Chapter 345: The Re-Blooming Corpse Flower |
Saul took Byron on an airship ride. The moment they boarded, Byron looked at Saul with an expression like he was staring at a wealthy lady.
The return trip wasn’t on the same airship, and this new ship’s captain clearly lacked Captain Harry’s courage to strike up a conversation with two wizard apprentices.
So the return journey was quite dull.
Especially since wizard students were strictly forbidden from conducting experiments onboard.
If they accidentally blew up the airship, the vengeful spirits wouldn’t be able to touch them—but the major shareholder behind the ship, Bayton Academy, would certainly send over a hefty bill.
One so large even selling oneself wouldn’t cover it.
Even though Saul had the Tower Master of the Wizard Tower backing him, he didn’t believe Master Gorsa—who barely cared if he lived or died—would pay the debt for him.
So when it was time to act wild, he could act wild. But when it was time to behave... better hold it in.
With nothing else to do, Saul told Byron about the rumors he’d heard from Captain Harry about Bayton Academy and their new-style products.
After returning to the Wizard Tower, Saul immediately picked out a new body for Herman from the corpse horde.
The female corpse that had caused the earlier screeching had been confirmed as contaminated and was already sent to the corpse room.
Just like with the soul infusion experiment, Herman could only inhabit female corpses aside from his original body.
If he entered a male corpse, Herman’s consciousness would immediately suffer violent rejection and there were even faint signs of contamination.
Fortunately, there were no abnormalities this time when Herman entered a new female body. Many of Saul’s preemptive preparations turned out to be unnecessary.
Just as Herman was slowly adjusting to the new body and starting to move again, Hayden arrived—having heard Saul had returned.
When Saul brought Hayden into the second storeroom, Hayden immediately spotted the woman walking slowly inside.
But this time, he didn’t greet her with the same warmth as last time. In fact, he was downright cold.
Herman, who had just raised a hand to wave, was left in an awkward pose.
He tried to twist his wrist and turn the wave into a face-scratch—but he still couldn’t perform delicate movements. So the face-scratch turned into…
“Smack!”
Herman slapped himself in the face.
“Pwahahahaha!”
No doubt about it—that wild laugh had to be Penny!
If it had been Little Algae, the laughter would’ve sounded like “plub plub plub.”
This trip outside had yielded good results, and with Herman’s experiment progressing smoothly, Saul was in a great mood.
He smiled as he introduced, “This is… Aman!”
He had originally intended to say it was still Herman but worried that if Hayden found out the truth, the mental blow might be too great and lead to contamination. So he opted for a kind lie.
With Saul’s introduction, Hayden gave a stiff, expressionless nod to Herman.
Herman blinked his hollow eyes, pretended he still couldn’t fully control his body, and slowly turned his head the other way.
Ignoring the awkward atmosphere between them, Saul called both Herman and Hayden over to the lab table to continue recording data.
“…Let’s continue. Her—Aman, when you entered the vessel, aside from the ‘save me’ cry, did you hear any other voices? See or sense anything unusual?”
“N-n-no, sir…” The tongue of this new body wasn’t quite working right, so Herman quickly copied Hayden’s way of addressing Saul.
Saul then turned to ask Hayden, but just like before, Hayden had no memory of anything unusual when first entering the new body.
Even so, Saul gained many new ideas and planned to test them all starting tomorrow.
Especially with the new gray substance he’d found—which he’d named “gray matter.” Looked like he’d be quite busy again for a while.
Unexpectedly, Hayden asked for leave after hearing Saul’s plans.
“I’m very sorry, Lord Saul. Mentor Rum asked me to come in tomorrow morning for a routine checkup.”
“Routine checkup?”
Saul flipped through the soul infusion experiment notes in his memory. Indeed, that was a listed procedure—though like the initial vessel reaction logs, it was considered peripheral information and often overlooked.
“What exactly gets checked during a routine inspection? Do they check for vessel and soul rejection?” Saul was intrigued and decided to tag along tomorrow.
That night, after much traveling and work, Saul finally returned to his dorm for a rare night of rest.
Next door, Keli’s door was still locked. She was clearly still in the Black Castle, working on her radioactive toxin research.
Who knew how it was going? When would she be back?
While Saul could contact her via letters at the registry, the cost… yeah, kind of steep. No need to chat casually that way.
If Keli needed anything, she’d reach out herself.
That girl never held back with Saul and he’d never let her down either.
After a good night’s sleep in his dorm, Saul woke at dawn just as the dim yellow candlelight shifted into bright white.
He glanced at the blue sandglass—6:00 sharp.
Today Hayden would be visiting Mentor Rum. Since Saul had never seen Rum perform a soul infusion experiment, he wanted to tag along—maybe he’d spot something he’d previously missed.
Saul left his room almost exactly at six, only to find that several other dorm doors were also opening.
Clearly, many Second Rank apprentices were fiercely competing for every second.
A slightly older apprentice across the hall saw Saul, blinked, then politely greeted him.
“Senior Saul.”
Saul’s gray-white skin was now widely recognized in the Wizard Tower. And with Gorsa publicly accepting him as a disciple, even some Third Rank apprentices would now greet him respectfully.
If Saul didn’t spend all his time holed up in the second storeroom, he’d probably be mobbed daily.
He nodded to the Second Rank apprentice—who was nearly twice his age—and briskly headed toward the East Tower.
But today, the West Tower had another chaotic morning.
As Saul reached the 10th floor of the West Tower—about to pass through the corridor that led to the East Tower—he saw a crowd gathered near the passage.
Wizards generally didn’t like crowds. So if this many people had gathered… something must have happened.
Most likely—someone else had died.
Though Saul didn’t often wander the tower, his department was closest to the corpse room, so he was well aware of how many students died each month.
Even though this kind of thing was common, Saul still instinctively glanced into the crowd as he passed.
That one glance brought his hurried steps to a halt.
Another male servant had died in the corridor.
He was young. Saul even recognized him.
They had once lived together in a shared dorm hall.
Now, he had been made into a flower.
Limbs for petals, head for blossom.
A Corpse Flower.
Saul frowned and looked again—then continued on his way.
The original perpetrator behind the corpse flower incidents was Angela. She’d obtained the ritual of Bichye somehow, and in pursuit of greater magic power and dark affinity, had committed several murders.
But Angela had already died at Billy’s hands. Her accomplices were also locked away by Saul.
Who else could know Bichye’s sacrificial rite?
Within his mental space, the diary flipped open, revealing a black page that belonged to An.
“An,” Saul asked in his mind, “was it you who taught Angela how to make dead man’s flowers to boost her magic?”
[An: Nope, Master!]
[An: I only tempted Angela to make up her mind.]
[An: The one who actually taught her the ritual… was Lokai.]
(End of Chapter)
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