Quicksilver Needles

Hesta stretched her hand out once more with all her might.

"Good," the woman looked at her, "about three minutes after you called the police, we arrived at the scene with a team, and the entire abbey was already engulfed in flames. We quickly found and dealt with Director Elma, who had succumbed to the disease, but putting out fires is not our specialty."

"Although the Tanyi City fire department was dispatched immediately, there's a mountain road in between, so there was no way they could make it in time to save the building. However, you don't need to worry too much; before the fire consumed the entire structure, my colleague and I had already evacuated all the children from the dormitories away from the abbey, so the casualties caused by the Chelated Being this time were not large."

Hesta's breathing grew ragged, and a fierce doubt held fast in her heart—what about Boheng in that confinement room?

Did you find him and save him?

Yet she could neither speak nor express herself.

"After a while, I'll come to see you again." That woman's hand reached out once more to stroke Hesta's head. "My name is Chiba, Chiba Masaki, and I'm the leader of Squad 403 under AHgAs, the Chelated Being hunting and epidemic prevention organization. It's nice to meet you."

One month later, Hesta was discharged safely.

During this month, every day, she still woke up as early as she had at Saint Anne Abbey, only this time, she no longer needed to quickly dress and jump out of bed to ring the morning bell.

For most of the time, she wore a blindfold, lying alone on her hospital bed, feeling the pain slowly dying out within her body.

Hesta recalled all that had happened before, and at certain moments, she even had a vague illusion that everything that happened that night wasn't real, that it was just a nightmare, and perhaps after waking up, everything would be just as it was before.

Until two weeks later, when Chiba came to see her for the second time. At that time, Hesta still couldn't see, but she was already able to speak.

That day, Chiba brought an invitation, inviting Hesta to join her organization.

"Chelated Being hunter?" Hesta asked skeptically as she took it. "Me?"

Chiba laughed out loud. "It's been so long since I heard anyone call us 'Chelated Being hunters'—as expected of an ascetic abbey... That's a title people used several centuries ago."

"Then what should you be called?" Hesta's fingertips touched the letters "AHgAs" at the top of the invitation. "...What is this an abbreviation for?"

"AHgA," Chiba explained at a rapid pace, "the full name is Anti-Homogenization Agent, referring specifically to those individuals among humans who can rely on their own innate talent to independently resist the erosion of chelation disease—because this name is too much of a mouthful, and it happens to contain Hg, in informal settings people mostly call us 'Quicksilver Needles'. Perhaps you've heard of this name somewhere before?"

"Quicksilver Needles..." Hesta repeated in a low voice.

This title made the girl feel somewhat familiar.

Chiba looked at Hesta and continued, "You can think of this identity as a kind of talent—there are 1.9 billion people living in this world, but the number of Quicksilver Needles is only around 4,000. In other words, the probability of becoming a Quicksilver Needle is about one in a million."

"On the night we killed that Chelated Being, we suspected that there might be a talented child at Saint Anne Abbey, because that Chelated Being showed slight signs of poisoning—this was mostly caused by it coming into contact with or consuming the blood of a Quicksilver Needle."

"Although you were indeed severely injured, the chelation disease spores inside your body basically underwent complete self-metabolism within the first week—in other words, just like us, you are also a person who will never contract chelation disease, Miss Hesta."

Hesta said calmly, "...Did something go wrong somewhere?"

"Hahaha, it's impossible to be wrong," Chiba rubbed her own nose. "Although today's chelation disease isn't as active as it was a dozen years ago—we still urgently need newcomers... Are you willing to join us?"

At that time, Hesta, still blindfolded, frowned and answered nothing.

"Of course, this is a very major decision... I have to give you some time to think about it, right?" Chiba smiled. "Ours is a high-risk profession, but the good news is that once you make it to 25 you can apply for retirement, although in most cases—"

"Miss Chiba?" Hesta's head turned toward Chiba's direction. "Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Go ahead."

"Behind the main chapel of Saint Anne Abbey, there's a row of old buildings. On the second floor, at the northernmost end, there's a confinement room. On the night of the incident, a fourteen-year-old boy with black hair was locked in there—is he safe, please?"

"I don't have much memory of that, let me ask."

Chiba stood up and went out to the hallway to make a phone call. When she returned, Hesta immediately turned her head to face her. "How is it?"

Chiba pondered for a moment: "Two pieces of bad news, one piece of good news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

Hesta's face was pale. "...The bad news."

"The team members in charge of search and rescue at the time did consider that there might be omissions, so they went into several of the buildings at Saint Anne Abbey one by one—they even went to the basement, but other than you, they didn't find anyone else."

Hesta's breathing grew rapid, a sudden sourness rising in her nose, and the tip of her nose began to slowly turn red.

"And the good news is," Chiba continued on her own, "according to news from the security team, besides that Chelated Being, the only remains found at the scene were two bodies, respectively an elderly person and a child—you must know who they are, I suppose."

Hesta was startled for a moment—yes, she knew. They were poor Sister Gurdin and Flosang.

"No third person was found?"

"That's right, none."

"...Then what's the other piece of bad news?"

Chiba looked straight into Hesta's gauze-wrapped eyes. "This can hardly be considered news; it's more of a speculation—when we arrived at the abbey, the Chelated Being was lurking in the confessional behind the main chapel, which is... very close to the confinement room you mentioned."

Under Chiba's explanation, Hesta finally understood what she was driving at—during those three minutes when the Quicksilver Needles were absent, Boheng was very likely to have been attacked. The fact that "there were no bodies" could be explained in many ways, and the most likely one was that he might have fallen into the turbulent current beneath the cliff where Saint Anne Abbey stood during the chaos, where it was indeed very easy for bones to leave no trace.

"Don't despair too much, he might still be alive... If you can provide more information about this boy, we can help you look for him around Severn Mountain."

At that time, that was what Chiba had said.

Now, more than half a month had passed since the night of the incident, and Hesta had never received any news of Boheng. The fire had burned away most of the traces from that night, and nobody knew Boheng's whereabouts.

Today, Hesta's injuries had completely healed. She had changed into the clothes Chiba had prepared for her and sat alone in the hospital hallway, waiting for Chiba to pick her up and discharge her.

Chiba had promised her that today she could be taken back to see the scene of the incident, and she in turn had promised Chiba that today she would give an answer—an answer regarding whether or not to join the Quicksilver Needles.