-Sacrifice
“What utterly vile people. Doing whatever they want, changing their minds this way and that… No, and after all that, they sell off their own family? Ugh, they deserve to be struck by lightning!”
Yantu cursed to his heart’s content.
I stayed silent and waited for Ren to catch her breath.
From the start, I had been suspicious when I heard that a lizardman, who had not been permitted to immigrate to Korea, was working at Vanaheim Laboratory.
I had inwardly guessed that Ren’s father might not be a researcher, but a test subject.
The actual circumstances were far more complicated, and involved an astonishingly cold-blooded family history.
“And what is Vanaheim Laboratory even doing? Why are they paying money to buy people? What the hell for? Are they planning to cut them open alive and experiment on them or something?”
Yantu hurled abuse at Vanaheim as well. As a member of another race himself, he must have felt the insult as if such a thing had happened to him.
Of course, as a human, I also felt disgust at the immoral act of buying and selling people and experimenting on them.
Still, since Ren was a hybrid with the polymorph trait, I could understand why any bio-research institute would be interested in her. But why had they bought Ren’s father as well?
Before asking, I looked at Ren’s expression. Her face was still calm.
“What did you go through at Vanaheim Laboratory?”
“Experiments. My very existence is a rare case that’s almost impossible to find precedent for in this world, and I was born with an astonishing trait on top of that.”
It was easy enough to imagine.
To Vanaheim, a biotech corporation that had rapidly grown through bio-modification technology, Ren must have been someone they absolutely had to obtain, even if it cost them billions.
They must have wanted to perform every kind of experiment and research imaginable on her body.
“To tell the truth, even when I lived in my home country, I went through many experiments. My father conducted them. Though it was my mother’s family who forced the experiments on me.”
Ren said something unexpected.
“Your father conducted the experiments?”
“Yes. My father was originally a biologist. After I was born, he immersed himself in bio-modification research.”
“Then the reason Vanaheim Laboratory bought your father along with you was because of his research?”
“That’s right. They must have wanted the data from all the experiments my father had conducted. Even if my mother hadn’t sold him off, my father is a researcher Vanaheim would have coveted. My father actually considered it fortunate that he came to Korea. There was no hope in a small country.”
“But there’s no way you felt that way, Ren. Being experimented on…”
“Yes. There was nowhere I could have considered myself fortunate. I couldn’t endure the experiments any longer. How should I put it… I felt like a sacrifice.”
A watery glimmer seeped into Ren’s eyes.
Yantu punched at the empty air, expressing his anger.
I was sinking into thought. Rage gradually welled up in my chest.
I did not know what it was like to live as an experimental subject simply because one was a hybrid, but I knew very well what it was like to live under oppression in the name of parents.
The parents from my previous life rose in my mind.
My parents, no different from Ren’s mother. People who cared more about their own lives and threw their child into the pit.
Chaotic thoughts filled my head, and my forehead grew hotter and hotter.
Before I knew it, the vision in my right eye began to burn red.
Within my orange-glowing sight, an old memory billowed like flames.
* * *
Expressionless people wearing black hoods stand around an altar.
All of them have become one, praying in a single voice.
Their hands move in identical gestures, like dolls. They all look as though their souls have left their bodies.
On the altar, a sheep offered as a sacrifice lies limp, spilling crimson blood.
The painfully thick smell of blood and the acrid smell of smoke. Blood of a red so vivid it seems blinding.
The flames on the altar imprint the color of the red blood even more vividly.
As the people smear the sheep’s blood on one another’s foreheads, they chant an incantation in one voice.
Humans like soulless shells praise the cult leader.
“Samir! Son of God!”
“Samir! Incarnation of the Divine!”
“We offer this sacrifice, so grant us eternal life!”
In the midst of them, I alone scream.
“Mother. That isn’t a sheep. It’s a person.”
“The sacrifice is a sheep.”
“No. That child isn’t a sheep!”
“Shut that mouth. Do you want to become a sacrifice too?”
As I stagger backward, Father grabs my shoulder firmly and holds me in place, and Mother looks at me with contempt.
The sacrifice is not a sheep, but a girl. A child who lived in the same village.
But everyone denies it. That is a sheep. My eyes are mistaken.
I hate it so terribly. An unbearable rage surges up within me.
“I will destroy this place, no matter what.”
I want to raise a fierce wind to extinguish the flames on that altar.
I want to bring forth a great flood to wash away the sheep’s blood.
I want to summon raging flames and burn all of this to ashes.
* * *
“Whoa, what’s going on? Why did it suddenly get so cold? Hey, Mr. Mage! What are you doing right now? Did you cast magic? What’s with you?”
Yantu’s voice reached me.
My burning vision faded, gradually returning to gold.
Only then did I open my eyes to reality and quickly look around.
Yantu was gripping my arm and shaking me. Ren was staring at me with her eyes wide.
Waves of magical energy were surging violently around us. I hurriedly drew the waves back inside.
“I’m sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment… Ren, are you all right?”
I asked, checking on Ren.
“I’m fine. You’re all right too, aren’t you, Mr. Mage?”
Ren instead asked after me.
“Of course. Let’s continue.”
“Hah! Mages, seriously… What were you thinking about to cast magic without even realizing it? I thought ice was going to form in the house.”
Yantu scolded me. Even so, from the way he kept stealing glances at me, he seemed afraid of a mage’s power.
I pretended not to hear Yantu and asked Ren a question.
“How long has it been since you came to Korea, Ren?”
“About a year.”
“What kinds of experiments did you go through during that time?”
“At Vanaheim Laboratory, they mainly experimented to strengthen my trait. It was the opposite of the experiments they performed in my home country. The experiments my mother’s family forced on me were to suppress my polymorph ability.”
“Your mother wanted to get rid of your polymorph trait.”
“That’s right. She thought my trait was an ominous thing that had appeared because of filthy blood.”
Yantu and I had to swallow our anger once again.
Ren, on the other hand, wore a calm expression. Unlike before, there was no moisture in her eyes.
“They injected all kinds of drugs into my body. But they couldn’t eliminate the trait. They probably won’t be able to completely separate the polymorph trait from me unless they kill me.”
“Because that trait is you, Ren.”
“Still, they did succeed in suppressing it to some extent. It reached the point where if I polymorphed in front of my mother, I would faint and collapse. Then I would naturally revert to human form.”
“Tsk, tsk. Poor thing. You’ve lived your life being treated so cruelly.”
Yantu clicked his tongue and shook his head.
Ren continued her story with a calm face.
“My ability had been weakened like that, but at Vanaheim Laboratory, they experimented to strengthen that trait again. I don’t know why, but it seems they needed my trait.”
Ren said that through the various experiments Vanaheim carried out, her trait had not merely revived, but blossomed fully.
“Vanaheim actually treated me well. Of course, they always monitored me, but they didn’t lock me up. They probably thought I would only cooperate with the experiments if they allowed me a certain degree of freedom. And I did cooperate with the experiments.”
“That doesn’t mean they treated you well. And it can’t be considered cooperation of your own free will. No matter how gentle it may have felt, it was still human trafficking, confinement, and illegal experimentation.”
I said. The mafia-like underside of a major corporation called Vanaheim made me frown without meaning to.
“That’s right. They didn’t put me behind bars, but it was confinement. I wanted to run away from there. Ironically, I was able to escape thanks to the experiments they performed on me. Now, if I set my mind to it, I can polymorph into any race.”
“Oh! That’s truly an incredible ability! So what did you transform into when you escaped? Did you choose a dwarf from the start?”
Yantu’s eyes sparkled as he scooted closer to Ren.
“No. At first, I was a zombie. I chose a race humans pay absolutely no attention to. Zombies are everywhere on the streets, but people ignore them as if they’re invisible.”
“Hahaha! You caught those arrogant humans off guard! Well done. Very well done.”
Yantu even clapped his hands, greatly enjoying Ren’s story. At that, Ren also smiled brightly.
I was recalling the zombie commotion from yesterday.
Ren was right. Zombies were beings treated as if they were invisible.
Korea had accepted zombie immigrants, but it had not properly accepted them as members of society.
It let them live as homeless people on the streets and ignored them as if they did not exist.
Then, if the zombies caused a problem, they were disposed of without mercy.
Loki had said it. According to the zombie immigration regulations, if a zombie became a threat to other citizens, a mage was allowed to deal with it.
“If they thought zombies were such useless and dangerous beings, why did they accept zombie immigration in the first place? There must be a reason…”
While I was lost in thought, Ren and Yantu continued talking.
“I thought I had escaped the surveillance network and returned to my original appearance, but I guess that was naive. From some point, somewhere, I felt eyes following me again. So this time, I polymorphed into a dwarf.”
“Well done. You did very well coming here. It was an excellent choice not to wander around among humans, but to enter our dwarf district!”
Yantu agreed with a proud expression.
Just as Ren smiled and was about to open her mouth again, a sound like an explosion suddenly came from outside.
Boom! Bang! Kaboom!
“What was that sound? Did something explode?”
I asked, quickly raising my guard.
“Hm? It does sound like something exploded, but it’s probably not our village. I told them to be thorough with the defenses. I’ll go out and take a look. Don’t worry. Something must have gotten caught in the barrier. You two stay right here and don’t move.”
Yantu shot out of the house like an arrow.
I walked to the window, pulled aside the curtains Yantu had meticulously drawn, and looked outside.
Darkness had fallen outside before I knew it. In the dark, I could see dwarves running this way and that.
But there was no sign that an explosion had occurred, nor was anything burning.
“It doesn’t seem to be anything serious. Let’s wait.”
I reassured Ren.
Then, quietly, I activated detection magic and began examining the surroundings.