Black Blood
Black Blood tormented the people of the Ragna Empire. Only the wealthy of the wealthiest could afford to recover from Black Blood. Only the most generous of the philanthropists could help poor people recover. However, even the most helpful don't have that much money to afford the cure of Black Blood.
"This is the corpse of a human whose died yesterday of the Black Blood, as we can see, his skin and his muscle is sere, arid. If we compare him to a 200 years corpse, they make no difference. A meatless corpse, only skin and its bones. The problem is, this new corpse is, I rehearse, only one day old," said the old man with a white robe, long white hair, and long white beard.
It was a room not too far away from the palace, as this man is the palace's physician and the best person in this field. People in the room sat behind the desks, and they were listening very well to the physician who was still explaining the Black Blood of a corpse.
"The symptoms of Black Blood are severe. You cough black blood, and you'll be weak of blood loss. Hence, you can't do any activities besides laying on your bed and feeling your skin burning, feeling your hot breathing that burns your nose and your throat, feeling your eyes that tears hot tears every last drop of fluid in your body. Your body will also stimulate constant heat that forces your body to let out every drop of sweat available," he said with a flat face, expressionless, and then he walked to a chair and sat there.
And then, Sir Orian? What'll happen?" asked someone old with thick glasses at the audience's seat.
"You'll wait for your death," said Orian, and the entire room was drowned into silence.
Then this question arose; "Is there any way to cure it?"
Erqes von Orian stood up with his right hand in his pocket, taking out something in an ampule made of magic crystal imbued with a magic rune that was too complicated to explain.
"This special ampule contains the most treasured, priceless, cure-all medicine. Made of magic crystal that could handle the energy of purity, and the magical rune is only known to palace's magician to keep the magical power of purity not leaking," he explained that very ampule as he held it above her head, showing it to everyone.
"And what is in there, Sir Orian?" asked the same person.
"Dragon's tear," he answered again, with a flat face expressionless.
"Dragon's tear? Is that even possible?"
"Taking down a dragon could cost my entire troops," said a Marques.
"Even if we took down a dragon, how could we have its tear?" the old Earl asked the question forgotten by everyone as they are stunned by the fact that one should kill a dragon to obtain it.
"We cut its tear glands and extract it. And fortunately, the kingdom has no more than two thousand ampules of this," Orian continued.
"So we can have more of them or not?"
"The risk is too high. Troop's morale dropped and turned to chaos after they met a dragon," Orian stopped and put the ampule on the table next to the corpse.
"This one ampule will cost you five hundred gold coins."
"This is madness! 500 gold coins! I should sell my two daughters to the slave market!" said the Earl with anger while pointing at Orian.
"500 gold coins, I should take over Grand Duchy of Krana and sell each of the national treasures they have," the Marques said with doubt on his face, asking a question if he could take down that Grand Duchy of Krana himself.
"No noble in this kingdom could ever have that amount of gold, let alone the Barons. Even the Duke is speechless himself," the Earl said while looking at the DukeDuke, who was silent all this time.
"Not if I collect the debt you own me, as I remember, maybe around 80 golds?" asked the DukeDuke as he was looking at the Earl.
"Then what? Should I leave my family dead after Black Blood infected them?!" the Earl was angry at his old self, who asked for debt to the DukeDuke, and to secure 500 gold coins to make sure his family was safe from Black Blood.
The DukeDuke ignored the Earl's anger and asked a question Orian instead.
"How contagious is it?"
Orian opened the door behind him, and he started to speak.
"The fact that I am the best and am only one of the greatest physicians alive in this kingdom, His Majesty secured one ampule for me just in case."
The DukeDuke stood up and pulled out his wand with magic crystal on its tip.
"Answer me, Sir Erqes of Orian. How contagious is it?"
Everyone in this room shivered trembled in fear as they waited for Orian's answer.
"Very contagious. Just by near the corpse or inhaling its smoke when it's cremated, you will be infected."
"Damn you! Erqes!" the DukeDuke swung his wand, and the magic crystal on the wand emitted bright bluish light.
"Rapurso!" the DukeDuke chanted the spell for explosion toward Orian.
"Vilas," Orian blocked the explosion chanted by the DukeDuke, then he ran out of the room through the door and closed it.
"Redicia! Kritose! Pedatora!" the DukeDuke was very angry that he chanted every destruction spell he could to the door. Orian ran out the trough.
But his very struggle is futile. Orian fled and is nowhere to be found.
"We must get out from this," said the Earl as he stood up and hurriedly walked through the exit.
"Me too," said the other.
The other people started to walk through the exit with anger inside their minds. There was a slum area filled with poor people in the other place. Criminals, prostitutes, scheming nobles, hired assassins, drug dealer, slave merchant, every ill job you could think of were here living alongside each other. Of course, the poor of the poorest, who was in drug debt, forced to work as a pickpocket thief, lived here.