After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World

As if the upcoming war wasn’t a problem, another one that they honestly hadn’t expected to see in Xeno arrived right at their doorsteps.

It happened the night of the kids’ party, when they were about to sleep when they received the news.

It seemed that the Lord of Shrao village was visiting, and he brought some questionable patients with him.

They actually arrived more than half a day prior, but Volohov and the others handled it first, studying it among themselves, and waited until the couple was free (knowing it was the kids’ birthday) to tell them the news.

”The hospital isolation wing is being used and isolated,” Sheila reported as the couple were led to the hospital wing. They were all wearing safety masks now, even if Shrao people mentioned people who touched them didn’t seem to be affected.

From what they knew, it didn’t seem to be airborne either, but it wouldn’t hurt to be safe.

”So far, none of the people who brought the patients had shown any symptoms, but we isolated them, just in case.”

”Very good,” Althea said. ”You did well.”

They arrived at the closed double door of the hospital wing, further separated by a vestibule. It was pressurized to completely isolate the circulating air. Mathilda arrived a minute later and they entered the section together.

They showed up to see Volohov and his wife, who were already there. The doctor was writing on a clipboard with a serious expression on his face.

”Is it a plague?” Mathilda asked, worried. The others looked at him with similar concern.

If they had an illness, just before a big war—

Fortunately, Volohov shook his head. ”It is not a plague or a virus,” he said, though he didn’t look like he was particularly relieved.

”Our laboratories have determined that rather than an illness, it is… withdrawals.”

It made everyone flinch.

”Drugs?”

”I believe so, yes,” Volohov said, handing over the printed data from their labs.

In the past few months, the (basic) computers for calculations had been improved and compacted (but still very big). Recently, the team led by Eugene also created the initial version of advanced printing.

They produced ink that would not smudge and took inspiration from the printing press and the first printers (found on her tablet database) to create a working prototype.

Of course, these were all still very ancient in Terran standards and the whole mechanism took up a room, and took a while to actually finish a page.

For books and mass printing, the original Printing Press—which occupied its own factory—was still the best. However, mechanical printing was still useful for extra complicated printouts like test results.

Althea took a look and studied the data. She was no doctor nor was she a biochemist, so—while she knew the basics of a few things—there are things she still didn’t understand, let alone the other two. Volohov kindly explained them to them, as simply as he could.

”We looked at the markers and didn’t recognize them. Of course, it could just be that this place had different illnesses so naturally the pathogen markers were unfamiliar.

”However, there were various anomalies. Take a look at the spectrograph,” he said, and Althea turned the page to see. ”See these strange peaks?

”They don’t align with any virus or bacteria I have ever studied.

”I also took a look at our information database,” he said, referring to the Research Lab database where copies of the information and references she gathered could be found. ”And also found nothing there.”

”Although this is a different world and people’s physiques varied with Terrans, we’re all humanoid and are basically the same genus.”

”After all, we can interbreed—something I am very curious about by the way—so the variances of these should not be drastically different.”

That said, some samples from the cross-generation had been taken for testing and sampling. The first interbred children were Gill and Cassandra’s daughter, Claire, and Helios and Sahara’s daughter, Helia.

With the parents’ permission, they received some blood and did some non-invasive procedures. They agreed easily because it was also this way they could find any complications, should there be some.

Putting that aside, Volohov continued with his explanations. ”Then, we isolated some compounds in the patients’ blood, and found a few things.”

”The symptoms turned out to be side effects—a byproduct of something manufactured instead.”

Althea and the others looked at each other, shoulders slumped.

In a sense, this was better news. At the very least, there was a human factor involved—and human factors could be controlled.

On the other hand, it was also depressing. Surviving in this place was already difficult enough, what were those people doing making it worse?

They couldn’t be rationalizing recreational drugs as helping people become ’happy’ right?

After confirming nothing was contagious, they went to the Shrao village Lord and his cronies, all of whom had been kept inside this wing.

Although the aborigines didn’t like it, the nurses kindly explained why it was necessary (and there were strong guards right next to her) so they had no choice but to cooperate well.

Led by Volohov, Mathilda and the others went to see them. ”The good news is that it’s not contagious.”

”You confirmed that already?” they asked, surprised.

”We have a lot of bright minds here,” Mathilda said. ”Tell us more about this case.”

Shiro nodded, telling them of what they knew so far. ”It was when we received a batch of refugees from the North,” he said. ”During the first few days, it was not obvious, but we did find a lot of strange behaviors like crazy people.”

He then looked at Volohov and the other elders. ”Can you tell us what it was?”

”It’s a drug, like cocaine, only much more potent if it could affect a level 8 like this…”

”What?”

Shiro seemed sincerely unaware and concerned.

”It’s something that uselessly clouds a person’s mind and destroys them from within,” was all they could say, because there were very few ways to describe its effects.

”I will send people to your territory to investigate,” Garan said after a while. ”Please cooperate.”

”Of course.”

Garan would probably send out two or three people as the initial investigators. After all, it wasn’t wise to send out a lot of people when there was an imminent war.

As for why they were sending someone out at all—for better or for worse, it was because they were the most powerful Terran territory.

With power came responsibility and they ought to at least know what was going on elsewhere. In the end, they decided to send one or two people from Team C, that way they could also look for their relatives.

Mathilda sighed as they walked away. ”We will formulate rules and regulations pertaining to this,” she said, looking at Althea who nodded in appreciation.

”Thank you,” she said. ”We have to be prepared in case this reaches our walls, too.

”I hate that some people use their brains for something like this…” she said. She was certain there were other Terran ’geniuses’ around. Sadly, it looked like one of them was using that brilliant mind for purely selfish gains, instead.

Sigh.

Only a year in this world and things like this were already appearing—what else was next?