Chapter 105: A Discovery About the Past

"...Zenith is here..." Nadir says, using a paper map he made. I just stare at him — he hasn’t said a thing since we got here.

"You’re pretty cruel, giving my students the worst job." They have to follow the team that handles perimeter surveillance around these ruins, which means they not only have to help kill monsters without getting in the team’s way, but they also have to help clean up the corpses so they don’t attract more monsters.

And I can confirm that cleaning is the worst job, because it has to be done manually — dismembering the monsters, cutting them into pieces, and "destroying" them somehow, usually with an acid capsule.

"I don’t really like your students. They’ve given you trouble... would you do the honors?" he asks as I stomp on the floor, cracking it and hearing the sound of metal.

"..." My foot sinks in, trapping me for a moment, but I yank it upward, grabbing the small hole in the metal and prying it open with my hands.

"Thanks! You’re always good at this."

"You’re just lazy about it." He jumps down into the hole, and I follow. We land in an extremely long metallic corridor.

"Looks unexplored... and pretty old too, but also kind of clean... there isn’t as much sand and dust as there should be." I murmur while he pulls out a small chip and places it on the wall. He also rigs an explosive on the wall right next to the chip.

"We can go now. I think we should head right."

"Agreed." He goes ahead, pulling a small device from his jacket. The device projects a hologram that detects deformations and traps through a complex analysis system, and with it, Nadir avoids every trap as we walk for several minutes.

"Nadir, this area is strange. Yesterday I took a look at the ruins when I arrived, and most of it was laboratories or living quarters for the people who used to live here, but this place... feels completely different." We stop in a room that looks important. The door is heavily reinforced, but I knock it down with a single punch.

"Yeah, this place seems too reinforced to be just a lab. It feels more like a prison — like they wanted to make sure whatever was in here couldn’t escape."

"Good deduction, you two. You got here early, too — picked the right path on the first try." We hear a voice and immediately draw our weapons and fire. The hooded figure sitting at a table leaps upward.

"Tsk, seriously, what’s wrong with you two? Don’t you know to ask first and shoot later?" I glance at Nadir. He said his weapon managed to wound her, so I relax a little.

"You’re really bold to show up in front of the two of us after doing nothing but running and hiding like a rat," I say, pure sarcasm in my voice.

"...Aren’t you here to learn more? And of course, I have the power to back up my boldness."

"Urgh!" A pained groan escapes me as I feel a needle in my neck. I strike fast, but the needle retracts before I can hit it. I look at a mechanical system that used a needle to drain a bit of my blood, then glance at Nadir and see the same thing happened to him.

"There. That’s all I needed... thank you, both of you." I watch a thin tube carrying my blood and Nadir’s, mixing them together and depositing the result into a small vial that drops into the hooded woman’s hands.

"That’s it? All this trouble for blood?" I ask in disbelief. She caused all this chaos just to get a little blood?

"Yes, all this trouble just to obtain fresh blood from the two of you combined. In exchange, I’ll tell you about your past... but now that I no longer see the need for a disguise, I suppose I’ll reveal myself. You were already close to discovering me anyway, so I would have abandoned this disguise soon regardless." She removes her hood, and who I see honestly doesn’t surprise me.

"Who?" Nadir doesn’t know her, so he’s confused.

"Delilah... I always knew there was something off about you." I look at Delilah. The only surprising thing about this is the fact that she’s strong — she seemed pretty weak when she was a teacher.

"Yes, you never fell for it much. I wonder why?" Her question makes me laugh. Isn’t it obvious? To me it’s very obvious — she’s strange, extremely strange, even more so because she has such a positive attitude while her face looks like someone who hasn’t slept properly in years.

"How about we begin? There’s something else I’m interested in, so I’ll be very generous. You two were born in this place... ah, but please don’t get confused. I’m not from here. I just found this place, and the research on you two interested me far too much." Her first revelation, I have to admit, catches me a little off guard.

For Nadir, the shock is greater, since he genuinely always thought he was born on Aurora Island. We’ve disagreed a lot about where we were born.

’So I was a lab rat along with Nadir...’ Nothing unusual, honestly. Edith herself, according to the information Astrid gave me, was also a test subject.

"Hmmm..." She glances at a watch on her wrist and activates a timer.

"I know you two are waiting for an opening to kill me, but could you at least listen a little? You genuinely interested me, and it’s wonderful to see the fruits of this laboratory’s research..."

"So we’re that special—" I try to sound provocative, but she cuts me off.

"Don’t flatter yourself, Zenith. You’re not special. Many others like you were successfully created here too. The difference is that they all died before reaching your state. You survived by pure luck."

"You and he don’t really have anything that makes you unique, and your survival is purely due to the fact that you fled this laboratory. After all, for a tiny slug like you two, life here was harsh."

"Offensive to call me a slug—"

"Literal, not offensive... Nadir, you got a good look at this laboratory. Why do you think there are more humans than monsters in the observation tanks?" Nadir looks at me while Delilah uses a very provocative tone.

"How would I know?"

"You wouldn’t, in fact, because I took every document that mattered... but allow me to kindly answer what this laboratory studied. It was simple — the opposite capability of what I’m studying."

’Opposite...’

"Oh my god... they were turning monsters into humans!" I say, alarmed, because the "hooded woman," aka Delilah, now that I know, is studying turning humans into monsters. The opposite of that is obvious.

"Bingo, Zenith. And judging by the number of humans in the tanks, I have to say they were talented... all those dead ’humans’ inside the study tanks are actually monsters."

"And you two are too."

"..." When she says that, I look at my hands, and an immediate distrust of what she’s saying rises in me.

"Of course, you two are a very weak monster, a very low classification — a [Spatial Worm], a kind of slimy ’slug’/’worm’ with the power to mold space."

"You two were originally a small worm about thirty centimeters long, black in appearance with white lines. Your skin was smooth and slimy, constantly oozing a white fluid, while your shape faintly resembled a sea slug, though with extremely smooth skin. You had the ability to manipulate space in your immediate surroundings."

"Although the spatial power is impressive, the monster itself wasn’t anything special. And of course, there’s also the fact that you two split in half, which was expected during the studies."

"You probably don’t believe me, right? Then tell me — you must remember your lives more or less from around six or seven years old, right? And you appeared out of nowhere on the streets, naked and confused, didn’t you? Just like you were near each other, and even without ever having seen each other, you recognized one another, right?" When she says that, my body tenses.

"Although you were supposed to have split into three... probably the other one died before the division was a success. And before you say it’s a lie..." She tosses a folder to us. I pick it up from the floor and open the file.

"..." The paper is heavy, foul-smelling, and clearly old — something that can’t simply be faked. The language is strange, but I can understand some things because of the annotations.

"The original version of you two escaped this laboratory by teleporting itself. Probably through luck, it ended up on Aurora Island. It must have survived feeding on rats and insects until the division happened and it became human." I see in the documents that they used a very complex machine in the experiments.

’This... even this...’ I bite my lips. There are drawings here theorizing how the ’worm’ could keep itself alive by absorbing "energy" from others of its kind in a process similar to the intimate physical contact I have with Nadir.

"Also, the division was predicted, because worms, larvae, and slugs of certain types can reproduce on their own, change sex, have both genders, and even perform true parthenogenesis and cloning!"

"So more specifically, it wasn’t the machine alone — it was the slug deciding to bet on its survival when it had the chance. You two are the answer. It split itself in two, and each part took on a gender to survive."

"But the experiment was a success! Instead of the worm splitting into two worms, this little worm ended up becoming human during its division. And look at what a marvel of science you two are — you’re perfect humans! Dreams, hopes, desires, empathy... fear... yes, you have fear, and fear capable of generating monsters... how fun, don’t you think?"

"You talk too much. I’ve always hated that from the moment I met you," I say with disgust in my voice. I understand why she’s talking so much — she’s treating us like lab rats, watching our every reaction.

"Really? That’s too bad. I thought I was doing quite well with the disguise. I hate ruining your fun, but if you two merge again, you’ll just go back to being a worm, which would ruin the experiments. But considering everything, you’d probably become quite powerful."

"..."

"You seem furious, Nadir..." she provokes while I look at Nadir. His expression carries a coldness I never expected to see on him. It even makes me take a step back. As for me, I don’t know how to feel about this. I’ve seen so much bizarre stuff in the army that this revelation doesn’t feel that significant.

But she crushes something fundamental between us — the desire to make one another the real one. I wanted Nadir to be the real one, so I could just let our union happen. But now, what would it matter if either of us was the real one?

And worse — if Nadir and I don’t have relations and physical contact before the "energy" runs out, in the end we’ll merge into a monster. Monsters — something I hate so much. Knowing I would become one is frustrating.

"...Sorry, Nadir..." I end up apologizing involuntarily. I think I ruined everything out of curiosity. It was better to have that little dream we had — it was one of the few things we’ve carried since childhood.

"You wretched bitch." Nadir charges at Delilah, who dodges his strike, but gets hit by a dirty blow from Nadir’s leg directly to her stomach. He takes advantage of it to land a punch to her head, but she manages to shove him completely backward.

"Tsk, is that how you thank me? By hitting me? I was very generous in teaching you the truth—"

"You didn’t teach us the truth. You just want to see what comes out of this... Nadir, we have to get our blood back from her now. She can’t get away with it," I say to Nadir seriously.

She undoubtedly needs our blood to enhance that black sludge that turns humans into monsters. It’s so obvious it’s ridiculous how she doesn’t even try to hide it.

"Hahaha, you think you can beat me?" I charge at her alongside Nadir while she tucks the vial into her clothes, preparing to fight.