Chapter 236 – Overall Progress

There was still a small blessing among the disaster. It just happened that I was one of the few merchants selling raw materials, the ones that were precisely what the city needed to rebuild itself. I quickly had my store reconstructed using my own resources and started selling to others at high prices to recoup my losses. Although I didn’t usually handle stone or wood, I took the opportunity to temporarily sell those too, considering how high their prices were on the local market.

Back in the inner world, half a season after buying the land in 2, I had saved enough to start the factory construction and immediately did so. From there, we weren’t in a hurry anymore since it would take half a year to complete, to the point that it would become our bottleneck soon enough.

It was now the last day of the year, day 383, which was also winter day 83. New Year’s Eve, the day before it, the first of the year, and the following day, were all holidays in this world, both in the inner and outer world. Those four days were usually spent with the people one was close to, which is what we planned to do in 82. I had asked Minsto if she wanted to visit her parents in 2, to which she refused. She even wanted to continue working during that time, but I persuaded her to take a break.

The three of us had a good time, with each day including a different activity. Day 382 was just relaxation after a year of hard work. On day 383, we prepared a lot of food and ate a feast while chatting or playing games. On day 1 of the new year, we visited the bunnies’ village, having yet another feast together with them. On day 2, we toured the outer world when the two asked for it. This time, I even took them to see the sea in Ekidos. Even though Minsto stayed outwardly unmoved as always, the dumbfounded look on Suuru’s face as she witnessed the endless expanse of the ocean was very entertaining. We enjoyed ourselves at a decent tavern, eating well-cooked fish and seafood.

Good times always felt too short and, in the blink of an eye, we were back to our daily routine. It was one of the quietest periods of my life, where we all made great progress in our training, be it physical, magical, or both.

This came to an end one morning, a bit more than a season later, when I was reporting in Geola, and I was told there finally was some progress. Life mage Idun and herbalist Ocateir were both present for the meeting, looking exhausted, although their eyes shone with hope. I was invited to participate as one of the contributors, which I promptly accepted by securing a spot at the meeting table. Ocateir was the one to talk first.

“Miss and Lady, we’re finally seeing some success.”

The tension heightened in the room as everyone held their breath, hoping for great news.

“By some success, you mean?”

The herbalist quickly answered Crali’s query, looking at me while doing so.

“As you know, we struggled to replicate the vaccine samples we received. However, thanks to Ti… Ahem. I mean, thanks to some insight into the concept of vaccines, we realized that there was something we could do differently. We’ve known for some time that some people were immune to Roklera despite being low-ranked. And some others successfully recovered by themselves quite miraculously. We analyzed these two types of patients and, with the help of our life mage friend here and his colleagues, managed to extract a version of the disease that wasn’t active or dangerous. We tried to inject it into people who weren’t sick, and we saw that almost none of them got infected with Roklera. In short, we managed to create a sort of vaccine of our own!”

“Ah…!”

“Finally!”

“Oh my sel!”

Following his last excited words, the meeting was flooded with cheering, sighs of happiness, and loud talking. Even Crali seemed to be affected since she didn’t stop the noise for a long while, her eyes closed with one hand over her heart. A minute later, she opened them again, a wide smile on her lips.

“Quiet. Be quiet, everyone. That’s the best news I’ve heard for almost a year now. You’ve done an amazing job. Can this vaccine be given to everyone in the city?”

“Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem. Right as we’re talking, a group of our herbalists is growing and replicating the vaccine in a safe place. We can produce as much as we need.”

“Excellent. Ah… I’m glad. So glad this is going to end. You’ve all done a great favor to this city. We won’t forget about your help and contribution, all of you.”

The officials nodded with joy on their faces. Ocateir smiled happily while Idun's eyes shone in greed. No matter what, the mood was great, and the conversation resumed between neighbors at the table. This time, Crali didn’t seem to want to resume the meeting and only concluded with a word to work hard one last time to get this ordeal behind them.

I was glad too. This was what I had been waiting for since the pandemic broke. Finally, the city I wanted to do business in the most would reopen. With the war also behind us, the whole region would return to a normal state, similar to how it was when I first arrived.

I had also stopped investing outside, preferring accumulating the money earned from my shops and the sales of vaccines to prepare for large investments inside Geola, mainly because the production of selnic goods would start sooner or later.

With everyone chattering excitedly and no one paying me any attention, I left the tent, teleporting to the bunnies’ village to fetch the crops while propagating the good news. As expected, a festive mood took over the village too, and I was invited to another spontaneous feast, which I took part in for a while before leaving to accomplish my other tasks.

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