The sharp scent of blood. The chilling sensation.
A chilling sensation that seemed to freeze her spine brought Selene, who had been in a deep sleep, back to consciousness.
“…Wh-Where am I?”
Her blurred vision, as if covered in fog, gradually began to clear with time, and only then did Selene come to grasp her situation.
A wide room with damp solid stone walls.
She was placed alone inside a small iron cage in the center of it, like a monkey on display at a zoo.
Clink, clink—
When she looked down at her limbs, which for some reason refused to move freely, she saw what appeared to be handcuffs on her wrists and her feet tightly bound with rope, rendering her completely unable to move.
“Ugh… Damn bastards. You! Do you even know who I am!? Hurry up and let me out of this!”
As soon as Selene realized she had been kidnapped, she began shouting and thrashing around in fury.
She wanted to channel her mana and break the iron bars to escape, but perhaps there was some kind of trick embedded in the cuffs that bound her hands. The mana she tried to gather kept dispersing, and her attempt to cast magic repeatedly failed.
Unfortunately, her physical strength was below average.
Realizing she couldn’t escape either by force or magic, she decided instead to threaten her captors by revealing her identity as a duke’s daughter.
“You picked the wrong person to mess with! If anyone finds out you kidnapped me, you’re finished! Do you think my father will let you off?!”
After several minutes of crying out in a sharp, piercing voice, the door finally opened and someone stepped inside.
“To think you’d try to threaten us even in this situation. Should I call that bold… or just plain foolish…”
It was the deep voice of a man.
The middle-aged man who was neatly draped in a black robe had a surprisingly youthful face.
He looked like a kind-hearted man in his mid-thirties, the type who might be found teaching children in the countryside.
Had it not been for this filthy, repulsive place, Selene’s impression of him might not have been all that bad.
“You’re the one, aren’t you? The one who ordered my abduction?”
“That’s right. I urged them to bring the young lady here as swiftly as possible. I admit the process was a bit rough… but for the sake of the greater plan, I ask for your patience.”
“What an absolute joke…”
“The one who farted gets mad”….If ever there was a saying that fit, this was it.
To kidnap an innocent person and then have the nerve to ask for patience? What kind of absurd nonsense was this?
“Wait. You know I’m a noble lady? You knew and still went through with the kidnapping?”
Anyone with a shred of sanity wouldn’t dare plan the kidnapping of a noble lady.
After all, kidnapping the daughter of a duke favored by the emperor. A girl whose father was a high-ranking mage…. this was a move only suicidal fools would make.
On top of that, the duke’s infamous love for his daughter was well known, and once word reached him that she had been taken, the kind of disaster that would follow was unimaginable.
“There will be some loss, sure… but that only proves how important you are to us. A little discomfort is something you can endure, isn’t it?”
At the man’s calm reply, Selene felt a wave of discomfort rise within her.
It wasn’t about physical discomfort or the possibility that she had been drugged.
It was something deeper.
Disgust.
A sense of disgust and distance, as if something not human were pretending to be human. That feeling emanated strongly from this man.
His face was so ordinary, even kind, but hidden within was a monstrous gaze that clearly did not see people as people.
“How else do you think we managed to get the young lady out so easily in the first place? The information about you will slowly make its way back, so there’s plenty of time.”
“…Right. That treacherous bastard!”
The traitor etched into her final memory—
As Selene recalled the face of the scum who had boldly infiltrated the duke’s household under the guise of a bodyguard, she clenched her teeth with a grinding noise of rage.
“Tsk, tsk. You’re a valuable test subject, so try not to be too rough with yourself. Your body is a precious resource, and I wouldn’t want it damaged already.”
“What? I’m… a test subject?”
“That’s right. A living specimen. Take a good look around you. Where do you think this is?”
Prompted by his words, Selene quickly scanned her surroundings, and a shiver shot down her spine.
The room, cluttered with every kind of experimental tool, resembled an alchemy or herbology lab transplanted whole into this grim place. The air was thick with a mix of blood and chemicals, and it hit her nose without pause.
What’s more, beyond the iron cage she was trapped in, there were countless other cages scattered around her.
They came in various sizes, but all shared a horrifying similarity. The beings inside them were all in terrible condition.
Cages bound with animals, humans, and even monsters.
Some lay completely still, likely already dead, while others clung to life with ragged, wheezing breaths, barely holding on.
Her gaze was suddenly drawn to one particular cage among them—
And the reason was—
“…A chimera?”
“Oh? You’re more observant than I thought.”
Trapped in one of the cages was a creature that resembled the chimera she had seen when she and Mars were once accidentally transported to that strange place.
Its appearance was completely different, of course, but the artificial aura it exuded felt eerily familiar…
“That’s a prototype of the behemoth you defeated. A failure, as you can see, but still….thanks to it, I was able to gather quite a bit of useful data.”
“Proto… type?”
Unlike the hulking bull chimera that had charged at them with killing intent, this one was as quiet as a mouse. But she could sense something human about it, something that felt eerily like herself.
“You’ve probably noticed. We’re researching chimeras. The behemoth you defeated? That was one of mine. A pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Go to hell.”
“Hmm. Such a sharp tongue. That kind of temperament could be troublesome… even as a chimera.”
“…What do you mean, as a chimera?”
Selene’s shoulders stiffened. It was something she couldn’t possibly ignore.
“You haven’t figured it out yet? We kidnapped you to create a chimera. A completely new kind. One that transcends both human and monster.”
“You psychotic bastard…”
“You’re wondering why you were brought here… Hmm. Yes, well. During our research, we discovered something. The magical potential of the human used as the base has a profound effect on the resulting chimera’s strength and intelligence.”
“…What?”
“The behemoth you fought was once a promising mage. Not quite good enough to become an archmage, but he did graduate from the academy with respectable grades. That prototype over there was a rural child who had only just awakened their mana.”
A chimera. A fusion of human and monster.
Normally, the monster’s mind would devour the human’s, leaving behind only a beast ruled by instinct. But they had discovered something remarkable. When the human base had awakened mana, that mana helped harmonize the minds of humans and monsters during the fusion, which dramatically increased the overall success rate.
Until now, they had only experimented on minor talents with weak magical potential. But if they used a noble lady born with innate, extraordinary power—
A monster that would surpass all previous subjects might be born. That was what the man said.
And as Selene looked into the man’s eyes. Those eyes that gleamed with pure curiosity, devoid of malice or hatred….she was consumed by a deep terror.
He’s crazy… completely crazy!
Realizing that he was beyond reasoning, Selene was overtaken by fear and began thrashing violently.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Let me go right now! If you don’t, you’re all going to regret it. Every last one of you!!”
“Calm down. This is all for his sake. You should be honored. If you quietly accept your fate, there won’t be any pain—”
“Tch!”
Spat.
Overwhelmed by fury and humiliation, the noble lady spat at the man.
Even if she had been a bit rude, it was something the noble lady would never have done under normal circumstances. But the fear that she might be turned into the man’s chimera had triggered an instinctive defense mechanism.
Unfortunately, despite his kind face, the man’s patience was not particularly strong.
“Hmm… I had planned to work on her manners slowly after the transformation, but I suppose I’ll have to move up the schedule.”
With that, he dragged the noble lady out of the cage—
Crack!
“Kyaaaaaaah!! It hurts! It huuuuuurts!!!”
“Once you become a chimera, your healing ability will improve. Injuries like this will heal in no time.”
Without hesitation, he lifted her leg and snapped the noble lady’s shin.
For someone whose only experience with pain had been the scrapes she got as a child from falling while running, the pain of a shattered bone was enough to nearly make her lose consciousness.
“You’re noisy.”
Thud!
“Keuhk!!”
The man, no longer able to stand her screams, kicked Selene hard in the chest with the tip of his shoe.
The powerful blow knocked the air from her lungs, and Selene couldn’t even scream. All she could do was gasp and sob with tears and snot streaming down her face.
Jealousy and envy were nothing compared to this.
Completely exposed to his genuine killing intent, the noble lady felt the sensation of death for the first time in her life, and her lower body lost all strength.
“I… I was wrong… Please… please let me live…”
“Oh dear. Giving in already? If I’d known, I would’ve resorted to violence sooner. What a waste of time.”
The man let out a gleeful chuckle at the sight of the noble lady, writhing in pain and soaked in her own urine.
Annoyed by how a worthless test subject dared to act like a noble lady and wanting to vent the stress he’d built up from failed experiments, he decided to toy with her a little longer.
“Please… it hurts… Someone… please…”
Just as the man’s hand was about to touch Selene’s trembling, delicate fingers in order to snap them—
“E-Elder!”
“Tch. What is it now?”
Just as things were about to get interesting, the man, referred to as Elder, clicked his tongue in irritation and turned around at the call of a subordinate who couldn’t even wait a moment before disrupting the scene.
“If this turns out to be something trivial, you’ll be the next test subject—”
“I-It’s an intruder!”
“An intruder?”
All this commotion over a mere intruder?
But sensing that something was off, the Elder demanded a better explanation from the subordinate, who was panting heavily.
“T-The traps and defenses on the surface have already been completely breached! Even the elite soldiers on standby have been taken down! Judging by the sword, the intruder appears to be at least Aura Master level!”
“How did someone find this place… Calm yourself. There’s no need to panic over a few intruders. Even an Aura Master can’t move under my divine authority—”
“It’s not multiple intruders!”
“What—”
“There’s only one who infiltrated this place!”
Booom!
Crack!
At that moment, like lightning bursting forth from the earth, the heavy iron door of the laboratory was blown off with a thunderous roar.
Unfortunately, the subordinate who had been in the path of the flying iron door was swept away along with the rapidly moving mass and ended up plastered against the wall like a dried squid snack.
“…Who are you?”
The Elder, caught off guard by the sudden attack, immediately realized that the intruder who had entered the laboratory was no ordinary figure.
If the distance had been a little shorter, the Elder’s face would have been shredded by the iron door.
The one responsible for this brutal assault slowly began to reveal themselves before him.
“Me?”
Even Selene, who had been writhing on the floor in tears and snot from the Elder’s torture, stared blankly at the scene. She was stunned by the sudden shift.
“The young lady’s love consultant.”
She could only quietly let her tears fall at the arrival of her savior.
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