A Dragon's Curiosity

While Nisha watched together with the Alchemist, the last mist vanished from the air.

To their left, the terrified man stilled and his face slacked into a blank expression.

Perhaps he screamed in terror or begged to be let out of the glass cage, the two of them would never know as all sound stayed behind the transparent wall.

Eventually all of his movement faded and he ended up curled into a ball, trembling just enough to tell any onlookers that he did not die just yet.

The changes to the cloaked person on the right were much more excessive.

Guided by an unseen influence, the floating mist really burrowed into the two bodies, which led to drastic changes.

At first, the shivering intensified until the sheet almost slipped off the figure’s body.

Then, when the trembling reached the peak, the body went still entirely and lost all signs of vitality.

Nisha watched on impassively, wondering what exactly the Alchemist had done to them.

As a guest and an outsider in this place, it was not her place to ask questions like who the people behind the glass wall were or what the man was doing to them.

Recalling some of the rumors about the [Thieves’ Guild], the dragon was not going to risk herself for two strangers.

Being equal parts curious and intimidated by the display, Nisha refrained from asking any questions and only observed the changes.

When the silence between the Alchemist and herself stretched on, she considered speaking first, yet the right body suddenly had some movement.

Compared to the earlier trembling, the current tremors lacked vitality and only affected parts of the body obscured by the sheet.

The elf realized that something was wrong right before things went wrong.

Despite being obscured by a cover, it was still easy to spot the exact moment the body went slack again and five pools of blood seeped out from five different spots.

As for the fate of the individual beneath the covering, it was easy to guess.

Instead of staring at the gruesome scene, Nisha turned around and looked straight at the Alchemist.

She had many questions about the mist, the two human test subjects and the reason why they were there in the first place, why he especially asked for her to witness this spectacle, and many similar lines of thought.

Ultimately, it was unlikely that the dragon would get answers even if she asked the Alchemist, so she could only stare and put those questions into her eyes.

Satisfied with the outcome, the Alchemist paid his guest no heed and placed his hand on a different section of the glass wall.

By himself, the man was not incredibly powerful as someone in the upper Seats should be.

At most, he bordered near the upper limit of third rank aura and mana cultivation, something that human adults without special training were capable of reaching as well, although it was rare to hit both if it was not for a related work or living factor.

The mana emitted from the Alchemist’s hand entered an array on the wall and successively lit up several symbols.

As a result, the transparent wall allowed the mana to fill out the symbols in the array, which looked quite familiar to Nisha’s [Spirit Sight] - though their exact form was hard to make out inside the glass inundated with mana - and invoked the spell recorded in the array.

Drawing on a storage container somewhere hidden out of sight, the Alchemists mana lead the ignition, while the influx of stored energy subsided the cost of the spell.

Flames roared to life and consumed the air inside the glass prison, burning down everything in its path.

Though the dragon would hardly call these flames impressive, the means to keep the spell going was new information to her, albeit the result hardly contented the young girl.

Without any magical protection, the blaze also befell the two bodies inside.

The loose sheet caught fire first and quickly consumed itself as fuel until nothing but ash and tiny fabric fragments scorched black were left.

Nisha finally got a good impression how the man that was previously covered from head to toe looked like.

Though she already knew it was an unconscious man from her [Spirit Sight], she had had no idea what was going on with him or why he trembled like a leaf in the wind.

Similar to the second victim, he was a man with little of his youth left and plenty of scars on his hands and arms.

Most likely, this fellow worked with his limbs for his living, though there was nothing left of them now.

Where the legs ended beneath the knees, the arms beneath the elbows and above the neck, nothing was left from the feet, hands and head.

Black roots clung to the shattered bone ends, now exposed to the burning air.

Nisha did not need anyone to point out to her where these black plant vines came from, the name alone was enough to identify the [Blackroot Plague].

On the ground, most of the blood evaporated in the fire, while the exposed roots mostly shrugged off the intense heat and barely withered from the blaze.

On the left side of the walled off section, the shivering and dazed man rolled around in a panic while the fire burned his body and clothes.

Perhaps because his body was still largely intact, Nisha judged that he was older than the first man, though she had no way to confirm this.

Although he stayed unconscious and shuddered now like the first man did before the Alchemist first activated the glass wall, his instincts still wanted to resist the fire, which gave the elf hope that he was not doomed for the same end as the other person.

Since they were both placed in the same prison and reacted to the mist as well, Nisha quickly came to a conclusion.

“He’s infected with the [Blackroot Plague] too, right?”

Right now, it was difficult for the girl to name the feeling she held in regard to the Alchemist.

He inflicted torture on two random guys, but the elf neither knew them nor had a reason to intervene.

The Alchemist did not seem to experience any distress at all and only studied the dying flames with professional interest.

Given the choice, he would likely do worse things to get results.

As an outsider, it was difficult for Nisha to judge whether this was just his personality or approved  by the [Thieves Guild] behind him.

During her visits to the [Red Night Palace] and the encounters with old man Alester, the girl never connected the bad reputation of their guild with any particular person like Golden Heel or the girls working for her.

But perhaps it was just her naivety that wanted to see them as good people and in reality the dirty actions of their vocation - like the experiments of the Alchemist - happened when she was not present to experience them.

“Good observation.”

With a much more animated tone, the Alchemist commended Nisha and pointed at the left body first.

“This specimen went from the Growth status of the disease to the Root condition. As of now, he is not in control of his physical body anymore.”

Rather than discussing a living being, the black and white pepper haired old man referred to the unconscious man in the same way as a piece of furniture.

He failed to see the person in question as a human at all, sending a shudder down the elf’s spine.

“The other example demonstrated the progression one step further.

Under the stimulation of the induced agent, his [Blackroot Plague] completed the Root phase and ended with the Bloom event, where all activity ceases and the disease has run its course.

Now that the [Draft Combustion] array has cleansed the atmosphere, it’s safe to enter the Holding Compartment.”

Nonchalant about the dead body and his role in his demise, the Alchemist must have activated an unseen switch, as part of the glass wall retracted upwards into the ceiling.

Unable to see the movement of aura or mana in the area, Nisha felt quite impressed by the mechanism responsible for that.

“You can enter, the formation killed the disease on a large scale.”

Throwing an offhand comment behind him, the elderly Seat showed no concern at all about exposing himself to a risk and entered the section of the room that had previously been walled off by the glass.

As he demonstrated safety by entering first, Nisha followed him cautiously - the Alchemist did not strike her as the type to compromise his own safety for any reason.

Before stepping through the glass wall though, she inspected the cross section revealed by the missing portion.

On the left and right of the lifted portion, a recess was carved into the middle of the glass, while the lifted glass door had an additional rise in the same place.

As such, the door sealed perfectly shut when the elevation and recess connected with each other.

Nisha had not seen such precise mechanisms anywhere else in the capital, even the slightest error would jam the seam and render the entire thing useless.

Putting away her interest in the machinery and accommodations, the dragon stepped inside and joined the Alchemist.

Whether the elder noticed her interest in the entrance or not, he did not comment on it and turned over the headless body with his hands.

“What do you mean with ‘killed the disease’? Does that mean you found a way to combat the plague?”

Seeing how focused the older man was, the elf doubted he would address her anytime soon if left to his own devices, so she voiced her question.

“No, the [Blackroot Plague] is much more insidious than having a weakness for fire, what I meant was that the array cleansed the air and surfaces of this room from the spores that transmit the illness. It’s safe for the time being.”

Propping the dead body against the wall, the Alchemist studied the black roots sticking out from the mangled wounds near the head and elbows.

The fire from before apparently had some effect on them, seeing that the exposed section looked withered and blackened.

Satisfied with his preliminary examination, the elder retrieved a small knife from his robe and cut at the body and the plant parts.

“What exactly happened when you activated the first array? It seemed to trigger these two people and made their condition worse.”

Nisha still had no clue why the man wanted to see her and figured out that the only way to get answers from him was to ask more questions by herself.

His interest in her was far inferior to the attention he was giving to the two captives.

“Very sharp perception. The array I used is nothing too advanced, a simple water utility spell to disperse a fluid reserve over a big area.

The actual reagent is the reason for the visual display, while the plague acted like a beacon.

Using a mana enriched carrier fluid as the base, the array creates a fine mist of mana rich nutrients.

Inside the room, a large cloud of tiny spores - invisible to the naked eye - pervaded the air and reacted to the infusion of mana.

Attaching themselves to the droplets, these spawns from the infected subjects guide the nutrients back to the source, hence the bodies attract all the mist.

By digesting the energy quickly, the [Blackroot Plague] advanced to the next stage.”

Nisha wondered if this was the longest sentence the Alchemist had spoken so far in her presence, but her attention drifted to the content of his explanation.

She understood most of the concept behind the two arrays and the earlier episode, though the reason why exactly the elder showed her this scene remained unclear.

Nevertheless, the scene furthered her understanding of the disease that was about to befall the kingdom, which would count as an unintentional gain.

As the duo conversed, the Alchemist used his knife to further open the grisly wounds on the dead body, cutting out small samples from both the injured and torn flesh as well as of the black root settled inside it.

The samples were sealed in small glass containers, though it still unsettled Nisha to watch the procedure.

She focused on the unconscious man to the left instead.

Ever since the fire array burned his body, he did not move a single bit, which made him appear quite like a corpse if it was not for the weak life force that Nisha observed through her [Spirit sight].

“Can you expand on the stages you mentioned earlier? From what I understand, there are several of them in regards to the [Blackroot Plague].”

Considering that the Alchemist apparently was disinclined to discuss the reason why he invited her to this place again, the dragon was eager to learn more about the plague from him, he likely was one of the people who had the most knowledge on it in the entire city based on the display and words he showed her so far.