Re: Kickstarting industry in another world

by Spaming-Chilean

After returning from Vollachia, Subaru is insecure if Emilia and him will be capable of keeping the nation together if she wins the throne to the royal selection. Especially after Vincent's particular remarks. So, he will start or attempt to start the Industrial revolution from his world to gain the upper hand in the royal selection and in the international arena.

21. Treasure Hunt

Chapter 21: Treasure Hunt

Elior Forest: 20:00 hrs. 1/09/1538

Subaru and Emilia had waved off Ana and Julius a few hours ago and had been mostly looking for ways to tackle the disease problem. Emilia thought it would be good to halt all immigration to the rapidly expanding village and went to settle any newcomers on the outskirts with clear instructions to not go further into the village since it was being ravaged by disease. Subaru on the other hand dedicated a few hours to searching for any potential source but couldn't find anything. They were now all in a tent trying to figure out how to proceed the next day.

Subaru: "I couldn't find anything that could be the cause of this plague…how did you fair guys?"

Rem: "I say that well, it's different to treat sick people as opposed to broken people but I can get ahold of it."

Garfield: "If anything its exhausting captain."

Ram: "Barusu you are clearly doing things wrong."

Subaru: "What?"

Ram: "You are the one searching for the origin of this plague? Something that surely stinks, yet you don't have the best sense of smell."

Subaru: "Come to think of it…"

Ram: "You have 2 people here with better sense of smell than you do, why not have them searching for the origin of this plague?"

Subaru: "You are to kind nee-sama. Alright Rem, Garfield and Ram you three will go hunting for the origin of the disease."

Rem: "Wouldn't it be enough with Garfield and me?"

Subaru: "Garfield can go alone, Ram will make you company."

Garfield: "Why can't I go with them?"

Rem: "I am not a toddler that needs babysitting."

Subaru: "But you do not know this forest Rem, what if you get lost? Garfield, splitting up is the quickest way to find this…thing."

Rem: "Ram doesn't know this forest either how will she be of any use if we get lost."

Ram: "Rem Rem I think you forgot that I have clairvoyance."

Rem: "Oh…well that…that changes things."

Garfield: "Captain what will we be searching for? The smell of death? A curse? A potion?"

Subaru: "I'd say you take a look into the water wells, I looked at them, but they seemed fine to me."

Emilia: "If you find any anomaly use the metia to tell us and keep anyone from tinkering with the well."

Rem: "And if the wells are all good? What do we search next?"

Subaru: "Then you go searching the food stores and the grain silo, as well as any restaurant or anything giving food to a public audience."

Ram: "Very well Barusu you have exceeded yourself."

Rem: "But what about the sick? Who will tend to them if we are searching for the cause?"

Subaru: "Don't worry Rem. We have arranged for a lot of people to help with that, the first have already arrived and the rest will arrive during the night."

Emilia: "Now Subaru, what will we do to combat this disease?"

Subaru: "I have to make sure that the new rules are being enforced, you can help tend to the sick if you wish to help."

Beatrice and Roswaal enter the tent.

Beatrice: Subaru, Roswaal has good news for you and bad news for Emilia in fact.

Subaru: "Really? What are the good news?"

Roswaal: "Subaru-kun, we have all the necessary permissions to expand the railway all the way to Priestella and then to the border with Kararagi, the only nation that we can so far establish reliable trade with."

Emilia. "And the bad news?"

Roswaal: "The train has caused come commotion in the Capitol, many people think it's a dangerous beast, so far they haven't taken any actions against our project, but we can expect that to change."

Emilia: "Doesn't this concern Subaru more than me?"

Roswaal: "It should but your name has been thrown in the middle and many are and will blame you if anything bad happens. The counsel of Sage's wants an audience with you and so do many nobles. I also believe this could be a good opportunity to make a big Public Relations campaign considering you have such an effective demagogue at your side."

Subaru: "Me?"

Rem: "Subaru good at PR?"

Roswaal: "Yes Subaru, as we know from the incident at Priestella Subaru can be quite good at stirring popular sentiment in any direction."

Emilia: "When do we have to go to the capitol?"

Roswaal: "For now it's not as urgent, you have at least a week until the sages can agree on a day for the audience and from then on at the very least a month until the actual audience."

Emilia: "Then we can solve this situation first."

Subaru: "For the most part I think giving the nobles a ride on the train will get them to calm down. Anastasia and Julius proved so."

Elior Forest: 10:00 hrs. 02/09/1538

Rem and Ram had been searching for any hints about the origin of the disease, Rem was sticking her nose and smelling the air of the wells and had so far not found anything extraordinary while Ram was asking the locals about the locations of other wells.

Garfield on the other hand went about alone to search the old wells that where in the forest as well as rivers or any source of water and had also not found anything remarkable.

Garfield: "Damn, I feel the cold digging into my bones…maybe Ram was right about having to use proper clothing…"

Garfield was slightly distracted by the bitter cold that was barely below freezing.

Garfield: "Come to think of it I don't feel my hands…I better head back and warm up a bit."

So, he decided to go back.

Meanwhile Subaru was happy to see that all the new protocols where being respected. Though some people made sure to make him know of their disapproval of such 'waste of time'.

10:30 hrs.

Subaru was surprised when Garfield stumbled indoors shivering like crazy. 'This is odd, Garfield tolerated cold very well in the failed loops in sanctuary.' He thought only to be ripped out of further thought.

Garfield: "Captain I underestimated this fukin cold. Do we have any tea?"

Subaru: "Yes, here follow me. Garf is something wrong?"

Garfield: "No, it's just the cold, I've never been out in the cold so long before."

Subaru: "So you have been colder?"

Garfield: "I have been in even colder places, but never for so long."

Subaru: "You should have taken Ram's advice. Here drink this."

Garfield: "I know I should have listened."

Subaru: "At least nothing bad happened."

Beatrice: "Garfield can you let me see your hand I wonder?"

Garfield: "Yes? Why? Ouch! What was that for?"

Beatrice: "Seems like you avoided frost bite here."

Garfield: "Just for that? Arrg!"

Beatrice had stepped on Garfield's foot.

Beatrice: "You are fine I suppose."

Subaru: "Beako was all that necessary?"

Beatrice: "Is was in fact. One can only heal frost bite if it happened recently, like detached limbs I suppose."

Garfield: "Then thanks I guess."

Meanwhile Emilia was working closely with the lead Healer. She was basically being his apprentice, her healing abilities are good, but not outstanding so she must work harder to ease the pain on the worst patients, she was being carefully watched and corrected by the lead healer. Who was surprised that a candidate for the throne could actually care so much for commoners like the ones sick right now.

Emilia: "Thank you."

Lead Healer: "What? Why?"

Emilia: "Usually people are…distasteful toward me. But you are of the few that have been kind to me from the very beginning"

Lead Healer: "No need to thank me, it's just that a friend of mine was also a half elf."

Emilia: "Really? Another? Can I get to meet him?"

Lead Healer: "He died a few years ago."

Emilia: "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"

Lead Healer: "Do not worry, he lived a long life and died old."

Emilia: "Really how so? I have heard that half elves live very long."

Lead Healer: "So have I, but there isn't any definitive answer since not many live enough to die of old age, but my friend died aged 347. Maybe you will get to live more, maybe less, but there is not enough information on the subject to be too certain."

Emilia: "Lets change this depressing subject. Umm…How well am I learning?"

Lead Healer: "Hmm…I'd say well enough, not outstandingly fast but also not infuriatingly slow."

Emilia: "By the way what is your name?"

Lead Healer: "My name is William Morton a healer specialized in dental care. People call me Morton the dentist."

Emilia: "Dental care?"

Morton: "I am first and foremost a healer, but I generally tend to dental issues. Though I am good enough to be the most useful here."

10:56 hrs.

Ram: "Rem Rem, according to the villagers there is another well turning this corner…Is something bothering you sister?"

Rem: "I wonder why you sometimes say my name twice but not with the others."

Ram made a faint sigh.

Rem: "It is something delicate?"

Ram: "It is…you see…usually when I talked with Rem it would be like 'Rem Rem this guest is weird" and she would answer 'Ram Ram you are right he is weird' but I guess that habit went with her."

Rem: "Do you see me as an impostor?"

Ram: "Wha?…no, it more like…a third sister that I didn't know I had and don't know much about."

Rem: "I am sorry that I can't be more like her, but I can't try to do so…I don't know how..."

Ram: "Don't feel sorry…your good as is. The old Rem wasn't nearly as proficient at healing as you or had as much initiative as you…but you can't clean as well…or cook as well…or accompany me as much…or be like her…"

Ram had started to tear up ever so slightly, just barely noticeable.

Rem: "Let's talk about something else…so this other well…where was it?"

Ram: "Over here sister, follow me."

Rem: "Yes sister."

13:12 hrs.

All the camp members in the town were eating lunch together and talking about their progress on their respective assignments. Ram, Rem and Garfield didn't find anything, so they started to discard all the places they had searched. They would switch places during the afternoon with Garfield checking the town while Ram and Rem would check the outskirts.

Roswaal also announced that he would leave after lunch to deal with supposed cult activity. Though he though it more probable that they were just bandits.

As for Subaru he was having to explain to Emilia why he couldn't teach her about the Victorian era while she was having none of it.

Subaru then received a letter from Ivan, telling him that the railway to Roswaal's mansion was finished and that the station for the capitol would be finished in four days.

Emilia: "Subaru, I was almost forgetting, these railways have so far proven to be really useful and I wondered if you could spare the resources to make one heading south."

Subaru: "To where and why?"

Emilia: "To the central valley, it is the breadbasket of the kingdom and having influence over it would give us significant leverage in any political incident. If I am not mistaken it is 200 kilometers south."

Beatrice: "It's 120 kilometers south in fact."

Subaru: "We will make the railway after we make the one to Priestella."

Beatrice: "We can make both at the same time I suppose."

Emilia: "You can?"

Subaru: "Why are you so interested in making the railway south Beako?"

Emilia: "I was wondering the same thing."

Beatrice: "I have reasons to believe that there can be a hidden library somewhere below the wheat fields."

Both Subaru and Emilia where surprised by her affirmation.

Beatrice: "Are you just going to stare at me all day I wonder?"

Subaru: "Uh…well we can make both railways at the same time, but I will give priority to the one heading for Priestella."

Emilia and Beatrice agreed with Subaru's conditions and concluded their midday reunion.

Elior Forest: 09:00 hrs. 05/09/1538

So far, the search for the cause of the plague has not been found, a few weird smelling wells were found but once they lowered someone to take a look it was just a rotten fruit or vegetable that someone had dropped inside. But good news where present, ever since implementing the new protocols called by the health workers 'The Natsuki Protocols' the amount of new infected had been sliced in half finally convincing everyone that it wasn't a waste of time.

Subaru: "Since going out and searching for this plague hasn't worked, I am opened to suggestions."

Rem: "Just focus on healing the sick, in a week or two there will be almost none!"

Emilia: "We can enforce these protocols on food workers to find out if contaminated food is the way of spreading the disease."

Beatrice: "We could ask the sick what where they doing before falling sick to see if they have anything in common I suppose."

Garfield: "Can't we just lock up the sick to see if that stops the disease?"

Subaru: "Hm…I think that Beako's approach is the best...Rem the idea is have no sick, Emilia-tan that is a good idea, but this town only has one place that serves food, Garf we can't do that, it will make us seem evil."

Ram: "There actually are two places serving food Barusu, though none of them presented anomalies."

Subaru: "Then we can look forward to implementing a moderate version of the protocols in them."

12:00 hrs.

Subaru and Beatrice where in one of the food places convincing the owners to wash their hands with running water and to use clean cloth when preparing and serving food. At first, they were having none of it but as soon as Subaru offered them money to do so they complied and he left for the other place. In the other place the owners already washed their hands with running water, but they were too poor to afford more clothing, so Subaru decided to offer some to them under the condition that they would use clean cloth when making and serving food.

Mean while Emilia and the others were interviewing the sick people asking them several questions and searching for any patterns. The only thing some of the sick had in common was that they had bought and eaten fruits sold by a traveling merchant, but this only amounted to a third of the infected and was somewhat disregarded. So far, the only other thing the infected had in common was being a hot spring near the coal mine and this amounted to a little more than half of the infected and was assumed to be the origin of the plague. They would wait for Subaru to come back and then organize an appropriate countermeasure.

14:45 hrs.

Subaru doubted a hot spring could transmit the disease but the amount of people that got sick just after coming here was alarming.

They had arrived, Subaru immediately told everyone to not eat or drink anything while they were there. Subaru asked Rem and Garfield to smell the waters and the surroundings in search of anything.

For a few minutes they found nothing. Then Rem stopped, a faint scent that she almost skipped. It was growing stronger as she got closer to the water.

Rem: "I think there may be something in the water…"

Everyone: "What?"

Rem: "I'm not sure what it is, but it is a very weak smell."

Garfield: "I don't smell anything."

Rem: "Come here maybe you can tell what it is."

Garfield walked towards the place that Rem was at.

Subaru: "Remember to not touch or lick anything."

Garfield: "All right captain…Rem I don't…Ufff…smells like someone took a shit here!"

Rem: "You seem to a lot more sensible than me."

Garfield: "The praise is for you I didn't notice until now."

Emilia: "Ok, we close this hot spring then."

Subaru: "We can't do that. The people use this to wash."

Emilia: "Can't they use water?"

Subaru: "It's too cold they would risk losing something to frostbite."

Emilia: "Then what do we do?"

Subaru: "Uhh…"

Beatrice: "We can dry the springs and clean it in fact."

Ram: "Yes, Rem and I can make sure that the springs are as clean as possible."

Garfield: "And I can give the spring a better look."

Subaru: "Garfield you won't do that, just deviate the water source to…there."

Subaru pointed his finger towards a frozen pond that was nearby.

Subaru: "Rem, Ram remember to not touch your face until you clean yourselves after cleaning here."

Rem: "Yes, we won't be carless."

Ram: "This disease is quite strong after all."

Subaru: "After this we can rest a few days if the amount of sick people doesn't decrease, we will have to get creative."

Emilia: "Then we just close this for today?"

Ram: "Yes, if Garfield doesn't have much problem drying the spring we should finish today."

Rem: "We should go find something to clean this with like…uhh…"

Ram: "I don't think mops will work on these rough rocks. Let's discuss this on the way back."

Rem & Ram start going back to the village.

Emilia: "Garfield how fast do you think you can drain the spring?"

Garfield: "A few minutes."

Garfield makes a canal with his Divine Protection and draws water away making the spring water level decrease.

Subaru: "I was expecting you to take longer…that was quite easy."

Emilia: "I will go to inform the villagers that the spring will be close today, can you guys make sure no one takes a bath?"

Subaru: "Yes we can. Leave it all to us."

Beatrice: "I will go with Emilia. I have to tell Moton something in fact."

Subaru: "Who?"

Beatrice: "The second-best healer in the town."

Subaru: "That guy…alright then see you later."

Elior Forest: 08:00 hrs. 07/09/1538

A sick boy no more than three years old had arrived. The small boy was twisting and crying in awful pain as his parents desperately called for help. Morton quickly took the child to a bed and Emilia who was with him started to heal him while Morton inspected the child. A pair of healers had to contain the parents that wanted to see their boy.

08:30 hrs.

The boy was now sleeping though he occasionally panted in pain. Emilia was worried but glad that the boy stopped crying. Morton on the other hand was very much silent watching the child with painful eyes. The boy's parents had calmed down and were sleeping in a chair beside him.

10:30 hrs.

The boy had woken up, he wasn't suffering unbearable pain anymore and was asking all types of questions that his parents tried to answer. Emilia was relieved believing that the boy would recuperate as did Morton. Morton was wondering if he had been overly pessimistic before and decided that the boy could eat lunch that day.

13:15 hrs.

The boy was eating well, he wasn't hungry, but he wasn't complaining either. Morton decided that he would be ok and left to tend to other patients and do other things. Emilia decided to stay and eat with the boy making him company since his parents had gone out to eat.

13:25 hrs.

Boy: "Miss…I don't feel…uggg!"

The boy started vomiting his food and Emilia pulled a bowl from under his bed to make him vomit in it. The boy was sobbing while vomiting and Emilia called out to Morton.

13:27 hrs.

Morton didn't appear and the boy was still vomiting. Emilia started to yell to see if maybe she hadn't been heard. A female healer appeared and told Emilia that Morton was in the bathroom. Emilia told the healer to go get Morton which she did.

13:29 hrs.

The boy had finished vomiting his food and was crying. Emilia was desperate to ease the pain, but her magic was not doing anything to ease the pain.

Suddenly the boy went quiet and Emilia thought everything would be alright but a few seconds later he started to vomit a yellowish greenish thing. Emilia hadn't seen anything like it and cried out for help.

13:30 hrs.

Morton had finally arrived at the sight of a crying vomiting boy and a desperate crying Emilia.

He sadly realized what was happening, this was not the disease they had been dealing with so far, it was something different.

Out of nowhere the boy ran out of the strange thing in his stomach and started to cry louder than ever before. A sight unfolded before Moron and Emilia a horrible sight he had seen few times, the boy started to vomit blood. Emilia was stunned but started to cry and cast healing magic in desperation in a hope to ease the boy's pain.

13:34 hrs.

In front of Morton and Emilia had been unfolding a horrible sight already. But it got even worse, the sight was so horrible that Morton had never seen it. It would haunt Morton's dreams the rest of his life. The boy started to cough some weird red things. 'It must be mucus' thought Morton. Emilia was watching in horror unable to process what she was seeing. One of the red things landed on Emilia's face and Morton was going to clean it off her but upon touching it he froze. 'Impossible this…this…he should be dead…' It wasn't mucus what the boy was coughing it was parts of his stomach, pieces of his lungs and other parts that should be inside him. 'How?…Emilia-sama'

Morton: "Emilia-sama stop healing him you are just making him suffer!"

Morton turned towards Emilia but noted that she was petrified, unable to comprehend what was happening, she wasn't healing the boy anymore. So, Morton positioned himself behind the agonizing boy.

Morton: "I'm sorry little one."

He threw a blanked at Emilia's face that covered her eyes. Then he leaned his hands behind the boy's head.

Morton: "Please forgive me, you are just suffering at this point."

Morton with tears in his eyes pushed the boy's head into the bowl he had filled with vomit. The boy started to shake uncontrollably for a few seconds, then…silence.

(Sorry for the long delay, I was quite unsure if to add this last part, but I noticed that I haven't written to much about suffering, so I made it. Hope you enjoy. Have fun guessing the disease that killed the boy, as a hint I'll say it still storms our postmodern society and comes in many shapes and forms.)