Living Experiment

Thor stood where he was.

He was thinking, but he did not have much time.

The candlelight on the wall had already changed from ghostly yellow to dim yellow. Once it turned bright yellow, dawn would be approaching, and before the candlelight began to glow white, Thor had to return to the fourth floor.

Those were the rules.

That pool of blood on the floor was still there.

If he left, he would become fertilizer for flowers the next day.

But clean it up?

He was an ordinary person with no supernatural means. How could he possibly deal with that bizarre, murderous blood?

Ask someone else for help?

The boys he lived with seemed somewhat hostile toward the Thor from before his transmigration. They would definitely not help him. Besides, like Thor, they were all ordinary people and had no ability to help.

Find the Butler?

But the Butler never appeared at night, and Thor had no idea where to look for him.

At present, the entirety of his accessible area was the fourth-floor servants' level and the eleventh through thirteenth floors.

There was no other way.

Thor's trembling fingers suddenly steadied.

He put the mop back on the cart and straightened his clothes.

He walked to the room opposite the one where the blood had flowed out, raised his hand, and knocked softly three times.

In the silent corridor, those three knocks rang out with startling clarity.

Thor lowered his head and glanced at the Hardcover Book. No new manner of death had appeared inside.

Just as Thor raised his hand to knock three more times, the door before him suddenly opened.

Thor immediately held his breath.

The door slowly swung open.

A slender figure appeared behind it.

It was a woman in a black nightgown. Her figure was voluptuous but not fat, and the skin exposed outside her clothing was very fair.

Thor looked up and saw a beautifully shaped chin, full rosy lips, and a high bridge of a nose. Above that... there was nothing.

The woman had only half a head!

In the pitch-black night, faced with such a sight, Thor felt as though his soul were about to leave his body.

Thor forcibly suppressed his fear and kept himself from making an improper expression.

But his teeth clattered uncontrollably.

The woman opposite him lowered her head. The upper half of her head was missing, and the flesh around the cut was pale and rotten.

Where her eyes should have been was replaced by a semicircular glass cover.

The cover was filled with cloudy white liquid. As she lowered her head, things that looked like eyeballs occasionally bumped against the glass walls.

"What is it?"

The half-faced woman parted her crimson lips. Her voice was actually quite pleasant.

"Ma'am..." Thor heard his own voice trembling. He took a deep breath to steady himself. "A pool of blood has flowed out of the room opposite. I'm unable to handle it. Please save me."

The woman raised her head, and an eyeball appeared inside the glass cover, pressed tightly against its edge.

Then the eyeball disappeared. She lowered her head again and gave a soft laugh. "Why should I save you?"

Thor knew he would not be so lucky as to find a kind, helpful person just by knocking on a door.

"Ma'am, what do you need me to do?" Thor lowered his head.

He was only a servant. He had no right to bargain.

The woman propped up her chin with slender fingers. "I need a living experimental subject, but I've been a little short on Credits lately. If you volunteer to be my Experimental Subject, I'll help you solve that problem."

Thor cast a sidelong glance at the Hardcover Book on his left shoulder.

The Hardcover Book showed no reaction.

The current Thor was too weak. He could only gamble on the Hardcover Book's death warnings.

"Fine!"

The woman curved her red lips, clearly pleased by Thor's decisiveness.

She stepped aside to let Thor enter her room, then went outside to do something he could not see.

Thor stood in the woman's room.

He discovered that it was far larger than the communal sleeping quarters shared by more than a dozen of them. It even had an inner room.

An oil lamp was lit in the living room, bright and steady. It was probably enhanced by Witchcraft as well.

On the long table in the middle of the living room lay many tools and materials he did not recognize at all.

The most conspicuous was a crucible set over a small stove in the center. A pot of black liquid inside was bubbling away with a glug glug.

"This is the thing you were looking at." The woman had entered at some point without Thor noticing.

Thor turned around and saw that the door had already been shut. He did not know whether the pool of blood outside had been dealt with.

"I need you to put one hand into the crucible. Once you take it out, tell me how it feels."

The woman pulled out a bench and sat across from the table, crossing her legs as she waited for Thor's reaction.

Thor knew he had no leverage to negotiate, so he did not bother begging for mercy or trying to look pitiful.

He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm, took a deep breath, stepped forward, and plunged his entire hand directly into the black liquid.

He did not test it first with a finger. He was afraid of making things worse and drawing the woman's displeasure.

"Hiss—" Thor sucked in a breath.

But it was not because he had been burned. It was cold.

A bone-piercing cold.

"Clack, clack, clack."

Thor was so cold that even his teeth were trembling.

"You can take it out now."

Hearing the woman's voice, Thor hurriedly pulled his hand free.

But when he saw his hand, the breath he had just released in relief was sucked right back in.

All the flesh and skin on his hand were gone.

Thor's left hand was now nothing but a skeletal frame, clean as an anatomy model in an art room.

Most terrifying of all, Thor felt no pain at all.

"Hah... hah..."

Thor gasped repeatedly, gripping his left wrist with his right hand. Both hands trembled together.

And as his left hand shook, his bones scraped against one another.

The woman across from him did not comfort Thor's fear. She stood and tapped a finger against her chin.

"It seems I added too much Joyful Charity Python gastric fluid. What does your left hand feel now?"

"Clack, clack, clack... cold... but it doesn't hurt..."

Suppressing his fear and the cold, Thor tried his best to act like a professional researcher.

"It seems I can still control it."

As he spoke, he flexed the fingers of his left hand.

It was somewhat difficult, but they could indeed move.

"Not bad." The woman smiled, apparently pleased with Thor's answer.

She picked through the materials on the table, selected several, and tossed them into the crucible as if casually.

The crucible hissed and released two streams of white vapor, then returned to its quiet, bubbling glug glug.

"Now," the woman sat back down and lifted her chin with great interest, pointing at the crucible, "put your other hand in."

Thor let out a breath. He had expected this.

The first experiment had clearly failed.

A second experiment naturally followed.

Thor released his left hand, then resolutely put his right hand into the crucible.

"Urgh..."

He immediately felt as though his entire arm were about to freeze stiff.

His right hand, submerged in the black liquid, had lost all sensation.

"That's enough."

The moment he heard the woman's voice, Thor pulled out his right hand.

Reassuringly, this time what emerged was not a skeletal hand.

Not only that, but his palm, once covered in scars and calluses from labor, had become smooth and fair.

Before the woman could prompt him, Thor spoke on his own. "Hah... it's still very cold, colder than before... clack, clack, clack..."

He struggled to control the chattering of his teeth.

"...It doesn't hurt. I can control it..."

Thor stretched his fingers and raised his hand so the woman across from him could see clearly.

The woman smiled again. This time, she was obviously happier, and Thor saw sharp white teeth behind her red lips.

"You really are full of surprises."

The woman stood up and even clapped twice.

She walked to the other side of the room, took a Crystal Bottle from a cabinet, and handed it to Thor. "Drink it."

Seeing Thor's expression turn ugly, she laughed so hard her body shook, the white slurry atop her head swaying with the motion.

"Don't worry. This isn't an experiment this time. It's a healing potion."