I Awakened Dark Mana

From then on, I stopped dragging the Titan out every single time.

This isn't going to work.

The more often I vented my powerful mana, the faster my body heated up the next time around.

It's like my mana is actually getting stronger and stronger!

A blessed body that grew stronger in an instant with the barest bit of training — but if the body couldn't handle it, a blessing became a curse.

Even ManaNet turned up nothing useful.

Come to think of it, that was only natural. Mana was always a scarce, precious resource — what scholar on earth would dedicate their career to researching ways to throw it away?

I might well be the first person in history to ever face this particular problem. I'd certainly never felt the need to destroy mana before experiencing it firsthand.

Which meant, in the end, I had to solve this one myself.

Should I... try that thing?

There was, in fact, exactly one quick fix I knew of. I'd been putting it off because I didn't want to touch anything criminal — but between trying a forbidden act and dying like this, the forbidden act seemed the better option.

"Do you have any dark mana potions?"

The moment the words left my mouth, Marcus's shoulders flinched. His eyes went wide, as if checking whether he'd heard me wrong.

"Dark... mana, you say?"

A perfectly reasonable reaction for anyone from the Kingdom. Dark magic was the most strictly prohibited practice in every nation on the continent — that single crime might outweigh everything else I'd ever done combined.

"I'm... really in a hurry here."

This was the moment any normal person would be dialing the Heresy Inquisition's emergency line. But thanks, apparently, to the trust we'd built up, Marcus merely glanced around the room once and murmured carefully:

"I... do have one."

After a long internal struggle, he dug around in the very back of the shelf where he kept his whiskey display, and pulled out a sinister little bottle wreathed in wisps of black vapor.

No idea why he was stockpiling dark mana potions in the first place, but clearly, he had one.

"Here you are."

The instant the potion touched my hands, I gripped it with both of them and downed it, bottle and all.

Last time, with the coffee milk, I'd been too full to finish and had to split it into three sips. Not this time.

Gulp, gulp, gulp!

As if my body itself was craving it, the liquid slid down my throat on its own.

She's actually drinking it.

Watching a young girl chug a dark mana potion in one go, Marcus swallowed dryly, his face twisted with unease.

Drugs, maybe. But touching dark magic... I couldn't bring myself to do it, not in a million years.

Because no matter how much money was on the table, he'd begun to fear whether partnering with someone who'd fallen this far was really a good idea.

"Ahh..."

Still, the effect on Rosetta was immediate. The moment the dark mana spread through her body, the stifling pressure that had filled her entire frame washed away like a lie.

Holy crap, this stuff is delicious!

On top of that, it tasted amazing. The bliss of the fever draining away was so overwhelming she nearly moaned.

I think I'm going to live.

It had definitely worked. It was a completely different feeling from when she'd forced her mana out through the Titan — the dark mana lingered in her body, suppressing her mana's endless natural recovery at the source.

But that peace lasted only a moment.

...

What now, seriously?

Exactly three days later, in the morning.

There it was again — that goddamn heat, smoldering up from her core.

Once she'd had a taste, returning to Marcus was only a matter of time.

"Mister... can you get more of that stuff...?"

"The dark mana, you mean?"

"Get as much as you can... I'll pay."

And so began my life of dependence on dark mana potions.

Drinking them felt genuinely wonderful. The heat that had been devouring my body would sink away all at once.

At the same time, a new dilemma emerged: I could no longer even go up to the hills and vent my mana for relief. The moment I tried to force my mana up even a little, the suppression would break and the symptoms would flare right back up.

Highway robbers, the lot of them.

Dark magic was strictly banned in every nation. Few people could even produce it, and supply was hopelessly short — so whatever price they asked, they got.

And since I'd become a heavy user, auction prices could only keep climbing.

In my past life, I'd watched TV documentaries about terminally ill patients suffering because they couldn't afford their medication, and thought, God, that's heartbreaking. Who knew that would end up being me.

...

Money hemorrhaging out at an insane rate.

When I finally sat down one whole day to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠go through my accounts, I was left utterly aghast.

Screw this — at this rate I can never retire and live off my savings!

It was a problem enormous enough to shake my entire life plan to its foundations.

To make money, I'd have to farm the Abyss. But farming demanded vast amounts of mana, which would send my suppressed recovery rate into overdrive and undo everything. Then I'd have to buy even more expensive dark mana potions — an endless vicious cycle!

Hunting is off the table, then...

Which left exactly one thing I could do: use as little mana as possible.

But a maintenance engineer... a maintenance engineer I can do.

Haa. Even after finishing the identity laundering, all that came out was a sigh. I'd sworn I would never set foot in the Abyss again, and yet fate had dragged me right back here.

Am I... really going to be grinding manual labor until the day I die?

Is the boss actually working?

Over the past few days, Marcus had been watching Rosetta with quiet caution. She had clearly changed from before.

She used to do nothing but smirk at her display room all day, but lately she sometimes worked on Titan maintenance, had miscellaneous items delivered, and was generally living like a productive member of society.

It's like she became a different person in a matter of days.

He wouldn't have minded if she'd simply grown more diligent — but something about her seemed cowed and nervous lately, and that bothered him.

The biggest problem was her health.

This doesn't look like simple withdrawal symptoms.

Had some old chronic illness finally flared up? From what he could see, she was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠using the dark mana potions as medicine — and even as she kept drinking them, her condition was visibly worsening.

Besides, no matter how deep her pockets were, stock wasn't always available.

Like today.

"Ugh..."

He soaked a towel in water and laid it across the forehead of the girl bedridden with fever. The skin he brushed was hot as a blazing coal.

Even with her usual timidity and her stuttering speech, she was a girl he'd learned never to underestimate — but the version of her lying in that bed right now looked genuinely, undeniably frail.

"New stock arrives at the black market tomorrow, they say. I'll head out before dawn to check."

"Thank... yoooou..."

Only after the girl, after long restless tossing and turning, finally fell asleep did he close the door behind him.

He had no idea why she was sick, or why she needed dark mana. He could only guess it was something like a curse of the Abyss. Overwhelming power always came with a price — surely she had her own reasons she couldn't speak of.

One evening.

I'm going out of my mind...

Rosetta lay writhing in her bed, newly woken. She'd tried, desperately, to suppress the mana herself — and only made the side effects worse.

"Ugh... uuuugh..."

Today was hotter than ever. The uncontrollable mana felt like it was burning through every vein in her body.

"Potion..."

Her frantic hands groped around the room. Marcus said he'd stocked up — had she really already drunk it all?

"Haah... khh."

The pain brought tears to the corners of her eyes. She couldn't even muster the voice to call for Marcus.

Sweat pouring down her face, she ransacked the shelf in blind desperation, and then—

Thud.

Her hand touched something.

Cold metal, brimming with chill. She'd assumed it was a potion bottle — it wasn't.

Even in the darkened room, the object glowed a faint bluish hue. It was the third artifact, the one she'd shoved into a corner ages ago.

Wha—?!

Something miraculous ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠happened. The instant her fingertips met the metal, the heat receded as if by magic. Her ragged breathing, her boiling mana — everything began to settle in a single moment.

Huh?

It was the same kind of bliss as drinking a dark mana potion — but the intensity was on another dimension entirely, so overwhelming it stopped her breath.

...It's cool now.

The fever drained from her body, the pounding of her heart on the verge of bursting went still, and she slowly raised her head.

For some reason, the artifact's light — bluish before — had shifted into a deep, murky black.

What is this?

And across the orb's surface, strange characters that looked like an ancient language were freshly inscribed.

Characters I had never seen in my life — and yet, uncannily, every line translated itself in my head.

Lines of crackling hologram text glowing in a dark room lit only by a bedside lamp.

Worship?

That was a diabolical premise right out of the gate. Wasn't the whole deal with demons that they grew stronger the more their followers worshipped them?

Sure, it was a setting I'd seen in every trashy web novel ever written.

Wait, there's more.

Looking closer, there was even a details button. It was an interface I knew all too well.

This is a status window!

The moment my finger touched the plus-shaped text, new lines bloomed across the orb's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠surface.