Novel Full Chapter 138 Botulism?
Chapter 138: 138 Botulism?
Botulism.
It is a neurotoxin produced by the food poisoning bacteria known as Clostridium botulinum. It isn’t exactly a contagious disease, but the symptoms primarily manifest in animals like cattle and horses.
The classic signs are cattle suddenly being unable to stand or showing symptoms of paralysis.
While it isn’t a widely known disease to the general public, it is something livestock farmers must always be on guard against.
In the case of pigs, they have a relatively higher resistance to botulism compared to cattle, so the texts say that even if they ingest it orally, it usually doesn’t cause major issues. But "resistance" doesn’t mean "immunity." It just means it’s harder for them to catch it, so it’s still a food poisoning bacterium that demands caution.
"Didn’t these guys just eat the grass here and the feed you gave them? What the hell did you feed them for them to just drop dead overnight like this?"
"T-this, and that! L-leftovers, and! H-hunted, b-boned, r-remains, mixed, together, fed!"
"Mmm..."
As I mentioned, botulism is caused by food poisoning bacteria.
The bacteria themselves live in the soil and then infiltrate animal carcasses or hay, where they start pumping out toxins. Looking at these Orcs—who clearly have a meat-heavy diet—there was a high chance they just threw whatever was lying around into the troughs: their own leftovers, or scraps of bone and meat left over from butchering.
Furthermore, it was currently September—hardly what you’d call autumn yet.
The heat of summer hadn’t fully dissipated during the day, and when the temperature spikes like it’s mid-August, botulism reacts to the heat and starts churning out toxins.
It was highly likely that toxins were produced in the animal carcasses the Orcs fed to them, and the pigs died after reacting to it.
The possibility grew even stronger considering the pig-herding Orc said the pigs died "suddenly."
[But you said they were resistant! Then why...]
"Like I said, they’re resistant, not immune. Besides, there are always individuals who don’t have enough resistance."
For example, take the colostrum I explained before. If a piglet loses the competition for a teat against its siblings and fails to drink the colostrum, it doesn’t acquire any resistance from the mother.
Or if the mother herself has issues and the quality of the colostrum is low, they won’t get enough resistance. There are many factors, but in this case, there’s only one thing I should be blaming.
[...The feed problem?]
"Exactly. Most of the finisher pigs here were already adults before they started eating the feed I provided. Since the mothers gave birth to them after eating the local scraps, the impact carried over."
In the end, it’s a food problem. Because there was an issue with the food, their resistance dropped, and because there was an issue with the food, the food poisoning bacteria were introduced.
The sudden transition from farm breeding to a free-range lifestyle probably played a role, too.
"To be honest, knowing they have a resistance to it, I’d usually suspect Clostridium perfringens over Botulism, but that mostly occurs in young piglets and usually breaks out during the spring."
Perfringens, like Botulinum, is a bacteria belonging to the Clostridium genus.
This bacterium readily infects even pigs that are resistant to botulism, and like botulism, it causes sudden death.
Normally, whether it’s a pig or a human, the first thing that happens when they get sick is a loss of appetite. But according to the pig-herder, these pigs were eating the food he gave them just as well as ever only a few hours ago.
That’s why the pig-herder was left thinking, "Huh? Why did they die?"
A loss of appetite is a symptom seen in ruminants like cattle. In pigs, if this disease hits, the peracute form kills them within 1 to 2 days, and the subacute form kills them in 2 to 3.
Of course, in the latter case, you would have seen them suffering from continuous diarrhea for up to a week... though it’s possible these Orcs didn’t even notice if a pig had diarrhea.
I figured there were several more factors, but I decided to stop there.
At the end of the day...
No matter what I said, I was just making guesses based on circumstances and suspicion.
I couldn’t be 100% certain.
[Why? You said it was a disease! After explaining all that!]
"Because... they’re pigs."
Pigs die from all sorts of diseases. Compared to cattle, which cost several thousands per head, pigs are cheap, and their population can be adjusted at will.
Unless it’s a devastating, infectious plague like Foot-and-Mouth Disease or African Swine Fever, it doesn’t even make the news.
They’re just pigs, after all.
They aren’t like cows that take a whole year to give birth to a single calf. Pigs pump out ten or twelve piglets every few months, like a machine popping out takoyaki from a mold. No one cares how a head of livestock that doesn’t even impact the farm economy dies.
If cattle die en masse at a large farm, world-renowned scientists step in to investigate, but that doesn’t happen for pigs.
Because they’re just pigs!
So, in short, there’s a lack of information. No one cares how a pig gets sick, whether it lives or dies, unless they’re the ones actually raising them.
And God, pigs have so many diseases!
That’s why I can suspect, but never be certain. All I can do is guess a similar disease, take measures, and watch the progress.
If that method doesn’t work? Then I try the treatment for the next most similar disease. I keep trying over and over again until the disease is finally caught.
Even though I said it’s a Clostridium symptom, I can’t be sure the food poisoning bacteria in this world have the same properties as the ones in mine. Plus, they aren’t huddling in a crowded pigsty, so it was questionable why a heat-induced Clostridium symptom would appear out here.
There was no guarantee that the common sense of this world aligned with mine.
But if this, if this really is Botulism...
"There is nothing I can do."
[Why? There must be a treatment!]
"Treatment?"
There isn’t one.
I’m not joking; there really isn’t.
If it were a human, I believe you could inject some kind of antiserum, but once a beast shows symptoms, death is virtually guaranteed.
Botulism is a lethal neurotoxin that can be used as a biochemical weapon—meaning its weaponization is banned. Once it’s already produced inside the body, there’s no fixing it.
All you can do is prevent it.
Honestly, whether it’s perfringens or botulism, since both are Clostridium bacteria, the best approach is to strictly manage the food and mix antibiotics into their feed as a preventative measure.
There is no cure.
Anyway.
Once I made that diagnosis, I immediately shouted toward the Orc Chief.
"Burn every single one of the dead ones. Don’t try to make fertilizer out of them or eat them—burn them all! Also, if you look around, you’ll find places where they had diarrhea. I don’t care how you do it, but get rid of that too!"
Even if I couldn’t treat the soil already contaminated with Clostridium, I could at least deal with the excrement immediately.
If we manage them calmly while mixing antibiotics into the feed, we can stop the damage from spreading further.
"A-waste! G-god, gave, these p-pigs! S-such, a waste!!"
Yeah, I know it’s a waste.
But it can’t be helped. These things have to be incinerated. They must not be recycled.
"Botulinum" might sound like a typical bacterial name, but it actually comes from the Latin word botulus, meaning "sausage." The name originated in the 18th and 19th centuries when Germans died of food poisoning after eating sausages.
Since we have pigs suspected of botulism, they can’t be reused. It’s impossible.
I’ve even seen articles where cattle farms near fields that used dead pigs as fertilizer had outbreaks of botulism. We have to be extra careful.
"How are the dead pigs being managed? Have crows or anything been pecking at them?"
"N-never! P-precious, m-meat! C-crows, c-cannot, have!"
"Well, that’s a relief."
In the first place, I wasn’t just telling them to incinerate them because of botulism. It was early autumn, and the weather felt like summer. Regardless of botulism, this is a season where even humans have to worry about food poisoning.
I don’t know how Orcs survive, but instead of getting sick from eating rotten meat, incineration is the most effective way to handle it.
So, how do we deal with botulism? Once it breaks out, there’s no way. Prevention is everything. Don’t let them eat rotten stuff. Just in case, I’ll send over feed mixed with antibiotics from my side and watch the results as they eat it.
If they keep dying even after that? Then things are going to get really annoying.
As I finished giving the orders for the immediate tasks and began to catch my breath, the way the Orcs were looking at me turned strange.
—Ohhhhhh! O-our, G-great L-lord!
—H-he looks, a-after, u-us, s-so!
—P-praise, the Pig G-god!
"?"
I don’t know why, but just because I told them not to eat rotten meat, the Orcs in the back started praising me. Every now and then, they kept saying "Pig God, Pig God."
"Fufu... You turned me into a sow, so you are the Pig God... Ugh-iiiiiiick... ♥"
"This is because of you! You!"
Getting annoyed for no reason, I slapped Eleonora’s butt. Eleonora immediately threw her head back in ecstasy, reverting right back into her slutty sow mode.
Until now, she had stayed quiet with my cock buried deep inside her, knowing she shouldn’t interfere while I was working. But now that there was nothing left for me to do immediately...
And since she wanted to enjoy herself...
Thinking she might never get the thrill of public exposure sex like this again, she seized the moment and started grinding her hips back and forth.
A sow-bitch shaking her ass on a cock right in front of the Orcs... If it were anyone other than Eleonora, I’d have been salivating. Honestly, I should praise her for holding back this long.
"L-look! See the g-greatness of our Master, who turned your G-god into a cock-obsessed s-sow... Hiiiii-iiit...!?"
"Are you going to keep talking nonsense?!"
"Hiiiieeeck... M-my asshole... a finger is in my a-asshole... ♥"
Since I couldn’t change the image of being the God who broke and trained Eleonora anyway, I shoved my fingers into her tight asshole to stop her from saying anything more stupid.
"Th..three at once... Hyaaaah... Service for Master’s cock with my pussy, and Master’s fingers with my asshole... Ahhh... How can I be such a happy s-sow... ♥"
—Ohhhhhh...
—B-butcher’s, l-lewd, s-smile!
—O-once again, o-our God, s-subjugates, the s-sow!!
—Whoaaaaaaa?!
I only jammed my fingers in there to shut her up, but instead of her usual sharp gaze, she looked at me with eyes dripping with pure affection. The Orcs started getting even more worked up as they watched Eleonora literally melting into a puddle.
"T-to be watched again... H-how many times just today... P-public exposure sex...!"
"You’re having the time of your life, aren’t you?"
Was even that not enough for her? Like a depraved whore, Eleonora began to let out seductive, wanton moans at the top of her lungs, specifically designed to drive males wild.
[Hehe, so, do you hate it?]
"...No."
Is she asking because she knows I’m about to creampie her?
"You’re making me horny too!"
"K-kh-huuuuuuuh... The cock, the cock is getting even b-bigger...?!"
Perhaps it wasn’t me who trained Eleonora, but me who had been tainted by her. I started pumping my hips like a dog in heat into Eleonora, who was crouched down like a beast.
—Ohhhhhh! God, is t-trying, to i-impregnate, the s-sow?!
—R-record! T-this! L-leave it, for p-posterity!
"Don’t record it with drawings! You bastards?!"
And they were surprisingly good at drawing!
These guys, who didn’t even know the dangers of eating rotten meat, somehow knew how to draw. They brought out something that looked like a canvas and started recording my sex session with Eleonora using writing tools presumably made of charcoal.
"D-drawings?!"
"Why? Are you finally snapping out of it, realizing that your image in this state will be passed down to future generations?"
"H-huu, fufu... ♥"
...Or maybe not?