Chapter 8
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: The Alchemist's Elixir
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The year his son turned eight, he was at the stream with his friends when he fell into a deep spot. It was a point where two currents met, making the water deeper and the flow faster.
An herb gatherer nearby pulled him out, but only after he had stopped breathing.
At that moment, Rashid was out riding. He had gone quite a distance to let the horses, cooped up in the stables for days, stretch their legs. He returned home as the sun began to set to find his son lying pale in front of the manor.
“The young master had an accident at the stream.”
Even as the words were spoken, he couldn't grasp the reality of it. His son looked as if he were merely asleep. From his saddle, Rashid stared blankly down at his wife, who was clutching the body.
And then, a thought struck him.
‘The glass vial.’
The one he had taken from the alchemist.
He leaped from his saddle and ran into the house. He retrieved the glass vial, which he had stored in a wooden box cushioned with straw. Nearly a decade had passed, yet the violet liquid still shimmered with a brilliant light.
Originally, Rashid hadn't thought much of it. Immortality? At best, he had figured it was some sort of health tonic. Even that belief faded with time, and he had dismissed it as nothing special, forgetting its existence entirely.
But witnessing his son’s death, a conviction he hadn't felt before took hold. Perhaps it was an elixir that could awaken even the dead. He uncorked the vial and poured every last drop into his dead son’s mouth.
“……”
He closed his son’s mouth and watched for a reaction. There was no movement. He waited longer, but nothing changed. His son remained pale, cold, and breathless.
He threw the glass vial. Disappointment, followed by a wave of grief, washed over him as he finally accepted that his son had crossed a river from which there was no return. Rashid entrusted the funeral to the priest, and his son was placed in a coffin and buried in the earth.
Several days passed.
Rashid and his wife tried to forget their sorrow. But less than ten days after their son’s death, a strange rumor began to spread. People claimed to hear sounds coming from the cemetery.
It wasn't the cry of a common animal, the rumor said, but a voice that sounded like a person weeping or screaming. It had spread by word of mouth among the residents, so Rashid, who had been secluded, knew nothing of it until the priest came to visit.
“We must dig up your son’s grave.”
At the priest’s request, Rashid immediately shouted.
“What are you talking about?”
As he yelled at him to stop talking nonsense, the priest calmed him and replied that screams were coming from underground, and they seemed to be emanating from his son’s grave.
“I believe your son is alive.”
Rashid gasped in shock. Just then, his wife, who was walking up behind him, staggered, and he rushed to catch her. She trembled like a leaf, clutching her husband’s arm.
“Are… are you certain?”
his wife asked.
“I am certain,”
the priest affirmed.
His hands tightened into fists.
The couple looked at each other for a long moment without a word, then nodded. It was a silent agreement, and the priest immediately gathered people and headed for the cemetery.
“I can hear it. It’s down here.”
“Good heavens, by Hestio…”
There truly were screams coming from the grave. The sounds grew louder the closer they got to the boy’s plot, and louder still as they began to dig.
His wife sobbed, covering her face with her hands. All Rashid could do was hold her. He watched, eyes wide, as they unearthed his son’s grave.
Finally, the coffin was exposed.
The voice abruptly stopped, but the workers dared not touch the coffin and looked to Rashid. Rashid dismissed them, descended into the pit, and gripped the coffin lid. He could hear a faint, soft weeping, almost inaudible unless one listened closely. He immediately tore the lid open.
Inside was his son, crying.
#
“—And so, I returned with my son, brought back to life.”
The recollection was cut short as the old Rashid began to cough.
He let out a few dry coughs, but his throat remained tight. He pounded his chest with his fist, then accepted a cup of water from Ulrich. Only after moistening his throat did his breathing even out.
“Did you not think something was wrong?”
“I did not. How could I? The child I thought was dead opened his eyes and called for us. What parent could harbor such suspicions?”
He paused before asking again.
“But others must have been suspicious. A priest presided over the funeral, and the boy was trapped in a coffin for days. You’re telling me not a single person found it strange?”
“No one saw me give my son the elixir. So, they believed there had been some great mistake. That they had mistakenly buried a boy who had only fainted. There was no other way to explain it. The priest felt the same.”
“The priest as well?”
“Yes.”
Ulrich frowned slightly, stroking his chin with his index and middle fingers. His lips moved as if muttering something, but the words did not reach Priestess Roberta’s ears.
“My son had lost most of his memories. He remembered nothing except that we were his parents. His speech became slurred, like a baby just learning to talk, and his actions were the same.”
“……”
“We thought it was because of the shock. He was trapped in that small, dark coffin for days, wasn’t he? How could anyone remain sane? We believed the poor child had suffered a great shock and would gradually get better.”
“However,” Rashid added, biting his lip.
“His body didn’t grow either. He didn’t age a day from how he was on the day he died. And his mind… he never regained his memories or learned anything new. He just… changed, strangely.”
“Like an animal, you mean.”
At the word ‘animal,’ Roberta glanced at the boy.
The boy, who had been burying his face in a bowl of fruit, had now tossed the bowl aside and was picking up pieces of dried fruit from the floor with his mouth. Though his limbs were perfectly fine, he acted like a four-legged dog.
Rashid said he had tried countless times to correct this behavior, but all his attempts had failed, and it only worsened over time. The boy stopped sleeping through the night, wandering around even at dawn, and began acting like a madman, attacking neighbors and livestock, chipping away at the couple’s spirits.
“Still, you endured for a long time.”
“We only endured. Nothing got better.”
“Endurance itself is difficult, even for family.”
Ulrich nodded and asked.
“So? What brings you to me? Why not just care for that thing until your life ends? What whim brought you all the way here?”
“That was my intention at first. But then, just before my wife died, she suddenly told me. She said our son… didn't seem like our son. And then she said she had a request for me.”
That was the catalyst that made him leave with his son.
He met all sorts of people in his quest to heal the boy, including several dwarves and elves. But few among them even recognized the problem. And not one who did could offer a solution.
“The story of how I came to find you, my lord, is just as you said earlier. It was by chance. When I reached Osnover, I happened to overhear it. That you, my lord, had lived a very long time, and yet were still young. That’s why I sought you out, on the off chance.”
“I see.”
Ulrich shook his head.
“Your hopes may be high, but fixing him is impossible.”
“Is that so,” Rashid replied, bowing his head.
“He’s not even alive in the first place.”
“What do you mean? He is right here, alive.”
“But he is not himself, is he?”
The two men looked at the boy.
“What your wife said was right. That is not your son.”
“...If he is not my son, then what is he?”
“Whatever was in that glass vial, I suppose.”
The boy picked up and ate every last crumb from the floor. When there was nothing left to eat, he sat down and sucked on his fingers. Growing bored of that, he began to bite his nails.
When Rashid reached out to stop him, the boy bit his own father’s hand. Rashid swatted his forehead with his other hand to make him let go, but the teeth had already broken the skin, drawing blood.
“There is no cure. He will only get worse from here, never better. When you die, there will be no one to control him, and he will run rampant. Just as all monsters do.”
“My son is not a monster.”
“Rashid, how long will you deceive yourself?”
Ulrich took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around the wound. Rashid’s wrinkled face crumpled as if he were about to cry. It wasn’t from the pain of the wound, Roberta thought, looking at the old man’s slumped shoulders.
“You said a few people before me realized what he was. Do you think I don’t know what they said, and how you reacted?”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
He feigned ignorance, but his expression hardened and his voice trembled.
Ulrich didn’t press further. He simply watched Rashid in silence, and under that gaze, the old man’s face went white as he blurted out his words.
“Then what should I have done? No, what am I supposed to do? If you know my sin… then you must know why I did it. Would you have had any other way?”
As he raised his voice, venting his frustration, Ulrich shifted his gaze from him to the side of his desk. There sat a single sword in a faded, unadorned scabbard.
Rashid trembled violently.
“N-no.”
“Sin can never escape its punishment forever.”
He stepped in front of Ulrich, glaring.
“There must be another way…”
“There is no other way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because there are more precedents than I can count, and the outcome is always obvious.”
Rashid’s face twisted severely, and his body shook.
“Move.”
He shook his head with great effort. Ulrich sighed softly, placed a hand on Rashid’s shoulder, and pushed him aside. The old man staggered and collapsed weakly to the floor. Ulrich leaned forward, reaching for the sword.
In that instant, Roberta saw all emotion drain from the old man’s face. The face, etched with the wrinkles of a lifetime of hardship, became like that of a judge delivering a grim sentence. He shouted, and almost simultaneously, the boy lunged forward.
The son, who had been watching the confrontation quietly, bared his teeth and attacked Ulrich from behind the moment his father fell and called his name for the first time in this room.
“My lord!”
Roberta cried out.
There was no time to stop it. In the blink of an eye, the boy latched onto Ulrich’s back as if in an embrace and bit into his neck. With a dagger produced from his clothes, he stabbed Ulrich in the side and twisted.
Ulrich collapsed without so much as a cry.
“What have you done?!”
Roberta belatedly rushed in, confronting him.
“I-I had no choice.”
Rashid, who had been standing dumbfounded, flinched at the shout and took a step back. He seemed startled by the sudden intruder, and then doubly surprised to see she was wearing a priestess’s robes.
He averted his fierce gaze, repeating that he had no choice several times.
“No choice? For this sort of act?”
“There was no other way, was there?!”
Just as she was about to retort, *how could there be no other way?*, Rashid shouted and drew his sword, lunging forward in one long stride. The experience of a man over sixty produced a flawless strike.
To Roberta, however, it was too slow. She took a crude step forward, twisted her body slightly, and grabbed the hand holding the sword, breaking it. The broken hand dropped the blade, which she caught in mid-air and swung in a diagonal arc.
Blood splattered.
“Did you think the same trick would work again?!”
Roberta glared at him and roared, then quickly spun around. Just as he had with Ulrich, the boy was pouncing on her.
She dodged this as well, just as easily, and swung her sword. This time the boy twisted his body, but the blade sliced through the shoulder of his right arm, the one holding the dagger, revealing what lay beneath the skin.
She clicked her tongue at the sight of the cross-section.
His outward appearance was human, but his insides were not. The cut on his shoulder looked like the roots of a tree spreading into the earth. Red tendrils filled the space, writhing. She had never seen nor heard of such an abomination.
The monster in the boy’s guise shrieked, glaring at her.
She scowled back, meeting its gaze.
“How dare you, you monster.”
The creature before her lacked the aura that the creations of evil gods typically exuded. This meant it was not a life touched by their hands. If it had been, she would have noticed without having to overhear Ulrich and Rashid’s conversation.
However, the Pantheon did not classify only the creations of evil gods as monsters. The term was a pejorative for any life form not mentioned in the scriptures or that committed wicked acts.
She scanned the monster’s condition.
Despite losing a shoulder, its physical balance was unaffected. It showed no signs of pain or fatigue from the wound. Blood gushed violently, yet it remained indifferent.
Was the boy’s body merely a shell?
Red tendrils, like unwound skeins of thread, writhed and protruded from the severed limb.
“Oh Ganymea, punish the sins of ignorance and savagery.”
Roberta recited a prayer and moved the mana within her body. The blade of her sword began to glow faintly. It was a phenomenon where mana transferred from her body to the blade, creating an edge sharper than steel. Seeing this, the monster took a step back.
She gripped the sword’s hilt tightly. She leaned her upper body forward, preparing to push off the ground and thrust. A thing like this wasn't even worth capturing. She intended to end it in a single blow, and the creature, sensing this, chattered its teeth warily.
And just then, Ulrich rose to his feet directly behind it.
“……?”
Sensing a presence, the creature tried to turn, but it was too late. Ulrich pressed down on its shoulder with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed its head and simply pulled. With a wet, tearing sound, the monster's head was ripped out by the roots and crushed in his grip.
“My lord? How…?”
Roberta pulled back the foot she had just started to move forward.
“Well, this is the reason I’ve lived for so long.”
Some of the blood spilled on the office floor began to flow.
The current moved toward Ulrich. The blood pooled at his feet and climbed up his body, then flowed into the wounds on his chest and neck. The blood he had shed was clearly returning to its master.
His wounds began to heal. The injuries, having swallowed all the blood, closed up rapidly as if they were mouths shutting. Ulrich approached Roberta, took her hand, and guided her fingers to touch the now-healed wounds on his neck and side before speaking.
“I am not a monster, so do not worry, Roberta.”