Chapter 73: Experiments

Chapter 73: Experiments "Hmm sure!"

Ruby said walking up to her, while Kieran watched still trying to understand why she would do something so stupid in a situation like this.

’Did she set this up just to hand me the credit? No, she’s too clever to waste effort like this. But... was it worth the risk?’

Kieran’s thoughts raced as he studied Ruby’s calm expression. Her nonchalant shrug only added to his frustration.

"So, she didn’t intervene at all?"

"Confirmed. She was just an observer – nothing more."

The receptionist said after checking a few things on her watch. Ruby was playing no tricks on them. Kieran had killed the beast alone.

The receptionist sighed, her fingers tapping impatiently on her watch.

"Alright, then. A team will be sent to verify the swamp creature. You’ll only need to wait for a few days."

She glanced at Kieran again with narrowed eyes, trying to study his expression for any reaction. He didn’t flinch, his stoic demeanor the same. The receptionist hesitated before adding,

"You’ll be notified once they return with their findings. Your reward will be calculated and sent when the mission has been confirmed."

"Sure. No problem!"

Kieran’s voice was cool and steady, showing his confidence.

With this, their business at the counter was over and they turned to take their leave, only for Ruby to be blocked by the one who had reminded the receptionist to confirm Ruby’s claims earlier.

"Was it worth it, kid?!"

The man loomed over her, his sharp features hardened by a scornful glare.

Ruby met his gaze without flinching, her tone dismissive.

"None of your business!"

His hands twitched at her response, his towering presence growing heavier as if daring her to act.

Based off the way they conversed, it seemed like they had met each other before, and not on good terms at that.

"..."

He turned to look at Kieran with his intimidating gaze, only to be met with a cold and uncaring one which only sharpened the moment he released a little bloodlust.

’Sharp!’

"Alright!"

He said, letting them pass through.

....

After they got out, Kieran faced Ruby who rolled her eyes already expecting what was coming next.

"Why?" He asked, his voice cutting through the silence like a sharp blade.

Ruby paused, her eyes narrowing. "It’s nothing. Let it go"

"...."

He said nothing, his piercing gaze lingering on her for a moment before he turned away. The echoes of his boots heard as he walked ahead, but Ruby lingered behind him, her expression conflicted. After a moment’s hesitation, she caught up with him.

"Sigh.... It’s nothing, trust me on that!" She said once more to Kieran who nodded.

He knew she was keeping secrets from him, but she asked him to trust her and he decided to put what little faith he had in the words of one of his only friends.

....

"You really went all out on your first mission. Hahaha."

August’s rough voice rang out as he leaned his back against the wall, his black oni mask doing little to hide his messed up hair and perpetually tired eyes. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks – half mummy, half human – but his actions had a lively aura around them.

Kieran looked at his instructor who had summoned him, saying that it was urgent. Not even giving him the time to wash off the blood on his body.

’This is what was so serious?’

Kieran thought, feeling like planting his fist onto the instructor’s face and silence his laugh which was filled with glee like he had won the lottery or something.

’Sigh!’

Kieran let his shoulders lose, getting into a lose sitting posture, with his back arched.

He couldn’t take it anymore. After eating the flesh the creature had given him, he felt his body got filled with energy, but his mental state barely improved.

Fighting a bunch of savage beasts with such little breaks had started to take its toll on him for a while now, all his mind really wanted to do was to shut down for a while.

His mind dragged behind like a rock, even as his body thrummed with energy. The sensation was maddening – like being trapped in a sleepless dream, this thoughts fractured while his muscles begged to move.

"How was it?"

"How do I look?"

"Disgusting, tired eyes, but rather energetic. What happened?" August asked, inspecting Kieran’s current state.

"Long story, I really want to crash."

"Hmmm. Alright, you need it!"

’Thank God!’

Kieran almost shouted out, before wondering how he was going to endure the journey of walking to his room without his brain shutting down first.

"Luckily, I managed to get them to add a proper bathroom. You can use that, get some sleep and we can talk about training when you wake up."

"You have two hours"

"Yeah...Wait what?"

Kieran’s eyes lost its tiredness for a moment as his slow brain finally processed what August had just said.

Unfortunately, the instructor was already making his way out of the building after dropping a change of clothes for him.

"Fuck...!" Kieran muttered, summoning all of his remaining mental strength to stop himself from just sleeping first.

.......

"How is he doing?"

"Back on his feet my lord!"

"Alright!"

"You may come in!"

Lucian heard the voice inviting him in, and he took his steps towards the city lord’s office. He had been visiting here more often than usual.

"My lord!" Lucian bowed in greeting.

"Detective! How has your investigation been going?" Viscount Hawkins questioned.

"So far, we have managed to root out all the branches in and around the city, but none of them were on a major scale like the first one we discovered. No awakened has been noticed either!" Lucian gave a brief breakdown.

After the attack on the underground facility in the slums of the city, they had cracked into the information the researchers had tried to destroy and they discovered their research notes and the purpose of the facility.

They had been dabbling in the forbidden practice of trying to make awakened, they had even gone so far as to experimenting on actual humans, of which most of them were from the slums.

This wasn’t the first time something like this had been discovered. The concept of awakened was something that even they themselves had been unable to fully uncover.

There was no said reason as to why that power appeared in people or in a particular family lineage. Even after the advancement of technology, they were still unable to notice any differences about those that came after the process of awakening.

Awakened were basically normal humans before awakening, there had been no identification of a mutant cell whatsoever which caused the process. It just happened.

Despite that, several people had tried to recreate the process, trying to make normal humans into awakening and they had all ended in failure.

This development was so common after the wild spread of awakeners that the world government had to act and forbid the practice which was basically wasting innocent lives.

What mattered though wasn’t the fact that one of such experiments was discovered in Crane city, but the nature and scale of the experiments.

It was on a whole different level. Whoever was behind this had invested a lot of time and planning. The information they had been able to gather so far showed that this wasn’t a new dealing. It was something that had been running on for several years and what was more shocking was that they had actually managed to make some sort of progress.

Instead of trying to force ordinary humans to awaken, they tried using children, since it had become known that awakening usually happened between the ages of 6 and 10. But just like the others who tried the path of using children, they failed.

What they did after was abandon the thought of forcing people into awakening naturally and gaining powers unique to them, they took the approach of grafting powers from already awakened people onto normal humans. Lucian could feel his guts turn in disgust as he read through the notes.

This alone showed that they weren’t just some random organization, the amount of awakened they had captured and killed to further their research had entered thousands, and each of them had gone unnoticed.

After countless sacrifices, they had managed to make a sort of breakthrough. They had managed to take a part of an awakener’s power and place it into a normal human, but none of the subjects survived more than a few hours.

Most of them exploded on the spot after the procedure. Their body unable to endure the strain placed on it by the little amount of the awakener’s power.

The awakened who also had bits of their powers taken from them dropped dead only a day after the procedure, going from 99 to 0 in just 24 hours.

According to the notes of the researchers, the awakened after getting a part of their power taken away seemed to have lost something vital to their existence in the process. What this thing was, was still unknown to them. They had a theory that whatever it was, was related to while they failed their attempts to make normal humans mutate into awakened in the first place.

The researchers believed that if they could manage to identify what this elusive factor was, they would manage to make a breakthrough in their research and that with that, they would be able to actually mutate normal humans without the need of an awakened.

But for now, they had abandoned trying to find whatever that factor was, and focused on trying to stabilize the humans who had the powers of awakened placed into them.

The change felt so sudden, like they had received some kind of order from their backer.

So far, they hadn’t managed to make much progress and were in the middle of finding alternative methods when, Lucian and number 5 had interrupted them and brought their progress to a halt.

What put Lucian on guard was the fact that they were about to abandon the base when they had arrived. They either had another more believable and unknown reason for that, or they knew that they were coming which only meant they had gotten intel from someone. But the only two partied who knew about these investigations was him and the viscount, leaving Lucian in a dilemma.