Chapter 7: Chapter Six: Protection Mechanism

Thump!

As Ryan's expression shifted from confusion to shock, Kraft's forehead slammed hard against the windowsill. The thin layer of snow accumulated overnight offered no cushioning; a vivid red mark immediately appeared on his head.

His limbs refused to obey, and his position sensors temporarily shut down, leaving him unable to react—he simply slid down the wall and collapsed onto the floor.

Still in a dazed, panicked state, Ryan hurried forward, lifted Kraft, and awkwardly transferred him into a princess-carry position before laying him onto the bed.

As he reached up to brush aside Kraft's golden bangs, he realized the red mark was less serious than the unusually high temperature of his forehead.

As the older cousin, Ryan had cared for Kraft during childhood fevers. Though those memories were hazy, he could still tell this fever was absurdly extreme—far beyond normal levels, bordering on scalding.

Moreover, Kraft had uttered not a single word, not even a faint cry of pain, from the moment he hit his head until he was moved to bed—he was completely delirious from fever.

"Kraft! Kraft!" Ryan used an old Wood family battlefield first-aid technique, slapping Kraft's cheeks hard in an attempt to snap him back to consciousness.

When two slaps failed to wake him, he decisively grabbed a handful of snow from the windowsill, packed it tight, and pressed it onto Kraft's forehead—a simple yet effective physical cooling method. Ryan repositioned Kraft's head and found him still staring blankly ahead, showing no reaction whatsoever to his actions.

"I'll go ask next door if there's a doctor here—stay put and don't move!" He gave a token warning, then rose and sprinted for the door. But after only a few steps, he turned back, shut the window that had been open all night, pulled half the blanket from under Kraft, and draped it over him before rushing out.

………

After an indeterminate length of time, as Kraft slowly emerged from confusion and regained partial control over his face, Ryan burst through the door, dragging in a middle-aged man who looked no different from the other villagers, with the village chief panting behind him.

After pulling the chief along, Ryan and he had searched the village for the only person who knew any folk remedies—only to find the house empty. After failing to locate him elsewhere, they finally found the man at Shi Zhu. Ryan then learned one of the men they'd hired to dig the pit was the village's own "doctor."

This part-time "doctor," along with the others, had received a decent payment but failed to fully excavate the object, leaving them feeling guilty. With winter idle and the weather unusually sunny today, they'd agreed to dig a few more shovelfuls and chat to pass the time.

The three of them raced back to the doctor's house to fetch his tools and herbs—it was already well past mid-morning.

When Ryan returned with the doctor, he could see Kraft forcing out an indiscernible expression toward him, mumbling incoherent sounds. With a single red stripe across his forehead and swollen cheeks, he looked comical. Lying in bed, he listened as his relieved cousin described his condition to the half-doctor.

Without personal history, past medical records, family history, marital or reproductive history, or any specialized examination, this man—far more unprofessional in Kraft's eyes than the doctor who'd once amputated a fire-hand—diagnosed him solely from the family's verbal account and a partial current illness history: "Your illness, I reckon, is our village's specialty disease!"

Through the doctor's hard-to-understand accent, Kraft and Ryan learned he was a practitioner with lineage.

From ancestors long forgotten to this generation, his family had three generations served as part-time doctors in this village, supporting local healthcare with medical techniques roughly matching the era's average standard.

Their main treatments were bloodletting and folk herbal remedies—triumphant in orderly tradition, but deficient in advanced procedures like amputation or enemas compared to city clinics.

This medical model, surviving only in historical records among the soul from another world, could not be called humble—it could only be called efficient slaughter.

Yet objectively speaking, after the doctor predictably recommended bloodletting and the local specialty herbal tonic, Kraft's ability to speak returned sooner.

With lips still numb, he mustered all his strength and forced out a few words under the doctor's astonished gaze: "No need. I'm feeling much better."

After the series of shocks, though Kraft still struggled to move his limbs and torso, his mind had returned to normal. As Ryan applied ointment to the bruise on his forehead, he clearly felt the fever had broken—this at least ruled out infectious disease.

Of the events of last night, Kraft remembered only fragmented, unconnected words—snakes, scales, and the like—summarizable as a nightmare of a giant snake slithering past him by the window.

To those present, this was nothing unusual. In an era where neurology hadn't yet claimed the top rung of the medical hierarchy, complex diseases were still commonly explained by supernatural causes.

Whether it was stroke-induced aphasia and hemiplegia, hypokalemia-induced weakness, febrile convulsions, or delirium-induced twitching and incoherent speech, all could be blamed on some evil entity's interference.

Explaining this snake-themed nightmare as an evil spirit's work was perfectly reasonable. Given Kraft's rapid recovery, the somewhat devout village chief believed it was divine protection—naturally cured without medicine.

Ryan stood by, wanting to speak but holding back. He didn't know whether the Church's god even protected the relatives of a heretic collector, nor could he be sure his morning shoulder slap hadn't worsened the illness—had he turned a minor ailment into a serious one?

Meanwhile, Kraft, driven by the sensitivity of his otherworldly soul, quickly caught a word in their conversation. He struggled to move his hand, trying to push himself up. Ryan noticed and helped him sit, propping a small pillow of blankets behind his back, then offered him a sip of water so he could speak upright.

"What did you mean by 'specialty disease'?" Kraft asked in a hoarse voice. Ryan leaned the water jug closer, offering another sip, but Kraft turned his head away. "What do you mean by 'your village's specialty disease'? Is sudden high fever common here?"

He vaguely sensed something, but last night's memories were shattered fragments, the rest lost in depths he couldn't reach—he needed clues.

Perhaps because the symptom was so distinctive, the amateur doctor displayed excellent memory: "According to my father—though he heard it from my grandfather—I don't know anything further back. This strange illness has existed here for a long time, mostly striking young people, recurring every eight or nine years. They all suddenly develop fever, burning hot as if roasted over fire, babbling nonsense about snakes, and finally…" He suddenly fell silent, observing Ryan and Kraft's expressions, deciding they wouldn't blame him now. "They never lived past two days. My father's case was the same."

Seeing Ryan and Kraft's skepticism, the doctor pulled out his bloodletting tools: "Before my grandfather came here, he was a proper doctor from outside. These tools were his. He said he'd never seen this illness anywhere else—even fevers with delirium never all involved snakes!" His voice dropped lower. "Of course, that's what my father told me—he guessed there's a snake spirit here. It devours fresh, strong souls, then returns, and comes out again when hungry."

Kraft automatically filtered his words: acute onset, prevalent among young adults, main symptoms fever and delirium, clear geographic clustering, extremely high fatality rate—possible that local medical practices worsened outcomes.

And then there was the "snake." That inexplicable element still lingered in his mind, refusing to fade. His current state felt like waking from a dream—pulled back from a distant vision. Beyond the most vivid impression, everything else was unknown. The only difference was a vague, persistent sensation—he felt something had been irrevocably altered somewhere beyond his awareness.

This vagueness reminded him of a past rafting trip, when he'd gazed down at murky water choked with algae, and suddenly a dark shadow flickered at the edge of his vision—only to vanish upon closer inspection. He doubted himself: perhaps it was just rippling water, or the dappled shadows of gnarled rocks and ancient trees overhead—he couldn't imagine, and dared not imagine, any living thing moving in the bottomless deep.

If he had discovered some horrifying truth in the darkness, it now lay beneath the calm surface of his reason, temporarily hidden by the body's self-protection mechanism. Instinct told him not to reach down and test the depth.

Kraft avoided the parts he disliked and focused on the familiar: he asked whether the victims were related, whether they'd suffered other illnesses before onset, whether they'd been bitten by snakes or insects, or whether they'd had fevers or coughs as children.

Considering the world's characteristics, he emphasized questions about the village's diet and the stream serving as its main water source—were there problems upstream? Ryan watched in surprise as his cousin revealed an unknown, meticulous side, then gave him more water and urged him to speak slower.

The doctor and village chief patiently answered this guest who had boosted the village's GDP—their answers mostly consisted of "don't know," "not sure," and "no."

The elderly village chief, however, recalled a few names in memory, sighing that they'd all been good boys, clever lads—the evil spirit really knew how to pick them.

"Alright, I'm done asking. Thank you." Unsurprisingly, these details were beyond what even family members might know, let alone two people who'd never had such awareness. "By the way, since this strange illness only happens here, have you ever considered leaving?"

As soon as he spoke, Kraft realized he'd said something foolish. A disease appearing once every several years here was negligible compared to common causes of death. Moreover, the village's location was decent—rightly situated beyond any lord's tax jurisdiction, yet not far from the trading port of Wenden, even attracting itinerant merchants.

Though this also meant insufficient protection, for a tightly-knit village, driving off wild beasts wasn't difficult, and tax exemption allowed them to accommodate more people—given time, it might even grow into a small town.

Compared to that, the "specialty disease" was merely a nuisance—no worse than scabies.

Kraft, embarrassed by his foolish remark, ended the topic, claiming he and Ryan had private matters to discuss, and saw the chief and doctor off. As they left, their faces clearly bore expressions like: "Definitely a rich young master—maybe even nobility."

Regarding this illness, considering he himself was half-transmigrated, some other supernatural event was understandable—he could explain it that way. Oh, no—here it should be called an anomalous phenomenon.

Yet from a rigorous standpoint, it's more reasonable to interpret this as a specific acute central nervous system disorder—possibly caused by a pathogen or parasite infection, with individual immune differences leading to onset only under specific conditions and low incidence.

The recurring mention of snakes in delirium likely stemmed from generations of village rumors, subconsciously linking the illness to snakes, thus naturally feeling haunted by a snake spirit.

As for himself—he'd just seen a patch of snake-like patterns. Daytime thoughts, nighttime dreams? But the disease progression… forgive my limited knowledge, but the world is full of bizarre cases—this one isn't unique.

Kraft tried moving his arm again. This time, without Ryan's help, he shifted himself into a more comfortable position.

"Alright, sorry for scaring you. Though it looked serious before, I feel I'm getting better—could you put away that bloodletting gear?" He looked at Ryan beside the bed, stretched his legs forcefully to show he was fine. Energy was returning to this young body; control over his limbs was mostly restored. He was starting to feel hungry.

Kraft refused Ryan's help, got out of bed on his own, stumbled over to his luggage, pulled out a strip of dried meat, twisted it in half, and handed one piece to Ryan.

For someone who had been half-dead moments ago, his condition was unbelievable. His strong jaw muscles gave his teeth the power to tear into the well-cured meat: "See? I'm fine."

"I'm starting to think you were faking earlier," Ryan said, cautiously taking the meat, still shaken. "Shouldn't we rest a few days before leaving?"

"No. I feel ready to leave tomorrow. And that damn pillar—tell them to fill the pit back in, pack the soil tight. I never want to come back to this cursed place again. No souvenir, lost a few silver coins, nearly lost myself—this was a fire-lighter-bite-level disaster."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. We leave tomorrow. And remind them to fill the pit properly." Kraft was eager to put all this behind him—he could feel his body and mind resisting any deeper inquiry into the matter. Conveniently, he'd already wanted to leave.