(Arin's POV)
Panic is a contagion faster than any virus.
In the middle of the usually quiet Northern Sector Forest, the atmosphere turned into organized chaos in the blink of an eye.
Selena Rhyms, the Headmistress, wasted not a single second. As soon as the red signal lit up on her communication device, her aura of authority as the Academy's supreme leader took over instantly, casting aside the tired grandmother persona.
"Karim! Take your troops to isolate the perimeter of Class B Dormitory! Do not let a single fly out!" ordered Selena, her voice containing mana that made the command sound absolute and undeniable.
"Yes, Your Excellency!" Karim snatched his helmet lying on the ground, his face hard and stiff as stone. "I will blockade the entire dormitory district."
"Edna! Prepare a level four quarantine unit. I give you full authority to use level one emergency medical stock from the central warehouse. Prioritize lives, forget the budget!"
"Understood!" Edna was already running toward her medical bag, her face pale but her eyes sharp full of focus.
The three of them rushed away, leaving footprints in the forest mud, moving quickly toward the center of the storm hitting the academy.
Elena, who was still standing beside me, seemed to hesitate for a moment. She looked at her grandmother moving away with quick steps, then looked at me with anxious eyes.
"Arin, come on!" Elena pulled my sleeve. "We have to catch up. Grandmother might need my magic help."
I did not answer immediately. My eyes were fixed on the rough wooden workbench in the middle of our forest factory. There, under the dim moonlight, lined up glass bottles containing clear golden liquid just finished being packaged.
Antibiotic Type A - Premium.
My brain spun fast, connecting the dots of information I had just heard. Blood Rust Plague. Then the Iron Blood Sect.
If it was a disease caused by pure curse magic, then my antibiotics would be useless. But Ghislain called it "Engineered Bacteria." If it was a living organism... if it was a microbe eating iron in the blood and oxidizing it... then this was biological warfare.
And in biological warfare, I had the weapon.
"Wait a moment," I muttered, releasing Elena's grip.
I walked quickly to the table, snatching five bottles of Premium Antibiotics. The small bottles felt cold in my hand, containing pure Penicillium extract reinforced with Grizzly regeneration serum. I put them into my inner coat pocket, ensuring they were safe from shocks.
"Ghislain!" I called to the hunched figure still engrossed in caressing the plants, as if the world were not collapsing.
The old mage turned, the tentacle eye on his back blinking lazily. "What, Kid? You want to go to a dance party?"
"Guard this place," I ordered firmly. "Do not let anyone in. Do not let these plants die or be stolen. If the plague there is uncontrollable, this forest is our only hope."
Ghislain grinned, displaying his terrifying yellow teeth. "Rest assured. Anyone daring to touch 'my children' will be turned into compost fertilizer."
I nodded, trusting his madness. Then I turned to Elena.
"Let's go. Let's see how bad the hell is over there."
(Class B Student Dormitory - Quarantine Area)
The scene in front of the Class B Dormitory looked more like a war zone than an elite boarding school.
Glowing yellow magic tape lines floated in the air, restricting a hundred-meter radius area from the dormitory building. Behind the lines, dozens of fully uniformed guards stood with spears drawn. Their faces were covered by thick cloth masks soaked in air-purifying potions.
No one spoke. Tension hung heavy in the cold night air, choking every breath.
Medical personnel ran back and forth frantically yet silently. They wore long white robes, thick leather gloves, and beak-shaped masks filled with spices, which were the ancient standard protection for infectious plagues.
In the distance, I saw Selena, Karim, and Edna discussing fiercely with several other senior instructors in front of the dormitory entrance. Edna looked angry, her hands pointing toward the inside of the building, while Selena massaged her temples with a face of deep frustration.
"We must not get closer than this," whispered Elena beside me. We stood behind a crowd of other students who had woken up due to the commotion and were now watching with anxious faces from a distance.
"Is it airborne?" asked a student next to me with a trembling voice. "I do not want to die!"
"They say if you inhale the victim's breath, your lungs will turn into iron," answered his friend in horror. "Then you will die suffocated!"
Wild rumors spread faster than the disease itself. Fear was the perfect fuel for mass chaos.
Suddenly, the dormitory front door opened wide.
"Back off! Make way! Isolation Unit passing through!" shouted one of the medical officers with a hoarse voice.
The crowd of students retreated simultaneously as if hit by a tidal wave.
From inside the dark building, four medical officers came out carrying a floating magic stretcher. Around the stretcher, a wind mage chanted a protective spell, creating a transparent wind dome to prevent the air around the patient from escaping and contaminating the environment.
However, the wind dome was transparent. And what was inside made my stomach churn instantly.
On the stretcher lay a male student. Or at least, something that used to be a student.
His skin... no longer looked like human skin. Its color was brownish-red, rough, and peeling like old metal left in the rain for years.
"Oh God..." Elena covered her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. "Is that... a human?"
I squinted, activating my serum-enhanced visual focus.
It was not just a pigmentation color change. The student's flesh had truly hardened. The blood vessels in his neck bulged stiffly like rusty iron pipes. In some parts, the skin cracked, oozing thick orange pus that smelled of stinging metal even from a distance.
The student was still conscious. His eyes moved wildly full of terror, his mouth opened trying to scream, but the sound coming out was only a stiff clack-clack from a jaw starting to harden. He was turning into a living iron statue, feeling every second with full consciousness.
Blood Rust Plague.
This was not ordinary curse magic. This was a systemic infection attacking iron in hemoglobin, oxidizing it extremely and triggering soft tissue calcification into brittle metal structures.
My medical soul turmoil violently. The fear of contagion vanished instantly, replaced by an obsessive drive to save the life before my eyes. That was a patient. And that patient needed a doctor, not frightened spectators.
Unconsciously, my feet stepped forward.
"Arin! Wait!" Elena tried to hold my arm, but I brushed her off gently.
"He is dying, Elena. He has no time," I said without turning, continuing to walk through the crowd of frightened students.
"But it is dangerous! You are not wearing protection!" exclaimed Elena in panic. But seeing my back not stopping, she stomped her foot in annoyance and finally ran to catch up with me. "You stubborn fool!"
Both of us broke through the yellow tape boundary line.
"HALT!"
A spear-wielding guard blocked us with a fierce face behind his mask. "Restricted area! Students are forbidden to enter! Back off!"
"Move!" I snapped, not reducing speed in the slightest. "I am Doctor Edna's medical assistant! I brought emergency medicine from the warehouse!"
The lie slid smoothly. The guard hesitated for a moment seeing my absolute confidence, and that doubt was enough for me to slip past him.
We arrived near the stretcher group just as the stretcher was lowered at the temporary medical checkpoint. Edna was examining the patient with a desperate face.
"Oxygen saturation dropping drastically," reported Edna to Selena, her voice trembling. "His lungs are starting to stiffen. He cannot breathe. Ordinary healing magic cannot penetrate this rust layer. Mana is rejected by the metal tissue."
"Is there no other way?" asked Selena urgently. "He is Baron Garius's son. If he dies here, we will face a political war!"
"We need a High Priest to perform total purification, but that takes hours to get here. He has less than ten minutes before his heart turns to stone," answered Edna in horror. "He... will not survive."
"I can stop it."
My voice cut through their panic. Calm, flat, and sure.
Selena, Edna, and Karim turned simultaneously. Their eyes widened seeing me and Elena standing there, only two meters from the highly contagious patient.
"Arin?!" shrieked Edna hysterically. "What are you doing here?! Do you want to die infected?! Back off!"
Selena stepped forward, her face flushed red with anger. Her Sixth Circle mage aura exploded, making the air feel heavy and suffocating.
"What is this?! Who allowed you to enter?!" snapped Selena. She looked at me, then looked at Elena. "Elena! Take him away! You risk my heir's life and my valuable asset for what?! A spectacle?!"
"Grandma, listen first—" Elena tried to defend, but Selena cut her off with a wave of her hand.
"Leave! Now! Guards, drag them out!"
Two guards stepped forward to arrest us.
"I HAVE THE CURE!" I shouted as loud as possible, raising the glass bottle containing golden liquid in my hand high so everyone could see.
My shout stopped the guards.
One of the senior medical staff, an old man in a Healer Association robe, snorted cynically. "Cure? Who does this snot-nosed brat think he is? High Priest? The Iron Blood Plague is a high-level curse. Even the kingdom's best Elixir failed, and you offer piss in a bottle?"
"This is not piss, Old Man," I retorted sharply, staring into his eyes fearlessly. "And this is not a curse. This is a bacterial infection and bacteria can be killed."
I turned to Selena. The woman stared at me with a mixture of anger and deep doubt.
"Madam Selena," I said, lowering my tone to serious and urgent. "You just saw the factory. You saw the test rat cured. This is Antibiotic Type A. Highest concentration. If there is anything in this world that can stop this decay, this is the stuff."
Selena fell silent. She glanced at the patient whose breathing grew more ragged and weak, then glanced at the gold bottle in my hand.
"That has not been tested on humans, Arin," said Selena softly. "If he dies after drinking that, we not only fail to save a life. We will be accused of poisoning a noble's child. The risk is too great."
"The risk is he dies anyway!" interrupted Elena suddenly.
She stepped forward, standing beside me, looking at her grandmother with an equally hard challenging gaze.
"Grandmother always talks about investment and risk. Well, this is the risk! Arin already saved me from a disease no doctor could cure. Why don't you dare bet on him now? Is your reputation more important than a student's life?!"
Selena was stunned hearing her granddaughter's words. She saw absolute conviction in Elena's eyes.
"Madam Headmistress," interrupted Instructor Adnia who suddenly appeared from the crowd of instructors. Her face implied cunning satisfaction. "You better not listen to a madman. If you allow a student without medical qualifications to experiment on a plague victim... the School Board will destroy your career. They will sue you for criminal negligence."
That was it. Political threat and enemy within.
Selena looked at Adnia, then looked at the dying patient. The boy was young, my age. Tears of blood melted from his terrified eyes, begging for help.
Selena's face hardened. A little madness shone in her eyes, similar to Elena back then who was about to declare enmity on Karl Benzzi.
"Edna," called Selena coldly.
"Yes, Your Excellency?"
"Make way for Arin."
"B-But..." the senior medic protested earlier. "This violates protocol!"
"I AM THE HEADMISTRESS HERE!" snapped Selena, her voice booming silencing everyone. "And I order emergency procedure! Move or I will freeze you all!"
The medics retreated in fear. The path opened wide for me.
I did not waste time and immediately ran to the stretcher side. The smell of rotten metal and dead flesh stung my nose, making me want to vomit, but I held it back.
"Hold his head!" I ordered Edna. "Do not let him move!"
Edna, though hesitant, held the student's head still. The student's mouth was stiff, almost locked tight by rust.
"Sorry, this will hurt," I whispered to the patient.
I used my thumb to press his jaw forcibly. Crack. There was a small cracking sound as the rust layer on his cheek broke, but his mouth opened slightly.
I opened the Premium Antibiotic bottle stopper with my teeth. The golden liquid shimmered under the magic light.
"Drink and live."
I poured the entire bottle contents into his mouth. The liquid entered, mixing with blood in his esophagus. I massaged his neck, forcing him to swallow.
Gulp.
Finished.
I took a step back, holding my breath. Elena squeezed my hand tightly beside me. Selena stood frozen with a pale face. Adnia and the political enemies watched with cynical smiles, ready to pounce as soon as the boy breathed his last.
One second. Two seconds.
The boy convulsed violently. His body arched on the stretcher. A long creeaak sound was heard from his bones rubbing against hardening flesh.
"He is reacting!" exclaimed Edna, holding the patient's wrist. "His heart... is beating faster!"
"He is dying! You killed him!" accused the senior medic. "The poison accelerated the process!"
"Look!" pointed Elena.
Suddenly, the convulsion stopped. The student fell back onto the stretcher, silent and motionless.
Silence. Gripping silence.
Adnia began to open her mouth to blame. "Just as I suspected, this is—"
"Look at his skin," I cut in.
All eyes focused on the student's arm.
The layer of red rust covering his skin... began to crack. Like dry earth watered by rain, the metal crusts began to fall off one by one, falling onto the stretcher floor with tick-tick sounds.
Behind the falling rust layer, new pink skin was visible. Pale, but clean. That was healthy flesh tissue.
The student's breathing, which had been shallow and wheezing, suddenly changed into long and deep inhales. His chest rose and fell in relief.
"Impossible..." whispered Adnia, her face losing color.
Edna immediately checked his pulse again. She looked up, staring at me with glassy eyes filled with pure amazement.
"Heartbeat stable," Edna's voice trembled. "The rust... stopped spreading. Cellular tissue is regenerating rapidly. He... he is healed!"
Suppressed cheers began to be heard from the students watching in the distance.
I exhaled a long breath, my knees feeling weak instantly.
I succeeded. My biological theory defeated curse magic.
Selena walked closer. She looked at the surviving student, then turned to look at me.
In her golden eyes, I saw something new. No longer just seeing a business asset or political tool. She looked at me with respect accompanied by fear of my potential.
"You..." whispered Selena.
However, before she could finish the sentence, a far louder warning siren roared from the city center tower in the distance.
WEEOOO WEEOOO!
That was not a plague siren, but a military attack siren.
"Report!" shouted Karim, pressing his communication device. "What is happening?! Where is the attack?!"
The voice from the device sounded panicked and broken. "East District! They are attacking! Not monsters! Humans! They are wearing black robes and iron masks!"
Selena's face changed into a mask of pure anger.
"Iron Blood Sect," she growled. "They dare to wage war against the capital openly."
I stared at the empty bottle in my hand, then looked toward the main gate where black smoke began to be seen billowing high into the night sky.
The night was not over. And my medicine had just become the most valuable target in the entire academy.