Cayn couldn’t close his eyes. He was glad that they didn’t need to bring down his favorite thing in existence, the Great Coral, anymore. But now they had to deal with an even worse foe.

  So far, they had to deal with a giant tortoise and a mimic that could imitate skills and movements. So how do you deal with whatever that was supposed to be? What is only one eukaryote that Astor luckily got? Or did of them count? So many questions and only one way to know.

  Switching to [Mage], Cayn put up a small [Corpuscle] of light and took the samples on the table nearby. He switched back to [Appraiser] and used [Identify] on every sample.

  World Boss.

  World Boss.

  World Boss.

  They were all World Bosses. How troublesome…

  ***

  Morning, noises came from outside of the room. Cayn opened the door to see. People were coming with rashes on their body, asking Uncle to [Cure] them.

  “Cayn, come help,” Uncle said, after seeing him.

  He did as told and started treating people. The rashes were different from one to another. Sizes varied, the intensity of the itching too. Cayn didn’t know what skill to focus on. [Heal] to boost the microbiome in general? Or [Cure] to buff the immune system? What was the origin of the disease happening right now? He didn’t have much time to think about it as more people came in. In this situation, the protocol is to gather all the healing skills in one place, so his uncle went above and rang the bell.

  Cayn’s teammates woke up and got to work as well. Soon, many [Priests], [Monks], and others came to the rescue. And in no time, the church was at full capacity with an unending stream of patients.

  Cayn’s hands started growing red spots. It didn’t bother at first but as time went on, he couldn’t control himself and scratched to the point of bleeding.

  “Green-eyes, calm down,” Bel said, using [Regeneration] on him.

  It quelled the pain and the itching.

  “Thank you.”

  She told him, “You should take a break.”

  He took the advice and went outside of the church. The place in front was also filled with sick people and healers.

  Epidemic.

  When was the last time since an epidemic happened? It wasn't endemic, as it didn’t happen back when Cayn temporarily lived here with his uncle. Nor did he hear about any kind of similar event happening before.

  He stressed up and the urge to scratch himself again came. Astor touched his shoulder, he turned around. “World Boss,” Astor said. Right. Of course, of course it was.

  “What can we do Astor? Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, but I know you know.”

  Out of the three, only Cayn had experiences with micro-organisms or rather eukaryotes. So as to treat a disease like that, an approach similar to fungal infections should be worth trying.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  He tried the approach, casting [Cure] on the nearest person in need, with an emphasis on buffing T-cells. That way, the immune system should be able to defeat the World Boss faster and easier. However, the main problem would be how to reproduce the same effects on others and at a large scale, because as far as he knows, only those under a certain level can damage World Bosses.

  But first thing first, he asked Astor to compare samples from an infected person to the cured one.

  “It takes some time but they should be safe,” Astor said.

  Cayn asked, “Let’s see if it works with other [Priests].”

  A random level 100 [Priest] did as told. Cayn hadn’t expected much and the results came: damages dealt by a buffed immune system were inefficient against the World Boss. Cayn was level 33 right now, so if he compared it to the First Land situation, the uppermost limit should be level 40.

  Only those on a Journey could deal with them, not only that but they also needed a skill that could buff the immune system. Counting in the fast spreading and mana limit, it seemed impossible to quell the epidemic before it became a pandemic.

  What should he do? Cayn got ants-like sensation on his spine as he thought about the possible outcomes. Maybe it was the rashes, or perhaps the stress. But he needed to think about the solution to solve the problem. No matter what he could think of, there would be damages.

  People fell unconscious left and right. In front of him, a [Priest] was struggling with multiple patients, all screaming in pain. He searched for Astor, who didn’t give up and went around giving instructions, trying his best even with his timid personality. Bel was probably in the church doing the same thing, but she’d try to make people smile too, by doing what she does best: being a fool.

  So what was Cayn doing?

  Someone screamed their heart out, “A [Necromancer] please!”

  First casualty. Cayn’s heart raced. It was the [Baker] from the nearby bakery. A feeling of uneasiness instilled into his being.

  Astor ran toward them, using his newly acquired [Necromancer] class. He imitated Dietrich’s doing to perfection. Cayn was unwell. If Nyac was here, what would he do?

  Astor used [Ghoul] and like Dietrich, he used the skill to reconstitute the body. In this case, rashes and harmful eukaryotes had to be removed. However, unlike Dietrich, he didn’t have ghouls laying around to take skin from and replace them.

  Replacing? What if they replace some T-cells and other immune defenses with ones from a previously boosted person? But how?

  Cayn had some samples on him: one from an untreated person and another from the person treated earlier. He magnified glassed the treated one: it was still clean long after he used [Cure] to buff it. If the immune system ever had something going for itself, it was its capacity at learning and improving. Cayn should strive to be alike.

  Now the answer became clear. They didn’t need to buff one person’s immune system at a time. They just had to cultivate enough T-cells, and maybe some macrophages and neutrophils, to cure everyone.

  It would have been difficult if they only had one [Necromancer] but thanks to the System’s gift; [Class switch] skill set, they had four of them available.

  “Go get Dietrich and Bel,” Cayn asked of Astor, who did as told without question.

  In the middle of the open place in front of the church, Cayn created a cauldron. He then asked people to willingly offer some of their blood, infected or not. Some were reluctant, but others quickly got to it. Soon enough, Cayn got what he needed: a gruesome pool of blood.

  It was rather disgusting and smelly. And that’s omitting the absolute biohazard it represented. But that was for the greater good.

  Cayn’s body was itching like a thousand razors were grating him. He held strong as he had better things to do.

  His party came up with Dietrich.

  “Ew, what is that?” Bel said, rightfully disgusted.

  Cayn replied in the same tone as her, “A pool of dead cells.”

  Astor was quite delighted by the view. His blue-eyes couldn’t be more visible right now. As for Dietrich? Pretty indifferent, probably used to gruesome scenes.

  “I need two of you to use [Ghoul] on the white blood cells while the other two use [Cure] to buff them.”

  Bel and Dietrich went for [Ghoul], the experimented one guiding the other. Astor and Cayn did the rest.

  The goal here was simple, in order to use [Cure] and buff the white blood cells, they needed an active base, as in undead. From there, all they had to do was wait for the immune system to bolster itself up and learn how to fight the World Boss, without risk of defeat as they were undead anyways. It would create a base of blood strong enough to fend off the eukaryotes. The next step would be resurrecting the cells with [Resurrect] from his uncle, as to get a well and alive pool of blood. Then people will have to get in and out of the pool of blood. That was the hardest part.

  The blood pool was ready. No one wanted to be the first to plunge. Cayn took most of his clothes off, held his double turquoise coral necklace, and went in first.