Taboo (5) - The Wise Star's Forbidden Creation
Wednesday afternoon at 5 PM, the hour of twilight worship. Everyone staying in the Holy Kingdom had to drop whatever they were doing and head to the nearest chapel to offer their prayers. It wasn't just a suggestion—it was a near-mandatory institutional custom.
One might wonder what happens if the chapel is too far away, but in the theocratic Holy Kingdom, even remote mountain valleys and seldom-trodden forests had chapels built in them, making the system feasible.
"...Doing this every week is a real chore."
And even that didn't exempt the Palstar Heroes. The Wise Star, Abraham Nobwells, set aside his work and stepped out of his laboratory. Not only him—the staff managing the Tower of Salvation were all filing out of the spire as well.
The spire guards, heading out for worship themselves, greeted Abraham warmly as he emerged.
"Even you, Lord Abraham."
"Lord Abraham, how's the research coming along?"
Abraham could keep his lab's secrets thanks to these guards, who patrolled the spire day and night without fail. He nodded with a kindly smile.
"It's progressing well, thanks to you all keeping it safe."
"That's great to hear."
"You owe us a feast when you get those successful results!"
"Hoho, you got it."
Abraham could afford to treat them anytime. After all, success in his research meant his precious daughter would return... What was money in the face of that? He'd gladly buy them the most expensive meal in the world.
...It's almost time. Truly, not much longer.
Abraham's mind was filled with thoughts of rushing through worship and returning to dive back into his work. He yearned to end this pointless ritual hour and get one step closer to reuniting with his daughter. Hoping today's service would end a little quicker than usual, he left the Tower of Salvation.
And shortly after, the window of the now-empty lab rattled.
It shook several times before going quiet for a moment. But only for a moment.
Bang!!
With a violent crash, the window was torn off, and light flooded into the dim laboratory. The glare soon dimmed as three shadows fell across the room.
"I-Is it okay to just smash it like that?"
"No backing out now that we've come this far."
"No one's left in the spire, so we won't get caught right away."
The shadows belonged to Seong Hyun-jin, Serena Eldark, and Elena Apocalipse. They'd been hiding in the adjacent spire and slipped into the lab the moment Abraham and the others cleared out.
Hyun-jin glanced around.
"But I can't see a damn thing."
"You need light for that. And the window's tiny."
Serena snapped her fingers lightly as she spoke, igniting a flame. It was child's play for her, wielder of the great fire spirit Ifrit. The soft glow spread, banishing the darkness.
Now the lab's contents came into sharp focus.
"Now we can look arou—"
The moment Serena lit the room, all three froze solid.
"...What the hell is this?"
Hyun-jin stepped forward, puzzled. The first thing that caught his eye was something so lifelike it could have been a sleeping person. At a glance, it looked like a pretty girl about his age. He actually startled, thinking it was human.
"Why's there a person lying there?"
"...It's a doll. An incredibly lifelike one."
Serena lifted her head as she said it. Once Hyun-jin heard it wasn't a person, he followed her gaze. There sat a test tube bubbling with some unidentified solution—not just liquid, but a strange object floating within. It resembled a lump of flesh torn from something, yet something pulsed clearly inside it.
"...That looks like a heart?"
It was unmistakably a human heart.
"Why put a heart in something like that...?"
Hyun-jin tilted his head, recognizing the pulsing core as akin to a human heart. He turned to Elena.
"Elena sunbae, any idea what this is? Looks like the Wise Star's research."
"...Junior."
Hyun-jin had turned to her for answers, but her expression was gravely serious, and she swallowed dryly, tense for some reason.
"Elena sunbae?"
"Junior, grab that and let's get out now."
"Huh?"
"We can't just ignore this. To think the Wise Star was doing something like this...!"
Her reaction only confused Hyun-jin more. What could make her this grave? As he cocked his head, Serena, who had been quietly scanning the room, approached.
"...Life Creation."
"Huh?"
"That explains why the Wise Star kept his research so secret. No way he could show this to the world."
Serena tapped the test tube lightly with a slender finger. It reacted to the faint vibration from her touch, the massive 'lifeform' inside writhing as she spoke.
"Artificially creating life—it's the absolute taboo of spirit arts."
"Creating life? Why?"
Hyun-jin asked, and Serena narrowed her eyes slightly.
She pointed cautiously at the doll they'd seen earlier.
"Maybe to bring something back."
"Bring back?"
"The Wise Star...lost his only daughter in the 'Eden Great Fire'."
"......"
"That doll lying there looks about our age, so my guess is probably right."
Hyun-jin's eyes widened.
"He was trying to...resurrect his dead daughter?"
"Something like that. Not certain, but..."
"That's...impossible. And it shouldn't be, even if it were."
Hyun-jin's voice turned unusually grave.
"It defies the laws of nature! All life meets death, and it's that finite existence that gives life value... Unless you're like my master, forced outside those laws by circumstance, this is forcibly breaking them."
"That's why it's taboo. If this got out, the potential for abuse is endless. Take an extreme example: if someone created an exact copy of me right now and brought it to you...what then? How would you tell which is the real me?"
"......"
Hyun-jin imagined the scene and grasped her point.
"So resurrecting his daughter means recreating her memories from life too."
"Memory restoration magic already exists."
"If this leaked to the world, there could be a hundred Serena Eldarks standing before me."
Serena didn't deny it. Hyun-jin let out a hollow laugh, suddenly understanding why Elena had urged them to grab it and go. She wanted to expose Wise Star Abraham Nobwells' deeds publicly and halt his research.
But Hyun-jin's thinking differed.
"No need to take it out."
"...Pardon?"
"Hand over evidence, and if it's intercepted midway, we're in deep trouble."
Hyun-jin didn't distrust all humanity, but he didn't blindly trust them either. Once Abraham's research became known, forces would emerge to exploit it. Just from what Serena had said, it was far too dangerous...and powerful.
"Destroy it all here. No loose ends."
"...I agree."
Serena nodded.
"He might have started this from a father's small wish to reclaim his daughter, but the moment it's known, it won't end there. We have to make it like it never existed."
"But the Wise Star has it all in his head! Destroying what's here won't stop him!"
Elena protested.
"Even if we trash this, if he notices the break-in and goes underground to continue...it's the same! Better to expose what he was doing, condemn him publicly so he can never—"
"If he could research alone in hiding, he'd have done it already. That's why he's at Celestial Academy, getting funding from Dean Shania."
Hyun-jin noted the material crates they'd delivered earlier, stacked in one corner.
"Those materials cost a fortune, right? He came to the academy because he needed the money."
"......"
Elena, briefly heated, regained her composure at his words.
"You're right...of course."
"Destroy this, and he can't restart. Even Dean Shania won't keep funding forever, and replacing everything we've wrecked would cost even more..."
"You're correct. This is my last shot. I've exhausted my life's savings."
"!"
Not just Hyun-jin—Serena and Elena flinched, shoulders tensing as they froze. They turned slowly with a creak.
The man standing there made all three jolt in shock.
The lab's owner, Abraham Nobwells—who should have been at worship—had returned silently.
Even Hyun-jin's razor-sharp senses hadn't caught when he'd slipped back in.
"I don't know how you found out, but you sensed something off. That's why you showed interest in my research. Now I truly believe you're the Sword Star's disciple."
Abraham sighed, rubbing the deep furrows between his brows.
"Your instincts are beyond imagination— just like that woman's."
"......"
Hyun-jin instinctively reached for his sword hilt.
"That sword."
Abraham warned lowly.
"You plan to draw it?"
"......!"
Abraham Nobwells was a scholar. The greatest spirit scholar in history, acknowledged by all. Among the Palstar Heroes, he wasn't particularly standout in raw combat power.
But that was only among the Palstar Heroes.
"Think carefully before you draw."
Those called Palstar Heroes were said to each possess the might of an entire legion or more.
And that wasn't rumor or exaggeration—it was close to fact.
Objectively speaking, Wise Star Abraham Nobwells was...
"Don't make a choice you'll regret, like me."
...a being equivalent to a legion.