Chapter 131: The Tin Knight and The Golden Alchemist
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 131: The Tin Knight and The Golden Alchemist
A flash of light shone through her eyelids, making Adel’s eyes twitch.
Her mind, slowly waking from sleep, dazedly replayed the recent past.
The battle with the Witch of the West. The short journey in the Land of Small People. The attack of the golden monkey horde.
The moment she recalled fighting desperately before being overwhelmed by their numbers and collapsing, her hazy consciousness snapped fully awake.
“Ugh!”
Adel reflexively tried to sit up, but the attempt failed.
It wasn’t that she was unable to move due to serious injuries.
No, it was true that every inch of her body ached, but the cause was a physical restraint.
Only then did Adel realize she was tightly bound by metal contraptions to a strange operating table.
Worse, she was completely naked, without a single scrap of cloth on her.
“Kyaaah!?”
A maelstrom of horror and shame swirling inside her, Adel thrashed about even more violently than before.
But the metal contraptions binding her body didn’t budge an inch.
It was the same even when she enhanced her body with mana.
“Heh heh heh, so full of energy. To think you can already scream so vigorously after being beaten to a pulp.”
Adel’s head whipped to the side.
A face dotted with liver spots and a hooked nose.
And beneath a large, pointed hat, a single eye gleamed ominously.
An old woman who looked like the textbook definition of a ‘witch’ was staring at Adel with a smile on her lips.
Adel instinctively tried to prepare for battle, but it was impossible with her limbs bound.
Adel asked in a trembling voice.
“W-Witch of the West, what is this situation?”
“Hoh, you speak quite politely even in this situation. Not bad.”
The witch let out a cackle and, surprisingly, answered Adel’s question readily.
“This is my laboratory. And you are about to become my test subject.”
“Test subject?”
Adel didn’t fully comprehend the meaning of the word.
But she clearly felt the spine-chilling malice laced in the witch’s subtle tone.
“I’ve long been interested in the Lion Duke’s bloodline, you see. If I had my way, I’d have captured a few dozen of them to leisurely dissect, but it wasn’t so easy. Their power and influence are far too great.”
As if enjoying the way Adel’s face stiffened at the word ‘dissect,’ the witch continued her explanation with a sadistic smile.
“Ah, but that’s not to say I never got my hands on any. If there were only a few, it would be one thing, but with hundreds of children running around, quietly spiriting a few away isn’t impossible. Thanks to that, I’ve learned a thing or two.”
‘However,’ the witch added as she approached Adel.
The old woman’s wrinkled hand stroked Adel’s golden hair, then caressed the corner of her eye.
“Most of those children had diluted blood. Unlike you.”
“What… are you talking about?”
“I ran a few checks while you were asleep. The results were most satisfactory.”
The witch lifted a long, transparent glass tube from a laboratory shelf.
It was about half-full of red blood.
Adel noticed a wound on her forearm, as if she’d been pricked by a needle.
“The Lion Duke’s bloodline has several characteristics. Slowed aging and a long physical prime. Strong resistance to diseases and poisons. Excellent regenerative abilities and high physical prowess. However, after more than 200 years of generational change, it seems some degradation was inevitable. Even within the same bloodline, the individual differences are quite severe—some specialize in suppressing aging, while others have physical abilities no different from an ordinary person. All the children I’ve studied so far were pathetic compared to the rumors floating around. But…”
The witch’s fingers toyed with Adel’s hair.
Her uniquely vibrant and deeply colored golden hair.
Next, she caressed her eyelids.
Her deep, jewel-like violet eyes.
“…You are different. You were already born with nearly every ability in abundance, but recently, there are even traces of those abilities being enhanced once more. It’s astonishing. Truly fascinating.”
Adel couldn’t keep her wits about her under the witch’s touch, and not in a good way.
The witch’s hand was extremely dry, and she couldn’t feel even the slightest bit of warmth from it.
It felt like a crude model hand made by stuffing a stick into a low-quality leather glove.
To exaggerate slightly, it felt like a spider crawling on her skin. The revulsion was so intense it gave her goosebumps all over.
In the first place, she didn’t even understand what the witch was saying.
She had heard a few times before about her outstanding talent, but this talk of her abilities being enhanced was the first she’d ever heard of it.
As if trying to escape the witch’s touch, Adel squeezed out her voice.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! Enhanced? I don’t know anything!”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know. Your body does.”
With those words, the witch reached for a nearby shelf.
With a clatter and a clank, an array of blades, tongs, hammers, and various other instruments of unknown purpose gleamed with a heavy, metallic light.
A short scream escaped Adel’s throat.
The Witch of the West cackled as if finding the sight amusing.
“When I heard you killed over twenty of my monkeys, I considered mincing you up and feeding you to the dogs… but if you’re this much of a treasure trove, I suppose I can be lenient. Be a good, obedient girl. Your treatment depends entirely on my mood.”
Adel swallowed hard.
A surge of anxiety washed over her—what if something had happened to her companions?—but the fear soon subsided.
‘The Tin Knight would never lose.’
Her faith in the Tin Knight ignited a fire of courage in her heart.
‘I have to do what I can.’
Adel desperately racked her brain.
It didn’t spark any brilliant stratagem, but she managed to come up with a simple plan: ‘Draw the witch’s attention to make it easier for my companions to act.’
“By studying my body, what exactly do you intend to use it for?”
At Adel’s question, the Witch of the West’s lips curled into a smile.
In a tone that almost sounded kind, the witch brought up an unexpected topic.
“How did you find the land of the small people?”
“Pardon?”
“You had quite the journey there, however brief. I’m asking for your impressions.”
Though she struggled to understand the intent behind the question, Adel figured that continuing the conversation couldn’t hurt, so she answered honestly.
“It was a mysterious place. To think that such small people exist, and that they’ve built a nation and a life for themselves.”
“Heh heh heh, I suppose so. The Land of Small People is one of my more complete works, after all.”
“Complete works?”
Adel asked without thinking.
“I created the small people.”
Like a cruel adult crushing a child’s dream, the witch revealed the answer.
“They may look like perfectly miniaturized humans now, but at first, they were a half-mix of rat and human. Utterly hideous. I repeated the process of breeding and refinement countless times, taught them human culture, and made them believe in a fabricated history that never existed. The small people believe they developed over a thousand years of history and tradition, but in reality, it’s been barely 300 years since they formed a nation like the one they have now.”
Adel couldn’t understand the witch’s words. Or perhaps, she didn’t want to.
“They are highly intelligent, and their small bodies make them skilled at delicate tasks. Their ability to handle mana is especially magnificent. A powerful individual can even defeat an ordinary human in a head-on fight. However, while the small people themselves are one thing, their nation still lacks much. To truly have them mimic a human social structure, they need the right resources. I was able to scale the plants to their size, but not the animals. They have no dogs, no cows, no sheep. In this state, it’s a bit disappointing to call it a finished work.”
Only then did Adel remember who she was facing.
No, it was more accurate to say she was truly processing a fact she already knew.
The Witch of the West. Elphaba.
One of the four most famous and powerful mages on the continent.
And the best and strongest Alchemist.
“Homunculus.”
At the word Adel blankly uttered, the witch’s single eye and the corners of her mouth twisted bizarrely.
It was something that might have been a smile.
“It wasn’t just the winged golden monkeys. Everything… everything in here is like that.”
Adel recalled her first battle with the Witch of the West.
The werewolves with their coarse fur, the crow-men flying through the sky, the insect-people harboring potent venom.
Beings that appeared in the fairy tales and stories Adel had read.
In other words, races whose very existence was now uncertain outside of such stories.
“But… why?”
The question, which escaped like a lament, was laden with many meanings.
And the witch answered.
“Because this is my world.
I am the master of this place. I am the law of this place. I am the god of this place. I created them, and I gave them civilization. No king or ruler from the outside world, not even the heavens themselves, can be my equal here.
Child. Do you worry about what others think even when decorating your own room? What reason could I possibly need to fill my world with the things I desire?”
Beneath the pointed hat, her single eye flashed.
To keep from being overwhelmed by that madness, Adel desperately forced out her words.
“Aren’t Alchemists supposed to love their homunculi like their own children? If every living being in this world is your child, why do you crush them along with their castles and split them into nations to fight amongst themselves?”
“Heh heh heh, don’t lump me in with the common rabble.”
With a blatant sneer on her lips, the witch spat out her venomous words.
“Children, you say. That’s not wrong. But it is also the Alchemist’s way to call their homunculi children while simultaneously using them as convenient tools. As weapons, servants, pets… the methods vary, of course.”
“That’s…”
“As long as the parent is sound, children can be made as often as needed. And it is also the parent’s prerogative to decide how to raise and use that child. In that sense, Franka is far too immature. Losing her senses over a single lost creature, and even daring to point her sword at her own teacher after having two taken away.”
After clicking her tongue with a ‘tsk, tsk,’ the witch continued.
“I generally have little interest in anything outside my world, but one must pay some attention to the outside to procure various resources. In that sense, Franka was a rather useful source of funds… but that, too, is over now.”
The witch raised the hand opposite to the one that had caressed Adel earlier.
On it was a navy-blue glove.
“The ‘Gloves of Haider.’ Once I secure those, along with the ‘Key of Opium’ and the ‘Belt of Amaryllis’ that you have, I’ll have about half of the eight sacred treasures. If I sell them to the heavens, I can expect a handsome price, so I’ll no longer need to rely on the wealth of the Aglaia family.”
For a moment, Adel had to desperately control her expression.
She had almost reacted with a surprised ‘Huh?’ when the Witch of the West failed to mention the ‘Chalice of Tuberose.’
Fortunately, the witch seemed too preoccupied with her own speech to notice Adel’s subtle change.
“I’ve grown tired of taking in disciples from the outside world, so I’m thinking of creating my next one myself. If I can study your body and apply the results, I’m certain I can create a magnificent masterpiece. If things go well, I might even make you a servant, so don’t go getting any foolish ideas—”
“W-Wait. Create? A person?”
“Why couldn’t I? In the first place, your entire clan is practically something that someone created.”
“……? Pardon? What… do you mean by that?”
“You didn’t know?”
To Adel’s question, the witch replied, quite nonchalantly.
“—Your ancestor. The Lion Duke. Geisel von Lennart… is a homunculus.”