His head blown off for a third, Drew fell forward with momentum and slid across the ground. Raising a cloud of dust, he stopped before Jared.
Panting, Jared touched Drew’s neck to check his pulse.
He pushed aside the bristly, wire-like body hair and touched his hardened skin. He felt no pulse. However, he couldn’t tell if Drew was dead and thus had no pulse, or if his skin was simply too tough to feel it.
Puzzled, Jared saw Drew’s chest wasn’t rising and falling. He placed his hand over his mouth. He wasn’t breathing.
“I want to believe he’s dead,” Jared thought.
Drew Zimmer, who had lost all resemblance to his human form, embodied the imagination of what a Magical Beast would look like if it became human, an unknown existence. The Mage Association would investigate his corpse.
Jared couldn’t determine if Drew had transformed simply from using a Magic Amplification Potion or if there was some other cause, but a Magician primarily focused on research might be able to unravel it.
However, in that case, Drew’s body could potentially be dissected, filling Jared with a sense of futility.
“He brought this on himself,” Jared thought. “I can’t feel sorry for him. Still, it’s pitiable that the result of deviating from human form leads to dissection.”
“I’m sorry I could only kill you,” Jared muttered.
Perhaps if there were other Magicians besides himself, a different conclusion might have awaited Drew. But there were no Magicians conveniently available at the Academy. Not a single one, including Jared, was a fully-fledged Magician.
Jared decided to consider it fortunate that Drew, in his beastly form, hadn’t caused any casualties. He tried to think positively.
Exhausted from fighting while still recovering and from his Magic consumption, he collapsed onto his rear.
“Are everyone else alright?”
He hadn’t had the luxury to worry about others during the fight, but having used so much Magic, he became concerned. He knew the defensive walls of the spectator stands were strong, but there was always a chance of the unexpected.
Jared pushed his tired body to stand and started heading towards his friends.
It was then…
*Thump.*
He felt a surge of Magic Power.
“No way… Oh, come on, you’re kidding me?”
Overwhelmed with surprise that the source of the Magic Power was Drew’s body, he stood dumbfounded.
Furthermore, he clearly felt the Magic Power increasing, like a heartbeat.
It wasn’t uncommon for Magic Power to remain in a corpse. Especially if they had just died, the Magic Power within their body would linger. Jared knew that as the body died, the Magic Power would gradually dissipate.
When he had touched Drew’s body moments before, he had indeed felt Magic Power. However, he had assumed it was simply because it had been so recently since Drew’s death.
But the Magic Power was surging. It was moving.
Such a thing was impossible for a corpse. At least, it was completely unknown to Jared.
“What is happening?”
There was no one to answer Jared’s question.
While he stood still, the Magic Power continued to move and grow.
Then, with a twitch, a finger sprouted sharp, blade-like claws and moved.
“Hah!”
Jared instinctively drew a knife from his tunic and took a stance.
A strong urge to attack surged within him, but his reason warned him of danger, making him hesitant to approach.
The change came quickly.
As if his fingertips had moved, his entire body began to twitch as if convulsing.
Jared, who thought, “Could he not have been dead after all?” saw something even more unbelievable happen before his eyes.
A sound came from Drew’s head, which had lost a third of its mass in the explosion. The sound of wet flesh against flesh made an unpleasant noise.
Despite the repulsive sound, which evoked a visceral aversion, Jared was speechless.
Because Drew’s head was regenerating.
He was witnessing, bit by bit, undeniably, the regeneration of his lost head, and he felt a wave of nausea. It wasn’t the sight of regeneration that made him sick. It was the sight, which seemed to defy the natural order, that made him feel unwell.
The regeneration accelerated, and new, hairless skin began to cover his head.
His instinct screamed at him to fight. His reason screamed at him to flee. Unable to decide which to choose, Jared simply stood rooted to the spot.
And then—Drew, his head completely regenerated, slowly stood up.
“…Give me a break,” was all Jared could manage to utter, finding he was now just holding his knife, his guard lowered.
He could only stare blankly at the completely unexpected turn of events.
“Your left eye doesn’t regenerate, huh? I don’t know if that’s convenient or inconvenient for you. Wait, what am I even saying?”
He could only laugh at the foolish words that came out of his mouth on their own. However, it was true that Drew’s left eye, where Jared had stabbed him with the knife, was now a hollow socket without an eyeball, though the wound itself seemed healed. He couldn’t understand the criteria by which it had regenerated.
“Whatever—!”
Jared punched himself in the cheek with his fist. The pain brought his thoughts back to reality, and he knew he had to act.
“If you’re still breathing and intend to fight, then come at me. I can’t let you out in this state, and I can’t stand the thought of you being captured alive by the Mage Association. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, I’ll kill you for sure this time.”
To be honest, Jared didn’t have the strength left to fight Drew again.
He wondered if it might have been different if he hadn’t already fought Pfeil. He knew it was a necessary battle, an indispensable price to defeat the strong Pfeil, but he cursed himself for not thinking ahead, having never anticipated such consecutive battles.
His Magic Power and Stamina were already near their limit. He only had three more knives. He regretted only bringing the minimum weapons, as he was supposed to be just visiting the Academy.
Anxious about how long he could hold out, he hoped to last until reinforcements from the Mage Association or the Knights arrived. However, thinking of Drew, he felt it would be better to kill him if he could.
He desperately wanted to avoid Drew, now an unknown entity, being studied alive. But he couldn’t possibly let him escape, so killing him was the only thing Jared could do.
He began to consolidate his remaining Magic Power.
“Here I come, Drew Zimmer.”
He gripped his knife and was about to push off the ground—when suddenly.
“Wait, Jared Murphy. I’ve brought a medicine to suppress and calm the rampant Magic Amplification Potion. Yes, I’ve learned the importance of organization and tidiness through this incident. Would you help me with it sometime? It seems I’m a woman who can’t clean up—Oh, and who is this large individual? Bringing a Magical Beast to the Academy is hardly commendable?”
Kirsi Santala, wearing a tired lab coat and with purple hair swaying, held up a syringe and stopped Jared.
“Kirsi-sensei, I appreciate your laid-back attitude, but please read the room! This is Drew Zimmer, who’s gone berserk from using a Magic Amplification Potion!”
As Jared shouted, Drew, who had stopped moving while standing, slowly began to move.
He had lost the speed he had earlier, but he was definitely targeting Kirsi.
“Kirsi-sensei, please escape!”
“You tell me to escape suddenly, but where should I go… Jared, come help me. You know I’m useless at anything other than research, right?”
“Ah, fine!”
Jared sheathed his knife and kicked off the ground. He ran past Drew and approached Kirsi, scooping her up between his knees and shoulder.
“Oh, so this is something called a “princess carry.” I thought it was a legend.”
“A legend… No, please give me the medicine. We have to get him back to normal.”
He pinned his hopes on the syringe filled with red liquid and pleaded, but Kirsi shook her head.
“Unfortunately, it’s futile.”
“Why?”
“As far as I know, there are no precedents for side effects of Magic Amplification Potion causing such transformations. It’s likely something else is the cause. It’s possible Magic Amplification Potion was also used, so you can use it if you want, but the chances of that form being cured are extremely slim.”
