Chapter 36 – A Special Child, a Frightening Illness 

Seisil was using object-transference magic to move every book in the Imperial Palace related to homunculus to Ethea’s house and examine them. It was to determine the reason for the pain Gin was suffering from. 

At present, Gin was asleep thanks to Seisil’s pain-relief magic and sleep magic. But if he woke up again, he would probably be tormented by pain once more.

Even so, they could not simply keep controlling the pain with magic and put him back to sleep like this. That might work for ordinary humans, but Gin was a Homunclepet. If magic were repeatedly used on a child born through a rite that combined alchemy and magic, it could end up having negative effects.

Ethea, who had gone to the palace to meet the Emperor, returned sooner than expected. Seisil received them.

“Everyone is here.”

“Gin. My baby.”

The moment Ethea arrived, she ran to the bed and looked at Gin. Lyle did the same. Just like Ethea, he was deeply worried, and as he stood by her side looking at the sleeping child, he nearly let out a sigh several times, but held it back for fear that Ethea might hear.

Even while asleep, the child was frowning as if he were in pain. Perhaps only the sleep magic was being maintained and the pain-relief magic was no longer working properly. If so, that was its own kind of t*rture.

Seisil looked at Lyle and said with a sigh,

“What a sinful man.”

Lyle looked at Seisil as if he were insane.

A sinful man? Who was the one who had proposed making a Homunclepet without even fully understanding the side effects of alchemy?

Of course, Lyle, who had ultimately created the Homunclepet, bore the greatest fault, but Seisil, who had planted hope in him, was equally guilty. 

Sinful, was it. What nonsense.

Dumbfounded, Lyle glared at him. Seisil then opened a page in a book and showed it to him. Lyle scanned the page, and Seisil summarized it from beside him.

“In short…… a homunculus is greatly influenced by its creator, or by the person it sees most often.”

As Lyle read, he gradually understood.

Gin’s calm personality was because he resembled Ethea, the one raising him. His kindness toward others and his interest in alchemy were also because he wanted to resemble certain parts of his mother.

Up to this point, it was little more than the general idea that children often come to resemble those who raise them, but the line that followed caught his eye.

“Not just imitation of the creator’s personality, but also outward aspects such as physique. If it discovers traits it wants to resemble, a homunculus makes all of those characteristics its own. If that is how a homunculus is, then what do you suppose a Homunclepet would be like?”

Lyle remembered Gin saying that every joint in his body hurt. His stomach hurting, his head hurting as well… perhaps all this pain was abnormal growing pains. A process of wanting to resemble Lyle, of becoming more like Lyle. That seemed to be why Seisil had called Lyle a sinful man.

Lyle asked Seisil,

“So what do you think the treatment is?”

At that moment, the ominous god Sadea cut in without reading the room.

【Treatment, my foot. Let’s just kill it. A monster like this.】

No matter that he was the ominous god of sl*ughter, there should still have been limits. Unable to endure it, Lyle shouted at Sadea,

“Shut up!”

Apparently his voice had been harsh and loud. Even with his eyes closed, Gin flinched in surprise on the bed, and Ethea too looked at Lyle with a deathly pale face, as if she had been shocked.

“Your…… Majesty.”

But Seisil was not surprised. More than anyone, he knew that whenever the Emperor suddenly turned vicious, nine times out of ten it was because of Sadea. As if telling him to ignore the likes of Sadea, Seisil placed a hand on the Emperor’s shoulder.

“Your Majesty, so, the only treatment is a direct approach.”

Lyle kept his eyes shut for a long while as he struggled to control his anger. In front of Ethea, he absolutely could not lose control because of Sadea.

Only after grinding his teeth and counting from one to ten did he open his eyes. Then he asked Seisil,

“What do you mean by a direct approach?”

“He has to be told. Gin has to be told.”

“Told what?”

“That there is nothing good about growing up too quickly. That a child only needs to grow like a child. That that is the most ideal way. The child will have to understand those words and agree with them.”

Lyle gave a cynical laugh and shook his head. His feelings right now were like a man clinging to a single blade of grass on a cliffside. If things changed just by telling someone, then what in this world could not be done?

“And if that method doesn’t work?”

Only after a few seconds did Seisil answer with difficulty.

“Then it would be best if you did not see each other until the child is fully grown.”

Lyle could not bear it. To think that the one harmful to Gin was none other than himself; it felt as if his heart were collapsing under despair.

“I’d like everyone to step out for a moment.”

His voice had sunk low, and he looked unbearably grief-stricken.

Without a word, Seisil moved aside and left. Ethea did the same. Since she did not know any clear cure, the only thing she could do was follow instructions.

＊  ＊  ＊

Even while sitting on the outer veranda, Seisil immersed himself in books about homunculus.

Ethea stood leaning by the door, lost in thought.

Recently, not only Ethea herself but everyone else had been saying that Gin had become more mature. Not only in appearance, but in behavior and speech as well. The idea that all of that was because he had been influenced by Lyle was something Ethea simply could not believe.

Could someone really be influenced that deeply by a person he had only known for a short while? Could he really wish that strongly to become like him? It was not even as if he knew him to be his father.

And there was one more thing troubling her.

Ethea approached Seisil and quietly asked,

“Could it be……”

Seisil lifted his gaze from the book and looked at her.

“Yes. Please speak.”

“If he grows quickly, does that mean he will also age quickly?”

“Unfortunately, we still do not know that much. Whether rapid growth also means accelerated aging, or whether, since he is still human, he will maintain his youth to the end because of the longing for youth that all humans possess. In truth, information on Homunclepets is extremely scarce. We are only inferring, from what is known about homunculus, that Homunclepets are probably similar…… more or less at that level. However, unless they are failures, homunculus are originally physically strong, and depending on the creator’s wish, even immortality is possible. Therefore, there is a high probability that Homunclepets are the same.”

Ethea felt the strength drain from her.

She had asked whether he would age quickly, and the answer she got was that he was highly likely to be immortal. It was neither the answer she had hoped for nor one she welcomed. If possible, Ethea wanted Gin to live just like any ordinary child. She did not want him to realize that he was different from others because of things like rapid growth or immortality.

“However, what worries me is……”

“Yes?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Seisil had been about to say something without thinking, but then tightly shut his mouth. Curious, Ethea waited for him to continue, but in the end he could not say it.

How could he possibly say it?

The power to drive away monsters, possessed only by imperial descendants. That power, which Lyle had also had, had passed to Gin after Gin came into being, almost as though it had been handed down from one generation to the next.

Afterward, into the place left empty by the power that had left Lyle came the power of the ominous god Sadea. Because of that, Lyle had lost almost all the colors of the world, was suffering from the urge to sl*ughter, and whether he liked it or not, he could only go on living by carefully placating Sadea.

So if Lyle was to drive Sadea away, the original power would have to be brought back into the place where Sadea’s power now resided.

That power had to be taken back from Gin…….

And for that to happen, Gin would have to disappear.

To tell all of that truthfully would be cruel. And neither Seisil nor Lyle wanted Gin to disappear. Needless to say, neither did Ethea.

So they had to find a solution. If possible, quickly. And one that was certain.

“What were you about to say?”

“No, it seems this is not yet the time to talk about that. Right now, I think getting rid of Gin’s pain is more important.”

Having said that, Seisil buried himself in his book again.

Seeing how focused he was, Ethea could not speak to him any further. But she could not burst into tears either, and crying would solve nothing anyway. To calm the burning anxiety inside her, Ethea took several deep breaths.