Kallen let out a long breath and smiled. Mr. Eisen was not dead, so "Awakening" had had no effect.
Mr. Eisen asked, "Kallen, um, you're still alive, aren't you?"
"Of course, Uncle. I'm not an illusion created by pollution, or a nightmare like Mother."
"Good, that's good. That's wonderful. Hehe, wonderful."
Mr. Eisen believed whatever Kallen said without even the slightest doubt, because he had heard the answer he wanted. He could not accept any outcome other than that.
Even if this were a dream, he would keep dreaming with his head down. Nobody was going to wake him.
Besides, the nephew standing before him was naked.
Neither an illusion nor a nightmare would feature such an incongruous scene. Something that defied common sense like this actually felt particularly real.
Kallen also realized he had no clothes on. Having crawled out of that pool of concentrated pollution, even his body had only just been "woven." How could he possibly have clothes?
Besides, he had been so focused on his uncle's condition that he had not noticed.
Still, there was nothing particularly embarrassing about it. Just as Fanny and Peige had liked being naked in front of him on missions before, in special circumstances, who would care about moral proprieties that did not amount to so much as a scrape?
Kallen stood and walked over to a researcher's remains nearby. The corpse stood upright, still swaying slightly. Kallen could see things like tiny crawling insects moving through it.
Were they toxic strains?
But these insects now looked very sluggish. In fact, because Mr. Luther had swept most of the surrounding pollution into Kallen's body earlier, the pollution concentration in this laboratory had dropped to an absolute minimum. All the toxic strains had entered something like hibernation.
This was also why Mr.