༺ Studying And Training Is Such A Pain (1) ༻
Bubble— Bubble— Bubble—
A tank with bubbles popping.
Inside, a girl was floating, her body attached to some kind of breathing apparatus.
Her appearance was very much like Tywin’s, to the point one might think they were the same person.
“No, on closer look, she looks a little different.”
This girl was a bit thinner.
She looked a couple of years older too.
A subtle difference.
But my suspicions remained unchanged.
“I’d like it if you explained as simply as possible. I don’t know about complicated and difficult rules. If you lie or try to gloss over anything─.”
Click—
The shadow of Herod holding a gun aimed at the tank.
The shadow of the magician Sabernak with two staves also tensed up, aiming his staves at the tank or whatever machine.
“This whole illegal facility will be reduced to ashes.”
Experimenting on humans is illegal.
While things may be different in the Kingdom of Ordor or the plains of the faraway Barbaria, here, in Principality of Freesia existed a strong concept of human rights.
That’s why I chose this country as the place to raise my children.
And yet, to find such an illegal laboratory underground in such a land.
Honestly, human rights and ethical experiments were none of my business, but such things were like fatal traps in raising the children’s princess power.
Therefore, I didn’t feel any apprehension over destroying everything.
But Elle Cladeco spoke seriously.
“Everything here is astronomically valuable. You can’t just destroy them recklessly. These are treasures irreplaceable in human history.”
“Is that so?”
It did look expensive.
But her words… I’ve definitely heard them somewhere.
“Treasures, you see, should refer to sparkling jewels or piles of gold bars. It’s even better if there are beautiful maidens too. So, such threats won’t work as a bargaining chip on me.”
Just tell the story straight.
Quickly and concisely.
Although there was no need to shorten it, my brain was making strange thoughts on its own amidst this peculiar tension.
Elle Cladeco spoke as if she had no choice.
“This is me and my sister’s laboratory. We have experimented with quite a lot of things here. These tanks you see are the results.”
“Is that so?”
Cladeco’s sister.
I heard she was the wife of Ilgast.
Was she the non-blood-related sister?
Thinking of the name Ilgast, I suddenly remembered an item in my pocket.
It was a truth serum, a wonderful thing that could make one spill the truth.
“Eat this and then answer. And to prevent any mischief, I’ll have to tie you up tight first.”
With Brigitte’s help, I tied Elle Cladeco up with rope.
It was called 「Tentacle’s Tendon」
A formidable rope that tightened even more if you struggled to escape.
Into the mouth of the bound Cladeco, I pushed the truth serum.
Once Brigitte confirmed that she had swallowed the medicine, Elle finally spoke.
“Now that it’s come to this, there’s no reason to lie. Fine. I had intended to speak the truth to you, Professor Brigitte and Judas, and seek your help.”
“Is that so?”
“What I desire is for all humanity to ascend to a higher plane. The transcendence of all humanity. For everyone to reach level 50.”
Elle Cladeco’s ideal.
I had heard about this before.
I thought it was an absurd idea the moment I heard it.
“How much karma do you think one needs to transcend? And you want everyone to reach level 50? That’s impossible.”
“With conventional methods, it would indeed be impossible. That’s why this lab was needed. Here, we were experimenting with artificially accumulating karma to create ‘vessels’.”
Artificially accumulating karma to create vessels─.
It was starting to get a bit difficult to grasp.
“Explain it a bit simpler.”
“Simply put, it’s about mass-producing dummies that can accumulate a lot of karma when taken down. Then, without war or major incidents, humanity can gain a large amount of experience.”
I see.
To put it simply, it’s like artificially breeding high-experience villains to gain experience of.
Like artificially improving pigs or cows to make them tastier.
The experiment was about transforming humans into beings that would give more experience.
As I was lost in thought, Elle, as if she had been granted the right to speak, seized the opportunity to continue her speech.
“Imagine a world where everyone reaches level 50, where everyone becomes a transcendent. A state of equality for all against all. The world would be cruelly fair.”
It was a compelling argument.
However, Brigitte frowned and pointed to an aquarium with her hand.
“So you conducted illegal experiments on people under the guise of helping them? Kidnapped people to fund your experiments? And probably did even more horrific things than that.”
“There are indeed more horrific actions to be taken. You cannot advance if you’re buried in ethics and morals. To truly cross the line of human limitations, you must literally cross that line.”
Elle’s demeanor was calm, befitting of a mad scientist.
As expected of a researcher with such a track record.
“After all, the experiments were conducted on murderers and thieves deserving of the death penalty. That one-eyed Kali you see in the tank is a murderer who attacked a kindergarten and killed five noble children.”
Elle explained how each person sleeping in the tanks was a villain.
All of them were scum.
“I am utilizing those beyond redemption for the advancement of humanity. I am actually doing a good deed for the public good.”
What a smooth talker.
This must be what it takes to be called the greatest genius of Freesia.
Seeing the devices she developed, like computers or phones, made me feel as good as going back to my hometown.
However.
There was still an unresolved question.
“Then what about that kid who looks exactly like Tywin?”
“That’s─ cough, ha, ugh…?”
Elle suddenly vomited blood.
As if her intestines and lungs had burst.
At that sight, Brigitte panicked and asked me.
“What’s going on? Why all of a sudden? Judas, what did you do!?”
“No, I thought you were the one who did something?”
It was as if she had been poisoned.
Poison…
There was something that came to mind.
The truth serum given by Ilgast.
What if it actually was a lethal poison?
The chance to avenge the murder of your spouse by having the murderer succumb to the same fate.
When the opportunity came, people’s tendencies split into those who could press the button and those who couldn’t, and it seemed Ilgast was someone who could.
“Damn. What a headache.”
Elle couldn’t die yet.
I had many questions to ask.
It’s incredibly annoying when you’re cut off mid-conversation!
I get so curious to the point that I can’t sleep when something like that happens!
“Lung, organ damage… likely side effects from nightshade… cough, there, in the drawer…. mandrake… antidote syringe…”
With Elle spitting blood, I quickly moved, displaying my agility statistic, and followed her directions.
As I opened the drawer as Elle had said, there was a syringe with yellow liquid.
When I plunged it into Elle’s nape-
El, who had just been in agony, slumped to the floor.
Not dead, but it seems like she has overcome the crisis at least.
* * *
“I will create a vessel full of malicious karma intentionally. To it, Judas, you will transfer the curse you bear. And to it, we will also transfer the ‘Curse of Devastation’ that Miss Brigitte has.”
Elle’s plan was audacious.
An undying immortal Demon King.
Such was what she intended to create.
“It becomes a scarecrow that can continuously accumulate high levels of experience.”
Truly remarkable.
The issue was who would want such a role.
Wasn’t I that scarecrow?
Fury to pierce the heavens and wish to destroy the world?
Even the clever Brigitte naturally had to ask what needed to be asked.
“Control?”
“A homunculus cannot defy the commands of its creator. They are instinctively designed to crave and obey their creator’s affection, and as a double security, a familiar contract can be made.”
I remembered how the teddy bear Aru had been for Brigitte.
Indeed… homunculi follow their creator.
That mad magician Faust said as much.
Of course.
So that’s why Elle wanted to collaborate with Brigitte.
It was a moment that made sense in many ways.
“There’s something I want to ask.”
Brigitte looked at the aquarium.
The bubbling bubbles.
When Brigette’s azure eyes caught the various hues, she opened her lips as if finally voicing a story she had been pondering.
“Tywin, that child is a homunculus, isn’t she? Your familiar.”
“……”
Elle, who had been unfolding her story in various ways until now, now closed her lips.
The silence now held more meaning for me than the complex words she had used in her story just before.
Is that what happened?
Tywin isn’t Elle Cladeco’s biological daughter.
The fact that Elle had neglected Tywin like a goldfish in a bowl.
And the point that Tywin still liked her mother Elle made sense at that moment.
When she softly asked, “How did you find out?” Brigette replied, “Hair.”
Hair?
“There’s a ‘compass’ magic that can find familiars when they’re lost. It’s a spell that only works with beings you have a familiar contract with.”
Brigette had discerned Tywin’s true identity by seeing Elle use that compass magic to find her.
As I was organizing my thoughts about this astonishing truth, Elle Cladeco, who had been silent for quite a while, spoke again.
“Half right, half wrong. It’s true I have a familiar contract with Tywin, but she isn’t a miraculous being like a homunculus. She’s just a clone.”
Elle Cladeco’s gaze turned towards the girl floating in the water tank.
I could roughly grasp what the situation was at this moment.
The girl in the tank was Elle’s real daughter Tywin, and what was wandering the world now could be called the clone, a shadow of this child.
“I couldn’t create a homunculus that makes something out of nothing. But I did have a knack for cloning, creating something from something. Of course, it’s inferior to the original and ends up becoming another being. This child isn’t Tywin. You might say she’s her elder sister.”
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