40 Chapter 40: Research

Screams filled the air, each note filled with agony. An orchestra of pain, composed from the suffering of the many victims of the multi-mage, their shrieks blended together in a cacophony of despair. In the background, ominous snaps of breaking bone and the tearing of muscle added to the horrifying din, and shadows danced wildly amidst flickering light, their blurry outlines little indication of the uncontrollable flailing and convulsions that racked the poor victims' bodies.

"Please…I'm begging you…please…!"

"It hurts! It hurts so much! Ugh!"

"Please stop! You…you monster! You aren't human…! AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Strapped onto gurneys, many of whom were dissected alive, the subjects writhed and howled in agony. Several had lost their minds from the sheer pain and horror, drooling as they rambled incoherently, their bodies twitching as needles poked into them and suspicious looking serums were injected into their systems. Others no longer resembled human, their bodies hideously mutated or having monster parts grafted onto their bodies and many of their limbs and organs removed.

In the midst of this hell, Miranda Miller hummed to herself in delight as she recorded the fluctuations of the vital signs of one of her subjects as she pumped him with a cocktail of drugs that altered his physique.

"Seems like Serum B048A accelerates tissue growth and cellular mutation," she murmured to herself. "Cellular transformation takes place within 50.2 seconds after injection. Subject suffers excruciating pain, but not enough to send him to shock and cause death. I'd say this one is a moderate success."

Blood spurted from the rapidly mutating man and splattered against Miranda's gown and she recoiled.

"Damn it!" she cursed and smacked the poor man's head so hard that it cracked the gurney. "Don't you dare get your filthy blood on me!"

Shaking her head, she turned away and ripped off her gloves and proceeded toward the sink to wash her hands. She sighed loudly when she heard the machine that was linked to her subject flat line. The man slumped down, dead.

"Scratch that," she muttered darkly. "Serum B048A is a complete failure. What's the use of rapid mutation if the subject doesn't survive for longer than 120 seconds after the injection?"

With a wave of her hand, she burned the corpse, reducing it into ash. Then she proceeded to the next subject.

"Perhaps Serum B049C might be better? I increased the concentration of the eldmane compound and removed the endorphin hormone. It will hurt a lot more, but the success of mutation should be elevated by at least 17.2%."

The multi-mage Miranda was currently renowned as Havan Kingdom's best mage. She was often credited as the strategist of the strongest Hero party who had defeated the Demonic Emperor, Viledoofus. These achievements had led her to be appointed chairwoman of the research committee of the mage corps.

At first, none of the poor mages who promoted her to such a position of leadership had any idea how much they had fucked up, but when they discovered that Miranda had been abusing her authority to conduct forbidden experiments – often involving live human subjects – and sacrifice innocent citizens, it was too late. Miranda swiftly eliminated those who protested, using them as specimens for her experiments. Indeed, many of the hideous mutants who had monstrous appendages grafted onto them or alien organs implanted into their bodies were former mages, who were pleading for a merciful death.

Of course, Miranda had no intention of granting them a swift death. She wanted to collect as much data on them as possible. They were useless to her dead. She needed to perfect her techniques, to ensure that the host body assimilate the new cells, limbs or organs flawlessly, or to monitor mutation and erase instability that plagued her so often.

Miranda wanted to create a new species altogether.

"Just what am I lacking?" she wondered out loud as she glanced at the tome at the far side of her laboratory. The grimoire on manufacturing homunculus. Having harvested organic tissue from so many human specimens, she had sought to create artificial life, but to no avail. Then she reasoned that since homunculus was artificial to begin with, there was no need to create them from scratch. What if she transformed living humans into homunculus?

Obviously there was all sort of things wrong with that logic, but whoever dared to tell Miranda that would find themselves the next subject of her horrific experiments.

Unfortunately, the next subject expired in less than three minutes. Miranda clicked her tongue, but stubbornly continued. Before she knew it, all thirty human specimens in the room had succumbed to their mutations within a matter of minutes.

The latest batch of serums was an abject failure.

"All of them are trash," Miranda growled with a sigh. "I'll have to find new subjects again."

She returned to her console and clutched her head. Even locked deep inside her laboratory, Miranda was aware that she had all but emptied out all the neighboring villages. She had used her position to cover up the disappearances and strange depopulation of the villages, but she couldn't keep it up forever. The royal family would eventually send someone to investigate.

Not to mention…

"This is such a troublesome task they assigned me."

Miranda had also received a task from the Holy Church. She had heard that her former comrades – Herman and Irene – had been fused together by acid. That didn't interest Miranda much. After all, as long as the victims were still alive, even such grievous wounds could be healed by magic.

However, she then learned that the Hero couple had been stabbed by a cursed spear, which had not only sealed the magical abilities of both Herman and Irene, but also dispelled any healing spells or the miraculous effects of any elixirs used on them. Worse, the spear had been driven through their hearts and was the only thing keeping them alive. The moment the priests of the Holy Church removed the spear, the both of them would die instantly.

Desperate, the Holy Church had turned to Miranda, begging her to find a method to extract the cursed spear without killing the Hero and the Supreme Priestess. Miranda had agreed, partly because they were her comrades, and if nothing else they had forged a strong bond over fighting side-by-side against terrible enemies. But mostly because the cursed spear caught her interest somewhat.

However, she had never truly forgiven Irene for stealing Herman away from her, or Herman for cheating on her with Irene. Inwardly, deep down in her heart, she was delighted that they were suffering so. The adulterous couple deserved punishment for their infidelity.

Nonetheless, Miranda had visited them in the temple where the Holy Church secretly harbored them. She had taken notes and analyzed the cursed spear, only to realize that there was nothing she could do. Despite that, she promised the Holy Church that she would continue looking for a way, and had returned to her base in the west to seek out the magical archives. Perhaps there was something in the records here at the mage corps that would contain something useful on cursed artifacts. How to break the curse or how to cancel out the magic nullification field that the cursed spear produced.

So far, she had found absolutely nothing. To be frank, Miranda was distracted mostly by her alchemic research on homunculus and producing a whole new species. But even so, she had invested a lot of effort and precious time into searching for a cure for her suffering comrades.

She thought herself magnanimous and big-hearted for spending two hours a week to research on cursed weapons. It was more than the adulterous couple deserved, or so she reasoned.

"I shouldn't waste more time thinking about them," she chided herself when she realized that her mind had gone off to reminiscing about the old days with the Hero party. After Herman and Irene announce their marriage, she hadn't exactly parted with them on good terms.

She turned back to the poor bodies in the lab. Then she shook her head and left the corpses on the gurneys, making a mental note to tell her staff to dispose of them. After her purge of the mage corps, the only personnel left here were those loyal to her. To be more precise, those demented enough to believe Miranda's creed of magic research. That they mages were superior to all others, and that the villagers were nothing more than live specimens who should feel honored to serve as the foundation for their amazing magic research.

Speaking of which, Miranda intended to go collect more live specimens for her homunculus research. The problem was that the neighboring villages had been emptied out. Where was she going to find new organic raw material for her experiments?

"I might have to start hiring gangs to abduct and smuggle homeless people from the bigger cities," she murmured to herself. After all, according to her, the homeless was nothing more than waste. She was doing the kingdom a favor by getting rid of the homeless. They should thank her.

Having made her decision, Miranda chuckled and left her laboratory.

*

It took us several weeks, but eventually Stella and I reached the west of Havan Kingdom. The route from the Demonic Empire was simple enough. We got Wolfe to bring us back south, and then reentered the Havan Kingdom through Bravia Kingdom. From there, we moved toward the southwest direction. The province of Riaju was our destination, and it was located right on the border. A frontier of sort, it was surrounded by forests, and its remote location made it ideal for Miranda to establish her laboratory of forbidden research.

Accompanying Stella and me was a third addition to our team. A tall person appeared to glide along the road behind us, his body entirely cloaked in a long coat that reached his feet. He had a gaunt complexion, his pale skin stretched tightly over his skull, and his dark eyes lolled about lazily. Long hair streamed down, over his back, and he staggered forward, leaning on a cane. An emaciated hand gripped the top curve of the cane, his knuckles almost bone-white.

"You all right, Lindley?" I asked. The tall man turned to me and grimaced. His joints creaked somewhat and he tried a couple of expressions before finally settling on a hideous grin. A couple of kids shrieked when they saw him, and they scampered away. Completely unaware of the fear he was causing, the disguised lich lord nodded.

"Of course, my lord."

"Uh, right." I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Lindley obviously had forgotten how to smile. Hell, after spending so many years as a skeletal lich lord with no face, he had completely forgotten how to display any sort of human expressions.

Then again, with how emotionless he tended to be all the time, it wasn't as if he actually needed to show any sort of expressions. Even so, people found him unnerving.

"I'm still not used to moving around in skin," Lindley whispered, dropping his voice so that only Stella and I could hear him. "I underestimated the enormity of the task. I didn't think it would be this difficult to disguise myself as a human and blend in."

"You're doing great," I assured him. "People will think you're eccentric, yeah, but in a way that actually makes you a lot less suspicious. They'll never imagine that you're actually a lich in disguise."

"I hope that is the case," Lindley said neutrally.

"Don't worry. You won't have to keep this up for too long now. We're finally in Riaju Province. We'll reach our destination soon."

"We will reach the western frontier in about a week," Stella spoke up, ever the reliable aide. I swear, if it wasn't for her, I would get lost. She was the only one among the three of us who could read a map. I could interpret arcane symbols and runes, while Lindley was capable of deciphering scientific formulae and equations, but neither of us could read a map. Fortunately, Stella was more than capable of taking the lead and guiding us along the right route. She turned toward us with a stern stare. "The Riaju garrison is stationed at the edge of the Riaz Forest."

"Garrison, huh?" Lindley mused. "I assume they have an entire regiment stationed there?"

"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "Mage corps. No more than a hundred mages, including Miranda Miller." I grinned. "That's why I need you."

"Fair enough." Lindley nodded and glanced around. He blinked unnaturally, his eyes staring about hollowly. As vigilant as ever, Stella followed his lead and watched the streets.

"Is it my imagination, or is Riaju City emptier than usual?" Stella asked with a frown. "There should be more people in the streets at this time of the day. Most of the houses seem unoccupied. Where's everybody?"

Now that she had mentioned it, I realized that the city was strangely deserted. In a place of this size, there should be dozens, if not over a hundred people bustling about in the streets. Yet there were no more than ten or so people hurrying about.

"Ah…that explains it," Lindley said. Both Stella and I turned to look at him questioningly.

"Explain what?" I demanded. The lich lord looked at me with his unnaturally blank eyes and shrugged.

"Why the stench of death is so strong around here. Most of the population is already dead."