One of the reasons I positively considered attending the Sephiron Academy was that academy students receive benefits like tax exemption and reductions on mana usage even outside of school.
The special taxation exemption for 2nd circle magic included not only the low-income groups but also the academy staff and students.
All this time, I had been suffocating under the taxes accumulating for using even trivial magic, which would pile up to tens of thousands.
Just as our ancestors couldn’t have imagined a time where water would need to be bought, I often forgot the fact that I had to pay every time I used magic.
At this rate, wouldn’t they start charging for the air we breathe in the future?
I thought it would be childish to ask Professor Cheon, who was already paying for the potion prices every time, to cover my mana fees, so I kept it a secret and always paid up myself.
Of course, I planned to pay back the 120,000 won I hadn’t settled yet whenever I had the money.
In magic, there are five stages: recording, injection, activation, storage, and casting.
The tax payment occurs at the ‘storage’ stage.
When the magic circle is activated, the location and phase information of the mana injected into the magic circle is immediately transmitted to the nearest magic power plant through national protocols.
The magic power plant, holding refined mana, replaces the amount with the same quantity of mana and casts the spell instead.
This was the modern magic operation system.
I had tried casting magic the old-fashioned way, but activating magic without the storage stage was nearly impossible.
Unless you had something like Professor Cheon’s Light Transmutation Circle Inscriber or developed a special mana integration circuit, magic wouldn’t function normally.
Calculating roughly, if you forcibly cast a 6th circle magic like Hellfire without the storage stage, it could probably generate enough power to light a cigarette.
But I hadn’t actually tried casting a 6th circle spell.
If it suddenly activated, I’d end up mana exhausted and needing months of recuperation.
So even while at the academy, I thought about finding a cure for my mana addiction and researching various magic. According to Kim, the makeshift mana meter observes the mana waves in real-time.
Especially at that time, I shuddered at the idea that it could even accurately identify the caster of the magic if I set my mind to it.
I found it quite lax that students had only been verbally warned against using magic without permission and faced no repercussions, but I suppose it was expected that the academy had at least some solid method in place.
Individual autonomy was recognized, but responsibility could not be avoided.
In that sense, I was fortunate to have received some conveniences.
Well, it was, after all, magic I used for Yuna, so I was ready to go bankrupt if they asked me to pay.
On the other hand, I noted that the 2nd circle magic I had used earlier on Yuna did not incur a fee.
In contrast, the 4th circle ‘Irreversible Reduction’ that I tried today surely got me in trouble, so I could hypothesize that there was probably a specific detection threshold.
Judging by Kim’s character, there was no way he’d just look the other way knowingly.
“Should I just go ahead and experiment, even if it means getting caught one or two more times?”
But then again, if they eased the detection conditions just because of me, it could lead to permanently making it impossible to use magic discreetly, so for now, that thought was discarded.
“Do you have something to say?”
I asked Yuna, who was lagging behind me, shuffling her feet. Perhaps she was surprised that I spoke to her first, as she looked taken aback.
Her continuous sighs were quite bothersome.
I slowed my pace a bit to match hers.
“Come here.”
Seo Yu-na was indeed a pitiful child.
Normally, she was like a cat with its claws sharp, but seeing her looking so deflated was akin to a puppy that had caused trouble.
The sight of the red-haired sorceress Remilia Asepheit popped into my head, igniting my irritation, but I decided to set that unpleasant feeling aside for now.
“I mean, you’re…”
Yuna’s words got stuck in her throat, then fell silent again.
Trying to act nonchalant, her eyes were nonetheless shaking uncontrollably.
“Are you on your way home?”
“Uh? Yeah.”
“Then let’s go together.”
For a while, we walked along the main street in silence.
There was nothing special about the scenery compared to the time I lived in my first life.
There were a few outdated apartments that seemed to have been built in the early 2000s, and cars still rolled on roads, not flying in the sky.
But it was fascinating to see outdoor advertisements broadcast from the sky without screens or public transportation running autonomously without drivers; technology definitely had asymmetrical advancements.
“I’m running late today, so I’m just gonna take the bus. My younger brother will probably worry. I’ll try to pay back the potion as soon as I can. I’m sorry.”
Yuna checked the bus coming up and waved goodbye to me.
I guess she felt uncomfortable having me by her side.
I intended to see her off until her destination, but if she didn’t want me there, I had to accept it.
[Beep! Insufficient balance.]
[Beep! Insufficient balance.]
“Wait, this can’t be right?”
A troubled expression crossed Yuna’s face.
She hurriedly opened her bag and pulled out her wallet to check if she had cash.
But only a solitary 500 won coin sadly tumbled down the bus stairs.
Public transport doesn’t take either bills or coins, anyway.
So, I stepped onto the bus, handed her the coin, and said, “Two, please.”
[Beep! Child fare (2).]
“Let’s go.”
This actually worked out pretty well.
I had some things I wanted to talk about, and it’d be perfect to sit and converse comfortably on the way.
“Why are you paying for me?”
“Cut the chatter and get in. The bus is empty. Just sit all the way in the back.”
As soon as we paid, the bus doors closed, honked, and took off.
Even if the bus driver was replaced with artificial intelligence, the impatient nature remained the same.
Since it was too dangerous to keep standing, I took Yuna’s hand and led her to the window seat in the back.
“How long does it take from here to your house?”
“About 20 minutes. Honestly, I don’t ride the bus often, so I’m not sure.”
“Is that so?”
“…”
Yuna said that even after getting off at the stop, she’d have to walk through the back alley for a while to reach her house.
To save roughly 1,050 won in bus fare, she was walking 45 minutes?
That’s already an hour and a half round trip.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
Yuna abruptly asked in a blunt tone.
“Is that really the first thing you come up with after thinking this over several times? Do you dislike me?”
“No! That’s not what I meant!”
“Then what?”
“I just feel like it’s a waste of time to be with you…”
“Not at all.”
“I’m not popular with the kids, and I’m not fun, and I always say bad things, so everyone dislikes me.”
“Not true! I like you, and I want to be friends. So let me turn it around: do you like me?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“I will wait until you answer.”
I stopped Yuna from turning her head away and made her look me in the eyes.
Dealing with negative and insincere children is easy.
You just need to keep pressing until they confront their own feelings.
At a casual glance, the human brain looks like a well-structured logical circuit, but in reality, it’s just a tangled mess of spaghetti code.
It’s quite common for people not to even realize what emotions they are feeling or how they think about things.
I couldn’t even explain why I felt sad or angry right now, and the root cause might not even be pinpointed.
That’s why we need to learn to confront our emotions properly.
Otherwise, we could end up like Klaus, Sylvia, or Remilia—turned into irrecoverable emotional wrecks.
“Hey, I… it’s really hard for me to go to the academy. I have to stay up late but wake up early for school.
Even yesterday, I slipped down the hillside steps, and even with an ankle injury, I just kept walking.
But no one in my class talks to me. Even when I’m in pain, there’s no friend to tell me that I’m hurting.”
“You twisted your ankle, huh? I saw you limping during PE last time. Was that the reason?”
“Yeah… And at first, I didn’t really like you, Na-me. When Seori bragged about you in our class, I didn’t like it when you pretended to be close with Si-hoo, either.”
“Why didn’t you like it?”
“Well… I guess I wanted to be friends with them…
But they all like Na-me. Because Na-me is pretty, cute, smart, and mature. It’s only natural.
It’s natural, but… sob… it makes me so jealous.
I wanted to be more like you, so I took an important potion without even knowing it was significant…
Na-me must have been mad at me… sniff… whimper.
But I’m not acting like anything now.”
“I hate you… but also like you too much!”
Yuna hastily poured out her heart, feeling relieved.
Oh, how good it feels.
I almost didn’t realize Yuna was such a crybaby since she kept hiding it all this time.
I kept wiping away her tears with my thumb as she spoke, but it seemed like the faucet was stuck or broken, making it impossible to control now.
“I’m so… sorry for drinking the potion… I truly didn’t know. I didn’t know at all. I’m not going to die because of it, right? Huh?”
“What’s making you so upset? Why talk about dying all of a sudden?”
To calm her down, I pulled her into my arms.
Even though she was so small, it felt somewhat heavy to hold her in my smaller frame, but it was meant to let her cry her heart out comfortably.
“Waaah… I heard about you being terminal during that talk earlier. Isn’t that saying you’re going to die soon?”
“Who said that?”
“The scary-looking uncle at the main school building.”
“Did he say that? No, that’s wrong. Don’t worry. I’m not going to die. They said I just need to keep drinking potions.”
“B-but… that means you’ll be in pain all the time.”
Seeming to recall her experience with getting hurt by a potion, she looked worried, so I calmly explained my condition.
“Potions aren’t supposed to be taken like that all at once, you mix it slightly with air before drinking it. Yuna, have you ever tried wasabi?”
“Yeah… It was served once in the school lunch when I was in 1st grade.”
“How was it?”
“It was super super spicy. My head hurt.”
“But how about mixing it with soy sauce?”
“It was okay to eat.”
“That’s the principle. Got it?”
Even living with severe mana addiction, a prescription for drinking a potion without side effects is quite trivial.
As I researched magic, I might even discover a cure by chance.
I understood Yuna’s concerns.
“My mom is very sick too. sob… I was so scared when Na-me was said to be terminal. I thought I did something wrong… I always cause problems.”
“It sounds like your mom is quite ill. Is she in the hospital?”
“No, she’s at home. While I’m at the academy, my younger brother stops by to take care of her… I’m not sure.
What if I go home one day and my mom suddenly isn’t there? It’s so scary every time I think about it.
Mom can’t see or move by herself. It’s all my fault. My mom is sick because of me. I’m really a bad girl. A bad girl.”
I couldn’t ask for further details of her situation.
What change would there be if I told Yuna to stop the endless self-blame?
Outside parties who cannot take responsibility are usually expected to keep their mouths shut.
But unfortunately, my personality didn’t allow that.
“Yuna, have you introduced your friends to your mom?”
“Why do you ask…? I’ve never done that. Nobody wants to come over to our house.”
“Can I come over to your house? Let’s call today’s events even.”
