Chapter 103
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: Gresha (3)
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rapping sounds echoed.
"Miss."
"..."
Chloe, the exclusive maid who served Sion, let out a sigh as she gazed at her mistress, who still hadn't emerged from her room today.
It had been two weeks and three days since Sion had begun assisting with the patriarch's full-scale research. For the first ten days, she had shut herself away completely, and though she had started coming out afterward, her complexion had visibly worsened from that point on.
Of course, Chloe knew it was overstepping her place as a mere maid to meddle. Still, it broke her heart to see Sion—the empire's greatest genius, blessed with stunning beauty—looking so haggard. Having served her in this household for twenty years, Chloe had always known Sion as perfection incarnate. Watching her struggle now felt like seeing her own daughter in pain.
The servants and retainers deeply tied to the family all knew the reason, but even with that knowledge, two weeks of witnessing Sion's pallid face left Chloe feeling utterly desolate.
The door creaked open.
"The nanny?"
"Sh-she has... a schedule today too..."
"Got it. Don't come looking for me until lunch."
Slam!
Sion flung the door open, her face gaunt, asking only for the nanny. Hearing that she was skipping her morning bath again, Chloe grabbed the prepared bath items and hurried off.
"Oh? Chloe."
"Miss Mion."
If Sion skipped her morning bath, it meant she was skipping breakfast too. As Chloe rushed to report to the head maid, Mion—the second daughter of House Gresha—called out to her familiarly.
"Did Sis finish her bath already?"
"Ah..."
"Huh?"
Mion, her silver hair shimmering like moonlight—a trait inherited from their mother rather than the family's signature golden locks—grinned mischievously.
Because the talent gap was so vast, she hadn't been neglected or abused; the patriarch had let her run wild like a feral child. Mion hadn't even attended the academy, growing up more like a tomboyish commoner girl.
She was never haughty toward those around her, always casual and unpretentious, which made her beloved by all the servants.
The moment Chloe faced Mion's innocent expression—utterly oblivious to the dark secret plaguing Sion, the source of her decline—a wave of nausea surged up unbidden.
"Urk...!"
"Oh dear! Chloe, are you okay? Are you feeling ill?"
Aaah... There was no noble lady in the empire quite like this kind soul, who fretted over even a lowly maid like her, checking her color with genuine concern.
"I-I'm fine, Miss. The young mistress has been under the weather lately, so she's been skipping her morning bath and breakfast."
"Really? Sigh... Is Sis not feeling well? Hiiing..."
Though she had grown up a tomboy, Mion deeply respected and adored her sister. She wouldn't barge into Sion's bedroom or act recklessly like that.
Just hearing that Sion's condition was off a bit was enough to make Mion pull a long face, worrying as if it were her own pain. It stirred guilt even in Chloe's heart.
"Then I must report to the head maid..."
"Ah! Sorry, then take care, Chloe!"
Leaving Mion's bright, waving smile behind, Chloe quickened her pace toward the head maid's office.
As if she had no choice but to hurry.
At that moment, in Sion's room.
"Hnnngh...!"
Sion huddled under the covers, trembling.
It was true that she had helped with her father the patriarch's experiments since childhood.
But that had mostly involved her magical talent and prodigious aptitude for alchemy—researching herb and potion ratios to aid Leon Gresha. This was her first time actually participating in the hands-on trials.
Sion had been puzzled by the patriarch's order to wait until adulthood before joining full experiments, but she trusted there was reason behind the words of her flawless, perfect father, Leon. So she had waited.
And then, the night after the ball that had turned the empire's second prince's world upside down.
"Come to my study at midnight tonight."
"Yes, my lord."
At dinner, hearing the patriarch's curt command filled Sion with excitement. She was finally going to join her father's experiment to fulfill the family's long-cherished wish.
That very night.
"Follow me."
"Yes...!"
The patriarch, seeing Sion in light attire and a robe, led her wordlessly toward the underground beneath the ducal castle.
"This place is..."
"For security reasons, I told you children never to approach it while growing up. This is the entrance to the laboratory."
"Yes..."
The patriarch placed his hand on the opening mechanism of what had once been a disused underground prison and infused it with mana.
Gears whirred.
Clank! Clank!!
Rumble...
Magically, the thick iron door soaked in mana groaned open on its own, revealing stairs descending into darkness.
The stairs looked like a gateway to the abyss.
"Follow me."
"Yes... Yes!!"
Leon lit a light spell to illuminate the surroundings and ordered her curtly. Sion followed her father down the eerie, groping steps, a chill running through her.
And as they descended, she began to hear what sounded like beastly screams emanating from below. Her pupils trembled violently as she called out to the patriarch.
"F-Father?"
"Don't make a fuss."
"Th-that...!"
The agonized wails grew louder the deeper they went, making Sion's shoulders shake.
At the bottom, before a massive iron door, the patriarch infused it with mana again, and it swung open heavily.
Groooan...
The sight that unfolded before Sion's eyes was staggering.
A vast chamber, two or three times the size of the knights' training grounds, stretched out. Luminous stones imported from the labyrinth city—larger than human heads—were embedded everywhere, bathing the interior in daylight-like brightness.
Giant glass vats, big enough for a person to fit inside, lined both walls.
"Wh-what is this...!!"
Inside those vats floated humans and heteromorphs alike, men and women, suspended in blue solution like preserved specimens.
In the center stood countless beds like those in a clinic, swarming with blood-soaked people bustling about.
"Aaaagh!!!"
"Stop!!! Pleeease stooop!!!"
"Save me!!!!"
One corner of the lab resembled a prison with bars, where countless heteromorphs lay slumped with dead eyes.
People dragged them out through the bars, laid them on beds, drew blood, stabbed various parts of their bodies with knives the size of dining utensils, and hauled away the corpses of those who screamed themselves to death amid it all.
All of them were servants from her own household.
No, not just servants—several collateral members of House Gresha were there too.
"Ah! Young miss, finally starting today!!!"
"Fred, guide Sion."
"Yes! Understood, my lord."
The head butler approached her then, and at the patriarch's command, Sion toured the labs with him.
Fred, over seventy—whom she imagined might feel like a living grandfather, second only to her nanny Marie in the family as her most trusted figure—beamed with emotion as he spoke.
"Haa~ Finally, you're joining the experiments, Miss! The patriarch has such high expectations!!!"
His expression was like that of a fervent zealot—the first such look Sion had ever seen from him.
"B-butler... What in the world is...?"
"Oh dear, looks like our young miss is a bit startled, hehe."
"What is all this???"
"Aigoo... Seeing you like this reminds me of the patriarch in his youth..."
"What?"
"But our Sion was always so clever and extraordinary from childhood—I thought you'd take it in stride, haha!!"
Sion couldn't keep up with the butler's words or the situation at all.
Her confusion lasted only a moment. Taking in the surroundings, she began piecing it together: the alchemical knowledge she'd provided the patriarch, her own upbringing, the family's support, everything.
'The family's cherished wish... experiments to unlock mana in our bloodline, sustained for a millennium...'
'Academy enrollment and graduation... it was all just for show, outward appearances to prove the ducal bloodline continued...'
And the recent conversation with the tower lord.
The territory business supplying heteromorphs—the work Sion had taken on after academy graduation.
With the imperial edict declaring equality between humans and heteromorphs, she'd assumed the "volunteers" for experiments were coerced through minor loopholes.
She recalled the business plan: release hunters and explorers across the continent to bring heteromorphs to the territory, then offer "compensation" from the family to encourage participation.
Chill!
Thud!
"Ugh... heavy."
Drag drag.
Seeing a servant who worked as a gardener in the ducal gardens by day hauling a sack with what had once been a heteromorph—now just a slab of meat—she realized this went far beyond simple blood draws.
Chill!
"No way..."
"Oh! Miss, perhaps?"
"Th-this inhumane experiment...!!"
"A millennium."
"Huh?"
The butler replied softly to Sion, who was about to shout in fury.
"Miss. It's an experiment handed down for a thousand years."
"What do you...?"
"It's both a command and a right granted by His Imperial Majesty. Unlike the external support the other two ducal houses receive, House Gresha gets everything for this from the imperial family."
"...!!!"
Sion had only known that the first patriarch of House Gresha awakened mana in their bloodline and passed it down genetically. In that instant, she uncovered the millennium-old secret of the famed magical dynasty.