The casket's maturation

The next day, Gordon arranged for the Silver Fish Casket and the spider specimen to trade homes.

Neither side lost out.

The Montfort Family got a one-of-a-kind keepsake, and the college got a new research subject worth fussing over.

Winslow had several important academic meetings to attend first thing that morning, so Gordon and Peter had to take the Silver Fish Casket to the dissection room themselves.

Peter was very curious about its properties.

"So this is the casket that caused all the trouble," Peter said. "It breathes and leaks water. You don't see that every day."

"Let's call it a secretion. Sounds more expensive," Gordon said. "You need to collect it once a day, then extract the essence and sell it to Old Baz. But don't sell it every day."

"Why pass up money?" Peter would have happily gone every day.

"Scarcity drives up prices. Catch too many Deepclaw Demons, and the price will drop," Gordon said. "By then, Old Baz will probably see you as a talking potato."

Peter understood. Making money a little more slowly was fine. Being treated like a potato would be humiliating.

"Remember to measure it carefully. Don't miss any changes." Gordon got ready to leave. "It's in a new environment. It might react differently."

"Where are you going?"

"To spend money."

"I get to watch a box of unknown origin while you go enjoy yourself?"

"Don't tell me you haven't been living it up."

"Ah..." Peter remembered the Ros girls he had so thoroughly patronized yesterday. Poor things, stranded in a foreign country.

Gordon had helped him earn the money. He really had no grounds to complain.

"Don't be gone too long." Peter turned his attention back to the casket. "If it gives birth to something new, I'm not naming it."

Gordon went to the college hospital to pay his bill.

He remembered the look the doctor had given him when he said he couldn't afford twenty-one Silver Pounds... almost as though he were looking at a dog.

Eye decontamination fee, analgesic tincture fee, bed-cleaning fee. Those three charges had weighed on his chest like three stones.

Now they were just a sheet of paper.

"Gordon?" The college doctor recognized him and immediately began to tease him. "About your last bill, you can apply for an extension. We're not completely unreason-"

"Paid in full." Gordon slapped the money onto the counter.

The doctor paused, counted the banknotes, then stared at Gordon.

The same as ever, unchanged. Yet something was different. He looked much healthier overall.

"Any lingering abnormalities with your eyes?" the doctor asked quietly.

"Don't worry. I can see the bill being crossed off."

"...Would you like a receipt?"

"Of course."

After leaving the college hospital, Gordon folded the receipt and tucked it into his pocket. The paper was thin, but against his chest, it felt like a medal.

[Receipt. A sheet of paper proving you have paid something off.]

Then Gordon went into a steakhouse on Knights Road and ordered ham and fried eggs, a huge fried steak with every side dish, plenty of thick gravy, and a large glass of chilled beer.

Exactly the food he had dreamed of on an empty stomach.

When the steak arrived, the hot oil was still sizzling.

[Fried steak. It has waited a long time for you.]

Yes.

Gordon had waited a long time too.

He took a bite and savored the moment completely. No more calculating how to maximize his gains. All he needed to calculate was how much gravy to dip his next bite in.

Only after eating and drinking his fill did Gordon stroll leisurely back to the dissection room.

Peter looked as though he had seen a ghost.

"Damn it," he said. "What took you so long?"

"Did the casket grow legs and run away?"

"No."

"Then you're wasting that expression," Gordon said.

"Come on!" Peter pulled him over to the dissection table.

The Silverfish Casket was still there, but unlike that morning, a thick layer of absorbent cotton lay underneath it.

"You're throwing away the secretion now?" Gordon frowned. "That's wasteful, brother."

"No. Look." Peter pointed to a wooden crate nearby.

Rows of glass bottles stood inside, each holding roughly fifty milliliters.

"That'll last us a while." Gordon nodded in satisfaction.

"A year. But you know what? It's actually gained weight! The casket weighs twenty grams more than when we brought it in." Peter lowered his voice.

"That..." Gordon felt this showed a certain disrespect for the law of conservation of mass.

"I used every measuring instrument the professor has. Its temperature is a little above room temperature. There's more secretion, the color is cloudier, and the smell is stronger... Gordon, I'm not joking. I feel like it's growing on its own."

Gordon bent down to examine the Silverfish Casket.

Sure enough, it seemed to be undergoing some sort of mutation-or evolution!

The relief was unchanged, with fine fish scales and hollow eyes, yet something seemed to be developing inside.

Unbroken Strings tightened gently. He felt something inside the casket give a faint push, like fetal movement felt through a belly.

He even wondered whether he had experienced this moment before, in some murky dream.

[Silver Fish Casket. Maturing.]

"Keep observing it," Gordon ordered firmly. "Like hatching an egg."

The moment the words "hatching an egg" came out, Peter regretted getting involved.

From the sound of it, Gordon hadn't treated this as a mishap at all.

In Gordon's eyes, this was a special kind of progress, one worth advancing further.

"I'm afraid the casket will turn into something monstrous," Peter said.

"This is a college," Gordon said. "No matter how monstrous it is, we'll dissect it."

Peter glanced at the glass jars around them. The malformed organs inside had once belonged to some far more terrifying creatures.

Considering how much it was secreting now, Gordon added:

"...Seal it up. It might feel more comfortable submerged."

"Are you sure?"

"No," Gordon said. "That's why humans conduct experiments."

Peter looked him over. Gordon had said that without the slightest moral qualm.

As though anything was worth trying, so long as it might lead to a new discovery.

That attitude was certainly worth learning from.

The next day, the Silverfish Casket was properly housed in a sealed container.

It soaked in the "womb amniotic fluid" it secreted. Its output finally stabilized, and liquid no longer seeped madly from its surface. It merely released a few small bubbles into the water now and then, guarding some abnormality within.

Professor Winslow was concerned with something else: the secretion's targeted attraction of Deepclaw Demons.

"Science doesn't accept secondhand accounts." Wearing a fishing hat and carrying a notebook, Winslow led Gordon out of the college. "You say it can lure Deepclaw Demons. Perhaps that's true. Perhaps you simply happened upon a gathering of Deepclaw Demons while standing by the river."

"How is that possible?" Gordon asked helplessly.

"Studies suggest that certain Deepclaw Demons possess intelligence approaching that of human children. They might play, learn, or even engage in rudimentary social behavior," Winslow said precisely. "I know how to distinguish between those possibilities. That's why I hold doctorates in source substance natural history, supernatural biology, and two other disciplines, while you're a second-year student."

"To a Deepclaw Demon, there's no difference between a professor and a student," Gordon said.

"You needn't worry about safety," Winslow said. "I've hired a guard. A very dependable Professional Hunter, one of the best in the city."

"One of the best in the city," Gordon repeated, a faint sense of foreboding rising within him. "Does he happen to have an office on Wycliffe Street? Surname Gray?"

Professor Winslow turned his head.

"How did you know?"

On the banks of the Blackwater River, beside Hammer Bridge in southern Lundenim.

Their guard was already waiting on the bank.

A gray-white hunting outfit, a short cloak, and a Silver Crow Clasp at his collar.

Arthur Gray.

Their eyes met, and for a moment, the air went still.

"...You," Gray said.

"..." Gordon shrugged.

The instant Gray saw Gordon, an absurd thought flashed through his mind.

Was this kid doing it on purpose?

First he snatched the count's commission, then he had the professor hire me.

He began reviewing their conversation, wondering whether he had said something he shouldn't have and offended Gordon.

"You know each other?" Winslow asked in surprise. "Since when could Gordon afford a consultation fee?"

"It's nothing." Gray turned sideways.

He had only just collected a twenty-Gold-Pound consultation fee from Count Montfort, accomplished nothing, and lost the job to a college student.

Today, he had collected another twenty Gold Pounds from Professor Winslow, risen bright and early, and come to the river-

To guard that same college student.

And most importantly...

It was probably still for chumming the water.

"You know," Gray began slowly, "I've been in this profession for twelve years. I've slain leader-class Aberrants. Protected dozens of important people. My name has appeared in the Lundenim Morning Post."

"One of the most trustworthy hunters in the city." Gordon nodded.

"And this morning," Gray said, "my job is to protect you while you safely throw things into the river..."

"Your expertise won't go to waste," Gordon reassured him. "If anything goes wrong with the chumming, we'll still be relying on you."

Gray decided to stop talking to him.

He turned to Winslow, resuming his professional manner.

"Professor, let me make this clear up front. There are more than Deepclaw Demons in this river. Other things live here too. If the situation gets out of control, my responsibility is to keep you both alive. Nothing else," Gray said.

"Reasonable." Winslow lowered his head, apparently more concerned with whether his pocket watch was keeping accurate time. "Gordon, are you ready?"

"Whenever you are." Gordon lifted the carrying case.

The experiment began.

Gordon took out the diluted womb amniotic fluid, sealed in a slender glass tube. It was so faint as to be almost colorless. He pulled out the stopper and poured the liquid into the Blackwater River, then watched the surface without blinking.

Winslow raised his pocket watch and stared at the water with an eager expression, as though waiting for a publishable paper to crawl ashore.

Gray stood three paces away, his hand resting on the trigger.

He suddenly realized the most frightening part of this job: normal people wanted to avoid trouble, while these two sincerely hoped a giant monster would leap out of the river.

They were a born teacher-and-student pair.