CHAPTER 329: CHAPTER 325: BIZARRE SYMPTOMS

Upon receiving the news, Perfikot rushed to the affected settlement immediately, even postponing the inauguration ceremony of the capital’s new city.

Such actions by the Lord of the North inevitably triggered numerous concerns, as many people worried about a large-scale epidemic. Otherwise, there seemed no explanation for why Perfikot would postpone the inauguration ceremony of the Northern capital for the sake of a single village.

One should know that to celebrate the completion of the Northern capital, not only had social elites from both the Empire’s homeland and the New Continent gathered in this city, but even Duke of Gloucestershire and Eldest Princess Annie had specially arrived to attend this ceremony.

Under such circumstances, Perfikot’s decision to delay the new city’s completion due to an epidemic in a settlement was understandably worrisome.

However, Perfikot had no time to attend to these concerns, because after arriving at the epidemic-stricken village and examining the sick patients, the conclusion she reached was highly troubling.

It was necrosis.

Necrosis refers to the distinctive changes of tissue turning black or dark green due to infection by putrefactive bacteria following tissue death and other influencing factors.

As decaying bacteria decompose necrotic tissue, they produce hydrogen sulfide, which combines with iron from decomposed hemoglobin, forming iron sulfide and thereby turning the necrotic tissue black.

This condition is merely a complication, as its cause is a putrefactive bacterial infection triggered by tissue necrosis.

If tissue necrosis doesn’t occur, naturally, this disease won’t happen.

However, the causes of tissue necrosis are so numerous that even Perfikot found it difficult to determine whether they were caused by an infection or consuming something bad, or some other reason.

"Lock down the entire settlement, send people to collect samples of the water source, food, and patients’ clothing from here, and disinfect the entire village and town!" Perfikot promptly issued the order to lock down the village: "Everyone who is still healthy must stay at home and not wander about freely. All food and drinking water will be distributed by designated personnel. Until the water source is confirmed to be safe, no one is allowed to drink from the current water source!"

Perfikot was deeply concerned about potential water source contamination, given that this Northern territory, before her people’s pioneering efforts, was largely wilderness, and its contents were unclear. If the water source were contaminated, it would become a severe issue.

Therefore, while ordering the village lockdown, Perfikot also sent someone to invite shamans from the nearby native tribes, believing that these local shamans might have some insights into the situation.

After all, this world harbors magic and various mysterious forces, and Perfikot dared not wholly rely on the experiences of the original world to address and solve problems.

If this were some kind of magical curse or the like, handling it without understanding based on experiences from the original world might result in significant issues.

Although Lili, a Shaman Apprentice from the Wild Mane Tribe, had been following the alchemy professors in Perfikot’s laboratory to learn alchemy, Lili was ultimately just an ordinary Shaman Apprentice, whose knowledge and vision were limited and not likely to be of much use.

Relatively speaking, it was more effective to inquire for news from the shamans of local tribes.

However, before the shamans arrived, Perfikot did not plan to just wait.

At this time, she was thankful that the merchants had gifted her a lavish new Flying Airship, which had a laboratory onboard prepared for her. This way, she could conduct some simple alchemy experiments and other research right on the Flying Airship.

Originally, this was merely an attempt by the merchants to curry favor with Perfikot, but now it proved to be extremely useful. At least Perfikot didn’t have to send collected samples back to Eagle’s Beak Cliff for analysis but could conduct preliminary identification in the laboratory on the Flying Airship.

However, the identification results left Perfikot puzzled.

The water source was not problematic, which gave Perfikot some relief directly.

After all, if the water source were problematic, it would indicate that this settlement might be untenable, necessitating relocation to another place.

Though this was not a major issue, abandoning a settlement at this time indeed implicated a wide range of concerns.

After all, site selection and construction of each settlement required significant effort and time, and if abandoned, she could not guarantee the completion of a new settlement within the next few months.

Especially now that late summer had passed, autumn in the Northern Territory was very short, and once winter set in, it would be disastrous for settlements still under construction.

Thus, if the water source wasn’t problematic, the likelihood of needing to relocate the settlement itself was greatly reduced.

Next was food, which was Perfikot’s greatest suspicion.

However, the result of its identification still showed no issues.

Even though wheat and rye, the primary food sources of this settlement, were Perfikot’s main suspects, the food samples sent did not reveal any signs of poison grain or ergot.

She even suspected that the sample collection might not have been extensive enough, so she ordered a thorough house-to-house collection and inspection of food from all afflicted households. The final result also showed no issues.

This left Perfikot greatly puzzled. After all, with no issues found with the water source or food, how were people in this settlement getting sick?

At this thought, Perfikot could only redirect her focus to the patients and start analyzing exactly what was wrong with their bodies.

The conclusion from this analysis, however, was quite astounding to Perfikot.

Besides suffering from necrosis, these people’s bodies were very healthy, with no signs of illness apparent through examination.

This baffled Perfikot.

After all, the patients experienced hallucinations, felt intense, fiery, burning pain, and those severely afflicted even showed signs of necrosis. Yet the examination results indicated that apart from the necrosis, they were otherwise normal and healthy?

Perfikot felt her intelligence was being insulted, repeatedly rubbed into the ground as if by someone.

But as the great detective Sherlock Holmes once said, when you have eliminated all the impossibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Thus, after repeatedly verifying her testing and examination results as correct, Perfikot had no choice but to reluctantly admit that these patients were indeed developing necrosis while being otherwise healthy.

The situation was incredibly bizarre and perplexing.

Perfikot couldn’t be certain what exactly happened, but the problem was undeniably at an impasse.

With no solution at hand and necrosis being the affliction, all she could do was treat the patients to the best of her ability, striving to save their limbs.

This was not easy, given that curing necrosis, even in the original world with advanced medicine, was quite challenging, let alone in this world where antibiotics had yet to be invented.

In this stalemate, shamans from nearby tribes finally responded to Perfikot’s call and arrived at the settlement.