NOVEL NEXT Chapter 37.1
“Now, don’t strain your arms~ Keep your mana as low as possible and stay absolutely calm~”
The needle in the hands of the researcher sitting beside me dug into my right arm.
Red blood came out of the tube on the other end and dripped drop by drop into the narrow collecting flask.
‘This process is the same here it seems.’
The earth and this other world used different mechanisms in various fields due to the presence or absence of mana, but in some ways, they were quite similar.
I loved the nostalgia of the earthly feeling I would get whenever I found something in common between the two worlds.
I had no regrets left from my past, but it was still the place in which I had spent most of my life— nearly 20 years.
So it was unavoidable that my feelings for Earth would be rekindled every time I was reminded of it.
But I didn’t want this procedure to feel like it had back on Earth.
Honestly, I didn’t like getting injections.
Do people who liked injections actually exist in either of these worlds?
The threat one feels from having something inserted into one’s body probably comes from an instinct from long ago.
“Okay, it’s over~”
“Thank you.”
I got up from my seat, squinting at the woman inserting the vats of my precious blood into some machine.
In fact, there was one difference between the injections of this other world and Earth.
And this was the ‘Electric Numbing Potion’.
It was said that when the potion, which was the result of [Lightning] attribute research, was applied to the skin, the affected area would not feel any pain for several minutes.
Thanks to this, people from this other world could receive injections without having to feel the tingling pain that usually accompanied a needle piercing through the skin.
But that apparently didn’t work for me.
It was probably because the [Heaven] Attribute was a mythical level attribute while the [Lightning] Attribute was just of the normal level.
The difference in grades was overwhelming, so it was only natural that such a potion wouldn’t work on me.
What could I do though… Wasn’t it just because I was so great?
This wasn’t even me saying this conceitedly, but an objective observation I made.
Innovative inventions that had the potential to change many people’s lives, such as this numbing potion, were said to have originated mostly from the ability to partake in accelerated research.
The research I was currently participating in sought to explore the [Heaven] Attribute itself, and after a certain degree of understanding was attained, various conjectures on how best to utilize it would hopefully appear.
I was promised to be a recipient of the fruits of this research, so it was not a bad thing for me to partake in this research either.
At first, I had been hesitant about participating in such a study.
This was because I was concerned that the research would reveal a weakness of my attribute that I didn’t even know about.
But now my thoughts on the matter had changed.
I believed it was much better to find as many of these weaknesses as possible and then make up for them, rather than rushing to hide them.
Just as the fact that the numbing potion didn’t work for me was found out today for the first time, a potion that healed bodily wounds might not work for me.
But what if I didn’t know that?
What if I carried around useless potions on a random battlefield somewhere halfway across the continent?
As soon as I was to get I would be one step closer to death.
And that was how I became a test subject in the laboratory.
***
“Jihoo, are you done?”
“Yes, Hyerin. Did you wait long?”
“No, I just got out too. Let’s go back together!”
As Hyerin and I left the main entrance of the research centre, we were greeted by the sight of a red sunset shining down on us through the leaves.
Spring was the season that transitioned from the winter to the summer.
It was warm during the day and cool in the evening.
In such an atmosphere, we slowly walked towards the commoners’ dormitory.
The research institute and the dormitory were located on opposite sides of the academy’s central plaza.
With this sort of distance, I would have normally called for a carriage...
But that depended on the situation I found myself in.
Now, I could not miss the chance to take a walk with Hye-rin alone.
“Really, it was just as you said. He took everything he could take... Blood, hair, nails, skin, etc.. It was never-ending!”
“It was, right? And the researchers there looked so serious that it was almost scary...”
Blood, hair, fingernails, hair from all over the body, tears, sweat, saliva, dead skin...
On just the first day of the lab visit, all sorts of my body tissues were collected.
I would never forget the facial expression of the female researcher with wavy hair who had cut my nails.
Part of the reason was because she had a pretty face, but also because when she cut my nails, she was really... passionate.
Doing her best to carefully snip them, and concentrating on taking as many nail pieces as possible, her eyes were bloodshot red to the point where I thought she was about to shed tears of blood.
It was like a scene from a horror movie.
I wondered if I would end up losing weight from partaking in this research.
Fortunately, I didn’t get hurt.
And thanks to her diligence, I found myself having some very neatly trimmed nails.
“—-And that’s what happened.”
I showed Hyerin my nails and spoke to her about the funny little episode.
When my body trembled as a joke to display the fear I felt at that moment, a laugh leaked from her mouth.
“But I’m glad you didn’t get hurt at least. I ended up getting my legs waxed without even realising the consequences...”
For Hyerin, today was her second visit.
But in the first day of her having her leg hair harvested—
“Are you thinking of waxing your legs? I think it would look really pretty.”
This was the suggestion the researcher made.
Hyerin would look good because her legs would be clean, and the researcher would be happy because he would get a bunch of samples.
It was a 2 birds 1 stone sort of exchange.
When she had asked if the waxing would hurt, a confident response came back.
“Don’t worry! If we apply the ‘electric numbing potion’, it really shouldn’t hurt at all!”
It was the perfect proposal where everyone would benefit.
She had absolutely no reason to refuse.
The waxing tapes were placed smoothly, but the moment the hairs on her legs were pulled out with some force, she realised there was something fatally wrong with their assumptions.
The numbing liquid had been developed after the death of the ‘Hero’, the most recent epic-level awakened, and it was only effective for continental-level awakeners.
So no one could have foreseen the horrors she endured.
Even though she suffered, it wasn’t as if anyone had intended to do wrong.
So, thanks to Hye-rin’s sacrifice, I was able to guess that the numbing solution may have not worked on me either.
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