Beyond the Cage
Beyond the Cage
It was definitely a dagger drawn slowly.
There was enough time to confirm both the menacing double-edged blade and the red gem at the tip of the crossguard.
But I couldn't catch a single frame of its subsequent movement.
In the blink of an eye, the point reached right in front of my right eye.
The blade digging straight into my eyeball snapped me wide awake.
Violent pain.
The jolting sensation that hammered directly into my brain elicited a natural mammalian response from my central nervous system.
A sharp scream burst out.
I swung my arms and stumbled backward, then fell flat on my back.
Clutching my right eye socket with both hands, I gasped for breath.
Saliva that had been dribbling out got sucked into my airway because of the rough breathing.
"Keoheok...!"
Only after coughing up cleanly did reason return.
I looked at the man with a mix of questions and resentment.
He seemed displeased by my expression.
"Staring like that won't change your situation. Instead, put your head down and grovel. Who knows? Maybe mercy you didn't have before will appear?"
Only then did I realize my face was completely twisted from an automatic reflex to the pain.
'I didn't really have any intention of resisting...'
With a sour feeling, I lowered my gaze.
'Will he treat me now?'
I waited calmly, but it seemed the saying "A man's word is worth a thousand gold" didn't exist in this world.
Despite blathering about mercy, the man just snorted once and moved away.
When his footsteps were far enough, I returned my gaze to its original position.
Every time I moved my eyeball, a jolting pain passed through my nasal cavity and the back of my head, but I was too curious about what the man sitting at the desk would start doing.
'Will he mix the liquids in the beaker? Or light the lamp first? Or maybe do something illegal to me...'
I watched intently with a fluttering heart, but he just read a book.
A little disappointing.
Still, it was interesting.
'What book is it?'
I absentmindedly stared at the cover and discovered something amazing.
'My eyesight improved.'
Thinking about it, it was obvious.
They say no one is born with bad eyes.
My current age, even if estimated generously, is under ten.
Even with a knife in my eye, my eyesight was bound to be better than in my past life.
The unfortunate part is that I can't decipher the letters.
I gained eyesight, lost reading comprehension, and lost one additional eye?
...Is that a win?
While I was pondering, the man began to show different actions.
From among the experimental apparatus in front of him, he pulled forward a tripod with a crystal ball on it, then finely adjusted the metal lever attached to a box.
After a moment.
A faint light seeped from the crystal ball.
The man brought the crystal ball to below his chin and opened his mouth.
"It's Zenon. Is the cult leader in?"
So the crystal ball was something like a telephone.
"Please wait."
Just like a customer service center transferring to a consultant, a brief silence passed, and then the voice that came through was that of a seductive woman.
"What's this? The high-nosed Heket's prized steed actually contacts me first?"
The man lived up to his looks.
He casually ignored the woman's words, which might have been a form of greeting, and got to the point.
"I woke up a test subject at noon today. I want to know the status of the 'Pupil' that you manage."
"Ours? Hmm... Looks like it was quite successful?"
"It's unusual."
"In what way?"
"It wasn't consumed by madness."
"Oh?"
"If you have nothing more to ask, just answer."
"Wait. I just sent the kids."
This time the silence was a bit longer.
Only after the man, who had reopened his book, turned five pages did the answer come back.
"It's a dud. No reaction. The rest are normal."
She said it teasingly, but regret was also evident in her voice.
The man remained composed.
With an equally indifferent face, he coldly said goodbye.
"I'll hang up. Contact me if there's any change."
After that, the man just kept reading.
Meanwhile, I reviewed the content of the conversation I just heard.
'"Wasn't consumed by madness" must be referring to me.'
It's not certain, but to start reasoning, I had to set up a foundation somewhere.
In logical terms, an axiom.
If that's wrong, all reasoning goes to waste, but reasoning itself is fun, isn't it?
I paused my observation of the experimental apparatus and racked my brain.
'He must have described the moment I fell into the puddle as 'waking up'. The 'Pupil' is something that reacts in conjunction when a test subject awakens. If it reacted, it would be a success, but I...'
The situation wasn't good.
As someone who worked on the front lines of biology, I couldn't be unaware of what happens to a guinea pig when an experiment fails.
The fortunate thing was that I received an evaluation of 'unusual'?
'They'll keep me alive for a while, but it means additional experiments are a hundred percent certain.'
Reasoning led to worry.
When even a sense of resentment crept in, my eyes squeezed shut.
I realized my mistake.
Even a slight movement of my eyeball sends intense pain to the back of my head, yet I put force into my eyelids enough to push my eyeballs back.
I thought a scream would reflexively burst out.
But the intensity of the pain wasn't great.
Bewildered, I slowly opened my eyes.
After removing the hand covering my injured eye, I moved my eyeball once to the right, once to the left.
'Why can I see?'
It was blurry, but vision existed.
I could discern not only the iron bars right in front of me but also the desk and wall a little farther away.
Only then did I realize that the bleeding had stopped.
Amazing self-healing ability.
It wasn't just Hati who had a body that transcended common sense.
Suddenly, an idea came to mind.
"Hey."
I deliberately called the man with a blunt tone.
The man turned to me with a cold face.
He didn't say anything, so I stated my business.
"I'm bored. Could you give me a book?"
It took quite a long time for an answer to come.
The man stared at me without blinking, then let out a thoughtful "Hmm..." and slowly rose from his seat, walking to the bookshelf at the very back of the room.
Then he took out two books, approached me, and said,
"I can give them. But I doubt there's a book here that you can understand."
Then two books were tossed down.
I picked up one of them and held it out to the man.
"Teach me how to read too."
The man let out a hollow laugh.
"Are you testing my patience?"
"No. I'm just really bored."
"You illiterate bitch wants to read a book because you're bored?"
"Yes."
I felt a murderous intent.
But the man's subsequent actions were very considerate.
"Open it."
He made me open the book and read from the first line with clear pronunciation.
He read seven whole pages like that and even added a kind explanation.
"That's it. The parts I didn't recite are magic symbols."
I nodded.
My memory was always good, but perhaps because the body was young, even the confusing parts came clearly into my head.
As I flipped the pages forward to review, I heard the sound of the man returning to his seat.
By now, he would have confirmed that my eye had recovered. Now all that's left is to appeal my intelligence.
This is the test subject's method of survival.
'Becoming interesting.'
'Since even not being insane was evaluated as unusual, if my intelligence is also high, there must be something more.'
It was a guess with an uncertain axiom from the start, but what can I do?
Right now, this was the only thing worth trying.
Fortunately, the young age of the body was an even greater advantage than I imagined.
Learning pronunciation took less than 30 minutes, and maybe because my thought flow was flexible, even when unfamiliar concepts appeared, I could simultaneously reason and comprehend.
As a result, by reading one book three times through, I vaguely understood what 'black magic' is.
'Magic sources can be roughly divided into three types, and among them, magic that utilizes necromancy is black magic...'
Of course, since it was 'vague', I couldn't use magic right away.
I didn't even understand the principle of how magic activates.
The reason was simple.
'Why did he give me this kind of book?'
The title was 「Introduction to Heta Astrology」.
It definitely had the feel of a specialized textbook.
Fortunately, because it was an 'introduction', the usable knowledge wasn't entirely absent.
Although limited to parts related to astrology, the book contained knowledge from a wide range of fields, including history, geography, and equipment.
Thanks to that, the second book was much easier to read.
「Research on the Awakening of Heta's Pupil」
Now the content was closer to a research paper beyond a textbook, but with various keywords already in my head, it was easier to proceed with reasoning, which led to more accurate understanding.
'I see why he specifically gave me these books.'
When I put the book down, the man was nowhere to be seen.
It seemed he had finished his business and left while I was absorbed.
I stood up.
I stared blankly at the spot where the man had been sitting.
On the desk was a flask of grotesque shape.
Inside it was a pitch-black liquid that looked familiar.