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Chapter 127: Rats of Salgaera (1)

After returning to Salgaera, Henry opened the Subspace Pouch.

T-ting…

The first thing that fell out of the pouch and onto the floor was the frozen Palegon. The thieving lizard was trapped in a block of ice.

Henry hurriedly sorted the rest of the ingredients before defrosting the Palegon.

Snap!

It was simple: he snapped his fingers and used a sorting spell, and that was it. Once he was done, Henry put the frozen Palegon on the desk.

“Cancel.”

Snap!

One command and one snap of the fingers later, the thick ice encasing the frozen Palegon melted in an instant.

- Khe, khe?

The Palegon came back to life, and it looked around its changed surroundings.

“Hold.”

Snap!

However, before it could fully process its new environment, Henry froze the Palegon once again.

Hold was a spell that forced its target to hold still.

Henry looked at the Palegon in detail. The creature could not move, and it looked terrified.

“It looks okay. It should last long enough.”

The Palegon’s tail was the key material for the Black Tear.

Henry needed a lot of tails, but he had caught one Palegon only because itl could regenerate infinitely.

“Cut.”

Slice slice!

Five of the Palegon’s tails fell off. There was no blood, because the Hold spell suppressed the bleeding.

“Heal.”

Henry then cast Heal on the Palegon to treat its wounds.

He collected the severed tails carefully and started to make the Black Tear.

‘I don’t know if this will be accurate since it’s been so long, but… it should be fine if I make educated guesses as I proceed.’

He was just being modest. Henry was the smartest man in the empire, so he was able to produce the first batch of the Black Tear right away.

“Hmm.”

The black liquid was so dark that a finger dipped in it would appear severed.

Henry transferred the Black Tear from the flask to a glass.

A smell as intense as the black color stung Henry\'s nose.

‘Ugh, it’s disgusting as usual.’

It was called an elixir, but it was actually no different from poison.

However, Henry had to swallow this to improve his chances.

‘I have to drink this and endure it to make sure it’s effective.’

The disgusting smell stung his nose, but he told himself that he could do it, and after letting out a sigh, he drank it in one gulp.

Gulp.

The disgusting liquid spread from his tongue to his entire mouth and made him dizzy.

Henry felt like he was going to vomit.

His limbs shriveled up and he could feel chills going up and down his spine.

When the Black Tear passed through the esophagus and reached his stomach, Henry’s eyes opened wide.

“Argh!”

Crash!

The tremendous pain made Henry drop the vial he was holding. It shattered on the floor.

“Argh, argh…!”

His face turned red and he felt as if something were blocking his throat, and he started to feel as if he were being stabbed with a bunch of needles.

“Argh!”

Thud.

Henry fell on one knee from the tremendous pain.

A few minutes passed.

Henry fought the pain with his eyes wide open, desperately trying to resist being taken over by the Black Tear.

A couple more minutes passed.

The Black Tear’s poison spread throughout his body but the Venom’s Heart stopped it, and the pain gradually went away.

After a few more minutes, Henry just managed to force fresh air into his lungs.

“Phew!”

He exhaled in joy.

Since the pain had completely subsided, it was clear that he had suppressed the side effects.

He was exhausted.

When he thought that he had fully consumed the Black Tear, Henry sat down hard next to the broken glass.

“How can the first batch be this strong?”

Henry almost cursed, but the pain of the Black Tear was so great that foul language wasn’t enough to express it.

‘I’d rather consume Miracle Blue one more time.’

Miracle Blue was the best elixir of the Magical Spire. It raised the user’s Circle by two levels.

Henry had swallowed the Miracle Blue undiluted, but the Black Tear was a nightmare compared to that.

However, when he was done complaining, Henry felt a strange warmth welling up in his heart.

‘This is…!’

His heart wasn’t beating faster because of the pain. This pounding felt a little more… primitive.

‘My mana has increased!’

Henry was sure of it.

He felt a significant increase in his mana, both in quantity and power.

His Circles were trembling with overwhelming power as the mana he had gathered through meditation doubled.

‘I have to admit, the effect of this damned thing is amazing.’

He could feel that his mana had increased. Although he didn’t have much mana to begin with, having double the amount of mana was definitely an advantage.

Henry laughed in satisfaction at the tremendous effect of the medicine, then rose from his seat.

‘Okay, this is proof of its effectiveness, so I’ll take it again after I’ve gathered the rest of the ingredients.’

At the moment, he could only make five bottles. Henry decided to make more when he had gathered enough Palegon tails and other additional materials.

“Should I start making some other things?”

Instead of the Black Tear, Henry decided to start developing the drug that would go into the newly created Shahatra cigarettes.

‘I’m already looking forward to seeing how the lab rat will react.’

Strange anticipation rose in Henry’s eyes as he picked up the ingredients.

* * *

“Just when…”

The prisoner in solitary confinement was very thin and weak.

His beard had grown wild but the hair on his head was sparse due to nutritional deficiency.

In addition, his once-smooth skin had grown saggy and lost its elasticity, making him look much older than he actually was.

Despite all this, the traitor’s mark on his forehead was still clear even in the dark.

Although it was dark, Aubert’s eyes were still trained on the cuff port of the closed door.

He didn’t know how many days had passed.

Only when he received a piece of hard bread and a cup of cold water twice a day did he know what time it was. The meals had already been distributed.

His beatings had ended the day before and the reunion with his family, who were now his enemies, had been the day before that.

“Just… When…”

It was hard and painful. His body was covered in bloody bruises from the regular beatings, and he could no longer even lie on the floor properly. However, Aubert gritted his teeth and endured everything, waiting for a reply to the letters he had given to the guard.

Chatter.

Suddenly, Aubert’s teeth started to chatter.

He had already adapted to the bitter cold, so he wasn’t even aware of the temperature, but there were still times when his teeth chattered like crazy.

The trembling eventually reached his fingers, and soon, his entire body was shaking.

Aubert straightened his knees and ran his hands along the floor in the darkness.

“W-where is it…? W-where…!”

He hurriedly searched for something. His dry, thin fingers frantically scrabbled on the floor without any concern that he would get dirt under his fingernails.

Clank.

After grasping around in the darkness, Aubert found a small wooden box. He quickly opened it and reached inside, but unfortunately, the box was empty.

“N-no…!”

He had been able to hold everything together, but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He let out a despairing cry.

“N-no! This can’t be!”

Aubert started scratching the bottom of the box with his fingernails, trying to open his dry and torpid eyes.

Tut tut tut tut!

“This can’t be real!”

Thud!

Aubert finally threw the box against the wall.

His trembling only got worse.

Aubert went to the iron door and pounded on it frantically.

Boom boom boom boom!

“H-hey!”

Boom boom boom boom!

“I’ve run out! I’ve run out of cigarettes!”

Boom boom boom boom!

It was like watching a madman. Aubert knocked against the door like a desperate man being chased by a beast. The steel cuff port in the door finally opened, and a small wooden box was thrown into the room.

Thud!

Unlike the empty box, this one felt heavy. Aubert lunged at it like a hungry beast.

He immediately opened the lid, took out a cigarette the size of his index finger, and put it into his mouth.

“L-light…!”

The cigarette clung to his dry lips, but Aubert didn’t care and looked for a match. He groped through the darkness, picked up a matchbox in the corner of the room, and lit a match.

Ssshhh.

“Shhh…!”

He inhaled the cigarette deeply.

“Haaa…”

As the smoke blew out of Aubert’s mouth, his body, which had been shaking like an aspen tree, stopped trembling.

“Shhh…”

He inhaled a second time.

It wasn’t until the smoke had cleared his lungs that Aubert realized that his fingernails were cracked and bleeding.

“Doesn\'t matter…”

He wasn’t interested in his injuries at all.

He felt drowsy, and as time passed, he became even sleepier.

“Shhhh…”

After taking a few more puffs, Aubert collapsed.

* * *

He woke up after a while.

Creak~

Clank!

The tightly locked cell door opened and a bright burst of light filled the room.

Torian and Henry appeared.

Torian entered the room first and checked on the sleeping Aubert.

“He fell asleep.”

“How long did it take him to fall asleep this time?”

“Today was the fastest.”

“Really? The effect is slightly weird this time, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of hallucinations. I need to adjust the proportions of this useless thing and make a new batch.”

“What do we do with the rest of the cigarettes?”

“Please replace them with the ones we brought.”

Henry and Torian retrieved the cigarettes. Aubert wouldn’t notice anyway, because he was already nothing more than an insignificant drug addict hooked on the dozens of drugs Henry had made.

In other words, Aubert was a lab rat.

He was a guinea pig used to test the cigarettes that Henry developed.

Henry didn’t feel guilty. If he had been the kind of person who would feel guilty, he wouldn\'t have thought of revenge in the first place.

It was the same for Torian as well.

In the past, how many loved ones, including his family, had Aubert betrayed because of his dirty greed?

* * *

Aubert opened his eyes slightly in the bright light.

Although he was feeling lethargic, Aubert had desperately missed the bright light.

Aubert opened his parched lips.

“Oh? You haven’t passed out yet?”

He made eye contact with Torian as the latter was collecting the cigarettes.

Aubert’s fingernails were broken, he looked half dead, and seemed like he would scream at any moment. However, Torian reacted as he usually did.

“Ptui!”

Spit flew to Aubert’s forehead.

That was the extent of Torian’s consideration for Aubert.