—If the test confirmed his fears were true, what would he do?
What could he do?
End it all with a bullet? But would the family he had harmed even want to see him?
Perhaps he shouldn’t die.
But how could he face such a brutal reality? Clutching this panic in his heart, where could he possibly hide?
Outside the CDCS-AU instrument, Eva suddenly lifted her head. “He’s asleep? Did you give him a sedative on the way here?”
“What? No,” Faust said in surprise as he walked over to the observation window and peered at Ode, who had fallen into a deep slumber inside. “I gave him something to stimulate his vagus nerve. By all rights, he should be wired right now, like he’d downed a handful of stimulants.”
“His nerves are excited, all right,” Eva said, pulling up the brain scan window. “See these lit-up regions? They show he’s afraid, on high alert, full of sorrow, and utterly exhausted at the same time. For someone to slip into sleep amid all that fear and pain, it means his body just couldn’t keep him awake any longer.”
“He didn’t look tired at all on the road…” Faust’s phone buzzed. He swiped open the Intelligence Department file on Ode Douglas, his eyes lingering on the sections detailing the causes of death for his parents and grandfather. “Ah… I see. Poor kid.”
Ode slept deeply. He stirred to half-consciousness a few times, dimly hearing a man’s voice conversing with Eva, before someone scooped him up into their arms and carried him along a long, unsteady path.
“You think he fell asleep purely from exhaustion? I doubt it,” the man’s cool voice said. “Based on what you’ve described, if he were truly in a hostile environment that demanded vigilance, he could’ve forced himself to stay awake.”
“You think he trusts us that much? Igor?” Eva’s voice held an uncharacteristic gentleness.
“Of course,” Igor replied. “He hasn’t done a single wrong thing so far, has he? He saved everyone in Dreamcatcher Town. That little girl Lola keeps asking where he is.”
Eva let out a sigh. “He’s far too weak. His health metrics are hovering right at the passing line. Faust and I have been puzzling over it—after absorbing all that energy, he shows no mutation or obvious strengthening. There’s only one possibility…”
“Even after devouring huge quantities of the Colour Out of Space, Deep Ones, Dagon, Quachil Uttaus, and all those other nameless monsters, it still wasn’t enough to sate him. You know what that implies…”
No. He didn’t want to hear any more.
Even in his sleep, Ode fled, sinking into deeper, quieter depths. Not until his mind had fully recovered did his rigidly disciplined internal clock wake him on schedule.
He was no longer inside that large diagnostic machine. Instead, he lay on a simple but reasonably soft single bed. Sunlight poured in from the stone windowsill, wrapping him in a warm embrace that seemed to offer silent courage for whatever lay ahead.
“Awake?” Faust’s voice drifted from the other side of the room. Ode turned toward the sound and realized he must have been placed in one of the church rooms on GORCC’s surface level.
“The test results…” Ode rasped, startled by how raw his own voice sounded.
“Regrettably—” Faust drew out the word on purpose, “the CDCS-AU’s full scan puts all your metrics squarely in the human range. You, Ode Douglas, are a pure human, head to toe.”
“…What?” Ode’s heart plummeted, only to surge back up. In a frantic muddle, he shoved the blanket aside and sat bolt upright. “Impossible. Last night—I overheard Eva talking with her husband. They said—”
“That you’re not human anymore?” Faust brushed it off. “Ease up on the paranoia, kid. I promise you, if last night’s scan had pegged you as a monster, you wouldn’t be lounging in bed right now. You’d be six feet under.”
Faust struck another match and lit his cigar. Ode couldn’t shake the feeling that at this rate, the man would succumb to lung cancer long before he ever had a chance to wield alchemy with his life on the line.
“The data shows only one anomaly: your Charm Value. Even with Eva’s upgraded CDCS-AU, it couldn’t pin down an exact number… but that doesn’t make you inhuman.”
Ode opened his mouth to argue further.
Faust blew a puff of smoke in his direction, smirking. “When it comes to human or monster, you’d better take my word for it, brat. I hate monsters far more than whatever scant pity lingers in my heart.”
“If you don’t believe me, go ahead—see that Tindalos Hunting Rifle hanging on the wall next to you? Blast yourself with a burst from it. Only a human walks away unscathed from its shadow bullets—”
Thump!
Ode threw off the covers and leaped from the bed in one motion, his clothes disheveled and feet bare. Ignoring all decorum, he stumbled to the wall, yanked down the rifle, and—in the split second before a stunned Faust could stop him—leveled the barrel at himself.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed sharply. Less than half a second later, the bullet clattered harmlessly to the floor. Ode stood unharmed.
“…” Damn. Faust mouthed the word silently, cursing “madman” under his breath. “Had enough? Satisfied now?”
“…” Ode stood stock-still, panting raggedly, his gaze as blank as his thoughts.
“Hey, listen…” Faust clicked his tongue. “Eh, don’t cry.”
Ode looked up at Faust in bewilderment, only to find his vision blurred. He wiped at his face on instinct, realizing for the first time that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
He jerked his head away in a panic and scrubbed at his face again before fixing Faust with bloodshot eyes. “There’s serious business to discuss—and a favor I need to ask. But first, the business: that Old Madman who used Lola’s photo to lure me to the town…”
Faust listened as he chewed on his cigar, and even though he claimed to have little room left in his heart for pity, his eyes softened noticeably. “I figured your ‘serious business’ meant your grandfather’s body.”
“Bodies can’t hurt anyone, but the Old Madman can.” Ode only now registered the chill of the stone floor and sat calmly back on the edge of the bed. He didn’t notice the faint twitch in Faust’s expression after hearing “Bodies can’t hurt anyone, but the Old Madman can.” “…Where are my clothes? My shoes and socks?”
“It’s not cold. What’s the rush?” Faust quickly reined in his fleeting unease. He leaned forward in his armchair, elbows on his knees, watching Ode with evident amusement—the words “this is payback” practically written across his face. “I’ll send someone to look into the Old Madman—”
“No. If it’s not you going personally, then I’m going with your people.” Ode refused to let Faust’s scheme play out. He hopped off the bed again, pushed open the door, and asked a passing priest for shoes, socks, and clothes. “One of your men was already an Undercover Agent. He nearly got me killed. I don’t trust them.”
“That wasn’t…” Faust started to explain, then decided it wasn’t worth it. From the outcome, that fool of a minister’s plant had indeed put Ode in danger. “You know we can’t just grab him outright. We have to surveil for a bit, see if we can pull up the whole root with the radish.”
“Who’s better suited for it than me?” Ode flashed a smile at the priest, who was blushingly pressing a small bunch of grapes into his palm. He plucked off a plump, juicy grape and popped it into his mouth before turning back to the speechless Faust. “You’ve seen what my ‘charm’ can accomplish. Send me, and we might not even waste time on surveillance—”
“No.” Faust met his eyes steadily, his refusal brooking no argument. “You just came off the battlefield. You’re not fit for nonstop action. But I do have an alternative. Did the last version of me you met invite you to join GORCC? Did he offer to buy your ancestral home as incentive?”
Ode paused midway through buttoning his coat. A fragmented memory flickered to life before his eyes.
In the memory—some loop, most likely the first one—he sat in Faust’s office, clutching an appointment letter. “I don’t think—”
The Faust from the memory circled him leisurely, cigar clenched between his teeth. “Your opinion doesn’t matter.”
Still supporting his waist from the Spinal Replacement Surgery, Ode pressed on. “…If I may be frank, my career goal is a civil service position.”
“You would’ve seen from my resume just how abysmal my physical education scores are.”
“Me, a special agent? …Does the job come with a complimentary gravesite?”
Faust shrugged indifferently. “You think the inspector flagged you because of your long legs?”
“You possess a Charm Value that breaks all limits. Against monsters, you won’t need to lift a finger physically. You can leverage your true expertise: deception, concealment, persuasion, enticement.”
Ode, feeling insulted: “…Those aren’t political science skills.”
Faust gave his side a light, teasing pat, his suit pocket so empty it couldn’t hide a single pound. “Got any better options?”
“…” The Ode from the memory had no comeback. He patted his own penniless pockets and accepted the gun holster Faust offered.
—Outside that memory, Ode had faced this recruitment pitch more than once before. He paused only briefly before resuming with his buttons, one by one.
This version of Faust was far more persistent than the one in his recollection, mostly because this loop deviated noticeably in one key way. “—I know you aced the early rounds of the civil service exam, so if you still want to attend the final interview in a few days—”
“I won’t.” Ode fastened the last button and turned around. “The things I want to do can’t be accomplished from inside 11 Downing Street. So…”
Even though he had ample time this round: “I’m passing on the civil service exam.”
Faust opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked utterly surprised. After a moment, he finally gathered his thoughts. “You know your reactions are always different from normal people, right? When we recruit civil service candidates, not one of them wants to sit behind a desk. They’d all rather be out in the field, running errands.”
Faust’s expression held the kind of shocked delight a straight-A student might feel upon seeing one of the class slackers eagerly volunteer to join their fun-loving, no-holds-barred crew. “Can I ask… what is it you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” Ode shrugged indifferently, just like the Faust he remembered. “When I was trapped in Dreamcatcher Town, I thought my goal was to fight against a fate of certain death. But now…”
“The more I remember, the more I interact with the world, the stronger this vague feeling becomes.”
“I think I’m a weapon. One created to slay gods.”
Faust gaped at him, speechless for a moment. It was clear he had some harsh words on the tip of his tongue, but in the end, he just laughed it off. “That’s a huge goal, my friend. And seeing yourself as a weapon? That’s not healthy—”
“But I want to be this weapon.” Ode cut Faust off, meeting his gaze head-on. “Don’t misunderstand. This is my choice.”
