So This Is How It Feels

So this is how it feels.

Looking down at James as he trembled, rage and terror tangled together in every shudder, I couldn't keep a quiet snort of laughter from rising.

Messing with that bastard was turning out to be far more entertaining than I'd expected.

"Man, good thing I went with what you said."

"Right? There's no point trying to have a civilized conversation with a guy like him."

If I were dealing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with anyone halfway reasonable, I would have tried to solve this with words. Use what I knew to make them mistake me for an ally, turn them into a double agent without them ever realizing it—or sweet-talk a high-value enemy asset straight over to our side.

James Baker, though, was useless either way. Too untrustworthy for double-agent work, and even if I valued his Gift enough to recruit him, there was no path to reforming him.

"Still—is he actually going to answer our questions nicely?"

The second he saw an opening, he'd go for the kill.

Jerry glanced at James with ice-cold eyes, then turned back to me.

"Not a chance. Patient James will do everything in his power ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to refuse treatment from our medical staff."

"…You're really sticking with the doctor act?"

"It's fun. Do you know how hard it is to become a doctor? When else am I going to get to play one?"

She laughed it off, but I answered the question sitting under her curiosity.

James would never, under any circumstances, cooperate with us willingly. Unless some brainwashing-level shift of heart hit him out of nowhere, we were looking at a long, tedious war of words.

But—

"If he won't answer nicely, then we just don't treat him nicely."

Nicely. By definition: a nature or attitude that is thoroughly compliant and gentle.

And as the saying goes, you get the tone you give. If he insisted on coming at us rough, we would simply oblige. There was no reason to show mercy to someone who turned down a toast of goodwill and demanded a cup of punishment instead.

"There's a surprisingly simple way to handle people, you know."

Negotiation and persuasion are a kind of orchestration. You seize the target's curiosity and interest—the positive emotions—and shove the negative ones as far away as possible, drawing them toward you.

But human beings have an emotion they prioritize by instinct, above both positive and negative.

"Patient James, how are you feeling right now? Think you're ready for a consultation?"

"You crazy bastard. An instructor kidnapping his own TA?"

"Looking great. That energy is wonderful to see."

As if to announce that his opinion had never mattered in the first place, I finished the exchange with only what I needed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to say—and then, with alchemy, I gave James back the right arm that had been missing.

"Wh—my right arm…?!"

"I told you. Consultation."

James's head turned. His eyes found me. The gaze that had been roaring on fuel of pure rage and hatred spat out a byproduct of wariness.

With all four limbs restored, James radiated tension. He clearly couldn't understand what game I was playing by healing him.

"Miss Jerry, do you happen to have a smartphone or a recorder?"

"Nope. Just use yours."

"I haven't bought one yet either."

I'd kept putting it off—later, later—and of course I didn't have one when I actually needed it. Left with no choice, I transmuted a random smartphone I'd seen on a shop display while walking the streets, opened the recording app, and spoke to James.

"All right, Patient James. Let's begin the consultation."

"…Consultation?"

"Yes. When I ask a question, answer it to the best of your ability."

I smiled and flicked my thumb. My fingertip touched the screen; a soft chime sounded, and the recording began.

"First question. Are you James Baker?"

"Yeah. I am."

A satisfactory answer. I stopped the recording and nodded, pleased.

"Perfect. Keep that up and you'll be discharged in no time."

James glared at me like I was insane. Well. The real insanity was only about to start—if he was already looking at me like that, it took a little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the fun out of it.

"On to the next question."

A chime with a rising note announced the start of a new recording.

"James Baker. On whose orders, and hoping for what, have you been surveilling Instructor Charlotte all this time?"

The corner of my mouth curled as I asked. James sucked in a sharp, empty breath. The slack look on his face said it all—he hadn't imagined I knew that much. I'd roughly figured it out the moment he blurted the name of his Gift in some back alley; apparently he was even denser than I'd thought.

He swallowed hard, staring at me, and opened his mouth.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Beep.

A short, decisive alert cut the recording off clean.

"Tsk."

I wiped every trace of a smile from my face and spoke in a cold, flat voice.

"That isn't the answer I wanted."

"…What?"

James shot back, but I didn't bother answering. Even if I had, he wouldn't have had the luxury of thinking about it.

Zzzzt—crack!

The same unpleasantly alien noise and phenomenon I'd heard once in the headmaster's office unfolded right in front of me.

"GAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

A scream tore out of James. Veins stood out on his neck; he wrenched his mouth open as if he meant to split it, howling hard enough that his eyeballs looked ready to burst from their sockets. Out in the open, a cry that raw would have drawn a crowd in seconds and sent Security Bureau investigators racing over on a report.

Unfortunately for James, this was the basement of an instructor's private residence at Origin Academy. Construction quality, amenities, security, soundproofing—every last one of them was top of the line. There was a reason I'd brought him here and nowhere else. Down here, you could set off a bomb or fire up a military megaphone and not a whisper would leak outside.

"H-human… human transmutation. You—you bastard—an alchemist's taboo…!!"

James's arms and legs crumbled apart from the extremities, leaving only the core of shoulders and pelvis—then restored themselves. Shaking off the aftershocks of pain that had only just begun to fade, soaked in cold sweat, he gasped and glared up at me, trembling.

I met that look calmly. No—with satisfaction.

The heat was gone from his eyes. The petty clutter of rage and wariness had been stripped out of the pupils staring back at me. The only emotion left was terror.

Sticky, primal, and, by itself, the engine that makes a human move.

"All right. Let's try again, Patient James."

A chime—my thumb against the screen—and the phone's speaker announced the start of another recording.

"James Baker. On whose orders, and hoping for what, have you been surveilling Instructor Charlotte all this time?"

A finger flicked. A scream answered.

How much time had passed?

I wasn't the type to wear a watch, and there was no clock in the basement, so I had no idea.

"A little over an hour and a half."

"That long?"

"Most of it was wasted waking him up after he passed out screaming."

Fair enough—it wasn't the kind of pain you stayed conscious through.

I nodded at Jerry's comment and looked down at James collapsed on the floor.

"…Is he even still alive?"

"Probably."

With Imitation Reproduction, he'd copied a fairly wide range of abilities; he wouldn't die that easily. Besides, I'd only ever broken down his limbs with alchemy and restored them immediately afterward—there had never been room for him to die in the first place.

His mind's probably shattered, though.

James lay there like a wreck, only the occasional twitch of his body for movement. Tears and drool ran idiotically down his face; his strength was gone, and his unfocused, empty eyes simply blinked into space.

Hardware intact, software demolished—something like that.

He had no hope of rehabilitation, so I felt no pity. But I still had work left for him to do.

"Miss Jerry, can you handle spirits by any chance?"

"Spirits? No. I think I've got the affinity for it, but I've never learned how."

Figured as much. With good material on hand, I'd been thinking of trying a Homunculus—but without a spirit, that would have to wait.

That didn't mean James had lost all his usefulness. If anything, the role I truly needed him for started now. Recording his true face and the intelligence on various organizations had only ever been about securing evidence to persuade the headmaster and the others.

"Then let's preserve him for now."

"…Preserve?"

Leaving Jerry tilting her head at my odd choice of words, I walked over to where James lay sprawled.

"Earlier you asked what the Transmutation Circle on his clothes was for."

I flipped his limp, corpse-like body onto its back and raised my hand over the Transmutation Circle drawn on his shirt. Ether flowed from my fingertips, and the carefully constructed circle came to life.

"It's a Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle."

Draw a circle holding two pentagons inverted against each other, then another circle at the center holding a hexagon. That is the basic framework for transmuting a Philosopher's Stone; add the various necessary elements and activate it, and at last the stone can be made.

Kiiing—!

With a strange hum, the Transmutation Circle spat a gloomy light. The light tore James's body apart as if devouring it, seized whatever seeped from the fragments and the severed planes, and compressed it. Flesh broken down and the soul exposed in the gaps were caught by the circle's light, contracted, and fused into one.

I picked up the Philosopher's Stone that had been created and examined it with satisfaction.

"The world has no idea what a Philosopher's Stone actually is."

A Philosopher's Stone is a substance that can transmute anything. At the same time, it is the only catalyst that ignores the law of equivalent exchange.

That is roughly as far as public knowledge goes—but the stone's true power is nowhere near that limited. The proper way to use a Philosopher's Stone has nothing to do with transmutation reactions at all.

I brought the stone to my mouth and, for all to see, swallowed it whole.

"Hey! If you swallow that—!"

"It's fine. This is how you're supposed to use it."

I calmed Jerry as she rushed over in horror. This was the correct method—closer to the stone's original purpose of creation than anything else. It might sound absurd, but alchemy has always been an absurd discipline to anyone who doesn't understand it. Nothing to be done about that.

All right. Let's check.

I forced down the flutter of anticipation in my chest and verified whether the Philosopher's Stone had properly taken effect in my body.

Status window.

After all, the ultimate purpose of a Philosopher's Stone is the preservation of immaterial value.