“Nah. Now that I’ve seen what’s happening, I can’t just leave. Just how much does this fellow owe you anyway?” Shannon asked.
Sounding pained, the blue-haired man choked out, “Three million, five hundred thousand...”
“Whoa,” Shannon breathed. “That’s more than I expected.” Three and a half million gal was enough to eat for a whole year. What in the world had he used all that money for?
“I-I need it to make the medicine,” the blue-haired man gasped.
“I’m tired of hearing that,” the other man said. “You haven’t even finished it.”
“No, but I’m so close! I-I just need a mage’s help!”
“A mage?”
“Yes! I was on my way to the job board to post about it! With a mage’s help, I can definitely complete the medicine!”
The bespectacled man only sighed, exasperated. “I don’t think something like magic can do that.”
“A mage might know...how to help with the potentially fatal side effects!”
“Potentially fatal side effects?!” Shannon’s eyes lit up. This was the best she could have asked for. Suddenly, she was even more interested in this than in her food.
“I thought that, surely, at least one mage would come to town during the festival, so please, I just need a little more time to—”
“What nonsense,” the bespectacled man began, but Shannon interrupted him, raising her hand.
“Me! Me, me!”
“Calm down, pest. Do you want to die?”
“I’m a mage!”
He stared at her. “Huh?”
“Y-You are?!” the blue-haired man stammered.
Shannon grinned and nodded, but the bespectacled man just let out a deep sigh.
“Kid, are you making fun of us? There’s no way a mage just happened to stumble upon us here.”
“Aw, you don’t believe me?” She tipped her head in confusion. It was strange he didn’t, given how she looked. She tried waving her robe around, but he still didn’t seem to believe her.
“A robe,” the blue-haired man breathed. “You do look like a mage!”
“Would you please stop with this nonsense? I despise jokes.” The bespectacled man switched his target to Shannon, tossing the other man aside and holding up his clenched fist. “It seems like I’ll be forced to hurt you. You’d do well to take a little nap.”
It seemed like her claims of being a mage had finally ticked him off. He aimed a swift right straight at Shannon, and a moment later, a dull thud resounded.
“Gah! Wh...”
“What are you doing to— Huh?!”
It wasn’t Shannon lying face up on the ground but the man who had raised a hand against her. She relaxed from her martial arts stance, then patted her hands clean.
“Phew! Honestly,” she said. “Obviously a girl on a solo trip would know how to defend herself, but even so, that was over way too soon.”
“Self-defense...? Y-You’ve gotta be kidding me!” said the man. He seemed to be in pain, pressing his hands to his stomach and scrunching his face. “What kind of self-defense...stops a killer punch?”
“Oh, would you rather I have defeated you with magic? Maybe you’d believe me then.” Shannon retrieved her wand from a holder on her thigh and brought it close to his head.
“A... A mage’s wand...”
“Hmm, what to do? Should I make your brain all mushy or get it over with quickly?”
“W-Wait—”
“Oh, or maybe I should make you think about what you’ve done by taking away your hearing and sight?”
“N-No, no! Wait!” He trembled, terrified, standing up on shaky legs like a newborn fawn and stepping back. “I-I get it. Y-You’ll get more time on your repayment. But you will get us the money, Glim.”
He scurried off. It seemed that being trounced by simple self-defense was enough to make him fear that she really was a mage.
Shannon let out a satisfied breath and offered a hand to the blue-haired man—Glim. “You okay? Uh-oh, looks like your clothes are dirty.”
“Oh, uh...thanks.” Looking apologetic, Glim took Shannon’s hand and slowly stood. He dusted himself off and straightened his clothes, then looked in the direction to which the bespectacled man had fled. Scrunching up his face, he spat out, “Hmph! What a hoodlum, running away. Don’t come back, coward!”
“Oh...that’s kind of lame,” Shannon commented. “You only find the guts to say that after he’s gone?”
“Hmph!”
Shannon just shrugged, exasperated and kind of regretting having helped. “Anyway,” she managed, “I think you’re the bad guy here for not returning the money.”
“H-Hey! It’s true that I can’t return it, but...well, my research is important!” Glim insisted. “There’s a child suffering in her bed right now, and I have to make that medicine as fast as possible.”
He hung his head sadly. Despite his weak demeanor, his expression didn’t show any signs of deceit. It seemed like he really did want to make medicine to help people; sure, he had a bit of a troublesome personality, but he wasn’t a bad person.
“So, Mr. Glim,” Shannon said, “are the side effects of your medicine really that bad?”
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, in the experiments, the mice have convulsed, vomited, had diarrhea, and kicked the bucket, all in a matter of seconds. It’s terrifying, if you don’t mind my saying so, almost like it would be better suited as poison. I’m at my wit’s end.”
“Kicking the bucket... Cool!” Shannon’s eyes sparkled. Death by a medicine’s side effect—that was a potential loophole that she hadn’t considered.
“Cool?” Glim echoed hesitantly. “I don’t see what’s cool about it.”
“Oh, you know, it’s not that bad,” Shannon said vaguely. “Hey, let me help you out—I’m a mage.”
She raised an eager hand to volunteer. Glim put his own hands together. “Ah, that’s right! You really are a mage?” he asked desperately.
Shannon grinned, nodded, and flashed him a thumbs-up. “Sure am!”
“What good luck! I can pay you. Well, it’ll be a sore expense on my part, given that I borrowed the money in the first place, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. My name is Glim, and I’m a doctor.”
She took his offered hand and squeezed it. “Nice to meet ya! I’m Shannon.”
“Shannon, huh? Nice to meet you too. Now, there’s a patient I’d like you to meet straightaway. After that, I’ll explain things to you.”