Chapter 333: Curiosity Killed the Butterfly |
Hayden's second persona had a thirst for adventure—impulsive, but highly proactive. Before Saul even said a word, she’d already seated herself on the sensor chair and affixed the connection patches to her body.
Saul didn’t stop her. He walked over to adjust the instruments for her. Once everything was set, he pulled out the control pad and began recording.
“Stay still now. Relax. I’m going to record the baseline data.”
Hayden was cooperative.
Five minutes later.
“Alright, now start performing fine movements—like flexing your fingers and toes.”
Hayden followed his instructions obediently, but she added plenty of extra gestures herself. For instance, she smiled at Saul and slowly swept her tongue across her lips.
However, Saul remained entirely unfazed by the suggestive behavior. He didn’t even pause in his note-taking.
“Next, try breaking free. Try to struggle against the restraining formation behind you.”
Saul found this second persona braver—or perhaps more reckless—than the original. She withstood a number of painful procedures, the kind that would make others flinch just from hearing about them, with an utterly calm demeanor.
She was especially ruthless during the escape trials. Even when the pain twisted her face, she continued fiercely resisting the golden restraining formation that bound the vessel.
Eventually, it was Saul who had to call the experiment to a halt.
For three days straight, it was Hayden’s second persona who worked with Saul. It wasn’t until the fourth day that the original persona finally emerged.
Saul felt a measure of relief—Hayden’s second persona could be rather bold in certain ways.
Yet even with two Haydens cooperating nearly unconditionally, Saul still wasn’t satisfied with the progress.
No matter how he measured the changes in Hayden’s soul body and vessel, her soul remained fixed within a vessel locked by Mentor Rum’s formation.
With Saul’s current ability, he still couldn’t unravel a restraining formation meticulously developed and refined over years by a seasoned First Rank wizard.
“I really should be using someone like Herman—a flexible consciousness that can move between vessel—for these experiments.”
One afternoon, Saul sat with his arms crossed, reviewing the results from the past few days, contemplating the next breakthrough.
“What I want to observe is the commonality in rejection responses when a soul enters a different vessel. Too bad Mentor Rum and the others never addressed the contamination souls suffer in the outside world—so they generally don’t allow a soul that’s entered a vessel to switch again. Too risky to damage the specimen during transfer.”
Saul could understand their reasoning.
He still hadn’t figured out why Herman had suddenly shouted “Kill me”—a phrase he hadn’t heard in ages—during his second possession attempt in a female vessel.
Could it be that he’d accidentally disturbed a powerful soul within the Wizard Tower during the transfer?
Saul still hadn’t identified the source of that phrase. Even in Mentor Gorsa’s resurrection experiments, no one had ever mentioned those words.
Yet he had a vague feeling… that it might be related to Lady Yura.
After all, in resurrection experiments, the one with the least say was probably the one being brought back.
Saul had been staring at Herman’s logs in a daze for quite some time when a silver butterfly drifted in from afar.
Reborn as a silver butterfly, Penny now had limited freedom—with Saul’s permission.
Sometimes she perched on Saul’s left shoulder, other times she circled him, and occasionally, she’d flutter around the second storage chamber.
She seemed to have lost all her powers—reduced to little more than a mascot fluttering near Saul.
Even so, Saul warned her never to stray far from him and under no circumstance was she to enter anyone’s dreams.
Each time, Penny readily agreed.
Saul never made her swear oaths—he simply told her that if she crossed the line, she’d be trapped between the pages forever.
Penny was terrified of being locked back into the diary. Every time, she’d swear up and down like a little girl.
Now, after her little excursion, she was headed back to rest on Saul’s shoulder.
But just as she drew within a meter of him, a black shadow shot from behind Saul’s neck—rows of jagged, shark-like teeth gaping wide, a dark tongue flicking like a snake’s tail.
The long-ambushing hunter launched its fatal strike at its unsuspecting prey.
“Chomp!”
“Ahhhhh!! You disgusting Little Algae, that’s so gross!!”
The Nightmare Butterfly had been devoured by Little Algae in one gulp—only to emerge a second later from the top of its head, twirling in the air as if trying to shake off nonexistent spit.
Little Algae, triumphant, stuck out his tongue at her, blowing exaggerated “blorp-blorp” noises.
It seemed Penny’s presence had triggered a sense of competition in Little Algae. It would always launch sudden ambushes whenever the butterfly returned.
Even though it could never actually touch her, it never gave up.
And as for Penny… Saul couldn’t help suspecting that this seemingly innocent creature was just playing along.
Maybe she was deliberately making a fool of herself—trying to lower her standing so she could more quickly integrate into Saul’s little circle.
Watching his smug, head-wiggling Little Algae, Saul could only rub his forehead helplessly.
“Whatever. As long as Penny doesn’t mean any harm to Little Algae, let them play. Between the diary’s souls and the two of them, we’ve already got six members in this group.”
“Maybe I’ll have to get used to an even rowdier environment.”
Penny dodged Little Algae’s tongue and landed on Saul’s notebook.
She wiggled her antennae like she was seriously reading.
But then, the very next second, she expressed dissatisfaction with Saul’s experiment.
“Saul, Saul! Why aren’t you studying the battlefield of the Mental Realm anymore? Why are you studying corpses? Corpses aren’t fun at all—they don’t even dream!”
Saul shot to his feet, the stool behind him clattering to the floor with a loud thunk.
Little Algae, not yet hidden again, was startled by the noise. He looked up, tongue still sticking out, clearly confused about what had just happened.
Saul glared coldly at the butterfly, eyes sharp and tense. “I never once told you that term. Where did you hear Mental battlefield?”
Penny flinched too. She fluttered in a small circle before landing again.
“I… I did some observations on you. I accidentally caught glimpses of your history. I don’t remember much, but a few fragments stuck.”
Saul sneered inwardly.
He’d suspected from the start that this Nightmare Butterfly hadn’t really lost all her powers like she claimed.
In the diary, her form was a bookmark—not a page.
Unlike the pages, bookmarks could exist independently.
And since she wasn’t a page, she couldn’t be judged by the usual standards of truth-telling under interrogation.
Still, Saul had the upper hand. A single thought, and the diary would clamp down on her like a trap, squashing her into a flat little pancake.
As for why she’d lied at first, pretended to be powerless… likely because she’d just been imprisoned in the diary and had become Saul’s possession, so she acted with caution.
As for now…
Little Algae rolled the stool back into place. Saul sat down slowly, resting his chin in his hand.
“Well then. Since you still remember something, go ahead and share. Why did you suddenly hatch? And what did you observe in my history?”
…Perhaps, after realizing Saul wasn’t the violent type, she’d decided to gradually reveal herself—to raise her own value and status.
The Nightmare Butterfly perched quietly on the paper, looking entirely harmless.
She let out a soft sigh. “Ah… we Nightmare Butterflies are just too curious. That’s how we ended up becoming an endangered species.”
(End of Chapter)