Chapter 131

#131 Tuberosum’s Chalice and the Golden Alchemist

The glimmering light shining through her eyelids caused Adel to flinch and tremble.

As her mind began to wake up, she found herself blankly recalling past events.

The battle with the West Witch. The brief journey in the land of the little people. The attack by the swarm of Golden Monkeys.

The moment she remembered desperately fighting back but ultimately succumbing to their numbers, her foggy consciousness fully awakened.

“Ugh!”

Adel instinctively tried to rise, but that attempt failed miserably.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t move because of severe injuries.

No, she was distinctly aware that every part of her ached, but more than that, it was the physical restraint that held her back.

Only then did Adel realize that she was firmly bound to a peculiar experimental table, completely naked and ensnared by metal devices.

“Eek!?”

Caught in a whirlwind of horror and shame, Adel thrashed even more violently than before.

But the metal apparatus binding her didn’t budge an inch.

Even strengthening her body with magical power didn’t help.

“Hehehe, you still seem lively. I didn’t expect you to be able to shout so cheerfully after being thoroughly beaten up like that.”

Adel’s head whipped to the side.

A face sprouting with mold and a hooked nose.

Beneath a large pointed hat, a single glowing eye menacingly stared at her.

A crone, fitting the mold of what people imagined a “witch” should look like, watched Adel with a smile creeping across her lips.

Though Adel instinctively wanted to prepare for battle, there was no way to do that while her limbs were bound.

Adel quivered as she managed to stammer out a question.

“W-West Witch, what in the world is going on here?”

“Oh ho, you still manage to form coherent sentences in this situation. Not bad at all.”

The witch burst into a hearty laugh and surprisingly answered Adel’s question with ease.

“This is my laboratory. From now on, you are going to be my test subject.”

“Test subject?”

Adel didn’t fully grasp the meaning of those words.

However, she could certainly feel the chilling malice laced in the witch’s peculiar tone.

“I’ve been quite interested in the Lion Duke’s Bloodline for a long time. If I had my way, I’d capture dozens of them and leisurely dissect them, but that’s easier said than done. Those bastards have quite the elevation in power.”

The witch continued her explanation, revealing her sadistic delight at Adel’s stiffened expression at the word “dissect.”

“Oh, it’s not that I’ve never laid a finger on them. While it might be impossible to catch them in large numbers, if there are just a few hundred of those brats roaming about, quietly removing a few of them is not out of the question. Thanks to that, I’ve learned a thing or two.”

Pausing to add “but,” the witch approached Adel.

The old crone’s hand stroked Adel’s golden hair, then caressed the corners of her eyes.

“Those brats usually had diluted blood. Unlike you.”

“What, are you talking about?”

“While you were sleeping, I conducted several confirmation experiments. The results were quite satisfying.”

The witch lifted a long, transparent glass vial from a shelf in the laboratory.

Inside was filled halfway with red liquid.

Adel realized she had a needle-like wound on her arm.

“The traits of the Lion Duke’s Bloodline are numerous. Slow aging, prolonged physical prime. Strong resistance to toxins. Outstanding recovery abilities and high physical capabilities. However, due to over 200 years of generational change, it seems there are some weaknesses. Even among those of the same bloodline, some specialize in aging suppression while others may have bodily abilities no different from ordinary people, leading to significant individual differences. The brats I’ve studied thus far were all far below what the rumors suggested. But…”

The witch’s fingers toyed with Adel’s hair.

Her unusually bright and rich golden blonde hair.

Next, she caressed her eyelids.

Her deep, gemstone-like, purple eyes.

“…you’re different. You originally possessed nearly every ability without flaw, but recently, there are traces indicating that those abilities have enhanced once more. Quite surprising—truly fascinating.”

As the witch’s hand stroked her hair, Adel couldn’t shake off her negative feelings.

The witch’s hands felt extremely dry, as if they were made of cheap leather gloves stuffed with sticks.

It felt like a spider might be crawling over her. The overwhelming disgust made her skin crawl.

From the beginning, she couldn’t even understand what the witch was talking about.

She had heard several times that she was gifted, but the notion of her abilities being enhanced was entirely new.

Trying to escape the witch’s touch, Adel squeezed out her voice.

“I-I don’t understand what you’re saying! Enhanced? I don’t know anything!”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know. Your body will know.”

Saying that, the witch reached for a shelf nearby.

With clattering sounds, a variety of blades, tongs, hammers, and other unrecognizable instruments gleamed with a heavy metallic luster.

A short scream escaped Adel’s throat.

The West Witch laughed heartily, seeming amused by her reaction.

“When I heard you killed over twenty monkeys, I thought about grinding them up and feeding them to the dogs… but if you’re this much of a windfall, I might as well let you be. Just behave yourself. What happens to you depends solely on my mood.”

Adel swallowed hard.

She felt a surge of anxiety about whether her other colleagues were in the same predicament, but soon that anxiety quieted down.

“The Knight won’t lose.”

Her trust in the Tin Knight ignited the flame of courage within her.

“I need to do what I can.”

Adel desperately wracked her brain.

While nothing earth-shattering came to mind, she managed to come up with a simple strategy: to attract the witch’s attention to make it easier for her colleagues to act.

“What are you going to use my body for?”

With her question, the West Witch curled her lips into a smirk.

In what seemed like a genuinely caring tone, the witch abruptly broached a new topic.

“How was the land of the little people?”

“Huh?”

“You spent a short time there, didn’t you? I’m asking for your impressions.”

While she struggled to understand the intent behind the question, Adel considered continuing the conversation to be a bad idea, so she answered honestly.

“It was a mysterious place. That there were people so small, and that they built a country and lived there.”

“Ahaha, indeed. The land of the little people is one of the more well-crafted works.”

“Well-crafted?”

Adel asked absentmindedly.

“I am the one who created the little people.”

Like a mischievous adult crushing a child’s dreams, the witch revealed her answer.

“They may seem to be humans that are purely shrunken now, but in the beginning, they were grotesque forms somewhere between rats and humans. Repeated mating and improvements, teaching them human culture, making them believe in a fictional history that shouldn’t exist. The little people think they’ve developed through a history and tradition spanning over a thousand years, but in reality, it’s barely over 300 years.”

Adel couldn’t comprehend the witch’s words. Or rather, she didn’t want to understand.

“They have high intelligence, and being small means they excel at delicate tasks. Especially the fact that they can handle magic is commendable. A powerful individual could overpower a regular human in direct combat. However, while the little people are one thing, the land of the little people still has many shortcomings. If they truly want to mimic human society, they must have the same resources. While they could adapt the plants to their size, they have yet to do the same for animals. No dogs, cows, or sheep. It’s a bit disappointing to call it complete.”

It was then that Adel recalled who she was dealing with.

Or rather, it was accurate to say that she remembered something she already knew.

The West Witch. Elphaba.

One of the four most famous and powerful sorcerers on the continent.

And the very best and strongest alchemist.

“Homunculus.”

The term escaped Adel’s lips absentmindedly, causing the witch’s single eye and lips to distort grotesquely.

Perhaps it was a smile of some sort.

“It wasn’t just the winged Golden Monkeys. Everything inside here is a product of that.”

Adel recalled her first battle with the West Witch.

The werewolf with its coarse fur, the crow-man flying through the sky, the insect-man imbued with intense poison.

Creatures she had only encountered in fairy tales and stories.

In other words, beings whose existence was now so unclear outside of those tales.

“Why?”

The lamenting question carried multiple meanings.

And the witch answered.

“This is my world.

I am the master of this place. I am the rule of this place. I am the god of this place. I created them, and I bestowed them with civilization. No king, ruler, or even the sky above can stand equal to me here.

Tell me, do you consider others’ opinions when decorating your own room? What need have I to seek justification for filling my world with what I want?”

Beneath the pointed hat, her single eye glittered ominously.

Desperately trying not to be overwhelmed by her madness, Adel forced her words out.

“Isn’t an alchemist supposed to love their homunculus like a child? If every being in this world is your child, why do you stomp on them, splitting them into various countries to make them fight each other?”

“Hehehe, don’t treat them like any common brats.”

With a blatant sneer, the witch spewed forth her venomous words.

“Children. That’s not wrong. However, to call them children while at the same time using them most conveniently is simply being an alchemist. Weapons, servants, pets—methods vary, of course.”

“That’s…”

“As long as the parent survives, they can create as many children as they wish. And deciding how to raise and use those children is entirely up to the parent. In that sense, Franka is painfully immature. She loses her reason over merely losing one, and she even threatens her master for the loss of two.”

After clicking her tongue, the witch continued.

“I don’t care much about anything outside my world, but to procure various resources, I must pay some attention to what’s happening out there. Franka has been quite a useful source of income in that regard, but that’s now done.”

The witch lifted her hand, which was opposite to the one she had used to touch Adel earlier.

In that hand, she wore a deep blue glove.

“The ‘Glove of Hyden.’ And once I secure ‘Opium’s Key’ and ‘Amaryllis’s Belt’ from you, I will have gathered about half of the Eight Treasures. If I sell them into the heavens, I’ll receive a very hefty reward, so I’ll no longer need to rely on the wealth of the Aglaia family.”

In that instant, Adel had to desperately manage her expression.

She almost reacted with surprise at the West Witch’s mention of ‘Tuberosum’s Chalice’ without her noticing.

Fortunately, it seemed that the witch was too absorbed in what she had to say to notice Adel’s change.

“I’m starting to get tired of taking in various apprentices from outside, so I’m thinking of creating my next apprentice myself. If I can study your body and utilize the results, I’m certain I can create an excellent work. If things go well, I might even keep you as a servant, so don’t think about doing anything unnecessary—”

“Wa-wait a moment. Create? A person?”

“Why wouldn’t I be able to? Your entire clan was essentially created by someone.”

“……? Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“Did you not know?”

The witch replied to Adel’s inquiry as if it were of no consequence.

“—Your ancestors. Lion Duke Geisel von Lenart was a homunculus.”