Chapter 63

Since it looked like the discussion was going to drag on, a break was called.

Django, Hauser, and Hayanosin retired to their private rooms.

Watch, Hayanosin’s guard, did the same.

“I’m exhausted,” Bob muttered, heading to his assigned room with an unusually drained expression.

“We’ll be moving around the laboratory, so please call out if you need anything,” Rick said.

“Yeah, just let us know!” Lirina added as the two of them departed.

Left in the dining room were myself, Kirio, Ray, Neitz, and Rose.

“Well now.”

Rose raised both hands and gave her spine a long, deep stretch. I could sympathize with the feeling, but since her face remained a Noh mask, the sight was nothing short of eerie.

“It’s a bit dull just sitting here waiting for the talk to resume.”

“I don’t mind it,” Ray replied instantly.

“My, you really are a man with no sense of leisure, as always.”

Neitz shrugged and then shot a wink in my direction.

Unsure of how to respond, I stood there in silent fluster. Beside me, I could tell Kirio was getting a bit miffed. I had no idea why.

“Ah, I know. Shall I show you around the laboratory?” Rose suggested, her voice sounding as if she had just thought of it. Her expression, of course, remained unchanged.

“Ho.”

Ray leaned forward slightly, clearly showing interest.

But there was one person whose reaction was far more blatant.

“I want to see! I want to see!”

Kirio was practically bouncing like a child. Well, I understood her curiosity as a healer, but this sheer innocence of hers was a bit frightening. It felt a little too “mad scientist.”

Regardless, the tour was decided just like that.

I was worried about whether it was okay to do this without Django’s permission, but Rose assured us that a quick look around would be fine.

We left the dining room and headed up the stairs directly in front of us, with Rose leading the way.

“The first floor only has guest rooms and the dining area, so there isn’t much to show you there. We’re heading to the second floor.”

“It’s a strange thing, though—having so many guest rooms in a secret hideout,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

Rose, without stopping or looking back, overheard me. “Do you know the primary roles of this laboratory?”

“Hmm?”

“Hideout, research, storage… and secret meetings.”

Right. Come to think of it, Django’s gang held a lot of dark secrets belonging to various nations. Naturally, they would need a place to hold conversations they didn’t want others overhearing.

Upon reaching the second floor, I was surprised to find a wall immediately to our right. I wasn’t the only one; Ray, Neitz, and Kirio all looked taken caught off guard. It made sense—structurally, it was bizarre.

“Ah, right.”

Seeing our confusion, Rose clapped her hands.

“It’s disorienting the first time you see it. From here on, it’s a single, one-way path. It’s designed so you walk in a large loop to reach the stairs to the third floor on the other side of this wall. It’s a strange layout, but it’s for security. It’s a linear path, and the further you go, the higher the security of the rooms becomes.”

“Ho. Is it wise to tell us that much?” Ray asked, his lips curling provocatively. Rose’s expression didn’t budge.

“Naturally, there are rooms I won’t allow you to enter.”

“And do you have a guarantee that we will comply?”

“Heh. Are you suggesting we have a go at it right here?”

The tension between Rose and Ray spiked, but then Neitz spoke up, saying something truly outrageous.

“Just so you know, if that happens, I’m going to roast you, Mr. Ray.”

The tension instantly deflated at her words.

“I thought you were my guard.”

“That’s exactly why. If you try to start a fight without caution in enemy territory when we don’t know which way the wind is blowing, it’s a guard’s job to stop you—even if I have to toast you a little first.”

Watching Neitz giggle, not backing down an inch against the icy Ray, I saw a flash of Eni in her. They were certainly a pair of strong-willed sisters.

“I don’t care about any of that! Let’s just go further inside!”

Kirio, clearly overexcited, blew through the standoff. It seemed she was interested in nothing but the research at this point.

“I suppose so. Let’s go, then.”

As we moved left from the stairs, Rose stopped almost immediately. There was an iron door there with a large observation window.

“First, this. The lookout room.”

Rose opened the door.

Inside was a space so cramped it was more like a storage closet than a room. There were two chairs, a table, and a messy array of teacups and books.

“This is basically where the lookout sits. They watch to make sure no one comes up to the second floor from the first without permission. They monitor through the window while having tea or whatever.”

“I don’t care about this part.”

The moment Kirio realized it wasn’t research-related, the light died in her eyes.

“No one is sitting there now, though,” Neitz pointed out the obvious.

“This is where Rick or Lirina keep watch at night. Neither I, nor Django, nor Hauser are so soft that we’d miss a fool trying to sneak in during the day when everyone is awake.”

Was it just my imagination?

When she mentioned Hauser’s name, I thought I saw Rose’s mask-like face waver ever so slightly. Like a leaf falling onto the surface of a still lake.

“Now, let’s move on.”

We rounded a corner and came upon a door that looked significantly more heavy-duty.

“Hold on a moment.”

Rose pulled a ring of keys from her white coat and unlocked the heavy iron door.

“After you.”

The interior was a stark contrast to the pristine, white walls and floors of the hallway; it was a dim space, lightly coated in soot.

A massive hunk of iron sat enthroned in the center of the room, with thick, heavy pipes snaking from it toward the walls.

What on earth is this?

“Whoa!”

Surprisingly, it was Neitz who let out a cheer and rushed into the room.

“Wow, this is amazing!”

She began opening the small doors attached to the iron mass and stroking the pipes.

“This incinerator… it was built with the cooperation of a top-tier blacksmith and a very skilled Flame Elementalist.”

“An incinerator?”

I was the only one who sounded surprised; Kirio and Ray didn’t seem particularly shocked.

“Most research facilities have them,” Kirio remarked. As a healer, she still looked over the incinerator with a hint of curiosity in her eyes. “Though, this is the first time I’ve seen one kept indoors.”

“I see, so the gas vents through these pipes. Man, this is incredible—both the incineration agents and the combustion mechanism are masterfully done.”

Neitz peered into the furnace with a wide grin. She seemed to be having a great time.

“With this, you could completely ash almost anything. You could probably even do metal, right?”

“I can’t say for certain if it would completely destroy something as large as a greatsword,” Rose replied, her hands idly fluttering inside her lab coat pockets.

“It makes burning corpses easy, too,” Ray muttered. He didn’t even bother entering the room, clearly uninterested.

“What do you do with the ash?”

I asked out of pure curiosity.

“Usually, once enough has accumulated, we use an application of Earth Magic to solidify it and scatter it in the woods outside.”

I was strangely impressed by how primitive that part of the process was.

“This is the Disposal Room. It’s for getting rid of things that would be… problematic to simply throw away,” Rose added, finally introducing the room.

I see. It seemed the rooms closest to the first floor really weren’t the high-priority ones.

“Let’s hurry up and see the rooms related to the research!”

Kirio swayed her body, unable to hide her impatience.

With that, we headed to the next room.

The next door was made of wood. Rose unlocked it and said:

“Here we are. This is just a storage room—the holding area. Things that aren’t of vital importance are kept here.”

Stepping inside, we found a clutter of apparatuses with unknown purposes: old wooden crates, ceramic cups, lengths of rope and twine, and above all, a vast number of crossbows and bolts scattered about.

“These… these crossbows…”

I picked up a metal bolt and looked at Rose. I remembered the sight of her brandishing a crossbow back in the dining room.

“My collection,” Rose said flatly. Of course, her expression didn’t change at all.

“This many? There seem to be so many different types,” Kirio remarked, looking at the variety of crossbows and bolts hanging on the walls with genuine surprise.

“Of course. There are endless varieties. I use different ones depending on the purpose.”

Her face remained a mask, but Rose’s tone took on a noticeable heat.

Wait, did I just step on a landmine?

“This massive one is almost like a ballista, capable of sniping targets from a great height at a distance. This small one fits in a sleeve and features an anti-misfire mechanism. And this special-made one is for close quarters; it can fire heavy bolts at a terrifying velocity.”

Rose stroked the surface of a crossbow, her voice sounding almost entranced.

“There are many types of bolts as well. Beyond the simple ones, there are bolts packed with gunpowder that explodes on impact, and mechanical bolts designed to pierce even steel armor before deploying ‘barbs’ so they can’t be pulled out. And my personal recommendation is this one—the moment it’s fired, it scatters the contents of an internal tank.”

“I see. So that’s it,” Ray said, his voice cold enough to chill the heat in Rose’s words. “The story is famous: how you turned the fortress where the remnants of the Wald Incident were hiding into a place no one could approach for a year. Rumor has it those bandits died over the course of several weeks, suffering immensely and spraying blood until the end.”

“Are you accusing me of being cruel?”

“Hardly. I’d say it’s worthy of praise. It’s an efficient way to dispose of trash,” Ray answered without hesitation. “We’d already determined through the arrest and torture—excuse me, interrogation—of the leaders that they held no significant information. There’s no need to waste effort disposing of biological waste with no utility.”

It was a chilling conversation.

The Curse Sickness. A contagious plague. Currently, there is no known cure in this world other than incinerating the patients. It is a deeply feared disease.

And she used it as a weapon. It was terrifyingly unethical.

“There isn’t much interesting in here,” Kirio complained, completely unfazed by the atmosphere.

“Yeah. No gunpowder or anything?” Neitz agreed.

“Honestly…”

Rose managed the impressive feat of sighing through her Noh-mask face.