Volume 2 – The World Sneered
“What are you talking about…?”
Yueri felt puzzled and tilted her head.
She continued staring at Calaria with her wide open eyes.
“You’re talking utter nonsense, damn it!!!”
Calaria shouted and grabbed at Yueri.
Cutie and Mary frantically grabbed Calaria’s hands and stopped her.
“Calm down Calaria, we don’t know what’s going on yet!”
“She’s right, let’s hear her out first!”
They both knew that what Yueri just said was very strange, of course.
However, as long as they did not sense any hostility from her, there was no point in making a bigger deal out of this yet.
“Scary. The way you can’t see anything around you when you flare up and get angry resembles me quite closely.”
“Ugh…… You bitch……!”
“C’mon Calaria, call me mama. I’m your only blood relative now that your sister is dead, right?”
“Please don’t take it too far, Miss. Yueri! Did you invite Miss. Calaria here just to annoy her!?”
“You’re in a similar position too, Princess. Mary. You’re the child of King Henry and Princess Francis.”
Mary could not answer with any proper words after the sudden declaration of this truth.
“……Huh?”
That was the only word she managed to squeeze out of her confused face.
She knew Henry was her father.
Her mother, however, was supposed to be Blair, like the other Beta Type homunculi.
No, even if that was wrong, why would it be Francis?
“Oh no. Oh no, indeed, ehehehe, don’t glare at me like that. Haha! There’s no changing what happened in the past. It happened, because it happened.”
Mary looked at Yueri’s face as she laughed in front of her, and her laughter uncomfortably resonated in the depths of her mind.
As Calaria and Mary lost their calmness, the only one who barely kept her composure, Cutie, warned Ami with her eyes while she quietly held wheels in her hands behind the group.
She then took a deep breath, and spoke out to Yueri.
“……You’re fatally poor at speaking. Your explanation is nonsensical.”
“Really? Maybe. I’m just so happy to see Calaria after so long.”
“Let’s chat in a calmer spot. You invited us and the princess here, so you must have at least arranged a room, right?”
“Of course! Let’s go, Calaria!”
Yueri reached her hand out to Calaria after saying that.
Of course, she was only met by eyes full of hostility.
She pouted her cheeks, as if surprised by this cold reaction, and guided Mary and the group with a light gait.
◇◇◇
The group were led to the parlor.
Ami, Mary and Calaria lined up and sat on the couch, while Cutie sat on a different chair she brought from somewhere else nearby.
They all looked at Yueri again.
“I’m sorry to have you sit on a chair, Miss. Cutie. I wish Calaria sat here.”
“……No need for idle chatter. Talk fast.”
“How scary. Okay, what do you want to ask me? About your sister?”
“You invited us.”
“I just wanted to see you, Calaria. But I can tell from your reaction earlier that you know you’re a homunculus. So I suppose you’ve also heard your sister’s real name.”
“I only know the name ‘Yueri’.”
“I see, then I suppose you don’t know why your sister fled this place either. Well? Shall I start from when the research began? Or from when we arrived in this place?”
“All of it.”
“Good, you’re interested.”
“I don’t want to learn about you, I want to learn about the parent who raised me.”
And, Calaria thought that, after learning everything, perhaps she could understand why the blood of the woman named Yueri had to be used.
Of course, Calaria, and Mary next to her also wanted to solve the puzzle hidden in their births straight away.
However, perhaps wanting some time to calm herself down, Mary also did not seem to mind a long story.
“Ever since I can remember, me and my sister were already in Pupa. Sister was either called
Justice
, J, or Justia, a word that means justice in the old language. I thought it was cute, so I used that name often too.”
◇◇◇
Their mother was the daughter of a noble family.
She played around when she was young, and gave birth to a child of an unknown father.
Thinking that it would be bad for her family to learn of this, she rented a room, and had a servant raise her child there.
That was Justia.
She was blessed with a talent for sorcery, and earned the arcana of
Justice
when she was barely 1 year old.
Her mother welcomed this with joy, and sold Justia to Pupa at a high price.
Afterwards, she was raised in Pupa as a precious arcana sample.
She was not even given a name by her mother.
Two years later, her mother got pregnant by a different man again.
Perhaps the child’s face resembled her father’s, because the two sisters did not look much alike.
However, the newborn child was also blessed with a talent for sorcery, just like Justia, and she was immediately sold to Pupa.
“My arcana user sister. I know an arcana will awaken in you soon!”
Even without an arcana, she was still talented in sorcery.
The newborn baby was even more valuable than Justia, and was purchased by Pupa at a very high price.
A few years after that, the mother lost her life, but Yueri had no way of learning the specific details.
At any rate, this was how the older sister Justia and the younger sister Yueri were brought to Pupa’s laboratory.
Incidentally, Yueri also only got her name when she was 2 years old.
As she gradually developed her own personality, and did not have an arcana awaken within her, the researchers decided to just give her a name similar to her sister.
They grew up fast in the laboratory after that.
The researchers apparently developed feelings as well after many years together, and doted on the sisters quite a bit.
Still, they only had each other as a blood relative.
Justia loved Yueri, and Yueri held an affection for Justia that was more than one would hold for a sister, and they were always together.
That never changed as they grew up.
Around when Justia was 10 years old, they developed an extraordinary talent that was something other than arcana.
They had genius intellect.
The sisters, now 10 years and 8 years old, had expert knowledge on sorcery that put the researchers to shame.
Of course, being raised in a laboratory had also greatly influenced them.
Ever since they were little, they had been reading technical books on sorcery instead of picture books.
Still, it was out of the ordinary for a 10 years old and an 8 years old girl to possess an intellect equal to the best researchers gathered by Pupa.
With that, the girls were now ‘brilliant researchers’, and not just arcana samples.
And 24 years ago, when Justia was 12 years old,
that thing
was born.
A new ‘homunculus theory’ that was modeled after the theory from the ancient times, and converted it into something more practical.
A research that made it possible to give birth to a being with its own mind inside a test tube, using only blood. King Henry was interested in this.
He immediately increased the budget, made Justia the project’s leader and started ‘World Destruction’.
The first homunculus was born a year after that.
Its life was over before it was even fully born, however.
Another year was necessary until a homunculus that could live as a proper human being was born.
Like Mary and the others knew, it was an ‘Alpha Type’ homunculus created using Justia’s blood.
The children possessed a high skill for sorcery, and the project progressed well.
Even as the plan continued on track, however, Justia kept researching, trying to lead the homunculus theory to even greater heights.
It was in order to give the children who were born in an unnatural way a happier life.
However, she ended up noticing one law.
Which was……
‘The
closer
the two bloods used, the higher the child’s skill for sorcery becomes.’
This was certainly going to be put in practice if found out.
But, it also made the possibility of a homunculus being born with deformities higher.
The homunculi were going to be the victims of this.
They could become visually indistinct from each other, and could develop ‘physical flaws’ as they grew up.
So she hid this from everyone.
However, it was only a matter of time until someone who possessed the same level of intelligence as Justia also figured this out.
◇◇◇
Showing no timidness, Yueri delightfully spoke from the heart in front of the group.
“I made it. In secret from my sister, a homunculus born from our blood.”
She had no feelings of guilt.
Because she was sure that she did ‘something just’.
“Because I love my sister. My sister loves me too. It’s only natural for two people in love to have a child, right?”
Confusion and madness swallowed Mary and the others.
However, Mary thought that Yueri was wrong about one thing.
Justia had not hidden that law for the sake of the homunculi who would be born.
She had done it for Yueri, Mary thought.