Saya stared at the hard drive in her hands, momentarily at a loss.
That strange port from before, the one whose data socket had looked like a pitch-black void, was no longer like that. Now it had become a perfectly normal interface that a standard computer data cable could plug into.
It had changed by itself. Creepy.
Then again, this clearly was not a hard drive from their era. If it was some kind of future high-tech product, it was not that surprising for it to "adapt" on its own.
So she connected the cable, and the computer booted up.
While it was starting, she glanced at the guy next to her and thought of something. Saya gave him a look like he was a scrap of litter.
"Takagi, sorry, but that kind of disgusted look doesn't get me excited. Unless you're giving me a 'reward' at the same time."
"A 'reward' my ass. Who the hell wants you excited!"
Saya flushed bright red as she cursed him out. Because of this guy's weird kink, everyone heard it over the radio, since he forgot to turn it off.
So, was Kain doing this to soothe Saeko's nerves?
After all, having a fetish suddenly exposed like that was wildly out of character compared to how he usually came across.
…Whatever. No point arguing with him.
Because the computer did something strange, fast. It jumped straight into a screen that looked like it was verifying her information.
Her image appeared on the screen, but at least this time she was clothed, wearing exactly what she was wearing right now.
Wait. That was still weird.
The "her" on the screen moved in sync with her. She raised her head, and the image raised its head too.
It was like some god's-eye camera was watching her.
But this computer didn't have a webcam.
Unless—
Saya looked at the hard drive, then back at the monitor. The viewing angle clearly came from the direction of the hard drive, aimed at her.
But she couldn't see any camera on the hard drive itself.
Forget it. No time to overthink.
The system announced identity verification complete and dropped her into the desktop, which made her freeze again.
The desktop was minimalist to an absurd degree. There was only a single icon.
She clicked it, and it opened like a PowerPoint file.
"Earth Elixir?"
Behind her, Kain frowned as he read the product name listed in this STC, and he looked a little disappointed. It wasn't the panacea he'd been hoping for.
And the stated treatment scope wasn't specific either. It only said this:
It could prevent and cure nearly all diseases of humanity from 15,000 years prior.
As Saya advanced to the next page, the additional details made him pause.
Good. This was useful to him too.
It said that if you were already a panacea user, then under special circumstances—when bodily functions were severely damaged and regeneration was slow—you could pair the panacea with Earth Elixir. It would provide sufficient nutritional components needed for regrowing the human body, enabling rapid recovery.
His current severed limb, in this era, couldn't possibly be regrown quickly just by stuffing himself with ordinary food. Not purely by eating in massive quantities, anyway.
The next page was the manufacturing formula.
And this was where it got interesting.
There was a customizable search prompt.
"Input: On Terra in the 2K era, how do we rapidly manufacture Earth Elixir?"
"2K era? Terra?"
The next page was the manufacturing formula, and this was where it got interesting. There was a customizable search prompt.
Saya murmured the same question as she listened to him and typed that line in.
The next second, the computer seemed to freeze for a brief moment. Even the mouse wouldn't move.
Then a flood of pop-up windows burst onto the screen.
She skimmed a few at speed, and she couldn't stay seated.
"T-This… is this real?"
The genius Saya wore a look of total disbelief. If what the instructions claimed was true, then even an elementary schooler could manufacture this so-called Earth Elixir with ease.
She opened one guide and started reading it in detail.
("Not that even idiots would read everything.")
"What kind of foolproof step-by-step tutorial is this?"
Saya blurted out another incredulous line, but this time she wasn't doubting it anymore. Her brain was telling her it was correct. No problems.
And she accepted it—because at this point, everything had already gone this far.
Very quickly, she got a handle on how this "Earth Elixir teaching system" worked, and an idea formed in her mind.
"Ms. Marikawa, could you come help me for a moment?"
"Huh? O-Okay."
Shizuka Marikawa, who had just finished treating Rei Miyamoto's wound, jogged over.
"How do you need me to help?"
"I'm not a doctor. There are some medications I don't understand. Look at these descriptions—what existing drugs in a hospital would match them?"
And so they kept at it for five hours—
"I… I finished the formula."
Saya said it dazedly.
Thank god they later managed to interface this system with the hospital's systems, so it could scan and match the corresponding medications. Otherwise, some drugs had the same effects but different names, and it would have been a nightmare.
"B-But can this really work? Isn't this going to waste an insane amount of medicine?"
Shizuka, who had spent the full five hours helping and now also understood how the formula had been derived, voiced her concern.
A lot of the "materials" in the formula didn't exist as ready-made items. They had to be synthesized via chemical reactions using currently available medications—extracting components.
Those extracted components were labeled as second-tier materials, which then had to be reacted again with other second-tier materials extracted from other drugs, or combined with first-tier raw materials, or reacted with same-tier materials, or even third-tier, fourth-tier… and so on.
In the end, if they wanted to produce "Earth Elixir" according to the formula, they would consume almost the entire hospital pharmacy's stock. And most of it would be wasted.
For example, painkillers that could normally supply a thousand people for a month might ultimately yield only enough extract for about a hundred doses of Earth Elixir. The vast majority of the material would become useless sludge.
(As a side note, normally a hospital and a pharmacy are separate. But this was a general hospital with an inpatient department, so it kept medication on-site to provide to admitted patients. That was why the pharmacy still existed in-house.)
And they had already checked: the pharmacy hadn't been cleared out. There were Dead inside, and somehow the doors were locked from within.
So the survivors in the hospital, fleeing for their lives, obviously weren't going to waste time forcing it open.
And they had already checked: the pharmacy hadn't been cleared out. There were Dead inside, and somehow the doors were locked from within.
So the survivors in the hospital, fleeing for their lives, obviously weren't going to waste time forcing it open.
"Ms. Marikawa, what are you saying? That's nonsense. This might be a vaccine that can deal with the Dead virus. Compared to that, do you really think wasting one hospital pharmacy isn't worth it?"
"And besides, who knows when an EMP strike might hit? When that happens, a lot of instruments will break, and manufacturing anything will be even more difficult. So trading a huge amount of medicine for speed and a higher chance of success is obviously a net gain."
Based on the pharmacy's resources and the system's calculations, if there were no mistakes during production, they could probably make around a hundred syringes—roughly a hundred doses.
But if someone still managed to screw it up, even with this foolproof tutorial, then they were just too incompetent.
As for why it was so wasteful, it wasn't only because most of the people here were high school students with no professional medical knowledge and no ability to perform precise pharmaceutical manufacturing.
It was also because the system's proposed process was designed to be safe within their capabilities—without high-precision instruments and without sterile lab conditions.
Safe procedures.
It even deliberately avoided reactions that might produce toxic gases.
That was why the plan steered away from those pathways.
If they had gas masks, or equipment to safely handle toxic fumes, they could accelerate the process and produce more finished doses.
Now, Saya gathered everyone and laid out a 24/7, most brutally optimized division of labor—do everything at the most insane speed possible to manufacture Earth Elixir.
And so, after another two hours, they produced the first dose.
But Saya's expression was not good.
Because a problem had surfaced.
It looked like they would end up with no more than thirty doses.
It wasn't because some idiot messed up a step.
It was because of the hospital's medications themselves.
Some drugs did not match the effects described by the system. The actual efficacy was weaker than what the labeling claimed.
Meaning: corners had been cut.
To put it bluntly, some of it was fake medicine.
Damn it.
Fortunately, this kind of issue could also be addressed inside the Earth Elixir system—by adjusting and rebalancing the formulation. But that still meant the projected output dropped from "maybe a hundred" to "not even thirty."
Which also meant: Saya's genius brain had memorized a formula built specifically from the drugs this hospital happened to have.
If she went somewhere else and tried to do this again without the system's foolproof guidance—despite the system having an encyclopedia for troubleshooting—she probably wouldn't be able to reproduce the correct balancing.
Now, looking at the first dose: its color and consistency matched the description, more or less.
But no one could be sure it actually worked.
And, frankly, it looked… subtle in a disturbing way.
Like some kind of semi-fluid gel.
You could also describe it as thick, white blood.
So they needed an experiment.
Who would take it, then let a Dead bite them once?
Even though Saya hadn't explained exactly what they were making, nobody here was stupid. It was obviously something meant to counter the virus.
So everyone's gaze converged on one person.
Kain.
Of course, they weren't planning to make Kain inject it as the test subject.
They were waiting for his decision, his choice.
Who would be the lucky one—
Assuming it worked, they would become the first person who no longer had to fear the virus, the first who could stop worrying about turning into a Dead monster.
Or they would be the unlucky one.
If it failed, they would become a Dead.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]