I'm a Proper Student, I Only Drink Nine Potions Every Day

His brows furrowed, and undisguised disgust flashed through his pale blue eyes behind the lenses.

He fell silent for a few seconds.

"Send Leido and the others."

His voice was soft, but every word seemed squeezed out through clenched teeth.

He tightened his fist. His elbow bumped the wineglass on the armrest, making it sway as the dark red liquid nearly spilled over.

"Bear with it a little longer."

The fire crackled in the fireplace, its orange-red glow falling across his pale face and casting deep shadows.

"As long as we can overcome sunlight, we won't have to grovel before him anymore."

Painkillers Really Are a Great Invention

By the time Evan clutched his stomach and staggered back to Gooding Street, his face deathly pale, it was already seven thirty in the evening.

Old Tom sat on a low stool with a woman's leather boot clamped between his knees, still threading his needle.

He looked up and saw Evan turning in from the street corner. Obvious surprise flashed through his eyes behind his reading glasses.

Judging by the way Zack had looked ready to eat someone alive earlier, this kid should have at least lost an arm or a leg.

Yet he had walked back perfectly intact.

His face was as white as paper, and he limped as he walked, but all four limbs were still there, and he could still walk on his own.

"You okay?" Old Tom asked cautiously.

Evan smiled, though the expression looked somewhat forced on his pale face.

"I'm fine. There was a little misunderstanding, but it's been settled."

Old Tom did not press him. He nodded and lowered his head to continue stitching the shoe.

Evan turned and entered the stairwell, using the wall for support as he climbed.

The cramping pain in his stomach and the stabbing pain from the bruises on his back formed a double assault. He had to grit his teeth with every step, hissing sharply through them.

When he pushed open the apartment door, he saw Mary.

She stood in the hallway. Half her face was swollen high, the color already changing from red to bluish-purple, while her right arm hung against her chest in that filthy scarf.

She was stuffing things into a cloth sack. The instant she saw Evan enter, her movements froze.

"You damn sickly bastard, how did you come back?"

Her voice was shrill and trembling, her eyes filled with disbelief.

As far as she knew, anyone who dared offend Zack like that was bound to die tonight.

Evan had just swallowed the Demon Hunter's Beyonder Characteristic. It felt like a ball of fire was burning in his stomach, and he had no mood to waste words on this woman.

"Get out, you filthy bitch. Leave the keys."

His voice was cold and weary, like iron frozen solid.

"Go to the Gus Gang, and you'll find out."

He did not have the kind of ability gangsters had to kill someone and still smooth things over with the police.

But the Gus Gang would soon learn what had happened to Zack and his twenty-odd men tonight.

By then, Mary would naturally understand what had happened.

At those words, Mary's face instantly turned deathly pale.

She did not curse again, nor did she continue shouting.

She took two keys from her pocket and placed them on the shoe cabinet in the hallway. Then she grabbed the half-filled cloth sack and rushed out without looking back.

Her footsteps hurried away down the stairwell, like a wildcat whose tail had been stepped on.

Evan shut the door and locked it.

The apartment fell quiet.

There was no smell of smoke, no cheap perfume, no rough male panting, and no dull thuds of a bedframe striking the wall.

There was only his own breathing and the dull ache of the fire in his stomach continuing to burn.

Grimacing, he returned to the bedroom and dropped into a chair. He grabbed the bottle of Aspirin from the desk, poured five or six white tablets into his palm, stuffed them all into his mouth, and washed them down with water.

Then he poured two grayish-white pills from the bottle of Mercury Pills and swallowed them as well.

[You consumed a Mercury Pill. Duration: 6 hours.]

[Effect: Your syphilitic rash has slightly subsided.]

[You reversed the side effect.]

[Your gastrointestinal ulcer has been alleviated! 9% → 8%]

[Your brain nerve damage has been alleviated! 14% → 13%]

[Your mouth has been strengthened. Constitution permanently +0.001.]

...

[You consumed a high dose of Aspirin. Duration: 6 hours.]

[Effect: Your pneumonia has recovered, 9% → 6%. During the duration, your pain perception is reduced.]

[You reversed the side effect.]

[Your digestive function has improved. Constitution permanently +0.001.]

[Your hearing has improved. Constitution permanently +0.001.]

The Aspirin began taking effect about ten minutes later.

The burning sensation spreading from his stomach through his body became wrapped in a layer of soft cotton. It had not vanished, but it had become bearable.

The bruises on his back no longer stung as badly either. He had gone from "hurts so much I want to die" to "hurts enough that I can still move."

"Painkillers really are a great invention."

Evan stood up, changed into the denim overalls and canvas shirt his father had left behind, locked the door, went downstairs, and headed straight for the Dock District.

By seven in November, it was already pitch-black.

The Bryce Transport Company warehouse was brightly lit, and the workers were busy.

Evan made his way to the registration desk with practiced ease, collected his work badge, and pinned it to his overalls.

Parker stood at the warehouse entrance with a pipe in his mouth. When he saw Evan arrive, he nodded without saying much.

But Evan made a new request today.

"Uncle Parker, I don't want hourly wages. I want to be paid by the piece."

Parker took the pipe from his mouth and glanced at him.

Piecework meant being paid according to how much he carried. There was no guaranteed minimum, but no upper limit either.

For the company, the more the workers did, the better.

For the workers, unless they were truly capable, hourly wages were safer.

After all, the body was one's own.

Parker did not object.

After all, the company's cargo would never run out, and the more the men below worked, the greater his own cut as foreman.

Then, over the next four hours, Parker's pipe went out three times, each time because his mouth had fallen too wide open.

This young man was like a tireless machine.

Other than a fifteen-minute break to eat, he did not rest for a single moment.

He carried four sacks on his shoulders at once. Even under one hundred and eighty pounds, his steps remained steady.

And he stacked them neatly, with the sack openings facing inward and each layer interlocked. He was more orderly than many old hands who had worked there for ten years.

When the four hours ended, Parker counted through the work ledger three times before he dared believe the number written there.

This kid alone had done the workload of two skilled workers.

"Kid, what kind of miracle medicine did you take?" Parker asked with his extinguished pipe in his mouth, his face full of disbelief.

Evan was drenched in sweat and panting heavily, but he grinned.

"That's the advantage of being young, Uncle Parker."

He wiped away some sweat and looked around the warehouse.

"Where's Supervisor Carey? Why haven't I seen him?"

Parker's expression shifted subtly.

"He got sick. Then he was fired."

"Sick?"

Evan did not ask further.

In this neighborhood, when "got sick" and "was fired" were said together, they usually meant something more complicated than the literal meaning.

Parker counted out a handful of coins from his pocket and placed them in Evan's hand.

"Eighty cents, kid."

He tapped his palm with the stem of his pipe, genuine admiration in his voice.

"You're the temp worker who's taken the most wages from me this year."

Evan's fingers closed tightly around the coins and bills.

The weight of the metal pressed against his palm, solid and real.

A genuine smile bloomed across his exhausted face.

"Thank you, Uncle Parker!"

"May the Lord bless you, hardworking child." Parker waved a hand and put his pipe back into his mouth.

On the way back, Evan checked his status panel as he walked.

The reversed effects of the Night Demon Potion had appeared long ago.

[You reversed the side effect of the Night Demon Potion.]

[Your vision has been strengthened. Constitution permanently +0.01.]

[Your perception has been strengthened. Spirit permanently +0.01.]

[You like sunlight more. Spirit permanently +0.01.]

After reading those three lines, Evan immediately understood.

"So drinking too much Night Demon Potion makes you hate sunlight more and more, while permanently damaging your eyesight and perception."

"Combined with what Hill said, all potions have side effects. The only difference is the type and severity of those side effects."

He committed this rule to memory and continued walking home.

The streetlights on Gooding Street were dim late at night, and there was almost no one left on the street.

Only the last few drunks in a distant tavern who refused to go home were still shouting, along with the cries of a stray cat in some alley.

When he reached the bottom of his building, Evan stopped.

Three people stood at the stairwell entrance.

The leader was a tall young man wearing a tailored dark suit, a dark red tie at his collar, and polished leather shoes.

He stood in stark contrast to the two followers behind him in work jackets.

Most incongruous of all were the gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Their lenses reflected a cold gleam beneath the streetlights, making him look more like a bank clerk than a gang member.

Evan knew this man.

Nock. A big shot in the Gus Gang.