Episode 101. Difel (3)

“for a moment-“

Before Dana could reach out… .

A dim-eyed Rang boy bit a vampire girl who was licking blood on the floor.

cringe With the sound of her neck bones being crushed, red dots like balsam flowers splattered on the glass window that reflected Dana’s face.

Looking at her in shock, the Negredo scholar scratched his head and lowered his head.

“Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to show you a scene like this all of a sudden. I know they don’t conduct wildlife experiments during the daytime, but the research plan seems to have been slightly modified.”

“Hey… A generative experiment?”

“This is an experiment to observe the tendencies of different races separated from their guardian spirits when they encounter each other. A rather unpleasant sight to see right before lunch, isn’t it?”

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Vampires attacked by the Rang tribe died helplessly with their heads plunged into a pool of blood.

The boy, who was drooling and hurriedly eating the corpse, growled at the other Rang who were gradually closing the distance on all fours.

There was only one wolf, who was annoyed that he couldn’t give up even a single piece of his prey, and there was not even a hint of a Rang-like aspect in the boy.

As if the horrors were a spectacle, the Negredo scholar pointed and laughed at them.

“That one doesn’t even recognize its own people and starts barking! It’s no different from a beast, is it? This is the nature of these races. My parents are also the ones who bite if the guardian spirit isn’t watching.”

“… Are humans all right in there?”

“Absolutely! Theological students will lose their power, but that doesn’t mean their eyes are turned upside down. We are the only species that do not rely on guardian spirits.”

The test subjects were all naked and tied up, and the glass windows of the laboratory, which were so transparent that it was objectionable, showed their appearance as they were.

I watched Dana’s stone-hardened figure in front of him, and spoke in a low voice to the vampires who began to draw weapons from their coats and pockets.

“Put them back. Let’s watch a little longer.”

A member of the platoon who tried to test his fighting ability, saying that the magic I felt was not cool.

Zinner, the youngest vampire in the party, gripped a hunting rifle and gnashed her teeth.

“To stay still after seeing something like that is to insult Esca… !”

It seemed that even the other vampires couldn’t keep their cool, considering that Jinner was overly energetic.

They seemed to have witnessed a wild nature experiment for the first time today, even though they had burrowed into the underground laboratory several times.

In an instant, a vague intuition passed through my mind.

‘… The wildness experiment, which was previously conducted only at night, started at noon on the day we infiltrated?’

There’s no way I can pass this off as a coincidence.

‘No matter how you think about it, this is definitely an intentional schedule change. It looks like they’re trying to provoke vampires… . Are you encouraging us to dig deeper by showing you stimulating experiments?’

I didn’t know exactly until then, but one thing is for sure… . That Kegar predicted or noticed our infiltration.

As soon as I reached that point, the blood rushing to my head cooled.

It seemed difficult for everyone to make a rational decision, so I had to remain calm.

I said to Rewen, who was biting his lip with sharp fangs.

“The ones you wanted to show me must have been the Langs who lost their guardian spirits.”

“That’s right. I wanted to show that Diffel is occurring not only among vampires, but also among other races. By the way… . I couldn’t believe such terrible things would happen… !”

“It will be difficult, but for now we must focus only on reconnaissance. Even if we enter there now. After all, you won’t be able to stop the atrocities taking place here.”

“… You are right. I, who leads the platoon, must not be shaken.”

Leaving her hanging down a long gun loaded with silver bullets, I spoke to the other vampires.

“Gentlemen, that albedo scholar is my colleague Professor Dana. Disguised as an Eclipse new scholar, trying to figure out what atrocities are going on inside. I seized an opportunity that would never come again, to find out even the inner circumstances of this institute.”

I purposely took off Lewen’s coat and whispered softly, and Dana, who heard my voice, came to her senses and looked in my direction.

After exchanging glances with her for a moment, I spoke to the vampires again.

“Professor Dana is too dangerous to send scouting alone, so we must catch up and help.”

“Kuh… .”

“If we uncover all the secrets of this place today and return to life, it will make a decisive contribution to stopping the Mana Reduction Theory research.”

“… .”

“If we get caught in an obvious provocation here, what awaits at the end will be self-destruction.”

Before the vampires could answer, Dana, noticing the situation, exclaimed first.

“What a wonderful thing! To think that the different races that looked strong were so weak… ! I can’t believe it even after seeing it with my own two eyes.”

“Right?! To see those who despised us as a race forsaken by God, who pursued greed, have fallen like that… . No matter how many times I see it, it’s ridiculous.”

“It really is. Could you show me some other research!?”

“Sure. follow me… . There are still many surprises here.”

The vampires looked at Dana’s back as they crossed the lab, then nodded at me.

“… good. Let’s follow.”

* * *

Had Kegar foreseen our infiltration route, he would have put a security spell on the vents or tightened up the screening of personnel entering the lab.

In other words, he didn’t know how we got here, but he could predict when we would get here.

“If the infiltration is discovered, shouldn’t we retreat?”

Lewen asked with a worried face, but the bait Kegar placed was too tempting to just go back.

“Kegar could have done two things: come down to the lab and greet uninvited guests or set a trap at a specific time. However, seeing as they did not reveal themselves and only set traps like this, it seems that we expected to infiltrate the tower at the time we found it, but we were not convinced.”

“… .”

“Our infiltration hasn’t been discovered yet.”

Rewen looked down at the Nigredo scholar who was talking endlessly in front of Dana and nodded.

He seemed to be enjoying the situation of teaching something to a scholar one rank higher than himself.

“Only administrators can enter this inside, but… . You must be lucky, right? I’m one of those managers. Let me show you a little bit of the inside.”

When the scholar in black put his hand on the locked black door, it turned into transparent glass.

“I hope this… .”

Lewen sighed as he peered inside, and Dana looked into his face in disbelief as well.

“Yes, this is Sharp. Corrupt Charprani, isn’t that like a joke?”

Trapped in pitch darkness, Scharp, with his knees together, muttered endlessly some words with empty eyes.

Dana forgot she was acting and looked down at the sharp boy.

“It’s cold… ?”

“Yeah?”

“No, I was talking to myself. By the way, to kidnap Sharp. How the hell do you do that… ?”

“They were dumber than I thought. The Sharps say that if there is someone among their own people whose spirit has been disconnected from the guardian spirit, they will only think that they died while traveling in the world after descending from the mountain. They say they didn’t even find the body, let alone determine the cause of death? Well, it was easy to get samples because they were stupid.”

The more I listened to what he was talking about in front of Dana, the more anxious I felt as if I was on a runaway train.

This was a little different from worrying about the battle situation with Kegar.

Even if only vampires were turned into enemies, 30% of the Empire’s border guard force would be lost, but to even touch the Langs and Sharps… .

‘Even if it’s possible because Kegar is a dragon. How far is Cheryl going to grow her business? Even if he didn’t commit such a reckless act, he would already be the most likely candidate for the next emperor… .’

I don’t know if it’s a situation where I have a strong rival and I have to strengthen my position at all costs, but why am I holding on to a bomb that could kill me in a situation where there is no opponent?

‘Have you ever been controlled by Kegar? No, if I did, people around me would have noticed. Still, she’s a princess who’s called the second person in the imperial family.’

How will Emperor Zernim, who is doing his best to maintain the battle line with the Witchbeast, react when he finds out what his eldest daughter has done… . It was hard to even imagine for me.

‘Am I out of my mind, or do I have a plan of my own… . I’ll have to meet Cheryl in person to find out.’

While I was washing my face, Lewen recorded their conversation and spoke in a trembling voice.

“Thanks to the professors, I was able to request reinforcements from Sharp to stop research on mana reduction theory. This alone is a great pleasure.”

“If even some of the secrets of the lab are at this level, I think it’s better to keep following Professor Dana even if you take a little more risk.”

Every time you take a step closer to the secrets of this place, you will get closer to Kegar’s trap… .

“We can escape at high speed by ventilating, and Professor Dana is good at teleporting in less than 3 seconds. If you have an escape route in place, you might consider digging deeper into enemy lines.”

“Then we will continue to follow, but we will be ready to retreat at any time.”

Not long after, when Dana crossed the Dipel pen for quite some time.

“Did you know that there is a class in Dipel?”

The big fish she had caught glared at the different races trapped in front of him, not hiding his disgust on his face.

“To me, it’s a monster no different from the others, but… . The guys trapped inside are imprisoned in a special management facility here with reports that they are different from the existing Dipels.”

“Are they that strong?”

“Even if I release all the other Dipels imprisoned in this lab, they will come out intact. Besides, how wicked… . These guys know how to have a rational conversation even when they lose their Guardian Spirit.”

True to his word, they were not screaming or drooling like normal dippels, their hands cuffed, they sat calmly and stared at the scholars across from us.

“Those who are more evolved than Dippel… . Kegar-nim calls them ‘Diffeln’.”

“Um, by the way.”

“… Why?”

“Scholar, do you normally interact with the Dipelins often?”

“Yeah? what is that-”

It was from then that the strange thing happened.

One of the Dipelns, who had been listening to their conversation in the transparent cage, slowly began to approach the glass wall.

“you… . Are you a spy?”

A vampire girl who seemed to be about 12 years old pointed at the place with her blonde hair about the same height as her height tilted to the left… . There was a scholar in black robes.

“Or are you stupid?”

“… What, what!? Lane, you… ! How dare you point a finger at a monster trapped without a guardian deity!”

“You were stupid. The eavesdroppers must have liked it. Didn’t you say a prayer thanking you for letting me meet the idiot?”

“What, uh, eavesdrop… ?”

Scarlet eyes, wondering if blood would be injected into the pupils would give them that color, briefly passed by the vent where we had hidden.

Between ridicule and mischief, she clung her palms to the glass wall with a smile like an old moon.

“Have you ever heard that an incompetent friend is more frightening than a competent enemy? That’s what my father taught me.”

“… Is that what you’re talking about to me? Are you the one who is locked up and subjected to experiments every day?”

“Dad, you only get one chance. I told you to choose well and kill just one… . I think I know why.”

The Negredo Scholar shut his mouth as if he had finally grasped the atmosphere.

Standing in the palm of her hand, she slowly began to draw a smile mark.

“yes? why run away… . Until now, no test subject has come out of this prison! What… . Wasn’t that what you meant to say?”

“Uh, uh… !”

Let’s draw a circle around Rane’s smiling face… . As if cutting colored paper, there was a crack the size of a coin in the glass prison.

After that… .

Even after time passed, a landscape that I did not want to recall unfolded in the laboratory.