Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 20
>Chapter Title: A Most Peculiar Constitution
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Did you finally feel real pain this time?
“Let's see.”
Mia was down in the underground storeroom connected to her laboratory. She peered into an oak barrel with its top wide open. A shimmering purple liquid, as if sprinkled with glitter, sloshed inside.
‘The quality isn't bad.’
Mia smiled in satisfaction and checked another oak barrel placed beside it.
“This should be enough for the experiment.”
Mia lightly swung the staff in her hand, levitating the two oak barrels into the air. They glided smoothly up the stairs.
*Creeak, thud.*
After closing the storeroom door and stepping out, she was greeted by the sight of a laboratory more bustling than usual. In one corner, a plant with roots as thick as a forearm hung upside down.
The roots bore a strange resemblance to a human face, its cheeks sunken in as it made 'Hyeok, heok...' sounds, dripping a brown liquid from what appeared to be its eye sockets.
Due to being hung upside down, the liquid dripped into a beaker placed below.
Besides that, various herbs and byproducts were having their toxins extracted. The combination of these toxins, aged and fermented, was what filled the oak barrels.
*Swoooosh—.*
Mia poured the liquid from the oak barrels into a black bathtub situated in a corner of the lab.
*Bubble, bubble.*
The purple liquid churned as if carbonated before quickly settling down.
Mia levitated the empty barrels back down to the storeroom with magic, then turned to Rian, who was sitting on a cold experiment table in the middle of the lab, and spoke.
“Now that the preparations are complete, let's begin the experiment.”
An experiment more hardcore than usual had begun.
***
I was often captured by mad scientists and experimented on. It wasn't because I was particularly unlucky. It was because mad scientists tended to conduct their experiments on thousands, even tens of thousands, of subjects.
Given the nature of this gag world, where one's body returns to its original state within a few days, their experiments never succeeded.
Anyway, having been subjected to all sorts of experiments, I had grown accustomed to them, eventually coming to view them as something like a midterm or a pop quiz that came around every so often.
*Sizzzle.*
Of course, at first, I did feel fear when my skin melted or when blood gushed out.
*Spurt!*
It didn't particularly hurt, my body would return to normal after a while, and even the other people who were experimented on didn't seem to care much.
*Crack.*
Because of that, from a certain point on, it no longer scared me, even when I found myself face-to-face with my own internal organs or when more blood spewed out than at a murder scene.
“...Rian, you don't happen to have the blood of a dragon, do you?”
>“Oh, of course not.”
>“Or perhaps your parents are orcs?”
>“Isn't that... a bit too harsh of an insult?”
Tears streamed down my face as I wondered if I was really that ugly. Mia twitched an eyebrow, peered at my face, and then nodded as if she understood something.
“You're certainly not the child of an orc.”
>“...?”
>“Hmm, then what in the world kind of body do you have to recover this quickly...?”
Mia's eyes sparkled with curiosity. She cut me, broke my bones, and even sprinkled poison on me before bringing over a syringe and plunging it into my forearm.
Blood began to be drawn through the hose connected to the needle, filling a large container on the floor.
“Wow, the blood is being drawn out without any separate device?”
>“It may not look like it, but there's a detailed magic circle engraved on the needle.”
At her words, I tried to get a closer look at the needle, but it was half-buried in my forearm and hard to see. Giving up on finding the magic circle, I looked around the laboratory, which was very fitting for a fantasy world.
‘That wasn't here before. When did she get it?’
I marveled at a flask with a round bottom and a long neck. It was as large as a person's torso.
“...Just what kind of body is this? I've dissected it completely, but I still can't figure it out. Should I open up his head?”
Her grim words made me turn my gaze, and I saw the container, now sloshing with blood.
‘Holy crap, how did it fill up with blood so fast?’
It wasn't particularly surprising that so much blood had come from my body. I had lived in a world where it was natural for lost blood to be replenished as easily as breathing.
*Thunk.*
Mia brought over a container even larger than the first and began to collect blood in it.
“Let me know if you start to feel anemic.”
>“Okay.”
That was no different from saying, 'Let me know if you get tired of breathing,' but since I was enjoying just sitting here and looking around, I meekly nodded my head.
Mia brought several more containers and filled them with my blood, but my complexion didn't change one bit. In the end, Mia pulled the needle from my forearm.
“Haa... I hadn't considered this.”
Seeing the beautiful woman with a troubled expression made me feel as if I'd done something wrong. I cautiously watched Mia, like a dog that had just wrecked the house.
“Hmph, well then, let's move on to the next experiment.”
>“Okay.”
Mia brought over the shriveled root plant that was making 'Hieeek...' sounds.
“Lie down.”
I obediently lay down on the experiment table as she instructed. In an instant, my torso was splayed open, and my scar-covered stomach was split apart by magic.
“Guek—...!”
The plant, which had been trembling weakly, screamed as it was firmly shoved into my stomach.
“Let's see what happens in this situation...”
Mia expertly blocked the gushing blood with a shield as she observed the poison root shoved inside me. I looked at the root plant in my stomach with an expression of pity.
‘Poor thing.’
I know. My organs aren't just beings that help with normal biological functions. They are, yes, alive.
“Hic, hic...”
>“Sowwy... sowwy...”
>“Sob, Mommy...”
At some point, the poison root inside my stomach began to cry. Mia's expression filled with astonishment as the root, which couldn't even speak, let alone possess proper intelligence, started to weep.
Inside, a conversation like this was probably taking place.
“What's this? A new recruit?”
>“This guy's got no spirit. Why isn't he saying hello?”
>“Hey, quiet down. Let's hear what this guy has to say.”
>“H-Hah!! A virus? Is it a virus? Huh? Huh?”
That's right. My organs are truly 'alive.' They possess reason and, in certain situations, can even communicate.
I discovered this fact while being experimented on by a gloomy mad scientist.
A gloomy but kind-hearted mad scientist with bangs covering her eyes had boldly cut open my stomach, only to be viciously cursed out by my organs, causing her to stop the experiment in tears.
Even though I was the one who had been kidnapped, I couldn't help but console her as she wept sorrowfully. My organs even closed up the wound on their own. It was a shocking event, even for someone like me who was used to the gag world.
‘Ever since then, my organs would awaken whenever a timid or gloomy person cut me open.’
They showed no reaction when other mad scientists did it, but strangely, whenever someone timid or gloomy cut me open, they would go wild.
‘The epitome of "strong against the weak, weak against the strong."’
While I was lost in thought, the poison root, which had been sobbing, began to shrivel up. Before long, it turned brown like a withered plant, trembled violently, and then just keeled over and died.
‘Ah-... A good friend departs this world.’
Unable to endure this cruel society, a life has passed on. For some reason, tears are welling up.
“What... what is this...”
Mia stared down at my stomach with a dazed expression, like someone who had just been told that everything she knew about the world was a lie.
*Zzzzzip.*
Unlike usual, the wound zipped itself shut. They probably closed it because they were cold.
“Why...? Why is this happening? It's never healed like this before?!”
Mia, flustered, slashed my side. But this time, it didn't heal right away. Of course not. To my organs, Mia was one of the strong.
“Ah...”
Mia gazed down at my body with somewhat vacant eyes. Her expression was like that of a high school sophomore who just found out that everything they'd been studying wasn't on the exam.
“...Let's proceed with the final experiment.”
Mia gave up on trying to understand and decided to proceed with the last experiment she had prepared. With a soulless expression, she made wounds all over my body and fixed them in place with magic.
She said that since my recovery rate was at a phenomenal level, it took a considerable amount of magic to hold the wounds open. So she told me not to tense up my body.
I figured it was because if I focused and shook my body lightly, it would heal regardless of the magic applied.
“Get in there.”
>“That's...”
>“Atia's Poison, one of the most vicious poisons in this world. It's so terrible that it can't even be stored in anything that hasn't been magically treated.”
>“Oh...”
Will I turn into a skeleton if I get in there? Sometimes, when I'm exposed to a really potent poison, I temporarily become a bag of bones.
‘That's a little embarrassing.’
Anyone who hasn't experienced it wouldn't understand. To have your bones, something deeper than your most private parts and never meant to be seen by anyone, exposed to another person.
But it wasn't something I could resist just because it was embarrassing. Dripping blood from my wounds, I put my foot into the bathtub.
*Sizzzzzzle!*
My clothes and skin began to melt away!
“Aah!”
I screamed and pulled my foot out. Mia's eyes lit up as she said,
“Did you finally feel real pain this time? Or perhaps a threat to your life...!”
>“Ah, it's just that. I don't have many clothes. It would be a bit of a problem if they melted.”
>“...”
She stared at me again with those soulless eyes. As I awkwardly smiled and avoided her intense gaze.
“...!”
Through the slightly ajar laboratory door, my eyes met with a familiar pair of green ones. They were Noah's.