Within the walls of the body tempering facility, a dwarf could be seen walking left and right. The look on his face was in pure panic, as if something disastrous had happened.
"Why is he not here yet?!" The dwarf hissed to himself, as he clenched his knuckles in anger.
Right after he said that, two of his staff were seen walking into the room, carrying a motionless body on a stretcher. Seeing that, the dwarf finally stopped walking here and there.
"Just put it on top of that table, and remember, not a word to anyone!"
"Yes, Master." Knowing the other party's temper, the two staff walked away in a hurry after doing as they were instructed.
"This can't possibly be my fault, right?! Yes, yes…" muttered the dwarf to particularly no one.
"This is the kid's fault… Darn it! How should I explain this?! I need to think quickly, or else my fate is doomed!"
The dwarf slammed his fist onto the table, causing the body lying on it to shake.
He kept on thinking, racking his brain in search of a solution for quite a while. All of a sudden, he heard the footsteps of someone and looked over. There, he saw that he had a visitor. It was another dwarf with an overgrown beard.
When he saw the dwarf, Master Dulin's expression turned into joy for a moment, but as soon as the latter came close, he cried in despair.
"Brother. Quick help me, brother… I am in trouble… a big, big trouble."
The other dwarf gestured to ask what exactly happened, hence Master Dulin quickly explained the situation. After he was done explaining, his face changed drastically when he saw his 'brother' could only shake his head.
"Well, you were not doing anything out of the ordinary, right…?"
"Errr… Actually…"
The other dwarf erupted when he finally knew the entire picture of what had happened. "You stupid pigtroll! How could you think of doing experiments on a privileged class acolyte?!"
"Brother, please, help me! I can't lose my master title!" Master Dulin cried out in tears.
"Dulin, you know as well as I do that we dwarves will never get a fair trial. You would be counted extremely lucky if your body does not get cut shorter by a head because of this!"
The red-bearded dwarf's face turned pale with the thought of punishment pictured by this brother of his.
The latter pinched his forehead and rubbed it together, frustrated by the mistake the former had made and by the possible consequences. "Okay, did you check the family he was from, then?"
"Ah, yes, yes I did, brother! He is from a lower world, no one important! I think no one would miss him."
"What are you on about?!" He shouted in anger. "There is no such thing as an unimportant person in the privileged class!"
The red bearded dwarf was confused, but there was no more use listening to his brother. In fact, he had already thought of a way – a brilliant one in his book.
"You are right, brother. I think we should just destroy the body. That way, no one will know what happened here!" Master Dulin said happily, as if the problem was solved, before he rushed towards a shelf at the corner of the room.
Seeing that, the other dwarf became even angrier.
"Dulin, you bumbling moron! I never said that!"
The red bearded dwarf had already climbed onto the shelf and was now holding a bottle of red-colored liquid that smelled like metal. It was a powerful poison that could destroy any kind of substances, especially suitable for disposing of corpses.
The brother quickly rushed over to stop his foolish sibling from making this already bad problem even worse. After confirming the latter had put the poison bottle on the shelf again, he then took a look at the table.
It was this time he finally saw the corpse's face, his eyes suddenly widened in shock.
"This… this kid…"
Confused by his brother's reaction, Master Dulin turned his eyes to the body and asked, "What is it, brother? Is he famous or something? I thought you never cared to find out about human activity at all!"
The long-bearded dwarf took a deep breath, looked at his brother and said.
"This kid, not only was he the two-time magus game champion… He is… He's also my official disciple!" He yelled.
"….."
The red-bearded dwarf's face paled, and his face turned awkward. He was barely able to keep himself from trembling in fear of what his mistake truly meant.
"Hahaha, good one, brother Grom…" The dwarf let out an awkward laugh, as his eyes darted to the corpse on the table, in hopes that it would stir at any second. "You are just joking, right…?"
"Why would I joke at a time like this?!" Master Grom yelled at his brother. "This is Emery Ambrose, he is a rank 3 apothecary acolyte under my care. You just killed my disciple!"
"Well… I am sorry… It was unintentional! Really… Fortunately you never really care about your students, right…?"
"Darn it! Now, not only Minerva will kill me, the most important thing is, me as his master being here now would just look like I forced my disciple to take part in my brother's foolish experiment! Now both our heads are going down. All because of your stupid mistake!"
The sheer shock made the red-bearded dwarf suddenly tear up like a little kid frightened by a ghost story.
Master Grom, however, was undaunted. He walked towards his disciple's corpse, examined it for a bit and said.
"What a sad fate, you were my student and you died by my brother's hand. And now you dragged me into death along with you…"
"Brother, what should we do?!"
"What else can we do?! Burn the body and leave no trace!"
"Alright then, I shall do that!" Dulin said passionately, as he picked up the poison from the table yet again.
"What do you think you are doing?! Dammit, I cannot leave this to a moron like you!"
Master Grom picked up the body and was about to hoist it onto his back, right as he felt something was strange with the body.
Turning his eyes to his foolish brother, Master Grom opened his mouth.
"Dulin! How long ago did you say he died?"
"Ah, erm…" The dwarf glanced at the body. "Right now, it's been almost three hours."
"Are you sure?" Master Grom asked again, to which Master Dulin nodded. "Then, why is his body still warm?!"
The two looked at each other,p and Master Grom quickly shouted. "Bring him into the tube, now!"
As if afraid, Master Dulin quickly helped prepare the unique apothecary chamber and hoisted the body inside. As blue liquid filled the chamber, the two masters rushed to run various tests onto it.
"You bumbling moron! How can't you tell that he is still alive?!"
"Brother, that cannot be! He… His heart and brain, both of them have already stopped! I am sure of it, I even checked it myself!" Dulin answered in panic, as he realized what he had just planned: kill someone who was still alive.
"You are right, he died in the sense that his soul was severed from his body, but…" Master Grom fiddled with the apothecary tube controls and looked into the body even closely.
"This… There is no other explanation. His consciousness is still there, protected by the core!"
"But brother! He's only a rank 8 acolyte… How could he manage to separate the soul and not die!'
"Huh! How would I know! Bring out all your best potions! We must not let this kid die, for both our sakes"
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Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v..e.l,