The Bitter Residue
"NoName's always taking medicine—is her body really that bad?"
Ma Ji-hye kindly pitched in to help me wash the flask. With a satisfying crunch, the fully oxidized residue sluiced away in the soapy water.
"It's nothing serious. As long as I don't forget to drink my mana potion every day, I'm perfectly fine."
"What happens if you forget?"
"Hmm... I get a little cranky?"
"Pfft! What is that? You turn into the Hulk or something?"
"Thanks for the help. After school, I'll grab you a crepe on the way home."
"Crepe? Out of nowhere? But there's no crepe stand around here."
"Fish-shaped bun, then?"
"It's March—do they even sell those anymore?"
"Pokémon bread it is."
"Sweet!"
Pokémon was still all the rage. Even in virtual reality multiplayer games, it never dropped out of the top ten popularity rankings. Praising the greatness of IP once more, we headed back to class.
"Kyaaah!"
A shrill scream echoed from the end of the hallway, instantly drawing every eye. Students chatting idly in the corridor whipped their heads around in unison.
"Sounds like it's from our class? Let's hurry!"
The classroom was total chaos. Kids had formed a circle, blocking the view of whatever was going on inside. As everyone stood around fidgeting helplessly, Han Se-ri spotted us and came running.
"What happened?"
"NoName, oh no! Seo Yu-na snuck some of your medicine and drank it... She's been coughing nonstop and looks like she's dying... Her face is super red!"
"What?"
I rushed straight to Yu-na to check on her. Shards of the broken flask littered the floor, and the potion—already fully oxidized and blackened—had soaked into the classroom tiles.
She finally went and caused an accident!
I swept the glass fragments aside first so Yu-na wouldn't thrash into them and cut herself.
"You'll cut yourself handling that bare-handed...!"
As Se-ri said, Yu-na was gasping for breath, hacking up dry coughs relentlessly. It might've been better if she'd just thrown up right there, but she couldn't manage it, writhing in agony instead. She'd clearly chugged the potion the moment she'd popped the lid.
There was a reason my mana potion—the treatment for a rare disease—only cost ten or twenty thousand won a bottle. It wasn't a real "treatment." Just a "suppressor."
Potion. Not Potion, but PORTION. More precisely, Powerplant Outcomes with Residue Transmutation into Overcharged Nebulosity.
It was made by compressing "residue"—a byproduct from this world's mana-refining power plants—into an overcharged "nebula state." The simplest way to put it? Radioactive waste, if you really had to compare.
It was a worthless byproduct forced into marketability, which explained the cheap price for a rare-disease drug. Mana itself wasn't directly harmful to humans like radiation due to its properties, but chugging a potion in nebula state straight-up caused exactly this kind of severe reaction.
Of course, once it oxidized on contact with air, the effect dropped to negligible levels—that's why drinking it fresh was better. Treatment efficacy versus pain: a classic trade-off.
As the saying goes, bitter medicine does the body good. I'd built up a tolerance from daily doses, so I could down it fresh with no issue, but Yu-na must be in hell right now.
Anyway, that wasn't the priority. First, calm this reckless kid down.
"Kek...! Hack..."
"Seo Yu-na. Can you hear me?"
"Hng..."
"I'm going to put my finger in your mouth now. No biting, even if it hurts, got it?"
Yu-na was lying awkwardly on her side, making it hard for me to get positioned. I swept her sweat-matted hair aside so I could see her face clearly. She seemed to register I was there. Good enough—she should understand my words.
If she actually bites, I'll smack her cheek.
"Hic... It... hurts... Cough..."
"..."
"Sorry..."
No more talking—she was in too much pain. I slipped my finger between her teeth quick. Warmth enveloped my left index finger. Unintentionally, I could feel the smooth texture of her gums at the tip. Her second front tooth must've fallen out recently; the shy permanent one poking through grazed my finger lightly.
Having an eight-year-old—who was just starting to lose her baby teeth—bite my finger. You learn something new every day.
"Hang in there. You'll be okay soon."
She looked bad, so I needed to hurry. With my free hand, I hastily sketched a simple transmutation circle on the floor.
3rd Circle — Local Anesthesia
4th Circle — Irreversible Reduction Reaction
The airway was a delicate area for anesthesia, tied closely to breathing—an important organ that demanded surface anesthesia handled with precision. I based the local anesthesia transmutation circle on the lidocaine and prilocaine in EMLA cream, the classic topical anesthetic.
To clear the residue lingering in her airway, I cast the reduction reaction circle to recon dense it back into nebula state. It might hurt a bit in the process, hence the local numbing first.
"Mmgh!"
As the circle activated, Yu-na squeezed her eyes shut. She was desperately trying not to bite my finger—adorable, really—but her tongue kept wriggling against it, tickling like crazy.
Bet my finger's gonna be drool city when I pull it out. For Yu-na's dignity, I'll make it discreet.
It didn't take long before the reduction circle faded first. Color returned to Yu-na's face. Her strawberry-red cheeks had gone deathly pale from the anesthesia, which worried me a bit, but it resolved fine.
"Teacher, over here!"
"Yu-na, you okay?!"
Right on cue, Yoon Si-hu arrived with our homeroom teacher. Jackie Teacher must've heard about Seo Yu-na collapsing after taking weird medicine and bolted to our class.
"Hey, NoName! Get your hand off Yu-na right now!"
Si-hu barked, and Jackie Teacher and I exchanged baffled looks.
"What are you...?"
The anesthesia was still... Nah, it was done now. I laid the now-sound-asleep Yu-na flat and quickly withdrew my finger.
The condensed residue had high viscosity by nature, and unfortunately, it mixed with her saliva. Why unfortunate? A thin, elongated thread of it now arced between Yu-na's mouth and my index finger.
It was a pale gray—neither finger-colored nor clear.
"NoName, what's that...?"
The teacher pointed at my hand, and feeling awkwardly embarrassed, I wiped off the residue in a hurry. Wiping it on my clothes felt wrong, so into my mouth it went.
"...?!!"
I mentally chanted that this was delicious, sweet honey. Definitely not power plant waste mixed with a kid's spit.
So stop staring like that, Yoon Si-hu?
Damn... I should've been more careful. The moment I saw her carrying around that weird potion bottle, I should've grilled her about it properly.
Si-hu couldn't shake the nagging doubt that he might've misjudged NoName. Watching her chat amiably with classmates, she seemed like any other girl her age. She even got along surprisingly well with Seo Yu-na, whom he'd expected her to clash with.
But the problem arose when Yu-na drank whatever was in that flask.
That wasn't medicine... it was poison!
Was she training poison resistance like a spy? Yu-na showed no signs of quick recovery, so Si-hu grasped the gravity and bolted to the staff room to fetch the homeroom teacher—a rational move compared to the other kids floundering in confusion.
Maybe she even lured Yu-na into drinking that poison on purpose.
NoName's blank expression made reading her intentions impossible. If anything truly happened to Yu-na, Si-hu knew he'd regret his own complacency.
"Yu-na collapsed?!"
"Yes, hurry! It's urgent!"
Jackie Teacher, who'd been sipping tea with the other staff, came rushing. They'd sprinted from the first floor to the third in seconds and needed to check Yu-na's condition fast—straight to the nurse or hospital.
But the classroom vibe was solemnly tense. At the spot where Yu-na had collapsed, some weird magic circle hovered in the air, mid-cast.
NoName, of course. Showing her true colors at last.
"Hey, NoName! Get your hand off Yu-na right now!"
He yelled loud for show, but Si-hu was scared. What if she did something to him too? Could the teacher next to him protect him?
Doubts sprouted everywhere. But holding Yu-na hostage seemed unlikely—her finger was in Yu-na's mouth.
Then she pulled it out... and shockingly stuck it in her own mouth, sucking it clean.
"...?!!"
The homeroom teacher was just as stunned. NoName explained in an abashed tone.
"I've treated Yu-na roughly. She'll be fine after some good rest."
"Treated her? What do you...?"
As the teacher started to ask, the class speakers crackled with the central announcement.
*Testing, testing.* NoName from Class 2-A, NoName from Class 2-A—report immediately to the administration office on the first floor of the main building. Repeating: NoName from Class 2-A, report immediately to the administration office on the first floor of the main building.