The Magic Academy's Physicist-Chapter 208: From Master to Slave (9)

Chapter 208: From Master to Slave (9)

Gilach curved his eyes like a dork and spoke.

“Why do I do this? Because it’s fun, of course. Just as you experience joy when you’re researching, I love torturing guys with Elementals. So much so that I can do it all day and not get sick of it. Uhahaha!”

Aether sighed disapprovingly.

“You’ve lived over a thousand years and still act like a pubescent.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Huhuhu!”

According to the Demon King, Gilach didn’t used to be this insane.

There was only one reason that Gilach came to abhor Elementals.

It was because he had been given gold eyes even though he was born as a High Elf.

“In fact, I would often feel rejuvenated every time I devour an Elemental. Kind of like getting revenge little by little?”

High Elves were a race that could hear the voice of Elementals easier than any other race. In some parts, they were called the chosen race.

But Gilach, who was born as both an elf and a Golden-Eyed, couldn’t hear the words of any Elemental until he became an adult.

It was such a terrible curse that he was disowned by his family. Scarred by that time, Gilach was persuaded by the Demon King and became the person he was today.

“Until the day that the King returns and wipes out the Elemental Realm, I will make the best use of my abilities here. Ah, it doesn’t even take much energy so perhaps I should call it warming up?”

His words were bothersome, but they had the same goal.

Aether had cursed a few times herself because of those damned Elementals.

Yes, indeed, however.

“Doing that to an already incapacitated prisoner won’t change anything. If you want to do it, go do it on the battlefield.”

It was all about efficiency, and Aether wasn’t fond of Gilach who acted spontaneously without strictly managing his time.

Why would he torture an Elemental Mage that was already caught when racking their brains and coming up with the next plan wasn’t even enough.

“So, enough of that. Why did you come here?”

“Huh? Nothing, really.”

“Nothing?”

“Yup, I just wanted to show off my new slave. Huhahaha!”

For a moment, her brain stopped like she’d gotten a stroke.

So he just came to disrupt her research, was that it?

Eyes changing, Aether glowered at Gilach. She could kill him right now if she had a nuclear detonator in her hand.

“If you don’t have anything to say, get lost.”

Although she said it coldly while suppressing her emotions, her insides were already bubbling like carbonated water.

Even a minute, a second sooner.

She wanted to set this damn world on fire.

But you dare interrupt my precious time? The likes of you?

If there had been a nuclear detonator in her hand, she would’ve dropped an orbital bombardment on Gilach and more.

“Y-you.......”

While Aether was running a simulation of Dark Day, the collapsed woman pulled herself up unsteadily and spoke.

“You have two souls....”

Her words just came out of nowhere.

Aether’s expression stiffened like a burnt-out candle wick.

“What did you just....”

“I told you not to talk to anyone without my permission!”

Before she could even ask anything, Gilach marched over with his hook swung high.

An ‘ah’ wreaking of fear fell from the woman’s lips.

“This is punishment. You know what’ll happen if you avoid it, right?”

Clenching his teeth, Gilach brought down his right hook. The woman exhaled sharply and curled in on herself, trying to at least protect her vital organs since she couldn’t get out of the way.

Shhhhk! In the moment the hook cut through the air downwards, the woman recalled the pain from earlier.

It hurt.

It was hot.

Please, no more.

“Ugh...!”

The woman clenched her eyes shut.

In the next moment–

Claaang!

A clear, high-pitched clang like knocking a metal bucket struck her ears painfully.

Unexpectedly, there was no pain of her arms or legs being ripped up.

“Ah....”

The woman exclaimed as soon as she opened her eyes.

Fragrant black hair fluttered up and down.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?”

The one who stopped the hook was none other than Aether.

With no time to take out her staff, Aether quickly flung her arm up and blocked the crescent’s form about to fall onto the woman.

Screek! Screeek!

“Y-you must be mad.......”

Gilach ground his teeth and put weight onto his arm, but Aether smoothly changed the direction of the force like water and pushed it to another side.

It was the martial arts used by the Golden-Eyed and beastkin.

“There is something I need to check with your slave.”

Aether simultaneously pushed aside the hook and broke the chain, removing the risk of Gilach pulling on the leash and choking her.

“Something to check?”

“Yes, I’d like you to give me some time.”

“Oho, isn’t this interesting.”

It was then that Gilach withdrew his hook and relaxed his expression.

It might be fun to play around with an Elemental Mage, but he was more curious as to why another Heaven was interested in his slave.

“Do you pity her all of a sudden?”

“As if.”

If she had been sympathetic to the cries of someone she never met before, then she wouldn’t have even started the grand plan of destroying the world.

Aether marched up to the woman.

“Are you an Elemental Mage?”

“... I am. But more importantly, are you alright?”

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

“With what?”

“The hook came in contact with your arm.......”

Aether snorted.

She herself had been stabbed by the hook several times, yet she was worrying over a simple clash between teammates. A mere prisoner, at that.

She didn’t know if she was innocent or stupid.

Anyway, that wasn’t what she was curious about. Aether didn’t say anything unnecessary and asked her straight.

“What did you mean just now?”

“Which?”

“That this one has two souls.”

It was widely known that an Elemental Mage could read a Beast’s malicious intent.

But she had never heard that they could distinguish souls.

“It’s, just as I said. I saw two souls, intuitively-speaking.”

Aether nodded, picking up on the implication of what the woman said.

From the use of ‘intuition’, it was certain.

Because Elemental Mages would present whatever the Elemetal told them as ‘intuition’ and act as experienced fortune-tellers.

“However, it is a little blurry. Like one has tight hold on the control? But the other soul isn’t trying to take over this current one, either, as if the two had always been one. Or it’s waiting for the right time....”

There was certainty in the woman’s carnelian eyes.

“You’re good at saying abstract things. Don’t you think that this could get you beaten by your master or something?”

“I know, but I thought it my duty to tell you.”

“Hah?”

“You’re different from the other ones here, your soul hasn’t decayed.”

As soon as she finished saying that, Gilach brought down the hook. The woman again curled up with a scream.

Clang!

“We’re talking; do not touch her.”

“Haaa, I was going to teach that thing some proper manners. It isn’t going so well.”

Gilach grumbled, but she already stopped caring.

If it was as this woman said, then that meant she could lose control over the body she had regained after a long time if she wasn’t careful.

The one condition for handing over her body again:

When there was a society that would accept her as she was even while knowing she was a monster.

Logically-speaking, a society like that didn’t exist. Ideal? Utopia? Some bullshit would make more sense.

Still, one never knew.

It was the first time in a while that she had her body back, and she didn’t want to give over control to the other personality.

“Aren’t you an interesting one. Gilach, how about selling me this slave?”

Aether asked Gilach after finishing with her thoughts.

She figured that if she kept this woman at her side and coaxed her, then she would make a good training material until they entered Iliad Academy.

However.

“What’s this all of a sudden? No, no. Absolutely not. It’s the first toy I’ve liked in ages! Huhu!”

“I plan to use her to cover any weak points until the infiltration.”

“Then that’s for you to figure out. You’re a Heaven and you trying to take another’s toy?”

Gilach refused to negotiate, let alone sell.

Gilach’s stubbornness and obstinacy were as tough as a freshly built mud castle.

In cases like this, it was better to wait for him to grow bored and throw the slave away than start an argument.

“So all you came to do was show off uselessly.”

Otherwise she’d end up not gaining anything and just wasting time.

“Ahh, look at this. You broke it real good. When will I get it fixed?”

She couldn’t let this end without gaining anything. Aether threw a lightning-bolt gaze at the woman and asked.

“You, your name?”

“...Klara, Klara Hasfeldt.”

With a smirk, Aether headed towards the superconductivity research lab.

**Klais stopped etching scrolls and grumbled.

“I cannot concentrate in this kind of environment....”

She preferred to work in a quiet environment, but with it being so noisy outside the door, she couldn’t give her full attention to the scroll.

- Haaargh!

At first, it was nothing more than a choked scream. All she thought at this time was that something terrible was happening outside.

But after she heard the scream a few times, she found the sound becoming more and more familiar.

- Stop, it......! Please...!

When finally she heard screamed words–

Klais threw down her etching pen and stood up.

The broken voice of a woman like a kitten who lost its mother.

Klais remembered hearing this voice somewhere, and very frequently at that.

“Klara?”

Before she knew it, the name of her deceased family burst out.

Klara Hasfeldt.

Her older sister who, several years ago, was last pronounced dead by the family.

The voice with which her sister read her stories and those wails sounded so, so similar.

The tone, pitch, intonation, words used, and even the speech tempo.

“Sister...? Is that you?”

Forgetting her situation and what she was supposed to be doing, Klais went over to the door.

One step, two steps.

Her feet gained traction and accelerated. Her body shot forth like an arrow, unable to hear the jangling of the chain.

Then–

Clatter!

“Hurgh, kuhgh......!”

The chain with the lock on it jerked Klais backwards.

“Ah, huck...! Hurgh... Ah, ahh, argh......!”

The leash connected to the desk pulled her head towards the sky, causing her to fall forward as her waist bent like a bow.

“Argh, aughh, ahaghh.......”

Drip, drip. Saliva droplets fell onto the carpet. At the sudden shock, her stomach threw up acid and spasmed.

Her breathing became choppy, and unable to refine her language, she just moaned. The world was turning white, and there was a high-pitched ring in her ears.

For a while, Klais shed some tears as she rolled on the floor.

“Haa, haa.......”

A few minutes of writhing in pain on the carpet.

After regaining her regular heart rate, Klais got up hopelessly while thinking she wanted to die.

“Indeed, I must be crazy.”

It seemed she was hearing things now from being overworked by Aether these last few days.

Surely this auditory hallucination had to be similar to the kind of end her sister met.

She would have passed away honorably after maintaining her loyalty and integrity until the end even while being horribly tortured here at the Demon Castle.

Klais dabbed at the tears with her sleeve and sat back on the chair.

She was in a daze.

The thought of her family who passed away ahead of her made her feel pathetic.

They were all killed by Beasts, and so she had also vowed to kill them all.

And for that purpose she had poured everything into Fire Magic, into Flare.

“.......”

The thing she was feeling right now had to be anguish.

Hatred of Beasts, regret about the girl she used as a slave, bewilderment that she was actually a Beast, question about why the girl had let herself be enslaved, anger at herself, struggle with what she was supposed to do with the present.

All those complicated emotions twisted together like strings.

Even if she thought about it, nothing would change.

Flick.

After shaking off the sweat on her palms, Klais picked up the etching pen.

The dead were the dead, and the living had to live on.

Her sisters who had all left her alone.

She wished she could see even just one of them again.

Klais sculpted the rest of the scroll while briefly reminiscing the memories she shared with her sisters.

Plop, plop.

Salty saliva leaked onto the scroll. Was it because she still had pain in her neck?

It was as she was going digging through the magic paper to forget the pain.

“Hey, your sister’s alive.”