Episode 12. Lab (1)
six in the morning.
An alarm goes off.
Dante jumped up and bolted out onto the track.
‘Until what time did Alicia run yesterday?’
Every time I passed the cafeteria, the smell of meat stimulated my sense of smell.
Take one energy capsule out of your pocket and hold it. My body would feel heavy with food, and I felt like I was going to vomit while running.
‘All the kids at the academy only eat capsules, so there’s a reason.’
Being a wizard is not a job where you stand still and chant gracefully. You must face monsters at the forefront of the battlefield. Strong physical strength and spirit were essential.
Dante didn’t question as he ran.
Will this really help?
What does stamina and mana control have to do with it?
Alicia must have had a reason for choosing this method. So let’s at least try as hard as she did.
‘But if it doesn’t work, I can’t help it.’
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Even if mana control fails, wouldn’t it be possible to get stamina?
So I ran without stopping.
I didn’t think too complicated.
There was a track in front of me, and I just had to run.
Suddenly, the track is crowded with groups of people.
People overtook Dante at high speed.
‘and… … I don’t think I’m using any mana. Why is everyone so fast?’
Dante once again faced reality.
The opponent he had to overcome was not Alicia.
There was a middle-aged man with a belly ahead of him, an elderly grandmother with graying hair, and a boy more than two inches taller than himself.
At that time, Karum joined the track.
“Good morning baby!”
“Yes, good morning.”
“Adaptation is quick. After all the morning exercises.”
“Looking at it, it doesn’t look like it should be done, doesn’t it?”
“Take it easy. If you suddenly overdo it, you will hurt yourself.”
Dante was moved by Carum’s worried words.
“yes! Thanks for thinking.”
“Does that make it more than dropping out of the academy? Then be sure to take it easy. I will go first.”
Karum seemed to have wheels attached to her legs and moved away in a flash.
“… … I’m telling you to rest, I’m telling you not to.”
The tennis courts and swimming pools are full of people. What a lively morning I felt like I was full of energy.
Carum, who caught up with a lap before he knew it, spoke to Dante again.
“baby! Did you vomit blood last night?”
“yes? no.”
“okay. You don’t have to vomit blood. If so, will it be more than dropping out of the academy?”
“… … .”
Similar situations are repeated about twenty times.
Dante, overcome with evil, replied.
“Just tell me to run hard. That would be comfortable.”
“try hard? will it be that much? Run with the will to die. Thinking this is where you lie down.”
“yes!!!”
Some people hold managun from the age of five or six to enter the academy.
Compared to them, Dante was far behind.
‘Let’s just hold it for one year. I have to raise my physical strength to the highest level within a year.’
The world is inherently unfair.
Everyone has different talents, starting lines, and limitations.
Even if you try the same, someone has a higher limit than me and climbs higher, and someone goes ahead of me with their background without effort.
That’s how society is now.
No, it always has been.
It was difficult from the old days to succeed on one’s own, so self-made people were respected.
But if you just complain and stay still, nothing will change. So Dante thought to try at least to his limits.
‘Still, in the eyes of others, I’m a blessed case.’
Dante was born with superhuman qualities that money and power cannot buy. At the same time, if you cursed at the world for being unfair, people would point fingers at you as a ‘deceiver’.
Besides, aren’t you learning faster than others?
Dante knew that he was smart enough. Dante always had the first place in the class.
‘Let’s not be in a hurry. Instead, I do my best every day.’
Six hours, eight hours, ten hours like that.
It was around the time when I was on the verge of collapsing.
‘Customer, just five more steps!’
After, after, after, after, after.
“Only 10 meters more. Aww!”
The legs, which had been very strong, lightly hit the ground.
“Ohhh!”
It was a very brief moment, but Dante felt it clearly. Just as my eyes tickled when I used magic, I felt a tickling sensation in both legs.
Alicia, who appeared out of nowhere, asked a question.
“Oh, what is coming? Acting like a mouse in a poop.”
“Just one 0.1 second? Mana ran through my legs. Did you wake up with a bang? Aren’t I a total genius?”
“It’s close. Well done!”
Alicia distanced herself from Dante with a sullen expression.
‘Wow, that idiot. Mana ran out in one day? I can’t. I don’t know when that crazy guy will catch up with me, so I’ll be an even more crazy b*tch!’
It’s nice to have competitors.
Alicia thought that one day Dante might become a bona fide competitor.
‘Like BS and Bell Simon?’
If possible, you should be like Bell Simon.
The wizard of the century who shone overwhelmingly even among prominent geniuses!
This was the reason Alicia couldn’t stop.
* * *
One day, Dante was challenging his limits every day.
“Today is 0.2 seconds!”
“Today is half a second! can do! Gaza!”
A text came from Alicia.
[Ping Taeyang: A slaughterhouse tour call tomorrow? ]
[Me: ㅇㅇ]
Dante put on the clothes Alicia had given him earlier and went down to the dormitory lobby.
Alicia was waiting. It was in tracksuits.
“They say a new monster came in today.”
“A new monster?”
“Yeah, you are very lucky. It was because I was able to observe the first dismantling ceremony of a new type of monster. let’s go.”
The two moved to the first slaughterhouse in a two-person cart.
Dante asked.
“right. Maybe on the first day, ‘Shall we do that’ with Mr. Karum? You know what I did, at the restaurant. Is that a run?”
“No, Tekken.”
“Tekken?”
“game. My dad never beat me. He said that if he wins, I will never get married and live with him, but he turns his eyes on and practices. But Daddy can never beat me.”
“why?”
“A friend taught me how to use a hack.”
“… … .”
He seemed to know where he was from without even asking.
In front of the slaughterhouse, there were monitors packed with schedules.
Alicia, who was looking at the schedule, tilted her head.
“what. Has the butcher changed? My uncle said he was going in.”
“okay?”
■ Today’s Schedule ■
[ No. 101 – 07:30~ – Bloody Cerberus – Person in charge : Isu Bloom ]
[ No. 102 – 07:30~ – Longtail Minotaur – Person in charge : Hien Silverwood ]
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[ Room 501 – 09:00~ – entity name undecided – Contact Person : Carum Smith ]
Alicia pulled Dante’s wrist.
“Great. If Dad does it, I’ll be able to ask questions comfortably.”
The two showed their visitor permits at the entrance and went inside.
Dante inspected the interior.
[ Detect Mana Pattern ]
‘and… … You’ve done it very thoroughly. At this rate, I won’t die of poisoning.’
Room 501 Observation Room.
When Dante and Alicia entered, Grace, who had arrived earlier, greeted them.
“Come on.”
“Hello, Doctor. This is Dante Prime. And Dante, hello. This is Dr. Grace Cayley.”
“Ah, nice to meet you. Dante Prime.”
“Yeah, nice to meet you. Sit in a comfortable seat.”
Dante turned around and looked around.
The atmosphere was more like a laboratory or operating room than a slaughterhouse. Why, in medical dramas, did not observe the operation process through a glass window? It had a similar structure.
The biggest difference between the operating room and the slaughterhouse was size. Incredibly wide.
Dante asked Alicia.
“Are other slaughterhouses this large?”
“This is a dissection room, to be precise. Is this a medium size?”
“Are there bigger places?”
“Of course not. There are individuals that are 50 meters or 100 meters long.”
There was only a fire in the slaughterhouse, but nothing was there yet.
Grace put a beam screen on one side of the wall.
Dante and Alicia turned their eyes to the screen.
“This is the monster to be dissected today. A scientific name has not yet been determined. A marine monster brought from an A-class planet.”
Alicia, who was listening, spoke.
“Huh. Our lives would be much easier if we could dig up all the rare stones submerged in the waters of the planets we have discovered so far.”
“So it is. Alicia, why don’t you turn your course towards the sea monsters?”
“I hate water. There must be a reason why superhuman seniors don’t apply to the Marine Monster Suppression Department, right? I want to follow in the footsteps of my predecessors.”
Isn’t there a saying that people go back to dust when they die? The same goes for animals and plants.
The mana stored in various life forms is absorbed into the soil, and rainwater carries the mana stored in the soil to the sea.
Therefore, deep rivers and seas had a higher mana concentration than the surroundings, so it was a good condition for rare stones to be created.
However, it was difficult to mine rare stones sunk in the deep sea. Since rare stones are very sensitive, a skilled miner must carefully dig them out using equipment called a ‘mana drill’.
Not only was it difficult to send thousands of miners into the water, but it was also difficult to use equipment underwater.
Of course, the biggest problem is the powerful monsters that were created with high mana concentration as food.
Dante, observing the film floating on the screen, asked a question.
“Here, Doctor. What’s that at the bottom?”
“A copy of the Mana Scanner. I scanned the mana remaining on the monster’s corpse. Mana doesn’t disappear when you die. You can infer from this scan. Which ones to touch and which ones not to touch.”
“ah… … .”
Grace gave a more detailed explanation for Dante’s first visit to the slaughterhouse.
“If you look in the center over there, you can see the mana gathered in the shape of a bag, right?”
“Yes, I can see it.”
“That’s a poison gland. 99.9 percent chance.”
“What about the other 0.1 percent?”
“No one knows. That’s why we need a competent wizard.”
T-ring T-ring.
With a short alarm sound, the center of the ceiling slowly sank.
Each corner was fixed with chains, and a monster corpse was placed in the center.
‘Wow, great.’
A monster you only see in documentaries is right in front of you.
Dante’s heart was pounding.
Meanwhile, Alicia opened her mouth.
“Looks like a pink dolphin mutant? The snout resembles a star-nosed mole, and the back resembles a devil starfish.”
Grace, who nodded, also asked Dante a question.
“Dante. What do you think?”
“I agree with the pink dolphin mutation and the devil starfish. But the snout is more like a flytrap sea anemone than a star-nosed mole.”
“Is it okay? Are you usually interested?”
“ah… … I like documentaries, so I watch them often.”
The beautiful and mysterious figure of the pink dolphin was nowhere to be found. There was only a hideous monster with a body length of 15m and a height of 3m.
Karum, who had entered the dissection room, carefully inspected the monster. Except for both hands, the whole body was clad in clunky equipment.
He looked at the observation room and waved his hand.
Karum’s voice came through the speaker.
[ AA 09:00 on July 29, 549. The object of dissection is a new monster found on planet A0835. Rep. Carum Smith. Start. ]
‘It’s cool, mister.’
Dante checked the mana of the monstrous creature in front of him with magic.
As Grace said, there was still mana left in the corpse. A strong poisonous pattern can be seen on the spines on the back that rise like chestnut clusters.
‘Looks like a demon starfish. Seeing that the thorns have strong poison… … .’
It was also fun to compare the mana scan and the actual corpse.
‘Your mana scan is very accurate… … .’
Since he had already died, there was almost no flow of mana.
‘But what is that?’
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Dante concentrated more and raised mana to the corner of his eye. It’s so easy to pull it up with your eyes. Why is it so difficult to move to another part… … .
anyway.
Examine the corpse once again with more enhanced magic.
‘eww. Do you think this will make you vomit?’
Every path where mana flows was filled with black grains. It was so small that it was impossible to determine with the naked eye.
“Doctor.”
“huh?”
“That corpse. Because the mana path is full of black powder? Seeing for the first time in my life… … .”
“what?”
Grace stunned and ran to the table where the microphone was.
“Karum! stop! wait for a sec. Don’t touch me, just turn around and leave. hurry.”
Dante was very upset.
‘… … how. What’s going on?’