The Relic
"Welcome back, Young Master!"
"Yeah."
Once the business with the Church was settled, I returned to my usual life. Not to the ducal house, of course — to the dormitory the Academy provided. In any case, I had secured the Church's promise of support, and after the incident that had unfolded there, I had no desire to linger a moment longer.
"Young Master! Dinner's rea—"
"I'll eat later, Ella."
"...Yes."
Of course, coming back didn't mean I had time to rest. As sorry as I felt toward Ella, who had waited on me all this while, there was something far more important on my plate now. The news reached my ears the moment I set foot back inside the Academy: the results of the Midterm Evaluation were out. Having taken down a mid-tier magical beast, I had naturally placed in the top ranks — which meant, in other words, that nothing stood in my way any longer.
Nothing left to hold me back, that is, from using this relic — the Cursed Clockwork Device, a magic tool said to grant command over souls. Even merely holding it, I could feel a chill gathering in my palm. I hadn't yet faced its trial, of course. Even conquering the trial would be pointless if I couldn't wield the thing afterward — which was exactly why I hadn't tried. But that no longer mattered. There was no one left to stop me from using it as I pleased. And if overcoming the trial truly did grant me dominion over souls, then there were things I needed to attempt the very moment it did. I had no reason left to stand still.
The moment the Assimilation began, everything around me went dark. I waited, and before long the blackness split open horizontally, light spilling in as though I were inside some pitch-black box that had just been cracked apart. What met my eyes first was an old, wrinkled hand — and the magic circuits stirring beneath its touch. The white lab coat alone made it plain enough: this was the body of a man who researched things for a living.
When I lifted my head, a massive glass tank filled with a suspicious fluid swam into view. And beside it stood a girl who looked, at most, about seven years old. Attached to her right arm was a strange mass of flesh — a single lump studded with dozens of mouths, wriggling like a slug as it clung to the glass tank.
The instant I narrowed my eyes at a scene that made me doubt my own sanity, memories that belonged to no memory of mine came flooding in. The owner of this body was a scientist who conducted live experiments. His goal was the domestication of magical beasts — and toward that end, he had been abducting children from every corner of the nation. The experiments had been running for three or four years now. Naturally, everything this body had witnessed while carrying them out poured into my head as well.
Tentacles implanted into a body breeding with one another until they burst from a boy's eyes. A brother who had tried to shield his little sister, his brain extracted and transplanted into a predatory beast-type magical creature, then observed to see whether it would devour her. Experiments testing whether a magical beast fitted with human genitalia would seethe with lust toward a human. Children young enough to be his own grandchildren screamed and screamed on the far side of a single pane of glass, and his face never so much as twitched. Because in the heart of this man — a man who committed atrocities too vile to even speak aloud — one conviction sat rooted firm: that it was all for the sake of humanity.
Any ordinary person would have been retching and bolted for the door. This man simply stood there, unmoved. I wanted to spit a curse, but nothing came out. For some reason my lips stayed sealed as though locked with a latch — and at that very moment, I sensed a presence stirring behind me.
"Doctor, the 572nd test subject has been disposed of."
"Cause?"
Only when another researcher delivered the report did the mouth open of its own accord — and even then, it was a flat, wooden voice utterly devoid of interest.
"The moment the magical beast tissue was transplanted, it triggered a rejection response and invaded the blood vessels, reversing the flow of blood."
"Death by embolism, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"What a shame. Subjects are so terribly hard to come by these days."
"..."
"Is this child the only one to show even partial success?"
A child he had abducted had died — and far from any self-reproach, the man worried only that abductions had grown difficult. Worse, I could feel the emotion beneath his words. He genuinely meant every syllable. Revolting. His convictions, his state of mind, his very thoughts came flooding into my skull just as they were.
I was reeling — nearly swept under by a tidal wave of information vast enough to make me forget who I even was — when the red warning lamps on the ceiling suddenly began to flash. And the instant they did, another researcher came sprinting up from behind, running so desperately he looked ready to fling the documents in his hand to the floor. The Doctor found it strange.
"What is it."
"D-Doctor!! Th-the subjects—"
His words never landed. His head had been crushed beneath a colossal mass of flesh. The mass — no longer vivid crimson but a deep, dark red — turned toward us, and at its tip a single eyeball bloomed into being.
"D-Doctor, th-that thing—!"
"It really... succeeded...?"
"...What?"
Even as the first researcher trembled like a leaf, this body walked straight toward the mass of flesh. There was no fear in it whatsoever. Only an emotion steeped in euphoria.
"At last... my experiment has succeeded...! Humans can wield magical beasts... ha... hahaha!!"
"You insane bas—"
The scene from moments ago repeated itself. The researcher's body, headless, swayed and crumpled to the floor — while a single eyeball went on staring at me.
"Ha... ha... hahaha!! Magnificent. Magnificent!!"
"..."
"Who should I tell about this? Who must I tell before they look up to me again—"
Before the words could end, a tentacle swept past his cheek. It was enough to shut that mouth — and another crimson tentacle followed close behind, gliding past his side, then settled neatly on the floor behind him as though bearing some sacred offering. And a small, delicate foot stepped down upon that tentacle.
"Y-You..."
"..."
"You were the success, after all!!"
The owner of that foot was the girl I had seen at the very beginning — the girl with that same mass of flesh clinging to her right arm. She glanced around the room once, then tore her soft, lovely lips apart with effort.
"Why...?"
"Hm?"
"Why... did you — no, why did you do this to us?"
Her lips carried a question. Her bright, keen eyes carried a grudge. Clutching the thing that could hardly be called her right arm anymore with her trembling left hand, she asked me — and soon her emotions flowed into me as well. A viscous, festering mass of feeling too foul to be called mere resentment. Could language alone ever hold this hatred? And the emotion of this body's owner, rising to meet it... was, astonishingly, nothing at all.
"What are you talking about?"
"...?"
"Had it not been for me, the likes of you would have ended as nothing but society's garbage. And yet I made you useful to humanity, did I not...?"
"...Ha."
Bewilderment was written across his face — and his heart matched it. Astonishingly, the man truly did not understand what he had done wrong. As though not a single clue came to mind. The moment those words landed, the girl's hatred swelled fiercer. His placid insistence on his own innocence fused with her viscous, all-consuming resentment. My mind churned. Chaos. Endless hellfire had met a cold so bitter it burned, and the two tangled together, shredding my skull into wreckage — and on top of it all, a violent pain tore through my right arm. A pain like something being ripped apart. And with it, a voice.
"Huh...?"
"First, my right arm—"
"Ggh... GAAAAAAH!!!"
The girl's right arm moved — and the crimson mass of flesh behind him took this body's right arm. No, to be precise, it devoured it.
"Veron... you had two eyes, didn't you...?"
"Th... GAAAAAAAH!!"
The girl did not stop there. Murmuring another name, she took this body's two eyes.
"Perhaps you don't even remember who Bern was?"
"N-No, why... ghhk..."
"She was my friend. Hundreds of strands of tentacle burst from her eyes because of you, and she died."
"A... AAAAGH!!"
With that, she pressed the mass of flesh against the Doctor's freshly hollowed sockets — and before long, flowers bloomed in his eyes. One horrific flower after another, squirming, begging for life. His agony reached me through my own eyes: the sensation of something taking root deep inside them. And at the same time I felt her rage — settled somewhat, yet burning hotter than ever.
"Why— why are you doing this?"
"...Why?"
"Th-that's right! At least give me a reason—"
That mouth never opened again. Something had slid inside it before it could.
"Why, why, why, WHY?!!!!"
"Ggh... ugh..."
What followed was ordinary. All that remained was to endure the pain. The girl was past fury — too enraged even to feel. The man was so drowned in agony he had no room left for emotion at all. Rather than bear the way my mind had been scrambled to mush earlier, this was almost a mercy. She split his belly open and strung his organs up like trophies; something writhed inside his viscera — but in the end, it finished. After a long struggle, the man's breath ran out first. And with it, the light around us died.
Then a cube of dark crimson appeared before me. I knew it instinctively: that thing was the core of this relic.
"Is it over?"
[..Yes.]
As I rose from my seat and made to leave, another voice rose from the thing.
[Do you... do you too think I was wrong?]
"..."
[I.. I, I—!!]
"Shut up. And let me out, will you."
I cut off the thing's noisy bid for sympathy. I had felt its convictions and its heart well enough — but that hardly absolved its sins. Considering the number of children it had killed, one could even say it had died gently. At least it had been allowed to die as a human. The moment it heard my words, its form vanished — and in the same breath, blinding white light swallowed my body. Out of the darkness, and then out of the light, I saw myself standing once more in reality.
The relic is now in a state where the wielder may use it.
This relic holds the lingering wills of countless children. Their grudges and resentments have formed a viscous wall. The children prayed — even to beings they knew were fabrications — hoping to escape this hell. They longed for an adult they could believe in. And the vengeful wills acknowledged you: you, who watched that carnage unfold, endured such agony, and suppressed your emotions.
By borrowing the power of these vengeful wills, you can now see and command ghosts.
For the ghosts under your command alone, you may hear their voices and exert physical force.