YM778.TV Chapter 12: Plague
Chapter 12: Plague
Though the lights seemed to illuminate the entire city below.
\'How does a place like this even exist? And how does the city above ground not crumble down into here\' Michael wondered. It felt like a whole different city altogether, yet they were right beside each other.
There is probably some sort of barrier holding it together, that would explain why the detection magic disappeared.
\'It did? When?\'
The moment you took a step down the stairs.
\'I see, well if anything I will still have to get out and go to the police station to get my ID made\' When Michael was being questioned they asked for his ID, he obviously didn\'t have one, luckily they offered to make him one for free.
I have an ominous feeling again.
Michael flinched \'What now?\' he knew better than to not trust the system\'s hunches.
Ever since the police station something felt amiss, I can\'t quite understand what, but I feel like you should lay low for a while.
\'Well I plan on staying here for a bit, so it works out.\' Michael nodded and finally reached the ground, the descent took a solid 5 minutes.
As Michael finally approached the city, all kinds of people gathered around, making a path for him as if he were some kind of royal.
Most of them had proper clothes, well proper enough to be worn. It seemed the old man was the only one who had ripped clothes.
The old man led Michael to some sort of church, which had an angel statue right in front of it.
Surprising as it was, the church was a stark contrast to the city around it. It was clean, and the statue outside was even shining.
The bright lights in the underground sky highlighted the beauty of it all.
The old man turned around and pulled a key out of his pocket, handing it over to Michael.
The old man explained "This is the place where you will be staying, I promise it is much better than the others around you."
He then resumed walking, heading to a nearby building right next to the church.
Michael followed along, arriving right in front of the building and stopping.
The old man suddenly turned to him with a grave expression "Steel yourself..the inside is the reason why I was so desperate to find a healer."
Michael nodded and opened the door, what greeted his eyes was a small room, however, the stench was god awful, if he hadn\'t gone through worse during his time in the military, he would have vomited his guts out.
There is miasma in the air, it won\'t affect you much, however, the others would suffer, close the door.
\'Alright\' Michael took one last glance at the old man, then closed the door and turned on the lights.
He then saw 6 beds and 5 individuals lying on them, all of them had some sort of pained expression.
Michael walked closer to one of them and noticed some sort of lymph node on their neck, and a tad bit of darkening around the wrist.
It took Michael a couple of seconds to deduce what this could be. He was not a medical expert, however, he did study quite a bit of history back in the day.
\'The Black Death\' Michael thought, his expression becoming more and more serious.
He walked up to one of the people who had the best complexion, it was a girl "Can you talk?"
"Y-yes.." She replied weakly.
Michael glanced around and turned back to her "I am asking just in case, but were there originally 6 people here?"
She seemed a bit confused for a moment, however, her eyes soon widened in realization
That reaction was all that Michael needed to know, he walked around the room and used Purify and Greater Heal on all of them, then told everyone to quickly get out of the building.
[Purify +1250 EXP] [Greater Heal +250 EXP]
The only thing left in this building was the miasma, he wasn\'t sure if Purify could get rid of it, but he tried nonetheless.
He held out his hand and used Purify just a bit in front of his palm, immediately the air became more pure, and the dreary atmosphere was gone, like it had never been here in the first place.
[Purify +250 EXP]
\'It worked!\' Michael thought happily. It seemed the only thing left now was to find the last person before he managed to infect everyone else.
However that was just wishful thinking..he had 170 MP left and if he infects one more person it\'s going to become an epidemic he couldn\'t stop.
Michael walked out of the building and noticed no one was around, even the old man was gone.
He quickly walked back to the church, however even then, it was completely empty, just a few minutes ago there were a bunch of people gathered there.
\'Hey, can you feel anything?\' Michael asked the system.
\'Are you seriously doing this shit again?\'
The system was quiet, much like when he had to deal with the monster in the dungeon.
\'You really know when to pick your timing don\'t you?\' Michael berated for the last time. Then decided to get to work, he had to find the 6th person who had the plague.
He walked to where he had come from and was shocked, in a bad way.
The people who had been missing were all standing there, listening to the old man with tattered clothes. He stood on some sort of makeshift wooden podium, looking extremely happy.
\'Fuck how am I supposed to find them now!?\' Michael scanned the crowd, looking for rashes, dark spots, or literally anything that could be an indicator to help him.
He looked around. He then walked into the crowd, they didn\'t even know he was there, even though they greeted him like some sort of noble just earlier.
Much less the fact that if he were to shout and explain the situation to them, he would run the risk of the person with the plague escaping.
Knowing a person would run out and endanger others, Michael was pretty sure they would not turn themselves in willingly.
He was lost, he needed to find the person, though he was sure by now someone else had been infected.
With his MP on the lower side, it\'s over.
\'If only I could see who it is..\' Michael let out a defeated sigh. However, it seemed not all hope was lost, as in the next moment...
-DING
[Conditions Met : Skill Unlocked]
[Unnamed] [Level MAX] [Unique] [Passive]
# See the HP, ailments, illnesses, curses, and any kind of mind magic of those in your field of vision.
-DING
[Please name your skill]
Everything happened so fast he couldn\'t believe it. All of a sudden red bars appeared above all of the people in front of him, some displaying extra symbols.
The message telling him to name his skill was still in front of his eyes, moving along wherever he moved his head.
\'Fuck, I don\'t know? Eyes of The Healer or something\' Michael thought in his mind, not paying much thought to the naming process, he couldn\'t care less about it at the moment.
-DING
[Your skill has been named] [+5 INT]
He gained an extra 5 INT, which meant he now had enough MP to cast Purify twice.
Michael quickly pushed through the crowd, moving to the podium and jumping on top of it.
The old man seemed shocked, he didn\'t expect their savior to come by so suddenly "What brings you he-"
"Quiet" Michael said to the man, his childlike voice exhibiting authority.
Suddenly, the surroundings turned quiet, the people staring at Michael with mixed expressions.
Many with awe, reverence, confusion and then there were some with caution, unwarranted caution.
However, Michael\'s current expression was grim, extremely so.
He noticed a very large chunk of people that had a black glob attached to their health bar.
There was very little he could do, however as he was losing all hope, an idea sparked into his head.
He had used Purify on the air before, couldn\'t he try that again? Worst case scenario it won\'t work.
He had nothing to lose so he got down from the podium and instructed "Everyone! Get around me I will cast upon you my blessing"
He felt like that was the only way to get them to come, he was already pretending to be some sort of holy healer, he might as well act the part.
The people quickly huddled over to him, everyone standing and awaiting the blessing, some even got down on their knees and started praying.
There were roughly 350 people, most of them being infected.
\'If I take into account that my heal skill has a range of 10 meters, my robe adding another 10.. I hope Purify follows the same principles...\' Michael thought before extending his hand into the air.
\'Purify\'
All of a sudden a green light expanded out from Michael\'s palm, enveloping all the people around him.
Gasps could be heard from all around, however, what drew Michael\'s attention was something in the air.
Hundreds of blue boxes appeared and slowly started combining into one box, right in front of Michael\'s eyes.
[Purify +66500 EXP]
-DING
[Skill Evolved] [Purify [Rare ->Epic] [+10 INT]
Purify [Level 17 150/8500 EXP] [Epic] [Active]
# Purify everyone and everything around you, curing all diseases and illnesses
Cost: 70MP
Radius: 65 Meters
What...
\'Now you talk bastard? Level 20 by the time I go to the academy? Yeah right\' Michael held back his excitement. An unbelievable amount of EXP just landed on his plate, and this was only his first day in the city.
He quickly turned to the old man, who now had a shocked expression on his face. Then right after immediately kneeled and started praying while looking at Michael.
"O great gift of the heavens, we thank you!" As soon as he said that, the others followed along and did the same.
\'These people are quite the religious bunch\' Michael couldn\'t help but chuckle inwardly, he was definitely not used to being revered by somebody.
From a third person perspective, it looked like a bunch of fanatics were praying to a handsome kid wearing a white robe, it was ridiculous.
Though Michael couldn\'t help but show a small smile \'It didn\'t feel too bad.\'
"How many more people are in this city?" He asked the old man
"N-not that many. Many of the houses beyond a certain point are now ruins. If I were to make an estimate I would say there are around 20000 people living in the slums."
Michael\'s heart immediately started racing faster. He knew he shouldn\'t wish the plague upon anyone, but he did hope there would be a few more people to gain EXP from.
You really are shameless...
\'You are one to talk\' Michael shot back while scoffing. He then looked back at the old man.
"Would it be possible for you to gather as many people as you can tomorrow? I wish to bless all the citizens of the slums."
The man thought for a moment "..That would be possible. I will arrange it so they all come to the church where you will be staying."
Michael nodded back at the man and then looked over to the other citizens.
"I will be going to the church, see you all tomorrow" and with those words, Michael began walking back.
\'Why were you so surprised?\' Michael decided to tease the system a little. He still didn\'t forgive it for going silent on him again.
I didn\'t expect you to evolve the skill like that, even I myself was not aware of such a possibility with a simple Rare skill.
\'It\'s Epic now\'
Yes, that was what surprised me, it is not incredibly rare for a skill to evolve and change a bit. However, evolving the rarity? Definitely not ordinary.
Michael laughed a bit at the system\'s confusion before finally arriving back at the church.
He unlocked the doors and prepared to go in, however he suddenly heard another voice in his head, it was not the system.
Yo, it\'s Meph, I don\'t know what you did prior to meeting me, however, the police said you don\'t exist and are now searching for you.
Michael was immediately startled \'What are you talking about?\'
I got some information out of one of them and they said a person going by Michael does not exist, you were not even in the orphanage\'s database.
\'How can that be?\' Michael thought, confusion clearly present in his expression.
Who knows, you don\'t exist. Oh and better yet that Rebecca girl you were telling me about? She is no longer the headmaster of the orphanage, no one knows where she disappeared to.
\'...What?\'