An Unexpected Situation
"This way, up the stairs! The broadcast room is up there!" the green-haired girl—Liana—said to me. She was planning to issue an evacuation order over the academy-wide broadcast. Something along the lines of "There's a fire, please exit the building immediately" would probably suffice.
Once we reached the third floor via the stairs, the distinctive foul stench of homunculi assaulted my nose. …It seemed they had appeared here as well. A sign reading [Experiment in Progress] hung on one of the lab doors.
"…Hold on. Let's check this first."
Creak. When I opened the lab door, a flustered male student stared at us and shouted, "Who are you?!"
A foul odor lingered inside the lab… Were they hiding? "Did you see anything strange?" I approached the student and asked if he had encountered any homunculi. Was that the same smell coming from the sink earlier…?
"Who are you?!"
…Huh? "Sane! Watch out!" Liana shouted at me.
"Wh…o are you?!" At the same moment, multiple tentacles burst from the student's mouth and shot toward me. 'It was mimicking human speech…!' The homunculus must have been repeating the last sounds it heard. Judging by the situation, the student had already been attacked.
—Bang! Thanks to my quick evasion, the tentacles only grazed my collar, but their speed was noticeably faster than the previous homunculus. 'Its evolution rate is insane…?'
After deflecting the barrage of tentacles with my dagger, they shifted toward Liana as if giving up on me. "Look out!" I cut through the tentacles mid-air, preventing them from reaching her. …And they regenerated almost instantly. Its regenerative ability was astonishing.
"[Agility Enhancement]" As Liana chanted the spell, my body felt noticeably lighter. 'This girl can use enhancement magic too…' I had heard that alchemists often learned basic spells for enchanting purposes. She must have been one of them. Her enhancement magic was far more advanced than I expected from an alchemist.
Whoosh! I concentrated mana into my legs and kicked off the ground hard. After parrying another wave of tentacles with my dagger, I hurled it straight at the homunculus's forehead. The blade sliced through the air and struck true. With the dagger embedded in its forehead, the homunculus collapsed backward. Its structure apparently mimicked a human's, because the attack caused its form to begin disintegrating.
"Haa…" A sigh of relief escaped naturally.
"Sane, that was amazing!" Liana's eyes sparkled as she praised me. Her gaze was as bright as a puppy's.
"…Call me Sane unni." My heart skipped a beat. 'I might actually be an easy woman…'
***
Descending into the basement, I spotted an iron door labeled [Sewage Purification Device Control Room]. 'How considerate…' As I suspected, the production team had prepared a route to prevent the homunculus incident in advance. The user (me) had been too busy with heroine affection events to notice… 'Did I accidentally stop the demon invasion event too?' Since I prevented Isabel's transformation into a witch, Belphegor wouldn't be summoned. In other words, I had preemptively stopped the demon attack that was supposed to happen in the second year.
Thinking I was lucky, I pushed the iron door. "…It won't budge." The door stood firm. A locking mechanism resembling a magical device was installed near the handle, suggesting a password was required. Naturally, I had no idea what it was.
After pondering for a while, a brilliant idea struck me. "If the door won't open, why not go through the wall?" I swung my spear at the wall with all my strength. BOOM! A dull impact echoed as cracks began spreading across the wall. 'Huh…?' …Oddly enough, cracks appeared on the ceiling too. Must have been my imagination.
. . .
In the end, the ceiling didn't collapse. …At least not until I entered the control room.
CRASH! The moment I broke through the wall and stepped inside, the ceiling behind me collapsed, blocking the path I had come from. 'This looks bad…?' I turned my gaze forward, deliberately ignoring reality. What lay before me was a room filled with rusty, neglected machinery. A large magical device resembling a boiler had been installed inside. …That was probably the purification device.
The sight was strangely modern. Pipes extending from the supposed purification device ran through the ceiling toward some unknown location. At the end of those pipes stood an old door. When I opened it, an overwhelming stench erupted outward.
"Ugh!" After several dry heaves, I looked up to see multiple pipes connected from above, all converging toward a single point. 'That must be the sewer.' Considering the structure where primarily treated wastewater flowed into the academy-wide sewer system for secondary management, that location was likely where the wastewater underwent final purification.
Listening closely, I could hear the sound of dripping water. Since it was too late to turn back now, I retrieved the glowing artifact from my pocket and illuminated the path ahead. As the pitch-black darkness receded, a relatively short corridor appeared. At its end stood another iron door that looked like a magical device. 'This is getting tedious…' What could possibly be hidden here that required such elaborate concealment?
The door didn't appear particularly sturdy. I concentrated mana into my leg and kicked it hard. Unable to withstand the impact, the door crumpled and flew inward. "Did I overdo it…?" I tried to close it again, pretending I had entered the wrong room, but that was impossible now that I had destroyed it.
What appeared before me was a single figure. …Of course, that was assuming one could even call that grotesque mass of multiple fused faces a person.
. . .
The light from the glowing artifact illuminated the bizarre entity. Its outline became clear. Every side of its head was covered in faces. No matter where you looked, you would meet its gaze. …That was undoubtedly the homunculus's main body. Thanks to the trait Clear Mirror, Still Water, I felt no fear. Otherwise, merely facing it would have sent me fleeing in terror.
'Just in case…?' I used [Insight] on the homunculus.
Name: ?##?#
Lv: ##
As expected, it wasn't human. However, unlike the other split entities whose status windows hadn't appeared at all, I could at least read the garbled text. 'Does this mean it's becoming closer to a human…?'
The face at the very top of the homunculus wore an angry expression, while another seemed to be panting and howling. The face positioned directly in front resembled a young girl's. The serene, sleeping face of the girl felt more alien than the others.
"Death ends in humans as pain's" The girl's mouth opened and uttered incomprehensible words. "Hurts shredding brain's potion" It seemed to be simply spitting out familiar words at random, without understanding their meaning. —Yet the hostility carried in those words was unmistakable.
'Huh…?' The homunculus raised both hands and muttered something—like an incantation. Then a grotesque magic circle appeared. Fwoooosh—! Flames erupted from the magic circle. I hastily raised my shield to block, but the spell's power was greater than expected. It seemed the knowledge absorbed by each split entity was being transmitted to the main body through some method. Originally, homunculi in the game could imperfectly use the abilities of those they mimicked, so this wasn't surprising.
My vision was limited, and movement was restricted by the pool of wastewater in the center. The homunculus itself appeared immune to the toxic effects, as it stood half-submerged in the filth. '…Here it comes!'
—BOOM! —Bang! The spells continued to rain down without pause. The sight of every face chanting spells simultaneously evoked a chilling chorus. Fortunately, it seemed to have only absorbed students from the Alchemy Department, as it was using only basic attack spells. …Though their power far exceeded basic levels.
I dodged what I could and blocked the rest. Realizing it couldn't eliminate me with magic alone, the homunculus transformed parts of its arms and launched an attack. Its arms morphed into razor-sharp blades, while tentacles erupted from its back like the fins of a filthy fish, all targeting me at once. —Its attacks resembled a steel wire mesh. A barrage designed to tear me apart mercilessly came crashing down.
'Faster than I expected, but…' Judging the attack unavoidable, I activated Invincibility.
Invincibility Duration: 3:00
—BOOM! The homunculus's tentacles, arms, and spells struck me directly. …A deafening roar followed. The ground beneath me trembled from the shockwave. I was only pushed back slightly by the impact, standing unharmed. 'Not much time left. I need to finish this within three minutes.'
I stared at the homunculus and charged forward. The homunculus, still wearing the girl's peaceful face, watched me. …I wondered what it was thinking as it witnessed me ignoring the barrage of tentacles and spells. When its attacks proved ineffective, the homunculus changed tactics, attempting to push me back with its tentacles, but I sliced through them all with my spear. 'This… is the end…!'
Finally reaching the homunculus, I thrust my spear straight into its head. —Bang! The recoil from the tentacles sent me flying backward, slamming hard into the sewer wall. "Hey… why are you still alive…?" The words slipped out unconsciously. …Despite the massive hole in its head, the homunculus remained standing, very much alive.