[Chapter 35] - Frankenstein (1)
‘An artificial human...?’
Frankenstein, who had introduced herself as an artificial human, nodded her head slightly as if somewhat dejected. Though she was still expressionless, should I call it the atmosphere? Unexpectedly, she was a girl who expressed her emotions through her actions.
When she said artificial human, something eerie flashed through my mind. Come to think of it, Sylph had called Aurora, who had become a Ryanansi, an ‘artificial fairy.’ Could it be related to that?
Feeling worried for some reason, I unconsciously gripped the hand I was holding with the princess. At that, the princess, puffing out her cheeks, complained that her hand hurt and tapped the back of my hand.
“My hand hurts.”
“...Ah. I-I'm sorry.”
Only then did I, startled, loosen my grip and look at the princess’s hand. Thankfully, I stroked the back of the princess’s hand, which had only turned slightly red, then turned my head to glance at ‘Witch Frankenstein.’
Truly, as if she were a doll, she was still gazing steadily at me and the princess with a blank expression. She was continuously expressionless, so I had no idea what she was thinking…
As I was glaring at Frankenstein, the princess, having apparently heard Frankenstein’s introduction earlier, asked me with sparkling eyes. She asked if that person was the doctor who would treat Ainsel.
“Your Majesty the Queen, is Ainsel going to be okay now? Will she not hurt anymore?”
“Th-that is…”
Come to think of it, I had told the princess the ‘lie’ that Ainsel had gone to meet the doctor. My reliability had just gone up, and if the princess found out I had lied here—
While I was at a loss for words and didn’t know what to do, Frankenstein, who had approached my side at some point, looked steadily at me and the princess. Then she crouched down to match the princess’s eye level.
“Yes, Ainsel is currently in the final stage of treatment. Very soon, Ainsel will be able to see the princess in perfect condition.”
“R-really...?”
Frankenstein nodded with an emotionless expression. Because of her rigid, expressionless face and the impression of being an ‘artificial human,’ I had thought she would feel mechanical, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
For now, I played along with Frankenstein’s words and nodded.
“That’s right. I’m sure Ainsel will come back healthy now... Won’t you go play with Sylph over there for a moment? I need to talk with the doctor for a bit.”
—Huh? You’re asking me to look after a child right now...?
“I’ll give you two candies, so please do this for a moment.”
—...It’s not good to order a fairy about so casually. Just this once.
Sylph flew up into the air with a flutter, circled around the princess a few times, then landed on the bed and began to entertain her. Watching that, a short sigh of relief escaped me.
“...First of all, thank you. Franken...stein...?”
“You may call me ‘Fran.’ There is no need for honorifics, Vivian.”
“Alright, I’ll be counting on you from now on. Fran.”
I extended my hand to Fran to offer a greeting. Fran stared blankly at my outstretched hand for a moment, then carefully took it and shook it up and down.
I had thought that since she was an artificial human she would somehow be different from ordinary people, but the warmth I felt from Fran’s hand was no different from any other human’s.
“Then, would you first show me Ainsel’s ‘main body’? I shall begin the diagnosis swiftly.”
I lifted Ainsel’s main body, which had been hanging on the wall, and handed it to Fran. Fran quickly sat down and began examining Ainsel’s main body.
Fran, holding up Ainsel’s main body, declared she would begin the diagnosis and swept her hand across the surface of the mirror that was Ainsel’s main body. At that, the mirror’s surface rippled briefly before settling again.
And Fran, who had scrutinized Ainsel’s main body this way and that, nodded as if she understood, then turned her head to look at me.
“...I see. I understand. It is a ‘rebound’ from the contract, just as Sylph said. It is like a common illness that fairies experience. I can cure it right away.”
“Haah... Thank goodness.”
At Fran’s words that Ainsel could be treated immediately, I let out a long sigh of relief. When Ainsel woke up, I’d have to give her an earful—telling her never again to do anything so terrifying while claiming it was taking responsibility.
While I was calming myself down like that, Fran began staring at me steadily with an emotionless expression. For some reason, I couldn’t get used to being gazed at so intently with those blue eyes.
“Fran...? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. It’s just that Ainsel’s treatment requires a very small amount of time. Therefore, during that time, I would like to hear about that ‘incident’ you wrote about in your letter.”
Ah... come to think of it, she had said she wanted to hear about the incident I experienced in more detail, right? It was fine to tell her, but...
I turned my head slightly to look at the princess, who was playing house with Sylph on the bed.
Fran, noticing that I was looking at the princess, snapped her fingers. *Snap!* At that, a translucent dome-like thing settled around Fran and me.
“I have blocked the sound. With this, the contents of our conversation will not leak outside.”
I tried to touch the dome surrounding Fran and me as if fascinated, but perhaps because its function was only to block sound, my fingers passed straight through the translucent dome.
‘Just when will I be able to use magic like this?’
What I had learned from Ainsel was, at best, the level of making a small flame or spraying water. Even that required tremendous concentration, making it difficult to use properly.
While I was marveling at the magic, Fran stared at me intently as if urging me to hurry up and talk. I coughed to clear my throat, then began to talk, recalling the events I had experienced one by one.
Right around when I spoke about how the First Queen had become a Ryanansi and killed the king.
For the first time, emotion flickered across Fran’s face. One eyebrow twitched upward, and she covered her mouth as if something was strange.
*Tap, tap.* Fran, drumming her fingers on the desk and mulling something over, rolled her eyes to glance at me, then began to explain why she had arrived here late.
“The truth is, the reason I arrived here late is that before coming here, I witnessed an incident very similar to the ‘incident’ written in your letter. And dealing with the aftermath of that incident took time.”
“...Huh?”
“The witch of the Coven who was in charge of that incident requested emergency aid, saying something strange had happened. Saying that I, a ‘doctor,’ was needed.”
An incident similar to the one that happened in the royal palace...?
Don't tell me, had someone else become a Ryanansi and eaten a person? The moment I thought that, Fran began to tell an even more shocking story.
“By any chance, do you know of the existence of mermaids (人魚)?”
“Mermaids...?”
*
The mermaids of this world that Fran spoke of were extremely similar to the ‘Little Mermaid’ from the fairy tales I knew.
Lower half fish, upper half human.
‘Fairies’ possessing beautiful appearances who seduced sailors with their songs. And, it was said that the youngest princess of such ‘mermaids’ had fallen in love with a person walking along the beach.
They said that fairies falling in love with humans was quite common, and until then, they hadn’t paid much attention to it. The witch of the mermaids had told the ‘Little Mermaid,’ who had fallen for a human, to give up, but...
The Little Mermaid did not give up and craved love.
Saying she loved that person, saying she wanted to have that person.
And eventually,
‘Saying she wanted to become one with that person.’
Having heard the story up to here, I suddenly got goosebumps all over my body. Because the moment I heard the story, ‘Aurora,’ who had wanted to become one with her husband and sucked his blood, sprang to mind.
Just what kind of thought process leads to the conclusion of wanting to become one with the person you love? Was that even love in the first place? I simply couldn’t understand.
As the Little Mermaid, who had wished every day for the ‘potion to become human,’ gradually stopped visiting, the witch of the mermaids had simply thought that the Little Mermaid’s lovesickness had faded and hadn’t paid her any mind.
Thus, a few days after the Little Mermaid stopped visiting the witch, that incident finally erupted. A terrible and horrifying incident similar to what had happened here in the royal palace.
It was said that the ‘Little Mermaid’ discovered at that time had legs.
Her hair, which had been red from the start, was stained further with her beloved’s blood, becoming so red that it was said to resemble a beautifully blooming red coral in the depths of the sea.
On the beach where the waves crashed, she was said to have devoured the corpse of her beloved while singing. A terribly beautiful, terribly nauseating song.
“What do you think? Is it not an incident extremely ‘similar’ to the one at the royal palace?”
Fran told me the reason she had been late to arrive here with a calm, emotionless expression.
Indeed, the incident Fran told me about was so identical that I thought it was not merely similar but the same incident.
Could it be the doing of ‘someone’ that Aurora had mentioned? The moment I wondered that, as if reading my thoughts, Fran told me about the follow-up to the incident she had experienced.
“The Coven considers this incident to be someone’s ‘doing,’ and has said they will hunt down the culprit. Even the Coven’s ‘Great Witch’ has launched an investigation.”
“...I see. Is there anything I can help with?”
“It’s fine. The Coven is not so weak that it needs to borrow the hand of a witch who isn’t even a proper apprentice like you.”
*Snap!*
When Fran snapped her fingers, the translucent dome that had enveloped us disappeared. As if there was nothing more to say, Fran stroked Ainsel’s main body, which had been placed on the desk.
At that, ripples slowly formed on the mirror’s surface, and Vivian’s face gradually began to emerge. Even groaning.
Startled, I lifted Ainsel’s main body. Ainsel was frowning deeply with grunts, as if not yet conscious.
It was an expression like a child who had just woken from sleep.
“Oh my...!”
“To me, this much is an easy treatment. However, as this is still a period requiring stability, I recommend leaving her as she is.”
When I let out a surprised sound, the princess, who had been playing on the bed, scrambled over to look at Ainsel. The princess glared at Fran as if something was strange, at the sight of her struggling to wake up.
“She’s still hurting...?”
Did Ainsel still look like she was in pain in the princess’s eyes?
The princess scrunched up her face and glared at Fran. However, Fran paid no mind to the princess’s expression and merely looked at her with a blank face.
That she would wake up soon, or something like that.
I thought she would soothe the princess with such words, but—
“I am sorry. The surgery ended in failure.”
“...!!!!!”
The princess’s mouth hung wide open in shock at Fran’s lie. To the princess, who stood with her mouth open as if speechless, Fran reversed her statement as if playing a prank.
“I lied.”
“...!!!!!!!!!”
Not knowing what in the world to believe, the princess grabbed her head with both hands. What was truth and what was falsehood? The princess screamed at Fran.
“Lying is bad!!!”
“Why is that?”
“B-because... lying is bad...? A-and witches shouldn’t lie! Your Majesty the Queen said you’d swallow a thousand needles!! Don’t lie!!”
Fran glanced at me with eyes that seemed to ask what that was about, then met the gaze of the princess, who was crouching down and huffing through her nose. And then, opening her mouth wide in front of the princess—
“Bweeeeh—”
*Shhhhhrrrrr—*
From Fran’s mouth, not needles but countless chunks of metal like screws and gears poured out. For a moment, I also opened my eyes wide in surprise, but the princess was even worse than me.
As if she might faint at any moment, the princess took a deep breath—
“Ack-!! Aaaaaaaack!!!!!”
In the end, she burst into tears, saying it was scary.
The princess fled from Fran in a panic, grabbed my skirt hem, and slumped onto the floor. I hugged the princess, who was lying on the floor crying her eyes out, to comfort her, and she began to cry even more sorrowfully.
“Hwaaaang!! Hwooooo!!!”
I looked at Fran with a look of utter disbelief, and Fran wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, then made an inexplicably proud expression and held up a V-sign with her fingers toward me.
“This is a Fran joke that only an artificial human can do. V.”