Cain walked with Chad to the flesh lab. They left Sofia with Alice, as Cain wanted to check what was inside first.
The first thing they noticed inside the room was the horrid smell of rotten flesh. “This is bad!” Chad said covering his nose.
Cain on the other hand seemed fine. He slowly walked toward the jars on the shelves. Organs, severed limbs, and herbs. They were all preserved with ice magic inside the jars.
“Cain look!” Chad called Cain from the corner. There was a chair with a rotten corpse on it.
The corpse seemed to belong to a man, Cain couldn’t guess his age by how disfigured the corpse was. “They might have experimented on him, let’s put him to rest first.” Cain quickly sucked the man’s corpse into the maze. That was the easier way to take him back to Furberg.
“What kind of chair is this?” Chad inspected the chair where the corpse was sitting.
The chair was made of wood and steel with multiple hollow needles on it. It was made so the needles will penetrate the thighs, arms, and back to deliver drugs. They even had straps and belts to keep the victim tied up.
“Disturbing right? If you want to start hating everyone then look underneath the chair.”
Upon hearing Cain’s words, Chad flipped the chair and looked. His eyes opened wide as he growled. “This thing belongs to the church?”
“I’m pretty sure the witches just stole it but this doesn’t change the fact that churches are manufacturing those things. Also, let me be clear, not all churches are the same as we have multiple gods. Furberg’s church is pretty chill compared to other places.” Cain explained.
“All the churches I’ve seen looked nice and welcoming, and I visited a lot so it’s hard to believe.” Chad as he looked at the chair in disgust.
“Well, they need to keep a good appearance to draw new believers. But with multiple gods and valid religions, the churches have become more aggressive in their seeking of validation.” Cain walked toward the door.
“They won’t use such things on believers from other religions since that can spark a war. But they have no problem using force against their own believers who wanted to change religion and call them heretics. They also attack people who are religion-less and wanted to join a religion other than what they (The local church) support” Cain opened the door.
The two of them then walked to the breeding room. Cain held the doorknob tightly, “Please be empty, I don’t want to seem the mess…” When Cain opened the door, he sighed in relief, the room was empty.
“Ok let’s move on!” Cain quickly closed the door. “Wait what was supposed to be there?” Chad asked.
“Do you really need me to spell it out for you? This is called the breeding room. It’s a room where the witches breed their test subjects to make more, whether they were lad rats or lab humans…” Cain quickly walked to the other room.
The ritual room was empty as well, the witches must have been focusing on their flesh experiment at this time.
As Cain expected, the alchemy lab was functioning. Several concoctions were slowly brewing above the stove. [Telekinesis] Cain smashed all the concoctions down with magic.
If the man they experimented on died, that meant their experiment was already set to fail. A good indicator of failure in flesh experiments is the well-being of the test subject. As most flesh experiments are carried on in search of a good effect on the body, you would expect the test subject to not be harmed if it’s successful.
A good example of a flesh experiment was Cain as he was investigating the high human evolution. He only used a little of his own blood and herbs to carry out the research on himself. It was such a smooth process that it looked like a late-night hobby to his wives.
Cain and Chad then went to check the storage room, Cain smiled as he saw it filled with rare herbs and ingredients. “What a find!” He immediately sucked everything into the maze.
The library was also filled with a lot of books and scrolls. Magic, alchemy, witchcraft, medicine, monster anatomy, and even some books about cults. To Cain was even more valuable.
“Cain, I have finished healing them!” Alice called him from the slave room. “I’m coming, I will open a gate for you.” Cain rushed toward the slave room.
“Are they fine?” Cain stared at the slaves as they covered themselves with a blanket that Sofia brought from the rooms above.
“They will be fine, I healed their wounds. All they need now is ample rest and some time to deal with the mental wounds.” Alice said with a smile.
“W-what happened…to the witch?” One of the slaves gathered his courage to speak up.
Cain stared at him, “Dead, we killed them all. Rest assured, you will be sent to rest and recover.”
The slave didn’t know how to reply or feel about all of this. It felt surreal. He felt that he will wake up from the dream the moment he smiled.
[Arcane Gate] Cain opened a door for them, “Alice, lead them back home and ask Leon to prepare a place for them to rest. They are victims of the silent snow quest so the guild should cover the expenses.” Cain explained.
This should have laid this quest to rest. Even with this Cain didn’t feel any different. The main objective was to take revenge for his foster parents but he felt nothing. Probably since he didn’t manage to kill any of the witches. Sofia killed the daughter and Chad killed the two parents, Cain practically did nothing.
“This what I get for stalling down. Damn it, all I wanted was to get some info about why they were attacking everyone.” Cain walked toward the last three rooms.
‘Time to inspect those and see what they were up to, I can just ask that witch later.’ Cain thought as he opened the door to the daughter’s private room.
It was both messy and smelly, didn’t she know how to clean it? Even so, it was probably the most pleasing room to be in. A few dirty clothes to the side and piles of unorganized books and paper were a blessing to see in such a place. It wouldn’t be strange if he found human corpses inside.
Cain inspected every nook and cranny of the room. He was certain of one thing, the daughter was obsessed with magic. The way she studied magic and kept notes of it resembled that of a mage more than a witch. Probably even if she wasn’t born a witch, she could have been a successful mage in she lived in different conditions.
Cain then went to inspect the father’s private room. The man seemed to be the one carrying the human experiments most of the time. The clear indicator was a human hand resting on his counter. He must have been working on it just before trying to attack them.
As Cain went through the father’s notes he found something interesting. ‘Humans are incomplete creatures, they still lack something.’
‘He seems to have been slowly catching on to the existence of something beyond normal humans. He was most likely tracking the existence of high humans but took a bad route in doing it.’ With how little progress the father has made if Cain didn’t already know that high humans existed. He would think the father was chasing dreams and rainbows.
“Let’s go check the mother’s room. I want to know what that woman was up to.” Said Cain as he walked out of the room. Chad chased after him in silence.