Chapter 35: Academy Main Building (3)

“Raaahhh!”

A lizard-like fog fiend slammed its claw down on Booker’s medium shield. Gritting his teeth, he held the line with a snarl.

“Don’t just stand there, help already!”

“I know!”

Jelena drove her spear hard into the creature’s skull, then kicked the shattered corpse away from them. From the other side came another shriek. One of the giant centipede-like monsters had fallen into a freshly dug trench. Its flailing limbs couldn’t gain a grip in the soft earth, keeping it trapped. The rotted-face people hurriedly threw down nets and ropes in an effort to restrain it, while Jelena and Booker rushed in.

“Fuck! Your! Asshole! Go to hell!”

“Diiieee!”

Wielding long-handled weapons, the two of them stabbed and slashed at the trapped centipede in a flurry of chaotic strikes, wounding it all over to drain its strength, then focusing their blows on its head. Under their relentless assault, the creature twitched violently before going still.

“Holy shit!”

“Got it.”

“Divine envoy… both of you… you’ve worked hard!”

The rotted-face people scrambled to offer the two some towels, but neither was in the mood for gratitude, because—

“Everyone, attention! More fog fiends are approaching!”

—more and more of them were closing in on the forest’s edge.

If you looked to the far side of the river, faint, shadowy figures were beginning to appear; twisted silhouettes that radiated an eerie and unnatural terror.

Dusk was drawing near.

“There’s more and more.”

“Yeah…”

“Do you think we’ll last until they get back?”

“We just have to try our best, don’t we? Fuck!”

***

Academy Main Building, Underground

Following the inhuman handprints and footprints, Felice and I had come to this place.

Behind the lab’s back room was a dark chamber, and beyond that, a passage leading underground. Those strange tracks continued, trailing steadily deeper into the depths. Faintly glowing crystals were embedded in the walls on either side of the corridor. Unlike the purifying stones from the sanctuary forest, these gave off no divine energy—only pale light.

The prints on the ground became even clearer under that cold glow.

The handprints had five fingers like a human’s—but they were several times larger, and each fingertip bore sharp claw marks.

The footprints were similarly five-toed, but their shape was nothing like a human’s sole—more monstrous, more powerful.

Each print radiated a sickly purple-black hue, and up close, they reeked of rot. The stench was exactly the same as the faint decay that hung in the air around the ruined town. That was all but confirmation—these were the Mist King’s tracks. Judging by the stink, its body was likely constantly leaking toxins.

There was another strange detail.

“Three… four… three… seven… what the hell?”

As we descended the corridor, I suddenly noticed a discrepancy—the number of handprints didn’t match the number of footprints.

In theory, a four-legged creature should have the same number of front and back limbs. But here the ratio of handprints to footprints was roughly four to three.

So it had four arms and three legs? Not limbs, but seven total appendages?

Judging by the spacing of the prints, its size was roughly four to five times that of a human.

The more I imagined what this thing might look like, the less I wanted to.

We had expected a long passageway, but it was surprisingly short—just a few dozen meters before we reached the end.

A towering metal door stood before us.

It was covered in bizarre mechanisms and dazzling runes. I glanced down at the runic dagger in my hand and noticed that some of the blade’s markings matched the ones carved into the door. Typically, such runes were used for defense. But when we arrived, the door was already ajar—any protective function had long since failed.

“This is strange.”

“Yeah.”

I held my breath and signaled Felice. She immediately moved to keep a distance, prepared to provide backup. Swallowing hard, I stepped through the door.

“—!!!”

The sight before me made me stumble, and Felice rushed up behind me.

“The Mist King? Is it inside?”

“No, not yet. But…”

It was a vast underground space.

The walls were lined with glowing crystals, bright enough to illuminate every corner of the room with the naked eye.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.

It was all dried, long since turned a near-black, but the sheer volume made the scene unspeakably grotesque.

Floor, walls, ceiling—corpses. Corpses. So many corpses. Dear god, God… godgodgod!!!

In all my life, I had never seen something so gruesome. Not in person, not even in a movie. This was like a scene straight from the most depraved cult horror flick, except someone had cranked the insanity up to eleven.

“Urgh…”

Felice, who had been peeking inside, immediately recoiled. I heard her puking behind me. For someone as particular about cleanliness as she was, this must have been hell. And even for me—

==========

Ian, forever misunderstood, was branded a madman. His apprentices abandoned him. His laboratory was seized. All his published papers were denounced as heretical drivel and destroyed. With nowhere left to turn, Ian slipped into the depths beneath the academy, converting an old storage chamber into his final laboratory. Every teacher and student who stumbled upon it became fodder for his experiments. As his needs grew, he began to hunt, seeking suitable bodies under the cover of night.

Ian would allow no one to lay hands on his work. Anyone who dared try to steal his genius… would die.

==========

“Ugh!”

Another surge of information bloomed in my mind.

The former life of the man who ruled this place—Ian.

A gifted outcast, spurned by the world. Is that how I should see him? A madman who turned this place into his den, who used innocent people as raw materials for experiments. What kind of experiments?

The answer revealed itself immediately.

On a nearby worktable, a half-finished corpse lay sprawled—a grotesque fusion of man and monster, with syringes stabbed into various parts of its body, some still filled with strange, unspent fluids.

It was a venom-spitting lizardman.

Or rather, a half-completed one, abandoned midway through the process.

This was the fate that awaited anyone who wandered into Ian’s nest.

“So cruel…” Felice murmured.

“Yeah.”

The tragic spiral of a brilliant but deranged alchemist, dragging everyone around him into his downfall.

The deeper we ventured, the more of these grotesque half-finished chimeras we encountered, each more horrifying than the last. Ordinary lizardmen, venom-spitters, centipede creatures—we’d seen them all. But the one that sent shivers down my spine was a half-made centipede, crafted by fusing two spines end to end for a seamless body. It looked agonizing, and yet…

Strangely enough, I found myself feeling a twinge of admiration for Ian.

Perfectly fusing two human spinal columns—while I had no idea how advanced this world’s alchemy-based medicine was, this had to be at the cutting edge, right? His surgical techniques, his transmutation methods—every one of them, if you stopped to think about it, was terrifyingly sophisticated. If applied toward noble ends, they could’ve benefited the world.

Ian was, without a doubt, a genius.

But he’d used all his brilliance for twisted ends.

We skirted a wide cluster of experiment tables and entered the deeper chambers of Ian’s laboratory.

“No one here.”

“Yeah. So where is the Mist King?”

The air was thick with blood and dread, but we had yet to see anything that resembled the Mist King. And yet this clearly was its lair, its usual place. By all accounts, it should have been—

Hm?

We turned a corner, and the space ahead opened up. It looked like Ian had connected several underground storage rooms into one vast chamber. Gone were the workbenches—in their place stood towering, translucent vessels of some kind.

==========

Ian became ever more obsessed with creating citizens worthy of his utopia—beings strong and brilliant enough to serve as his ideal subjects. Using only the finest human specimens, he poured all his knowledge into refining them, shaping ever more powerful alchemical lifeforms.

In the end, he made himself one of them.

==========

There were around a dozen of those containers in total. Each was a towering cylindrical vat, translucent and easily large enough to hold two grown adults. Thick hoses pierced through their surfaces, and the interiors were filled with colorful fluids—each tank housing a creature that was profoundly, viscerally disturbing.

Some looked like fusions of humans and octopuses. Others had grotesque, proliferating organs. One of the containers—nearly reaching the ceiling—held a monster that bore an uncanny resemblance to Aldrich. Was Ian trying to mass-produce such creatures? If so, every monster born here might be elite-class. Thankfully, only two had been deployed so far—if there were more…

Beneath our feet ran a metal walkway, threading between these monstrous tanks, which stood arrayed on both sides like sentinels. 

Felice and I held our breath as we advanced; every step was cautious and soundless. Who knew whether the creatures inside were dead or alive? If we woke them all at once and got swarmed…

We exchanged a glance. The eerie display had pushed our alertness to the limit. This long corridor of metal, flanked by towering monsters like loyal retainers—there was something solemn about it all, something unsettling.

The Mist King is just ahead—we both felt it instinctively.

No words were needed.

The runic dagger was in my grip.

The fine steel rapier drawn.

Supplies at the ready.

Strike first—seize the initiative.

“Go!”

“Right!”

…

…

…

“…Huh?”

But at the very end of the corridor stood only a single, small glass container.

It was about the size of an adult human, and the thing floating inside was tiny. It resembled a half-developed cicada, but its entire body shimmered like a gold filigree ornament studded with crystal. It was a strangely beautiful sight. 

A label affixed to the tank displayed its name: ‘Meigao.’

Beautiful or not, this thing—even its name was different. It had to be just another of Ian’s creations. And based on the footprints we’d been following, Ian was supposed to be a creature four to five times the size of a human, with four arms and three legs. There was no way it was this delicate little thing.

Felice circled to the back of the tank and shrugged at me, shaking her head. Behind it was a dead-end wall—solidly built, no exits in sight.

“Yuhong, above!”

“Above?”

I looked up—and gasped.

There they were again. The same bizarre tracks—four handprints to three footprints—but not on the floor. On the ceiling. Ian had been moving across the ceiling!?

By the glow of the wall-mounted crystals, I could just make out the trail. The prints stretched forward… forward… and then vanished into a gaping hole in the ceiling.

There was a hole up there!?

Where the hell did it lead?

I drew a breath, then carefully pushed against the large glass tank beside the wall. It was steady, solid. Bracing myself, I climbed atop it, using the thick hoses for footing until I reached the top. Then, awkwardly balanced, I stretched out my hand toward the irregularly-shaped hole.

My fingertips brushed something cool.

Air.

A gentle current of air flowed inward from the opening.

“This tunnel leads outside! It’s a shortcut from the underground lab to the academy’s exterior!”

The instant that realization hit, my whole body seized up.

My head swam. Panic, tension, and regret surged through me all at once.

So that’s it.

That’s what was going on.

That’s why Felice and I had gone so deep without ever encountering Ian.

We’d seen fresh tracks all pointing deeper underground, and naturally assumed he must still be hiding somewhere in the depths.

But at the very end, there was a hidden escape route leading back to the surface.

Damn it.

Damn it!

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!!!

***

Ruined Town, Interior

Atop the roof of a tall, three-story building, a massive shadow stretched out its limbs, savoring the first breath of air beyond the academy walls in a very, very long time.

There was a faint fragrance in the air. Of course—after all these years, the toxins it had unconsciously excreted had saturated the soil and water of the entire region. Even the air held trace amounts of poison.

And that pleased it deeply.

It looked around—down below, across the town, across the land.

All its creations—its beloved children—were marching toward the stronghold of those filthy thieves.

Time to end this farce.

Time to pass judgment on the rats who dared covet its work.

A piercing shriek tore through the dusk-lit sky. The dark figure leapt down from the rooftop, heading straight for the forest.