He has long since forgotten how he felt when he heard his father’s response.
He probably couldn’t stand up steadily somehow, and his heart might have pulsed painfully. He might have felt suffocated, and perhaps crouched down in his wobbly vision and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
However, the more Miche’s father pushed him away, the more he grew closer and closer to his studies.
After they placed him in the laboratory, his world became even more expansive. The more he wanted to know, the more he experimented and researched, and the more answers he got.
Alchemy was much clearer than his father’s thoughts or his mood of that day.
Besides, the adults around him in the lab were much kinder to him than his father had ever been.
[“Michel is amazing, he’s indeed that man’s son.”]
While secretly feeling like they were his older brothers or fathers, Michel learned many things about alchemy.
He thought that his changes in those days were triggered by even the slightest action. Looking into the records that the adults wrote, Michel added many things to them.
He would know immediately what was missing from the components, what was extra, what could be an uncertainty.
[“–If I do this, I’m sure everything will work out.”]
As he scribbled his pen across the pages, he felt twinges of excitement inside.
It was a problem that the adults had been struggling with, discussing face to face, trying to create a drug with a certain effect.
[“Then, I’ll mix these chemicals with each other. We won’t know for sure until we experiment it. You know what I mean, right?”]
After saying that, Michel raised his head.
For the first time in his life, he seemed to have helped someone.
Michel thought that being useful in the academic field might be his only right role as someone born to make his parents unhappy.
Then, he dreamed foolishly.
[“Michel.”]
A voice sounded terribly cold.
[“–You indeed a grim reaper child, aren’t you?”]
Michel couldn’t move a muscle when they pierced him with their gazes.
The adults looked down at Michel and whispered to each other.
[“What the hell is going on? How can you be so good at making chemicals that kill people?”]
[“I guess this talent is innate, since no one has taught you. Your father was right.”]
[“If we mass produce this drug, our country will be able to win the war without a fight. But can we really produce such a devil’s invention into practice?”]
In short, Michel was an existence born to kill and drive someone unhappy, just like his father said.
That drug was never used in the end.
It was because a rival nation attacked the royal castle, and everything got burned. All the experimental records turned into ashes. His father and the other alchemists lost their lives, and although Michel was the only one who escaped the fire, he wandered from place to place alone.
Thanks to his father’s name, Michel was welcomed with open arms when he traveled to academically thriving countries.
He found a lot of research published in his father’s name that Michel had invented in that dingy mansion, but he didn’t really care about it.
All that he had left was learning.
Alchemy was surprisingly fun once he got to that point.
Researching for his own interests, rather than for someone else’s, was a very peaceful and gentle feeling.
He felt certain that that was how people felt when they interacted with their friends and family.
That was why Michel was so satisfied when his research led to the creation of gunpowder.
He was proficient at driving people unhappy that he created this stuff.
And this gunpowder, like Michel himself, has the power to turn someone’s life miserable. And since everything in this world was born for a purpose, it must fulfill its created significance.
“The raison d’etre of a chemical born as a poison is to make people unhappy, just as it was meant to do.”
Speaking of which, Rishe said the other day that it was fine to exist in this world even without any meaning.
However, there was no such thing as a meaningless thing in this world. Such things should have been eliminated as unnecessary and shouldn’t have remained.
Rishe confronted Michel from a distance and spoke while looking at him.
“…When I heard these words from someone once, I foolishly asked, ‘Can’t poisons really make someone happy?’ However, I was wrong. I should have affirmed it instead of asking at that time.”
Miche’s brief student clearly disagreed with his thoughts.
“–Even poisons can make someone happy.”
“Pfft~”
She was indeed a strange girl.
“You shouldn’t take the words of someone like me seriously.”
“I am your student. But no matter what you say, I can’t accept everything you teach me with conviction.”
Michel listened to Rishe’s words with a smile on his face.
It was almost eighteen o’clock. There might be a slight margin of error, but it would be about that time when the three gunpowder barrels in the Imperial City of Garkhain would explode.
Unlike Koyor, which was covered with snow, the weather in Garkhain was mild in spring, which was the ideal condition for explosives to work.
They had already completed an experiment in an uninhabited field, but this was his first attempt in the city. In remote experiments with gunpowder, Michel had worked on a plan for some time.
Comments