Chapter 17
*
On the top floor of Evilus Corporation.
Regalia, the leader of the evil organization, was receiving a report about the scientist from her secretary.
“─That’s all.”
“Hmm… I see. Did he show any signs of betrayal?”
“No. It seems more like goodwill towards Niberna rather than an attempt to side with the heroes. In fact, Niberna herself hasn’t revealed the scientist’s identity.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Although Eight hadn’t mentioned to anyone that he had made a suit for Niberna, Regalia already knew all about it without him needing to say a word. It was almost expected.
After all, his house, the building he was running his business from, his identity, even the cards he used—everything came from Regalia’s wallet. Since he was relying on her for everything, including his basic needs, it was impossible to hide anything from her.
Of course, when the scientist suddenly made a suit for a hero, even she was somewhat taken aback…
“If he didn’t intend to betray us…”
If Eight had intended to betray the evil organization and join the Hero Association, it would have created quite a headache. He was fully aware that his technological prowess was extraordinary. Just spilling a fraction of the knowledge he had could lead him to acquire enough wealth to protect himself.
And while our analysis of Eight’s character suggests he wouldn’t attack us—losing access to the vast repository of knowledge he had brought from Earth would have been a colossal problem.
Because Regalia had a dream she wanted to achieve through the evil organization, and she was in dire need of the scientist’s help to fulfill it.
“Then let’s consider this hero Niberna as already half a member of our organization and offer her support.”
“Yes. How should we support her?”
“Let’s get her some commercial endorsements and transition her from a public hero to a freelance hero. It doesn’t feel right to leave someone who has our scientist’s suit in the hands of those Hero Association guys.”
“They probably won’t let her go easily.”
“Tell them we’ll cut the funding.”
After hearing Regalia’s orders, the secretary lightly bowed her head and immediately left the chairman’s office. She needed to move quickly to carry out her instructions.
Left alone, Regalia let out a slight sigh and gazed at the ceiling. A pitch-black ceiling. It was devoid of any patterns, perfect for getting lost in one’s thoughts.
‘…I’m starting to see potential.’
The reason she founded the evil organization.
The possibility of finally achieving that goal she had not yet succeeded in was starting to become visible.
And it was all thanks to the scientist who had fallen from Earth.
The knowledge he held from Earth. The technology that had evolved in an entirely different direction had finally opened up a path that had been blocked until now.
‘Until then, I can’t afford to let him go.’
Until she reached her goal.
Regalia vowed that she would never let the scientist escape, no matter what happened.
No matter what.
*
Even though I set up a store just to pass the time, going there every day was still a chore. Especially on days like today when I really didn’t want to move.
I decided to declare a personal holiday and didn’t open the shop, instead lazing around in the lab. When I skipped my shop duties, lounging in the lab was my daily routine.
While I was taking a break reading a research paper on superpowers, the lab door suddenly swung open and Ayle appeared.
“M-Mr. Scientist—! Good morning…!”
“Ayle? What’s up?”
“Mr. Scientist. Are you free right now…?”
“I’m always free. If you ask, Ayle, I can even create time out of thin air.”
“T-Then right now! I want to introduce you to someone…!”
Ayle said this as she led me out of the lab. If she wanted to introduce someone, it probably meant it was a member of the evil organization since she didn’t have any friends.
Just looking at my name—Eight—suggests that there should be at least seven other members in front of me. Yet, I had only met three supervisors: Galm, Ayle, and Levitan.
Following Ayle and excited to meet a new member, I froze upon encountering someone I absolutely didn’t expect to see here. The person in front of me seemed to catch on to my shock and burst out laughing.
“Ahaha—! Ayle, look at him. He’s so surprised he’s turned rigid.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Scientist! This is Vira, my sister… She’s an executive in our organization.”
“…I’m Eight.”
I said that and extended my right hand, but then quickly withdrew it to extend my left instead. I couldn’t help it. Anyone would act that way when meeting a woman without arms and legs, rolling around in a wheelchair.
Vira grasped my left hand with hers. Now that I took a closer look, her left hand wasn’t in great shape either. It was covered with burn scars. So ugly that a normal person would instinctively grimace upon seeing it. I had to really put in the effort to maintain a neutral expression.
“I’m Vira. An executive in the organization.”
“An executive, you say.”
“Why? Is it surprising that a disabled person is an executive?”
“No, it’s not that…”
“Don’t lie. It’s written all over your face.”
When I lost my words and fell silent, Vira laughed as if she found it amusing.
“Well, let’s stop the teasing here. I just thought that we hadn’t shaken hands as executives yet. I came to introduce myself.”
“If we do this handshake thing twice, I might have a heart attack…”
“Oh, come on. It’s nothing. If I really decided to step in, I could make dozens of people shut up without even trying.”
That was too realistic to just be a joke, so I let out a light chuckle. I couldn’t tell if she enjoyed mocking people or not, but she continued tossing a few more awkward jokes at me afterward.
After exchanging some banter and building a certain level of camaraderie, Vira cautiously brought something up.
“Speaking of which─ I heard you were the one who fixed Galm’s body?”
“Eh? What do you mean…?”
“I heard you made some kind of energy drink for him.”
“Yeah, I did make him something.”
I didn’t recall fixing Galm’s body. The tonic was just an energy booster, not a medicine that could heal injuries.
But Vira, with her voice full of anticipation, spoke as if that was more than enough.
“Then can you make me a prosthetic arm?”
“A prosthetic…?”
“Yeah. A prosthetic arm. One that moves as I want and feels real.”
Vira said this while pulling out a wooden prosthetic arm from under her wheelchair. Creak, creak— With one hand, she assembled her right arm and demonstrated the prosthetic.
The fingers moved stiffly, and the wrist and elbow didn’t rotate properly. It was a rudimentary prosthetic.
“See? This was made by a so-called prosthetic expert… And as you can see, it’s junk. I can’t control the strength, and it doesn’t move the way I want.”
“So, you want me to make you a new prosthetic.”
“Yes! If you’re the brilliant scientist who healed Galm’s body, making a prosthetic like that should be a piece of cake, right?”
She asked in a voice full of excitement, but unfortunately, I didn’t have that kind of technology. Creating a prosthetic at the level she desired required a whole bunch of complex technologies.
And among them, the most important one was the skill of shaping the prosthetic. The ability to craft a prosthetic to match her original limbs… That required more craftsmanship than scientific knowledge, so even I would struggle to reproduce it easily.
“I’m sorry. I think that’ll be difficult.”
“Eh— You can’t?”
“There are some things that are simply impossible. I’m not a god, you know.”
“… I see. So you can’t.”
Seeing Vira look disappointed, I felt somewhat guilty, but she quickly changed her expression and wore a cheerful smile.
She probably knew very well that each time she got gloomy, the surrounding atmosphere inevitably plummeted. After all, no one would remain unbothered when a disabled person without arms and legs felt down.
“Well— So I guess it’s my victory for finding something even the genius scientist of the evil organization can’t make?”
“I don’t think this is the kind of situation where there are winners and losers…”
“Whatever! Or what, if you don’t acknowledge my victory, am I going to start crying? You really wanna see an experienced disabled person cry…?”
After being pushed and pulled by Vira’s insistence to concede victory or whatever else, I finally broke free after enduring three hours of ear-aching chatter.
As I added another precedent to my mental list of the abnormality among the executives, I arrived back at the lab, recalling Vira’s expression from just before. It brought a wry smile to my face.
“Why is she asking for such a difficult prosthetic to make?”
It would be easier if she’d asked me to regenerate her limbs instead.
So, I decided that’s what I would do.
I began my research, recalling the composition of the red potion.
*
Creak, creak—.
Vira returned to her room in her wheelchair. More like a hospital room, it was a barren space devoid of any personal belongings.
With a natural motion, Vira slid off her wheelchair and flung herself onto the bed, disassembling the prosthetic and tossing her clothes away before simply lying down.
Desperate to get undressed without limbs, she felt akin to becoming a caterpillar. The realization that she was producing less value than a caterpillar filled her with overwhelming self-loathing.
“… I want to die.”
Alone in her space. The moment even something slight and unfortunate occurred, her already tattered heart thrust her spirit to the brink. The thought of wanting to die had become as casual as saying hello. Ah, here we go again today— she thought as she buried her face into the pillow.
Her breath was stifled. If she stayed still like this, she genuinely felt she might actually die, forcing her survival instinct to kick in, Vira eventually flipped over.
“I thought I could do it.”
Gingerly— her gaze shifted to her severed limbs. Injuries sustained while protecting her boss. Thanks to that, she received enough compensation to live off without working for the rest of her life… but what was the point? She was merely a caterpillar who couldn’t walk.
Even with a prosthetic arm or leg, it remained equally uncomfortable to walk. Fake limbs could never fill the void.
The fact that her superpowers were based on her limbs was also an issue. Having lost half of her limbs, she had become a person unable to use her powers properly. Actually, losing her limbs was less shocking than this.
She had once defended her lady using her superpowers, but now she couldn’t even do that.
“Ah, today’s melancholy seems to last longer than usual. Is it that time…?”
Just as Vira calculated her cycle, forcing her gaze away from her gloominess, someone knocked on her door even at this late hour.
─ Miss Vira? Are you inside?
“Mmm…? Who—?”
─ It’s the nurse. May I come in?
“Come in—.”
After receiving permission, the nurse entered, tidying up the messy room and the clothes Vira had thrown around, and then proceeded to massage her body. As the nurse kneaded her limbs to check for discomfort, she pulled out a pill and offered it to her.
“What’s that?”
“It’s something Mr. Scientist asked me to give you. He said to take it before you sleep.”
“Mmm—? Okay.”
Not knowing what kind of medicine it was, Vira tilted her head but swallowed the pill before heading to the bathroom. After finishing her bath with the nurse’s help, she lay down in bed to sleep.
As she leaned back against the soft pillow, she wondered if living this way had any value. Each day was a hell. She was merely a corpse that could not die.
“Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year… I’ll continue living like this as a caterpillar forever…”
As thoughts clouded her mind, she drifted off into slumber, weighed down by darkness that even entered her nightmares.
*
“Grrr…”
For the first time in a long while, she had a dream and felt paralyzed. Every part of her body tingled, yet she couldn’t move a millimeter.
Finally freed from the suffocating paralysis, Vira stretched and, still half-asleep, stepped down from the bed. With only one leg, she was prone to falling, so she had to focus hard to stand…!
Thud—.
“…Huh?”
Vira, who had stepped down from the bed onto two feet, reached out with her right arm to fumble with her left leg, feeling that something was off. There was a leg there. The leg she had lost years ago.
Thud, thud— As she felt the leg with both hands, Vira realized not only had her left foot returned, but her right arm had as well.
“A-Ah…”
At a loss for words facing this unbelievable reality, Vira cautiously looked into the mirror. There stood the perfectly normal version of herself, the one she thought she would never see again.
No grotesque burn scars, no mutilated, misshapen limbs.
Just her former self.
“A-Ahaha— This isn’t a dream… right?”
Cautiously pinching her cheek, she felt a prickling pain, realizing this was not a dream. An unbelievable reality lay before her.
“It’s… not a dream…”
For some reason.
Her vision blurred.
Tears filled her eyes.
Vira discovered she was far more of a crybaby than she had realized. Even back when she lost her limbs, she hadn’t cried like this.
Perhaps the tears she couldn’t shed back then were now flowing freely.
She simply.
Kept crying.
