episode_0017

“Ugh… Ugh… ”

Olivia is desperately holding on to the legs of the lab table.

“Let go!”

“Ah… No, I am one with the lab… !”

“Oh, really.”

I pulled Olivia with all my might, but my body was the weakest in the world. There is no answer in a power struggle.

“Hehe… Please give up, Director. I will never leave the lab.”

“Ha… ”

How can I get this guy out?

He doesn’t resist most of the time, but seeing him stubborn like this makes me think he really doesn’t want to leave the lab.

I never thought that my fear of going out would be greater than my interest in the Granat Project.

“I only go out for a few minutes, but do you hate it that much?”

“Hehe… Time is relative. For you, it’s only a few minutes, but for me, it’s like an eternity. Of course, in reality, the relativity of time is related to speed, so what I’m talking about is psychological… ”

“Be quiet.”

“Ugh… ”

I sighed deeply.

Neither force nor persuasion work, so in the end, all that’s left is threats.

“Okay, if you don’t want to go out, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Oh… ”

“I have no choice but to bring Leon here.”

“Ugh… ?”

Anxiety began to bloom on Olivia’s expression.

“You know what? With just one punch from Leon, this laboratory would disappear? All the works and facilities you worked so hard to create will be reduced to dust, and all the test subjects you cherished like children will also die.”

Surprisingly, it is the pure truth without any exaggeration.

“Ugh… thing… You’re lying, you’re trying to scare me, right? I know everything.”

“Is it true? It’s a success of the Granat project, but isn’t it just that good?”

“Ugh… ”

Since Olivia knows the power of the Granat Project better than anyone else, there is no more appropriate threat than this.

“Besides, I have strong trauma from the experiment, so if I look at the scenery of this laboratory… Well, Olivia, since you can’t leave the lab, there’s nothing we can do.”

“Ugh… Ugh… We refuse entry to that person named Leon… ”

“Reject Reject. I gave in, so you should give in too.”

“Ugh… Ugh… why… Why this ordeal… ”

Olivia fell to the floor in despair.

“Make a decision quickly. Otherwise, I just do what I want.”

“Ugh… me… I’m going out… I’m leaving.”

“Yes. Well thought out.”

In the end, you will do as I say, so why bother resisting?

“By the way, you don’t mind if I take Daisy out, right?”

“Ugh… ”

Olivia nodded weakly.

*

*

“How are you feeling since you’ve been outside for the first time in a while?”

– So good. It’s even better to come out with you.

“Our Daisy speaks really beautifully.”

I stroked Daisy’s head and looked behind her.

“Compared to that… ”

“Ugh… Ugh… ”

Olivia is walking with difficulty, staggering like a zombie.

“Please come quickly.”

“Ugh… It’s too much… ”

It hasn’t even been a minute since I came out, but seeing her about to die, I can’t help but sigh.

“It won’t work. I didn’t know it would be this bad, but the situation is serious. From now on, I need to force myself to go out for 30 minutes every day.”

“Uh..? I’m fine..!”

Olivia straightened her back unnaturally and quickened her pace.

“Yes. That’s how it should be.”

“Hehe… lol… ”

– I feel so sorry for your sister.

In the meantime, kind-hearted Daisy is worried about the person in the lab.

“Don’t worry. Everyone looks at him.”

“Ugh… Please speak kindly to me too… ”

“What makes you so pretty?”

“Ugh… I am also a woman, and such words hurt me… ”

If you only look at her face, Olivia is as beautiful as a heroine.

But other than the face, there is nothing particularly attractive about it.

He is a mad scientist who enjoys experimenting on the human body, living a miserable life confined to a laboratory, not having much body, and having a poor body.

Additionally, her face, which is her only advantage, doesn’t really stand out because she doesn’t take care of it properly.

You don’t care much about your appearance to begin with, but you talk about your scars.

There is only one appropriate answer to this.

“That’s terrible.”

– You can’t use bad words.

“Oh, sorry. I’ll be careful from now on.”

– I hope you treat your sister kindly.

“That’s a bit difficult.”

– Can’t you do at least half of what you do for me?

“It would have been the same even if Olivia was half as pretty as Daisy.”

Daisy did nothing but sign language and turned her head away as if she was embarrassed.

On the other hand, Olivia complained of pain from another attack and refuted my opinion.

“Ugh… My face is statistically considered to be pretty, but… ”

“No. When I say pretty, I’m not just talking about your face.”

“Yes..? Then what criteria did you use?”

“An evaluation of the person itself. Even if Daisy didn’t look as cute as she does now, I would still think she was pretty.”

“Ugh… Ugh… I don’t quite understand. But strangely, I felt even worse.”

“Then, I understand correctly.”

Originally, I didn’t put much importance on appearance, but that tendency got worse while playing this game.

The heroines are all beautiful, but they are full of personality-disruptors and maniacs.

Of course, there are a few exceptionally good guys.

However, the majority, or almost all, of the heroines are not worthy of their looks.

That’s why, to my eyes, they just look like pretty trash.

But the problem is,

‘My eyes have become too high.’

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many unrealistic beauties, but realistic beauties that I would have originally thought were beautiful have started to look ordinary.

If we end up in a situation where women in real life are not seen as women at all, before giving importance to appearance…

‘From start to finish, there’s no help in this crazy game.’

After going through this and that, I eventually arrived at the interview room.

*

*

I usually go into the pixies’ isolation room directly, but when I have to meet with a group like this, I use the interview room.

Since he had made a request to Aegwynn in advance, Leon was already waiting in the interview room.

“Oh… Is that the kid?”

Olivia said after checking on Leon through the window of the interview room.

“Hmm… On the outside, it looks like there is nothing special about it.”

She, who was dying just a moment ago, is observing Rion with vitality in her eyes.

“You never know when you might explode, so be careful what you say. No, before you ask a question, ask me first.”

“Hehe… All right. A lot of questions came to mind.”

Olivia had an eerie smile and was excited.

I’m already feeling anxious.

“Daisy, please wait here. Everyone, please take care of Daisy.”

“Yes.”

I left Daisy in the care of the staff and brought Olivia into the interview room.

As the door was closing, Daisy’s sign language telling her to be careful was visible through the gap.

I gave him a slight smile to tell him not to worry.

“……”

“Ugh… swimming… lol… ”

Interview between Leon and Olivia.

Leon is a quiet person to begin with, so he doesn’t say anything, and Olivia is confused, not knowing where to start with her questions.

‘It’s a sight.’

I pushed the medicine and water cup I brought with me to Leon.

“It’s a tranquilizer. There may be questions that stimulate your trauma, so I recommend that you prepare them in advance.”

Naturally, Rion glanced at the medicine with a suspicious eye and then turned his head away.

“Don’t eat it if you don’t want to. Instead, I’ll limit my questions to not provoke you, which will make it harder to find your brother.”

“……”

Leon picked up the medicine.

It looks like he’s contemplating whether to eat it or not.

“If you’re going to trust us, trust us for sure. If you’re ambiguous, you’re wasting each other’s time.”

“Heung.”

In the end, Leon pours the medicine into his mouth. Perhaps because of the bitter taste, I frowned and drank the water.

“Good choice.”

When I smiled slightly, Leon seemed so embarrassed that he turned his head again.

‘Wow, that’s harsh.’

You must wait at least 10 minutes for the medication to take effect.

It’s okay to stay still for a while, but it’s hard to endure this suffocating silence.

Finally, I opened my mouth with the intention of making small talk.

“Your face has improved a lot. Do you think you liked the few days of quarantine?”

“……”

Leon’s face looked much better than when he was in the temporary quarantine facility.

It was washed cleanly and didn’t look like anything fancy, and it seemed like it had slept well and didn’t feel tired.

In addition, it seems like he ate well, as his cheeks, which were once drawn, had gained some weight over the past few days.

It looked like it was changing from a starving stray cat to a well-fed domestic cat.

“…Why do you treat me like this?”

Leon asked me with his head still turned.

“Didn’t you explain it to me before? All I have to do is just be quiet?”

“I don’t understand. You can also get to know a country that has lived on the streets all its life. Where they keep me locked up, how much money I need for the food I eat… If you don’t expect anything from me, do you just want to waste your money?”

It’s just as Leon said.

Aside from the fact that they are trapped, the pixies are living a luxurious life that even the middle class of the empire cannot enjoy.

For Leon, who has endured all sorts of hardships and lived in leaky shacks and eaten only trash, it must not seem realistic that he can enjoy this kind of life without having to do anything.

At the same time, those of us who treat them like this and don’t expect anything from them will be even more suspicious.

If I tell you a plausible cause, will you be convinced?

“To understand our purpose, we have to look at the big picture. Not from the perspective of just you, but from the perspective of the entire empire.”

“…What does that mean?”

“You are not the only pixies managed by the management bureau. The strange guy next to us right now is also a pixie we manage.”

“Ugh… Huh?’

Olivia looked at me with an aggrieved expression when she was suddenly dissed.

I ignored it and kept talking.

“The amount of money being spent on this guy right now is dozens of times more than Leon’s. In fact, compared to other pixies, your maintenance costs are quite cheap.”

“Ugh… Did you? Does this mean you’re giving me special treatment?”

“Be quiet.”

Leon still looked like he didn’t understand.

“When you, Olivia, and other pixies are in society, the damage that can occur is enormous. If such damage can be prevented by simply confining it to a facility like this, then this level of expenditure is worth it.”

“From the Pixies’ perspective, we treat them well, and there is no reason for them to go out, so it can be said to be a win-win relationship.”

I’m sure I’ve said this before.

“If we are so dangerous, why are we being spared?”

A word that Leon said calmly.

I realized that was her real question.

What is the reason for taking risks?

Killing him or taking equivalent measures would have been enough.

“Ugh… Director, I was curious about that too… Why are you doing such an inefficient thing? Of course, it’s good from my perspective.”

Even Olivia helped out.

hmm. What do we do. I tried to pass it off with some plausible words, but it kept getting deeper and deeper.

“That’s… There’s a reason I call you pixies.”

“Huh? You mean pixie? I’m sure I heard before that pixie means fairy… ”

“Yes. In a country back in my hometown, fairies were called pixies.”

I started roughly putting words together in my head.

Well, if you make a mistake, you can just retry.

“You guys are far from ordinary humans. Whether willingly or unwillingly, it possesses a power so alien that it cannot be associated with ordinary people. That’s why you are fairies and pixies. They are beings that must be treated differently from humans.”

I glanced at Leon and Olivia.

They were both focused on my story.

“But should we catch and kill everyone just because they are different? That’s not right. It can be seen as a wrong direction, not just from a simple ethical standpoint, but also from the perspective of a large community called society. Pixies will continue to appear in the future, and if you oppress them by killing them every time, they will also resist to survive.”

”So the direction we must choose is symbiosis. Finding a way to live in harmony with the pixies. The Pixie Management Bureau is a kind of pilot case to find the direction of that coexistence.”

I said whatever I could, and I think I came up with a pretty good excuse.

“Ugh… that… I didn’t know there was such a purpose.”

“……”

There were no additional questions, as they both seemed to be somewhat convinced.

Perhaps because all they have been able to do after decades of rolling around is play with their snouts, it feels like their skills at the mouth are only improving.