kscans

Chapter 48 - Chapter 6. Carnival

A single flower, arranged in a water jug, sat upon the thick table.

An unusual splash of color decorated the laboratory. But with the three of us gathered there, an old man, an athletic type, and myself, there was no way we could strike any kind of balance. Besides, the flower itself was just another piece of experimental material.

To my eyes, it was just a purple flower, but I imagine to someone with the right kind of sight, it would appear to glow faintly.

I pictured the genetically modified plants I had seen in my former world, the ones that emitted a green fluorescence. Come to think of it, Green Fluorescent Protein, or GFP, was a major Japanese discovery. It allows you to visualize specific proteins or cells within a living organism. It was a revolution in biology.

What we were about to do was similar, though not nearly as complex a technique. If anything, it was closer to that elementary school experiment where you have a flower suck up ink-colored water. To put it in more difficult terms, it was a pharmacokinetics test on an animal subject.

"Making me do your strange bidding again. Surely you're not unaware of how precious even a fragment of a magic crystal is." Fulsy said, rattling the water jug. Man, that 'Sage' title is convenient.

"Oh, come now. You were quite eager to help, weren't you?"

"Hmph. I just happened to feel like it," Fulsy said with a wry smile.

"...The Sage is actually helping you," Dalgan muttered under his breath.

"No, no, it's just that this is completely beyond my abilities. Think of it as an industry-academia collaboration."

From an outsider's perspective, it looked like I was ordering around a teacher and an upperclassman. This is not a good look for me.

"Stop using words I don't understand. Fine, whatever. The bird's ready."

"The flower has been soaking in water with a magic crystal fragment for three days now. It should be well suffused with magic," the two of them said, looking at me. It was time to begin the experiment.

"First, let's confirm that the pollen has been marked with magic."

I took the purple flower from Fulsy, removed a stamen, and tapped the pollen onto a sheet of black paper that reacts to magic. After a moment, I brushed the pollen away. The spot where it had been was now exposed, a bright white mark on the paper.

"Looks like it worked."

"Heh heh heh. An experiment like this would be impossible without the sensitivity of my specially made paper," Fulsy puffed out his chest with pride. He was right. The sensitivity of his custom magic-reactive paper was an order of magnitude higher than standard paper. Without it, we could never have detected such a faint trace of magic. Dalgan tilted his head.

"I've heard of pollen being poisonous, but what's this supposed to tell us?"

"Well, what I want to find out is whether this pollen's poison affects the nervous system."

By marking the pollen with absorbed magic and feeding it to a bird, we could track the magic to see where the poison was carried inside the body. It was the same principle as administering a drug marked with a radioactive isotope to an animal and tracking its movement via radiation.

"Huh. Never heard of a method like that. Magic really is something else."

"Don't worry, this is the first I've heard of this method, too. As always, where do you even get these ideas..." Fulsy tapped his temple, but it was clear the look in his eyes had changed.

"I'll say this once. It's just a common plant, not some magic tree. The magic will dissipate quickly."

"If it lasts two or three hours, I think we'll be fine."

"It's dead," Fulsy said, poking the quail-sized bird we had fed the pollen to. Poisoning a small animal isn't a pleasant feeling, but it couldn't be helped.

"Dalgan-senpai, if you would."

"...Yeah. Leave it to me."

Dalgan didn't look too well, either. That was only natural, seeing as his own product, a foodstuff, had been poisoned. I felt guilty about that, too. But neither I nor Fulsy had the skill to butcher a bird. Dalgan drew the butchering knife he had brought with him.

Like a master chef filleting a fish, he removed the various organs from the small bird with fluid, practiced movements. He arranged them on a thin sheet of glass, keeping them as close to their original positions as possible, then placed the glass on the black paper. All that was left was to wait.

Judging by the reaction time of the pollen, it wouldn't take long.

"...That's odd."

Looking at the results, I tilted my head. The digestive tract glowing was to be expected. But the pollen was still in its stomach. Digestion had barely begun. Then why did it die? Could it be like potassium cyanide, turning toxic upon reacting with stomach acid...

"The other spot that lit up is this small organ. There seem to be several of them. What is this..." Fulsy wondered aloud. The black paper showed six or so white patches, shaped like uninflated balloons.

"Ah, it's no surprise you don't know. Those are air sacs. They're like bags attached to the lungs. Don't taste good, though," Dalgan explained, ever the butcher. Huh, so these are air sacs. This is the first time I've seen them. After all, mammals don't have them. The trachea and esophagus are connected, but if food got into the lungs that easily, birds would constantly be suffocating. So, did it work like potassium cyanide, reaching the stomach first and then acting as a gas?

No, pollen is a powder, light enough to be carried by the wind. Hmm...

"In the end, there was no reaction in the nervous system," I noted, confirming that the areas beneath the brain and along the spine remained black. I felt a small wave of relief.

"I'm sorry, senpai. For making you do such an unpleasant task." I said to Dalgan as he washed the blood from his hands. His face still looked a little pale, which I noticed only because he was usually so vibrant.

"Nah, it's nothing. More importantly, was it useful?"

"Yes. Now that we know the pollen's poison affects the respiratory system, one of my main worries has been put to rest." If it had been fenthion, the nervous system would have been impaired. But these results showed the battle was over long before the nerves were ever affected.

"Well, I'm used to seeing dead birds. It has been a while since I killed one myself, though... It just brought back a bad memory."

"A bad memory?"

"Yeah. From when I was eight, the first time I had to kill a bird." I suppose the heir to a meat company can't afford to be unable to kill an animal, but that was some spartan upbringing.

"Being just a kid, I couldn't bring myself to do it cleanly. In the end, before I could even use the knife, I just strangled it. The way this bird died... it was exactly the same."

"I see."

The air sacs were like pumps attached to the lungs. The poison acted on them, causing it to suffocate.

"We've waited quite a while, but there's still no reaction in the brain or spine," Fulsy announced.

"Thank you. With this, I'm certain."

That was as far as we could go. We had determined the bird's cause of death. While I couldn't prove it wasn't toxic to humans, it was probably safe.

"I'll arrange the honey transaction as quickly as possible. I'll have enough for your prototypes delivered by tomorrow. Please consider it a thank you for today's help. Is there anything you require, Director?"

"Hmph. The knowledge that magic can be used in this way is payment enough."

It was valuable knowledge, but since I lacked the means to execute it myself, there was no harm in the Director knowing. It wasn't my original technique anyway, merely an application of existing principles.

"You're a generous man, Vinder. Alright then, let's eat."

Dalgan, now fully recovered, trotted over to his bags. He pulled out a bundle and set it on the table where the bird's carcass had been moments before. As he unwrapped it, a savory aroma filled the lab. Wait a minute, is that...

"Yakitori...?"

"Mmm-hmmm..."

We all groaned at the sight of the skewered meat, which was wrapped in leaves that resembled bamboo.

"This is how we ward off bad luck in the meat business," Dalgan declared, chomping down on a skewer. I see, aversion therapy. Swept up by his vigor, Fulsy and I also reached for the meat.

"Well, I mean, it is delicious," I managed to say. I thought I wouldn't want to look at meat for the rest of the day, but humans are animals too. Our response to food is apparently hardwired. Still, my stomach felt a little queasy.

"This makes me want some wine," Fulsy mused. So in the end, I'm the one with the weakest constitution, huh...

"Ricardo-kun. I heard you were in here... Eek! Wh-what is all this..."

Alfina, who had gone to the trouble of entering through the library, covered her mouth as she took in the carnage of the laboratory. Behind her, Clau, Maria, and even Mia filed in.

What the ladies saw were three men eating yakitori next to the dismembered corpse of a bird. Fulsy was sipping wine, and Dalgan was in the middle of a lecture on how to prepare various parts of a bird, gesturing with a skewer at the dissected body.

Stuck between them, I sat with a skewer still in my mouth. This is pure chaos.

"Ahem, ahem. So, the Grand Duke of the East refuses to listen. In other words, he wants no interference in the governance of Kurtheite." Fulsy said, hastily putting away his wine cup to listen to Alfina. The glare from Claudia behind her was even more terrifying.

"However, Duke Grynisias did say he would at least keep an eye on the situation, in case something happens."

"How are things with the guild?" I asked Maria, who, even after witnessing that gruesome scene, maintained her calm and gentle expression.

"I did what I could as the Food Guild. I supplied the villages around Kurtheite with food at a slight discount, and I pestered the new head of the Calest Company... I managed to disrupt their logistics a little and delay their rock salt shipments. Neither is what I'd call sufficient, though."

"You have done wonderfully. As the one entrusted with the prophecy, I offer you my deepest thanks," Alfina said, commending the members of Central Garden. Including the initial analysis, this success was truly their achievement.

In the end, they had managed to leave a small reserve in Kurtheite's salt stores, which were supposed to have been empty. They had also slightly improved the food situation in the surrounding villages.

Was it enough? Of course not, the situation remained precarious. But their speed was impeccable. As for my own efforts, however...

"Ultimately, we can't take direct action without knowing the true nature of the disaster."

I scratched my head. We had considered various disasters that could befall Kurtheite, but no solid hypothesis had emerged. Even when we came up with one, we had no way to verify it. A landslide was the best we could guess.

That day, we cleaned up under the somewhat cold gazes of the women and went our separate ways.

◇◇

Several days later, news reached the Royal Capital that Kurtheite had been isolated by a giant magical beast that had appeared out of nowhere.

Helpless, all I could do was watch as the Second Knight Order departed for the east. A dragon suddenly attacking and cutting off all traffic around Tuvil Mountain. Who could have possibly predicted that?