Chapter 50
One reason I seriously considered attending Sefiron Academy was that academy students could receive mana-tax reductions and exemptions even outside campus.
The special tax deduction for second-circle magic applied not only to near-poor households, but also to academy faculty and students.
Until then, being charged ten thousand or a hundred thousand won in my name for using even trivial magic had left me gasping for breath.
Just as our ancestors could never have imagined an age when people would buy water, I often forgot that I had to pay every time I used magic.
At this rate, would they start selling the air we breathe in the future, too?
Since asking Professor Cheon to pay my mana tax as well, when he was already covering my potion costs, would have been childish, I kept it a secret from him and always paid it myself.
Of course, I still planned to repay the 120,000 won I hadn't paid yet once I had the money.
The five stages of magic were Recording, Infusion, Activation, Storage, and Casting.
Taxes were paid during the ‘Storage’ stage.
When a magic circle activated, the national protocol immediately transmitted the location and phase information of the mana infused into the magic circle to the nearest mana power plant.
The power plant, which possessed refined mana, replaced it with the same amount of mana at that location and cast the spell on its behalf.
This was the modern magic operating system.
I had tried using magic the old-fashioned way before, but activating magic without the Storage stage was practically impossible.
Unless someone developed a wand-type device like Professor Cheon's simple alchemical circle writer, or a special mana-concentration circuit, magic would not function normally.
By my rough calculations, forcibly casting a sixth-circle Hellfire-class spell without the Storage stage would produce just enough firepower to light a cigarette.
That didn't mean I tried casting a sixth-circle spell.
If it really activated, I would have to recuperate for months from mana exhaustion.
So even while I was at the academy, I planned to research various types of magic while looking for a cure for my mana poisoning, but according to Manager Kim, a simple mana meter could observe mana wavelengths in real time.
I was especially chilled by the fact that it could accurately identify the spellcaster if it wanted to.
Since students were merely told verbally not to use magic without permission and faced no particular penalties, I had thought the system was terribly lax. But in a way, it was only natural that the academy possessed at least one reliable means of enforcement.
The autonomy of individual students was respected, but they could not escape responsibility, either.
In that sense, I was lucky to receive such consideration.
Besides, I had used that magic for Yuna, so even if they had told me to pay, I would have refused anyway.
On the other hand, I took note of the fact that the second-circle ‘Tissue Regeneration’ I had used on Yuna had not been detected.
By contrast, today's fourth-circle ‘Irreversible Reduction’ had been detected without fail, so I could hypothesize that there was some specific detection threshold.
Given Manager Kim's personality, he was absolutely not the sort of person who would knowingly turn a blind eye.
‘Should I just conduct some experiments, prepared to get caught once or twice more?’
But I might cause them to loosen the detection requirements because of me, making it impossible to use magic secretly at all, so I dismissed the idea for now.
“Do you have something to say?”
I asked Yuna, who was trudging along some distance behind me. She jumped in surprise, perhaps because she hadn't expected me to speak first.
The way she kept sighing deeply was getting on my nerves.
I slowed my pace for a moment and matched hers.
“Come here.”
Seo Yuna really was a pitiful child.
Most of the time, she was like a cat with its claws bared sharply, but when she looked this dejected, she resembled a puppy that had gotten into trouble.
Whenever I saw red hair, I was reminded of Remilia Asephite, the mage of the detestable Hero Party, and my head grew hot, but I decided to set those unpleasant feelings aside for the moment.
“You, you...”
Yuna's words failed to reach an ending, catching in her throat before she swallowed them back down.
She tried desperately to act nonchalant, but her eyes were trembling uncontrollably.
“Are you on your way home?”
“Huh? Y-yeah.”
“Then let's go together.”
For a while, we walked along the main road without saying a word.
The scenery was not especially different just because this was the future, compared to the time when I had lived my first life.
There were still old-fashioned apartment complexes that looked as though they had been built in the early 2000s, and cars still drove along the ground instead of flying through the sky.
But when I saw outdoor advertisements being broadcast through the sky without screens, or public transportation operating without drivers, I was reminded that technology really did develop asymmetrically.
“I'm running late today, so my other brother will probably be worried. I'll just take the bus. As for the potion cost, um... I'll try to pay you back as soon as possible. I'm sorry.”
Yuna said goodbye to me after spotting a bus that happened to be arriving.
It seemed that having me stay beside her had made her uncomfortable.
I had been planning to escort her all the way home if necessary, but if she didn't want that, there was nothing I could do.
[Beep! Insufficient balance.]
[Beep! Insufficient balance.]
“Huh? That can't be right.”
A troubled expression spread across Yuna's face.
She hurriedly opened her bag, took out her wallet, and checked whether she had any cash.
But the only thing that came tumbling down the bus steps and rolled toward me was a lonely 500-won coin.
Not that public transportation accepted bills or coins anyway.
With no other choice, I boarded the bus too and pressed the coin into her hand.
“Two.”
[Beep! Child fare. (2)]
“Let's go.”
This worked out better, actually.
I had wanted to talk about what happened today, and it would be perfect if we could sit comfortably and chat on the way.
“Why are you paying for me?”
“Stop fussing and get on. There's no one else on the bus. Let's just sit in the very back.”
As soon as we paid, the bus doors closed, and it immediately set off with a honk.
Even though the bus driver had been replaced by an AI, it was just as impatient as ever.
Standing the whole time would be dangerous, so I took Yuna by the hand, and we sat in a rear seat by the window.
“How long does it take to get from here to your house?”
“About twenty minutes. I don't take the bus often, so I'm not sure.”
“I see.”
“...”
Yuna said that even after getting off at the bus stop, she had to walk for quite a while through the back alleys to reach her house.
Was she really walking for forty-five minutes just to save a mere 1,050 won on bus fare?
That was already an hour and a half for a round trip.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
Yuna abruptly asked in a curt tone.
“After agonizing over it so many times, is that really the first thing you came up with? Do you hate me, Yuna?”
“No! That's not what I meant!”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Spending time with me is a waste...”
“Not at all.”
“I'm not popular with the other kids, I'm not fun, and everyone hates me because I only say mean things.”
“I don't hate you. I like you, and I want to be friends with you. So let me ask you in return. Do you like me?”
“I-I don't know.”
“I'll keep waiting until you answer.”
I stopped Yuna from turning away and made her meet my eyes.
Dealing with a negative child who could not be honest was easy.
You simply pressured them until they faced their feelings properly.
At a glance, the human brain looked like a well-designed logic circuit, but in reality, it was nothing more than a complicated mess of spaghetti code.
People often failed even to realize what emotions they were feeling or what and how they were thinking.
They could not explain why they were depressed or angry, and sometimes there was not even a single, clearly identifiable cause.
That was why we needed to learn how to face our feelings properly all the more.
Otherwise, we would grow up to become irreparably broken people like Klaus, Sylvia, or Remilia.
“I... you know. Going to the academy is so hard. I go to bed late every day, but I have to get up early and go to school.
Yesterday, too, yesterday, I slipped while going down the stairs on the hill, but I just kept walking even though my ankle hurt.
But no one in my class talks to me. Even when I'm in pain, I don't have a friend I can tell about it.”
“You sprained your ankle, then. You were limping during dodgeball in PE last time. Was that why?”
“Yeah... And at first, I didn't really like you, Noname. I hated it when Seori bragged about you to our class, and I hated it when you acted like you were close to Sihoo.”
“Why didn't you like me?”
“Well... I guess I wanted to be friends with them, too...
But they like you, Noname. Because you're pretty, cute, smart, and mature. Of course they do.
It's only natural... but... sniff... I was so jealous.
I wanted to be like you, so I stole it and swallowed it without even knowing whether it was an important medicine...
You must have been angry with me, Noname... sniff... sob.
But even so, you're not angry with me now.
I hate you... but I like you so much, too.”
Yuna looked relieved as she laid bare her feelings.
How nice.
Since she had kept hiding them all this time, I had almost failed to realize what a crybaby Yuna was.
I kept wiping away the tears streaming down her face with my thumb so she could finish speaking, but now it seemed as though a faucet had broken, and she could not control them at all.
“I'm so... sniff... sorry for drinking the potion. I really didn't know. I really didn't. You're not going to die because of me, are you? Right?”
“Why are you so heartbroken over that? What do you mean, die?”
I hugged Yuna to calm her down.
Though she was such a small child, she was still a little much for my even smaller frame to hold. I did it so she could cry without holding back.
“Sniff... I heard what you were saying earlier. That you're terminally ill. Doesn't that mean you're going to die soon?”
“Who told you that?”
“At the academy's main building, a scary-looking man.”
“Did he say that? No, that's a misunderstanding. I'm not dying, so you don't have to worry. They said I'll get better if I keep drinking potions.”
“That... waaaah! Then it means you'll be sick every day!”
She seemed to have reached that conclusion based on how badly a potion had burned her once, so I calmly explained my condition to her.
“Potions aren't meant to be swallowed all at once. You're supposed to mix them with a little air before drinking them. Have you ever eaten wasabi, Yuna?”
“Yeah... It was served once as school lunch when I was in first grade.”
“What was it like?”
“Really, really spicy. It made my head hurt.”
“But what if you mixed it with soy sauce?”
“It was bearable.”
“That's how it works. Understand?”
I had lived with even worse mana poisoning before, so being prescribed a side-effect-free potion to drink every day was practically child's play.
And while researching magic, I might even get lucky and discover a cure.
I could understand what Yuna was worried about, too.
“My mother is very sick, too. Sniff... Hearing that you were terminally ill scared me so much. I thought I'd done something wrong again... It's always because of me. I only ever cause trouble.”
“Your mother must be very ill. Is she in the hospital?”
“No, she's at home. While I'm at the academy, my other brother stops by to take care of her... I don't know.
What if I go home and Mom has suddenly disappeared? I'm so scared every time I think about it.
Mom can't see, and she can't move on her own. It's all because of me. My mom is sick because of me. I'm a really bad kid. I am.”
I couldn't pry any further into her circumstances.
What would change if I told Yuna to stop blaming herself when she was doing it endlessly?
An outsider who could not take responsibility was supposed to choose their words carefully.
Unfortunately, my personality would not allow that.
“Yuna. Have you ever introduced your friends to your mother?”
“Why...? Never. No one wants to come to our house.”
“Can I come over to your house? We'll call today's matter even.”