The tyrannical dark force, described by Almandine, seemed on the verge of tearing her apart. Bahyun realized that it must be connected to how she was suffering now, considering the dark forces lurked in her body without his notice. He made the connection: bringing her along for wasteland purification, which had proven effective with her presence, must have led to her current predicament.
Regret flooded Bahyun’s widened eyes. It was his fault.
Almandine, it seemed, had absorbed the dark energy while they their purified the wasteland. Her body and circuit were fixed in size; of course, they would be overflow if too much energy was inputted. She would undoubtedly short circuit because her body couldn’t withstand the overflow.
He realized with a pang of guilt that he was the one who had brought her for the purification. He was the reason why Almandine was suffering now. He shouldn’t have taken her to the wasteland in the first place. However, even after he figured out the reason behind all this, he still didn’t know what to do.
Calm down, Bahyun, you must be able to think of something…He gripped his hair in distress, racking his brain for a solution. The only solution that came to mind was something akin to a resistor device. The circuits used in mana technology didn’t incorporate the concept of resistors, as all mana technology were designed based on fixed mana flow determined by the Mana Supply Department. Their flexibility to endure energy surpassed that of electronic devices, making mana technology items less prone to explosions or short circuits. However, the challenge now was whether a resistor would work for Almandine’s unique situation, and even if it did, how could he install it into her?
Think! Bahyun, think! He urged himself, feeling the strength of his grip on his hair increase as Almandine’s groans grew louder. Unbeknownst to him, he had bitten his lip so hard that it started to bleed.
“Leave…” Almandine dilated eyes focused on him, her voice strained, “I…I can’t hold it much longer…I’m going to explode…leave, before I hurt you…”
“No, never!” Bahyun sprang from the floor, pacing anxiously in the room, “I can think of something, I can…”
Suddenly, an idea flashed into his mind, and it seemed like it might just work!
He rushed to his storage room, where he kept a variety of random items, rummaging through the clutter until he found what he was searching for: a drained mana battery. It was a spare he had from his car, which ran on mana technology. He always kept extras on hand, whether for the car or for his magical experiments. The drained mana battery could be recharged and be used again, making it the perfect candidate for his plan.
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Although he wasn’t certain how the rules of the dark world translated to the human world, he understood that the power of the dark realm was a form of magic. With this knowledge, he hope his plan would work…it should work, right?
“Almandine, hurry! Channel your excess energy into the battery!” He dashed back to Almandine’s side, seizing her hand and pressing it onto the charging plug of the battery.
Almandine, still struggling with her cloudy mind, lay limply on the bed, muttering for him to leave. She seemed to comprehend nothing of what he was saying to her. Panic threated to engulf Bahyun as he raised his voice, shouting at her, “I’m not leaving! Do as I say, transfer the excess into the battery, now! Otherwise, we might as well go to hell together!”
Perhaps his raised volume finally reached her consciousness. Almandine’s hand, forced onto the charging plug, twitched, and the bar indicating the remaining energy stored in the battery lit up, displaying a black color to signify the absorption of a different type of energy. The charging bar progressed rapidly, with each hundred blocks lighting up one by one, reaching 100% in a swift pace. Though Almandine still furrowed her brows and kept her hand on her chest, she appeared less distressed now.
“Feeling better? Or worse?” Bahyun asked anxiously.
With her breath still heavy, Almandine replied in a trembling voice, “Better…”
“Great…it worked!” Bahyun exhaled with relief, his smile tinged with exhaustion. “I’ll…I’ll get more empty batteries…Hang in there, okay?”
She nodded.
Bahyun swiftly exited through the French window of his sixth-floor apartment, concealing himself with stealth magic to avoid detection. He flew to the nearest recycling center in the blink of an eye, entering and swiftly gathering all the batteries in the facility. Hastily dropping a few banknotes onto the desk of the office he presumed was administrating this center, he rushed back home with over a hundred batteries following him, levitated by magic.
Almandine used up exactly a hundred batteries before finally relaxing into sleep at dawn.
Bahyun gazed at Almandine laying on the bed, his heart still pounding fiercely, his hands trembling, and his emotions strained to the limit, rendering him incapable of coherent thought or action. He stared blankly at her until the sun rose high in the sky, gradually regaining his senses.
He called his office to request a day off, unsurprisingly to find news about him circulating on the internet.
“Breaking News: Wizard Spotted dashing Through the Night Sky with a Bunch of Unknown Objects! What’s He Up To?”
It seemed his stealth magic had faded when he rushed back to his apartment, bit luckily, no one had spotted his exact location. The journalist who reported this seemed reliable enough, correctly referring to him as a “wizard”, indicating they weren’t someone easily fooled. Bahyun’s thoughts drifted aimlessly as he pondered the situation, and eventually, exhaustion overcame him, and he collapsed into sleep beside Almandine’s bed on the floor.