Wasteland Lord: Starting from Thirty Days to Live

"Why are you taking your pants off in broad daylight? Is this your custom here?"

Vittorio turned his head away, feeling as if his eyes had been contaminated.

"Aren't you going to poop?" Mia said disdainfully.

"Aren't there any public restrooms?"

"What is that?"

Okay, let's add one more: extremely poor sanitation conditions prevent effective utilization of fertilizer.

However, on the other hand, I seem to recall reading before that the reason for the invention of high heels in Europe, and why women's skirts are so wide, are also related to excrement.

In my memory, even the sanitary conditions in the kingdom's capital were quite poor, let alone in this remote place.

The guy who was taking a dump felt he was done, so he picked up a leaf from the ground, scraped it clean, and then pulled up his pants and stood up.

He walked towards the two of them without any sense of shame.

"Hey, Xiaomia, why aren't you bothered asking Lord Tieyan all sorts of questions today?"

"Dad gave me a task, and I'm doing it now. But you, from now on, could you please go behind the tree to poop? It's so embarrassing that everyone has to see your butt every day."

The man shook his head indifferently.

"That's convenient."

After he finished speaking, he suddenly clutched his stomach again.

"Ouch, that hurts again."

Then it was that same place again. He glanced at it and felt it was a bit dirty, so he walked three steps away and squatted down.

Vittorio looked at the white, bare buttocks and felt a strange sense of desensitization, even suddenly realizing something.

"Mia, how do you usually drink water?"

"You can just draw water from the well and drink it."

"Will you boil the water?"

"Why boil it?" Mia asked, puzzled.

One more thing: the risk of parasites!

After looking at the dismal exterior of the castle, the two officially entered the castle interior.

There were still some people lying in the castle hall.

Unlike the bustling labor scene outside, most of the people here are elderly, weak, sick, or disabled.

If it weren't for the fact that people are unable to move, even children would have to do chores here.

Apart from a few elderly people who are unable to move due to underlying medical conditions, there are only two young people here.

They were all guards, but they were all injured, which is why they were lying here recuperating in broad daylight.

Vittorio noticed an elderly woman with white hair bustling around acting as a doctor, but her methods were very crude.

One soldier had a leg injury, and the old woman chose to put three or four kinds of unknown herbs into a mortar, crush them, apply them to the wound, and wrap it with a cloth.

Vittorio went up to observe it closely and felt it was very primitive. Of course, he later proved his idea with systematic analysis.

Golden Leaf Artemisia Powder (has mild antibacterial and insect-repellent properties, but is significantly irritating to broken skin and may delay epidermal healing.)

Cave yarrow (has astringent and mild analgesic properties. However, if not fully dried, it may contain saprophytic fungal spores, increasing the risk of infection.)

Sporangium powder (has no known medicinal value and may introduce foreign objects or allergens.)

"This is Grandma Martha. She knows a lot about herbs, and I heard she used to be a midwife. Isn't that amazing?" Mia proudly introduced.

Okay, let's add one more thing: backward medical standards.

The two spent almost the entire afternoon wandering around, during which they discovered several problems.

In the end, there were so many questions that Vittorio couldn't remember them all. He even had to secretly open the system behind Mia's back and write down everything he could think of.

"We've finished shopping. What did you think?"

After visiting the last place, Mia eagerly asked Vittorio for his thoughts.

Looking into the little girl's bright eyes, Vittorio couldn't bear it... or so he thought!

"I think it's good. I've seen enough white butts and fleas jumping around."

Mia's upturned lips drooped, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

"But then again, I think the people here are really nice. What's that saying... warm and simple!"

"Especially you, you little rascal, thank you so much today, Mia."

Mia then stopped crying and started laughing.

"Everyone is doing well! Although you're different from everyone else—you don't have fleas and you even smell nice—you'll understand once you stay here!"

After saying this, Mia skipped away and waved goodbye before leaving.

As Mia, thin and small, who looked underdeveloped and didn't seem like a ten-year-old, gradually ran away, Vittorio couldn't help but smile.

"Okay, I'm here to solve problems. I'm not afraid of having many problems, I'm afraid of having no problems at all."

Vittorio was calculating the changes he needed to make, so ambitious that he ignored the slight dizziness that came over him when he turned around.

…………

……

Vittorio sat at his desk and wrote furiously, compiling a plan outlining all the things he could improve upon that day at the castle.

This room was one he specifically asked Edmund for—it contained a desk.

This is already quite remarkable, because since the survivors entered the castle, most of the wooden furniture has been chopped up and burned as firewood.

All silk products and non-insulating fabrics were pulled into individual threads and used as surgical sutures or something else.

Everything here is being used to its fullest potential. This small, minimalist desk, however, escaped unscathed because it was tucked away in a corner, and is now perfect for Vittorio's use.

What he is going to write today is a reform plan based on his observations of the living conditions of the survivors of River Bend.

This includes several aspects such as "intensive farming", "composting", "basic nursing knowledge", "improvement of personal hygiene and prevention of epidemics".

He even spent Lord Points to fully master some of the content.

For example, the [Simple Composting Method] was something he redeemed for by spending 30 Lord Points.

The "Intensive Cultivation Method" was something he exchanged for at a cost of 70 Lord Points.

There was also a [Simple Herbal Remedy for Anesthesia and Hemostasis], which cost another 150 points.

After exchanging for these three items, 250 points were spent, leaving only 33 Lord Points remaining, which can be said to be completely spent.

However, he was confident that the items he could exchange would bring about a dramatic change to River Bend Fortress.

In short, he began to write furiously.

However, as he wrote, he felt increasingly dizzy and feverish.

Left with no other choice, he had to lie in bed and rest.

Shortly after, there was a knock on the door.

"Lord Cornalon, you have a visitor."

Vittorio was too weak to stand up, so he could only mumble a few words.

"The door is unlocked, please come in."

He initially thought it was Isolde or Eileen, but as the door opened, a series of chaotic footsteps echoed at the entrance.

Vittorio opened his eyes and saw a group of strangers surrounding his sleeping bag.

Their attire was out of place among the refugees in the castle, exuding a kind of affected air reminiscent of aristocratic figures in a royal capital.

They very rudely grabbed his head, pried open his eyelids, and shone a bright light into his pupils.

Vittorio tried to move his head away in pain, but someone grabbed his hand, pulled open his sleeve, and revealed the wound he was desperately trying to hide.

"Confirmed infection." He heard someone say this coldly.

Vittorio tried to escape, but was too exhausted to run far and was eventually dragged away by his hands.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a place that looked like a prison.

A dying man was dragged past him.

"These are civilian infected individuals in the late stages of Phase Two; they're beyond saving. Some adults enjoy watching beheading performances, so they're making the best use of them."

Then two people, completely covered up so that even their faces were not visible, passed by him, pushing a cage in front of them.

Inside the cage was a human woman who, despite having all her limbs intact, walked on the ground like an animal, constantly emitting low growls and drooling; her face was inhuman.

"This is a maid from the Duke of Thorne's household. She was punished for making a mistake, and now she's recovered from the infection. What were the Duchess's requests again?"

"The lady demanded to be thrown into the arena, saying, 'I want to see this wretched woman torn to pieces like an animal.'"

"Poor thing, she probably won't last two seconds. But it doesn't matter, she's practically dead now."

The two people pushing the cage hurried away, speaking frighteningly in a tone that sounded like they were discussing the weather.

Vittorio looked at the absurd and terrifying scene before him, and all he could do was hide in the shadows and try not to make a sound.

However, it was all in vain. A third person came over. He was clearly more sophisticated than the first two groups of people, and he was wearing a well-fitting tuxedo with a pocket watch in his pocket.

Aside from wearing a protective mask and gloves, he was practically a gentleman.

The man, carrying a bunch of keys, opened the door and walked in, humming an unknown tune.

He looked Vittorio up and down, occasionally lifting his limp arm to check his feverish mouth.

It's practically like inspecting livestock.

"Hmm... We've fully entered the second stage. It seems like entering the third stage is only a matter of time now."

"Let me see, let me see. The count's son? And a nobleman of good birth, good-looking, his appearance is practically perfect."

"I remember an artist who really liked good-looking infected people. He collected an entire basement full of them, all locked in glass cases. If I sold it to him..."

The man in the tuxedo fell into deep thought.

Vittorio sat on the ground, head bowed low, listening as the man in the tuxedo lightly compared him to a commodity devoid of human rights.

"Feed".

"Um?"

The man in the tuxedo looked down in confusion and realized that it was the person on the ground who couldn't even stand up calling him.

The man in the tuxedo had no choice but to squat down, trying to get closer to hear what he had to say.

However, just as he crouched down, a cold glint flashed from the darkness, heading straight for the man in the tuxedo's neck.

The man in the tuxedo seemed to sense something and jerked his head back, narrowly avoiding the fatal blow.

Vittorio raised his head, the shackles on his hands having been removed at some point, his right hand holding a dagger, hanging limply at his sides.

"It's a pity, just a little short."

The man in the tuxedo's face suddenly darkened. Although it was not visible through the mask, the aura around him was terrifyingly low.

"Oh, wouldn't it be better to make it into a work of art?"

"I was hoping to leave you with a complete corpse."

"Since you're unwilling, we'll just have to tear off your limbs one by one and sell them to those scholars in sections. They'll really enjoy dissecting experimental subjects like you."

"As for now, you can sleep peacefully!"

The man in the tuxedo suddenly swung his fist at Vittorio's head.

Vittorio's vision went black.

…………

……

"call!"

Vittorio suddenly opened his eyes and it took him three seconds to realize that he was not in a cage and had not been locked up.

He looked down at the parchment, half of which was soaked by his sweat-drenched head, and the pen in his hand had almost fallen to the ground.

He is still in River Bend Fort.

Nightmare.

Vittorio put down his pen, and as if remembering something, rolled up the sleeve of his left arm that was wrapped tightly around his wrist.

Under the glow of the blood moon, the small holes left by the two monsters' teeth were clearly visible.

On the skin around that small hole, three or four gray veins, bulging like blue veins, were slowly pulsating.

"Gray veins, low-grade fever, nightmares."

Vittorio unconsciously recalled what Eileen had once said.

These are typical symptoms of the infection entering the second stage.

He quickly retrieved the last bottle of holy water from his bag, opened the cap, and carefully poured it onto the wound.

As the holy water was poured, he felt a stinging pain in his wound. However, upon closer inspection, he found that the gray lines had not disappeared, nor had they changed at all.

"The holy water... isn't working anymore."

Vittorio's desperate soliloquy.

Four days ago, when I poured holy water on the wound, a gray substance would be drawn out, but now there is no reaction except for the stinging pain.

Vittorio frowned, calculating anxiously.

"It has been...14 days since the day I was bitten."

"Eileen once said that the infection is divided into three stages, each lasting ten days."

"If there are no changes by the tenth day of the first phase, then the infection has been contained."

"I examined this wound three days ago when I first entered the territory. At that time, the wound was almost healed and there were no gray streaks."

"I thought that since ten days had passed and the wound had not changed at all, it meant that the infection had been contained."

"I thought I was one of the lucky ones, one in ten or twelve."

"Unexpectedly, a change occurred fourteen days later."

"What does this mean...? The treatment...failed?"

Vittorio felt his heart pounding like a raging beast, and even though he kept taking deep breaths, he couldn't stop the panic that was spreading through his body.

A deadly chill swept through his body before he belatedly realized what was happening.

Treatment failed.

The infection continues.

…………

……

The next day, the survivors of River Bend Fort arrived early at the long table in the South Hall.

It is said that the young nobleman who recently arrived here has reached an agreement with their leader, Edmund, and this morning's meeting was initiated by that young nobleman.

It is said that he has written a detailed reform report to share with all the survivors of River Bend.

Logically, this meeting should have been the young nobleman's first battle to establish himself here, and he should have arrived much earlier.

However, after waiting for a long time, no one appeared.

Footsteps were heard at the entrance of the South Hall just as the agreed time was about to pass.

Vittorio walked in from outside.

Unlike his usual smiling face, he now had a gloomy expression, a low-pressure aura, and deep dark circles under his eyes, making him look even more like a vampire.

Vittorio didn't waste any words. He simply walked to his seat, faced the curious gazes of the survivor representatives, and put down the parchment scroll in his hand.

"The meeting is beginning."