Return from the Expedition (2)
"What's wrong?"
Unable to fathom why Eunhyeon wore such a dazed expression, Terezia asked him calmly.
"Th-then... it was you, the marchioness, who taught Iliana those strange things...?"
"Asking a friend's wife about that directly might be a bit..."
"Ah, sorry. I lacked consideration."
Still utterly clueless about this topic, Eunhyeon hastily apologized to Terezia.
"It's just, she suddenly ran off, and it seems like she learned something weird from you, Madam, and then did that to me... uh... sigh, no, never mind."
It was a subject he simply couldn't bring himself to voice aloud, so Eunhyeon couldn't bring himself to describe what Iliana had done to him.
"Hehe, I know what you're agonizing over, Lord Eunhyeon. It seems the advice I gave her was effective."
"...Please don't tell me anymore from now on. No, don't tell me at all. I don't think I can handle it any longer."
If Iliana, whose eyes had been awakened to lust, grew even further, Eunhyeon no longer had confidence he could keep up.
"Hehe, when she came to me for that consultation, it was truly refreshing."
"Madam, the marquis has arrived."
"Got it."
At the butler's words as he knocked and entered the study, Terezia rose from her seat and left the study with Eunhyeon.
As soon as they descended to the central hall, Terezia greeted Riod, who was entering the mansion through the open door.
"Welcome home."
"Mm."
Riod gave a short reply and nodded at his wife's smiling greeting before shifting his gaze and spotting Eunhyeon.
"You're here. I heard you'd arrive today."
He glanced briefly at Terezia, with whom he regularly exchanged information through meetings with Iliana, before speaking.
"Any growth?"
"You'll have to judge that yourself."
Eunhyeon knew exactly what he was asking without needing to spell it out.
"At least she didn't go easy."
"...That doesn't sound particularly pleasing."
There was no father anywhere who would be happy to hear his daughter had pushed her body to the limit and returned exhausted from somewhere.
But since it had been Eira's own choice, Riod had permitted her participation in the expedition despite his worries.
"At least spar with her once. She's been striving with you as her goal."
"That sounds like you're placing some expectations on her yourself."
"I bear responsibility too. If she were at a level that would disappoint you, I wouldn't have that confidence in my own assessment."
"That makes me glad yet complicates my feelings. It would've been nice if she'd just followed her mother's footsteps like other noble young ladies..."
"You know, if Eira heard that, she'd make a hurt face."
"I know. It's just... maybe it's time to give up on that hope."
Riod's emotions seemed tangled as he resolved to accept his daughter into his knight order.
"She'll grow even stronger from here. At least I didn't want her getting into Artia just because she's your daughter. Eira hated that idea more than death too. Maybe she takes after her dad, but her pride and competitive spirit are no joke."
"Hehe, did Eira say that?"
Terezia asked Eunhyeon with interest, imagining a side of her daughter she hadn't known.
As he nodded with a wry smile, she looked at Eira's father, Riod, with an "as expected" expression.
Riod averted his wife's gaze as if he couldn't bear it, then turned to Eunhyeon and spoke.
"Eunhyeon, I have something I'd like to consult you about, conveniently."
"Consultation? Hmm, judging by your face, it looks like another headache. Alright."
With Eunhyeon's simple assent, Riod nodded, and Terezia instructed the butlers to bring tea to the study. The three headed back to the study.
Sipping tea for the second time since arriving at the mansion, Eunhyeon waited for Riod to slowly open up.
"You have exceptional ability in alchemy too, right?"
"Well, decently so?"
Alchemy was one of the many skills Eunhyeon possessed.
The materials he'd used to build the house inside the Arkys Great Labyrinth this time had undergone alchemical processing in places, and now that he'd decided not to hide his identity, he planned to fully utilize his abilities by constructing various facilities in the labyrinth villa, including a forge and alchemy workshop.
"Among alchemy's branches, there's a technique for fusing living beings together, as I recall. Right?"
"You mean 'Bio-Alchemy'?"
"Something like that name..."
Riod muttered softly, nodding at Eunhyeon's mention before continuing his questions.
"Have you ever seen cases where magical beasts are fused with other magical beasts?"
"Magical beasts with magical beasts? Hmm. Sure, I've seen some."
The origins of Bio-Alchemy lay in a field similar to Earth's "life sciences," synthesizing living beings to create new life forms.
Its purposes included artificially accelerating livestock growth for stable food supply, safely processing creatures needed for combat or training, and even ties to "medicine," closely linked to human life.
Wild "magical beasts," threats to human society, required constant research, countermeasures, and extermination from humanity's perspective.
Eunhyeon knew such issues were handled as national projects through collaboration between the Adventurer's Guild and alchemists.
Setting aside why Riod was asking, Eunhyeon answered regarding the possibility.
"They're also called chimeras."
"What about humans fused with magical beasts?"
The moment he uttered those words, not just Eunhyeon but Terezia too stared at Riod in shock.
"Hmm..."
Eunhyeon stroked his chin, furrowing his brow in thought for a moment.
"I've never seen it. But..."
Wondering if he should say it—whether it might just cause confusion—he met Riod's expectant gaze and finally spoke.
"Theoretically, it's not impossible. But you would've already investigated various places before asking me, right?"
"I just came back from consulting the alchemy professor at Aiter today."
"Ah, that woman named Cecilia?"
"You know her?"
"Coincidentally, she was Elvin Hersha's homeroom teacher before, and now she's Erin's advisor. I ran into her a few times while investigating as Erin's guardian and Elvin's matters."
"...What fateful connections. Back to the point—her answer was 'humans and magical beasts can't be fused.' But you answered differently. I want to hear the basis for why you think it's possible."
"The reason magical beasts can be fused is because they share the same roots. For example, suppose you're badly injured and critically low on blood. Who could transfuse blood to you? Only your blood relatives—Eira and Elion. But if a stranger's blood were transfused into you, what would happen?"
"I'd die."
Eunhyeon nodded at Riod's calm reply.
"I used blood as an example, but magical beasts share fundamental commonalities, and if fused properly, success is possible. That commonality is the 'corrupted mana' unique to magical beasts—the core reason humans and magical beasts can't be fused."
Like water and oil, corrupted mana contaminates the body upon entry, twisting the flesh horrifically into a magical beast.
Maintaining a human body while fusing magical beast parts was deemed impossible by Aiter's alchemy professor, Cecilia.
"That must be the basis she cited for impossibility."
"The example differed, but the point was similar. Yet you still see it as possible?"
"Well, theoretically."
"Why?"
"Remember, Riod? Long ago, when the empire's humans all turned into magical beasts at once."
"Pardon?"
Terezia nearly dropped her teacup in surprise.
Riod's brow furrowed sharply at the unwelcome memory.
"That horrific scene."
He recalled how the emperor of the Miervabila Empire, the instigator of the Arkena Great War, went mad and scattered demonic energy over the capital, corrupting the ambient mana and transforming the entire populace into magical beasts.
"But that was... more like they'd already devolved into magical beasts, not humans."
"Precisely, they were 'humans' mutated into magical beasts. If there's a way for a human to harbor corrupted mana without the transformation progressing..."
"......"
"Then fusing a magical beast's body onto a human harboring corrupted mana becomes fully plausible."
In the end, both Eunhyeon and Cecilia agreed humans and magical beasts couldn't fuse, based on similar reasoning—but their perspectives differed starkly.
Cecilia saw it as absolutely impossible; Eunhyeon believed it feasible with the right means.
"Ugh..."
Riod let out a low groan, deep in thought.
"I don't get it."
"What don't you?"
As Riod pondered, Terezia asked the slightly frowning Eunhyeon on his behalf.
"I can't see why go through such a complicated process."
"The reason...?"
"Bio-alchemy fusing magical beasts is a highly niche field even among alchemists. Securing samples is incredibly difficult, and above all, there's virtually no merit. Even if you succeed in creating a fused magical beast after grueling research, its only use is destructive military purposes, and whether the alchemist can control it is another issue entirely."
In short, the rewards or outcomes were minuscule compared to the effort and cost.
Moreover, failure in control could wreak havoc on the alchemist and surroundings—not just effort and cost, but significant risks too.
"Even fusing magical beasts is shunned, so fusing humans and magical beasts out of nowhere feels too abrupt."
Eunhyeon glanced at Riod.
"I suspect creating those 'humanoid fused magical beasts' had some fundamental purpose."
"Purpose..."
Riod mulled over Eunhyeon's word, groaning softly.
"Last week, a report came through the guards: a young girl requested rescue for her village. Bandits attacked, killed the men and elders, and dragged off the women. The girl, not even ten, survived thanks to her parents hiding her desperately. Alone and terrified, she wandered until a passing merchant caravan lord found her and brought her to Fernin, handing her to the guards."
The guard who comforted her learned the village's plight from the tearful child's testimony, reported to superiors, and requested a knight order dispatch.
"I contacted the duke for troop requisition and led three knights and fifty soldiers on an expedition to subjugate the bandits."
"...And the result?"
"We couldn't even find the bandits. En route to the village, Artia knights and Pernias soldiers encountered humans fused with magical beast parts."
The fused humans lacked uniformity: a gaunt man with a massive green-skinned orc arm like a club, a man with agile wolf legs, a grotesque woman with a spider's lower body and human torso—forms the knights and soldiers had never seen, unknown entities embodying pure terror.