I'm a Serious Student, I Only Drink Nine Kinds of Potions a Day

"I think Master really could give him a job. That would make him trust you more."

Pulis stood before the laboratory bench with his back to her, using tweezers to hold a glass slide up to the light.

"Remember."

His voice was soft and faint, as if he were discussing something utterly insignificant.

"Do not have excessive contact or feelings toward food."

He placed the slide back on the tray and turned around. His pale blue eyes behind the lenses were as calm as two blocks of ice.

"Humans would not want to live in the same room as pigs they raised in pens, nor would they show those pigs too much mercy."

The female assistant lowered her eyes and nodded respectfully.

"Understood, my master."

Evan picked up the medicine bottle, slung the canvas schoolbag with its broken strap tied together by rope over his back, and hurried out of the school.

The moment he stepped through the school gates, a tram clattered past in front of him, and the wind kicked up by its rear end blew dust all over his face.

"Just my luck."

He muttered, then walked to the platform to wait for the next one.

As he listlessly watched a roasted chestnut vendor across the street, there was a faint flutter overhead.

Splat.

A lump of white bird droppings landed precisely on his left shoulder, splattering slightly. It was warm and sticky.

Evan looked down at his shoulder, then up at the sky.

A gray pigeon was leisurely flapping away, utterly unrepentant about its handiwork.

Several people waiting nearby saw what happened, chuckled quietly, and discreetly moved a couple of steps away.

Evan pulled a crumpled piece of straw paper from his pocket, wiped off the bird droppings, balled up the paper, and tossed it into a roadside trash can.

Then he waited a full twenty-five minutes before the second tram finally arrived.

"Why is it so slow?"

He dropped in a five-cent coin and squeezed into the carriage.

After thirty swaying, rattling minutes, he got off and slipped into the familiar alley on the south side of Gooding Street.

The clotheslines overhead were, as usual, covered with damp clothes and bedsheets. Droplets fell onto his hair, cold and clammy.

He kept his head down and hurried through, splashing muddy water with every step.

Then, without warning, a basin of laundry water was dumped from a third-floor window.

Grayish-white filthy water, mixed with soap suds and some indescribable sour stench, crashed straight down at his head like a miniature waterfall.

Fortunately, his physique was now nearly twice that of an ordinary person, and his reaction speed was nothing like before.

Before his mind could even make a judgment, his body instinctively sidestepped. Most of the dirty water struck the spot where he had just been standing, splashing mud everywhere.

But part of his back still got soaked.

Icy dirty water ran down his spine, soaking through his shirt and clinging to his skin, cold and sticky.

"Why am I so unlucky today?"

Evan quickened his pace, practically jogging through the remaining two alleys, rushing into the apartment building, thundering up the stairs, and pushing open his front door.

He returned to his bedroom covered in misfortune and locked the door behind him.

He took off the jacket stained with bird droppings and dirty water, tossed it over the back of a chair, and changed into a canvas shirt his father had left behind.

Then he opened his bedroom door, walked to the wardrobe in the living room, crouched down, pulled open the hidden compartment at the bottom, and reached for the biscuit tin where he kept his money, intending to take out today's meal money.

The instant his fingers touched the tin, he knew something was wrong.

It was too light.

He took out the tin and shook it.

There was no clinking of coins.

Evan's expression changed drastically.

He flung open the lid.

Empty.

Spotlessly empty. Not a single coin remained. Even the old newspaper that had lined the bottom of the tin had been disturbed.

The last two dollars and twenty-two cents. Everything he owned.

Gone.

A surge of rage shot from the pit of his stomach straight to his head, making his temples throb.

"What the hell is going on today?"

"It must have been that bitch."

Only two people had keys to this place.

Him and Mary.

Zack came by often, but Zack had no need to steal a few dollars from a poor student.

Already sick of Mary to the extreme, Evan was completely set off by this final straw.

"I'm not that sickly weakling everyone could bully anymore."

Chapter 17: Beating Mary Up, Misfortune Curse

The moment that thought surfaced, a pungent smell of smoke drifted over from the other end of the hallway.

It was different from ordinary cigarette smoke.

Thicker, harsher, carrying a spicy herbal scent that made his scalp prickle.

Evan shoved open his bedroom door, crossed the distance in a few strides, and kicked Mary's door open.

The lock was the cheapest kind of spring lock. Against the strength of his current kick, it was no sturdier than paper.

The door slammed into the wall with a loud bang, sending flakes of plaster raining down.

Mary was half reclining on the bed in a loose, filthy nightgown. Its collar hung wide open, revealing a patch of bluish-purple hickeys on her collarbone.

She held a thick hand-rolled cigarette between her fingers. Smoke curled through the room, stinging the eyes.

When she saw Evan kick in the door, she did not even lift her eyelids. With her usual sneer at the corner of her mouth, she brought the cigarette to her lips and took another drag.

Evan's voice seemed squeezed out through clenched teeth, every word trembling with fury.

"How many fucking times have I told you not to smoke in my house?"

"And where the fuck did you hide my money?"

Mary exhaled a thick cloud of smoke directly toward Evan's face.

"What's it to you?"

The four words came lazily, nasally, as though she were brushing off an annoying buzzing fly.

The last string of reason in Evan's mind snapped.

He lunged forward, swung his right arm wide, and slapped Mary hard across the left cheek.

The sound was crisp and loud, like a belt striking a wet wooden board.

Mary's head snapped to the right from the blow. The cigarette flew from between her fingers, tracing an arc of sparks through the air before landing on the bedsheet and burning a black spot into it.

Her left cheek swelled instantly, the marks of five fingers clearly visible. Her ears rang, and her vision went dark.

A physique of 1.903.

The force of that slap far exceeded what an ordinary man could produce.

Mary froze for a full three seconds.

Then her eyes widened, her pupils filled with disbelief.

In her mind, Evan was a sickly weakling who could die at any moment, a useless piece of trash who could not even beat her.

"You bastard! You dare hit me?!"

She screamed and pounced from the bed, her nails clawing for Evan's face.

Evan grabbed her wrist.

Mary's wrist was as thin as a dead branch in his palm. He could even feel the bones pressing against his fingers beneath her skin.

He twisted hard, forcing Mary's body to turn halfway around with it.

Then he dragged her out of the room like a sack, through the hallway, all the way to the apartment's front door.

He pulled it open and shoved Mary outside.

The tremendous force sent her staggering over the threshold. Her knee struck the wooden hallway floor, scraping away a layer of skin as beads of blood seeped out.

Her right arm hung at an unnatural angle. Her shoulder had been dislocated during the dragging.

"Get the hell out. I'm keeping your things to cover the rent you owe."

Evan stood in the doorway, looking down at her. His voice was cold and calm. The fiercest wave of anger had already passed, leaving only hard, icy resolve.

Mary crouched in the hallway, her knee skinned, her left cheek badly swollen, her right arm dislocated. She looked like a feral cat that had been kicked over.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her smeared eyeliner dragged two black tear streaks down her face. Her lips trembled, and her voice came out shrill and hoarse.

"Just you wait! I'll kill you!"

Evan shut the door and locked it.

Her curses came through the door, growing farther and fainter until they were finally swallowed by the echoes of the stairwell.

Evan turned and entered Mary's room, beginning his search.

The room was as messy as if it had been robbed. The bedsheets were bunched into a ball, used handkerchiefs and empty liquor bottles were stuffed beneath the pillow, and cheap rouge cases and hairpins littered the floor.

The air was thick with a complicated stench of perfume, tobacco, sweat, and that sickly-sweet herbal smoke.

He crouched down and searched beneath the bed.

His fingers touched a cardboard box. He pulled it out and opened it.

His money was not inside.

He knew his own money. It was wrinkled and carried the sour smell of sweat.

"She didn't take it? Then one of her customers did!"

Evan felt as though the entire world was against him today, making it impossible for him to control his anger.

The box did not contain his money, but it did hold another eleven dollars and forty-nine cents.

"This is what I'm owed."

She had been behind on rent for several weeks. At two dollars a week, she owed at least eight dollars.

The extra three dollars or so could count as interest.

He pocketed all the money and kept searching.

His fingers touched another box.

This box was smaller than the one that had held the money. It was a tin tobacco can, and the design on its lid had been worn beyond recognition.

He twisted open the lid, and a strange smell rushed into his face.

It was exactly the same as the smoke that had filled the room earlier.

He looked down.

The tin was filled with a pile of dried leaves, dark greenish-brown in color, their edges curled. Some had already been crushed, mixed with tiny stems and seeds.

"So that's what that smell was."

Evan picked up a leaf, brought it to his nose for a sniff, then tossed it back into the tin.