They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World-Chapter 151: Fix it

Tessa scanned the list, her eyes moving down the page with focused attention.

Then she looked up and winked.

"Of course. I can get you all of these."

She folded the paper and tucked it into her apron pocket, already moving toward the back storage area of the infirmary.

I followed.

Rowan, obviously, also followed.

I glanced back at him. He was carrying the empty supply tray from earlier with absolutely no convincing reason to still be holding it, his eyes fixed on the back of my head.

"Why are you here?"

"To help." His tone was perfectly neutral.

"We’re looking for herbs."

"I know where things are stored."

Tessa glanced back at both of us, her expression perfectly pleasant.

"It’s not a big deal, Rowan." she said simply, and pushed open the storage room door.

Rowan followed anyway.

It took most of the day.

The infirmary storage had maybe half of what I needed.

The rest required going to the village’s main herb store, then to two different households that Tessa somehow knew kept specific plants in their gardens, then to the communal storage where dried goods from the surrounding area were kept.

Tessa moved through it all with complete certainty, identifying plants by sight, smell, and touch, pulling exactly what was needed without hesitation or second-guessing.

At the communal storage, she reached past three unmarked bundles on the top shelf and pulled out exactly the dried root I’d described from memory, dusted it off, and handed it to me.

"How did you know which one that was?" I asked.

"It smells different from the others." She said it like it was obvious.

By the time we returned to the infirmary as the evening light was going golden through the windows, the collection of materials covered most of one end of a long work table.

I stood back and looked at it all.

"You know a lot about this," I said.

Tessa set down the last bundle and dusted her hands off on her apron, a small smile pulling at her mouth.

"I’m the chief’s granddaughter." She rubbed a finger briefly under her nose.

"There’s a reason for that beyond just family. He taught me everything he knew about the land around Oakmere. What grows where, what it’s used for, which plants don’t grow near each other and why." A small shrug. "Someone has to know these things."

I looked at the spread of materials and thought that was probably an understatement.

From the other side of the table, Rowan made a face at her. Eyebrows raised, expression mockingly impressed.

Tessa narrowed her eyes at him.

"Don’t," she said.

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

"Was I?"

"You had your ’about to say something insufferable’ face."

"I don’t have a face for that."

"You have several faces for that."

"Name one."

"The one you’re making right now."

"This is just my face—"

"Both of you," I said.

They stopped and looked at me.

"I need to work."

Tessa straightened immediately, clearing the extra wrapping and debris from the table without being asked. Rowan, to his credit, helped without being told.

I spread my written pages out on the cleared section of the table, weighing the corners with whatever was nearby, and looked at the materials.

Then I opened my status and checked my Alchemy skill.

"Alchemy (Basic) - Proficiency: 23%"

Twenty-three percent.

I activated my debug vision and focused on the first material.

object_id: "silverleaf_stem_dried"

type: "botanical"

mana_conductivity: 0.34

biological_compatibility: HIGH

channel_affinity: "moderate_resonance"

processing_state: "dried"

optimal_processing: "low_heat_extraction_aqueous"

active_compounds: {

compound_01: "silvanol" (concentration: 0.18)

compound_02: "channel_trace_minerals" (concentration: 0.07)

}

I pulled a small iron pot from the infirmary supplies, measured water by eye, and began.

The work was slow and required more concentration than I’d expected.

My alchemy proficiency was low enough that I had to use the debug vision almost constantly, checking compound concentrations, monitoring temperature against optimal ranges, catching processing errors before they compounded.

Tessa sat on a stool nearby.

Rowan sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders were almost touching.

He’d stopped glaring at me, at least. Apparently watching someone do something genuinely incomprehensible was sufficiently distracting.

The first solution took forty minutes to get right.

The second material was harder.

I burned the first attempt.

Then discarded and retried.

The second attempt held.

Tessa quietly cleared the failed batch away without commenting on it.

By the time full dark had fallen outside, I had three separate prepared components sitting in small ceramic cups on the table, covered with cloth to keep them stable.

I studied them, checking and rechecking the properties the debug vision showed me against what my written logic said they should be.

The combination sequence mattered. Order affected the resulting compound structure.

I combined the first and second components slowly, watching the debug overlay.

Then the third.

This was the difficult part, the third component was what would actually carry the modification into the body’s mana channel substrate. The first two set up the conditions. The third was the delivery mechanism.

Too much and it would be toxic. Too little and it wouldn’t penetrate deep enough to affect the anchoring substrate.

I added it drop by drop, watching the numbers.

[COMBINATION_MONITOR - CRITICAL_PHASE]

concentration: 0.003...0.007...0.012...

threshold_minimum: 0.015

threshold_maximum: 0.024

current: 0.018

status: WITHIN_RANGE

stability: STABLE

I stopped adding.

Waited thirty seconds, watching the stability indicator.

Then exhaled.

[COMPOUND_COMPLETE]

object_id: "anchor_disruption_agent_v1"

form: "liquid"

dosage: 15ml per 60kg bodyweight

administration: "oral, once daily, 3 consecutive days"

expected_onset: 6-12 hours post-first-dose

mechanism: {

primary: "biological_substrate_modification"

secondary: "anchor_point_destabilization"

tertiary: "natural_mana_cycling_support"

}

side_effects: {

mana_channel_sensitivity: "elevated_48-72hrs"

fatigue: "moderate"

other: NONE_DETECTED

}

pathogen_effect: {

replication: "SUSPENDED (estimated)"

existing_corruption: "dispersal_initiated"

clearance_timeline: "90-120 days natural cycling"

}

confidence: 71%

Seventy-one percent.

Not great. But not terrible. Enough to try.

I looked at the small vial of pale liquid sitting in the ceramic cup.

It didn’t look like much. Clear with a faint blue tinge, maybe twenty milliliters total.

Enough for one person’s first dose.

I needed to make more.

Much more.

I leaned back, rolled my neck until it cracked, and looked at Tessa.

"Do you have more of the second material? The resinous one?"

She was already looking at the depleted supply, thinking.

"Not here. But Mira keeps a small supply, she uses it for chest complaints in the winter." She tilted her head. "How much do you need?"

I did the calculation.

Four infected patients. Three doses each.

"Enough for maybe fifteen doses total."

Tessa nodded, already standing.

"I’ll get it in the morning. It’s too late to be knocking on doors now."

Rowan stood as she did, automatically.

She glanced at him sideways.

He looked at the wall with studied casualness.

She smiled, just barely, and looked back at me.

"Get some sleep this time."

I looked at the vial.

Seventy-one percent confidence.

Have to get it higher before I give this to anyone.

"I’ll think about it," I said.

The infirmary was quiet, just the soft sounds of sleeping patients and the night settling around the village.

I pulled my notes back toward me and started checking the logic chain again from the beginning.

Where did the seventy-one percent come from? What’s the twenty-nine percent of uncertainty?

Find it and fix it.

I picked up the quill.