Chapter 10
Chapter 10
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Experiments (5)
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Mentally numb.
A humming vibration buzzed in my ears from both sides.
It was a strange sensation.
Opening my eyes felt off, and my vision was weird too.
I was definitely awake, eyes open.
‘…!’
Suddenly, my mind snapped into focus.
This was the laundry room.
I raised my hand and checked my thumbnail.
My vision felt strange, but the thumbnail was there, at least.
I opened my mouth, clenched my jaw, and touched my face.
No pain, so my teeth seemed fine.
Just to be sure, I reached in and felt around—my molars were intact.
That probably meant my skin was okay too.
But the moment I touched my right eye, I realized it was covered in something like hardened cloth.
And whatever should have been inside was gone.
‘Just like what I heard before passing out.’
My clothes had been changed.
Someone had wiped off the blood and dressed me—there were no traces of the gore-soaked mess.
Even in a situation like this, my first thoughts were about what time it was and how to handle today's servant duties.
‘Idiot, moron.’
I let out a sigh and recalled yesterday.
It had been the most agonizing time of my past and present lives combined.
Bound so tightly I couldn't move, drowning in helplessness, every pain amplified by my immobility.
Inside, I'd screamed for it to stop, but fear of punishment kept a single word from escaping my lips.
There had been no dignity in my actions.
Rat Pup had been right. I could see my own pathetic self plain as day.
I finally understood what they meant by "even adults turn into children."
Then Mere's words came back to me.
‘Maggot, you're way better than your old man. That guy would've passed out just from losing a nail…’
‘The last maggot died of shock when I extracted its eye without anesthesia…’
According to Rat Pup, over the past few years, only one other person besides me had come in and out of this lab.
And that one had died on the first day.
‘Which means… ha, so that's it.’
Putting it together: only two people had entered Mere's lab in years—one was Rat Pup.
Father had been experimented on here too. So the other one had to be him.
And he'd died on the first day—from shock during an eye extraction without anesthesia.
Mere had called that dead man—my father—‘the last maggot.’
His assigned room had been the laundry room too, which meant his name and this space had been passed down to me.
‘What a vicious fate… or bad blood.’
Father was just a biological relation, nothing more—no emotions tied to him.
So his death didn't spark anger or sadness in me.
Still, I wondered why he'd ended up here as a maggot, a test subject.
My kidnapping had to be connected somehow.
The reason for grabbing me might not even be the experiments—maybe those were just steps toward some other goal.
To uncover the truth, did I have no choice but to play along with Mere and aim for the reward she dangled?
…For now, that was all I could do.
I didn't even know if I could endure these experiments going forward.
To invoke my usual mind-control mantra, I forced a madman's grin.
“Heh, heehee— hahaha.”
Sounded even crazier than I'd imagined.
“…Feeling better?”
Eek, what? Someone was here? With only one eye's field of view, I hadn't noticed.
I whipped around to see Bark, masked up, standing quietly with a notebook and pen.
The mask hid his expression completely.
“I didn't realize you were there.”
How long had he been watching? From the start…?
“The clothes you wore yesterday are in the washing machine. Check later when you have time and take them out.”
So Bark was the one who'd changed me and cleaned me up.
“Thank you.”
“We have somewhere to go, so let's head out. I've cleared your duties, so don't worry.”
Come to think of it, Bark's tone and vibe were totally different from how he'd acted in front of Mere yesterday… Somewhere to go?
“Understood.”
I answered and stood up.
“Remember our talk about magic yesterday? To learn intermediate spells, you need to master beginner ones first. So today, we're doing beginner blue magic.”
Mere had promised: master intermediate blue magic ‘Dirt Clear’ and ‘Preserve’ within two years, and she'd give a reward.
Whatever the reason, learning magic was good.
In this hellhole, it'd be the one power that was truly mine.
The moment I followed Bark toward the laundry room door, something felt off from the usual.
‘My vision's all awkward. Is it narrower from one eye? Depth perception's shot—no sense of distance.’
Never realized losing one eye was this inconvenient.
Field of view narrowed, hard to gauge depth. My foot kept catching on the laundry room's cracked floor.
I walked a bit slower, and Bark matched my pace.
We left the laundry room and walked the hall; a few passing servants glanced my way.
Using the wall for support, I slowly crossed the central hall until Bark stopped at the second door.
It had a plaque: ‘Trading Post Room 2.’
Bark opened the door. Inside: facing sofas around a small table in the center. A bed in one corner for some reason, and in the opposite, a white-haired old man sat reading in a chair.
“Master Karon, I've brought him.”
Bark's tone stiffened. He'd only been casual with me, huh.
The man called ‘Karon’ looked up from his book and glanced at me.
Pallid face, empty eyes betraying no emotion.
He just nodded indifferently.
Bark pulled out his notebook and pen to take notes, and an awkward silence fell between the old man and me.
‘Deep blue mana—that makes him an advanced mage? Mere had darker navy blue as a special-grade.’
Good thing my remaining eye could still see others' mana fine.
Books said mana color deepens with rank, then darkens. Mine as a beginner was light blue; intermediate is blue, then deep blue, navy.
“Hello.”
I bowed in greeting, and the old man finally spoke.
“You're twenty, and only know one beginner blue spell?”
I nodded.
“Yes, that's right.”
“Hmm.”
He scanned me up and down. No hostility or pity in his gaze—just indifference, like appraising merchandise or eyeing a boring object.
“You learned ‘Warms’ in the aptitude test, nothing else. Show me once.”
I focused mana at my fingertips as instructed. No eye didn't hinder mana control.
A small magic circuit formed in a circle, light blue mana blooming from my fingertips and faintly spreading into the air before vanishing. The old man watched impassively.
“Mana control's decent. But only one beginner spell at your age? Unbelievable.”
He rose from his chair, led me to the sofa, and sat across from me.
“Magic lets you learn twenty spells total—five each in beginner, intermediate, advanced, and special-grade for your mana rank. Tons of spells per rank, so picking the right ones is most efficient. But you can't choose today's spell.”
“May I ask a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Can I discard a spell I don't need later and learn another?”
“No. Learned spells engrave fully into your mind.”
“Then why can't I choose?”
“Civilian magic is oral tradition. Choosing and learning from texts is only for empire/kingdom mage units and academies. Otherwise, just the one from aptitude tests. So you'll learn by oral transmission—my beginner blue spells exactly. Or you gonna round up people with the spells you want and learn piecemeal?”
Obviously, I couldn't. I got it right away.
“…No. I didn't know. Thank you for teaching me.”
“You've only got that one beginner spell—nothing more. I'll clue you in so you don't ask stupid questions elsewhere.”
Karon was surprisingly chatty despite his looks.
According to him, aptitude tests showing talent opened a few paths.
First: join a national mage unit for early training, then public service. Half chose this.
Second: head to Archmage Azuri's group, ‘Azuri's Tower,’ for magic research.
Last: become a civilian mage. Hard to learn, but free life.
Learned as another's disciple, or via underground trades/requests.
Official bans on selling magic, but Vera—city of exiles—had criminal groups openly trading it. Teaching or even casting for pay.
“That's the Shadow Merchant Guild's Magic Trading Post.”
He volunteered unasked info, but it was useful common sense.
So was he here to sell magic?
“First time teaching an insider instead of a customer.”
…He was one of us. Didn't mean he was good or bad, though.
“The spells I'll teach: Cooling, Fog Call, Night Vision, Heavy Blow. Four beginner blue magics.”