Ch.93Black Magic Workshop – 2

The first to greet us as we passed through the scorched and burned corridor was a terrible stench. It smelled exactly like the inside of a stomach when I’d been swallowed by a monster.

However, my fears of my body and lungs dissolving upon entering the workshop didn’t materialize. Instead, a much cleaner scene than I expected met my eyes.

Though the ominous feeling unique to Black Blood monsters was creeping up from all around.

‘Well, if they had started contaminating the surroundings, they wouldn’t still be conducting research here—they would have abandoned this place and escaped long ago.’

Charlotte could perfectly block contamination from Black Blood monsters, but that conversely meant only someone with skills on par with Charlotte could completely shield against that contamination with magic.

Even the royal magicians and tower masters couldn’t perfectly contain the air and soil that had become toxic due to the Black Blood.

The longer those creatures lived and breathed, and the more concentrated Black Blood was splattered around, the more impossible it would become to withstand it.

Just recently, an S-rank adventurer accidentally got drenched in Black Blood and died instantly. The contamination was so severe they couldn’t even recover the body.

And that was despite having the protection of mages.

‘It’s not as filthy as I thought. No, wait—maybe they prioritize safety precisely because they’re researching something dangerous. Either way, they’re just the type who only care about saving their own skins.’

Scanning the workshop as a whole, I found nothing particularly unusual. It resembled the same scene I’d grown tired of seeing during hundreds of years trapped in the magic tower—rows of various experimental equipment.

The only difference was that the substances inside the equipment were materials that humans should never touch.

I picked up a small flask nearby. Inside the flask, tightly sealed with all sorts of complex, overlapping protective spells, was a single drop of black liquid.

It was a liquid with tremendous viscosity.

Even when I tilted the glass almost vertically, the black liquid only shifted slightly downward. There was no sign of it flowing or dripping.

“Charlotte, can you tell how many protective spells are cast on this flask?”

“Eleven, it seems. They appear to have layered every protective spell they could think of.”

“Eleven… but the number of protective spells doesn’t matter. They’ll be breached before long unless the magic circle was created by you, Charlotte.”

“A beast, no matter how clever, is still just a beast. Do you truly not understand that comparing them to humans is illogical? Even when a beast shows off its tricks, from a human perspective, it’s merely entertainment.”

I shook the flask in my hand.

Despite all the layered protective spells, the Black Blood was slowly dissolving the glass even at this very moment.

For now, the protective spells were delaying the dissolution, but their limits were clear.

Judging by the rate of glass corrosion, this flask would completely dissolve in three or four hours at most.

Charlotte approached me and tapped the flask with her finger.

“Seeing how thoroughly they’ve wrapped this up, they must have some brains after all. At the very least, they understood the dangers of Black Blood monsters.”

“You’re saying people who understand the danger would do something like this?”

“That’s precisely why you and I are here now. To exterminate these fools who engage in such nonsense, according to your wishes.”

Charlotte gave me a cold smile as she said this.

I set down the flask I was holding on the desk. The clinking sound of glass meeting the wooden desk seemed unusually loud.

“What were they trying to research?”

“That’s the question you should be asking that witch of a mage. No matter how much you ponder it alone, you won’t find the answer.”

“I suppose you’re right…”

“However, it’s not difficult to guess. What else could it be? They’re probably trying to use Black Blood as a weapon, or attempting to combine humans and monsters like idiots. A monster far more powerful than ordinary ones has appeared, after all. Must be a tempting experiment.”

“There are still people researching chimeras?”

I asked in a surprised voice.

Combining humans and monsters to create hybrids with human intelligence and monster bodies—this was once an experiment conducted secretly throughout the kingdom.

Most criminal organizations had dabbled in chimera experiments at least once, and rumors even circulated that such research was being conducted secretly in the magic towers.

I couldn’t understand why such insane experiments had become popular. I didn’t want to know the psychology of criminal organizations either.

One thing was certain: the consequences were so severe that the royal knights had to be mobilized to kill everyone conducting human-monster fusion experiments.

But this was already quite an old story. Black Blood monsters first appeared less than a few years after that incident.

That’s why, for a time, speculation briefly circulated among the royal magicians that Black Blood monsters might be failed chimeras that had evolved and mutated on their own.

Of course, this wasn’t mentioned further after Charlotte—who had heard my dismissal based on my knowledge of the Black Blood monsters’ origins—flatly denied it.

“It’s merely speculation. But isn’t it obvious what kind of actions these humans who commit such foolish acts so nonchalantly would think of?”

It wasn’t completely baseless speculation.

If they could create beings with both the characteristics of Black Blood monsters and human intelligence, the benefits would be beyond imagination.

Perhaps they even harbored the foolish delusion that they could defeat Charlotte or Serena on their own.

I shifted my gaze. Next to it was another flask bubbling away, suggesting experiments were being conducted right up until our arrival.

The flask was visibly thick, about the width of a finger joint.

The black liquid had risen almost to the opening, with bubbles constantly rising from the bottom and bursting at the surface. The flask was placed on a wire mesh above a small furnace.

Judging by the blackened center of the wire mesh, it seemed to be an experimental tool that had been used for quite some time.

I brought my hand to the flames flickering from the furnace. My palm immediately felt a searing pain as it touched the fire, and my skin melted away with the smell of burning meat.

Despite having my hand in the flame for barely a second, the palm that touched the fire was charred black, with bone visible.

I pulled my hand away. The skin and flesh that had turned to ash instantly returned to normal. The contents of the flask continued to boil, bursting with bubbles.

‘This seems much more powerful than an ordinary furnace. Is the goal distillation?’

I recalled the black liquid in the flask I had picked up earlier. That black substance with a viscosity closer to a solid than a liquid.

If they were boiling it in this beaker like distilling ordinary water, its tremendous viscosity made sense.

“Charlotte.”

“I’m listening.”

“Go ask that mage what kind of experiment they were conducting. Don’t kill them yet.”

My mind couldn’t begin to guess why anyone would need to boil and distill Black Blood. There was no way I could understand what was going on in these madmen’s heads.

In situations like this, the simplest approach is to just ask the person directly.

“As long as I don’t kill them, that’s all?”

“…Leave enough of their mind intact for them to communicate.”

“Understood.”

A blue light characteristic of teleportation flashed behind me. Charlotte could easily extract memories, but she probably wouldn’t do that.

She would torture them until they begged for death.

I didn’t feel an ounce of pity. I had long since discarded any mercy for empty-headed fools researching Black Blood monsters.

‘This… must be a magic formula combination.’

I grabbed a handful of scrolls haphazardly piled on the adjacent desk and examined them.

Judging from the complex geometric patterns of magic circles and the magical formulas written below as explanations, it seemed they were trying to create some new magic circle.

Most were essentially failed combinations. Either the mana wasn’t properly supplied, or something was misaligned.

I picked up another bundle of scrolls. It was the same story. Occasionally there were magic formulas that seemed functional, but they were just barely operational.

“Why would anyone create such useless magic circles…”

My voice trailed off.

My gaze was fixed on one particular scroll.

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the scroll again. But the shape of the magic circle drawn on it remained unchanged.

I felt all strength leaving my body. I staggered and steadied myself against the desk. My fingertips trembled.

With difficulty, I moved my hand and overturned all the other objects on the desk. Old books and other scraps of paper tumbled to the floor with a loud noise.

With shaking fingers, I spread the scroll wide open. I checked and rechecked the magic circle drawn on the scroll, hoping desperately that I had seen wrong.

I hadn’t.

I had not seen wrong.

The magic circle drawn on the parchment was glowing black.