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

Two weeks later, quite a few changes happened, and much of it was thanks to this little ’task force’ of master alchemists.

The first thing that they had managed to develop was a vaccine, developed about a week or so into their isolation.

It was inspired by Grandmaster Zenno’s formulae. Using Alterra’s distillation methods and chemistry labs, they managed to isolate specific compounds in the plants he used to create something that could stop it from spreading.

Zenno’s formulation used compounds to cool down the cells, and then added some healing functions that would keep the virus from spreading any further.

The previous version could only work until stage 2 of the disease because the medicine could only work to a degree.

The side effects were that the person would feel extremely cold, and there was a chance they’d die of hypothermia instead. What Alterra’s researchers have done was to improve it so that this side effect was minimized. They figured out the nerves and the places to administer it, so that it didn’t go to the heart.

Zenno’s was combined with the blood, Alterra’s—through various calculations—was oral.

The vaccine that was eventually borne from this had a similar working principle, combined with the Terran concept of the vaccine as well.

This way to make a vaccine was very counterintuitive —to expose the person to a ’safe’ amount of the pathogen. Combined with the inhibitors, it’d stop itself from spreading further.

They would then spread this ’new’ version, something that looked like it but didn’t actually cause the illness or trigger symptoms.

When the three aborigine alchemists heard of it, they really couldn’t believe it. It took Althea and Gus a PowerPoint presentation (done through Althea’s excessively useful tablet from Terran) about how it worked and that it was something very common in the previous world, ensuring the old people that it wasn’t a figment of their overactive imagination.

But then she mentioned her and Hoffen’s ”poison” a while back where they mimicked the appearance of poison without actually poisoning anyone.

That wasn’t the exact thing they’d be doing, but it was similar. This allowed the alchemists to have a clearer view of the concept.

The old men took it as a challenge and, together, they managed to whip up a vaccine a week later.

Because they could already inhibit the virus, they did this by isolating and training a milder version of it. It was done in an isolation lab and by the stronger alchemists, with Althea watching closely behind a glass wall.

It succeeded without accident for the most part, and what was left were people to test it.

At first, the aborigines thought it’d be difficult to find people to use it. After all, it wasn’t technically proven yet. And how would they prove that it worked? Even if there were a lot of contribution points given as rewards, they didn’t think many would take the offer at all.

These subjects would have to go through the demon smoke, after all!

Lo and behold, they had a queue as soon as it came out, they were looking for people to undergo clinical trials.

The level of trust is amazing. Then again, they were great masters who also had a lot of prestige, so they adjusted quite easily.

The soldiers did it first. First, they had a higher chance of success due to their levels. The current version worked best for people level 20 and above. It could work below that, but they could not guarantee that the pathogen would overpower it without the strength associated with a good level.

Another reason was that they were the ones most exposed to the disease in the first place. After all, they also had to go through quarantine zones and handle whatever chaos could happen there.

As one would expect, the quarantine zones were not too peaceful. There was a lot of tension and waiting, though nothing too extreme so far because of the rules.

Besides, they ideally had to handle conflicts before they happened because an infected thrown to prison by the system could get troublesome.

While they had separated the cells for the afflicted and those who were not, separating them by floors, if the prisoners increased too much in number, then the prison would mix things up. So, the ideal was that things didn’t escalate at all.

It took too much manpower to separate prisoners, so they just didn’t bother, at least for those in the main prison, where the most dangerous criminals were.

They spread out the current situation of the prison, of course, telling people who were planning to cause chaos that they would very likely be celled with an afflicted if they get imprisoned. So far, it worked, but who knew how long this plague would last?

People could go crazy at some point, especially since they had just been trapped long-term due to the Cold.

Anyway, the scientists also had tested the soldiers’ blood before exposure to know whether it worked. They also had to check after they got exposed.

The people who got tested first were Mao and Loki, the single people. Since they didn’t have families or even lovers, so they bravely got priority because they wouldn’t have dependents.

The two also made a turnover for their respective tasks, at least a month ahead of schedule.

No one really thought they’d get into trouble, of course, but some of their friends did hold funerals as a joke. Anyway, they really would be withheld for a few weeks to make sure there were no side effects.

Fortunately...the vaccine worked!

After administering it, the two went through the part of the hospital that had the Level 3 victims. The scientists checked that their clothes and pores had the virus, but after being washed, it was proven that their bodies didn’t contract the disease at all!

Still, they had to isolate them for a few days to make sure there were no side effects, nor was there just a delayed manifestation. The test could, in theory, have given a false negative because the vaccine delayed the onset.

After a few days, they confirmed that the two’s states were the same as they were, except they seemed to be a little hungry (hospital food wasn’t as tasty).

”Amazing...” Cheman said. Zenno nodded. They looked at the data, and then their test subjects were ambling about.

They didn’t doubt Althea’s skills, but it was frankly amazing to see it actually work so well.

”It really worked...”

Althea smiled at them. ”It’s not over yet, Masters,” she said. ”We still have a cure to find.”