The Fourth Development
Evils Enterprise, top floor. Regalia, the head of the villain organization, received a report from her secretary about the scientist.
“—That concludes my report.”
“Hmm…… I see. He didn’t seem to have any intention of betraying us?”
“No. It appeared to be goodwill toward Niverna personally rather than an attempt to side with the heroes. In fact, Niverna herself hasn’t revealed the scientist’s identity either.”
“Then it’s fine.”
Eight had never told anyone that he made a suit for Niverna, but Regalia knew everything even without him saying a word. In a way, it was only natural.
After all, the house he lived in, the building where he ran his shop, his identity, even the cards he used—everything came from Regalia’s wallet. Since he relied on her for every aspect of his life, including food, clothing, and shelter, it was impossible for him to hide anything from her.
Of course, she had been quite startled when the scientist casually made a suit for a hero……
‘As long as it wasn’t done with betrayal in mind.’
If Eight had intended to betray the organization and join the Hero Association, it would have been quite troublesome. He was already aware that his technical skills were extraordinary. With even a fraction of the knowledge in his head, making a fortune wouldn’t be difficult, and he could have quickly secured enough wealth to protect himself.
Of course, based on everything she had analyzed about his personality, he wouldn’t attack them—but losing access to the repository of knowledge from Earth would be an enormous problem.
Because Regalia had a dream she wanted to achieve through the villain organization, and to make that dream a reality, the scientist’s help was absolutely essential.
“Then, for now, consider that hero named Niverna as half a member of our organization and provide her with support.”
“Yes. In what manner should we support her?”
“Have her film a few commercials and switch from being an official hero to a freelance hero. It feels wrong to leave our scientist’s suit in the hands of those Hero Association bastards.”
“The Association won’t let her go easily.”
“Tell them we’ll reduce our sponsorship funds.”
After hearing Regalia’s orders, the secretary bowed lightly and immediately left the president’s office. She had to move quickly to carry out the commands.
Even though he had opened the shop as a way to kill time, coming in every day was still a hassle. Especially on days like today, when his body felt strangely unwilling to move.
Having declared his own holiday, I lounged around in the lab instead of opening the shop. When he wasn’t going to the shop, lounging in the lab was his usual routine.
While he was resting in the lab, reading research papers on superpowers, the door suddenly opened and Aile appeared.
“S-Scientist—! Good morning…!”
“Aile? What’s going on?”
“Scientist, do you have a moment right now…?”
“I always have plenty of time. If Aile asks, I can even make time that doesn’t exist.”
“Th-Then right now! There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to…!”
Aile said this and led me out of the lab. If someone with no friends said they wanted to introduce someone, it was probably one of the organization members.
Just looking at my name—Eight—implied there were at least seven other executives ahead of me. However, the only executives I had met so far were Galrm, Aile, and Levitan.
Following behind Aile with some anticipation about what kind of executive I would meet this time, I froze stiff when I saw someone I never expected to encounter here.
The other person noticed my stiffness and burst into laughter.
“Ahaha—! Aile, look at that. He got so surprised he went stiff.”
“I-It’s okay, Scientist! This is Vira unni… She’s an executive in our organization.”
“……I’m Eight.”
I said this and extended my right hand, then immediately pulled it back and offered my left hand instead. I had no choice. Anyone meeting a woman in a wheelchair with no right arm and no left leg would react the same way.
Vira clasped my left hand with her own. Now that I looked closer, her left hand wasn’t in great shape either. It was covered in burn scars. The kind of hideous sight that would make an ordinary person involuntarily grimace. I really had to put all my effort into maintaining a blank expression.
“Vira. An executive of this organization.”
“An executive, you say.”
“Why? Surprised that a disabled person without limbs is an executive?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Of course it is. It’s written all over your face.”
When I fell silent, having nothing to say, Vira chuckled as if she found it amusing.
“Well, let’s stop the jokes there. I just thought we hadn’t properly greeted each other as fellow executives, so I came to say hello.”
“If we greet each other twice, my heart might fall out……”
“Oh come on. This is nothing. If I were serious, I could make dozens of people unable to even open their mouths.”
The joke was so realistic that I just laughed lightly and let it pass. As if she enjoyed teasing people this way, Vira threw out several more difficult-to-answer jokes afterward.
After exchanging jokes and conversation for a while and building some rapport, Vira carefully brought up a topic.
“Come to think of it— I heard you fixed Galrm’s body too?”
“Huh? What do you mean……”
“He said you made something like an energy drink for him.”
“Yes. I did make one for him.”
I had no memory of fixing Galrm’s body. The tonic was just a drink that temporarily boosted energy; it wasn’t medicine that fundamentally treated injuries.
However, Vira spoke with a voice full of expectation, as if that alone was enough.
“Then could you make me a prosthetic arm too?”
“A prosthetic arm……?”
“Yeah. A prosthetic arm. One that moves the way I want and lets me feel sensations too.”
Vira said this and pulled out the wooden prosthetic arm stored beneath her wheelchair. With a creaking sound, she assembled her right arm using her one hand and demonstrated moving the wooden prosthetic.
The crude prosthetic came into view—fingers moving with snapping sounds, wrist and elbow joints not rotating properly.
“See? This was made by a specialist in prosthetic manufacturing…… Even though a professional made it, it’s a complete mess. I can’t control the strength, and it doesn’t move the way I want.”
“So you want me to make you a new prosthetic arm.”
“Yeah! If a scientist skilled enough to fix Galrm’s body can’t make something like this, what can he do?”
She asked with a voice full of expectation, but unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of technology. Creating a prosthetic arm at the level she desired required several complex technologies.
And among them, the most important was the technology to sculpt the prosthetic. Making a prosthetic arm like her original limbs required dexterity more than scientific knowledge, so even I couldn’t easily replicate it.
“I’m sorry. That seems a bit difficult.”
“Eh— You can’t?”
“There are things that are impossible. I’m not a god or anything.”
“……I see. You can’t do it.”
Seeing Vira looking depressed with disappointment, I felt a surge of guilt, but she immediately changed her expression and smiled brightly.
She clearly knew that her depression would forcibly drag down the atmosphere around her. No one could casually laugh while a disabled person without limbs was feeling down.
“Well— Then is it my victory for discovering something even the genius scientist of the villain organization can’t make?”
“It doesn’t seem like the kind of story that has winners and losers……”
“Who cares! Or what, if you don’t acknowledge my victory, are you going to start crying right now? If you don’t want to see a veteran disabled person’s skill at squeezing out tears—”
After being pushed around by Vira, who kept insisting I acknowledge her victory, I was finally released after listening to three hours of chatter that made my ears ring.
With one more precedent added to the list that none of the executives were normal, I arrived at the lab and smiled wryly as I recalled the expression Vira had made earlier.
‘No, why would she ask me to make a prosthetic arm that’s so difficult to create?’
It would have been easier to just ask for new limbs to grow back. So that’s what I decided to do. Recalling the composition of the red potion, I began my research.
Creak, creak—. Vira returned to her room, pulling her wheelchair. It was more like a hospital room than a bedroom—a bleak space with no personal belongings whatsoever.
Moving naturally, Vira got out of the wheelchair and threw herself onto the bed. After disassembling her prosthetic arm and throwing off her clothes, she lay down as she was.
When you desperately throw off your clothes with only one limb, it feels as if you’ve become a caterpillar. The self-loathing that she couldn’t even produce value equal to a caterpillar dominated her entire body even more.
“……I want to die.”
Time alone. The moment even the slightest depressing thing happened, her tattered heart pushed her mind to the extreme. Wanting to die had now become as light as a greeting. Today starts again—thinking this, she buried her face in the pillow.
Her breath caught in her throat. With the sense of crisis that she might really die if she stayed still like this, Vira forcibly pulled out her survival instinct and finally flipped her body over.
‘I thought he would be able to make it.’
Her gaze quietly turned to her severed limbs. The injuries she had sustained while protecting her boss. Thanks to that, she had received compensation that allowed her to live without working for the rest of her life…… but what meaning did that have? She was nothing more than a caterpillar that couldn’t even walk on her own.
Even with prosthetics and artificial legs, walking was just as inconvenient. Fake limbs that weren’t real could never fill her deficiency.
The fact that her superpower was based on her limbs was also a problem. With half of each limb severed, she had become a non-powered person who couldn’t even use her superpower properly. In fact, losing her superpower had been more shocking than losing her limbs.
Because the person who had protected the young lady with her superpower could no longer do even that.
‘Ah, my depression is lasting longer than usual today. Is it that day……’
While Vira was calculating her cycle and forcibly turning her eyes away from her depression, someone came to visit even at this late hour and knocked on her door.
—Miss Vira? Are you inside?
“Huh……? Who—?”
—It’s the nurse. May I come in?
“Come in—.”
After receiving permission and entering the room, the nurse tidied up the messy room and the clothes she had thrown off, then massaged her body. After checking if there were any uncomfortable areas while massaging her limbs, the nurse took out a pill and held it out to her.
“What’s that?”
“It’s something the scientist asked me to deliver. He said to take it before going to sleep.”
“Huh—? Okay.”
Though she tilted her head in confusion about what kind of medicine it was, Vira swallowed the pill and headed to the bathroom. After finishing her bath with the nurse’s help, she lay in bed and tried to sleep.
When she leaned against the soft pillow and lay down, she felt as if living like this had any value. Every day was hell. She was nothing more than a corpse that was alive only because she couldn’t die.
‘Tomorrow too, next week too, next month too, next year too…… I’ll keep living like a caterpillar like this for the rest of my life……’
With thoughts so dark they could bring nightmares, Vira fell asleep.
“Nngh……”
For the first time in a long while, she had a dream and suffered from sleep paralysis. It was the kind of paralysis where her whole body itched but her body wouldn’t move even 1mm.
Finally freed from the frustrating paralysis, Vira stretched and got down from the bed in her sleep. Since she only had one leg, she usually fell easily, so she had to be fully alert when standing up……!
Thud—.
“……Huh?”
Vira, who had gotten down from the bed on two feet, touched her left foot with her right arm as if something was strange. There was a leg there. The leg she had lost years ago.
Thud, thud— While touching her leg, Vira realized she was touching her leg with both hands, meaning that not only her lost left leg but also her right arm had returned.
“Ah, uh, um……”
Unable to continue speaking as she witnessed the unbelievable reality, Vira carefully looked at the mirror. Standing there was her former self—the one she had thought she would never see again.
Without the disgusting burn scars or the severed, deformed stumps of limbs.
Her past self.
“Ah, ahaha— This isn’t a dream…… right?”
After carefully pinching her cheek, she felt a tingling pain and realized this wasn’t a dream. An unbelievable reality was before her eyes.
“It’s not…… a dream.”
For some reason, her vision blurred. Tears covered her eyes.
Vira newly realized that she was someone who cried this much. Even when her limbs had been severed, she hadn’t shed this many tears.
The tears she hadn’t been able to shed back then were pouring out now. She just. Endlessly.
Shed tears.