Chapter 83: Eye of Wisdom (Part 8)
“Can… can you read it to me…”
The whisper of the Female Swordsman echoed softly in the quiet, spacious church hall, feeling like I was caught in a dreamy daze.
I fixated my eyes on the open pages in front of me, without even noticing I had picked up the not-so-thick notebook with both hands. All those disgusting gooey substances and filth? I completely tossed them out of my mind, focusing solely on the crinkly paper, with its occasionally chaotic and sometimes neat handwriting, or sketches.
As I stared, my head got filled with jumbled thoughts, to the point I almost forgot to turn the pages.
The two survivors were women from the House Alanst…
Their spirits had been crushed during the Heretic War…
I fed them a bigger dose of the divine bl**d pills…
I believed that soon, Mandala wouldn’t work on them anymore…
I believed we could create another Silvya, or even a being superior to her…
As if the very author was whispering in my ear, those thoughts kept resurfacing insistently. In my stupor, images and sounds buried deep in my memory that I didn’t want to remember swirled like vague shadows woven into the depths of my consciousness, mingling with those whispering voices.
“Ahhhhh—”
In the damp, dark room, a girl in a prison outfit was being forcefully pinned down on the hospital bed by a couple of Black Robes. She struggled desperately, screaming, her beautiful eyes already clouded with bl**d, and then someone swiftly shoved a bl**d-red pill into her mouth. Soon enough, her struggles weakened.
“Romani Doctor, please stop lying to me, okay…”
Under the steep cliff walls, white snowflakes fell from the rock crevices overhead. A middle-aged woman gently reached out to brush the snow off the head and shoulders of a dazed girl in a wheelchair. Yet in her eyes, there seemed to be nothing but a coldness more piercing than the ice and snow, coupled with indifference.
“Soon, you two will be transferred…”
“Please, let me go…”
“I beg you…”
“Big sister, I found you!”
Suddenly, the sky turned a brilliant blue, the distant emerald hills and countless peaks spread out before me; in the Northern Region of Silgaya, fields of silver flowers bloomed, as a refreshing breeze danced through, tousling the silver hair of the playful Little Girl nearby.
“Big sister, big sister! Look at these flowers, they are so beautiful! So beautiful~”
“Iliush Ailei, close your eyes…”
“March 16th, 8:49 PM, third bl**d dilution, fourth bone marrow peek, organ infusion… Prepare…”
On the rusted operating table, amidst the shadows of several Black Robes, the little girl arched her back, mouth agape, but no sound came out.
“Big sister… I—I’m being really good…”
“They reward me with donuts…”
“Time’s up…”
“Big sister, does it hurt… does it hurt…?”
“I’m in so much pain…”
“We’re going to d*e…”
“Gaia… Rabishixemos…”
“I’m so hungry…”
“Buzz buzz buzz buzz…”
“I really want to eat… it feels so strange… I really want to eat… ahh ahh ahh—”
“Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz…”
“I want to d*e.”
…………
“Hey, hey.”
Suddenly, hands waved in front of my eyes.
“…Huh?”
I looked up, feeling a bit dazed, and my gaze landed on the face of the Sword Demon Miss, who wore a blank expression.
Noticing I had finally snapped back to reality, she pulled her hand back. In the firelight, she stared at me for a moment. After a while, seemingly convinced I was fine, she straightened her face and said, “You were zoning out.”
“…Was I?”
Unable to help myself, I raised my hand to touch my face… only to see it was smudged with some filth. When I brought my hand closer to my nose, a scent that wasn’t too bad, but definitely pretty gross, wafted up.
“Uh…”
Looking at my hand, I felt slightly disoriented, even forgetting what had gotten on it in the first place. My mind was still wrestling with many realities, and at this moment, it all started to make sense.
They were using the women from the Silent Fortress, those refugees, to conduct inhumane “patient” experiments pulled straight from a nightmare…
And this time, they didn’t even bother to find an excuse for the so-called patients…
Eye of Wisdom…
Splitting Theory…
Madmen…
“You’ve been staring at that page for a long time…”
“Have I?”
“Mm…”
The voice of the Sword Demon Miss started to fade into the background again. My mind felt chaotic, as if I had grasped something, but the more I thought, the more confused I became. I just couldn’t connect the dots together.
After a moment of silence, I managed to recover my expression and casually said, “Ah, I was just thinking about something…”
“What’s written in that journal?”
The Sword Demon Miss asked again, opening my mouth, I hesitated to respond.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell her, but I just didn’t know where to start. Even though I was contemplating those matters, there wasn’t a strong negative emotion behind it. It felt more like observing things that had nothing to do with me. But now, I faintly sensed that I should be angry—just as that thought emerged, I felt the buried resentment rising within me.
…A murky, complicated feeling.
“…Sword Demon.”
“…Mm.”
The Sword Demon Miss seemed to notice something was off about me. Sitting upright on the bench, she appeared a bit tense.
“No need to worry, I’m fine,” I waved my hand at her and forced a smile, “I just suddenly thought of a question I wanted to ask you… do you know a doctor named Romani?”
Just as my smile appeared, I felt it stiffen—based on the Sword Demon Miss’s furrowed brow, it likely wasn’t a charming grin at all. So I quickly retracted it, feigning indifference and flattening my face.
“Don’t know her.”
She gently shook her head, and then, with a sudden shift in conversation, she continued, “But I remember seeing her before.”
“…Huh?”
That actually surprised me.
I didn’t think I could get any information out of this wooden-headed girl; my casual question was more to redirect attention away from both of us, yet unexpectedly, the Sword Demon Miss had insightful information about the Romani Doctor.
So I paused for a moment and quickly asked, “Where? Tell me.”
“Mm…”
The Sword Demon Miss thought for a moment: “Back when I was in Silgaya, there was once… I got a mission to hunt down a runaway Pope Knight named Francis. After completing the task, among the group that came to clean up, there was someone by the name of… Romani Doctor.”
…A runaway Pope Knight?
Francis?
A name I hadn’t heard before…
Why did it suddenly shift to chasing down a runaway knight?
Is it related to the experiment?
“When did this happen?” I pressed on.
“…Summer of 1186, I think. It’s been too long; I can’t recall the exact date.”
Fall of 1186…
That was when I had just “arrived” in this world, not long after being dubbed a Pope Knight.
“You weren’t executing a mission near Woodward Forest during that time, were you?”
I immediately realized this.
The Sword Demon Miss seemed a bit surprised, raising her eyebrows slightly, clearly puzzled about how I guessed it. She nodded earnestly, “The mission was indeed assigned there.”
Just as I thought…
“Did you meet the Romani Doctor back then? Can you be sure?”
“Mm.”
Facing my apprehensive inquiries, the Sword Demon Miss’s expression was very certain: “Among those who came to clean up, several were doctors. One named Chris is both a doctor and a Pope Knight; he even has some connection to me… I heard Romani Doctor’s name from his mouth.”
Chris…?
Oh, I remembered now.
That was the bird beak mask guy’s name…
“Do you know Chris well?”
“Not really, he just treated my mother.”
“Oh…”
…Tulip Chris.
Doctor Chris…
He must have been involved in the experiment, perhaps played a significant role. Later that night in Woodward Forest, when we met again, he seemed to know a lot.
“Please give me a simple rundown of what happened.”
