The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 147: Nothing is going smoothly (2)

Two weeks ago, I arrived at the royal palace.

Now, I am living in a room within the palace.

However, since that day, the king hasn't called for me.

He hasn’t explained anything to me, but I know the reason. I can observe everything through the harvesters.

I am using specialists within the hospital to thoroughly analyze the harvesters. Most of the people in the hospital are important figures, so they’re being examined, supposedly to see if their illnesses have been cured.

But, on the contrary, the ones who are not important people—

For example, the orphans from the Vern City incident. Their harvesters are separated, and they’re literally torn apart.

They’re subjected to inhumane experiments, without even proper anesthesia, and thankfully, everything they say, I can hear. So, there are a few things I've learned.

For instance, the blue skin. They say if you remove the skin, the flesh returns to its original color. Even the hair color is the same.

If you drop it, it returns to the original color from blue, but if you reattach it and let it heal, it becomes blue again, as though the meat has been marinated.

For the wounds, there’s significant variation between individuals, but over half of them are expected to regenerate, even if it takes some time.

And I've also heard that they will likely live longer than the average person.

However, that's all I know. Since it's pretty much like torture, they keep experimenting on the same person, but that person is now dead.

The child who had been hiding their abilities manipulated metal and blew off their head. But, since the child had already sustained fatal wounds, they died as well.

Unfortunately, after that, no one has been kidnapped and dissected.

This time, I’ll be satisfied with the small information I've gained.

As for other matters, two days ago, I attended a press conference with someone who had played a major role in the Vern City incident. Television reporters and journalists were there, all taking photos and videos.

The king came out and presented a plaque of gratitude to those who had contributed in the disaster zone, and prizes were distributed.

It was truly a clever method.

Because the work of those who suffered there was ignored, and only a few people received money. Moreover, to make it clear, their faces were printed in the photos.

If you have enough power or strength to protect yourself, it's fine, but for those with nothing, they become targets of jealousy and greed.

Of course, it's hard to steal the plaques, but you can't guarantee that humans won’t do it.

That means many people will likely try to steal the prizes.

Then, will they resist? The warmth will increase, won’t it? Heh.

Let me go back to the story.

There was the press conference.

I had hoped to meet Victoria there, but I was isolated separately for the conference, so I couldn’t see her.

However, I know that Victoria is heading to the Royal Academy, and she plans to see me there, so I thought I should do the same.

By the way, during that broadcast, I made it clear that I am not a divine messenger, and at the same time, I planted the image of being just someone who does as others say.

If someone asks, I answer yes or no.

If they ask a difficult question, I was told to stare at the highest-ranking person.

I was curious how people would perceive it.

At least the harvester perceived it this way.

As a poor person trapped by the royal family.

I’ve been acting like that, and it’s working very well, so I’m happy.

I remain still like a clueless child.

Since there are more screens than I can view, I just stay in my assigned room unless I really need to go out.

The people who work around me—

They mostly do things like cleaning or changing my clothes. But they don’t have the demeanor of servants or maids, so they whisper that they feel uncomfortable seeing me.

It’s because I behave passively, like a doll.

The king still hasn’t made someone he truly wants to heal into a harvester.

It’s simple, easy to handle, and if left alone, it's an object that stays still.

Thanks to that, the people who work around me treat me with great disrespect. At first, they acted like they were dealing with someone important, but over time, their posture relaxed, and when they realized I don’t react to muttering or insults, they began to treat me more casually.

But maybe because the king is scary, or because I look like a child, they never resorted to abuse. They just treated me like a cute doll.

Over the past two weeks, five people have changed, so there were a few who weren’t like that.

Time passed quickly.

And finally.

The king called for me.

Unlike usual, someone dressed in heavy armor came to me, and I followed them to the place where the king was waiting.

I thought I’d be invited into a workspace again, but we headed to a place I had never been before.

It wasn’t a building in the middle of the palace, but a beautiful, solitary palace standing a little farther away.

The soldier who brought me here stopped at the entrance of the palace and looked back.

Then, I went in alone.

Inside, there was the king and a young man who resembled him.

Father and son, I guess. Both of them look fine, but what’s the issue with the queen?

“Can this person really save her?”

“Yes. Haven’t you seen the people who have been healed?”

Their conversation seems somewhat stiff for a father and son.

Inside, there’s a prince who looks at me with suspicion and the king who gazes at me with hope.

As soon as I arrived, the king spoke.

“Follow me.”

I followed the king into the depths of the building.

We went up to the second floor and into a spacious room. It was originally a beautiful room, but instead of decorations and tools, there were large machines buzzing.

And from the machines, numerous tubes led to a bed.

At the center of the bed, a girl, almost a corpse, was lying, with tubes inserted in her face, chest, and abdomen.

It wasn’t a machine for healing, but a machine for prolonging life.

“Contract with this girl.”

The king pointed to the girl and said so. I glanced at the prince, but his gaze was half full of suspicion, half full of hope.

No one in the room showed any sign of dislike toward the girl waking up.

I guess their relationship is good.

Thinking that, I silently approached the bed. Since the bed was so crowded with tubes, I accidentally stepped on one, and the prince shouted at me.

But the king calmed him down.

He was growling, but with my height, it was hard to approach without stepping on the tubes. So, I just stepped on them and stood in front of the girl. Since my skin touched hers, I said:

“I’ll give myself to you. In return, after you finish everything, I’ll take everything you have. How about it?”

The girl answered that she wanted to live, and the contract was made.

Carduk.

The girl’s whole body changed like porcelain, then suddenly stopped. Strange patterns appeared on her face and chest.

“Do you know what this is? It’s interfering with the contract.”

The prince, angered, came toward me, but when he looked at the place I pointed to, his face turned white. The king also looked at the patterns with a horrified expression.

There must be some background to this.

After all, in a world where magic exists, anything can be revived. If a princess who can receive the highest level of treatment can’t wake up, it means something is interfering with that.

I purposely waited silently, hoping they would memorize the pattern and become more desperate.

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.

“Can’t you save Aurora with your own power?”

The king looked at me with a desperate expression and asked.

The contract was already done. But when he tried to push me, there was a thin plastic film on top of the cup, so it wouldn’t go in.

Very thin.

“I’ll try my best.”

Yes. With this, I clearly made it known that I made an effort. Then, I waited for them to explain something, but no one spoke.

It seems hard to get more information.

So, I tore through the interference and made her into a proper harvester.

As I entered, the light turned purple.

At the same time, her whole body changed again like porcelain, and the tubes embedded in her body flew out.

Then, as the porcelain shattered, blue skin emerged from within.

Tuduk, tuduk.

The porcelain fragments, like eggshells, fell off, and the naked girl emerged.

Of course, her hair was now purple, and her skin was blue.

And the girl named Aurora opened her eyes.

“Ugh, Father? Mother? Brother?”

The girl sat up from her bed and looked around at the king, the prince, and me alternately.

“Uh... is this my sister or my niece?”

Indeed.

It’s a logical deduction. A girl I’ve never seen before is standing on her bed in a place where only family can enter.

She must remember that she was dying and thought a lot of time had passed while she was lying down.

So, logically, I must be someone’s family.

But since that’s not the answer, I immediately got off the bed. Aurora stared at me with a face full of questions, but I went directly to the king.

“I did it.”

The king slowly kneeled in front of me.

“Thank you.”

I nodded silently. I’m not really someone who deserves thanks, considering that I’ve thrown away everything except for the daughter’s present life.

Warmth is more important.

“Huh? What’s this! This isn’t my clothes! Why is my skin blue? Was I really on the verge of dying? Huh? Huh? My hair! Why is it purple? I didn’t have platinum blonde hair, did I?”

Aurora, flustered, began touching herself. But her older brother, Solindigus, was looking at his sister with tears of joy, while her father, Hipion, sighed with mixed emotions of relief.

Then, King Hipion approached Aurora, covered her naked body with a blanket, and hugged her.

“Welcome back.”

Aurora made an awkward expression, then answered in a voice mixed with tears.

“Yes, Father.”

Leaving them behind, I looked at the new harvester in the upper ranks.

I’m guessing that this world will probably create an automatic warmth harvesting system.