We finished selling our stock a few hours before the market closed. With repeat customers and new ones always coming, we were selling everything early every day, to the point that we considered increasing our daily supply. After buying some more selnic items, I teleported us to Suuru's house, leaving her to her training, before teleporting again to Geola.
It had been a few days since I saw my merchant friend Giya, and I planned to visit him today. However, when I reached the day market, I found his booth empty. I asked the merchant right next to him, whom I knew he was in a friendly relationship with.
"Hello, sir. Would you know what happened to Giya?"
"Hello. He's sick today. Cough, cough. And I think he gave me his illness too."
He indeed coughed the same way I remembered Giya doing.
"Oh no. You should consult someone, sir."
"Cough, cough. Maybe I will."
After thinking for a bit, I decided to go to Giya's house to see how he was doing. I still remembered where it was located and quickly made my way there. I knocked on the door but no one answered. After waiting a few moments, I knocked again. I heard some noise coming from inside and the feeble voice soon queried.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough! Who… is it?"
"Giya, it's Tila. I heard about your sickness."
"Ah… Tila. Cough, cough. Good to hear from you… I can't let you come in, my friend... I don't want you to catch whatever I have."
"Is there anything I can do? Did you go to the herbalist?"
"Cough, cough. Yes… Four of them. None could help me… I even went to a life mage but that only calmed down the pain for a short while."
Life mages were great for treating wounds and broken body parts but they weren't that useful for treating diseases. These were handled by medicines and drugs, whether it was in my world or this one. The only difference was that I wouldn't rely much on the concoctions prepared by herbalists from the outer world since it was always unsure how they prepared those.
"Damn. That sounds bad."
"I'll be fine after some rest… Cough, cough. That's what they all advised me to do… You shouldn't stay here for too long, Tila… You're rank 0… I don't want anything to happen to you… Cough, cough."
"Okay… Have a good rest, Giya. I hope you get better soon."
"Yeah… Cough, cough, cough, cough! Let's hit the brothel together when I'm back to health."
I left his place, deep in thought. Something was wrong. My instincts warned me about the situation. I stopped walking and focused hard.
Giya's disease. His neighbor merchant in the market being stuck with the same disease. There was nothing strange about this. I searched deeper into my memories and managed to remember more.
'Wait. Wasn't there someone coughing in the inn this morning? And, come to think of it, I've been seeing people coughing in the slums for some time now.'
Warning bells were ringing in my head. I was just a hypothesis but…
'Could it be the start of a pandemic?'
If it were the case, that would be very bad. In my world, pandemics were called "future destroyers", "generation killers", or "reverse demographic bombs". Just like Giya said, the lower one's rank was, the more exposed the person was to diseases and sickness. Since most of the low-ranked people were young, it meant that pandemics were disasters for children, teenagers, and young people. The elderly, on the other hand, were relatively safe. In my world, most of the population was at rank 6 since it was the last rank before the "wall". Contrary to here, reaching that rank was but a matter of time, which also meant that as long as one was old enough, they would be relatively safe from sickness.
As a rank 4, I had some disease resistance but it was far from perfect. I could still fall ill, even though the effects of the sickness would be slightly alleviated. I was by no means safe from a potential pandemic.
'This… might be bad.'
While this was a just guess and a possibility, there was no need to take any risk. I needed to stay away from Geola until I had a better understanding of the situation.
That was a shame since my selnic items business was doing well. The weasel merchant was probably selling my stuff left and right since he now had enough funds to buy everything I had every day. Which meant I was making a lot of money too.
It wasn't to say I should just stop earning altogether, though. There was one more trading action I had been curious about for a while now, and that was regional and international trade. I knew Geola acted as a commercial center in the region but that was the extent of my knowledge. Who was buying what, at what price, and how did they transport the goods? All sorts of questions I needed answers to if I wanted to use the opportunity to trade with places other than this city.
As soon as my decision was taken, I pushed forward with it. Truthfully, acting as a merchant in a world where the technological level was so low was quite exciting. It was like I was in a movie, playing the role of a trader in a medieval world. Even though this world was filled with bandits, pickpockets, and scammers, this was part of what made it interesting too.
I went back to my next best source of information after Giya, the potter merchant who gave me intelligence about the bunnies' village. He looked as bored and willing to chat as the previous time. I bought a few of his stuff and asked him everything I was curious about. I didn't mind my storage getting filled with pottery too much either. Who knows, maybe I could sell these in a different country?