Capítulo 26: Chapter 26: Jiro The Mage

Aliyah and I left the mayor's meeting room and have started heading out of the building. Han was waiting in the lobby, presumably to hear what the mayor said.

I walked over to Han and said, "Hey, Han. The mayor gave us the "okay" to go ahead and investigate."

Han smiled upon hearing that and then said, "Well isn't that great?"

I waved goodbye to the desk clerk and Han as I walked out of the town hall with Aliyah. But the first thing I need to do is to put on safety gear.

I have a bandana style mask and some gloves in my inventory for both Aliyah and I so step one is complete.

"Wait!" Han yelled from behind. Han then ran up to us and said, "I forgot to take you two somewhere first!"

Ah. Han is so forgetful. "I presume we'll bring going to that 'Jiro' guy that the desk clerk said something about?" I said calmly.

Han nodded his head 'yes'. He then said, "Jiro is the only mage in this very town."

Han then began to walk towards the middle of the uninfected zone we are in. Aliyah and I began to follow him.

-[A Few Minutes Later]-

We followed Han to a small building, presumably Jiro's home, and he knocked on the door of the building.

"Hey Jiro, it's Han! I got some people that would like to talk to you." said Han.

I could hear something like the sound of unlocking locks inside of the building. A Jiro that looked to be no older than 14 opened the door.

"W-welcome. Please, come inside." said the boy. He had emerald green hair and was wearing round glasses with the robe you'd expect to find on all of the nerdy mages in a fantasy anime. The best thing about him though is that he seems to be an elf!

Han entered the building followed by Aliyah and then myself. Inside of the entrance was shelves with books, diagrams along the walls, and one nicely made staff for a mage.

The boy then brought us further into the home and gestured for us to sit down on the sofa in the nearby room. Han left the home after another minute or so.

After a few moments the boy joined us in the same room and sat on a chair opposite of where we sat.

The boy then straightened his posture and said, "Hello. I'm the one known as Jiro." So this is Jiro, eh? I thought he'd be a lot older than he is. I was thinking he'd look like a stereotypical wizard.

Aliyah then said, "So you're Jiro? Well, I'm Aliyah and this is my daughter, Pearl." Jiro turned his gaze from Aliyah to me and then back to Aliyah.

"You're her mother? I'm guessing she was adopted?" said Jiro.

Aliyah smiled and said, "Yes. She wasn't in any records and she didn't have an identification card either. All she could remember was her name. And so after her living with me for about half a year I decided to adopt her."

Jiro then turned his gaze back to me and said, "Well then. It's nice to meet you and your mother, Pearl."

Jiro then said, "So what are you two here to talk about?"

I decided it's best for me to take over this conversation. I then said, "Well we are here to discuss the mysterious illness with you. I'd like to know more about it if you know anything."

Jiro's face turned complex. He then said, "I don't know much about the illness that appeared but all I do know is that it only started around two weeks ago, it started showing up in the other part of town, and it can't be healed with Beginner healing magic."

It can't be healed with Beginner healing magic, huh? That means this illness is intermediate grade or higher.

Aliyah then asked, "So that means that the illness is intermediate grade or higher, correct?"

Jiro nodded his head 'yes'. He then said, "I've been researching diseases and sicknesses that have been documented for the last decade in the area. I haven't made much progress but I did found one thing earlier this morning."

I then said, "What is that 'thing'?"

He continued, "It is strangely similar to how Ogre blood affects people when the meat is uncooked or raw."

That seems like a helpful tip.

It doesn't seem like we'll get much more information about the illness so it seems like a good time to leave.

I looked at Jiro and said, "If that is all that you know then it seems it is time for us to leave. But I must say one thing, for someone as young as you are, you are incredibly smart."

Jiro smiled awkwardly and said, "Well, thank you! I only turned 72 years old the other day and I'm not a registered elvish adult until I am 90 years old."

What the fuck? He's 72 years old?!

I then said, "I thought you were about 14 years old based on how you look. How long do elves usually live for anyway?"

Jiro then said, "Elves usually live for about 300 years if nothing goes wrong. The oldest elf to ever exist was Kilaf Hilderret and he was 319 years old upon his time of death."

Damn. That Kilaf guy is basically ancient as fuck.

Jiro and I talked about elves for a few minutes before it was ultimately time for Aliyah and I to leave. I exchanged goodbyes with Jiro and left the room with Aliyah.

After we exited Jiro's house I opened my inventory to grab something.

"Here, take these." I said as I handed over a mask and gloves to Aliyah.

I told Aliyah, "These are for when we get close to the infected area." I then looked around and saw a man sitting down across he street on some barrels and I might as well start by asking him.

I walked over to the man and said, "Hello, good sir. I have a few questions to ask you. Would you be willing to comply?"

The man looked at me and had a death stare directed at me. "Fuck off. I don't need the likes of your kind talking to me." said the man.

Oh. So he's a racist? Fuck you too then!

I then replied, "Fine. Have yourself a good day, dumbass."

The man started to get really pissed off. I just stood there and watched. It was quite amusing. The man stood up and said, "You wanna fuckin' die you little shit? I'll fucking kill you, cunt."

Aliyah's aura became more enraged by him but she didn't dare try to attack him. I guess she's scared she'll be throw out of the town if she does.

The man grabbed a nearby empty bear bottle and tried to swing at me. But he's too slow. WAY too slow.

[Flash Step] is used and now I'm behind him. I'll just kick the back of his kneecap and then kick him in the giblets. Seems fair enough.

"Hurghhhh!!" the man fell to the ground holding his "prized possessions" and a person who had seen the whole thing said, "Haha! You got your ass kicked!"

I decided to not stay around here any longer and so Aliyah and I walked towards the infected zone.

Whilst walking down the street I noticed one or two people coughing a bit and that troubled me. Sure it could just be a normal cough, or it could be caused by the illness.

If it gets any worse on this side of the town, we should cut off the people with the symptoms showing up, and the people that don't have any symptoms.

And if we're going to do that maybe we should also do some sort of triage based on severity.

While a triage system existed in my old world, it might not exist inside of this other world. Hopefully, it does. That way I won't have to explain it to everyone.

But I guess I can quickly explain how a triage system works with medical cases in a hospital or similar setting.

A triage system is basically taking the patients that are waiting for their treatment, categorising them all into sections based of severity of their wound or illness, and then treating them all in the order they were assigned.

That means someone that broke their arm would be higher up on the triage system rather than someone who has the influenza virus.

The order of who goes where can be changed if someone with a more severe wound or illness shows up.

That's all I can really remember from when I took a biomedical sciences class in my freshman year of the high school that I attended.

Well I guess that concludes my explanation.

I began to look around my surroundings and I noticed that the people started to thin out near this area. I guess that means that we are almost to the infected zone.

I should probably talk to Aliyah about where we should go first in the infected area and who we should question.

I already have a basic idea of where to start looking but it never hurts to check other places first.