Human Experimentation
"And soooo..."
Meria spread out the map she'd gotten her hands on and was enthusiastically explaining something, but my post-meal drowsiness made me so sluggish that I couldn't help but let her voice drift right through one ear and out the other.
Snap!
"Y-Yes!"
Meria snapped her fingers at me, looking slightly pouted.
Even though we'd been traveling together for a month now, I always spaced out around this time of day.
"I was thinking Sultana would be a good choice for our next town. It's a bit heavily religious, but they worship the Goddess of Abundance and Prosperity, so it should actually be quite nice. You did say you wanted to experience all kinds of places, after all. You don't have any aversion to religion, or worship some other god, do you?"
"Not really. My parents did some trading, so they technically believed in Equita, the Goddess of Equality. But it wasn't like they were devout followers or anything. It was more like a good luck charm that active merchants use, you know?"
Speaking of religion, it makes me miss Lord Eral. I wonder how he's doing...
Meria, who had no way of knowing that I was thinking about another woman right in front of the girl I'd been sharing a bed with—even if we weren't officially dating—nodded and declared our departure for the next town with a bright smile.
And then...
"Next time, we are definitely... researching the route beforehand..."
"We took three or four days to walk a route that takes a single day by carriage. I'm not just physically exhausted; the sheer stupidity of making ourselves suffer like this is mentally killing me."
We deeply, deeply regretted our decision to walk just to save a bit of coin on what we thought was a safe road.
Upon arriving in the town, we tried to find an inn to secure a room first, but someone approached us before we could even start looking.
"Excuse me, but are you adventurers?"
It was a fresh-faced boy who looked to be in his late teens.
Though I'd never seen his specific attire before, the mixture of green and brown practically screamed, "I am a priest."
I felt a sudden pang of anxiety, wondering if he was about to ask us for a favor. But we clearly looked dead on our feet, and even if he did ask, we were far too exhausted to hesitate for even a second before turning him down.
"We're actually pretty exhausted right now..."
"Oh, no, no! I'm not here to ask for a favor. I was actually wondering if you'd like to rest at our temple, if you don't mind."
This unexpected kindness forced me to hesitate.
Is this some new kind of scam? Do they have some hidden agenda? Am I overthinking things? Or is there something I don't know...?
"First of all, my name is Endel. Our town has been growing lately, so we've had a massive influx of people. There are inns, of course, but they're constantly packed. Our cathedral is planning to run a trial lodging service, but since we're still in the early stages, we're asking a few adventurers to try it out. Once we fully establish the lodgings, we'll charge for them, but right now it's strictly a pilot run, so it won't cost you a single copper. Please don't worry."
I glanced over at Meria. Whether she just didn't care where we slept as long as we had a bed, or because the mention of packed inns had spooked her, she was already nodding rapidly.
Free things are usually the most dangerous, but since it was a cathedral, there wasn't much room for suspicion. For now, I decided to just make sure we were actually heading to a real cathedral.
Attached awkwardly to the side of a moderately sized cathedral was a warehouse-like building. That had to be the lodging facility they'd added while renovating the place.
"Whoaaa..."
The room was so lavish that it made me wonder if the "abundance" they worshiped was of material wealth rather than crops. I'd already thought the church interior was extravagant when we walked in, but I never imagined the guest rooms would be on this level.
"How is the room?"
"Is there a reason it's... this fancy?"
"It's simply our high priest's personal taste. He wanted to make it as grand as possible within the church's allocated budget. In reality, the gold is just cheap plating, and if you look closely, the only golden parts are on the bed and some of the chairs. The stained-glass windows just make the whole room look more dazzling than it actually is."
They might have pulled off a cost-effective luxury on a tight budget, but I couldn't help but wonder if they'd use the good reviews to charge exorbitant prices once they officially opened.
Well, we were staying for free, and whatever happened later was none of our business anyway.
"Let's start with a meal. The western chapel occasionally provides food, but since it's entirely free, the quality isn't exactly up to commercial standards. So, we hired a proper chef for this. Everyone worked incredibly hard to strike a balance between quality for travelers and maintaining the church's minimum profit margins."
"Should we meet with the bishop? Even if we're just giving feedback in exchange, you're providing us with free lodging and meals."
"You only need to meet him right before you leave. He's left most of the details to us."
Well, if that was the case, I'd gladly accept.
"I'm so tired... Can I eat later...?"
The moment Meria dropped her bag, she collapsed onto the bed and asked in a weak voice. The priest—Endel—paused for a moment, briefly considered it, and then nodded.
"Of course."
But we weren't just here to slack off. Since we were eating and sleeping for free in exchange for our feedback, evaluating the service was technically a job.
"Come on, get up. We aren't getting this for free, you know. Eat first, then you can rest. Eat."
"Ughhh..."
Despite looking like she was on the verge of death moments ago, the food seemed to stimulate Meria's appetite. Even after finishing her plate, she kept casting lingering glances around the table.
She was trying to be subtle about it, but sitting directly across from her, I could see right through her.
"I'll hear your overall thoughts after you've had a good rest. I'd love to get your feedback on the entire experience, not just the room and the food."
"You're taking this very seriously. It seems someone has really taken a liking to this project."
"Surprisingly, quite a few of our priests enjoy this sort of thing, which has made the process go very smoothly."
Once we were escorted back to our room, Meria immediately succumbed to her exhaustion and drifted off. I, too, was far more tired than I realized, and blacked out almost instantly.
When I finally woke up, my mind so hazy I couldn't tell if I'd slept or simply fainted, the first thing that greeted me wasn't the luxurious room from before. It was a massive, pitch-black chamber.
I could hear a low murmur of voices, the rustling of pages being turned, and the crackle of a burning fire.
And I was tied up.
Where is Meria?
I frantically looked around. Meria was tied to a chair not too far away, still fast asleep.
Then, the priest quietly materialized from behind my chair.
"You motherfucker..."
"Ah, you're awake?"
He wore the exact same smile as before, but given the circumstances, it now looked incredibly punchable.
"Are you going to kill us?"
"Calm down. It's no fun if you spoil the ending of a book, is it? Personally, I'm the type who doesn't even like to reveal the genre."
"Hey!"
A group of five or six priests gathered in the center of the room called out to him. Only then did I notice they were wearing pure white ritual robes over their clerical vestments.
"Let me give you a spoiler: you're going to die today."
I thrashed my body violently, but the tight binds around my wrists didn't budge an inch.
The bastard merely smiled and nodded. Since I hadn't been able to fully survey my surroundings while talking to him, I looked around the room once more.
The ceiling was low, and the chamber was about the size of a standard stable, but there were several smaller rooms branching off to the left and right. In the center of the main room, where the priests were gathered, a massive pattern was drawn on the floor in some sort of dark red substance, though their bodies blocked a clear view of it.
"Is this the will of your precious Goddess of Abundance?"
"My, you're surprisingly talkative. I thought you were a polite woman of few words, asking only what was necessary."
"And I thought you were a decent person, but you're just a smug piece of shit."
Without his expression changing in the slightest, Endel opened a book he had tucked under his arm and held it up for me to see.
Even so, all I could make out were intricate geometric patterns, crude illustrations of bountiful harvests, and drawings of dead humans and animals.
"Abundance and prosperity alone cannot make humanity truly happy. We cannot simply rely on Goddess Prospeira forever. What we desire is regeneration—specifically, a power that could be called hyper-regeneration, or even immortality."
"You want immortality? Isn't that a bit hypocritical for religious zealots who preach about the afterlife?"
"Haha, immortality is quite wonderful, you know. Even if an afterlife exists, our current bonds and surroundings are far too precious to let go. Think of it like a child who simply doesn't want to move to a new house."
He fell silent for a moment, spinning slowly on his heel before speaking again.
"But we aren't the ones who will receive this immortality. It's the livestock. Imagine a beast whose belly you can slice open to harvest meat, only for it to grow back so you can harvest it again and again. A next-generation solution to replace the massive amounts of grain wasted on raising animals. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Then go experiment on your fucking animals. Why the hell are you doing this to us?"
"Think of it as killing two birds with one stone. Human immortality... doesn't it just reek of gold?"
"Go fuck yourself and die, you absolute piece of trash."
"And above all, humans can tell us exactly where it hurts. When animals scream, it's just noise. But humans are high-performance test subjects who can scream details—like where the pain is, whether it feels like burning, or if it feels like being stabbed."
Oh, look at this meticulous fucking genius.
"We've been at this for about half a year now. We've tried all sorts of experiments, but none of them have really worked out. Splicing them with animals, various rituals, regeneration-promoting spores... they all ended up dying in the end. Ah, though there was one child whose eyes and tongue we gouged out who managed to survive. I wonder what they're up to these days."
With those final words, he turned away and began focusing on the preparations for the ritual.