Fat

Wilbur opened Hope's bedroom door.

"Did you see it?"

Hope didn't answer Wilbur's question right away. Instead, he pretended to be displeased. "Could you knock first? You do this every time. It'd be really awkward if I happened to be sitting on the toilet."

He was trying to make a request that a "prisoner" shouldn't make, but that would be perfectly reasonable for a "family member," to test Wilbur's attitude toward him.

Wilbur hesitated. "I'll try to remember next time, but I won't wait for you to say it's okay before coming in. I'll just give you a little time to react."

So he had basic human rights, but wasn't trusted?

Only then did he answer Wilbur's question. "I saw it. I opened the door to see what was outside, and then it came into my room. But when it heard you calling, it left pretty quickly."

Wilbur nodded and didn't ask any further questions. After getting Hope's confirmation, he left at once.

He looked a little flustered.

Hope noticed something odd about that.

The transparent monsters suddenly pouring out of the rooms seemed to have caught Wilbur by surprise, too.

It was possible that Old Whateley had been driving the monsters away until now, and Wilbur was only just starting to take over, so he was a little nervous.

But it was more likely that this sort of thing had rarely happened before, or perhaps had never happened at all. Wilbur was flustered because it was unexpected.

If so, what could have caused it? Old Whateley's critical condition, Robert's death, the influence of the Wooden Amulet, or something to do with the transparent monsters themselves?

Speculation without facts led nowhere, but it did help Hope pass the time.

He picked up Common Herb Collection again and opened it to the first page, expecting a preface or prologue of some kind. But the first page went straight into practical content:

"The medicinal value of human fat..."

Hope closed the book and checked that the cover said Common Herb Collection, not A Complete Guide to Cannibalism or The Evil Potion Compendium.

Your cultist books...

Hope lay back down, emptied his mind, and let time pass as he waited for dinner...

...He picked up Common Herb Collection for the third time. Whatever. Whether it was full of grotesque content or professional knowledge, it had to be more interesting than staring at the ceiling.

Fortunately, the contents weren't as perverse as Hope had expected:

"The medicinal value of human fat is virtually negligible. Its historical use to stop bleeding and treat wounds was as foolish as bloodletting. Its use as a soul vessel may be legitimate, but it is ineffective. Even in an emergency, a combination of fingernails and hair would work better..."

Hope raised his head and rubbed his forehead. He felt he needed a moment to recover.

In the first half of the passage, the author sounded like a pioneer of modern medicine, denouncing the ignorant quackery of the past and examining old remedies with a calm, rational eye, conducting medical experiments scientifically...

Combined with all the technical terms he'd seen earlier, Hope had nearly taken the author for a famous doctor from the modern world.

Then the sentence beginning "Its use as a soul vessel..." came along, and the style suddenly changed.

The author had gone from a pioneer of modern medicine to the leader of old-time barbers. The sterilized scalpel in his hand had become a pair of tooth-pulling pliers still smeared with the previous customer's blood.

Those versatile barbers often moonlighted as doctors, and were skilled at curing every ailment through bloodletting—or leaving decayed teeth in place while pulling out the healthy ones.

A familiar sensation filled Hope's mind. Just like when he'd smelled Star Hemp last night, knowledge that didn't belong to Hope was beginning to awaken.

Human fat... was once believed to have the power to restore health and cure disease... Some people thought it was sacred... In a certain era, it was an essential ingredient in medicinal potions... At other times, people also used it in, uh, medicines for men and women...

The main sources were... criminals sentenced to death or soldiers... It was a very poor soul vessel... And soul vessels...

Hope was like a champion dancer who'd been bedridden for years because of an illness. Now that his injuries had faded, he was practicing his dance moves alone.

His movements were clumsy, but the muscle memory he'd built through years of sweat hadn't abandoned him completely. Instead, it spread its arms and gave him a hug, so he wouldn't have to struggle so hard anymore.

Hope... No, it should be Number One Hope. It seemed that he'd once spent a great deal of time studying this so-called "herbology," a mishmash of science, the supernatural, and ignorant customs.

There were many gaps in the knowledge inherited from Number One Hope. For example, Hope simply couldn't remember who those "some people" were, nor could he recall anything about "soul vessels."

Hope continued reading, hoping the book might fill in what was missing from his memories.

Relying on Number One Hope's leftover memories and skipping over all the technical terms he couldn't understand, Hope read smoothly and quickly.

Some of the gaps in his knowledge were indeed filled in. The book described in detail how to coat the body in fat to soothe the soul, even recording how the soothing effect was related to the length of certain body parts.

Just as Hope began to feel sick, the author added a brief sentence beneath the lengthy passage:

"In fact, it has no effect. The so-called soothing of the soul is merely a delusion of a chieftain or priest in some primitive tribe."

Hmm... Record everything in as much detail as possible with a scholar's rigor, then dismiss the errors with that same scholarly rigor...

If every entry that followed was like this, at least half the book would be spent on similar records and refutations.

And despite all that detail, the book still didn't answer some of the questions Hope cared more about.

The author listed items better suited to serve as soul vessels than human fat: a combination of one's own hair and fingernails, a silver mirror in a dark room, a stone stained with the blood of any animal...

But whenever the book discussed soul vessels themselves, the writing grew vague. Not a single sentence explained them clearly—not even a "you all know what I mean, so I won't say more."

It was as if the author didn't understand them either.

Given how carefully the author recorded everything else, even if they really couldn't determine the purpose of a "soul vessel," they should at least have written, "The meaning of soul vessels has been lost."

Hope looked at the handwritten text. It was all written in pencil.

A pencil... There seemed to be half a pencil in the room...

Hope picked up the pencil, turned the book back to the cover, and rewrote the title in the blank space.

He'd never encountered New Federation language before, of course. His ability to write it now came entirely from the muscle memory of this body, so his handwriting was influenced by Number One Hope.

He compared the title he'd written with the original... His own handwriting was uglier, but the two were about seventy or eighty percent alike.