Chapter 53: Underground Labyrinth (3)
Gulp.
“Huu…”
After having another mouthful of vodka, BM barely managed to regain his composure. Returning to the desk, he sat down on his chair.
“Sorry, but I think you got the wrong person.”
“…”
“…A lie like that probably wouldn’t work. Who are you? A superhuman? Or maybe a demon?”
“What do you think.”
“From your appearance that looks very heinous, I would say a demon.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Is that so?”
Underneath the pair of sunglasses, BM gazed at the ceiling. After his pupils vanished behind the top eyelid, a different iris of a reptile appeared from the bottom of his eyes.
[Wyvern’s Eye (A)]
Wyvern’s eyes that could distinguish the identity of its target had been added onto BM’s eyeball. After staring at Yu Jitae for a long time, BM tilted his head.
“Do you see anything?”
“…Well, who knows.”
BM took another sip of vodka.
His pair of sunglasses was a Level 3 artifact, and was a top level object that completely denied others from seeing past it. Yu Jitae had seen through that and yet he spoke as if it wasn’t anything difficult.
Despite realising all that, BM remained composed. Being a top level powerhouse worldwide, he had the right to.
“Anyways, yes. I am BM. I don’t really want to hear my real name so please refrain from using it.”
The Regressor stared at the drunkard before him.
He was a very unique person. That wasn’t limited to the Regressor’s image of him, and that was how the entire world viewed the man.
“So what brings you here?”
“I want to use the ‘inner room’ of the underground labyrinth a bit.”
“The inner room? Do you even know what’s in there? Ahh, I guess you knew who I was so… and how long do you need it for.”
“A few months will do.”
“For what purpose.”
“There are some people that need to be tied up.”
BM always drank alcohol, and never stayed in one place for a long time. He would take part in large events but would vanish soon after as if nothing happened.
That was the same for the upcoming future as well. After roughly 20 years from now, when the Second Great War breaks out, he would appear like a comet and kill the monsters while protecting the people from the ancient beasts. That was what he did in all the iterations that he survived in.
Yu Jitae glanced around the room. Limbs and segments of organisms were submerged in liquids inside incubators while horrendous hearts beated on. He could also see some claws that grew longer and longer.
Although he was carrying out experiments like this behind the curtains, he was still on the side of the humans.
“A few months is too long. I can agree up to 30 days. But, I’m a fairly strict guy, and I don’t enjoy negotiations.”
“30 days won’t be enough. It might take up to half a year.”
“Your ears must be clogged. 25 days.”
BM spoke while looking into the man’s eyes.
“…Let’s have a chat. Aren’t there things that you need?”
“There are. There are lots. But those things don’t exist in this world.”
“What if I have those?”
“20 days.”
BM gave a frown.
“Didn’t I tell you that I dislike negotiations?”
“…”
“Even 30 days is a compensation for the consideration of my chimera’s head.”
While saying that, BM reached out. From the head of the ogre-type chimera that was on the floor, spider legs came out and walked onto the table with its own legs.
“Doing this much with a trespasser is enough of a consideration in my opinion.”
“You say as if this is your house.”
“15 days. Do local cats fight turf wars after receiving permission from the government?”
“…”
“You keep on trying to ignore my goodwill. Do you want to use 15 days or no.”
There was no response.
His head was tilted. The moment BM noticed a slight sharpness in the man’s previously hazy gaze, the man gave a wide sneer. It looked like the man was smiling, but at the same time wasn’t.
‘What, is he getting angry?’ thought BM, as he squinted his eyes.
After throwing another glance at the surroundings, the man stood up from his seat without a word. His facial expression had returned to an indifferent look but the sinister smile he showed for a slight second remained in a corner of BM’s head.
Gulp, gulp…
He was about to stand up in a stagger after having a drink of vodka, but that was when the man reached out at the table and picked up the chimera’s head before throwing it at the incubator.
Clank–!
The incubator shattered in an instant.
“…”
BM’s eyes twitched.
“Oi, what do you think you’re…”
The man reached his hand out yet again. With a nonchalant attitude, he raised an empty bottle of vodka and threw it at the incubator next to the previous one. Large containers of glass shattered and exploded in all directions. The liquid scattered and a heart that had been beating inside the liquid dropped onto the dirty ground of the labyrinth before fluttering and having a dust bath.
“Oi.”
BM called him with a slightly agitated voice.
These were equipment made by BM over the course of 20 years, and the research data had been gained with the dedication of his entire life. Just for one ‘miracle’, he had been avoiding people, rejected wealth and honour, and ended up with these treasures.
Chink–!
Such treasures were being shattered by the man.
“Why, go on with your nonsense. 10 days, 5 days. Blabber on.”
“Oi… You bastard. Stop right now!”
That attitude, expression and voice suggesting that this wasn’t anything significant, was so disparate from common sense that he couldn’t react immediately. BM only raised his body after the man finished throwing five bottles, and was reaching for the sixth.
“You will regret it.”
“…”
“I don’t even feel like using you as an experiment material now.”
He couldn’t hold it back anymore.
His body itself had gone through a chimera experiment. The moment he decided to rush in, wings similar to a bat’s surged out from his back. At the same time, his hairs clumped up into snakes, while his right arm turned reddish-black in colour while doubling in length and thickness.
[Ahillia’s Curse (AA+)]
A right arm of the baron of the demon world, Ahillia, that had driven the world into fear during the Great War. Tremendous amount of demonic aura gathered onto BM’s right arm. A blackish blue smoke surrounded his arm, and had the ability to ‘dissolve’ anything it touched to mana.
After rushing in, BM assaulted Yu Jitae.
Kwakwakwang–!
It was a miss.
The man had already dodged it, and when the labyrinth’s floor touched BM’s hand, it crushed like a mirage. It had returned to its mana state, and had lost its ability to restore itself.
“Let’s see if you can dodge it agai…”
But that was when something strange occurred. The moment he turned around and looked into the man’s eyes, his body started turning stiff from head to toe.
“…!”
As if he was drowning in a swamp of gooey mud, his body refused to listen to his brain. Was it an illusion type magic? Slowly but surely, BM raised his hand and closed it into a fist. The fingers were irritatingly slow but nonetheless his fingernails soon started digging into his palm. Black blood oozed out as pain struck him.
This wasn’t a mere illusion.
The ‘blood of a demon race’ flowing inside his body was extremely nervous.
But why? It was his first time experiencing something like this, and BM couldn’t even guess the cause.
Meanwhile, the man raised a two-handed axe rolling around on the floor and walked up to the incubators without hesitation before recklessly starting to break them.
“…”
He had no choice but to stay back and watch. Every time one of the incubators exploded, BM felt like something precious within his heart was breaking together.
“Hey, hey!”
The movement of the axe stopped from the urgent voice.
BM had no idea what was happening. Who was the man; why was he so strong; why is he doing this; and why couldn’t he move? There was nothing clear about the situation.
However, there was one certain fact. An emotion which he had forgotten recently was soaring back up. It was a sense of helplessness that appeared from seeing an unreachable, powerful being.
“I got it.”
“What?”
“I got it. I lost, so calm down now.”
“…”
“I’ll give it to you – the inner room of the labyrinth. You can use it for as long as you want, and if you want me to, I can give you the entire labyrinth.”
“…”
“So just stop. Please.”
Now he was ready for a conversation. Like always, complicated problems would be easily solved with the fist. Yu Jitae randomly tossed the axe away, and after rotating several times, it landed on the floor of the labyrinth.
“Alright.”
There was something he became curious about.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Huh? Ahh, yeah anything.”
“What were you doing here.”
He looked at the muscular tissues and segments of organisms that had been inside the incubators before he broke them.
“They look quite messy. Doesn’t look like you’re carrying out a normal experiment, and it’s overly complex for a simple chimera.”
“…You know chimeras as well?”
“I do. But I have no idea what you’re trying to make.”
In the previous iterations, he had only glanced past them.
“It’s nothing too great… I, I just want to make a human-type chimera.”
Making a human-type chimera?
He turned back to the parts of the organisms.
Unfortunately, those were the wrong ingredients and it was an incorrect method. There were several traces of some deep contemplation, but there were places that were out of joint, and it was impossible to make a human-type chimera with those.
BM apparently misunderstood his silence, because the creation of a human-type chimera was deemed a taboo in all the worlds where magic existed.
He waved his two hands.
“No, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not doing this with an evil mind. I’m not thinking of impersonating someone, killing someone in disguise, or using it for some dirty lust.”
“Then what.”
“It’s just… As a mortal, anyone is scared of death right. I was thinking of making a clone of myself.”
Then, he forcibly gave an awkward smile.
The authenticity hanging on [Eyes of Equilibrium (SS)] was false.
It was a lie.
Yu Jitae felt his intrigue cooling down. In fact, whatever BM was making had no relation to himself. He had never heard of BM successfully making something till the very end of the third and the fourth iterations, so he made a rough guess that it would probably fail this time as well.
“I’m planning on using the inner room from three months to one year. I’ll drop by regularly.”
“Whatever that pleases you. And the number of people that will be entering it?”
“One living armour, and one female superhuman. They’re both not in a good condition. They’re under mental contamination.”
“Mental contamination?… Well, okay.”
When Yu Jitae quietly stared at him, BM raised his arms up in a surrendering manner.
“…Fine, I’ll do a regular check up on them for you.”
Being a person that had confronted an army of the demon race, BM had some knowledge about ‘mental contamination’.
Meanwhile, BM was inwardly heaving out a sigh.
‘What a misfortune…’
After undoing [Ahillia’s Curse (AA+)], his body ironically became easier to move.
Should I use other things and fight?
The power he had used thus far was less than 10% of his full potential. He still had many other tools under his belt.
Should I fight with the resolve to die? If I bring in the final hidden chimera as well… but even an arm would be lost at least…
After having that thought flash past his head for a split second, BM once again let out a deep sigh. Whatever the outcome, it would be a loss.
“So your work’s all done?”
“For now.”
“By the way, what’s your name, mister?”
He thought for a bit before opening his mouth.
“Yu Jitae.”
Yu Jitae…
It was his first time hearing that name. Since that was the case for a ranker like himself, it meant that the man was definitely not an official world ranker.
BM had heard several times in the past, that there were powerhouses on the level of rankers that moved behind the scenes without sharing their identities. He had also heard rumours of how the strongest person from there could come close to the world’s official 1st ranker.
‘Come close my ass, damn it…’
BM shook his head.
He had fought against the world’s first ranker, but the man in front of him had a different ‘class’ as an existence.
“…I need alcohol, damn…”
It was then.
Yu Jitae threw a small glass bottle at BM.
“What’s this.”
“Rent fee.”
Talking about rent fees at this point felt slightly weird, but thinking that this was given by a man like him, BM couldn’t help but feel curiosity.
There was white liquid inside the yellow container splashing around. There weren’t any words written on the cover so he had to open it up first.
“At least you’re cultured… alcohol is always correct.”
But after opening the lid and smelling the liquid, BM had to doubt his own nose. His face turned stiff, as he turned to Yu Jitae with a straight face.
And with a voice that was a level lower, he spoke.
“Where, did you get this?”