Chapter 51

Alice was an orphan.

If she had been an ordinary orphan, she would have become a member of the back alleys or been sold as a slave, but because Alice had a mysterious ability, she did not have an unfortunate childhood.

The ability to see through, understand, and manipulate formless energy at will.

Alice was able to spend a relatively comfortable childhood with money earned by pretending to be a magician and solving simple requests and odd jobs using that ability.

However, such a life did not last long.

Various people and forces who heard rumors about a girl with mysterious abilities gathered to secure her, and in the process, a frightened Alice left the city and hid in a nameless forest.

‘This seems like your story.’

-I don’t remember writing something like this, but content-wise, it does seem to be my story.

‘Your original must have written it.’

-Original? Could you be a bit more careful with your word choice? It hurts my feelings, you know.

Unlike the thought that she would give up living in the forest, people seeking Alice never stopped coming.

Humans who can use magic through intuition alone without proper education do exist, albeit rarely.

However, there had never been a human who could reproduce not just simple magic, but even tower mysteries and individual’s unique magic just by looking at them.

Magicians and magic towers seeking successors, priests and religious orders tracking her believing she was related to demons, nobles and nations trying to secure her mysterious ability, even other races joined in tracking Alice, and eventually, Alice was caught before long.

The problem was what happened afterward.

-They didn’t see me as human. They only saw me as an experimental subject with special abilities. They repeated all sorts of experiments and research to uncover the secrets of my abilities.

If it had been just a talent that appears once every few decades or centuries, she would have been treated as an important talent and received appropriate treatment.

However, Alice’s ability was unprecedented and unparalleled, and people wanted more than just one magician with mysterious abilities.

To analyze the mechanism of the ability, to reproduce it, Alice was confined somewhere unknown, fed unknown drugs, subjected to unknown experiments, had blood and flesh cut away, learned unknown mana manipulation methods, and went through life-and-death situations daily.

-I wanted to die. But even death wasn’t allowed to me. No matter how horrible the experiments were, a few potions would restore me to normal, no matter how close to death I came, the priests’ holy power would heal me completely.

At first, she only thought about wanting to die.

However, when the time she had lived like that approached more than ten years, Alice’s thoughts changed.

-I don’t want to die. I want to live. No matter what form I take, no matter what means I use, I will definitely survive. I will survive and take revenge. To those who made me like this, to those who didn’t help, and to this world, I will return the pain I suffered exactly as it was.

An endless resentment and vivid malice towards everything in this world, transmitted even through paper.

Although it wasn’t something she had experienced herself, Alice couldn’t say anything after encountering the vivid feelings and experiences that another self had gone through.

‘Don’t worry too much about it. The person written here isn’t you, right? You are you. Alice is Alice. You and this Alice person are clearly different people.’

-But I’m Alice too.

‘No, that’s not what I mean…’

-Pfft.

Perhaps because he had no experience consoling others.

Although only basic level words came out that weren’t particularly meaningful, Alice seemed to be in a better mood as she let out a small laugh at the sight of Yuseong stumbling over his words in confusion.

-That’s enough, keep reading.

“Ahem.”

Then one day, Alice suddenly became free.

Some country that coveted Alice sent people, and when another country noticed this fact, a battle broke out during Alice’s transfer, resulting in both sides’ mutual destruction.

The freed Alice disappeared somewhere, and the two countries, each believing the other had taken Alice, did not track her whereabouts.

And a few years later, Alice appeared again.

In a completely different form from before.

Alice wandered the world, stealing and making abilities and mysteries of numerous strong ones and other races her own, and as a result, grew into a tremendous monster that no one could handle.

-There was fierce resistance, but in the end, I was able to destroy the country that had made me an experimental subject.

The general public called Alice by various derogatory names like Demon Lord, Harbinger of Destruction, Witch of Doom, and sent subjugation forces, but stopping her was beyond their abilities.

However, even Alice couldn’t do anything more than that.

-But that was my limit. My body, weakened and injured by years of experiments, didn’t have much time left. I needed to live longer. I don’t want to die. I want to live. I wanted to live.

And Alice was able to find the answer from her time as an experimental subject.

The results of numerous data and biological experiments obtained by investing national-scale resources and manpower over decades.

Alice began working on creating a new body with those.

Since artificially creating life wasn’t as easy as it sounded, she failed repeatedly at first, but Alice’s eyes shone even at times like this.

She succeeded in artificially creating life forms by observing and adjusting the flow of life force, and further succeeded in even creating clones with abilities like her own.

However, Alice couldn’t be satisfied with that.

-Fighting the whole world was impossible with this body, unlike fighting just one country. I needed a stronger, more durable body.

The Alice who only used herself as an experimental subject was no more.

Alice captured humans, other races, and monsters, and became obsessed with creating new species by repeatedly fusing different life forms into one or extracting superior abilities from each race and transplanting them into others.

‘A victim who became a perpetrator, what a common story.’

-Those monsters down below…

‘Must have been the results of experiments. You, or rather the homunculi, were wearing proper clothes and had keys that could open all doors, so they probably served as caretakers managing the experimental subjects and the mansion.’

-Caretaker? I don’t remember doing such work though?

‘She must have controlled them with magic or tampered with their brains somehow. Let’s keep reading for now.’

However, no matter how cheating-like eyes she had, Alice was an individual, and her lifespan was running out.

Finally, Alice decided to create an ideal body that consolidated the advantages of all races based on her experiments so far and transplant her soul into it.

-Today, I will be reborn. Though there are some remaining concerns, it doesn’t matter. With my eyes, I should be able to solve any problems that arise.

After turning several pages, there was no more content beyond that phrase.

-I wonder how it turned out?

‘Either she succeeded or failed, one of the two. One thing’s for sure though, whichever it was, Alice isn’t in this mansion.’

-Why?

‘Why? Looking at those monsters running wild down below, isn’t it obvious? If she were still in this mansion, would she just watch that situation?’

-Ah!

‘Whether she succeeded in the experiment and left for revenge, or failed and died, either way it’s fortunate for us. If such a monster were in the mansion, we wouldn’t have had any chance of escape.’

A witch who destroyed an entire country.

Even with modern weapons, there’s no way we could handle her.

“Now that we roughly know the situation, let’s get out of here. You said the items on the second floor are worth some money, right? If we take a few, when we go down…”

Yuseong, who raised his head, belatedly realized that Alish was nowhere to be seen in the room and froze.

‘Where did she go off to alone again?’

Although it seemed there were no monsters on the third floor, nothing was certain.

Since a monster might suddenly jump out or there might be some trap, Yuseong carefully began searching the third floor tracking Alish’s whereabouts.

However, Alish couldn’t be found anywhere, and finally only one huge room remained in the exact center.

“If she’s not here either, it means she went downstairs.”

Going down to where monsters are swarming when we finally came to a place without monsters?

That doesn’t make sense.

-If you’re going to put it that way, isn’t the fact that Alish moved alone nonsensical in the first place?

Ignoring Alice’s nitpicking, Yuseong put strength into his hand holding the doorknob.

Creeak!

The door opened with a sharp sound, as if it hadn’t been oiled.

And the moment he confirmed what was inside the room, a small groan escaped from Yuseong’s mouth.

“This is…”

How could this scene possibly be described?

Numerous pieces of flesh and body fragments, internal organs splattered everywhere.

While some were estimated to be human, there were also clearly non-human things like horns, scales, and tails among them, and the terrible smell they gave off while rotting was enough to numb the sense of smell and make consciousness fuzzy.

Looking around at the numerous magic circles drawn everywhere, candles, and countless devices whose purposes couldn’t be guessed, Yuseong belatedly realized what had happened in this room.

“Is this where she switched to a new body? Looking at the state of things, it seems quite far from successful, did it fail?”

“That’s right. It failed.”

Alish’s voice.

However, Yuseong didn’t let his guard down and pointed his rifle toward the direction of the voice.

Click!

“Oh? Did I have something like that in my house? What kind of object is that?”

A familiar face and familiar voice.

However, that wasn’t Alish.

“…Alice?”

The brain attached to Alish’s head.

And the tentacles connecting the brain and head, along with the relaxed expression that Alish had never shown before, there was overwhelming evidence to guess her identity.

“Sharp, aren’t you? You knew about the experiments too, did you perhaps read my diary?”

“Yeah, I read it. You wrote on and on about a new body and whatnot, but I guess it didn’t go as planned?”

“Ah, that’s right. I succeeded in creating the ideal body, but failed to resolve the rejection.”

Alice continued speaking while pointing to her head, or more precisely, the brain attached above it.

“I barely managed to protect my soul and its vessel somehow, but that was all, and I was really in trouble. My body was gone, I had no way to affect reality, my magic power was gradually decreasing, I thought it was over, but my goodness! Who would have thought the homunculi would come up here. If the last orders I gave with my remaining power hadn’t worked, I would have really died.”

“…”

Yuseong bit his lip.

If he had paid just a little attention when she said she didn’t want to go up to the third floor, when she said she heard strange sounds, even when reading the book, this wouldn’t have happened.

Alish had her body taken, and the worst witch, thought to be dead, had revived and was blocking his path.

“…May I make a suggestion?”

“A suggestion?”

“I have a peaceful personality that dislikes fighting, you see. You don’t seem to be in proper condition either, so how about we part ways here instead of doing something that would harm both of us?”

“Sorry, but that seems difficult. This is just a temporary measure, you know? For resurrection, I need to go through the proper process, and for that, I need two bodies in total – one to conduct the ritual, and one to use anew. This one will do for conducting the ritual, but it seems you’re the only one left for a new body. And above all…”

Alice’s eyes turned golden.

“I’m interested in you too. Your way of speaking, your way of thinking, and above all, it seems you’re not just disobeying my orders but can’t even hear my voice at all, which makes you seem like you’re not my homunculus at all? It feels like there’s a different soul occupying a homunculus body, you know?”

“…”

“Having strange objects that weren’t in the mansion too, I’ve become curious about your identity. I want to know about you. I want to extract everything in your head without missing anything and make it mine. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. Rather, it will feel very good.”

“Negotiations failed, huh.”

“Doesn’t matter, right? The outcome is already decided anyway.”

Towards Alice who was wearing a bright smile, Yuseong also returned a bright smile.

“Right. The outcome is decided.”

Yuseong pulled the trigger without hesitation.