Blonde Tanned Delinquent
It was a question that had been raised steadily in the community for quite some time.
Just how on earth had James Baker, that utter scoundrel, managed to become Charlotte’s teaching assistant?
By any common sense he was the sort who shouldn’t even have been able to cross the threshold of Origin Academy. What kind of trick had he pulled to climb past ordinary cadets and all the way into the position of assistant?
But the secret came to light in Hohenheim’s classified records.
That bastard James wasn’t merely some third-rate thug. He was a thug who’d been born with a broken, overpowered Gift.
“Imitation Reproduction.”
“……!”
That was the Gift James Baker had been born with.
His special talent—and the power that had allowed a completely effortless, arrogant third-rate punk to step into the embrace of Origin Academy.
“You… how do you know about that?”
“Is that really what matters right now? There should be a far more important question you need to ask me.”
The thuggish air around James shifted.
Well, “shifted” was generous—he was still a thug, just a slightly more serious one.
Eyes bulging, James cracked his neck and wrists with a series of pops, turning his back toward me as if the gesture alone might intimidate me.
With looks and a build like that, a more naive person would certainly have been cowed enough to lower their head.
“Fine, yeah. I do have something to ask.”
“Then go ahead and ask.”
James took a few steps toward me, then suddenly stopped.
And in the instant I blinked, he kicked off the ground at tremendous speed and drove a fist straight at me.
What had been a simple dash kicked up a sudden gale, sending dust and dirt billowing out in every direction.
“Target the blind spot the moment your opponent’s guard is down and their vision is blocked. At least you’ve got the basics down.”
But that was all it amounted to.
That leap just now was a feat James’s own skill could never have achieved—so of course it stopped at mere imitation and reproduction.
Bang!
The moment the fist came within arm’s reach, a thunderous boom rang out and James went flying.
He shot past Jerie, who had casually stepped aside, and slammed into the wall in a deep embrace, coughing out a choked breath.
“You should probably stop the bleeding in that arm.”
That was what I said to James as he sank to the ground with a groan.
James glared at me with a look that said what the hell are you talking about, tried to push himself up—and collapsed before he could even straighten his knees.
“……Huh?”
Then he let out a vacant, idiotic sound thick with pure bewilderment.
On the right side of his vision: warm red liquid already spilled across the ground, and still pouring.
James’s shoulder jerked. After that jerk his expression twisted violently as his left hand clutched at the place where his right arm had been.
The reason his right shoulder had jerked was simple.
He’d tried to raise his right arm, but there was no arm left to raise—so only the shoulder that could still move had jerked and stopped.
“Can’t you hear me? If you don’t stop the bleeding soon, you’ll die from blood loss.”
“Ah… ahh…?!”
James’s breathing turned ragged and his body began to tremble.
He had finally registered that one of his arms was gone, that blood was gushing from the horrific stump.
The sudden rush of adrenaline and shock had kept him from feeling the pain—but now that he’d seen the wound with his own eyes, that mental anesthesia was over.
Even a trivial scrape stings more when you look at it. How much worse must it be when an entire arm has been sheared clean off?
“Gyaaaaaaah!!!”
A scream of pure agony tore out of him.
It was so wretched I almost expected officers from the Public Safety Bureau to come running.
“How… how…?!”
“How? What do you mean how? I’m an alchemist—what other method would I use besides alchemy?”
It was the unvarnished truth, so pure I almost wondered if it was okay to tell an enemy this freely.
There hadn’t even been time to mix in a lie. Everything had started and finished in an instant.
James had attacked, so I’d wrapped myself in a Transmutation Barrier as a defense. James’s right arm had simply collided with the barrier of its own accord and been decomposed out of existence.
“Ghhhk…”
“Ah.”
James’s upper body toppled over with a death-rattle sound.
Wondering if he was faking it, I waited a moment before approaching—only to find him fully unconscious, eyes rolled back.
Seriously? The guy actually fainted without even stopping the bleeding?
What was he planning to do if he bled out? Maybe he intended to use his own pitiful life as a sacrifice to give me nightmares.
How dare he try a life-or-death nightmare transmutation against me.
“Aren’t I actually a pretty nice guy? Carefully taking care of an enemy’s wounds and everything.”
“Looking at the actions alone, yeah, you’re a nice guy. But the person who inflicted the wound usually isn’t the one who says that.”
True enough, but the important part was that I’d treated him, right?
Of course I didn’t have any proper hemostatic agents on hand, so I stopped the blood pouring from the stump of his right arm like an open faucet with a rather rough method.
Sizzle!
I cauterized the stump of James’s right arm with fire, searing the wound shut to stop the bleeding.
It was a hemostatic technique called cauterization—the fastest and most reliable method in situations where every second counted.
Of course it had its pros and cons.
It hurt so much you’d beg to die, and while it prevented immediate death by blood loss, the risk of infection was extremely high.
On top of that, since the flame was produced by alchemy, one wrong move could turn his whole body into roast meat.
Not that it’s any of my business, of course.
I hadn’t said it out loud, but there was plenty of personal feeling mixed in.
I could have transmuted a coagulant or hemostatic drug, or even restored the arm completely—but I’d chosen cauterization just to make him suffer.
I’d hoped the pain would make him snap his eyes open and scream again, but he just twitched and stayed silent.
Man, boring.
“What are you going to do with this guy now?”
“We should head home first. Among secluded places, nowhere is as safe and sturdy as there.”
I didn’t use the space often, but there was a fairly spacious basement—perfect for locking someone up and interrogating them.
I’d checked it out briefly before. The soundproofing and durability were excellent; you could set off a bomb in there.
“Ah, and try not to use any techniques or abilities in front of this guy if you can help it.”
“Why? …Ah, so that’s the power of this Imitation Reproduction Gift of his?”
“Yes. Miss Jerie’s Gift would be particularly troublesome to deal with.”
If grass and trees started growing thick all over the house, just weeding would take forever.
I could clear it cleanly with alchemy, but I had some unpleasant memories associated with weeding.
And so Jerie and I slung James over our shoulders and dashed home.
We naturally drew a huge amount of attention, but when we shouted that he was an emergency patient while running, everyone cleared the way for us.
“They’re actually buying that.”
“Well, he is an emergency patient, isn’t he?”
If a man missing an arm wasn’t an emergency patient, who would be?
We never said we were taking him to a hospital, so it wasn’t a lie.
Yep. I have never told a lie.
When he looked around, everything was white.
In a space that looked as if white tiles had been stuck edge to edge, James clung to his faintly returning consciousness.
What… the hell?
The first emotion James felt was bewilderment.
Where was this? Why had he woken up in a place like this?
His breathing quickened in the confusing situation, but soon a headache brought back the memories from before he lost consciousness.
He’d followed a rare elven beauty into a back alley, and then that annoying new instructor who’d suddenly appeared had taken his right arm with alchemy.
Recalling that sequence of events, James predicted his current predicament with a sinking feeling.
He wanted to shake his head and deny it, but there was no way to view the situation optimistically.
That bastard… he knew about my Gift.
Imitation Reproduction.
James’s Gift was exactly what the name said: it imitated and reproduced an opponent’s skills and arts without any need for questions or answers.
The range of Imitation Reproduction was vast—everything from cooking and the arts to every martial arts form and even magical talents.
Once he’d mastered the Gift, he could even imitate other people’s Gifts, so James had never once imagined losing to anyone.
No one outside of those people in the organization should know about my Gift.
James had lived carefully concealing the power of his Gift all this time.
There was no real benefit to revealing it, and a power like this was bound to invite every kind of envy and jealousy once exposed.
Of course, watching the reactions of the idiots whose hard-earned results got snatched away was fun, but James knew Origin Academy wasn’t a place that would let that slide so easily.
Naturally, Imitation Reproduction had its limits too.
He still hadn’t precisely grasped what those limits were based on, but at the very least, it didn’t function properly against personnel at the instructor level of Origin Academy.
That’s why I joined that organization and made a connection with the Hohenheim family.
The Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir.
If he could just get his hands on those two things, even his Gift would shed its limits and become far more powerful.
James had believed that without a shred of doubt, and luckily his potential with Imitation Reproduction had been highly valued, so he’d been promised a Philosopher’s Stone and an Elixir as compensation for completing the mission.
But what the hell was this situation now?
Shit, looks like I’ve been dragged here by that instructor bastard.
The pure white space was wide open like a psychiatric ward, with not a single piece of furniture or random object in it.
It was hard to understand what purpose a place like this had been made for, but that very atmosphere only drove James crazier.
At that moment, the ceiling opened.
A section of the ceiling tiles scattered apart like pieces, and through the gap appeared the two figures James could never forget.
“Already awake? Your recovery’s fast.”
“You…!”
As James immediately flared with hostility and tried to raise his voice, Ryu Seojun looked down at him with a sigh, as if he were pathetic.
“Seriously. Because of you I even had to transmute the basement entrance into the ceiling. You’ve already lost an arm from acting rashly once—how about you start thinking a little before you move?”
The words were laced with clear mockery and ridicule.
James ground his teeth and raised his mana, but he couldn’t charge at Ryu Seojun the way he had in the back alley.
He couldn’t win.
Among the countless abilities he’d acquired through Imitation Reproduction, nearly a dozen sensory-type abilities all shouted in unison.
The moment you attack, you die.
If you want to live, submit.
This wasn’t an opponent you could handle with pride.
James trusted his Gift, and so he barely managed to cling to his reason.
But as if to toy with him, Ryu Seojun grinned widely and called out in an exaggerated voice.
“Mr. James Baker, I told you before at Research Building 12, didn’t I?”
James clamped his mouth shut.
Anxiety washed over his body.
The words Ryu Seojun had spoken back then had been chilling in their content alone.
“I hope you remember that I’m always recruiting test subjects for human body transmutation.”
No way… right?
Even as he clung to the “what if” and examined the situation, cold sweat streamed down the back of James’s neck.
But the world rarely deceives people with ominous premonitions.
Good premonitions tend to miss, but ominous ones—no matter how absurd—tend to hit the mark.
And sure enough, the ominous premonition became reality.
“Welcome to voluntary enlistment—or rather, admission! I hope you like the patient gown!”
Patient gown.
At those bone-chilling words, James’s head dropped toward his upper body.
“You… you crazy bastard…!”
Seeing the large, unidentified Transmutation Circle drawn boldly across the white shirt, a rough curse tumbled from James’s mouth in a trembling voice.