“By the way… I was wondering what the first, second, and third steps meant, but it must have been a step-by-step project. Disassembling and reassembling the body and soul, no matter how hard I think about it…”
“It’s inhumane.”
“Indeed, it is inhumane.”
Noah agreed with Kyle, but a corner of her heart felt uncomfortable. It was because of the records she had read in Adrian’s research lab. She thought about going back up to that place and taking everything she hadn’t been able to read.
While searching for a way up from the third floor to the fourth floor, Muell’s presence, who was connected to her, fluctuated greatly. Noah stopped in her tracks.
“Huh? Just now, what was…”
Muell’s resonance immediately returned to normal, but the next minute, a slight vibration came up from downstairs.
Noah put her ear close to the transmitter just in case.
“Muell? What are you doing?”
After a few seconds, a lively voice flowed out.
“…Nothing!”
“Huh?”
“It’s nothing, Noah. There is nothing.”
“Oh, yeah? Then we’re done.”
She didn’t think the vibration earlier was a mistake. Then was it the sound of the process running again? Or it might have been sounds of the researchers and experiments escaping from the fourth floor.
Now becoming impatient, she pulled on Kyle’s sleeve.
“I have to go up and check now. I guess something is going on.”
“Nothing is going on up there.”
Kyle, however, was only shrugging, not expressing any sense of a crisis. No wonder he looked a little satisfied. I’m sure this is a mistake, Noah thought.
Pushing her shoulder, Kyle patted her shoulder.
“Muell is going to figure it out. As for us, we will first check out the research lab and the process.”
Adrian and Eleonora’s research lab were perfectly divided between the third and fourth floors. This was because the stairs Noah had stepped on yesterday had straightened out and tilted up like a seesaw before turning into the floor of the fourth floor.
The staircase was so completely gone that no one could find them no matter how many times they went around the same place. Even Noah would have wandered for a long time to find a way up if it hadn’t been for the traces of a broken barrier.
Anyway, the staircase was gone, so if she wanted to go up, she could either use the outer wall ladder or dig a way up.
Unhesitant, Noah chose the latter.
Kaboom! The ceiling of the third floor and part of the floor of the fourth floor collapsed like an explosion.
“…No wonder you’ve become so aggressive. Or are you still communicating with Muell telepathically?”
“No. No matter how aggressive I am, it’s just the way you investigate.”
The collapsed ceiling revealed the hallway of the fourth floor. When Noah made a floating translucent stairway leading up to it, Kyle looked at her with mixed feelings.
“You’ve gotten much better, Noah. Now you don’t have any hindrance when using your magic?”
“I do. It depletes my strength, so it’s hard to summon many things at once. I’m going to start exercising when I get back.”
“Exercising…? I’d be glad if that goes for a day.”
“Don’t get me started.”
The fourth floor, which came up grumbling, was almost the same as when Noah had come earlier. The ten doors lining both sides of the hallway raddled and slammed open all at once.
That was the moment when the strong lavender smell filled the hallway. Noah simply waved her hands, blowing away the smell.
The interior structure of the room, which she hadn’t properly examined earlier, was the same. On the bed in the middle lay the replica experiments, and on top of them lay a round glass dome with a magic orb.
Kyle looked as if he wanted to faint right away.
“I can’t count how many charges there are. Well, this is going to be more than Eleonora Asil’s criminal record…”
The research lab was just as she had messed it up earlier. Noah walked toward Adrian’s desk while Kyle was looking at the wall that displayed the replica process. Its research records, which had been randomly pulled out, filled the desk and floor.
As she searched the desk for the records she had stopped reading, she noticed a small frame lying on the floor. Naturally straightening up the frame, she was startled to see the picture inserted in it.
“Eleonora…”
In the picture, she was wearing thin-rimmed glasses with her silky hair up in a bun. Perhaps she hadn’t known she was getting her photo taken, her eyes were fixed on the book in her lap. The sun rays from the window made her hair and cheeks shine.
From Adrian’s point of view, Eleonora seemed like a completely different person from the woman Noah knew. She didn’t look like a felon or an arrogant queen bee. She took out the thick file under the frame. Plop. A few more photos fell out. All of Eleonora.
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