Chapter 122 - Pharmacology

The bacteria could possibly be spread through the air so Gren needed something to prevent him from breathing it in. There was a good chance that the animal would bite him when he grabbed it so a thick material would be needed to prevent its teeth from penetrating his suit. The basic idea was that it needed to be an armored hazmat suit that was still light enough to be worn by him.

Before he died as Thomas, there were lots of reports in the news about carbon being used as a lightweight armor. Those reports mentioned that the greatest problem with the carbon armor was the cost but he didn't have to worry about that. His only issue was that he didn't want to put all of his safety in the hands of a material that he didn't know much about. That left him with a two layer design; high strength carbon fiber over an air-tight polyamide-rubber composite. The air would be provided by an air tank and it would be pumping that into a mask that he'd be wearing. Each piece would need to lock in place and seal him in which made the design complicated and, without the assistance of the system's AI, he wouldn't have been able to figure out how to make it. The finished product was a completely black suit of armor with a mask that would be considered out of place in this world.

The mask was a carbon helmet fitted with an armored breathing tube that led to the air tank on his back so that he didn't have to worry about airborne contaminants. The field of view was fine but he couldn't look up or down due to the helmet being locked in place. Nothing about the outfit looked welcoming which made Gren worried. If he was told to wear this on a movie set then he'd definitely think that he was about to play a villainous character that would most likely have their own orchestrated theme song.

Getting into the suit manually took a while. It was a complicated process of fitting into tight armor and then turning locks to completely seal himself from the outside air. There was a weird smell from the rubber but it was better than catching some deadly disease.

When Gren walked back out from behind the truck, there was a lot of murmuring that Gren could see, but the helmet caused the words to be muffled. Georgia came up to him but her voice was equally as muffled so he couldn't understand her through the suit. Verbal communication currently wasn't possible so Gren brought out his pen and a pad of paper and began to exchange messages with her.

(I can't understand what you're saying.

Write it down for me.)

(Why are you wearing that strange armor?)

(It should protect me from the disease.)

(You're not sure?)

(I'm almost sure.)

(So you're not sure.)

(There's a good chance that it will work.

No disease that I know of would get through it.)

(What do you need to me to do?)

(Tell the people that they need to allow me to check them for the disease.

Let them know that an animal in their wagon has it but try to say it in a nice way.

I don't want them to panic.)

Gren watched as Georgia followed his instructions after reading the note. Her words were as muffled as ever but they seemed to have worked since the people rushed over to him, nodding and saying something. Although Gren couldn't hear what they were saying, the system began inspecting them. Out of the five people from the fifth wagon, only one was infected. That suggested that the infection wasn't airborne but Gren couldn't come to any conclusions yet.

Before Gren came into contact with the man, he needed to make sure that nobody else would get infected by his actions. Gren wrote one more note before setting down the pad of paper.

(Do not let anybody approach the guy in the rough brown shirt, the wagon, or myself until I return to this place.

He is the only person from that wagon that is infected so the rest can go to where the other wagons are.

Not the guy from the third wagon though.

Something's strange about him.)

Gren needed to find a way to separate the guy from the rest of the people but there was no way to communicate with the suit on so he just pulled him away. The guy's struggling was futile and nobody seemed to be helping him so Gren was able to move him easily. This was Gren's first time looking at the symptoms of the disease; the bacteria seemed to be in the bloodstream and it caused necrosis of the extremities. There were small lesions on the man's arms and legs that he kept hidden from the others and his toes were completely black so there was a good chance that he realized that he was infected.

With the first infected discovered, Gren could begin testing his healing spells. The basic healing spell did help to recover from the lesions and some of the internal damage from the disease. Even if it didn't cure the main problem, someone could survive the disease through constant healing. The real issues came after that. None of the other tier one healing spells were at all effective; not even the clear infection spell which would usually work for similar diseases. It was no wonder that the healers in Valkland were struggling to deal with the problem since most of the healers outside the Land of Healing Light were incapable of using anything beyond the first tier of spells.

The second tier of spells weren't much better. Gren didn't know all of them so perhaps there was something in the book that would solve the problem but the necrotic parts of the body could not be restored with the spells that he currently knew. This just made things more difficult for him. It wasn't like this world had antibiotics...

{Are there antibiotics in the system?}

It was a question that Gren hadn't thought to ask until now.

<Affirmative>

<The Research Optimization patch allows the construction of all things as long as the proper research is complete>

The possibility of curing the disease was still there even if it'd cost him points. They were pretty much useless to Gren until he researched more expensive things.

{Can you show me your recommendation for which antibiotics to use?}

Gren was not familiar with antibiotics so he was counting on the system to help him out.

<Intravenous antibiotics are recommended for emergencies>

<Antibiotic pills may be necessary after intravenous treatment>

<Here are the antibiotics available to you>

Gren picked one at random but made sure to save the blueprint as Antibiotic 1. If it didn't work then he'd move on to the next antibiotic and try that. The only problem for Gren now was figuring out how to get the guy to let him inject the medicine using a needle.