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As if he couldn’t care less about the obvious question of “Why is there a human in a place like this?”, the man who’d come out tilted his head at me and kept letting out low grunts.

“I’m—”

“Ah—wait, wait! I think I can remember. Hold on a second.”

As the man in a white coat tapped his temple with his index finger, trying to dredge up his memory, I wondered what I should do.

I was stuck between two choices—wait, or ignore him and speak anyway—when he finally seemed to recall something and lifted his face.

“Right. ‘Goliath.’ A successful Type ‘Goliath’ case. There were three, I believe, and one of them went berserk and was disposed of.”

Then that meant I was one of the remaining two, he thought, nodding in satisfaction at having remembered.

“And you—who are you?”

“Your name was… hmm. Me? I’m just a sponsor.”

I tried to make a suspicious face at his words, but with these useless facial muscles, my feelings didn’t get across.

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. You know the Notos Corporate Federation, right? I’m affiliated with it. I was also a subject of genetic modification technology, and a few years ago I woke from cold sleep, so I’ve been active here ever since.”

A subject of genetic modification technology—that phrase made my body tense for an instant.

I’d thought, What a haul, but the words that followed from his mouth only confused me.

For the record, I’d only ever heard the name Notos Corporate Federation.

“Well, even if I say ‘subject,’ it was original technology. I don’t have a tough body and abilities like yours, and I obviously don’t have a Nemesis Code either. It was used properly for medical purposes, so sorry, but I can’t meet your expectations.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“To put it simply, I had a somewhat special disease… and current medical technology couldn’t cure it. So I tried to do something about it with genetic modification technology I happened to learn about—by forcing it through with my sponsor authority. But then—”

He clapped his hands once and leaned forward as if to peer into me, then straightened back up and resumed his explanation, moving his fingers together as he spoke.

“It turned out it would take far too long to create the final piece needed for a complete cure. That’s where the cryosleep device came in. It’s no exaggeration to say that it only became capable of running for centuries because of me.”

He changed his expression as if joking—You can thank me—then immediately turned serious again and continued.

“In other words: even if you eat me, nothing will change. That’s what I’m saying.”

“How much do you know?”

“Only what I can learn with sponsor authority—meaning I know nothing at the level of state secrets. Sorry, but I doubt I can be much help. More importantly…”

He glanced toward the gate, now fully open, as if to say come inside, and I followed him, walking that way.

Beyond the gate was a space that didn’t feel like it had aged two hundred years at all.

It felt almost like a hospital, and a wave of nostalgia came over me as I looked around.

“Alright—let’s start with introductions. My name is Lark. Lark Adamas.”

When my attention drifted to my surroundings, the man turned back and introduced himself.

“Adamas… that’s a count’s house, isn’t it? How’d you get into the corporate federation?”

“Ah, the idea that nobles and corporations hate each other is just a rumor. If anything, we intentionally spread that kind of talk. If the upper echelons get too close, the annoying types start yelling about collusion. So even moving funds openly takes procedures. My illness was a convenient excuse, but… with results like this.”

Lark took a hands-up gesture. I asked, “So it didn’t cure you?” but he said nothing and started walking.

“…Two hundred years was too long. The drug I was supposed to use at the end had gone bad.”

“That’s… how should I even—”

“Ah, luckily my sense of pain is gone. I have a life that might end tomorrow, but thanks to that, I was able to steel myself.”

Lark answered in a bright voice when I trailed off.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the turmoil it took to reach that point.

But I sensed his will—I won’t disgrace myself as an Imperial noble by wailing and raving—and without thinking, I placed my right hand over my chest and bowed my head.

“…The Empire is gone. There’s no need for that sort of ritual, Yunos-kun.”

I’d meant the gesture as respect, but that response made me lift my face reflexively.

“I just remembered. When I was looking through the roster of subjects, I remember wondering, ‘Why would you, who should’ve lived in the Imperial Capital…?’ It stuck with me.”

“I don’t remember much else,” he added with a self-mocking smile.

“But… your mother and your elder sister were famous in the industry. Normally, because of how far they went, you would’ve been sent to the battlefield. Yet they stopped that from happening without making more enemies. It was impressive work.”

My reaction was flat—“Oh, so that was a thing?”—and Lord Lark tilted his head.

“Well, they stood out no matter what. Especially because there was so much jealousy—people trying every trick to bring them down, and others trying to recruit them outright. Incidentally, I was one of those people. I was actually quite serious about courting your elder sister, but…”

He added, almost accusingly, that my sister was a little too chaste, and I lowered my head with a wry smile.

“Uh… I’m sorry.”

“No, no. There’s no need to apologize. Considering her charm, it’s only natural. There were lots of rivals, sure—but I feel like back then, I was living the youth I never had in my teens.”

Laughing, he sat down on a nearby chair, studied my drastically changed body, then lightly clapped his hands once.

“So—what do you want to ask first?”

It was helpful that he was willing to get to the point from his side.

I could ask without holding anything back.

“What is the Nemesis Code?”

I had a guess as to what it was.

But I wanted to hear a clear answer from someone who knew.

“I’ll skip the fine details since you’ve probably already connected the dots… but you’re right. It’s a self-destruct program secretly planted to prevent military use by Dr. Zeta, the inventor of genetic modification technology—the same researcher who sold that technology to the Empire. That’s the official Nemesis Code.”

“Official?”

Lord Lark nodded at the word that slipped out of me.

“Yes—official. Put simply, the Nemesis Code was never truly a secret. Any researcher involved with genetic modification technology back then knew it existed.”

“…They knew?”

My mind couldn’t immediately grasp what that fact meant.

So he explained.

“Because without dirtying their own hands, it became insurance in case a subject couldn’t be controlled. If they claimed ‘we didn’t know,’ most scandals could be wrapped up as the doctor’s responsibility. The leadership and upper ranks responsible for the Ultimate Lifeform Project that began with the Chimera Project knew the Nemesis Code existed, had a way to stop it, and still decided to continue the experiments as-is.”

At that point, I understood.

The Empire had treated me… treated subjects… not as people, but as weapons.

The fact that we’d once been human wasn’t considered. Disposing of us as weapons had been on the table—and they had, in fact, made that decision.

‘It feels like the gears in my head just slipped out of alignment.’

The Empire I’d imagined and the reality in front of me didn’t match.

I could feel my image of what an Imperial citizen—an Imperial soldier—should be crumbling.

No, I shook my head. I’d just been forcing a convenient ideal onto it.

I’d been conscripted and joined, but it had also been my choice—so I’d listened to a shady offer and chosen to become a subject.

Even if I said something now—no matter who I resented—it probably wasn’t what I truly wanted.

I couldn’t accept it.

But I could understand it, at least.

More than anything, I looked up at the ceiling and swallowed the fact that “the ones who made that decision are already gone.”

Then his words continued.

“…And the one who approved the plan to dump every inconvenient part onto the doctor was me.”