Chapter 158
Chapter 158
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 158
Chapter Title: Artificial Soul Circulation Device (1)
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As I deftly packed up the suspicious machine, Judith looked shocked.
Yeah, anyone seeing a machine so intricately connected to the walls and floor being disassembled and organized this easily would react the same way as Judith.
*Why the hell is this here?*
Meanwhile, my mind had calmed down completely.
The excitement from moments ago felt like a lie.
I separated the machine into the main unit with the engine, motor, and pump attached, and the sub-unit shaped for external insertion with tubes and a circulator.
Then I rolled up the extracorporeal artificial blood vessels, tangled like organs hanging on the wall, and tidied them away.
While I was disassembling the device, Shirley and Dylan gathered the other suspicious items left in the room and brought them over.
"We can carry them one by one."
There were four of us, and four piles including the disassembled machine and evidence.
Hearing me, Shirley winked one eye to prepare for the darkness, then blew out the lamp and candle flames.
She then pulled down the blackout curtains fixed to the wall and wrapped up the pile of suspicious items like a bundle.
"You take this, Senior, and Dylan Senior takes this tube. Judith Senior, I'll handle the rest, so you just take the sword."
"Got it."
Dylan eyed Shirley dubiously.
Shirley flashed her usual cocky expression, then effortlessly stacked and lifted the two device piles I'd separated.
"As expected, that's the Spencer family trait."
Shirley, showing her signature cocky grin at Dylan who was admiring her, looked as if she were lifting a box made of millet straw.
"Let's go, Judith Senior. Ready? Can you see ahead?"
"Yeah."
We exited the ant-tunnel-like underground passage just as quickly and carefully as we'd entered.
"Ah, it's so bright."
Even though we'd only come up from underground to the surface, the difference in light was immense.
Just the moonlight was taxing our eyes considerably.
If we were this bad after just going back and forth in the underground passage a bit, were the servants' eyes really okay?
"Anyway, where are we putting this?"
Judith, the only one with both hands free, gestured to gauge the size of the load.
The stuff each of us was carrying could fill a small room at a glance.
"If we stack it well, it might fit in the dressing room..."
"Your room has Theodore in it, right? Then we could take it to Shirley's or my room—"
"Use our club room."
Dylan's suggestion was appreciated, but there was one problem.
He wasn't the only one using the club room.
"Won't the twins think it's weird?"
"They're dumber than you think."
"No, no, even if it's Cookie, bringing this stuff into their room would make them think it's suspicious."
"...Really?"
What status did the twins hold in Dylan's world?
No matter how much I saw Cookie as a spoiled troublemaker, I wouldn't think of her as that much of an idiot.
But Dylan resolved the situation more simply than expected.
"Just say we're renovating the club room or whatever. I'll call them to my room for a while."
"Then we drop off the stuff first, and after that call Theodore."
Our actions were blatantly suspicious no matter who saw, so we hurried along praying we wouldn't run into other cadets.
Fortunately, there were two cadets here with instincts sharper than wild animals.
The pride of Aegis Academy guided us quickly and safely along the most indirect route possible.
"Wait here a sec. I'll bring Theodore right away."
Without Shirley, transporting this load before dawn would be impossible.
As Judith vanished quickly into the darkness, Shirley strode forward confidently.
We arrived at the Classical Culture Club room, the [Angel's Fruit] room, set down our loads, and sat around the table without a word.
"..."
Dylan and Shirley kept glancing at me, faces full of questions they wanted to ask.
Was I, of all people, supposed to recount that miserable, wretched death?
Time passed, and soon Judith and Theodore arrived quietly.
—...Judith Senior, Arma Senior looks way too pale, maybe we should just...
—If not now, he won't say anything...
—...Even so... as long as he doesn't spout nonsense...
I was hearing everyone's conversation clearly, but at the same time, not really hearing it.
I hadn't spoken aloud, but in fact, from a little while ago, I'd been endlessly repeating worthless thoughts like *why is this here, so then how do we handle this...*
"Hoo..."
Then, in an instant, I snapped to my senses.
If even a coward who ran away has a duty to wrap things up, now was that time.
Though my child self had done nothing and fled cowardly back then, it wasn't the case now.
I was twice as big as then, no longer suffering from a broken heart, and now that I could somewhat mimic a 'proper human,' maybe things could be different.
"I'll explain."
Excluding Dylan sitting next to me, I could see the other three faces at a glance.
There was no space on the table, so the main pump of the artificial soul circulation device was sitting there.
To those who'd waited calmly for my agitated self to settle, I began recounting that day.
"I know that machine. It's called the [Artificial Soul Circulation Device], made by the Healing Guild [Life and Greenery Society]."
"...Artificial... what?"
"Artificial Soul Circulation Device. Don't let the name fool you—it doesn't actually circulate souls."
Five years ago, there was a craze at Aegis Academy.
It was necromancy—summoning the dead's souls to uncover the secrets of life, old age, sickness, and death.
But even before that necromancy fad, there was something else that had been popular.
The taboo experiments for immortality.
"Fourteen years ago, I underwent an illegal procedure at the sanatorium [Saint Martin's Garden] in the forest—one that was unverified, part of a clinical trial for taboo experiments."
"An illegal procedure?"
Theodore, who had been listening quietly, asked back.
From his subtly furrowed brows, even he found this shocking.
Of course he would.
Theodore wasn't emotionless; he just didn't show it.
"They told me it was just new technology. So naturally, my mother and I thought it was part of treating my heart."
But looking back now, I wasn't completely clueless.
No, I'd actually sensed something off, which is what started that day's adventure.
To see with my own eyes what lay beyond the side door I'd never gone through, in the laboratory shrouded in darkness.
"Even so, you're saying Count Cruise had no idea his son was receiving illegal procedures?"
"[Saint Martin's Garden] had a lot of sick children, so my mother couldn't visit often. Plus, as a merchant crossing continents, she said it might bring local diseases."
"That's..."
I was mature for my age at ten, but even adults lose judgment in the face of bodily pain.
I glossed over countless strange moments.
"There was a boy my age who took care of me..."
So I didn't find it odd when Logan, who was healthy and bright as a colt, started wasting away.
Did I really not sense anything strange as Logan's sickness worsened day by day?
"By the time I learned he was hooked to that artificial soul circulation device all day, having his living blood drawn out and put back in, I was already part of the procedure too."
"So, you're saying... Arma, you..."
Dylan interrupted in shock without thinking.
He seemed to have inferred something from the machine with its two tubes connected to the main pump.
I nodded.
"Yes. From then on, I received transfusions of blood drawn from Logan. Raw blood, unprocessed."
"That's impossible. Even in the luckiest case, infection would definitely occur."
"It did. In Logan."
"..."
What I still couldn't understand even now was why I, frailer than Logan, survived while healthy Logan suffered that fate.
"Unlike me, who grew healthier over time, Logan was dying."
My head drooped involuntarily.
To describe the situation accurately back then, Logan was rotting alive.
And someone recorded it on a video crystal every day.
Much later, I learned they'd reversed the footage for a [Life and Greenery Society] seminar, faking it to look like a dying child was gaining vitality.
"So this machine..."
*Thud!*
Without realizing, I slammed my fist down on the machine, head bowed.
"This shouldn't be here. The Life and Greenery Society disbanded after Logan's death. I survived, but Logan isn't here. Is this divine providence? Or a poisoned chalice?"
*Well, which is it?*
That was when it happened. Right at the moment my rationality was about to snap, 'that thing' lurking in my subconscious with bared fangs slipped in slyly.
How had I become able to speak so fluently like this?
Or was this another hallucination I'd conjured in my agitated state?
"I get it, so shut up."
As I went to slam the machine again, Shirley blocked my hand.
I'd been struggling to regain composure somewhat, and her restraint was the final push to decide against pointless self-harm.
"Should we assume Aegis Academy inherited the blood exchange experiments?"
"If so, the Thorn Crown House would have some stake in it. But I've never heard of it."
Theodore was right.
Research at Aegis Academy was conducted with active participation from Thorn Crown House or Black Lily cadets, depending on the topic.
An 'experiment' on living people was closer to the Thorn Crown House's field than Black Lily's.
So if Theodore had never heard of it, the chances of Aegis Academy conducting such experiments were very low.
"Besides, drawing living blood from one person and transfusing it to another? That might've flown in the past, but modern medicine hasn't regressed that far. So, Arma Cruise, how about calming down a bit?"
Such a kind, innocent guy.
Theodore kept talking at length, seemingly to comfort me.
But he hadn't realized the true nature of this machine.
"Theodore, there are plenty of people who crave foolish technology."
Not wanting my expression noticed, I kept my head down.