Chapter 63
Chapter 63
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 63
Chapter Title: Nester Temple (2)
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Cecilia shouted as she gazed at her reflection in the transparent glass window.
“Jeneth! Over here! Here!”
But even as she shook the iron bars and called out with all her might, he simply stood there blankly before the window, showing no reaction whatsoever.
“Fucking hell! Can’t you shut up? I might just rip your throat out.”
The man who approached her glared daggers and issued a threat.
Though calling for Jeneth was the only way to escape this place, Cecilia had no choice but to clamp her mouth shut as the man’s hand drifted toward the sword at his waist.
Beyond the bars imprisoning her were quite a few other people as well.
They all held their breaths, desperately fixing their gazes on Jeneth alone as he peered through the window.
“Kekeke.”
The man let out a sly chuckle at the sight of them.
“You really look like a bunch of monkeys trapped in cages. I have no idea how that guy made it here, but there’s no way in hell he knows you’re on this side.”
This was Dr. Jurha’s secret laboratory.
The wall blocking Jeneth was the sole entrance to this place.
But it was a special door that could only be opened from within.
Security magic had been cast upon it as well, allowing those inside to see outside clearly while ensuring no one outside could detect the space within.
On top of that, the door’s magically reinforced durability exceeded even steel.
Even if someone realized there was a space inside, few could so much as scratch it.
And yet, they clung to empty hope, sending desperate glances his way.
“Pathetic lot. You think he’ll notice this place just because you’re staring like that?”
The man tapped the wall and ran his hands over it, but as expected, he failed to sense the space beyond.
He would probably give up and leave soon.
Cecilia bit down hard on her lower lip as she watched Jeneth.
*‘Please, please, please…’*
She prayed desperately for him to find them.
Her guard knight Lily had already been dragged off by these bastards.
If time dragged on like this, Lily would die for certain.
Her own fate would be no different.
*‘I never should have insisted on coming here…’*
Cecilia bitterly regretted the choice she had made the night before.
The moment she had sensed something off in the hospital basement, she should have reported it to her father honestly.
She had tried to investigate on her own, thinking it might just be baseless suspicion, but who knew it would come to this...
Her greatest mistake had been growing complacent due to her status as the eldest daughter of the Teynan House.
She had never imagined such dangerous individuals would be involved.
The reality of this place, which she learned after being captured, was utterly horrifying.
They were using people as test subjects for some kind of experiment.
It was the sort of brutality that made one’s hair stand on end just hearing about it.
How could anyone conduct human experimentation on fellow humans?
And moments ago, Lily had been dragged off to them.
Cecilia had no idea what horrors Lily would endure, but she could easily guess they would be unimaginably cruel.
In this dire situation, all Cecilia could do was pray desperately for Jeneth to discover them.
She was well aware of his strength, having heard about it from Cardron.
For now, Jeneth was her one and only lifeline.
“Ah...”
In that moment, a short gasp escaped Cecilia’s lips. Her legs gave way, and she slumped down before the bars.
Jeneth, who had been peering through the window, had turned and was walking away.
She was not the only one disappointed.
Those who had harbored even a sliver of hope stared at his retreating back with expressions of utter despair, as if the heavens themselves had collapsed.
“Kahahahaha!”
The man who had been watching them burst into raucous laughter.
He could clearly see their faces shift from hope to despair.
The thrill of spectating that change sent shivers of delight through his body.
Brimming with a sense of superiority, he mocked them to the fullest.
“Stupid fools! What did I tell you? No one outside can ever detect this place! Kahahaha... Huh?”
Lost in his triumph, he abruptly cut off his laughter. Something was off with the test subjects’ expressions. A spark of expectation was reigniting over their fallen faces.
Wondering what it was, he turned around—and saw Jeneth standing before the wall once more.
What followed was a thunderous explosion.
Kwaaaang!
A deafening roar tore through the air, accompanied by a fierce gust carrying dust that swept across the chamber.
“...What the fuck is this?”
Once the aftershock had passed and silence returned to the chamber,
the man cautiously lowered the arms he had used to shield his face. Through the settling dust cloud, a man emerged, striding forward.
“As expected, my instincts were correct.”
An indifferent voice devoid of any emotional inflection.
Even knowing this was the same man who had stood before the wall moments ago, the thug stared at him as if beholding a ghost.
He had crossed a wall thought utterly impassable.
“How in the world...?”
Jeneth brushed the dust from his clothes and replied calmly.
“It just seemed suspicious, so I smashed it.”
* * *
Having come this far, I felt it would be a shame to simply turn back, and the basement’s layout had struck me as oddly suspicious, so I smashed the wall—and discovered a vast space beyond.
“You’re saying you demolished the wall on nothing but a hunch?”
The man parroted back with a dumbfounded look.
I regarded him coldly.
My keenly attuned physical senses operated on an entirely different plane from mere hunch.
This pathetic fool naturally couldn’t comprehend the difference.
Shifting my gaze past him, I spotted a dubious enclosure that could have been a prison or a beast pen.
Cecilia, whom everyone thought had run away, was there with tears welling in her eyes.
And she was far from the only one confined within.
“Please, save us!”
The captives inside swarmed the bars, wailing in unison.
“What’s going on?!”
At that moment, a group clutching swords burst out from the long corridor stretching to the left. The man in front had already gripped his blade as well.
“You’ll regret not turning back.”
The man sneered viciously.
I slowly drew the Thundercloud Sword and took it in hand.
“Get him!”
They charged at me all at once.
Pathetic, for all their bluster.
Advanced mana users at best, if I’m being generous.
All of them were uniformly mediocre.
Shwaaak!
A silver trajectory bloomed, and the foremost man’s head erupted in a spray of blood, soaring into the air. Those charging toward me faltered at the sight.
I launched myself at them.
As I kicked off, their pupils dilated massively into view.
A streak of pure white light coiled into them.
Blood rained down once more.
Only five stood in my path.
The Thundercloud Sword glided through the space, effortlessly butchering them. They collapsed in sprays of blood without so much as a proper scream.
Truly dull opponents.
“Lily was dragged further inside!”
No sooner had I dealt with them than Cecilia cried out.
I nodded.
“Stay put in there for now.”
Leaving them behind the bars—which would now serve as a protective barrier—I headed deeper in.
The long corridor was lined with doors spaced at regular intervals, like hospital rooms.
No wonder the basement had seemed so cramped; they had concealed this expansive area within.
As I advanced, I released my ki to blow the doors open.
Each time I passed, the doors on either side burst outward with a resounding bang!, flapping open like wings.
The rooms within were arranged like operating theaters, and a thick stench of blood wafted out with every door that opened.
Some were empty, but others held people strapped to tables, surrounded by white-robed figures who stared at me in terror.
I bypassed them and reached the final room.
Turning back, I declared,
“Anyone who steps out that door from now on dies by my hand. You have one way to survive: save the people lying before you.”
With that, I paced up and down the corridor, keeping watch over them. Those who ignored me and fled met with their heads exploding.
Fortunately—or perhaps by luck—no one was in critical condition.
The experiments had only just been about to begin.
Lily, the guard knight, was merely unconscious and otherwise unharmed.
I rounded up the white-robed ones into a single room and set up their IV transfusions.
They would sleep soundly until I decided to wake them.
My plan was to hand them over to Teynan Castle.
I placed the still-unconscious victims into the cages, where the others could tend to them.
Though a fair amount of time had passed in handling all this, there was no reaction from the ward above.
I had muffled the sound with my inner energy when smashing the wall, and it seemed no one outside was monitoring the current situation.
Now it was time for the final step.
At the end of the long corridor.
One last door remained.
Unlike the others, it bore security magic, so I had deliberately left it closed until the area was secured.
No one who appeared to be in charge had shown themselves.
He was likely beyond this door.
I delivered a powerful kick to it.
Kwaaaang!
The sturdy steel door crumpled like paper and shattered.
With the iron portal gone, my unobstructed view revealed a vast hall.
How much tunneling had these bastards done?
As I stepped inside, the rustle of my clothes echoed loudly through the space.
Sasasasak.
Black shadows darted about in the darkness like scurrying cockroaches.
In an instant, over thirty figures clad in black landed before me.
“Grrr.”
Low growls emanated from beneath their face-concealing masks.
What the hell? Lunatics?
Their forms were unmistakably human, yet their eyes blazed with feral killing intent like wild beasts.
“Kekeke. To come this far, you must have some guts. You’ll make for a fine test subject.”
From behind them came a rasping voice, like metal scraping against metal.
The voice stirred a familiar sense of déjà vu.
The masked figures parted to either side, allowing an elderly man clutching a staff to slowly emerge between them.
A shabby old man draped in a white gown.
He looked like a skull that had donned human skin.
A familiar face.
I had suspected as much from his voice, and my suspicions were confirmed.
He was the mage who had kidnapped Veron in the past.
The same one I had already killed once before.