TRPM 425

I feel sorry to say this about Jin Cheon-ha, but honestly, it was hard to believe that he had solved every problem.

Given his grades up through the last midterm, it was difficult to imagine his level shooting up that drastically.

Still, he didn’t look like he was lying.

“If that’s true, then Jin Cheon-ha really did become good at studying….”

Is that even possible?

You could ask whether we were underrating him, but because I knew both the pre-regression Jin Cheon-ha and the current one, I couldn’t rate him highly. Before the regression he’d always been stuck near the bottom; he ended up working as a porter and then disappeared. The Jin Cheon-ha now had seemed to abandon the romantic dream of being a Taoist and tried to become a model student, but he’d reverted to his old self.

“Even when he was being a model student his scores didn’t jump that much—now you’re saying his grades went up?”

Of course it was hard to believe.

Thinking that, I watched Jin Cheon-ha as he worked through the problems the other kids had prepared.

“Of course it’s hard to believe….”

He was solving the problems without difficulty.

Seeing that, the other kids began to doubt their eyes.

“No… right? He’s probably just guessing. Right?”

“No… to me it looks like he’s actually solving them.”

“I think so too.”

He wasn’t using some cheat sheet.

If he were, then not just I but the somewhat higher-level students would have noticed. It wasn’t that he’d memorized the answers beforehand either—the worksheet had been randomly compiled from the workbook problems the kids had, centered on Gangaram. If he’d memorized every answer, that would be impressive in its own way.

“…I’m done.”

“Aren’t you going to check them?”

“No need.”

Jin Cheon-ha said it confidently, as if he couldn’t be wrong.

“Hearing him say that actually makes it sound like he cheated….”

Yet, at least from where I was sitting, there was no sign of cheating. The other kids seemed to think the same, and with skepticism they began grading.

“…He really got them all right.”

“……”

“……”

The grading revealed that Jin Cheon-ha had indeed answered everything correctly. And then….

“Hey, what did you do?”

Suspicion about Jin Cheon-ha grew.

Of course—if a kid like him suddenly got good at studying overnight, people around him would more likely suspect some trick than believe he’d just worked very hard. He’d changed overnight, after all.

“It might actually be more believable if Jin Cheon-ha swapped places with a doppelgänger without us knowing.”

But the Jin Cheon-ha in front of me was the real Jin Cheon-ha, not a doppelgänger. The doppelgängers I’d seen before were usually obvious if you paid attention; even the unusually convincing ones gave off an awkwardness on closer inspection. There was none of that in Jin Cheon-ha.

“Unless some organization on Mars succeeded in improving doppelgängers so well that even I couldn’t tell the difference….”

That didn’t seem likely. The Mars organization had lost almost all its foothold on Earth—they wouldn’t have the luxury to refine doppelgängers.

“So then, Jin Cheon-ha genuinely became good at studying….”

Thinking that, I looked at him.

“Aren’t we being a bit harsh on his evaluation?”

“Well, considering his original grades, I think this is to be expected.”

“If you get a perfect score on the final like this, you’ll definitely be called in by the teachers.”

“I admit that part….”

Anyway, Jin Cheon-ha said he was completely innocent.

“Then did you really just study hard and become this good? You expect us to believe that?”

“Hmm, not purely from studying.”

Jin Cheon-ha admitted he’d used a shortcut.

The question was: what kind of shortcut was it that he could say so proudly? …

“It’s nothing special. It’s what everyone knows.”

He said that and rummaged through his bag. Mind you, Jin Cheon-ha’s “bag” wasn’t a regular backpack but a bundle—concept aside, it was somehow admirable.

“This.”

“That is….”

Our class watched as Jin Cheon-ha pulled out a glass bottle. The bottle was about half-empty and the liquid looked like an ordinary drink, but the class had no trouble realizing what it was.

“Ah…! You didn’t—did you drink the potion Grandma Bokja made?”

“Yes. It’s the potion made by Eun-yeon and Grandma Bokja.”

“…Kim Eun-yeon helped make it too? So that means it was made after Grandma Bokja came to our class?”

“Yes. She asked me to be the test subject.”

…So that was it.

“What does the potion do?”

“It seems to improve memory and comprehension. After taking it and studying the textbook, I could understand the content, and what I understood while the potion was active stayed in my memory for a long time even after the effects wore off.”

Oh, by the way, the potion’s effects have already worn off now. Once the effects are gone, you don’t understand things you’re seeing for the first time very well, but you can generally solve problems related to what you understood while the potion was active.

“Hey, give us some of that potion.”

“You used the good stuff all by yourself?!”

“Gah?!”

When Jin Cheon-ha finished his explanation, Ryoo a-min and Ryoo a-young—both of whom had poor grades like his—rushed at him.

“…Both of you calm down. We still have more to ask Jin Cheon-ha.”

I pulled Ryoo a-min and Ryoo a-young back and asked Jin Cheon-ha,

“Does the potion have side effects?”

“Eun-yeon said there are, but she said they wouldn’t affect me.”

By the way, Kim Eun-yeon and Grandma Bokja—the ones who made the potion—weren’t at today’s study session. I heard that because of recent events the association was low on potions and had asked them to make some, so they were probably in the school lab brewing recovery potions. Still—there are side effects, but they don’t affect Jin Cheon-ha? Maybe the potion was tailored to his constitution?

“Grandma Bokja is still inexperienced with alchemy, and while Kim Eun-yeon has improved, neither of them is at the level to make a personalized potion for a specific constitution.”

That thought crossed my mind, and then—

“If necessary, I’ll share a little.”

“Give it to us now!”

“So you just drink this and study from the textbook, right?!”

At Jin Cheon-ha’s nonchalant reply, Ryoo a-min and Ryoo a-young lunged. While Jin Cheon-ha was flustered by their physical assault, Ryoo a-min snatched the bottle from his hand and downed it all.

“Ugh… it tastes awful…!”

The potion didn’t taste great. Watching Ryoo a-min, Ryoo a-young clicked her tongue as if it were a shame….

“Eun-yeon said the proper dose is one drop mixed into water….”

Jin Cheon-ha’s face twisted in dismay.

Um…

“Did she say something would happen if you take more than the recommended dose?”

“The more you take, the stronger the effect, but the side effects also get worse.”

…Hearing that, we all looked at Ryoo a-min. I immediately stood and went up to him. I didn’t know exactly what the side effects were, but—

“Spit it out right now!”

“Ugh…!”

It’s common sense that taking too much of any drug is dangerous. Exceptions are things like store-bought recovery potions, which don’t really have side effects beyond feeling too full even if you drink lots. But Kim Eun-yeon had explicitly said this potion has side effects….

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Ugh….”

I managed to force Ryoo a-min to spit a fair bit of it out, but it seemed he’d swallowed quite a lot already. He held his head and writhed in pain.

“……”

But after a moment he stopped writhing and suddenly turned his gaze toward the desks where everyone had been studying.

“Woooooohhhh…!”

He grabbed whatever workbook he could and started solving it.

“Hey… that’s my workbook….”

“Woooooohhhh…!”

“…Do whatever you want.”

The owner of the workbook, Lee Doo-min, took a step back, intimidated by Ryoo a-min’s forcefulness, while Ryoo a-min ignored him and continued solving. The others watched in stunned silence as Ryoo a-min worked.

“…I’m done with this!”

After some time, Ryoo a-min declared he had finished all the problems and stepped back.

“Can we grade it?”

“Do whatever you want!”

“?”

Ryoo a-min’s behavior was strange, but we decided to grade what he’d done. We all crowded around and began marking his answers.

“Hey, this is wrong.”

“…Improved memory and comprehension don’t mean you can solve everything. Jin Cheon-ha studied the textbook after taking the potion; that guy just started with the problems.”

So Ryoo a-min’s score was higher than usual, but only to that extent.

“So it’s not a potion that instantly makes you smarter?”

“Even so, you can’t deny it’s an amazing potion.”

While we talked and looked at Ryoo a-min….

“Gah…! What a mistake of agony!”

“…?”

Something about it was odd. I wasn’t the only one who thought so—the class slowly approached Ryoo a-min and asked,

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Did the potion mess with your head?”

In response to those questions….

“I will not yield! The final exam coming for my smarter self will not even qualify as a test of hardship!”

“???”

“???”

“???”

Ryoo a-min kept saying strange things.

“Ah….”

The first person to realize why Ryoo a-min was acting that way was Gangaram.

“I think I know the side effect of that potion.”

Gangaram said that and looked at Jin Cheon-ha, who was standing there blankly.

“Ah….”

“Indeed….”

“So that’s why it wouldn’t affect Cheon-ha….”

The side effect of the potion made by Kim Eun-yeon and Grandma Bokja that was given to Jin Cheon-ha was—adolescent delusions. Middle-schooler syndrome. Acting melodramatic and grandiose in a cringy way.

“…No matter how much your grades improve, taking something like that is a bit….”

“Even if it’s for better grades, making a lifelong cringe memory is….”

“…Isn’t it okay? It’s just a little embarrassing and then it passes.”

The kids’ reactions to knowing the side effect varied. But one thing was clear.

“Hey, we should film Ryoo a-min doing this and save it as cringe history.”

“Oh….”

“You really are something….”