difference was that in the original novel, the epidemic had slaughtered more than half the malnourished and exhausted western continent farmers. Now it was treated as nothing more than a seasonal cold.
There was no sign of farmers coughing up blood and collapsing, or corpses rotting and creating more disease. That scene was nowhere to be found.
“All we had to do was feed them well, let them sleep well, and make them happy?”
That was the simple cure for the epidemic.
But considering the miserable state of the Ailam Empire in the original novel, it was also the most difficult cure.
It was an absurdly anticlimactic ending, but I was glad.
“Thank goodness. Nothing serious happened.”
My mood improved. I had taken another step away from the ruined ending. The city I had built was functioning perfectly and improving the citizens’ quality of life. The epidemic event had simply passed without incident. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t had dinner yet.”
Now that my mind was at ease, I finally felt the hunger in my body. Since I hadn’t eaten yet, I decided to head back to the restaurant district to try the food that had helped feed our citizens and fend off the epidemic, as a kind of celebration.
“Grilled meat and bread, please.”
Commoner food. Curious about what the always-poor commoners ate, I waited for my meal in a pleasant mood.
Many people were ordering food at the restaurants, and most of them……
“Dad, this meat isn’t cooked enough.”
“Cough!! Dad, this is too spicy!!”
“Just eat it. It’s better than starving because there’s nothing. Swallow it down.”
“……Okay.”
‘Wait a second, what the hell? Why are they reacting like that?’
Having lived in poverty for so long, they seemed unable to throw food away now that they had some, so they were forcing themselves to endure the terrible taste. Then my dish arrived. I hurriedly ate the bread and grilled meat, and nearly threw up right in front of the owner.
“What the hell is this taste……?”
Every spice imaginable had been dumped in, creating a bizarre mishmash flavor. The meat was undercooked, and the bread tasted extremely dry, probably because it had been ground too coarsely.
Everyone else seemed to share my opinion, but because they had been on the verge of starvation only a few months ago, they were still forcing the food down.
“I-I’m sorry. The taste isn’t great, is it? We haven’t had much experience handling spices and meat, so it’s a bit rough.”
The owner apologized. I glanced at the other restaurants.
They all seemed to be in similar situations.
People who opened restaurants should at least be known in the neighborhood for their cooking skills, yet this was the result.
In that moment, an idea flashed through my mind again.
At the sight, I dashed straight to the merchant guild.
“Karl Hansen!!!”
“Whoa, you startled me!! What is it?”
“Let’s start a new business!! The restaurant business! The food service industry!!!!”
The next business I would launch had just been decided.