Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Red Star (8)
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The spiral staircase leading down to the second basement level was narrower than expected.
In the pitch-black darkness without a single light source, magic stones embedded in the cracks of the walls emitted a faint blue glow.
I silenced every sound I made as much as possible.
I descended the stairs swiftly, without wasting a single step.
At the bottom of the stairs stood a firmly locked door.
Where the doorknob should have been, there was a small indentation instead.
Judging by its shape, it seemed designed to accept a seal.
I pressed the seal Levan had given me into the door, and thin blue lines spread across its entire surface.
A heavy rumbling echoed from beyond the door, as if something massive was shifting.
Moments later, the door swung open.
Air from inside rushed outward.
The stench of blood, reagents, and old oil.
It was a familiar yet unfamiliar sensation.
Different from the rotting corpse smell I'd encountered on the battlefield once, and also unlike the odor from the auction house.
It resembled the smell from a field hospital.
I stepped cautiously inside.
Forgetting to stay vigilant about my surroundings.
Those bastards had been hit twice in just two days—the auction house and the corpse disassembly plant.
Their security would have been tightened, not relaxed.
That was my judgment.
Still, they wouldn't know exactly where I'd target next.
So, their defenses wouldn't be impenetrable, even for me.
Isolation rooms.
After passing through a disguised wall, the first area I reached was the isolation zone.
The faint light from the magic stones was the only illumination here.
Beyond the dimly glowing light, dense iron bars came into view.
They showed a clear intent never to let whatever was inside escape.
I peered inside.
Inside the bars, a human was bound by chains around the neck, arms, and legs.
With every breath, its chest swelled and shrank unnaturally.
Blue lines like cracks ran across its entire body.
A test subject.
I checked the inside of another set of bars.
This one was twisted beyond recognition as human.
Monster legs grafted below the knees, collapsed eyeballs.
More than half its skeleton and organs had been replaced with those of a monster.
From the darkness beyond the bars, one of them turned its head.
Its neck, which should have been chained, swiveled unnaturally toward me.
It was definitely restrained, but the chains looked deliberately loosened.
A message that it wasn't loose now, but could be at any moment.
As proof, broken chains lay scattered on the floor beneath the bars.
The next area was the experimentation zone.
Unlike the isolation zone, this one was kept relatively clean.
It wasn't some modern sterile lab or pure white room, nothing like that.
'Quickly grab the data and move on.'
I rummaged through shelves, desks, and drawers, searching for experiment records.
What I found were a few crumpled sheets of paper covered in handwriting.
They detailed analyses of experiment results.
The main focus was the outcomes of implanting magic stones into humans.
Handwriting is like a fingerprint.
Just securing this one note would prove the duke's family was involved in the experiments.
Digging a bit more turned up another crumpled paper.
A crooked sentence scrawled along the edge caught my eye.
-" ...And yet, the test subject kept living."
I immediately folded it separately and tucked it into my pocket.
Finding the document archive took a little time.
Inside the archive was a safe, which I sliced open with a wave, just like before.
I found technical reports sent from the south, experiment diagrams, and consent forms stamped with the duke's seal.
I unrolled one of the experiment diagrams and scanned it quickly.
There were almost no familiar terms.
Even so, one thing was clear.
This was the blueprint for the 'monster magic stone = strengthening agent' process.
Not a crude method of squeezing blood from soldiers, but a meticulously tuned craft.
'Wasn't it made from soldiers' corpses?'
I pondered.
What they sent south were intact corpses.
What circulated within the empire came from disassembled monsters and soldiers.
'Did they adapt this method to use soldiers' corpses instead?'
If so, they were even more repulsive than I'd imagined.
They were repulsive scum either way.
I unfolded the report next.
It might contain errors or fabrications.
I wouldn't understand everything by reading it, but it was better than not reading.
More strange proper nouns filled it.
Remnants of the gods.
This was different from using human organs or entrails as terms.
It seemed to refer to something more fundamental, not mere human parts.
Like the shell left by a god, for example.
It appeared to denote some kind of material, but I had no idea what exactly.
The original story didn't delve deeply into gods.
The backstory was something vague like the gods fighting each other to mutual destruction.
For now, I decided to take everything.
As I turned to leave, footsteps echoed from the corridor I'd come through.
Not just one or two people.
'Detected already.'
I recalled the two from Red Star, chatting idly.
So that's why they were so nonchalant.
Whether opening the door with the seal was the trigger, or someone found traces of my intrusion.
No way to know which.
"Find that bastard quick!!"
"If we don't, we're dead!!"
I instinctively crouched low.
Pressing my back to the wall, I listened to the approaching footsteps.
I lunged and slit the throats of the oncoming group in one go.
I shoved the three soldiers who collapsed without a dying gasp into the archive like trash.
I quickly stripped one of a soldier's uniform, donned it, and flipped the helmet down to hide my face.
It wasn't perfect camouflage.
Body type and voice didn't match.
Having been caught out by a disguise at the disassembly plant before, I didn't fully trust it.
What I was banking on was the gap before they could verify my identity.
That brief window would be enough to escape this place.
"What about that side?"
"No one there."
"Hey, what's your name—"
I charged as one vigilant soldier reached for his sword.
Stabbed his throat and hid the body nearby.
The third soldier carried a shield.
He'd chosen gear specifically to counter ambushes.
Luckily, he tried to pass me by without suspicion.
That was his mistake.
I thrust my blade tip through the gap in his shield.
After killing a few more, the number of soldiers searching for me dwindled noticeably.
I counted the dead soldiers on my fingers.
Clearly just a portion of the search party.
So where were the rest?
'Waiting for me?'
The empty corridors tightened around my neck like a noose.
As I rounded the corner to head back to the isolation zone.
"Graaah—!!"
A monster kicked off the wall and charged.
It was an ambush, but my body moved before my mind could register.
With near-precognitive instinct, I tilted aside to dodge the claws while rearing back for the throat strike.
Blue blood rained down.
A horde of monsters was barreling down the corridor.
It was obvious where they'd come from.
'Isolation zone. They released all the test subjects and monsters.'
The chained test subjects had all been freed.
That explained the sparse soldiers—they'd unleashed the test subjects on purpose.
Probably, after these test subjects were dead, the soldiers would swarm in.
Then the two from Red Star would make their move.
'A trap from the start?'
If they'd dug this trap in advance, they might have tampered with the documents here too.
They knew I'd come this way and prepared accordingly, so it was reasonable to assume they'd doctored the intel I'd grab.
Still too little info to be sure.
Too early for conclusions.
First, deal with the problem right in front of me.
I hadn't brought the Rigid Body Armament.
I drew the sword from one of the soldiers.
My blade sliced through the test subjects without hesitation.
Yet with every stroke, an inexplicable weight settled deep within.
Whether it was respect or self-delusion didn't matter.
The moment I'd decided to kill them, I'd already paid my respects.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Carmel Luos, eldest son of Duke Luos.
He faced the two from Red Star, who bantered lightly before him.
Amid their playful exchange, Carmel strained to read the undercurrent of betrayal lurking beneath.
"Came right as expected. Good thing I tampered with the experiment zone just in case, right?"
"Nah. Just makes me think you're living a tiring life."
"...Whatever. I wasn't expecting brains from you anyway."
"I wasn't expecting muscle or smarts from you either."
They were people from Red Star.
After the auction house and corpse disassembly plant were hit in succession, upper command had ordered reinforcements elsewhere too.
At face value, it seemed like they were sent to protect House Luos.
But Carmel didn't see the order as mere precaution.
Upper command didn't trust House Luos.
A prestigious house that started with the credit of inventing great beast hunts.
Even decades later, people remembered that first victory.
Upper command's attitude, as if they couldn't trust such a house, filled Carmel more with contempt than anger.
He didn't want his judgment dismissed as paranoia.
This was the most rational calculation.
Even if they'd joined hands to oust other kin, Red Star couldn't be trusted.
And it was obvious they could use and discard House Luos.
So Carmel acted on his own.
To gauge how Red Star viewed him, and if there truly was another force targeting them, to get a foot in there too.
Carmel was a natural opportunist.
'I was even willing to hand over the seal and build a pretext if needed.'
He never imagined they'd open the second basement door somehow.
Carmel clicked his tongue inwardly.
Lucky he'd slyly swapped the documents, or he'd have been thoroughly screwed.
Carmel recalled.
The documents in the basement were bait, mixed with lies and truth.
Up to that point, it followed Red Star's plan.
But he'd ignored the order to dispose of them, keeping the real ones hidden elsewhere.
As long as he held those, Carmel still had options.
'Die together, or you die alone.'
He had no intention of riding it out to the end with them.