Noble Obligation (Or Not)
The thing that looked like a slime had the same color as human skin, making it seem as if chunks of flesh were writhing on their own. It slowly crawled out from the sink until it finally took on a human shape—a homunculus. Liana felt her entire body freeze over.
“W-what… what is that?!”
The homunculus that had formed a human shape had a face that was nothing more than a hollow, doll-like shell. The sight was so bizarre it bordered on grotesque. Frozen in place, Liana barely managed to squeeze out her voice and ask the man beside her—Logue—what the thing was.
“That level… must be a split entity. Did it come out of the sewer?”
Logue’s incomprehensible words only deepened Liana’s anxiety.
“Ugh… gross…”
Sane, who had somehow appeared beside Logue, was also frowning at the homunculus.
The homunculus stared in the direction where Logue, Sane, and Liana stood. Its eyes had no focus—no pupils at all. Unable to stand it any longer, Sane hurled a dagger straight at the creature’s head.
Thud.
The sound of the blade sinking in echoed. Still, no blood came out.
“Does smashing its head kill it?”
“…More precisely, you have to destroy the brain.”
Immediately after, Logue’s spear pierced through the homunculus’s brain, and the creature’s form collapsed in on itself.
“…Sane. We should check the other floors too.”
The homunculus that had just appeared had burst out of the sewer. It seemed to be moving through the pipes laid throughout the Alchemy Department building. If that’s the case… the wastewater treatment facility connected to the sewers?
He had a rough idea where the main body might be. But first, they needed to deal with the split entities.
“…Wouldn’t it be better to ask the academy for help?” Sane asked him.
…In truth, if they requested assistance from the academy and sealed the entrances, the current homunculus situation could be wrapped up for now. But it wouldn’t solve the root of the problem. Just as the game’s story had shown, the academy was far more interested in covering this incident up than actually resolving it.
Besides, while the homunculus didn’t seem particularly intelligent yet, the longer they delayed, the harder it would be to find. If that happened, the same homunculus incident from the end of the second semester would repeat itself. It was safer to handle it now.
“…If they learn that artificial life forms have appeared, the academy is more likely to rush to cover it up than to solve the root cause.”
“It’s better to take care of it here so it doesn’t escalate into a bigger disaster later. …And I think I have an idea where the main body might be.”
After hearing his answer, Sane looked unconvinced.
“Do you really have to be the one to handle this…?”
“It’s a noble’s duty.”
He had thrown out a suitably impressive-sounding excuse when—
“L-look over there!!”
…Liana’s voice called out to him. She seemed unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events; her face was deathly pale as she clutched at his sleeve.
“W-what is that thing? And how did Logue get here…?”
“I came because I had business with you. …Running into something like that was unexpected, though.”
“How did you know that destroying its brain would kill it…?”
As expected, Liana was giving him a suspicious look. Given everything he had shown so far, she probably thought he knew something again.
“…Before I got here, a strange male student attacked us on the first floor. That’s how I learned you had to destroy the brain. After that, I got worried about you and came running… Thankfully, I wasn’t too late.”
“Y-you were worried about… me?”
“…Yeah.”
Since he had run over for her sake, she probably wouldn’t keep doubting him… Though he did feel a slight sting of guilt. Well. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
At his answer, Liana’s face flushed a little, as if she were moved.
“…Hmm?”
Sane looked at him again, as if seeing him in a new light.
…At this point, even he was starting to feel his conscience ache. He decided to change the subject and suggested searching the other floors.
“Sane. Stay with Liana and evacuate the remaining people from the Alchemy Department outside the building. Then seal the entrances. …Since you’re the one dealing with any homunculi that show up, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you.”
“Huh? What about you?”
Sane looked puzzled by his instructions.
“I’m going to find this thing’s main body first. …I have a hunch where it might be.”
As he had just reasoned, the homunculus’s main body was most likely in the sewer system connected to the pipes of the Alchemy Department building. Due to the nature of the department, a lot of toxic waste from potions and experimental solutions flowed into the sewers. The game’s setting mentioned that when the academy was first built, they had installed a completely separate sewer system for this building. It was for special purification procedures—which was probably why the homunculus hadn’t spread through the other pipes into the rest of the academy.
At first he had wondered why such a setting even existed, but the developers had probably prepared a route to prevent the homunculus incident before it happened. Of course, during his playthrough, he had never once tried to stop it in advance.
…There wasn’t even an event warning, and at the time I was too busy raising affection points…
While he was lost in thought, Sane asked him,
“You can’t smell them, can you? Will you be able to tell them apart?”
“…I have my ways. Once I see their faces, I can usually distinguish them.”
When he had tried to use Insight on the human-shaped homunculus that had just appeared and the male student he met on the first floor, nothing had shown up. It was probably because of Insight’s limitation—it only worked on demons or people.
“Hurry. Liana, where do most of the regular students and professors usually gather?”
“Y-yes! U-um… at this time, most of them are graduate students or people like me who stay behind to run experiments… There should be a lot of them in the labs on the third and fourth floors!”
Poor graduate students get worked to the bone even in this world…
“Then, Sane. Focus your search on the areas Liana mentioned, but keep an eye on the entrances. …If even one gets outside, it’ll cause a huge problem.”
He could already imagine a swarm of homunculi pouring out like zombies. Sane and Liana began moving according to his orders. After watching them leave, he headed down to the basement of the Alchemy Department building where the special sewer purification facility was located.
“…Excuse me? What’s your name?”
…Was she talking to me? There was no one else near that girl, so she had to be. A pretty girl with green hair was asking for my name.
Why is someone like her mixed up with Logue…
“I’m Sane.”
Even though she looked younger than me, it felt rude to speak casually to someone I had just met, so I used polite speech. It was Logue who was weird for starting off with informal speech to almost everyone.
Whoops.
A male student with black hair. But a disgusting stench was coming from him.
—Swish!
The moment I showed killing intent, it immediately shot out something like tentacles toward both the green-haired girl and me. I quickly pushed the girl out of the tentacle’s path and dodged myself.
Boom.
The wall struck by the tentacle crumpled like a sheet of paper.
Stronger than I thought…?
I immediately stabbed my dagger through the homunculus’s brain, and it melted away like water. It seemed this one had copied the male student’s appearance. There might be quite a few of them spread throughout the Alchemy Department building…
I had been planning to follow Logue’s order to evacuate the people and then block the entrances, but now that I thought about it, what excuse was I supposed to give?
“Right now artificial life forms have appeared and they’re trying to kill all of you!”
…Could I really say that? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just ask the academy for help right away? I couldn’t understand why he insisted on handling it himself.
“Do you really have to be the one to handle this…?”
“It’s a noble’s duty.”
Noble’s duty, my ass…
Noblesse oblige… Was that what he meant? I recalled the phrase that had been popular among nobles for a while. The truth was, not a single noble who spouted that line didn’t have some dirty secret when you dug deep enough, so it had always sounded like nonsense they made up to make themselves look good.
But when Logue said it, for some reason it felt almost noble.
—As if that man really would risk himself to fulfill a noble’s duty.
Don’t make me laugh…
I glanced at the submission mark engraved on the back of my right hand.
…Even now, remembering our first meeting made my stomach—where his spear had pierced—throb. That wicked smile from back then, too. Lately he had been treating me well, so my heart had grown a little softer.
Am I really that easy…?
“Hey!”
“Eh?”
A loud voice suddenly came from beside me. When I turned, the green-haired girl was calling out to me.
Did I push her too hard…?
“…It’s not Ana!”
Hm? I couldn’t hear her well.
“Sorry?”
“It’s Liana! My name!”
I remembered that I had only introduced myself. It seemed that had been bothering her too.
“It’s a pretty name.”
“…Thank you. And thank you for saving me just now…”
She even thanked me. Her slightly shy tone, her trembling voice, and her slender frame paired with that voluminous hair.
She’s like a puppy…
It was kind of cute. …For some reason, I felt like I could get along well with this girl.