Chapter 92 - Oriac - 2

CRUNCH.

The bedrock crumbled, opening a passage. Albrecht pulled away the excavator he had been holding against the wall, then gave a dry laugh as he peered inside.

“We were right.”

Beyond the hole, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through, lay what anyone would recognize as a laboratory.

With Albrecht leading the way, the party climbed through the hole one by one, leaving the wall they had been clinging to. Four or five lamps illuminated cluttered tables, bookshelves, and test tubes filled with unidentified liquids. Fortunately, no one seemed to be there.

“... Let us search here first.”

At Albrecht’s words, the party quickly scattered and began scanning the records.

“We need solid evidence that the master of the Magic Tower conducted dangerous research. With records, we can bring this into the open and arrest her.”

Albrecht spoke as he scoured a tabletop, an unmistakable urgency in his voice.

Unable to help search for a journal, Renée tightened her grip on her cane and prayed silently. May this end safely. May they leave this place without anyone getting hurt.

She had been dwelling on those thoughts for some time when—

“... I believe I found it.”

Bera’s voice rang through the laboratory. His expression hardened as he stared intently at an old notebook.

‘A research journal.’

It bore the rather strange title [The Origins of Species and Ages], but its contents clearly documented research results by date.

“Let me see.”

Bera nodded at Albrecht’s request, set the notebook on the table, and opened it to the first page. The others had gathered around, their gazes fixed on the journal.

=

Day 1. Beginning research and experiments on the primordial species today.

=

The records began immediately, without an introduction. Rohan furrowed his brow and murmured,

“Primordial species...”

“... That means the ancient species.”

Bera answered with a somber gaze and turned the page.

=

Day 3. Administered serum to [T - A - 0001]. Died one hour after administration. Reduce dosage.

‧

‧

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Day 11. [T - A - 0007] died. Reaction caused by failure to produce antibodies. Again, reduce dosage and focus on antibody production.

‧

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Day 42. [T - A - 0043] died. Cause identified. Liver recognizes serum as a toxic substance. Suspend liver function in next experiment.

=

Albrecht flinched. The fingertips turning the pages trembled, and his golden eyes took on a fierce look. His voice, thick with anger, filled the room.

“... Every corpse we saw that night was empty inside.”

“Yes. It appears those bodies were the results of these experiments.”

“I see. So that is what happened.”

Albrecht rapidly flipped through the pages. The number that had begun at 0001 rose past two digits into three, then into four.

From temporarily suspending organ function to implanting organs from other people, then removing organs altogether or injecting the ‘serum’ into organs separately—the master of the Magic Tower had carried out these experiments at the cost of thousands of lives.

CRUMPLE.

Having reached the journal’s final page, Albrecht crumpled it in his hand.

“And we knew nothing until it came to this...”

How could that be possible? Even as he asked himself, Albrecht found the answer.

‘The gutter.’

If she had abducted people from the gutter, she could easily have escaped notice. It was a place where people disappearing meant nothing.

She must have expanded her reach across the capital only when the people in the gutter were no longer enough. And judging from the final page, the experiments were already nearing their end. She had probably felt that being discovered no longer mattered.

Albrecht felt anger, and self-loathing as well—feelings directed at himself for doing nothing while all this unfolded. Yet even amidst those emotions, a question arose.

“What exactly does she mean by serum...?”

Bera answered his murmured question.

“... She explicitly called it research on the primordial species.”

Recalling the words in the journal’s title, Bera continued thinking. Research on the primordial species. Serum. A journal. Human experimentation.

The ancient species were the beings closest to immortality on this continent. This was research into them, and that ‘serum’ was being used for it. All of it suggested a single hypothesis.

“... Immortality.”

Bera’s gray eyes darkened.

“Could she have been researching immortality?”

“Such madness...!”

But Albrecht could not finish by asking who would do such a thing. Inwardly, he had reached the same conclusion as Bera. He ground his teeth.

“We must arrest her at once.”

With that, Albrecht snatched up the journal and headed toward the hole they had made.

Bera, meanwhile, remained deep in thought.

‘... Something is wrong.’

Something nagged at him. Surely he had missed something.

As that thought crossed his mind, Bera abruptly stopped in his tracks.

‘Did this happen in my previous life?’

The memories of his previous life had surfaced.

He could understand why they had failed to establish themselves in the gutter when he had been there. But did it make sense that these experiments had never come to light?

‘Did this never happen?’

Had this incident never occurred in his previous life? If so, why? Why had the tower master conducted experiments she had not conducted then?

The only difference this time was his presence or absence. Yet he had never had any connection to the tower master in his previous life, either, so attributing it to him made little sense.

Bera’s expression grew grave. His thoughts drew ever tighter. Now that he considered it, there was another strange detail.

‘... At the junk shop.’

How had those corpses prepared an ambush for their arrival? No matter how he looked at it, there had been no way for their plans to leak.

Linking those thoughts together, Bera arrived at one possibility.

‘... Outside interference.’

Someone who had not been there in his previous life, someone who had filled the place he had left vacant.

What if the tower master was not the one running the new cartel? What if she had merely benefited from it?

‘... No.’

What if someone had worked with her, urged her to conduct these experiments, and told her what was possible? What if that person had run the cartel and stationed troops in the junk shop against potential intruders?

His thoughts continued. Once again, he recalled the research journal he had just seen.

‘The serum.’

The serum had clearly existed from the start of the research. Moreover, the proposed solutions to failed experiments had involved adjusting the dosage, not the serum itself—altering the condition of the test subjects.

‘... The serum was already complete.’

The tower master had merely experimented with that completed serum. As the possibility took shape, something else came to mind.

“The junk shop.”

If an outside party was involved, if they had planted troops in the junk shop, if there was something they had to conceal even by doing that...

“Hm?”

“We must go there. There will definitely be a clue there.”

If there was an outside party capable of giving the tower master serum from an ancient species, someone who wanted to accomplish something with it... If someone still hidden was using the tower master as a shield to pursue their own ends...

‘I have to find them.’

He had to discover who they were and what they sought to achieve.

Still thinking, Bera approached Renée.

“Saintess, pardon me.”

“What? Oh, yes!”

Renée, who had been listening to their exchange, was puzzled by his sudden words. Then she nodded and entrusted herself to him.

Bera lifted Renée into his arms and headed toward the hole, passing Albrecht.

“We did not examine the junk shop closely that night.”

“... No. We could not afford to risk staying to search further.”

“The entire junk shop was an artifact enchanted with spatial expansion magic. There must have been a reason to expand the space that much.”

Albrecht’s eyes widened.

“Indeed...”

“We have the journal. We need to collect more conclusive physical evidence there.”

With those words, Bera climbed out through the hole. Looking toward the junk shop in the heart of the gutter far below, he spoke.

“Saintess, we are going down.”

Renée’s body went rigid. A moment later, Bera leaped from Oriac’s foundations.

* * *

THUD!

A tremendous crash rang out as Bera landed. The Jumper had finally broken down just before he reached the ground, causing him to drop abruptly.

“Saintess?”

“I’m all right.”

Renée released the breath she had held as the impact jolted her, then stepped away from Bera.

“Are we in front of the junk shop?”

“Yes. The others are coming down as well.”

Bera looked up, watching the party descend one after another.

A short while later, Albrecht, who had landed after Bera, asked with an alarmed expression,

“Are you all right?”

He had witnessed Bera’s fall at close range. Bera nodded and checked on Renée as the others all reached the ground.

“Let us go in.”

Albrecht drew Pure Blood. Without delay, he kicked open the junk shop’s door and stepped inside. What greeted him was—

“... Nothing?”

An empty junk shop.

There was nothing. It was not merely the absence of an ambush. The equipment, the tables and shelves, even the pieces of metal that had been displayed throughout the shop—all of it was gone, leaving the place completely bare.

Following the stunned Albrecht inside, Bera quietly surveyed the empty shop and continued thinking.

‘There is definitely something here.’

There had been something that could serve as a clue. There must be a reason someone had arranged this empty scene.

Bera walked farther inside, pursuing his deductions.

‘It won’t be somewhere out in the open.’

There must have been a purpose to the spatial expansion, something they had intended to accomplish by going that far. Where, then, was that purpose hidden?

Still pondering, Bera stopped in the middle of the junk shop and looked down at the wooden floor, thickly coated in filth and dust.

‘Twilight settled on the corpse’s chest.’

On their previous visit, after they had dealt with all the corpses, Rohan’s Twilight had headed for a corpse’s chest. And that corpse had been lying on the floor.

Bera thought,

‘Not the chest.’

What if it had been pointing to the floor?

He acted swiftly. Bera drew the Holy Sword and summoned his divine energy. The others stared in shock, and Albrecht was about to stop him when—

“What are you—!”

BOOM!

Bera struck the floor. Dust billowed up, obscuring their vision. He swept the hem of his robe to clear it away, and his eyes gleamed at what lay revealed beneath.

‘Found it.’

As the dust cleared, a vast cavity came into view beneath the floor.