Gudrian's Misfortune Begins

Jia Xiu had thought the place with the most patients would be a hospital. If not a hospital, then surely a church.

But it was neither.

Following the advice of Mia, a "half-local" who had spent several years in Larven, they went to the slums.

The slums were where the most sick people could be found.

Thinking about it carefully, it made perfect sense.

The environment was terrible. Sanitation in this era was already abysmal. Aside from the main roads, which were cleaned up for appearances, all kinds of filth could often be seen on other streets. The slums were even more nightmarish.

On top of that, when people here got sick, they generally had no money for treatment. They could only see whether they were tougher than bacteria and viruses. Disease spread with absurd ease, and the entire area was like a giant petri dish.

However, it was hard to find extremely lethal supermicrobes in a place like this. Anything too deadly would kill its host too quickly to spread.

The ones that could survive here should be the less lethal but still pathogenic strains with exceptionally strong infectiousness.

They would be more than enough to infect an Arcane Archer who was already in poor health.

And if the effects of a single strain were not strong enough, they could simply use several.

Thus, Jia Xiu and Mia arrived at Larven's largest and most populous slum.

Mia was a druid of the Spore Society. She had grown up around all kinds of fungi and had handled plenty of corpses. Her immune system was incredibly robust. Forget the slums—even nastier places would not bother her.

By the time druids of that society developed to the end, they were basically immune to all poisons.

Jia Xiu did not have that ability. He could only take as many precautions as possible so he would not go in and fail to come back out.

A gauze mask, natural rubber gloves, and several jars of dwarven liquor.

Now he understood why members of other races did not want to drink with dwarves. They only considered alcohol above seventy percent to be strong liquor. Jia Xiu did not want to put the stuff in his mouth at all.

Since the masks and gloves he had bought were of limited quality and might not offer ideal protection, he had also rented an amulet from the Holy Light Church that claimed to dispel all filth.

Buying one was too expensive, so he could only rent it.

Even with all his protective measures and mental preparation, Jia Xiu was still stunned when he saw Larven's largest slum.

All he could say was that he had never seen a true slum before.

Compared to this place, shantytowns were far too urbanized.

As far as the eye could see, it was hard to tell whether this was a garbage dump or a residential area. Tiny homes pieced together from rags and wooden boards sank into swamp-like ground, while the muddy earth was covered in liquids of unknown composition.

Even though Jia Xiu had sprayed himself all over with dwarven liquor, he could still smell the pungent stench of rot and fermentation rising from the slums through the odor of alcohol.

What was remarkable was that this place was not far from Larven's bustling city center.

Jia Xiu suddenly realized that perhaps only near major cities could such clusters of extreme poverty exist.

Farmers who had lost their land came to their dream cities in pursuit of a new life, only to discover that the cities needed their labor, not for them to live well there.

Jia Xiu sighed helplessly. He had once been like this too. Even though his own life had not been particularly good, seeing people in even worse circumstances still hurt him, and he wanted to offer whatever help he could.

Then he discovered that even the little help he offered was intercepted halfway by someone else, which made him feel even worse.

As half a local, Mia was used to it. She simply led Jia Xiu deeper inside.

They arrived at a relatively open area—the slum's "cafeteria."

One Hel could buy enough food here to last a whole day.

Of course, the so-called "food" was leftovers from the city.

Here, Mia began her work. She took out several coins and handed them to some playing children.

"Find some sick people to come cooperate in a small experiment. It's a risk-free experiment. Anyone who comes can receive..."

Mia turned to Jia Xiu.

"Two... uh, five Hel, plus a free Basic Healing Spell," Jia Xiu said after thinking it over.

Although the Basic Healing Spell could not cure much, recovering a little was still better than nothing.

Before long, the children had brought back quite a few patients.

The atmosphere, however, was a little strange. Every patient wore the resolute expression of someone facing death without fear.

It was as if Jia Xiu had come to take their lives, while they were family heroes determined to risk their lives just to earn those five Hel for their families.

Their reaction to the green light of Jia Xiu's healing spell was like that of tribal villagers facing a doctor's infrared thermometer.

But once the healing spell took effect, they quickly realized Jia Xiu was helping them and immediately became respectful.

At the same time, Mia displayed an exceptionally rigorous work ethic. No matter how physically revolting the afflicted area looked, she could collect samples without changing expression.

According to her, the Spore Society pursued the natural balance between life and death.

In other words, she had handled countless deformed and grotesque corpses growing up. Their visual impact was far greater than that of living people.

The sampling continued for an entire day, and they eventually obtained more than a dozen sealed glass bottles.

Several of them already contained bacterial colonies visible to the naked eye.

Looking at those results, Mia said worriedly, "These bacteria may take several hours, or even days, from infection to causing illness. Will using the real thing in the exam be fast enough?"

"Mm..."

Jia Xiu replied, "I'll modify the Activation Spell over the next couple of days. Increasing the bacteria's activity and shortening the onset time to a few minutes shouldn't be a problem."

Mia added, "Aren't we being a little too ruthless? We still have to enroll there afterward."

Just thinking about what those bacteria could do, if they really used them, her relationship with Gudrian would probably be beyond repair for the rest of their lives.

"True. We'll see how he behaves then. If his attitude is good, ending the exam in a draw wouldn't be impossible."

"And if his attitude is bad?"

"Increase the dosage!"

Within Princess Emilia's estate of the Iris royal family, there was a spacious hall that had originally served as the princess's classroom for swordsmanship lessons.

Both swordsmanship and horsemanship were compulsory royal courses. Even if they were never needed, they still had to be learned.

But now, the room had become Ram and Bubu's training ground.

The cloth-wrapped hammerhead cut through the air with a whooshing sound due to the speed of its swings.

Bubu, who was not much taller than the hammer, nimbly dodged Ram's attacks. His movements were so fast that they were nearly impossible to follow with the naked eye.

"Got you!"

The hammerhead suddenly twisted in a tricky direction and brushed Bubu's sleeve.

"Clap, clap..."

Emilia, who had been watching from the side, applauded. "Ram, I never expected you to be so skilled with a hammer. I should have trained you as a warrior sooner. Of course, Bubu is impressive too."

"Ram just wants to help Boss. Boss is being targeted."

"Targeted? By whom?" Emilia asked curiously.

"Someone from some... some... Hart family."

"Reinhardt," Bubu added.

"Why?" Emilia pressed.

"Don't know. They're sick. That's what Boss said."

"Sick?"

Emilia frowned. Could the conflict between the Reinhardt family and the Capet family have grown so severe that they were targeting Margaret's student?

The conflict between those two great families of the Iris Kingdom had always been a headache for the royal family.

And the Reinhardt family had become somewhat overconfident in recent years...

Emilia temporarily put those complicated matters aside and asked instead, "Then how does Jia Xiu plan to deal with this targeting?"

At that, Ram's expression changed. Looking somewhat frightened, he said, "Boss and Mia said they were going to extract some invisible stuff."

"Invisible stuff? Extract it from what?"

At that, Ram looked even more terrified. "They extract it from rotten wounds, and pustules, and... and poop! Ram thinks they're so disgusting..."