Hours passed as I scoured the forest and nearby fields, searching for any trace of moldy food. I found some on a piece of stale bread in the village's waste pile and others on rotting fruit near the outskirts. It wasn't ideal, but I knew it would have to do.
I returned to my hut, setting the ingredients down on the wooden table. As soon as I did, a faint shimmer appeared before me. The system was responding, and the air around me crackled with energy.
> "Ingredients detected. Reward unlocked: Basic Portable Lab Equipment."
In an instant, I saw items materialize on the table—a simple microscope, a glass petri dish, and a flask with a narrow funnel. I felt a surge of hope. With these tools, I could extract the mold, isolating the essential properties to create penicillin.
I wasted no time, carefully scraping bits of the mold into the petri dish, moistening it with a few drops of water, and setting it in the sun. The process was tedious, and as the hours passed, I could hear the child's pained moans in the distance, a haunting reminder that time was running out.
By the following day, small colonies of mold began to spread across the dish. It was crude, far from the sterile labs I was used to, but it was all I had. I carefully scraped the active parts of the mold, dissolving it in the small flask to extract the penicillin.
The solution was weak—no doubt a far cry from the potent antibiotics of my world—but it was all I had. I returned to Lora's sister's home, carrying the flask as though it were made of the finest glass.
Inside, the child's condition had worsened. His breathing was shallow, and his pulse weak. Lora looked at me with desperate eyes, and I felt the weight of her trust. I knelt beside the boy, placing a small dose of the crude antibiotic on his lips, hoping it would be enough.
Hours passed in tense silence. We sat by his side, watching his every breath, praying for some sign that it was working. Slowly, as the night wore on, his breathing began to even out, his fever cooling by the slightest degree. Relief washed over me, but I knew this was only the beginning.
It would take days for him to fully recover, and the risk of infection was still high. I returned to my hut to create a few more doses, hoping it would be enough to see him through.
The days that followed were a blur of tension and cautious hope. Each dose seemed to work, fighting off the fever bit by bit until, finally, the boy's breathing was steady, his fever completely gone.
The village was in awe. Rumors spread quickly, tales of a miraculous cure that I had brought from a world beyond their understanding. Some were skeptical, others fearful, but all were grateful. I could feel their respect growing, a shift in the way they looked at me.
But the system had reminded me of something essential: while I had knowledge, I was still vulnerable, limited by the tools and resources of this world. The system was my only ally, a guide to bridge the gap between the world I came from and the one I was now bound to.
And as I looked at the sleeping child, his fever finally broken, I felt a renewed determination. This world held secrets, challenges, and perhaps dangers I had yet to understand. But with each life saved, with each discovery made, I was carving out a place for myself, one step closer to mastering this strange new life.