Bad News

Kraft's hand, clutching the bottle, trembled so violently he nearly flung it away. He immediately tightened his grip, forcing his hand to steady itself to prevent an accidental drop that would shatter the glass.

Amidst the terror, he found a foothold for his reason. Having experienced things beyond the imagination of an ordinary person, his mind seemed to have undergone an unknown transformation, making it less susceptible to being shaken.

It could not possibly have thoughts of its own; it was merely a tiny amount of liquid, lacking the fundamental basis required to generate cognitive ability.

This liquid was simply inducing him through some unknown pathway, rather than speaking directly. The impulsive thoughts from a moment ago were, in essence, composed of material already present within his own mind.

Curiosity about new things, the plan to conduct animal experiments, and the knowledge that the professor and Lucius had ingested the diluted solution—these contents had been unearthed, spliced, and combined to form a new idea that favored releasing it from the bottle.

Following the trail of his intense curiosity, his brain had completed these thoughts on its own. Thus, its "persuasion" had merely provided the primal attraction, leaving the rest to be finished by Kraft's own mind.

The principle was not complex; it was equivalent to a scammer making an urgent phone call without providing specific details, offering only immense anxiety, while the content was entirely imagined by the panicked victim.

A single primal impulse, acting like a lever, could pry open the entire situation, using the reasons hidden in the subject's subconscious to manipulate them. This applied to everyone, perhaps even all living things.

"This is truly fascinating." Kraft held up the tiny bottle and let out a sigh of admiration. Although he did not know the mechanism by which it influenced his emotions, the approach was nothing short of brilliant.

If it truly were some sort of alternative life form, it was far more sophisticated than the lure of an anglerfish.

In fact, it had already nearly succeeded; two people had acted irrationally just as it desired, allowing it to easily achieve its goal of making contact with more living beings.

At the very least, several rats and two people had come into direct contact with the Black Fluid.

There was one more thing he hadn't figured out: what was the point of this? At least for now, Lucius didn't appear to have any major abnormalities. What was its purpose in doing this?

Was it a parasite living in the liquid? A bacterium? Or a virus? The pursuit of transmission was nothing more than a drive to spread itself on a larger scale, to constantly proliferate and multiply, completing a meaningless replication.

It had been over ten days since Lucius touched it, and there were no physical abnormalities as of yet. As for his mental state, it was hard to judge at the moment.

Was the dosage too small, or was the Black Fluid incapable of causing drastic short-term changes? Would the rats used for experiments hold the answer?

Kraft carefully placed the bottle on another table and asked Lucius, who was holding the candelabra, "Do you remember any changes in the rats you fed the diluted solution, other than the loss of consciousness?"

"None." Lucius shook his head. "There were fourteen rats in total, and they were all dissected by the professor. We never conducted any long-term observations until the final experiment."

"If you feel anything uncomfortable, please be sure to notify me immediately." Kraft patted Lucius on the shoulder and glanced at the bottle on the table again. "To be honest, I feel this thing is dangerous. If it isn't necessary, we had best not touch it."

Kraft could not explain to Lucius what he had perceived. When he consciously resisted, the Black Fluid's induction could not force a person to take extreme actions, especially once distance was established; the effect faded until it was barely perceptible.

"Really, I'm not joking. Let's stay as far away from it as possible. Don't you think your idea of rashly drinking the diluted solution was strange?" he added. This attitude made him appear like a timid, old-fashioned scholar, willing to abandon a precious opportunity for the sake of a minor risk.

But Kraft knew this was the best choice. For something beyond comprehension—a suspected life form with a tendency to spread—one could never be too careful.

If he weren't afraid of complicating matters, he would rather lock the door, go outside, and fill this cellar with dirt, never stepping foot in here again until the professor returned and clarified everything.

This was not something he should touch, much like the gift he had brought back from "beyond the cave." It did not belong to the realm of human common sense, and he had not yet decided if he was willing to pay the price for delving too deep.

He refused this change; he refused to pay any unknown price. He had lifted a corner of the great curtain, and he was terrified by what he saw; he lacked the courage to face the full picture.

At least for now, he did not have a sufficient reason to jump into this muddy water.

"Alright, alright." Lucius picked up the glass bottle and gave it a shake. The black liquid rolled inside, hitting the thick walls of the bottle before finally settling quietly at the bottom.

He opened the cupboard door to put the bottle back, but the moment he lifted it, Lucius's movements froze.

He held the bottle at eye level for a few seconds, then placed it back on the table. Under the light of the candelabra, he leaned down to the level of the tabletop and rotated the bottle a few times.

Then, in a tone of disbelief, he said, "It seems to have decreased a little?"

"Decreased?"

"Yes, look at this line." Lucius brought the candelabra closer and pointed to a spot near the bottom of the bottle, allowing Kraft to see it more clearly.

There was a tiny scratch there, made with a light touch and so inconspicuous that Kraft hadn't noticed it at all just moments ago.

Lucius pressed on Kraft's shoulder, urging him to lean down and look at the line from the level of the tabletop.

"I scratched this line on the last day before the professor left. By all rights, it should be level with the top of the liquid. I felt something was wrong the moment I took it out just now."

"Are you sure?"

"I thought it was just a perspective issue at first." The sound of breathing behind Lucius's mask became heavy and rapid. He reached up to straighten his lenses, adjusted the beak, and leaned down to the tabletop level to confirm it once more.

Indeed, if this scratch were the standard, there was a clear discrepancy in the liquid level—it had vanished by about a quarter of its height.

The liquid was already scarce; without the line for comparison, it would have been difficult to make a definitive judgment based solely on memory and intuition.

"Could it have evaporated?" Kraft asked. People in this world were aware of the three states of matter, though they were still at the stage of viewing the white mist on a kettle as water vapor, believing it was usually unobservable because the mist was too thin and faint.

"No." Kraft immediately dismissed this guess himself.

He recalled that the professor had only been gone for seven days, while the experiments had lasted for over ten, with small amounts being dipped out each time. The volume of liquid was already small; if evaporation were that significant, it would have been noticed long ago.

Considering the small amount of liquid, it might have even evaporated entirely on the way to Wenden Port, leaving nothing behind.

"Evaporation? Unlikely." Lucius also rejected this conjecture. He fell into deep confusion, unable to understand how this could have happened.

"Besides the professor and you, does anyone else come here?" Kraft pressed. This was the most reasonable explanation he could think of; if this wasn't it, then the Black Fluid must have run off on its own.

Lucius reached into his pocket, where the heavy metal lock that hung on the door and its matching key resided. His hand brushed over them; the cold metal was reassuring.

"That's impossible, too. Only the professor and I have keys. Unless someone could pick the lock and hang it back exactly as it was, but this lock isn't that easy to deal with." Lucius gave another negative answer.

He had considered this possibility, but there was no reason for anyone in the academy to do such a thing. After all, having a secret experiment was perfectly normal, and most ended in failure; it would be abnormal not to have any secrets. Who would go to such great lengths to find someone else's secret laboratory?

As for outsiders, not to mention how they would get in, even if they stumbled upon this place in the complex building, would they really open the lock, put it back, and take only a little bit of some unknown liquid from a small bottle?

Could the Black Fluid really have grown legs and run away? Kraft was completely bewildered. The thing looked like it had no such capability at all. It couldn't have popped the stopper, crawled out, and then put the stopper back, could it?

If it were truly that outrageous, would it even need to lure living beings into making contact with it?

Amidst a flurry of question marks, Kraft successively ruled out several possibilities, leaving the entire incident shrouded in a sudden fog.

But there was actually one more possibility.

"Although it might sound a bit strange, there's no one else here, so I want to ask if the professor knows you made a scratch mark?" Kraft asked, his eyes behind the red lenses fixed on Lucius, waiting for him to say that the professor, of course, knew.

"..." Lucius fell silent, as if he were thinking or perhaps didn't know how to answer, but the silence itself was the answer.

The atmosphere in the room grew slightly stagnant. Professor Calman should have been the last person to have any issues; Kraft had only mentioned it in passing, never expecting that there would actually be a problem.

He hesitated for a moment, picking up the bottle on the table and putting it back down. Without giving his own opinion directly, he simply threw out what he knew: "I just used a small stone chip to scratch it, wanting to estimate the dosage for future experiments. I didn't notify the professor."

Things were beginning to develop in the direction Kraft least wanted.

Professor Calman conducted all his experiments with Lucius, including having Lucius organize the experimental records. As the professor's academic successor, he was treated with almost no reservations; even a biological son might not be treated this closely.

What reason could there be for him to avoid Lucius before leaving and secretly take out a quarter of the Black Fluid?

It certainly couldn't be for animal testing. There was no need to avoid Lucius for animal experiments, and having an extra pair of hands would clearly be more convenient.

The two put the bottle back into the cupboard, left the box containing the experimental records, locked the door, and covered it with the box before leaving the cellar without a word.

Lucius appeared a bit dejected, but he still patiently explained to Kraft the time and location for his lectures as an instructor, as well as the specific location of the house the professor had left for him. Only after confirming that Kraft had no further questions did he bid farewell and leave.

Kraft thanked him and watched his somewhat weary figure disappear at the end of the corridor. He knew what Lucius was thinking.

The person he regarded as half a father had not given him the complete trust he had expected. He must be wondering now if he hadn't done well enough somewhere, or if he hadn't demonstrated the ability that met Calman's expectations.

This self-denial might be a devastating blow to him. Regardless of the reason, it was difficult for him to accept, and he would likely need quite a few days to recover.

Kraft did not go to comfort Lucius, nor did he know how to. He had plenty of his own problems to figure out now; Calman's concealment was bad news for him as well.

The liquid that displayed strange, luring tendencies, the twisted and bizarre characters in the professor's notes, the portion of the sample that had been taken and was now missing...

He stood in the corridor, painted scarlet by the setting sun, and took a deep breath, as if trying to pull the elongated shadows of the pillars and the light beams where dust danced into his lungs.

Vaguely, a familiar yet strange, nameless scent permeated his nose and mouth, making him instinctively feel that it shouldn't be here. Yet, when he focused on his sense of smell, he couldn't capture it.

From the moment he stepped into this building, the deeper he understood, the more obvious it became. It existed between the spread-out experimental records, lingered in the basement, and appeared in every moment Kraft received an epiphany.

Kraft suddenly snapped to his senses, realizing why he felt it was familiar. It was a faint yet irrefutable characteristic—indescribable, incomprehensible, and something that should not exist in this world.

"Damn it!" The otherworldly part of his soul couldn't help but blurt out a profanity from his homeland. "This really is bad news."

He had encountered a similar existence countless times more intense than this back on that snowy night. And now, it was nothing more than a reunion, whether by chance or by fate.