Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology
Chapter 965: Moroi’s Fiend 4

Chapter 965: Moroi’s Fiend 4

Within the laboratory...

"There are darkened necrotic lesions all over the body, signs of widespread tissue death."

"The throat appears swollen, likely severe pharyngeal inflammation. This person was probably infected through the upper respiratory tract before death."

"The eyes don’t look right either. The pupils are excessively dilated, mydriasis, and look at the periorbital region; it’s practically black. This one definitely suffered from extreme sleep deprivation."

"Insomnia, visual hallucinations, and night terrors, I suspect."

"Hey, there’s evidence of epistaxis. He bled from his nose. The stains might have been cleaned while he was still alive, but the dried blood in the nasal cavity remains."

"Same with the mouth... whoa, the oral mucosa is severely inflamed. Judging by the state of the throat, he must have suffered from violent, repeated coughing, probably haemoptysis, until the tissue walls couldn’t take it anymore."

Vijay silently watched as the doctors deduced the symptoms and the conditions the person had suffered before death. In hindsight, this examination seemed pointless since the symptoms of the disease were already known, but this is how an examination is done, through rigour. All the basics are observed so that no obvious clues are missed about how the disease works, what caused it, and how it spreads.

Meanwhile, the students they brought along did the grunt work, collecting blood samples, skin samples, and saliva samples, then testing them with various reagents to see the appearance of the germ.

The aim of this research was not to cure the disease, since Vijay already knew that was impossible, not to mention with today’s technology, not even with the technology of the future can it be solved. Even back when he was assassinated, it was particularly difficult to develop vaccines for emerging strains of viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Wanting to cure the Moroi’s Fiend was simply a tall order.

Hence, he only wanted to identify what type of germ it was and understand its characteristics, so that actions could be taken to curb its spread.

That was one of the reasons why he didn’t want to conduct the research on a live host; without knowing the germ’s characteristics, it was too dangerous to come into direct contact without actual hazmat suits like those in the future.

That was also why he had the body brought stuffed in ice and salt, because if the germ could survive even in these conditions, it meant it could survive anything. Besides, if it was truly that deadly, they were all dead anyway, so there was nothing more he could do either way.

Suddenly, his eyes were attracted by his daughter, who stood looking at the body without doing anything, which made Vijay grow curious. He was told that his daughter had almost an intuition in medical research, which pushes her in the right direction all the time.

He did not know what was running in his daughter’s mind, but she suddenly moved. She took a blood sample from the body’s hand and directly went to the microscope at maximum magnification and prepared a reagent.

Reagent preparation is a complicated process. Each reagent has different effects on the target one wishes to see. Some germs stand out more in red, some in orange, some in yellow, and even the characteristics of the germs, like their cell wall, will only show up for a certain colour of reagent, so this is a very tedious process that takes many tries for a germ that has never been discovered.

But his daughter seemed to be a natural at it. She mixed several chemicals and came up with a green reagent.

She applied the reagent to the blood sample, put it under the microscope, gave it ample light and decided to take a look.

A few seconds after she took a look and adjusted the focal length, she seemed to be startled as she stepped back.

Vijay’s brow furrowed, and he went forward and took a look at what she saw for himself. And he saw in the distance a dense colony of germs like a colony made up of billions of ants.

"It’s a spore-forming bacterium," Vijay confirmed, his expression darkening. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated. Spore-forming bacteria, after all, are among the most resilient microorganisms. They can survive in extreme environmental conditions, heat, cold, desiccation, even chemical exposure, by entering a dormant state known as endospore formation.

In this state, they can remain inactive for decades, waiting until they encounter a suitable host to reactivate and proliferate.

Now, a new possibility had opened up for Vijay: what if the outbreak of the disease hadn’t happened a month ago, but had already happened years ago, with the bacteria remaining dormant until the trigger was found?

---

Kabul, Pashtun Pradesh, westernmost frontier of the Bharatiya Empire.

A construction worker, Darwesh, bid farewell to his wife and daughter, wore his bright yellow safety wooden cap, and set off to work as usual.

Just when he got to the meeting point where he and his colleagues usually boarded the carriage and went to the construction site, he unexpectedly saw a group of soldiers blocking the road and not allowing anyone to exit.

Darwesh was taken aback, not understanding what was happening. Just as he stood there, clueless, he spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Without hesitation, he approached and asked, "Brother, what’s going on here? Why is the military blocking the path? Is someone attacking?" He wasn’t sure about the last part since there was no enemy to the west of the empire.

The coworker shook his head in denial, "No! It is said that it was orders from the Emperor himself, and due to these orders, even the Bharat-Russia Economic Corridor Infrastructure Project is temporarily halted and the borders are temporarily closed."

"How could that be?" Darwesh opened his mouth in disbelief.

"It’s true, I’m not lying to you... also," the coworker looked around to make sure that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation and whispered, "I heard that a deadly curse is spreading through the Middle East which originated from the Ottoman Empire, so rumour is that the military is working on completely blocking off the borders so that the curse cannot enter the empire."

Darwesh widened his eyes. "Really? But more importantly, how can the military resist the curse, something which only a Rakshasa could inflict? Do the soldiers have the sacred water or something?"

"No, no, the military is here to completely stop anyone from crossing the border. They say the curse is spreading through people... and once a cursed person appears in a village, the whole village turns into a graveyard."

Darwesh was immediately left scared, "Is the curse so deadly?"

His coworker, hearing the question, became even more cautious. He even lowered his head and came closer to the ear. "I heard that once cursed, a person cannot survive a week. It is said that the Rakshasas will haunt them in their dreams, demons will bite their flesh, making them unable to stand up, and finally, the cursed will die vomiting blood from mouth, nose, eyes, and ears."

"Gulp!"

Darwesh was filled with dread. He no longer had the intention of going forward and asking the soldiers themselves what was happening. However, he grew suspicious. " How do you know all this? "

Hearing the question, his colleague suddenly became worried and responded, " I have a cousin who is living in Khalsa Nagari. It is he who told me all this. Apparently, the curse has already spread to Kalsa Nagari, and they were not being allowed to travel around. "

In the midst of their discussion, the sudden shouts of the soldiers were heard.

" Code red, code red. Sergeant, there is a person coughing here, code red. "

After the shout of one soldier, all the other soldiers quickly became alert and pointed their guns at the crowd of people who had gathered.

" Do not move and do not make any rash actions. I do not feel like taking innocent lives today, but if disobeyed, I will not hesitate to shoot you down. "

A loud and threatening voice was heard from the man who looked to be a sergeant from his badges. All the labourers who had just gathered around to routinely go to work were suddenly stunned. Things happened too suddenly, and they did not know what to do.

However, before anyone could voice out why they were being threatened at gunpoint, a few people ran in from the side. They were all wearing white clothes, masks on their face, and gloves in their hands.

Darwesh, seeing all this, couldn’t help but feel desperate. Was he among people who had been cursed? He recognised these men as medical officers, and if not for the curse, why would they surround them looking so worried?

When they had newly arrived in Kabul, he had felt happy, because medical treatment was never very good in the city, and he thought that shortcoming had finally been addressed. But now, he didn’t know how to feel.

If his speculation and his coworker’s information about the curse were correct, didn’t it mean that all of them here were destined to die within a week?

Darwesh looked to his side, and his colleague’s face had already turned as white as paper.

P.S. Thanks vhvuvifor the iceCola