Does a Pharmacist Awaken, Too?

On the day I awakened, I rode in the ambulance beside my customer.

I hadn't meant to go with him. Even while they were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠loading him onto the stretcher, I was only bending to pick the gauze up off the pharmacy floor when a paramedic called me over.

"You need to be examined too."

"I wasn't hurt anywhere."

"You said this was your first awakening. You don't even know how much mana you used."

He was right. I still couldn't quite believe that light had been coming from my hands only moments ago.

"Any dizziness? Nausea?"

"A little, earlier. Now..."

I started to stand and caught the display shelf. The paramedic braced my arm at once.

"Come with us."

"...Let me just lock the door."

A tub of ointment sat under the counter. Twenty minutes ago it had been nothing more than a near-expired item I meant to return. I never imagined it would save a man, and send me to the hospital with him.

My name is Han Seojin. Twenty-seven years old, and a pharmacist.

I ran a pharmacy out of a worn commercial building on the city outskirts. A small clinic shared the building, and across the street the Hunter Association kept a public assembly point.

In the mornings, hunters boarded buses in front of the assembly point. They stowed the gear they had brought and commuted in to the dungeons. There was no fixed hour for coming back. Some days they went out drinking from the afternoon on; other nights the ambulance arrived first, long after dark.

They mostly stopped by the pharmacy before a shift, or on the way home. Some bought motion-sickness medicine and digestives. Others handed over prescriptions from the clinic upstairs.

Being a hunter did not mean you made good money. The customers in this neighborhood certainly didn't. They asked whether anything cheaper was available, and at the end of the month they checked whether a card would take installments.

Park Seongcheol was one of them.

"Still open."

I had been clearing the register, ready to close. Seongcheol came in with his right arm pinned against his side, and dirt from his work pants shook loose at every step.

"You're late today."

"Settlement ran long. Give me the medicine I was taking last time."

He meant the wrist medication he always got on a prescription.

"Do you have the prescription?"

"Upstairs was already closed. Figured I'd at least buy some painkillers for tonight."

It had not even been a week since he came in saying the wrist hurt. He had grumbled at length that the doctor told him to rest, and then, from the look of it, gone straight back out to work.

"Let me see your hand."

Seongcheol hooked his left hand into the right glove and pulled. It came free as far as the fingers, then caught at the wrist. He winced every time he forced it, so I opened the cuff for him.

The inside of the wrist was swollen and flushed. Where the glove had pressed, it left a deep mark.

"It's much more swollen than last time."

"Heavy load today."

"The hospital told you to rest, didn't they?"

"What am I supposed to do when they can't find anyone? They said just this once."

Seongcheol was forty-three, a low-rank hunter. His awakening had made him stronger, and the dungeons put that strength to hauling cargo and clearing obstacles. On days without that work, he went back to the construction sites he used to work.

Either way, the wrist never got a rest.

"When did you injure it?"

"After lunch. Twisted it unloading."

"And you took a potion?"

"Drank one on the way. Back of the hand healed. This didn't."

Dried blood still clung to the back of his hand. The wound beneath it had closed, but the swelling in the wrist remained, and something like a blue line showed through under the skin.

I came out from behind the counter and drew a chair over.

"Sit down first. Is anything else bothering you?"

"Stomach's a bit queasy. Maybe because I didn't eat."

Up close, cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Even after he sat, he couldn't set the right arm down. He cradled it in his left hand.

A potion helped a wound close, but it did not answer every symptom. If this was one of the abnormal reactions that followed forcing an ability too far, a cut that looked healed was no reason to relax.

"You should go to the emergency room."

"It's that bad?"

"You're still swelling after a potion, and your stomach is off. This isn't something you can push through on painkillers."

Seongcheol looked at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his wrist, then took his phone from his pocket.

"All right. I'll call a cab."

His finger missed the screen. He blinked a few times and set the phone down on his knee.

"Mr. Pharmacist, handle this for me—"

He pitched forward before he finished.

I caught his shoulder. The phone slipped from his hand and struck the floor.

"Mr. Seongcheol?"

His legs gave out, and his body slid off the side of the chair. I went down with the weight and knelt, kept the back of his head off the floor, and lowered him carefully onto his back.

He didn't answer when I called. He was breathing. I called 119 at once, gave them the address and his condition, and set the phone on speaker beside me so I could follow their instructions. That was when his sleeve began to soak through red.

Blood was running down the wrist.

I fetched scissors and cut the sleeve away. One side of the swollen skin had split, and blue light wavered inside the wound.

"The patient is a hunter. The arm that was swollen is bleeding. I can see light inside the wound."

I pressed sterile gauze to it, and something pushed up beneath my palm. The swollen flesh twitched in uneven pulses and shoved the gauze aside. I had never seen anything like it. My hand bore down. If he had walked out of here like this, with nothing but painkillers...

"Mr. Seongcheol. The ambulance is on its way."

A groan leaked between his lips. I thought he might be coming around and called again, but his eyes did not open.

Then light spread between my fingers.

At first I thought it was seeping from the wound. When I shifted my grip on the gauze, though, the light came with me. It was flowing from my fingertips, through the gauze, and into the arm. A moment later I could see blue threads beneath the skin, packed dense and tangled at the wrist. Every time the light pressing in from behind struck them, the skin drew tight.

I blinked. It was still there. I eased my hand back a little, and a thin thread of light stretched between my fingertips and Seongcheol's arm. I curled my fingers in surprise, and the light dimmed with them.

No. It couldn't be.

I remembered what awakened customers had told me. A sense appeared in the body that had never been there before, and even the first time, they said, you knew how you were supposed to move it. I felt I could send something out through my fingertips. The moment I focused on that sense, the light deepened. Energy drained from inside my arm, and one of the tangled threads in his wrist went slack. Light flowed through the gap.

His groaning eased. Almost at once the threads knotted again, and most of what I sent scattered near the skin. I tried to push more in. Nausea rose, and hardly any more of it reached the inside of the wrist.

A voice on the phone asked after the patient.

"Still unconscious. He's breathing."

I answered without taking my eyes off the arm. While I sent the force, the swelling sank a little; the moment it weakened, the wrist swelled again. It didn't seem able to pass properly through the skin.

The returns box under the counter caught my eye. Inside was Mana Transmission Ointment, an aid healing-type hunters used when they treated scars and calluses. I kept one hand on Seongcheol's arm and dragged the box closer. My bloodied fingers slipped on the lid. I wiped them on my work gown, got it open at last, and scooped the ointment out, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and light soaked into the clear salve. The mana lingering at my fingertips spread through the whole of it.

I spread it around the wrist, clear of the wound. This time the light that had scattered across the surface ran inward, and I sent my strength along it. Gaps opened between the tangled threads. The light that had been trapped broke free and flowed toward the elbow, and the pressure shoving against my palm eased. Seongcheol let out a long breath.

Thinking it might be done, I slackened. The loosened threads began to tangle again, and I drove mana in at once. I couldn't take my hand away. I couldn't keep this up, either. My breath came short, and the hand bracing his arm shook.

I reached for what ointment remained and looked into the tub. Light still clung where my fingers had touched a moment ago. It had not vanished after my hand left. This time I scooped the ointment out first, then put mana into it. The light clumped to one side. When I stirred it slowly with a fingertip, it spread evenly through the salve, and it cost me less strength than sending the force straight into skin. I laid a thin second coat around the wrist.

The mana stored there seeped little by little beneath the skin. I drew my hand back slowly. The current inside the arm did not break. Where the ointment touched, mana kept being fed in, and the mass that had filled the wrist shrank.

I braced one hand on the floor. Sweat had soaked the inside of my gown. I turned to check Seongcheol's face, and my sight blurred.

Then a siren sounded outside the door.

When the paramedics came in, I raised an arm to show them where we were.

"Over here. He was unconscious until just now..."

Seongcheol's eyes opened. They moved a few times, then stopped on me.

"...Mr. Pharmacist?"

Only then did a long breath leave me.

"This is the ointment you used?"

The paramedic held up the tub. I answered from the chair.

"Yes. I put mana into it."

"Is that how you normally use it?"

"No. I think I awakened for the first time today. I'd never used mana before."

He passed that on to his partner, then checked the monitor fastened to Seongcheol's arm.

"A lot of the blocked mana has cleared. The hospital will have to confirm the details."

Seongcheol lay on the stretcher. Gauze and a brace wrapped his right arm. When a paramedic told him to move his fingers, he slowly curled them and opened them again.

"Couldn't even do that a minute ago."

I picked his phone up off the floor. One corner of the screen was slightly cracked. I put it in a belongings bag with the glove and set the bag beside the stretcher.

"When you get to the hospital, tell them when your hand stopped moving."

"Yeah. I will."

"And if they tell you to rest, please rest this time. Finding a replacement is the team's problem. It isn't your job to hold out until you collapse."

Instead of answering, he looked down at his right arm. After a moment he said he understood.

The paramedics moved the stretcher toward the door, and Seongcheol glanced at the floor. Bloodied gauze and the cut sleeve lay scattered across it.

"I feel awful. The floor, like this..."

"I'll clean it up. Please don't worry about it."

I stood, and caught the display shelf.

In the end, the cleaning would have to wait until I got back.

While I leaned on the counter, a paramedic gathered my phone and keys for me. He said they would take the ointment as well, so the hospital could look at it.

I turned off the lights and locked the glass door. There wasn't much strength in the hand on the key. I had to reset my grip twice.

"Have you ever seen anyone else put mana into medicine, the way I did?"

I asked on the way down the stairs. The paramedic answered.

"First time for me. If you get examined at the Association, you'll learn more about the ability."

"I have to register too, don't I?"

"Yes. The hospital will walk you through it. Hold the rail, and take the stairs slowly."

When I climbed into the ambulance, Seongcheol pointed at the seat already waiting for me.

"You're coming ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, Mr. Pharmacist?"

"They told me to get checked."

I sat across from him and fastened the belt. The doors closed, and he looked at the tub of ointment beside the paramedic.

"That medicine. Can you make it again next time?"

The feeling of loading mana into the ointment was still with me. I thought I could do it again. But I couldn't promise anything about a thing I had only just done for the first time.

"Let me get the exam first. I need to figure out how I even made it."

"Then tell me when you know. There's a guy on my team with a bad wrist, too."

I took out my phone.

As the ambulance pulled away, the screen trembled faintly. I opened a note and started with the ointment's name. I wrote down where I had applied it, the order in which I had loaded the mana, and the moment Seongcheol's condition changed, everything I could still remember.

On the last line, I wrote the thing I had not yet confirmed.