Chapter 44: Klein’s Lips Curled Into a Smile, "I Don’t Think Much of It."

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Klein’s Lips Curled Into a Smile, "I Don’t Think Much of It."

For the past three days, the clan had stuck to their original daily routine. They boiled ginger soup for the young females to drink and prepared prickly ash water for the elderly males to soak their feet.

Three days later, the coconuts were just half an hour away from ripening.

Ophelia could not wait. She entered the System Space to wait for the crops to mature so she could harvest them with a single click. In an instant, 3,500 green coconuts appeared in her inventory. Wasting no time, she planted another batch across the 350-square-meter plot.

Using her usual trick, Ophelia took Tyler and headed out, claiming they were going up the mountain to search for a water source. It was during this trip that she "coincidentally" discovered a type of fruit on the ground containing a drinkable liquid. She then sent Tyler back to the stone house to fetch Laxus. Taking advantage of the empty surroundings, she held up a crude cowhide umbrella and scattered the coconuts all over the mountain.

Just as they braved the rain to bring the coconuts back to the stone house on the mountain, several males suddenly cried out in alarm.

"This is bad! Natsu has a fever!"

"My father is sick too!"

"My younger brother also has a fever!"

Ophelia’s heart sank as she wondered how so many people were getting fevers at the same time. She feared it was a contagious epidemic. She quickly hurried toward the bachelors’ quarters, with Laxus and Tyler following close behind.

"Ophelia, don’t go in." Tyler’s strides were even faster than Laxus’s, allowing him to catch up to the little female.

Ophelia looked down at the large, muddy hand gripping her arm and shook her head gently. "I’ll be fine." As she spoke, she pulled a piece of animal skin from her clothes and tied it over her face as a makeshift mask. "Laxus, Tyler, you need to wear animal skins too if you’re coming in, just so you don’t get infected."

Laxus’s heart skipped a beat, immediately grasping the implication of his sister’s words. Having survived a plague in his childhood, he knew all too well how contagious such diseases could be. One misstep, and it could wipe out the entire clan.

"Don’t go in. I’ll just go in with Laxus," Tyler insisted, still worried. There was even a pleading look in his eyes.

"I’m fine," Ophelia replied.

She stepped into the bachelors’ quarters, leaving Tyler to watch her with darkened brown eyes. Laxus, who had already secured an animal skin over his face, patted Tyler on the shoulder. "Come on, let’s go in together."

As soon as they entered, they spotted over a dozen males collapsed on the floor. Their faces were deathly pale, their bodies trembled uncontrollably, and cold sweat beaded on their foreheads. These were classic symptoms of a severe cold and fever. The clan doctor, Grayson, was already examining them, his expression growing grimmer by the second.

Ophelia stepped forward and asked, "Grayson, what’s their condition?"

"They haven’t been hunting, and they don’t have any physical injuries," Grayson replied. "They’re just running fevers."

Laxus’s expression darkened. "But males have strong constitutions. It’s incredibly rare for them to catch a fever during the rainy season."

Ophelia’s gaze swept over the fallen males. Among them were a few familiar faces—the same young males who had been lazy earlier and wanted to use rainwater to boil the ginger soup. When Laxus had ordered them to use clean water just as Ophelia instructed, they hadn’t said a word in protest. However, Ophelia knew they had been secretly disgruntled. She just hadn’t had the time to deal with their attitudes while she was busy securing a water source.

"Have they been drinking rainwater recently?" she asked.

Several young males exchanged uneasy glances before choosing to answer truthfully. "We know the clan is running low on water, so we’ve all been drinking less. Natsu, in particular, has been drinking nothing but rainwater lately. Could his fever be related to that?"

Laxus pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a massive headache coming on. What was he even supposed to say to that? Ophelia was equally conflicted, unsure whether to praise them for putting the clan first or scold them for being so stubborn. However, this wasn’t the time to lecture them about their disobedience. The priority was figuring out how to control the outbreak.

"What? Drinking rainwater actually makes you sick?"

"Thank goodness we didn’t drink any back then, or we’d be doomed too."

"What do we do now?"

THUD.

Another young male collapsed to the ground. Ophelia rushed over to his side and placed a hand on his forehead. Instantly, a noticeable heat radiated against her fingertips. He had a fever too!

"Did you drink rainwater as well?" she asked.

The male’s vision was swimming, but he managed to force out his words with the last bit of his strength. "I never drank any."

It made sense for Natsu and the others to catch a fever from drinking unsanitary rainwater. But for a male who had never touched the rainwater to collapse like this meant only one thing—the fever was highly contagious!

Grayson grew anxious. "Young Clan Leader, they all share the exact same symptoms. I don’t know how to treat this, and I’m running out of herbs." The doctor scratched his head in frustration. For the first time in his life, he felt utterly inadequate in his medical skills.

Ophelia also found herself at a loss. Even the most skilled cook could not make a meal without rice. She instructed Laxus to isolate the feverish males and to ensure no one else touched any of the items they had used. After that, she slowly walked out of the stone house and stared blankly at the pouring rain outside, seemingly lost in thought.

In reality, her consciousness had already entered the System Space. Grayson’s words just now had given her an idea.

In ancient times, there were no synthetic drugs; illnesses were treated with traditional herbal medicine. If her System Space could grow crops, vegetables, and fruits, it stood to reason that it could grow medicinal herbs as well. She immediately began browsing the System Mall and, sure enough, found a seed packet for traditional herbs. However, the packet was grayed out, indicating it had not yet been unlocked. She quickly checked the requirements.

[Unlock Herbal Medicine Seed Packet: Upgrade the farm space to Level 7.]

Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief before checking the points needed to reach Level 7. The sight left her dumbfounded—it required a staggering 1,000,000 points. She glanced at her current balance: less than ten thousand. She was dead in the water!

She didn’t even have a fraction of a million. Upgrading the land seemed utterly impossible. Ophelia hung her head, wondering if the Golden Dragon Clan’s tragic fate from her past life truly could not be changed.

Kicking a stone on the ground in frustration, her eyes suddenly lit up. If she lacked points, there were always Crystal Stones! A single Yellow Crystal Stone could be exchanged for forty thousand points. She didn’t have any on hand, but she knew someone who did.

Ophelia’s consciousness snapped back to reality. Her beautiful eyes happened to sweep over Klein, who was standing by the doorway, watching the scene unfold like an entertaining show. With him around as a Mine Master, getting Crystal Stones would be a piece of cake. With that thought in mind, Ophelia immediately bounded toward Klein with a bright smile.

Tyler caught sight of this, and an indescribable feeling welled up in his chest. Deep down, an instinctual urge made him detest the idea of his little female interacting too much with Klein.

Klein also realized that Ophelia was running his way. He saw her soft chuckle, her eyes curving into beautiful, delicate little crescents. His heart suddenly raced, and even his breathing caught in his throat. He realized that this little female’s smile was incredibly gorgeous! It was as radiant and dazzling as the stars in the night sky.

Ophelia came to a steady halt in front of him, her eyes sparkling. "Klein Clan Leader, how many Crystal Stones do you have on you right now?"

"Quite a few. Why?" Klein raised an eyebrow, forcibly calming his racing heart.

"Can I borrow a few from you?"

"Hmm?" Klein lowered his gaze to scrutinize Ophelia.

The Golden Dragon Clan was currently dealing with an infectious fever—how did this little female still have the mind to borrow Crystal Stones? A few Yellow Crystal Stones meant nothing to him; he even had a high-quality purple one on him.

"Klein Clan Leader, I have an urgent need for Crystal Stones. Just three Green Crystal Stones will do." After all, one Green Crystal Stone could be exchanged for 400,000 points. "For every Green Crystal Stone, I’ll give you 1,000 sacks of grain, plus an extra hundred fruits. What do you think?"

A smirk touched the corners of Klein’s lips. "I don’t think it sounds very good at all."