Chapter 78
My entire body was burning hot, as if it were on fire.
Screams and cries of pain rang in my ears.
When I opened my eyes, all I could see in every direction was a hell drenched in red.
“Gasp!”
I was startled out of my wits and tried to move, but strangely, I couldn't budge at all.
Black hands that had emerged from beneath the ground had grabbed my ankles and were dragging me down.
“Get away! Don't come near me!”
I screamed in terror, but it was nothing more than a meaningless struggle.
Just as endless despair began to fill the knight's eyes, all the sounds suddenly died down.
And then, a single voice reached his ears.
“I'll tell you how to heal.”
Along with that voice, the knight reflexively awoke from his dream and flailed about.
*
ㄴ Author) Uh.
“Huh? What? I'm fine?”
The Gallery user left a reply an hour after contact had been cut off.
He seemed surprisingly fine.
ㄴ Head Mod*) Bro, how was it?
ㄴ Author) What are you talking about?
ㄴ Author) I think you need to give me the medicine first so I can heal it and get back to you.
But something about his condition was strange.
ㄴ Head Mod*) ?
ㄴ Author) Head Mod, I'm seriously in a hurry. I'm not lying, my arm really got cut off.
ㄴ Author) I'm going to die from blood loss, so please give me the medicine.
“What? Did he lose his memory?”
It had already been well over an hour since I gave the knight the medicine.
So why was he looking for the medicine?
Then one possibility flashed through my mind.
ㄴ Head Mod*) Look at your right arm.
Could he really have lost his memory?
ㄴ Author) Huh? Why is it attached?
ㄴ Author) Did you reattach my arm remotely, too?
ㄴ Author) Mom, when I grow up, I want to be Head Mod!Mom, when I grow up, I want to be Head Mod!Mom, when I grow up, I want to be Head Mod!
ㄴ D-damn, this guy looks like he lost his memory.
ㄴ Wow, that's fucking scary lol;
ㄴ A knight who was browsing the Gallery even after losing his arm lost his memory from the pain, too?
ㄴ Author) What are you talking about? Why would I lose my memory?
And sure enough, that was exactly what had happened.
He had lost his memory from the excruciating pain.
“Wow, we can't let this get out.”
Kelliarton was a new country, but it undeniably had the image of a nation of knights.
The steel supplies I had given them last time had caused the number of knight applicants to skyrocket.
With the competition going insane, only truly tough people could become knights.
And to think that such a knight could not only lose consciousness from the pain, but even develop short-term amnesia.
- Author) What is everyone talking about? Is there something I don't know?
ㄴ Head Mod*) Well, you've got an arm now. Have a drink with the arm you got~
ㄴ Author) (Knight frog emote holding his brow in amazement)
I contacted Morone, who had developed the potion, again.
At this rate, everyone would die of shock before they could be healed.
But Morone had not placed much importance on side effects in the first place.
Morone: If you endure the temporary pain, you'll be healed. Isn't that actually a good thing?
Head Mod*: What? Then the side effects—
Morone: (I dunno? emote)
Witches were poor.
Naturally, they had no choice but to conserve the ingredients used to make potions as much as possible and use low-grade materials.
Side effects were inevitable.
Head Mod*: Then we can't use it like this.
Morone: Then why not try diluting it?
“Oh, it can be diluted too?”
The one piece of good news was that it could be diluted.
I wondered if this method might help, so I tried it on a new volunteer.
- Wow, my arm is completely healed! Thank youㅠㅠ
ㄴ Head Mod*) How was it? Bearable?
ㄴ Wow! Thank you so much! My arm... thank you ㅠㅠ
ㄴ Head Mod*) ??
ㄴ Something else seems to have gone wrong.
ㄴ Arm = brain, miraculous exchange method.
It had not been particularly effective.
“Still, healing potions are essential.”
Morone said she was researching a new one, but there were countless people who needed it right away.
Injuries were not solely a human problem, either, so demand was overflowing.
“The marketplace knows the answer.”
So I went to the marketplace first.
Whenever a problem arose, taking a look at the marketplace usually produced an answer.
And, as expected, there was an answer inside the marketplace.
*
Salt and pepper.
At the very least, they were essential ingredients that had to go into a healing potion.
Salt had the best compatibility with a witch's magic.
Pepper met the condition of being an ingredient “as expensive as the weight of a life” demanded by healing potions.
As a result, sprinkling a healing potion on a wound came with pain equivalent to sprinkling salt and pepper on it.
Morone: I'll keep trying, but I think it'll take some time before I can complete it ㅠㅠ
The problem was that this was the only method of making it.
The persecution of witches had caused potion-making techniques to regress instead of advance.
“Then we just need to get rid of the pain.”
Where did pain come from?
The brain. Then put the brain to sleep!
[Local Anesthetic] - 200p
The answer was to use an anesthetic.
“It is a little expensive, but still.”
If you think of it as the price of a life, it's practically free.
And true to the chaotic nature of this otherworld, volunteers were overflowing.
[Title: D-don't mess with me!]
(Bloodied dead boar monster emote)
(Author image giving a thumbs-up)
I turned the boar bastard who ambushed me inside out~
- Damn~
- But sir, you don't have a thumb?
ㄴ Author) I... left one in the future...!
It was a Gallery user who had lost a finger while fighting a monster.
“I've chosen you!”
Without even leaving a chat message, I immediately sent him a healing potion and an anesthetic together.
- Author) Huh? Something arrived?
ㄴ Head Mod*) Inject it, then sprinkle the potion on it.
The post seemed cheerful, but the Gallery user's bleeding was quite serious.
Blood was dripping like water, soaking all his clothes.
- Author) Ah, fuck, this is going to hurt like hell, right?
ㄴ Of course it fucking is!
ㄴ LOL, say goodbye.
ㄴ Winner of Season 2's fainting game lol
The author had already seen the healing potion's effects, so although he was excited, he trembled with tension.
The moment he injected the anesthetic near the severed area and sprinkled on the potion arrived.
- Author) Aaaah!!!!! Aaaaaargh—huh?
ㄴ What?
ㄴ ?
ㄴ Why is he fine?
And the effect was incredible.
No matter how tightly the author squeezed his eyes shut and waited, no pain came.
- Author) What? It's over, so why doesn't it hurt?
ㄴ (I'm disappointed, sir, demon emote)
ㄴ Author) You fucking bastard.
- Isn't it because of the anesthetic? Wow, this is so fucking OP lol
- Fuck.
ㄴ (Knight cat emote sobbing)
ㄴ LOL, it came, huh?
ㄴ If you're jealous, get injured two hours later, ah lol.
“The performance is definitely reliable.”
This seemed more than good enough to put to use.
Of course, the requirement for a clean amputation was a problem, and injuries to the body rather than the limbs were difficult to treat.
- Author) This feels... kind of strange.
ㄴ Oh.
ㄴ What does it feel like, then?
ㄴ Author) My entire arm died, then it feels like life is gradually being breathed back into it?
ㄴ Author) Anyway, it's fucking amazing. It feels like my finger was never cut off in the first place.
The volunteer had not only been restored to normal, but had also provided excellent advertising.
Just as I had seen it, the Gallery had witnessed the healing process, too.
- No way, that's possible?
- Did you use time-reversal magic or something?
ㄴ Is there such a thing?
ㄴ No;
- How mysterious. To think something like that is possible.
ㄴ For real, restoring a severed body part without any pain? Even dragons probably couldn't do this;
ㄴ It's not that they can't; they simply never researched it because it was unnecessary.
ㄴ We call that “can't do it.”
ㄴ Fuck, is it time for the dragon fanboys to start acting up again?
This otherworld had no concept of anesthesia.
At most, there was the phenomenon of all pain fading away before death.
Anesthesia temporarily blocked the sensory organs, but people's reactions to it varied.
- Did you kill part of him and then bring it back to life?
ㄴ How can you kill and revive someone at will? You're not a god.
ㄴ Do you think that makes sense?
ㄴ If it's not that, then what the fuck is it?
- It seems like time magic.
ㄴ Have you been reading too many fantasy novels?
ㄴ I think the dragon said it was possible.
ㄴ You think that would work? If it were possible, we'd be flying around by now. They all died and went into hiding.
There were those who believed time had been reversed, and those who thought a part of his body had been killed, reattached, and revived.
Of course, both theories were wrong.
But thanks to the misunderstanding that had already bloomed, conspiracy theories about my identity continued to blossom.
[Concept Post: Head Mod Is Not a Half-Elf Beauty]
He's a polymorphed beautiful girl.
Judging by the absurd magic he used in all sorts of fields, he was probably an ancient dragon who had lived for at least 10,000 years.
[Recommendations9999+] [Dislikes152]
- Oh...
- (Scholar emote: ...That makes sense...!)
- No, you demon. He is definitely a beautiful half-elf archmage.
- Myoran) Lol.
ㄴ No, you fucking rabbit-eared bastard, seriously.
ㄴ You've been laughing your ass off just because you were the only one who saw him earlier.
ㄴ But what you saw might have been a polymorph, too.
ㄴ Myoran) !
ㄴ Head Mod*) No, you fucking asshole.
“How is the beautiful-girl theory trending even after I uploaded a photo?”
I bought and used an anesthetic, and somehow another beautiful ancient-dragon theory had been added.
I was about to explain myself, but decided to look at a newly uploaded post instead.
It seemed I would have to get by like this until Morone developed an intermediate healing potion.
But the crisis arrived sooner than expected.
[Title: Head Mod, please help]
(Bloody commoner boy image)
This is my son.
I repeatedly told him not to go into the forest, but he apparently went while I looked away for a moment.
When I chased after him later, he was being attacked by a monster.
Please save him.
I'll die if you tell me to. Please...
Amid the waves of countless posts, one caught my eye.
It had few views and had been buried by the rapid flow of new posts, but it could not escape the notice of someone who stayed in the Gallery twenty-four hours a day.
“Is this a village on the outskirts of Kelliarton?”
His condition was truly serious.
It was astonishing that he was still breathing at all.
Normally, an injury this severe would mean certain death, but...
“Who am I?”
The Head Mod of the Otherworld Destruction Gallery.
I immediately wrote an announcement.
[Notice: I'm confident in magic. Step forward]
Anyone affiliated with Kelliarton who knows a bit of magic, raise your hand.
Let's do a job together.
I'll pay you fairly.
[Recommendations2093] [Dislikes0]
- Me! I'm really confident in magic.
- I'm an intermediate mage. Can I apply?
- Supreme Storm Mage) Huh? What's going on?
In less than a minute, mages began appearing one after another.
*
A village on the outskirts of Kelliarton.
Starting with the recovery of the city, its territory was expanding rapidly under Head Mod's protection.
But monsters were bound to appear from time to time in the outskirts,
and this time, the victim happened to be a young boy.
“Please, anyone, help us!”
The boy had cheerfully climbed the mountain without his parents' knowledge, only to come back down covered in blood.
Clutching the small, dying body, the boy's father cried out in despair.
But the people gathered in the square merely groaned and lowered their heads.
“...There's nothing we can do.”
“Hmm...”
The injuries were too severe.
Even a cleric couldn't help him.
Even an archmage would be unable to do anything.
This was something only a god could accomplish.
Just as the people's expressions hardened with pity and helplessness,
something descended rapidly from the sky.
“Where is the boy?”
It was Kelliarton's only mage tower's creator and vice tower master,
the well-liked user Supreme Storm Mage.
“Ah, mage!”
At the cries of the boy's parents, the Storm Mage, Derek, flew straight over to them.
What he saw was a young boy who was practically a corpse.
No matter how skilled Derek was at magic, there was nothing he could do about this.
As they whispered, this was something only a god could accomplish.
“Stand aside. You too.”
But there was no hesitation in Derek's eyes.
If anything, they were filled with certainty.
Because the Head Mod he knew...
‘He'll be able to do it.’
Just like the miracle Head Mod had shown him one day, he would bring the boy back to life as though it were a lie.
With that faith, he took out something Head Mod had given him.
“What is that?”
“Something that kills a person and brings them back to life at the same time.”
It was a general anesthetic.