Anesthetic (2)

His entire body burned as if consumed by fire.

Screams and harrowing wails rang relentlessly in his ears.

When he pried his eyes open, the sight before him was a crimson hellscape dyed entirely in blood.

"Gah!"

Startled out of his wits, he tried to thrash and pull away, but his body refused to budge an inch. Pitch-black hands rising from deep beneath the earth had clamped onto his ankles, dragging him down into the dirt.

"Get off me! Stay back!"

He screamed in sheer terror, but his frantic struggling proved utterly futile. Just as endless despair began to flood the knight's eyes, every sound around him abruptly faded into silence.

Then, a single sentence echoed right beside his ear.

"I shall teach you the meaning of healing."

At the sound of that voice, the knight jolted awake from the nightmare, arms and legs flailing in wild panic.

"Wait, what? He's completely fine?"

A full hour after going radio silent, the forum user finally left a reply. Against all expectations, he seemed totally alright.

Hold on. Something was definitely off about this guy.

"The hell? Did he lose his memory or something?"

I had sent that medicine over an hour ago. Why on earth was he still asking for it? Right then, a sudden possibility struck me.

Don't tell me he actually developed amnesia?

My suspicion had been spot on. The agony had been so unbearable that it literally wiped his short-term memory clean.

"Whoa... Yeah, there's no way I can distribute this to the public."

Kellierton might have been a fledgling nation, but it had earned a solid reputation as a proud kingdom of knights. Thanks to the steel shipments I had supplied previously, the roster of knight applicants had exploded, and the cutthroat competition meant that only the toughest natural-born badasses could actually earn their spurs. For an elite knight like that to pass out from agony and develop transient retrograde amnesia... that was downright catastrophic.

I immediately messaged Morone, the witch who had formulated the potion. At this rate, patients would die of neurogenic shock before they ever had the chance to heal. Morone, however, hadn't considered the side effects to be much of a drawback in the first place.

Witches were destitute. Naturally, when concocting potions, they had no choice but to scrimp and save, utilizing the cheapest, lowest-grade ingredients available. Unintended side effects were simply an unavoidable occupational hazard.

"Oh, you can dilute it?"

At least that was good news. Hoping that a weaker mixture might mitigate the traumatic pain, I tested it on a brand-new volunteer.

Diluting it barely helped.

"Still, a Recovery Potion is an absolute necessity."

Morone was hard at work researching an improved recipe, but countless people needed salvation right this second. Gruesome injuries were hardly exclusive to humans, meaning the potential market demand was through the roof.

"When in doubt, the system shop knows the way."

I opened the Moderator Shop interface. Whenever a problem cropped up, casually browsing through the listings almost always ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠revealed an answer. Sure enough, the solution sat right inside the catalog.

Salt and pepper.

Regardless of whatever else changed, those two seasonings were indispensable components of the Recovery Potion. Salt possessed the highest spiritual affinity with witch magic, while black pepper satisfied the potion's intrinsic ritual condition of requiring "an ingredient whose precious value matches the weight of a life."

Because of that, splashing the brew directly onto raw wounds produced an excruciating agony identical to rubbing coarse salt and freshly ground pepper into open flesh.

The core dilemma was that this archaic concoction was the only viable recipe currently known. Centuries of witch persecution had severely degraded traditional alchemical knowledge, leaving modern alchemy thoroughly stunted.

"If the potion naturally hurts, then all I have to do is eliminate the pain."

Where does pain originate? The brain. Then all we have to do is put the sensory nerves to sleep!

The answer was modern anesthesia.

"A bit pricey, but whatever."

Compared to the priceless value of a human life, two hundred points was practically a steal. And fitting for this chaotic fantasy world, willing test subjects were practically crawling out of the woodwork.

Here was a community user who had lost a thumb mid-battle against a monster.

"I choose you!"

Without wasting a second on forum chatter, I promptly transferred both the Recovery Potion and the local anesthetic directly into his inventory.

Though his forum post sounded upbeat and cheerful, the user's bleeding was dangerously severe. Crimson droplets rained down like water, soaking his clothes from cuff to hem.

Having already seen the terrifying aftermath of the Recovery Potion on previous victims, the poster trembled uncontrollably in dread, even as he rejoiced at receiving salvation. Shaking like a leaf, he injected the anesthetic near the severed joint and tipped the potion vial over the stump.

The efficacy was nothing short of miraculous. No matter how tightly he clenched his eyes shut, bracing for agony, the anticipated torment never arrived.

"Now that's solid performance."

This was more than practical enough for actual use. Granted, it required a relatively clean amputation to work best, and deep torso wounds were still tricky to treat, but the core concept was proven beyond doubt.

Not only had the volunteer fully recovered, but the publicity payoff was massive. Just as I had watched, the entire Otherworld Destruction Gallery had borne witness to the whole procedure in real time.

In this other world, the medical concept of "anesthesia" was completely non-existent. The closest approximation people had ever known was the total numbness that crept over someone right before they drew their dying breath. While anesthesia was merely a biochemical method of temporarily suppressing nerve signals, people interpreted it in wildly divergent ways.

One camp argued that I had rewound time itself, while the other insisted I had systematically slain a portion of the man's flesh, grafted it, and raised it back to life. Naturally, both theories were completely wrong. But thanks to these blossoming misunderstandings, the bizarre conspiracy theories regarding my true identity gained even more outrageous momentum.

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"How on earth is the 'cute girl' doctrine still thriving even after I literally posted pictures of myself?"

I had bought and distributed a little anesthetic, and somehow that ended up spawning a brand new "ancient dragon waifu" sect. Deciding it wasn't worth the headache to clarify yet again, I scrolled away to check the latest posts. As long as Morone finished concocting her Middle-Circle Recovery Potion, this setup would hold up just fine for now.

Yet, crisis struck far sooner than expected.

A single post caught my eye amidst the roaring torrent of forum threads. It had virtually no views and was already being buried under the dizzying post refresh rate, but nothing could slip past my eyes when I practically lived on the gallery twenty-four hours a day.

"An outlying village near Kellierton?"

The boy's condition was catastrophically grave—so mangled that it was an absolute miracle his thread of life hadn't snapped already. Under normal circumstances, injuries of this magnitude left someone with no choice but to wait for death's embrace, but...

"Who am I?"

The Head Moderator of the Otherworld Destruction Gallery.

Without hesitation, I drafted an official forum notice.

In less than a minute, mages began pouring into the comment section in droves.

An outlying hamlet on the periphery of Kellierton.

Ever since the reclamation of the city, the kingdom's borders had expanded rapidly under the aegis of the Head Mod. Even so, monsters still periodically harassed the vulnerable outskirts, and this time, the victim happened to be an innocent young boy.

"Please! Anyone, I beg you, please help my boy!"

The child, who had innocently climbed into the mountains behind his parents' backs, had been carried back down as a mangled mass of torn flesh and gore. Cradling the dying, fragile little frame against his chest, the father wept and wailed in utter agony.

Yet, the villagers gathered in the square could only hang their heads, swallowing bitter sighs.

"...There is nothing that can be done."

"Alas..."

The wounds were simply too catastrophic. Even if high-ranking clergy arrived, it would be hopeless. Even if an Archmage descended, it would be impossible. Such a recovery belonged strictly to the realm of God alone.

Just as despair and helpless grief froze the crowd's faces, a streak of light plunged rapidly from the sky.

"Where is the child?!"

It was none other than the architect and Vice Tower Master of Kellierton's only Magic Tower—the renowned, beloved fixed-handle user: xXStormMageXx.

"Aah! Lord Mage!"

Answering the parents' heart-wrenching screams, Derek, the legendary storm mage, touched down before them in an instant. What greeted his sight was an mangled boy who might as well have been a corpse already. No matter how brilliant Derek was in the magical arts, he too was powerless before this tragedy. Just as the murmuring bystanders whispered, saving this life was a miracle only God could orchestrate.

"Stand back, all of you. You parents as well."

Yet there was no hesitation in Derek's eyes. Instead, they gleamed with unshakeable conviction.

For the Head Mod he revered...

He will make it possible.

Just like the countless miracles the administrator had shown him before, Derek had no doubt that the boy would be pulled back from the brink of death as if waking from an illusion. Clinging to that resolute faith, Derek reached into his robes and pulled out the artifact Juddak had personally entrusted to him.

"What... is that?" someone whispered.

"That which slays a mortal, and resurrects him in the selfsame breath."

A syringe of general anesthetic.