The Wild Poison Professor of the Slums
"It won't take long."
Wichasha, chief of the Hoopa tribe and captor of Meilin, held up a red cloth and stretched both arms out above her head.
"……?"
She had screwed her eyes shut, and now cautiously cracked one open. She'd braced herself to have her throat strangled or her eyes blindfolded—instead, the cloth settled naturally over her shoulders and draped down below her chest.
It turned out to be nothing more than an apron: plain red fabric with a cartoon carrot printed on it.
"???"
Out of nowhere, a table lowered itself in front of her. A massive roasted turkey, steam curling off its golden skin, was set down with ceremony, surrounded by an array of deep-fried dishes, mushroom soup, and more, laid out in neat rows.
"I state that you are commanded to eat."
At Wichasha's word, one of the burly men stepped behind her and untied the ropes, freeing her hands. The bindings around her legs and waist, however, remained firmly in place.
*Click!*
Before she knew it, Dick—still woozy from the sleeping poison—had been seated in another chair as well, and food was being arranged in front of him too.
"Please, make yourselves comfortable!"
The men bowed deeply at the waist.
Before long, the atmosphere shifted entirely. Instruments that seemed to be traditional Hoopa tribal music—an unfamiliar but clear-sounding flute and drums—swelled through the air like a backdrop. And on either side of Meilin, two bare-chested men stood fanning her with fans woven from leaves.
Meilin stared, utterly dumbfounded by the absurdity of it all, before finally blowing up.
"What exactly do you think you're doing right now?!"
"Our condition is one thing only," Wichasha said.
"……."
"That you remain here for a single day. We will lay no further hand upon your bodies, nor threaten your well-being. Our methods may be crude, but for as long as you stay here, we state that we will do our utmost to make you comfortable."
Meilin let out a scornful "*Ha*" and threw back her head.
"At this point it's not even bullshit anymore, it's a disease—a full-blown disease! I don't care if you feed me or fan me, this is kidnapping, plain and simple. Did you really think you could lock people up like this and just let it all slide under the rug?"
"I know," Wichasha said, nodding as he approached. Meilin turned away, grimacing, repulsed by his rippling, overbearing muscles and the two shamelessly exposed—ahem—*points*.
"We did kidnap students of Kizen, and it falls to us to bear the price of that. But we have only delivered our demands to you, and I state plainly that as long as you do not attempt to flee, we will inflict no threat upon your well-being whatsoever."
Meilin crossed her arms. Her attitude remained cold and cynical, but at least now there was room for conversation.
"Fine, let's hear it, then. Why exactly are you keeping us here?"
Wichasha spread his palm open with a smooth sweep.
"I will answer that question as well. But first, I ask—will you not eat? The food is getting cold."
In the distance, the two muscle-bound men in red aprons paused mid-stir with their ladles and, catching Meilin's eye, gave her a big thumbs-up.
"We worked so hard to prepare it……"
"Go drop dead, you freaks."
Meilin's reply was ice-cold, and the two cooks hung their heads with sulky expressions.
Wichasha sounded almost wistful.
"Eura and Hake are tender of heart."
"Like I care! And why should I put anything those tit-perverts made into my mouth? It could be poisoned!"
"If we intended to poison you, I point out that we would have done so by force long ago. But we do not."
"You can say whatever you want, I'm not eating a single b—"
*Grrrrrrroowl.*
Her stomach growled with impeccable timing. Meilin's face flared bright red.
'AAAAGH, how embarrassing, seriously! Why now, of all times?!'
Wichasha gave a knowing smile.
"I point out that you appear to have eaten nothing since waking this morning."
"……Kch!"
Her face twisted with a mixture of frustration and mortification.
"I say again—we are not the kind of trash who tamper with food. If you do not eat it, that food will go straight into the garbage. The choice is yours."
"……."
Meilin found herself at an impasse.
Of course there was no obligation to eat food handed over by kidnappers.
No, wait. Honestly, at this point she was just throwing a tantrum because she was irritated. Like the man said—if they'd wanted to drug or poison her, they'd have done it ages ago.
Really, as long as she was captive, there was no real choice here. The best move was to play along, act meek and cooperative, and then strike when they let their guard down and crush them with a surprise attack.
This was all sound, strategic judgment. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she was starving.
At the end of that internal monologue, Meilin picked up her fork. She pressed it gently into the flesh of the enormous roast turkey before her—soft as cheese, the tines sinking into the tender meat as juices came welling out in a slow stream.
She carved off a single piece, caught it carefully on her open palm, and took a tentative bite.
"!"
Her pupils dilated.
'……Damn it, this is killing my pride, but it's INSANELY good. This tastes exactly like that barbecue at Professor Hong Peng's place back in first semester.'
The fork trembled in her grip as she silently cut herself another piece. Wichasha nodded along, satisfied.
"I am glad it suits your taste."
"Oh, shut up! But yeah, it's good!"
At those words, the two aproned men who'd made the dish lit up and high-fived each other with a resounding smack. Wichasha, too, wore a contented smile.
"Eura and Hake are weak to praise, you know."
"I don't want to know!!"
The sky was steadily darkening.
Simon and Camibarez had been running themselves ragged through the streets, their whole bodies worn down to the last thread.
"Let's split up and search. It'll be faster that way."
Camibarez nodded at Simon's suggestion.
"Good idea! But—if one of us finds them, how do we let the other know?"
"Hold on a sec."
Simon opened his subspace and pulled out the leftover lantern kits from yesterday. Two sheets remained.
Having folded them many times already, the assembly went quickly. In no time he had both finished and handed one to Camibarez.
"There's still a while before the Thousand Lights festival begins. Whoever finds them floats a lantern up first. And—"
Next, Simon drew from his coat one of Dick's music boxes.
It was the gadget they'd used in Deathland to draw the attention of zombies; Dick had been inspired by it and modified the thing into a tool for luring and gathering the undead.
Just last night, over drinks, he'd proudly shown it off as his personal masterpiece and given one to each of the three of them as a gift.
"Whoever finds them first sends up the lantern and hangs the music box beneath it so it plays. That's the signal."
"Perfect!"
And so the two split off in separate directions, combing every corner of Langestin and questioning everyone they passed.
'A whole crowd of men in robes sneaking around like that, and yet weirdly few witnesses. They're probably somewhere not too far from the Clock Tower Lodging. Somewhere out of the way and hidden from the public eye at the same time.'
Simon began focusing his search on the narrow, maze-like alleys.
'Huh, is that the old lady?'
As he entered a slum alley packed edge to edge with shanties, he spotted an old woman whose half-twisted face and pupil-less white eyes he recognized instantly—the very same madwoman who'd been muttering something about a spirit of disease earlier, back when he was walking with Camibarez.
She was crouched on the ground, murmuring something in a tiny voice. Simon approached her.
"Um—excuse me, ma'am."
The woman, mid-way through some incoherent chant, jerked her head up.
"The rats have vanished."
"…Pardon?"
"All the rats of the city, gone. The insects too. And the crows. All of them."
Simon crouched down to her level.
"Why would they disappear?"
"Because they answered the call of the spirit of disease."
Her murmuring voice suddenly rang out, sharp as a crack.
"The spirit is ANGRY! Tonight, once more, a person shall die in this city!"
"……."
Another murder was going to happen? Simon asked in a grave voice.
"Would you happen to know where I could find that spirit of disease?"
"The spirit—!"
But before she could finish, the old woman flinched violently and clamped her mouth shut.
*Ssssssssshhh—*
From every corner of the slum alley, countless insects came swarming in, blanketing the ground pitch-black.
"They've come! They've come! The spirit is HERE!"
The old woman shrieked, scrambled into her shanty, and slammed the door with a resounding *bang*.
Simon simply stood rooted in place. Before long the swarm came rushing past—and in a heartbeat, it flowed around him without touching a single hair.
'Ah.'
He'd half worried they might swarm right up his body, they'd charged in with such terrifying momentum—but the insects parted around him with uncanny precision and surged on toward somewhere else entirely. Simon kept his distance and followed.
'How far are they going?'
The insects were pushing deeper and deeper into the narrow, shadowed alleys.
*CRASH!*
Simon whipped his head around, startled.
The wall of a wooden shack abruptly blew apart, and from within it a tide of pitch-black rats came flooding out like a wave—sweeping Simon clean off his feet and lifting him up.
It was like being caught in a current of water. The rat flood, carrying him at unbelievable speed, hurled him down the length of the alley.
"Oof—"
Simon landed on the ground without so much as a jolt. The swarm of rats dispersed and vanished as abruptly as it had come, and Simon looked around, blinking.
The deepest heart of the slums. In a hollow crowded with half-sunken buildings, Simon found himself standing in front of a tavern.
'So this is where they wanted me?'
Steel himself though he did, Simon pushed open the tavern door and stepped inside.
"Excuse m—*urk*!"
The stench of booze stabbed straight up his nose.
Several men, pickled in alcohol, lay sprawled across the floor in total disarray. The man who appeared to be the tavern's owner was passed out cold, his face flushed an angry crimson.
And amid all the bodies strewn about the room, only one figure sat upright and perfectly composed, right in the center.
*Gulp. Gulp.*
A woman was drinking—chugging, in fact—from an entire oil drum, lifting it effortlessly with a single hand.
Her throat bobbed as the liquid went down. Her legs were splayed wide, both bare feet propped up on the table—shoeless, toes wiggling free.
'Wh—who is that?'
Simon had thought he'd met every flavor of eccentric the world had to offer during his time at Kizen. But he had never met anyone stranger than this woman.
Grey-brown hair, spiky as a hedgehog's back and tangled into utter chaos—and poking through it, two animal ears sticking straight up like sharpened blades.
She wore what could charitably be called rags, though Simon questioned whether the word "clothing" even applied. Assorted scraps of cloth had been thrown haphazardly over her body and simply wound around her like bandages. Grime and stains of every origin clung to both skin and fabric.
What on earth *was* this person?
How long had it been since she'd last bathed?
She was less a person of civilization than a wild beast—like one of those wolf-raised children out of old fairy tales, grown to adulthood. A savage in the most literal sense of the word.
And yet, curiously, none of the foul reek of the unwashed rose from her body. Instead, what stung his nose was the sharp scent of dangerous chemicals.
"You."
*THUD!*
She finally drained the drum to its last drop and set it down on the floor, grinning wide. Her teeth were triangular and jagged, exactly like a shark's.
"Simon Polentia. Am I right?"
She knows me. Simon's expression hardened.
"Who are you?"
"Tch. What is it with you people, answering questions with questions?"
She flicked her hand upward, and a crow swooped down, dropping a bottle of liquor into her palm. She popped the cork off with her bare fingers—no opener required—and sent it straight down the hatch.
*Gulp, gulp.*
Another round of drinking. She polished off the bottle in one smooth go, let out a hearty "*KAH-hah!*" and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
'Now that I look at her…'
Simon's eyes narrowed with dawning suspicion.
'She looks oddly like someone.'
"Anyway, you're a Kizen first-year too, right?"
"Ah—yes! That's right."
She rested her arms on the back of a chair and snickered.
"Then you know Hong Peng, don't you? I'm her twin sister."
Simon's eyes went wide.
So THAT'S why she looked familiar!
Everything else about them was completely different—the aura she gave off, her clothing, her speech and accent, her skin tone—but the face was unmistakably similar. Like Hong Peng's feral wild-child counterpart.
"Th-then, Hong Peng's sister, what are you doing here in a place like—"
"My name is Byul-Ya Tun Sokum Marlart."
As her mouth split open, shark teeth flashed in the lamplight.
"No point in hiding it anymore, is there? I'm Kizen's new Professor of Toxicology!"