Chapter 19: Stopping the Shocks

Chapter 19:
Stopping the Shocks

 

AS I REFORMULATED a treatment we were low on, I heard a scream from the drugstore. “Kyaaaaah!”

Vivi…? Why’s she screaming? Eh, she and Noela were watching the store. They’re probably just up to something.

“What’re you doing, Noela?!” I heard Vivi shriek.

“Arroo? Nothing!”

I assumed they were just messing around, but something still seemed odd. Curious, I poked my head into the drugstore. “What’s going on in here?”

“Ah—Reiji! Listen!” Vivi had tears in her eyes.

The two approached me; Noela seemed panicked. “No! Noela not know! Serious, Master!”

Okay, what’s wrong, ladies?

“I thought Noela was my friend!” Vivi whimpered. “She did something awful!”

“No, Vivi! Noela not know! Realest really. Believe, Master!” Noela was now teary as well.

I stroked their heads gently. I refused to believe Noela would hurt a friend without reason. “I’m not seeing the full picture here. What do you mean by ‘awful,’ Vivi?”

“I’m not sure, but when I went by her, I think she slapped me!”

“You think? You don’t know if she actually did?”

“Ugh…no. B-but I’m pretty sure it came from her direction!”

Pretty sure, huh? Not enough to go on. Did Noela smack her accidentally?

“Noela not slap! Swear!”

“Don’t worry, Noela. I know you’d never do that.”

“Master…Master really is Noela’s master. Love!”

Just as she was about to embrace me—zaaaap! I felt a mysterious stabbing pain in my hand.

“Gah! Ow!” What just happened?!

“What wrong, Master?!”

“Er, Noela, did you just…”

“You’re grown up, Mr. Reiji,” Vivi said. “You shouldn’t make weird noises like that.”

“Pipe down. Even grown-ups yell sometimes.” Seriously, what the hell was that? It definitely came from Noela. “So that’s what you were talking about, Vivi.”

“Now you understand?!”

“Wait. Could that have been…?” I inched away from Noela. So did Vivi.

Noela tilted her head as we circled her. “Garoo? What wrong?”

“You used a superpower to punch us in the blink of an eye! Right, Mr. Reiji?!”

“Hold up, Vivi. If that were true, Noela would totally be on the hook for acting mean on purpose. But this little fluffball’s got no clue what she did!”

An unintentional attack so fast, Vivi and I couldn’t see it… Wait, we’re having dry weather, aren’t we? “Ah! I know!” I exclaimed. “Static electricity!”

“She attacked us with static electricity?” Vivi asked, then nodded solemnly. Apparently, she’d at least heard of it.

“Stat tick electricity? What that, Master?”

“You know how sometimes, when you grab a doorknob, it zaps you?”

“Noela know! Always happen!”

“That’s a static shock,” I explained. During the winter, static would zap you all over when you undressed; it was maddening. In short, Noela had shocked Vivi—and me—with static electricity. “Noela’s incredibly fluffy. She probably conducts electricity easily.”

“Noela no want static attack, Master.”

“I know. Hang on a few minutes.”

My medicine-making skill was reacting; it seemed I could formulate something to deal with static. I left the store in Vivi’s hands. Once I’d chosen the ingredients I needed in the lab, Noela entered. “Noela help!”

“O-okay.”

Having gotten shocked already, I couldn’t drop my guard. That said, it would probably be fine if Noela pitched in, since she’d already discharged quite a bit of static. We got to work; the new product took about two hours to finish.

 

Shockproof Liquid: Apply a few drops to prevent static shock.

 

Heck yeah! No more getting zapped.

“Let’s see how it works on the fluffy one,” I said to myself, sprinkling some shockproof liquid on Noela right away. I know the frequent shocks were aggravating her, since they happened at random, and they were certainly bugging Vivi and me.

“No more zapping?”

“You should be a-okay now.”

She trotted over and leapt onto my back. “Noela no zap you!”

“Thank goodness!”

I’m sure plenty of folks deal with static during the winter, I reflected. I should probably make more shockproof liquid for the store.

Later, I sprinkled Vivi with the liquid as well, ending the random shocks.

 

***

 

A few days later, Doz—the Red Cat Brigade’s vice captain—stared at a bottle of shockproof liquid intently.

“You having static electricity issues, Doz?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, but they ain’t major,” he replied. “Still, this shockproof stuff looks amazing, Medicine God!”

“Not at all! It just protects you from static.”

“A guy in our squad uses electric magic,” Doz continued. “It’s not crazy strong or anything, but…well, I just wonder what’d happen if I sprinkled this on myself, and he hit me with some magic. Imagine if this anti-static stuff protected me!”

“I doubt it would. I didn’t design it with attack magic in mind.”

“But if it did, that’d be crazy!”

“It certainly would be,” I agreed. “I don’t know how I’d feel about testing that on a human, though.”

Doz looked incredibly determined. “Gimme a bottle,” he ordered.

H-he’s down to try it?

And so, Doz bought the shockproof liquid and headed home, not to be seen for some time. The failed experiment had probably resulted in a charred Doz—or so I thought.

One day, the drugstore had a rather rare customer: a tough-looking old man wearing a suit of armor. “I am Zain, captain of the Granad Knights. I came upon hearing of your shop’s shockproof liquid.”

I stood there blankly for a second, taken aback by his powerful presence. “Oh, um, er…yes, we have some.”

“I’ve heard this product of yours grants resistance to lightning magic.”

“Wait. Who’d you hear that from?” S-seriously?! Doz’s little experiment worked?

“Your shockproof liquid is already famous in my profession, good sir!” Zain declared.

For real?

“Well, I designed it for…” I explained the product’s original purpose to Zain.

“Hmm. I see. You created it to protect you from static electricity?”

“Yes. I couldn’t stand it if someone got hurt using it for something else.”

“Gah ha ha ha! Fear not, young man. That’d be better than us heading into battle with no plan and getting attacked!”

Attacked? Before I could tilt my head in confusion, Zain requested five hundred bottles of shockproof liquid immediately. I explained that the order would take about a month, since I also made other products, and he signed off on it.

 

***

 

Four weeks later, I passed the crates of shockproof liquid to one of Zain’s knights. The next day, Ejil came to work grimacing.

“Listen to this, Doctor! Those dastardly humans have gotten smarter!”

Has he completely forgotten that I’m human?

“Electric magic doesn’t work on them anymore!” Ejil continued. “This proves I can never underestimate knowledgeable beings with technical expertise!”

Whoops. Er, my bad, Ejil.