TRPM 359

chapter 359

The day after school started and we had gone to Elena’s housewarming party.

On my way to school, I saw people kneeling in front of the school.

‘…What’s this?’

There were people who looked Korean, and people who looked foreign.

Some even appeared to be Awakened.

Why on earth were those people doing that in front of our school?

“……”

I decided to slip past them and enter the school first.

I figured there was no need to pay attention.

They were blocking the road so blatantly that the police would show up soon enough to disperse them after receiving a report.

“Oh, Gunwoo! Good morning!”

When I entered the classroom, there were already students who had arrived.

“Good morning.”
“Hi.”
“What’s this? It’s rare to see you guys come this early.”

Among the already arrived students, I spotted the two foreigners—Elena and Elliot—and said that.

It’s not that the two of them were habitually late, but during the first semester they often came to school later than others.

“Oh, the reason we’re early? Well, the apartment is a bit farther away, you know. So we left a little earlier.”

Ah, that was it.

In the first semester, Elena and Elliot had lived in the dormitories on school grounds.

They could leave later without being late, but the apartment they live in now is different.

If they left as late as before, they’d risk being late, so they must’ve started coming earlier.

‘Once they get used to it, they’ll probably show up at about the same time as before.’

Thinking that, I sat down in my seat.

And then—

“Waaaaah!”
“The Savior! The Savior has arrived!”
“(That’s them…! Savior! Please grant our wish…!)”

Suddenly, voices like that echoed from outside.

This was…

‘Those people from in front of the school?’

It sounded like they’d spotted someone and were shouting in excitement.

When I looked out the window—

“Eh? Wha…?”

I could see Kim Eun-yeon surrounded by them.

“What the heck is that?”
“Wait… isn’t that dangerous?!”

Kim Eun-yeon may be Awakened, but her awakened ability is alchemy—she’s a non-combatant.

Meanwhile, among the people surrounding her were also Awakened.

A familiar Association staffer was there acting as her guard, but even so, one person can’t block that many alone.

So…

“I’m going first!”
“I’m coming too!”

We had to go help.

The students who had the same thought as me jumped straight out the window.

Landing on the ground, they began pushing the people away to protect Kim Eun-yeon and her guard.

‘…No need for me to squeeze into the middle of that.’

Instead of shoving people aside, I used Air Step and flew up into the sky.

Reaching right above Kim Eun-yeon’s head—

Grab!
“Wha?!”
“What the—”

I pulled only Kim Eun-yeon and the Association staffer out from the crowd.

They looked startled at suddenly being lifted off the ground, but once they realized it was me, they relaxed and let me carry them.

Ensuring their safety, I pulled back and moved them to a secure spot.

“Hey! Who are you people?!”
“Leave at once!”

By then, the teachers who had arrived for work saw what was happening, realized the situation was serious, and started coming out of the staff room to push the crowd back.

When they were just camped out in front of the school, it was enough to report it to the police, but now they’d tried to mess with a student, so the teachers stepped in themselves.

And—

‘Every teacher at an Awakened-specialized high school is an Awakened themselves.’

Which meant they were more than capable of forcing intruders out.

Though some intruders were also Awakened, so it probably wouldn’t be over quickly.

Watching the chaotic scene, I asked Kim Eun-yeon:

“You okay?”
“Uh… yeah….”

But judging by how she was trembling even as she replied, she didn’t seem okay at all.

At least she didn’t look hurt.

“Do you know why they came after you?”
“I don’t….”
“I can explain.”

The Association staffer, straightening his disheveled clothes from holding off the people, seemed to know something.

“I don’t know all the details, but yesterday an alchemist from another country was attacked.”
“An alchemist….”

I see.

So they were after Alchemist Kim Eun-yeon, not Student Kim Eun-yeon.

“They say the assailants were trying to force the alchemist to make some kind of drug for them.”
“Some kind of drug… but you can request things like that through official channels, can’t you?”
“They claimed the official way takes too long—that’s why they attacked.”

…So they’re people desperate for medicine?

But this medicine isn’t available on the market, so they’re trying to go directly to the alchemist.

Still, to just go charging up to one…

“What kind of… drug is it…?”

Hearing the staffer’s explanation, Kim Eun-yeon asked that.

Even if they’d shown up like that, in a way it meant they were that desperate.

It seemed she wanted to help them.

“…Sigh. You don’t have to worry that much. It’s not a life-or-death drug. It’s understandable but…”

The staffer said that while looking at the intruders being restrained by the teachers with a disapproving expression.

“It’s also something that’s never been successfully created before. Some people call it their ‘ultimate wish,’ their Magnum Opus.”
“Magnum Opus?”

The most ideal substance an alchemist can imagine.

At the same time, an alchemist’s ultimate goal.

“…So… it’s definitely… not an easy… drug….”

Kim Eun-yeon muttered darkly.

Whatever drug they wanted, if it was some alchemist’s ultimate goal, it definitely wouldn’t be easy to make—

“Oh, no. It’s not literally the Magnum Opus of alchemists. That’s just what people are calling it.”
“?”
“?”

At those words, Kim Eun-yeon and I looked at the staffer.

He sighed and said:

“A baldness cure.”
“Ah.”
“Ah.”

…I turned to look at the intruders.

They did kind of seem to have a bit less hair….

“Can you… make a baldness cure?”
“Hmm….”
“……”

At the staffer’s words, Kim Eun-yeon and I began thinking.

It’s not like baldness remedies don’t exist at all.

But what they wanted wasn’t some ordinary hair-loss medication you can buy—they wanted something that, with a single use, would erase baldness entirely.

‘Regenerating scalp cells? That’s only temporary. Eliminating the hormones causing baldness? That’s faster to just rewrite the genes.’

No, the causes of baldness aren’t just genetic….

“…It’s going to be… difficult….”

After a while Kim Eun-yeon shook her head.

If it were just a temporary measure, maybe—but permanently stopping baldness was another matter.

‘…Come to think of it….’

But I was different.

Two ideas immediately popped into my head.

First—

‘Wasn’t there some data about a baldness cure among the files that the one suspected to be Oracle sent to my mom?’

Remembering that, I searched the Awakened System database.

Sophia had registered all those files into it.

‘Got it.’

Sure enough, thanks to that organization’s tech—far ahead of anything on Earth—there was a recipe for a baldness cure.

But…

‘This one’s impossible to mass-produce.’

Generally, potions that can’t be mass-produced are made by alchemists; potions that can be mass-produced are made by companies.

Here, “cannot be mass-produced” means the potion requires the alchemist’s awakened power during production—without it, you can’t complete it.

So it had to be made personally by an alchemist.

‘They probably planned to sell it for a high price or use it on their own members, so mass-production wasn’t needed.’

But what’s needed now is a potion that can be mass-produced.

‘Skip this one.’

Kim Eun-yeon or I could make that recipe ourselves, but then bald people would line up.

We couldn’t handle that many, nor did we want to—so we needed a recipe that could be mass-produced.

Luckily, I had a second idea.

One that seemed highly likely to be mass-producible.

‘Before my regression, wasn’t there a famous potion that was basically a perfect baldness cure?’

After my body had transformed, my hair barely ever fell out, so I hadn’t paid much attention—but there had been a famous potion with no real side effects.

It wasn’t originally made as a baldness cure, but still.

Its name was—

“Ah….”
“Huh…? What’s wrong…?”
“No, it’s nothing.”

As I recalled the potion’s name, cold sweat ran down my back.

Because…

‘…It was the Feminization Potion.’

The name alone was suspicious.

Ah, but it wasn’t some weird potion.

It simply promoted the secretion of the female hormone, estrogen.

It was made for people with genetic disorders who secreted too little estrogen.

For some reason it had been called the Feminization Potion in Korea.

‘And estrogen was the hormone that prevented baldness, wasn’t it?’

That’s why the Feminization Potion had been widely used for baldness treatment.

It even permanently increased estrogen secretion, so one dose was semi-permanent.

‘And it didn’t make estrogen go overboard, so there were no issues from excess either.’

I’d never seen the potion directly, but… if it was just that, I thought I could make it.

Permanently increasing hormone secretion was basically permanently changing a person’s constitution, so the unit price would probably be high, though.

“Gunwoo….”
“Yeah?”
“You… remembered… a baldness cure… recipe, didn’t you?”
“…It just came to me, but it’ll probably need some trial and error.”

I didn’t know exactly how much estrogen secretion would be appropriate, so that would need research.

“…Do you need any ingredients?”
“Yes. First of all….”

Through the Association staffer, I ordered a generous amount of ingredients for the Feminization Potion—no, in this iteration, the Baldness Potion.

Most of what I ordered now would probably go to waste in experiments.

“……”
“……”

As I was thinking that, the intruders were quietly looking at us.

After a moment they stared at me, then fell to their knees—

“God… God is among us…!”
“At last…! I can regain my confidence…!”
“(Our wish has been granted…!)”

They suddenly began to worship me.

Of course, those who had worshipped me were later all arrested by the police who came after a report, on charges of obstruction and trespassing.