Interspecies Trader

“Yes, I’m pretty sure he was infected too.”

“I hope he’s fine.”

“Me too. Does this list make you remember anything?”

“Children in the domes receive several vaccination shots when they’re young. I feel like there was a disease like this but I’m not completely sure anymore.”

“I got it. I guess I’ll need to ask in a pharmacy. Do you know a good one?”

“There’s one where I get medicine from whenever I’m sick. It’s on the side where my house is. Maybe twenty minutes from here on foot.”

“Thanks. I’ll check it.”

She gave me more precise directions and I headed there right after. The pharmacy was a relatively small shop with a single older woman attending it.

“Welcome.”

She greeted me neutrally as I entered and I answered her as politely as possible.

“Good day, ma’am. I’m here with a special inquiry. Would you recognize a disease from this list of symptoms?”

“Let me see.”

I passed her the paper and she carefully looked through it. She nodded as soon as she was done.

“Yes, these are the symptoms for Roklera. There was a large pandemic of this virus in dome 6 about 150 years ago and they developed a vaccine for it.”

“Truly? Are you sure?”

“It’s hard to be certain without seeing the patient but the symptoms match perfectly.”

That was quite unexpected. While I argued about getting benefits in case I succeeded, I didn’t expect to learn about it so quickly.

“By Sel, that’s great news! What sort of sickness is that?”

“It was quite the deadly virus. It propagated fast through the air and death rates were about fifty percent for ranks 0. Dome 6 lost nearly 30% of its population before the vaccine was completed. But it’s a thing of the past now. Everyone is vaccinated and the virus has been eradicated.”

“That’s a terrifying disease. Would you happen to have some of that vaccine here?”

“We have a small quantity to vaccinate children in the neighborhood.”

“Can I buy them?”

“No, you can’t.”

Her flat refusal took me by surprise.

“What’s the problem?”

“I just told you, young lady. We keep this stock to vaccinate children. If you have a young child, you can come here to have her receive a dose. It’s better to consult your doctor or life mage before doing anything, though.”

“I see. Could you please just sell me one, then?”

“Not even one.”

“It’s very important. This is to save lives.”

“Of course. We vaccinate people to save lives.”

She was extremely stubborn. There was indeed nothing easy in the world. There was no point in continuing this conversation. After a short goodbye, I exited the pharmacy and looked for another one. The woman there also confirmed recognizing the symptoms of Roklera but, same as the previous one, she didn’t want to sell me a single vaccine. I ended up trying all the pharmacies in the city and the result was the same everywhere. I didn’t expect to get stuck on such a weird technical issue.

Eventually, it got late and I went back to help Suuru close the stall. Just like every day, she managed to sell her daily stock, earning a very nice profit. I told her my problem as we dismantled the booth.

“They all recognized the disease but none of them want to sell me the vaccine. They insist it’s only for young children who aren’t vaccinated yet.”

“That’s a problem… What should we do?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

We looked at each other dumbly for a moment before resuming moving our hands. Suuru hesitantly asked.

“What else did they say?”

“They talked about how deadly Roklera was in the past when it ravaged dome 6.”

“Dome 6 created the vaccine for it?”

“So it seems. Now, everyone is vaccinated and the virus hasn’t re-appeared again. Except in the outer world, of course.”

“Dome 6… Hmm… I told you that domes 1 to 10 are the largest ones, right?”

“Yes, I remember.”

According to her, not all domes were equal among the exactly one hundred that existed. The first ten were special, probably because they were where the population first accumulated to escape from whatever was terrorizing them. As such, they were larger and had much bigger populations, which in turn meant they had a lot more of everything. They also tended to specialize in a specific field, to get a competitive edge over other domes.

“I heard that dome 6 specializes in medicine and drug development. Maybe that pandemic was the trigger for that.”

“Oh, that’d make sense.”

“And so… Why don’t you go there directly and see if you can buy the vaccine from the source?”

Her suggestion made me pause. To think I hadn’t thought of something so obvious. The inner world had only been comprised of 82 for me so far and I forgot such an easy possibility.

“That’s a very good idea! How do I travel there?”

“You need to pay a lot of money to go through the gates but that shouldn’t be a problem now that we’re earning so much.”

I winced a little at the mention of gates. A gate was the whole reason I ended up landing on this planet, through such an infinitely small probability that I had more chance to win the lottery two times in a row than being a victim of it. It was a truly terrible misfortune.

“How much is it?”

“I’m not exactly sure either. I’ve never traveled to another dome.”

“What’s the procedure? Do I need an ID card? I still don’t have one.”

“No, you don’t need one. You just need enough money to pay for the gate fare. They’re managed by the city so you have to ask there.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

“It’s closed now.”

“…Right.”

At least one thing that didn’t change no matter the world was how early civil servants closed shops. That might be a universal constant, just like light speed. I was sure weird blobby aliens in some faraway galaxy complained about it too.

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