Diary entry 7

  I woke up late. I was so tired from yesterday. I went to bed at least at midnight. I got the box full of materials back. The problem is that after my previous rash decision, I lost one of the vials that belonged to the apothecary. That means that if they find out that I broke it, I’ll be fired. No exceptions. I cost them equipment which they got with money, and now they’ll need a new vial which they’ll need to wait to arrive and pay even more money for delivery. Because “Time equals money.” Someone’s knocking at my door.

  It was a plague doctor. My initial reaction was that of fear. I was terrified of that tall figure coated in black with the head of a crow and eyes that seemed to glow bright red. I did manage to calm myself because that will be me in the future. Just more appreciable to the eye. I asked them why they were here. And they said: “I’m looking for a Joseph Shmonorian” in a female voice that seemed familiar. I was in shock because that was my real name. I hated it so much. Shortened, that sounded like “Joe Shmoe.” That’s a phrase associated with people that are nobodies, an everyday average person. And I’m not average. I’m the greatest doctor to ever live. My pride aside, I told that it was me. She reached into her medical kit and gave me a page that was simply an employment contract. I read it and asked her: “Why do you want me as your apprentice?” She replied: “I saw what you did in the bar yesterday. And I was genuinely impressed with your quick thinking and calm nature for your age. And I want you to accompany me on a journey.” My big break. Which is convenient. Thank you, dark god. Sarcasm totally not intended. I instantly grabbed a feather and signed the contract. I asked her when she was leaving, she said “Right now” and I dashed into my room. Packed my journal, some clothes, and a few vials. This was my opportunity to escape the Wave. I then asked the Plague doctor: “Do you have any clothes that’ll protect me from sunlight?” She said that she doesn’t conveniently carry any 9-year-old male clothes. I responded with another question: “Do you have any rags at least? My skin is really sensitive to sunlight.” Another excuse I made so that no one could recognize me. I did want to ask for goggles, but I then realized that goggles didn’t exist yet. She did give me some spare rags which I proceeded to use to cover my face. Before I left, however, I wrote a note. It would’ve been much simpler to simply make them forget that I ever existed. But I couldn’t do that. My “blessing” isn’t so powerful. I can’t simply find out what ingredients to use whenever I encounter a disease. Only when all of the ingredients are present can I know how to cure the disease, and why do the ingredients work. I can’t simply think to myself “I want to cure death” and automatically know how to cure it. I don’t have any ingredients. I could try to fake my death. Too drastic, the town will be in a panic. If I left nothing behind, the town would be in a panic, because they would assume that I was kidnapped. So it was better to leave behind a note. So I did just that. And left. I’m currently having a rest with my newfound master. She’s currently feeding us kids. I’m eating soup. It contains carrots, cabbage, potatoes, meat, and broth. Is this a stew? Can’t bother with the specifics. I need to find a way to get off this continent. I have to be patient, I need to get to the port city to travel to the central continent. The time to travel is about a year on foot, plus breaks, that’ll add another 2 months, weather conditions, which add another week or so. And we will need to take detours to avoid monster encounters to prevent casualties. I think because of that, I’ll have to make my entries very short. Make recipes along the way, but mostly short. And I do hope that my route towards the port is the same as the doctor I’m going with. Otherwise, even more detours.

  Potion of stiffness

Ingredients

* A shell of a pumpkin (area 0f 9 cm)

* 55 ml of slime

* Blood of the person the potion is used on

  Steps to create the potion:

* Cut the pumpkin shell piece into many small pieces so that all of them would fit in a cup made of glass.

* Take 50 ml of slime and pour it into the glass cup and mix it to disintegrate the pumpkin to create an undrinkable version of the pumpkin juice.

* Add the drop of the person you want to use the potion on to the already pre-existing pumpkin mix.

* Add the remaining 5 ml of slime to blend all of the pre-existing, mixed ingredients.

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  Cautions:

* Do not use it on yourself. It will not benefit you in any way.

* Once used in a person, their muscles will become stiff, unable to move for 10 minutes.

  A pretty pointless potion if used for self-benefit. I used this potion when I was working with the Church to make it so that my patients wouldn’t move around uncontrollably when I’m trying to heal their ailment of some sort. A seizure for example. I would first inject the potion of stiffness making them unable to move since their muscles would harden and then I would blind them using a special liquid specially made to destroy all functionalities of an eyeball, meaning the color receptors, light absorption, vision, etc. Then I would splash onto those eyes a regenerative liquid that would restore those same functionalities and in turn restore the disability the patient had before. The problem would be that they would have another disability with their eyes but not as harmful. Such as color blindness or fuzziness in their vision. It varies on the person applying the medicine to the patient. It can either be minor or severe. Since I created that method of healing eyes, I constantly improved on it, plus having the bonus of my blessing, and it grew to the point where their color blindness and/or fuzziness would be minimal. But if it’s someone inexperienced like how I used to be, (still having my blessing) then the side effects could be much more severe. To the point where the patient can’t even see color. Everything would just be black and white for them. Or their vision would be very blurry to the point where they wouldn’t be able to see faces. I never wanted to use it on myself because then, I could easily blind myself with no return since I wouldn't be able to see what I was doing. And I would refuse to have anyone to perform the procedure in the first place because I never needed it and it could have been a moment where I could’ve been assassinated. My past aside, I simply wanted to write this down because we just walked by a pumpkin patch and I had free time so why not.

  We’ve encountered some flesh rats. They’re not too dangerous if they’re in a group of 5 or less. But if there’s more, it could cause issues. And there were 3 of them. There may have been 3 of us but flesh rats are brutal. They’re fearless monsters that only believe in the number superiority like goblins. Aside from their “group mentality” they’re pretty weak. Their teeth, however, are no joke. One bite from those jaws can break a bone, but they’re very easy to avoid since they’re very slow. Flash rats are much fatter than their furred counterparts meaning they also have much stronger bones and skin. They’re harder to kill. The effort to kill them is pretty similar to killing a regular rat, but it’s simply harder because it’s harder to cut through all of their fat. A regular knife is fine, it’s just going to break after cutting down at least 3 monsters. It will chip, rust, and eventually snap. We didn’t fight those flesh rats though. We simply ignored them. They’re like small dogs, they will keep showing that they’re not scared and are ready to fight. Do they think you’re threatening? They’ll attack. Do they think you’re an easy target? They’ll attack. You just have to show them that you’re not scared and that you mean no harm whatsoever and they’ll stop trying to fight. Apparently, those two annoying children didn’t know that and started screaming simplistic words in those irritating voices: “Gross!” “Ugly!” “Scary!” So frustrating. Anyway, the rats got agitated and they were ready to attack. I did what any other knowledgeable person would do. Stay still, keep quiet, and not to make eye contact. The mother wanted to do the same but those kids ruined it. And now we had the flesh rats eying all three of those people while I was just sitting quietly observing the situation. I wanted to reach into my mentor’s bag to see if she had anything useful, but I assumed that if I moved the rats would notice. Especially if I moved too quickly. They’d instantly attack me. After I considered all my options, I distracted them with a rock. A primitive solution, but an effective one. While those three rats were distracted by the kids and my master shouting, I picked up a pebble. They didn’t notice me because flesh rats have much smaller whiskers, ruining their range of perception, and their eyesight is blurry, so they have to be very close to their targets. Hence, I grabbed the pebble, yelled: “SHUT UP!” gaining the attention of the rats and I threw the pebble at a tree that was nearby. The three rats were distracted, the kids silent, so I reached to the medical box and put it next to myself, and started looking through it. There were regular medical tools, such as a syringe, a scalpel, a pair of scissors, a thermostat, and finally the medicine. She had three vials, one with yellow liquid inside, another with muck green, and finally bright red. That green liquid was simply celery juice, bright red was a “fruit mix” whatever that is, and that yellow stuff was urine. That was perfect. I splashed the urine onto the rats to ruin their senses and cause them to run away from that horrible smell. The kids were disgusted by it and started whining about it. Master tried to calm them down once again but to no avail. The rest of the day was essentially a normal day. We kept traveling, we made stops for food, bathroom, and my sense of superiority intact. I can tell that this will be an absolutely horrible experience.

  I’m Karas Pesuto, and this is my first day of travel.