WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: LilGuyBlastoise
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Plague Doctor in a Peaceful World ◈
Chapter 3: Are You Really Better?
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“Never thought I’d see a crazy bastard like you. Move, asshole!”
Maybe my curiosity-sparkling eyes had made him uncomfortable. The drunk fled the convenience store as if running away from me.
Ding.
The bell on the door rang loudly.
“Thank you... Thank you so much...”
Should I chase after him?
While I hesitated, the convenience-store clerk sank to the floor.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes... No, I was really scared... Thank you, mister...”
“I’m twenty-two.”
I might not have fully shed my military look yet, but being called mister still hurt.
“Oh.”
The clerk jumped up, face red, and bowed repeatedly.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
They say looking old when you’re young means people will say you look young when you’re actually old.
It’s fine.
I slumped my shoulders and asked, “Where are the Dujjonku?”
“They... just sold out a little while ago...”
“Oh...”
I left the convenience store and looked around.
There were no [Contagious Disease Patient] labels in sight.
I called my sister.
“They just sold out.”
-[The SU Convenience Store’s ○○ Branch has some in stock. Go there. Hurry, hurry.]
“That’s far.”
-[That’s why you need to hurry.]
Click.
“...”
I was absolutely going to find and buy the exact same umbrella.
Maybe someone had picked it up and kept it after I collapsed? I should go check tomorrow.
After finally buying something similar to Dujjonku at another convenience store, I returned to my apartment.
The parking lot was sunk in darkness.
A [Contagious Disease Patient] was wandering around.
“...?”
I frowned.
The label was strangely low.
There was no way a child would be loitering around a parking lot at this hour. Even if it was a short person, why would they be going around inspecting several cars?
Was this a car thief?
Was the label low because they were crouching to avoid being seen?
“Got you, you bastard.”
After telling the security office there was a suspicious person, I headed into the parking lot with my phone camera on. The bright green [Contagious Disease Patient] label made it easy to locate him, and I approached while using cars as cover.
Cough, cough.
A guy dressed all in black, wearing a cap and a mask, was coughing as he tugged on a car door.
And of all cars, it was mine.
I signaled to the security guards moving with me, then casually spoke up.
“What are you doing?”
“...?!”
Clickclickclick!
The moment he turned around, I hit the shutter button. The flash went off repeatedly.
“Damn it!”
The car thief tried to run, but the security guards had already blocked the way.
“Who are you? You don’t live here, do you?!”
“I-I’m a designated driver. I left my phone in the car I drove earlier, so I was looking for it...”
“Quit lying, asshole. What designated driver doesn’t know what kind of car they drove? I saw you checking everything from compacts to SUVs!”
“...Fuck!”
Apparently deciding that breaking through one person would be easier than breaking through two, the car thief charged at me.
“Move, you...!”
[This is a Contagious Disease Patient. Would you like to treat them?]
[(Expected MP Cost: 80)]
Clickclickclick!
“Fuck!”
The barrage of flashing light made him squint and wave his arms. The security guards discreetly turned their heads away too.
“Ugh, that’s bright.”
Half a second.
That was about how long I spent thinking.
I muttered in a voice as small as an ant’s.
“...Treat. Yes?”
Clickclickclick!
The sound was buried beneath the noisy shutters.
At that moment,
a warm-colored haze flowed from my hand and touched the hand of the car thief, who looked ready to strike me.
Swish.
The haze was sucked into his body in an instant.
“...!”
At the same time, I felt something drain out of my body.
[System]
-You have used ‘Plague Treatment.’
-‘Plague Treatment’ Proficiency +1
-Experience +23.3%
[MP 20/100]
It worked.
The [Contagious Disease Patient] label disappeared from above the car thief’s head.
Thud.
“Argh!”
While I was spacing out for a moment, the car thief roughly shoved me.
“You little...!”
I tried to chase him immediately, but I was wearing slippers, so I couldn’t get up to speed.
Wooo-ooo!
Fortunately, the police arrived in time.
The car thief played tag with the police too before getting caught. He ran so energetically that I felt bad for the officers, wondering if it was because I’d treated him just to test my skill.
“Thank you for reporting this.”
“Officer.”
I asked the police officer, “That guy assaulted me while I was trying to stop him earlier. Can I come along?”
The officer nodded.
“Of course.”
While giving my statement at the police station, I watched the car thief’s condition. He was moved somewhere else soon after, but he hadn’t coughed even once before that.
His complexion looked better too.
Had my Plague Treatment skill really cured his cold in one shot?
* * *
It was past midnight when I got home.
My parents were waiting in the living room.
“When you see someone like that, you should just report them. Why did you try to catch him yourself? That was dangerous.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
I had explained everything over the phone when I went to the police station earlier.
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“Good grief...”
Smack.
My mother hit my arm hard before heading into her room. My father stood up and lightly bumped my other arm with his fist.
“You must be tired. Go get some sleep.”
“Okay. Good night.”
My sister came out of her room.
“If I send you on two errands, are you going to take a trip around the country?”
I took out what I had bought from the convenience store and tossed it to her.
“Eat this and get fat.”
“Want to die? And this isn’t Dujjonku. It’s a Dubai chewy rice cake.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Ugh, whatever. Go to sleep.”
My sister went back into her room.
I played with Arong for a while before going to mine. I changed clothes and lay down on my bed.
[MP 30/100]
My MP was recovering by one every ten minutes.
If this were a normal game, people would call it a garbage game and complain about how long it took to hunt monsters with that.
Plague Treatment wasn’t a skill for killing monsters. It was a skill for curing people’s illnesses.
Realistically, wasn’t that an insanely overpowered ability?
Normally, when people caught a cold, it took several days to recover completely.
Some people suffered for almost a month if it got bad.
But eighty MP?
It would refill in thirteen hours and twenty minutes.
“Skill window.”
[Kang Bongsik’s (Plague Doctor Lv.1) Skills]
[Passive Skill]
-Immunity Lv.1
[Active Skills]
-Plague Treatment Lv.1 (1/100)
-Bloodletting Lv.1 (0/100)
“But the proficiency only went up by one out of a hundred.”
Did I have to cure a hundred people to raise the skill level?
Would curing severe illnesses count too?
No.
Since the system was like a game, I should think about it that way.
Usually, low-level skills were weak. Plague Treatment was only level one, so could it cure infectious diseases more vicious and dangerous than a cold?
There had to be a reason some labels were yellow or red instead of green. They probably marked patients whose illnesses would be difficult to treat at my level.
...But why was I even worrying about this?
Let’s say I really could cure a cold in one hit.
It wasn’t like I was going to walk up to strangers, mutter, “Treat. Yes,” and cure them all. I had no obligation to do that.
What if someone recorded it and uploaded it to social media?
“Ugh.”
It was scary just imagining it.
People would call me a lunatic when I returned to university, and it might affect my job search later.
“Let’s just sleep.”
The next day, I called the police officer whose number I had saved.
“I kept flashing my camera at that guy yesterday. Did he seem uncomfortable anywhere... Oh, he looked really healthy? Thank you.”
It really seemed that his cold had disappeared completely.
But just because I had cured one person didn’t mean I could immediately use this on my family.
This was power I had received from some unknown being. Who knew whether there might be side effects later?
“Still, maybe I should level it up.”
Muttering to myself, I got into my car.
When the COVID outbreak hit before, the whole country suffered.
It wasn’t like another plague could never come around.
Vroom.
I started the engine and turned on some quiet music. After entering a destination into the navigation system, I checked the route using the road-view feature on my map app.
“Whew. Let’s go.”
The car driven by a beginner slowly left the apartment complex.
* * *
At the driver’s license test center, I found the employee who had issued my license and greeted them.
“Hello.”
“Yes, hello. What can I do for you?”
“I got my license issued here a few days ago. Do you remember me?”
“Yes... But what is this about?”
The employee clearly didn’t remember me.
At the time, their expression had been strangely frightening and they had seemed off, so I had wondered whether they had been affected by that game.
“It’s nothing.”
I bowed slightly and left.
This time, I headed to the place where I had been struck by lightning.
According to my parents, when I collapsed, people nearby had called 119 and collected my phone for me.
That alone was something to be deeply grateful for.
Complaining that they hadn’t picked up my umbrella too would be shameless.
“It was here.”
This was where a car had driven hard through a puddle, soaking my face and clothes.
The road where lightning had struck was clean, without a trace.
I even wondered if it had really been lightning.
I had become an Awakened immediately afterward, after all.
I went into the café next door.
“Hello. A few days ago, I...”
The café owner remembered me.
They told me someone had placed the umbrella I dropped at the bus stop, but...
Of course, it wasn’t there anymore.
I bought only an iced Americano and returned to my car.
“Whew.”
I drank coffee while fiddling with my phone.
Where should I go now?
Before I had a car, there were so many places I wanted to visit. Now that I had one, I had no idea where to start.
“Huh?”
Was there somewhere worth going?
I logged into social media for the first time in a while to look, and saw that the singer-songwriter Happy Quokka had posted about an upcoming busking performance a few days ago.
The performance was today.
The location was Hongdae’s busking street.
“Good timing.”
I entered a nearby parking lot into the navigation system.
* * *
It took one and a half times longer than expected to reach Hongdae. After safely parking in a paid lot, I strolled around.
There was still time before the performance.
The first place I went was a large gift shop.
One side was lined with countless umbrellas.
“Holy shit.”
I spotted an umbrella with the exact same design as the one I’d lost for my sister.
The design was childish, so I had thought it might be sold somewhere like this, but it really was.
I picked out another umbrella with a more ordinary design as well and paid.
“Thank you. Have a good day.”
At the place where Happy Quokka’s busking performance would be held, the previous team was performing.
There were around thirty audience members.
“...”
I quietly put on my mask.
There were a lot of [Contagious Disease Patient] labels.
I was worried people might mistake me for a germaphobe someday.
As I listened to an unfamiliar song, I opened social media.
While I was at it, I should turn on notifications for Happy Quokka’s account...
“Huh?”
[@felicitaquokka I’m sorry. I caught a bad cold, so today’s busking performance has been canceled at short notice. I’m so sorry T_T]
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