chapter 57
57 – Stray Cat (2)
“It’s the original girl’s magic, so it’s useless to her.”
The woman who opened the door and entered was Justina. She is
She is with Elfin Today she was the person we were supposed to meet here.
As soon as Elfin saw Justina, she crossed her arms and frowned at her.
“Why are you so late? We were supposed to get together right after class!”
“Elfin, unlike a gangster like you, don’t you need to take care of yourself? Yes, that special class is a big deal because you always sweat a lot.”
“What… Even if you are soaked in sweat, you can get clean with just one flick of your finger.”
“You shouldn’t rely on magic for everything. Don’t bet on anything else. Unlike a professor, the chairman of the board is busy.”
“This, a professor? I, the head of the imperial family’s dark department, am I just a professor?”
As soon as they met, Elfin and Justina looked at each other and growled.
It wasn’t like this in the past, but somehow it got worse after 500 years.
I intervened in an argument, feeling my stomach suffocate in the heavy atmosphere.
“Come on, stop fighting. Let’s quickly deal with the reason for gathering.”
Justina slowly blinked, as if it was what she had hoped for.
Elfin glared at Justina with her dissatisfied eyes, but she also nodded her head.
It was only then that the three of us could get to the point.
“Then who do you want to talk to first? Elfin? Or Justina?”
“Let’s start with the original girl.”
The reason the three of us got together today was simple.
The recent situation where several things are going on at the same time since the demon attack on the back mountain.
Since each of them had a role to play, it was a gathering with the intention of checking together how much each other had progressed.
“First of all, Deneb, it looks like Charlotte’s identification will be delayed a bit.”
“Why?”
Among them, Justina had two roles.
The first is to search for snitches as the director of Denbergen Academy.
And the second is that she seeks out a famous magic engineer to find out what kind of surgery Charlotte had.
Now, Justina was saying that the second of them had a problem.
“Originally, the magical engineer that her original daughter was thinking of was Winston Gehel.”
“If Winston Gehel… Wait, the magic engineering professor I’m listening to?”
Justina nodded her head.
“Yes, even if it seems unreliable… At least she thought she was the best among the magic engineers on the continent that she knew, so I remember finding her and hiring her.”
“Um… ….”
It was immediately clear why Justina was in a difficult position.
Originally, she had a trusted person nearby, so she wanted to entrust the job right away, but it was precisely because I accused him of being suspicious.
However, I, who had made the accusation, grew increasingly suspicious of Professor Winston.
“Perhaps the evidence is insufficient, but I was overly suspicious… ….”
“No. Not excessive at all Rather, you need to be more careful. I left it to Winston, but if that person was an infiltrator, he might steal Charlotte and run away alone.
“That’s right, too. By the way, Mr. Justina…….”
Justina takes care of me with a more prudent attitude.
Elfin, on the other hand, smiled and slightly bent Justina’s waist to make sure they were at eye level with Justina.
“Then you haven’t found a magical engineer to be in charge of Charlotte yet, and you haven’t found a snitch either~?”
“…… Big, big.”
“Even if you say that, what about a magic engineer? Why yet?”
Justina glared at Elfin, then she replied with a glance at me.
“I just didn’t have enough time. She’s already prepared to tell Winston, but there’s a variable in the situation… Another problem was that there weren’t that many skilled magic engineers on the continent.”
“Well, I agree with that to some extent. Skilled magic engineers are rare. Especially in the Empire.”
The story of Justina naturally shifted to the role of Elfin.
Elfin sat down in his chair, leaned against his backrest, and put his hands on the back of his head.
“It seems that the imperial family, who received my report, began to investigate in their own way, how the demons possess and utilize such complex magical engineering technology… That must have been amazing.”
“Well, it was more surprising because the original girl was ignorant of magic engineering.”
Stalkers are also snitches, but Elfin was putting more effort into connecting with the imperial family.
As a professor in the special class, it was part of her duty to keep an eye on Charlotte and protect her.
So, she didn’t expect much information from Elfin, but she found it a bit interesting to hear that the imperial family was interested in demonic engineering.
“The Devil’s Land is a barren land. That’s our common perception so far. So, of course, I thought that many technologies, including magic engineering, would be far behind the Empire.”
“But not really.”
“It’s embarrassing, but that’s how it happened. I, in other words, the imperial family didn’t know about the cloak of concealment brought by the demons this time, the cloak of magic engineering that creates a concealment barrier. I don’t think I have the confidence to implement that technique.”
Elfin put the imperial letter on her desk and continued her words.
“Insufficient resources and poor manpower compared to the Empire. With that, the Demon Lord achieved better magic engineering technology than the Empire.”
“Isn’t it because the Empire doesn’t invest well in magic engineering? Maybe the Magician… Under the leadership of the forces of the last king of Delin, he may be investing intensively only in magic engineering.”
“That also makes sense, but the imperial family guessed at a more fundamental reason. It’s pretty plausible, I think.”
Elfin took out her letter, opened it, and tapped a section of her tight line with her finger to show it.
“Human experiment.”
“…… What?”
“Is that so?”
Justina nodded slowly.
“The Empire has banned human experimentation for a long time. I can’t stop it from going undercover, but at least I’ve stopped doing it over the open. However, in the Demon Realm, there is no such thing as morality or morality.”
“The Empire is banning human experimentation and reducing investment. However, the Devil’s Land will be free to experiment on humans, and as Master said, there will be some guys who go all-in here. There was bound to be a gap in technology.”
The moment I heard the story, what came to my mind was Guinness.
Originally, I was going to talk about the suspicious behavior of Guinness and Professor Winston today, so it wouldn’t be.
Maybe there was a little bit of that influence, but aside from that, the keyword of human experimentation and Guinness were strangely connected.
“Charlotte, Justina. How were beastmen treated 500 years ago?”
“…… Suin?”
“Why are you suddenly asking Suin?”
“I’ll ask about that later, wasn’t the treatment of a prisoner very good?”
Justina and Elfin stared at me at the same time.
“Well, in the old days, prisoners were treated as real slaves, weren’t they? Not now.”
“It’s not just that. Even today, hate crimes against the beast tribe can often be found. Right now, I alone wiped out the organization that imprisoned the beasts as a group a few years ago.”
I walked around Elfin’s office and slowly organized my thoughts.
Handling of beasts, magic engineering, human experiment…….
It felt like a puzzle was about to come together.
– “Heeep!”
In that moment, the memory of saying goodbye to Guinness came back.
I thought it was strange even then, but I couldn’t figure out where it went wrong.
But when I think about it now, I realize what parts I felt weird about.
‘I often saw such children in the resistance group.’
Among the new recruits were boys and girls in their late teens.
I was one of them when I first enlisted.
Most of them were children who suffered from the tyranny of the kingdom and went through a rough life, such as losing their parents.
There were many cases of living as slaves of violent nobles and risking their lives to escape.
Two feelings were particularly strong in children who had been deprived of their freedom and will and lived as slaves for a long time.
‘Anger, and fear.’
Because of the driving force of anger, the children were able to choose to join the resistance.
Of course, living as a slave of a noble would be physically more comfortable than serving in the resistance.
The children who felt humiliation, shame, and anger at living as slaves surrendered themselves to the vortex of emotions.
However, the already learned fear was so powerful that anger could not cover it.
Every moment of training and military life was hard for those children until they fully adapted to the resistance.
Apart from being physically tough, it was because the instructors who taught them would fall into a panic even if their voices were raised a little.
‘They say it’s trauma.’
When I hear the shouting, I remember how the nobleman yelled at me, and I’m terrified.
When the instructor raises his hand, his body trembles as he remembers the tingly shock of being slapped on the cheek by a nobleman.
When my friends give me bread, I get scolded and locked up in solitary confinement, and then I remember the time when a mouse stole the bread I was eating and put it in my mouth, and I feel sick.
What could be manifested even with a trivial trigger was the fear, memory, and trauma of the past.
‘No way, even Guinness… ….’
I’m not sure yet. It’s a story you have to ask yourself.
But at least at the farewell, the frightened Guinness was nothing like his usual self.
At first I wondered why he was doing that when he just raised his hand, but now I think I know why.
“Something happened, in the past.”
“Huh?”
“What do you mean all of a sudden, Deneb?”
I gave a brief explanation to Elfin and Justina, who tilted their heads.
Not only what happened with Professor Winston, but also the story of Guinness.
Starting with the facts, I revealed everything I guessed.
“In my opinion, Guinness will definitely return to Winston’s office.”
“I don’t know why, but he must be trying to go in and out when no one is around. Then you should aim for that timing. Wouldn’t it be better to go directly to Master?”
I nodded.
“Okay, I don’t know what happened, so let’s hear it for ourselves.”
Guinness’ situation has changed strangely.
From a schoolboy in the engineering class, now a stray cat sneaking into Professor Winston’s office.
But I had a strong hunch that if I listened to the whole story of the stray cat, Professor Winston’s doubts would be confirmed, whether true or false.
If that happened, it was clear that even Charlotte’s past would lead in a straight line.
I closed my eyes, remembering the time I met Guinness in front of his office.
Exactly at that time, and when Professor Winston got off work early and no one was in the office.
Guinness will be targeting that timing once again, and this time he will be more cautious.
I have to somehow hide from the sensitive senses of Guinness, the cat beast…….
“…… Ah!”
At that moment, something flashed in my head like lightning.
“Elfin, what did you do with the demons you caught last time?”
“How do you do it? Justina burned her sister’s side, and her brother’s…….”
Likewise, Elfin opened her eyes wide as if thinking of ‘that thing’.
“The real master rips even the dead off the cheap?!”
I proudly puffed out my chest.
“It is a natural virtue of an assassin.”