Big dog, big dog

Gordon coughed, preparing to impart some worldly wisdom.

"Miss Charlotte," he said, "do you know what mansions are used for besides social gatherings?"

"Other uses?" Charlotte asked curiously.

"For instance, dealers don't just deal cards, sofas aren't just for sitting on, and women don't necessarily learn the piano to cultivate their sensibilities. As for the actresses in this city, they sing and act onstage. What they do backstage... I think you can work that out yourself," Gordon explained patiently.

Charlotte looked blank at first, then jumped on the spot.

"Gordon!" She had expected a little naughtiness, but not this much.

"Look, you told me not to keep things from you. Now I've told you something nobody else dares to," Gordon said.

"The best use of my money would be to buy a needle and thread and sew your mouth shut." Charlotte gave his arm a moderately hard pinch.

"So," Gordon said, "my guess is that Greenbough Mansion really does host salons, concerts, and card games during the day. After midnight, it becomes a casino with private rooms and all sorts of things you shouldn't know about."

"Perhaps." Charlotte tried hard to sound calm. "Their floor collapsed before, and several guests fell into the casino below, tables and all. It caused an uproar for a while. They've only just finished the repairs."

"Even if it hadn't collapsed, it still wouldn't be a suitable place for us," Gordon concluded.

"I'm twenty already. Where can't I go? It's only a casino."

"Exactly the age when you're most likely to think you know everything," Gordon said. "See? You don't even know what dealers do besides dealing cards."

Charlotte rammed her head into Gordon's shoulder.

They crossed Erudition Square. April's warm breeze swept over the paving stones, and a flock of pigeons stood beside the fountain.

"Anyway," Charlotte said, returning to the subject, "she inherited a large fortune from the Brendel Family. She owns a lot of property, bonds, and company shares. And all sorts of collections nobody can really explain."

"Ah. She launders money for the fishmen," Gordon said.

"Why is it always fishmen with you?"

"We've run into too many fishmen lately."

"See? That's how rumors start." Charlotte rolled her eyes at Gordon. "She's a kindhearted person, very nice to the singers and servants. She takes especially good care of young girls. Many girls with nowhere else to turn have gone to Greenbough Mansion and been properly looked after. People say she personally gives sick maids their medicine, just like a mother."

"Who exactly spread those details?"

"..." Charlotte thought about it and found it hard to tell whether they were true.

"All right," Gordon concluded. "For now, I'll believe she does it out of genuine kindness, rather than to make them more efficient at their business."

"Hmph."

Gordon considered it.

If what Charlotte said was true, Olivia had already established a charitable reputation, her own businesses, and an intelligence network.

As for whether she had ties to that underwater kingdom, Gordon had no evidence yet.

The two of them arrived at the tiered lecture hall on the third floor for anatomy class.

The rows of seats rose gradually. At the front stood a dissection table with grooves in its surface and a small bucket underneath to collect bloody fluids.

A white sheet covered something the size of a cow on the table. A charred paw protruded from one end.

[White sheet. As long as humans cannot see something, they assume the danger does not exist.]

"Ugh, how scary." Charlotte looked at the paw. "Another practical dissection."

"Don't worry," Gordon reassured her. "It isn't a White Rat Monster this time. Probably nothing will explode all over the professor."

"Last time was just an accident," Charlotte said.

"Would the professor's coat accept that explanation?"

"Gordon."

"I'll shut up."

"Stop chatting with the pretty girl and come over," Peter said, beckoning.

Gordon went over and lifted the white sheet.

He saw a giant Logris mastiff that had lost all its fur. Soot had blackened its skin, and bullets had punched holes in its head.

The strangest part was its rib cage, swollen enormously, as though high-pressure steam had forced it outward.

[Big dog. Big dog.]

"Looks like a Rabid Demon." Gordon had read an illustrated guide to Aberrant anatomy.

"Oh, you actually know." Peter had been ready to explain, only to find Gordon already knew everything. How had that happened?

"But I don't know where it came from. Surely you didn't kill it and bring it back," Gordon said.

"Read for yourself." Peter handed him the register. "And if I really got serious, I could beat an Aberrant too."

"I believe you. But that part about 'getting serious' feels like something I'll never see in my lifetime." Gordon leafed through the records.

The corpse had come from a gas company in the western district.

Over the past fortnight, it had carried off four workers leaving their shifts at midnight, plus a boiler operator. The factory had been forced to hire an Essence Hunter, who killed it with a volley of Silver Salt Bullets.

That should have been the end of it.

The main point of contention was that the insurance firm insisted on classifying the incident as a stray dog attack. Judging by appearances alone, it really was just a big dog, albeit a somewhat blackened one.

The payout for a stray dog attack was ten gold pounds.

An Aberrant attack, on the other hand, could trigger a two-hundred-gold-pound policy.

Thus, whether five families received compensation, whether five widows hanged themselves, and whether five children could attend school depended half on the factory owner's conscience and half on the final assessment from the Royal Academy of Natural Sciences University.

Of course, if the report called it a dog, the factory owner's conscience would go to the dogs too.

"The one in the illustration looks more like a dog. This one... its chest is somewhat swollen, and its skin is far too black. A normal Rabid Demon wouldn't look like this. The odds of it being a big dog or an Aberrant are still fifty-fifty." Gordon gestured as he spoke.

Winslow nodded. He knew Gordon had been studying, rather than sticking a book under his pillow and expecting the knowledge to flow into his brain.

"Then Peter will supervise," Winslow instructed.

Everyone was used to that.

In the Department of Biomedical Sciences, their senior, Peter, had always handled a wide range of duties. Sometimes people even notified him when a dormitory toilet leaked, though he was reluctant to deal with those.

"And... Gordon," Winslow said.

Gordon looked up.

"...Gordon will join Peter in checking everyone else's autopsy procedures. See whether their conduct is appropriate and their reasoning sound. If anyone attempts anything dangerous, send them straight out of the classroom."

As soon as he finished, several students looked stunned, wondering whether they had misheard.

Dozens of gazes stabbed toward Gordon.

There was surprise, resentment, and, above all, envy.

They were all classmates. What gave him the right to hold a clipboard and pass judgment on everyone else?

"The remaining students will form groups of five and examine external abnormalities, specialized organs, the respiratory system, and the digestive system," Winslow said.

Gordon realized that the professor had begun seriously nurturing him.

His standing was now distinctly above that of an ordinary student.

It was only a small step up, but the feeling was wonderfully new.

[Clipboard. Others used to write evaluations of you. Now you write evaluations of others.]

Gordon accepted the clipboard, his expression instantly turning solemn.

Previously, he had only handled chores such as cleaning up bloody fluids and wiping down the dissection table. Now, with a few check marks, he could affect everyone's credits and determine whether they enjoyed their holiday.

"Oh, my fellow students, I promise to judge you honestly," Gordon said.

"..." Rather than feeling reassured, everyone grew even more uneasy and reluctantly stepped forward.

"Hey, hey..."

Several girls quickly gathered around Charlotte.

They all knew she was close to Gordon and wanted to benefit from it too.

"Is he a strict grader?"

"Will he care if we say something wrong?" they chattered.

Charlotte gave a wry smile.

From what she knew of Gordon, if she made a mistake, he would only dock her points mercilessly. Everyone else had even less hope.

"Begin," Winslow said. "Follow what you've learned."

Percy Graham had always been a high-achieving student of noble birth.

He intended to be the first to find an abnormality and prove that this thing was an Aberrant, rather than an unusually large stray dog.

So he immediately picked up the Dissection Knife, ready to open the corpse's chest.

His plan was clear: find a specialized organ first and prove his ability.

"Don't rush to cut," Gordon said. "Nobody's even had a look yet."

"..." Percy snorted. "Carbon deposits in the nasal cavity, fur burned away... There must be an abnormally hot Aberrant organ inside, continuously radiating heat. We won't know where it is until we open it."

"Did you notice the abnormal swelling of its rib cage?"

"Yes," Percy said confidently. "That's why it's the most likely place to contain an Aberrant organ."

"Exactly right. Except its internal conditions currently look very much like a high-temperature, high-pressure environment. If you cut into it, something will probably burst. Ever heard of putrefactive bloating?"

"..."

"It's fine if you haven't," Gordon said understandingly. "One cut, and everyone here will know."

Percy hesitated, then finally put down the Dissection Knife.

Gordon nodded and wrote "good safety awareness" on the clipboard.

Charlotte stood beside her close friend Cecilia.

"He's a completely different person with that clipboard." Cecilia whispered like a devil tempting her. "Like a bad man who can decide other people's fates. Doesn't that make your heart flutter even more?"

"Mm... Huh? Get away!" Charlotte had nearly nodded along before catching herself.

Another, more earnest student, John Seymour, carefully gathered clues.

John had the best grades in the class. He kept a low profile and habitually wrote everything in a notebook, then memorized it.

"...Thickened pads on the forepaws, but relatively underdeveloped muscles in the hind limbs... Possible congenital movement impairment." John recorded his findings with several classmates.

"Broaden your thinking a little," Gordon said. "Suppose it isn't necessarily because it runs less."

"It crawls more?" John caught on immediately.

"Right. To move freely through a complicated factory environment, it might have developed a habit of crawling through narrow pipes."

John thought it over, found it reasonable, and crossed out his original conclusion to write:

"...Suspected environment-driven adaptive evolution of the forelimbs..."

Gordon made a check mark.

Seeing that check mark, John felt an inexplicable trace of satisfaction.

Then he abruptly realized...

He was top of the year!

Why had he started caring about a check mark from Gordon?

John spent a while questioning himself.

Charlotte put on gloves, felt the Rabid Demon's belly, then worked her way up to its throat.

"There's something strange in its neck," Charlotte said.

"What do you think it's for?" Gordon teased her.

"..." Charlotte pressed it and felt something swollen and round, with a slightly leathery texture. Certain animals came to mind. "A vocal organ? Like the vocal sac of a frog or a bullfrog?"

"Beautiful." Gordon nodded.

At last, Charlotte had started using her head too.

Charlotte was just about to say something modest when Cecilia bumped her with her shoulder.

"He said you're beautiful," she said.

"Hey, hey." Charlotte turned sideways. "He meant my idea was beautiful, my reasoning was beautiful..."

"You're all beautiful. No contradiction there." Of course Gordon could hear them. Charlotte's face was already burning.

Seeing nothing more to investigate, Percy picked up the Dissection Knife, preparing to cut along the sternum.

[Swollen sternum. It harbored a foul breath in life and had no intention of releasing it in death.]

"You still can't open it," Gordon said. "There's pressure inside."

"Judging by the decomposition, it's been dead for a long time," Percy said.

"That doesn't mean the pressure will disappear on its own. If there's an abnormal organ inside, it may have kept breaking down fat and flesh after the body died." Gordon opened the Hound Demon's mouth, examined its bullet holes, then checked its rear outlet.

All of them showed abnormal tissue growth, as though something had continued growing after its death.

"...That is possible," Percy admitted.

"So you were about to attempt a dangerous procedure. According to the rules, I should have thrown you out of the classroom." Gordon shrugged.

"Then what should I do?" Percy asked through gritted teeth. It looked as though considerable pressure was building inside his chest too.

"Go open the windows," Gordon said.