CHAPTER 111…………………………………..
\ Encounter (9)
Her heart raced. Every time she closed and opened her eyes, she felt his gaze following her.
Taking a deep breath, Temia quietly nodded. It was a signal that her tension had eased.
Lowell, confirming her reaction, stepped further into the room.
There was certainly a reason why this had been hidden. As Temia, her face flushed, managed to suppress her emotions and resolutely followed Lowell inside, her mind went completely blank.
“What… is this…?”
People were trapped inside vertical coffins, each wrapped in a transparent membrane. The coffins were filled with a bubbling solution, and since it didn’t overflow onto the floor, it was clearly some kind of magical device.
Seeing the bubbles in the solution pop and hiss, Temia was reminded of a disastrous potion she had once made.
“Back then it was a large cauldron, but imagining that I boiled the ingredients together with a person inside…”
Even thinking about it was a strange and unpleasant sight. It was as if a magical potion had been made using humans as ingredients.
Eventually, her mind became overwhelmed with such thoughts, and she stepped back without realizing it.
“This is… a bit… unexpected.”
Lowell seemed to feel the same. Even his usually confident expression had stiffened considerably. Judging by the complexion of the people here, it was clear that all of them were dead. Yet, perhaps stirred by a mage’s curiosity, he boldly stepped further in.
As he walked around, taking in the scene, he naturally noticed the absence of Temia’s chatter at his side and turned to look for his assistant.
“…Huh.”
Temia was frozen in place. Anyone would naturally look terrified in such a horrifying place, but this was different—fear had seized her body to the point that she couldn’t even take a step.
Fortunately, Lowell tried to persuade her, seemingly unable to leave Temia, who made a disgusted face, behind. In the past, he would have been too absorbed in his own interests to care about others, so this was a significant improvement. The problem was that his efforts at consideration were still clumsy.
“Hey, are you planning to send me in here alone?”
“…W-well.”
“Who was it that kept babbling about investigating this place while insisting we hurry?”
“That’d be me… But! Wait, even I need to prepare myself mentally!”
“There’s no need to overthink it. Having time won’t help you organize your thoughts.”
“….”
“You’ll regret it if you don’t come quickly.”
“Ah, okay! I’ll go then.”
Clutching her skirt, Temia ran toward him with her eyes tightly shut. The corners of Lowell’s mouth curved into a smile. From afar, her careful steps dodging the coffins here and there were amusing. It was a little odd to find humor in such a situation, but otherwise, he felt he might vomit from the disgusting scene.
“Actually, there’s another reason I wanted Temia to come quickly…”
Lowell had no choice but to express regret over having to rely on Temia’s abilities as his assistant under the current circumstances.
“I can’t freely use my hands because of the child on my back. Could you take a few vials from the pocket at my waist?”
“…Got them. But why?”
“You’re still my assistant, right? You’re just on a short break, not quitting entirely.”
“Probably… yes? For now. But why?”
“Because we need those vials to collect the liquid from the coffins and take samples of the people inside.”
No sooner had he said this than Temia froze in place. Lowell watched her pupils gradually lose light and spoke gently.
“I can’t just put the child down somewhere else, and you can’t carry the child on your back either.”
“….”
“You were the one who suggested investigating this place in the first place.”
“….”
“And you… are still my ‘assistant’, right…?”
Her head trembled slowly. Perhaps she wanted to agree, but couldn’t nod outright, so that was the extent of her response. Seeing this, Lowell quickly added a slightly teasing remark to explain the awkward situation.
“I’m not doing this to tease you, just so you know.”
“…!”
“Really.”
Unlike when they had rushed through the corridor, the two now walked slowly between the coffins. The space inside was surprisingly vast, with more coffins than expected, spaced out in a way that made it labor-intensive to navigate. Lowell, seemingly more comfortable managing the child’s weight than before, began observing the people inside the transparent membranes.
“Something… about these people…”
The more he looked, the stranger the sight became. He tried to mentally apply all his magical knowledge to the situation but could not imagine a spell that would abduct people en masse to use them as ingredients.
It made sense. Before the founding of Rostia, during the war between mages and non-mages written in blood, perhaps. But now, using humans as magical ingredients or directly experimenting on them was prohibited and considered barbaric. Civilization could advance brilliantly without experimenting on humans, as Rostia had shown over a thousand years of kingdom-building.
“Why do they look like that?”
Temia tilted her head at the unusually quiet Lowell. He murmured to himself in his own world, but this time he snapped out of it faster. Just as she debated whether to urge him on, he spoke first.
“The people here… are strange.”
“That’s obvious.”
“No, it’s not. ‘Strange’ means something different from normal. Temia, do these people remind you of anything?”
“Remind me…? Hmm, I just thought the transparent membrane around the coffin looks like an Arachne egg shell? I don’t know the faces of the people… Why? Do you know them?”
“No, that’s not it…”
“What is it?”
“That person… their nails are extremely long and pointed.”
Lowell spoke softly. Temia looked puzzled. So what? Long nails could be explained by being trapped here a long time, and pointed nails could be from wear.
But he continued calmly.
“And everyone here basically has very long hair—not just on the head, but beards and body hair as well.”
Only then did Temia understand what he meant. She replied in a whisper-like voice.
“Are you trying to say these are Count Lycanthrope?”
“Remember? He screamed the entire way while being dragged, asking for medicine. That might… prove a side effect of this experiment.”
“Side effect? Did something change from the last time we saw him?”
“After the interrogation, Count Lycanthrope gradually lost his mind. At least he was alive, so he was considered more successful than the people here, but it may not have been a perfect success.”
“Th-that’s… impossible!”
“Conversely, the people here likely died during the experiment because their bodies couldn’t endure it.”
Lowell fell silent, frowning as he pondered. Temia waited patiently, understanding he needed a moment to organize his thoughts.
Soon, he spoke again.
“Ah, I get it now. That’s why these coffins were hidden here. They immediately subjected abducted people to experiments to determine their chances of success. It’s a sort of… ‘gateway’.”
“Gateway…?”
“Good question. What I’m about to explain is exactly about that.”
He glanced at Temia.
“Temia, do you remember Count Lycanthrope turning into a monster?”
“Yes, vividly! He almost tried to kill me!”
“Right. He became a ‘monster’—grew rapidly, hair lengthened, nails became long and sharp, claws probably too, even if hidden by shoes. He likely gained immense physical strength as well. I heard he tried to break the chains many times in the interrogation room. Since the chains were already physically weakened, they might have broken without magic.”
“Gah…”
Did I almost face that creature myself?
Temia shuddered, recalling when the Count had lunged at her.
“In short, it was a being whose human reason existed but whose strength far surpassed it…”
Sweat dripped from her chin. Her face was soaked. Lowell, regretful he couldn’t wipe it, paused and raised his eyebrows.
Temia, still in shock, wiped her sweat as memories of the night she confronted the Count in Calis Land flooded back.
If Lowell hadn’t helped me immediately… I’d be dead…
The fear gripping her body made her shiver. Lowell’s next words only intensified that fear.
“However, the people here only experienced physical changes—they didn’t open their eyes.”
