Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 138: The Truth of Blithe

Sevren Denoir

I stepped over a protruding wire as it weaved through the grass like a serpent, then avoided a table I'd hastily set up to hold my miscellaneous tools. I huffed as the limp right arm of my protective suit nearly got caught on the table.

I was trudging up one of the rolling hills that surrounded the small slice of a town, making my way to my main testing area. I'd situated myself on a plateau that loomed above the rest of the area.

I adjusted my garb with a grumble, noting the stuffy full mask and air-tight seals. I'd almost forgotten to put on full mana protective gear in my haste to complete this next test, and I'd needed to fetch it from my main store of supplies back at the main house. The baggy clothing was stiflingly hot, but I didn't know what would happen as a result of this next test. The small mana beast that I held in my other arm stared blankly forward, its scaled rodent snout twitching.

I stared to the side as I finally entered the walled enclosure I'd created. On a nearby table, the results of my last experiment revealed themselves.

Toren had told me of what Mardeth had been doing in his experiments, and I'd begrudgingly realized I would need to perform a mimicry and observe the effects for true understanding. Seeing as I couldn't–and wouldn't–use people to test the blithe I had stolen, I'd needed to use the next best thing.

Mardeth had gone out of his way to use unadorned to test his sick serum instead of mages, and that distinction felt important. All people in Alacrya had cores, but an unad's was inert and dull, the mana within charged with energy but not a live wire. To try and mimic that effect, I'd used a frozen skaunter corpse with a beast core within.

The scaled rodents were a staple in modern science for testing, at least among the researchers who couldn't afford to corral men and women into their sick schemes. I scoffed internally at the thought. Most of the prominent researchers I'd interacted with viewed testing on skaunters as a sign one was poor and could not afford a slave to experiment on.

I banished those thoughts from my mind as I carefully set down the white skaunter in my hands on another table. It didn't fight and didn't resist as its legs hit the pristine metal surface, looking up at me with dull eyes.

I carefully strapped the skaunter's legs to the table, the task monotonous and difficult with one hand. As the leather straps cinched around the beast's legs, it began to shuffle a bit nervously. I stroked it on the head, cooing slightly to calm it down. It eventually settled back, trusting me.

I grit my teeth and turned away from the mana beast, quietly acknowledging the horror that was about to happen to it. I strode over to the table of my last experiment, my eyes roaming over the mutilated body. I struggled to restrain my disgust, fearing I might retch inside of my suit.

I'd injected the dead beast's core with the barest application of blithe, knowing that I barely had any of the substance to spare. The mana within a beast core was similarly dormant as a non-mage's, and sure enough, I'd seen results.

It took a long time for the effects to spread. But spread they had. The red-green substance had gradually mutated the mana within, devouring the latent mana at a brutally slow pace. Once it had fully corrupted the core, the substance, as if it had a mind of its own, traveled along the mana channels and veins of the corpse, twisting and warping everything in its path.

It had taken a painfully long time for the substance to fully spread, mutating itself along the way. Yet the results were clear.

Boils and cysts of caustic green and red substance had bubbled all along the corpse's body before bursting, the sludge that exploded forth decaying everything it touched with a putrid sizzle.