Chapter 158: Doctor Kenshi

To begin with, there are two approaches to bodily mutation in mutation studies.

The first approach is transplantation.

You take part of a monster or Transcendent’s body and graft it onto a normal human.
If it succeeds, the junction mutates to match the transplanted body part and adapts to it. Once adaptation occurs, even if only the right arm was transplanted, the left arm might also transform to match it.

However, simply stitching things together causes rejection and prevents adaptation.

So the key lies in suppressing rejection.

To counter rejection, refined toxins derived from monsters are used to suppress both physical immunity and magical immunity.

Then another drug is administered to neutralize the toxicity of the immunosuppressants.

And then yet another enhancer is administered to build resistance to the neutralizing agent.

In other words, mutation requires drowning the subject in drugs. People even say mutants have magical medicine flowing through their veins instead of blood.

The second approach is transformation magic.

You cast Human Transformation Magic while incorporating body parts from monsters or Transcendents into the spell.

If successful, the materials fuse with the transformed person, producing a nicely stabilized mutant in one go.

But simply attempting fusion-transformations normally results in accidents.

If the mutation material gets rejected and only the person transforms normally into a human, that’s considered lucky.

More often, the magic bugs out and turns them into mangled masses of flesh, or fills their bodies with cancer and blood clots until they die in agony, along with all kinds of horrific side effects.

So the key lies in how to reliably induce stable fusion-mutation.

First, you need to lower the subject’s maximum mana capacity. This is usually done by chugging mana recovery potions. By over-restoring mana with the potions, you secure enough mana to cast Human Transformation while simultaneously lowering the maximum mana capacity.

The important principle here is making the “mutation material > mutant” in terms of mana quantity. That’s why using materials with immense magic power makes this step easier.

Once the mutation material dominates in mana, you activate Human Transformation Magic while altering and biasing it through magical script.

Magic script can slightly alter the original effects of a spell. You can’t outright convert “Human Transformation Magic” into “Monster Transformation Magic,” but you can broaden it into something like “Human-ish Transformation Magic.”

There are also grotesque methods like physically sewing together twin bodies into a single two-headed person and having them cast two different self-transformation spells simultaneously to induce a transformation bug.

Yeah… mutation studies are seriously dark.
It really made me realize the eccentric scholars of the Mutation Studies Department at Tokyo Magic University were actually relatively ethical.

Taking those two approaches into account, the “Artificial Divinity” — the younger sister of the future-seer — was a heavily modified mutant created by combining both methods.

The transplantation approach leaned heavily on physical techniques, so I handled that through dexterity.

The transformation approach leaned heavily on magical techniques, so Hiyori handled that with magic.

If the two of us together could restore the horribly mutated corpse of the future-seer’s sister to a state where resurrection magic would work, then we’d win.

Fortunately, all the detailed research documents from the advanced mutation experiments remained intact.

What kind of base subject they used, what experiments they conducted, the process, the results — everything was thoroughly documented.

The equipment and experimental materials were all still there too. Those records became invaluable references for saving the future-seer’s sister.

That was thanks to Hiyori storming in at insane speed.

She skipped all negotiations and information gathering, slaughtered every enemy-looking person she saw, and barreled forward. In the process, she accidentally killed both the future-seer and his sister.

But because her invasion was too fast, the mastermind — some bastard named Kauhan — got killed before he could escape, and the research records survived instead of being destroyed.

So Hiyori’s indiscriminate destroy-everything mode wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

I holed myself up in the underground research facility and spent days studying the grotesque mutation research records in detail.
(Well, I can’t read Hindi, so Hiyori read them aloud to me. Technically she read them.)

The highly efficient research that had exploited the future-seer like a slave was written up in an extremely concise and clear format, so in just one month I managed to absorb ten years’ worth of research data.

I completely gave up trying to understand the magical side of mutation studies and dumped that onto Hiyori, focusing only on the physical approaches where my dexterity might actually help. Even so, I think I worked pretty damn hard.

According to the records, the Artificial Divinity — the future-seer’s younger sister — was apparently a chimera mutant fused from seven people.

“The Saint’s Demon,” mutated using flesh from the Vatican witch-saint Lucie.

“The Bloodstained Demon,” mutated using skin from the American witch Bloody Mary.

“The Fairy Demon,” mutated using feathers from the British witch Fairy Lord Mira.

“The Demon King’s Demon,” mutated using tentacles from a Demon King that once ravaged America.

“The Great Cat Demon,” mutated using whiskers from the Australian witch Sydney Cat.

“The Mud Demon,” mutated using suckers from the Chinese witch Haixian.

And finally, the “Future-Seer Bloodline,” which served as the core connecting the six demons together.

They forcibly mutated six girls not even ten years old, turned them into components, and fused them together around the future-seer’s sister into a single lifeform.

If we hadn’t wiped them out, they apparently planned to repeat the process with six boys and create a second Artificial Divinity.

That’s way too insane.

Don’t use advanced technology for garbage purposes like this!

Seriously, if you can only make high-performance creations by doing evil things, that’s just pathetic loser behavior. Have some pride.

…Though clearly they didn’t. Spit.

The work was monstrous garbage, but the technical sophistication was undeniable.

The suturing was clean and rationally designed, which made dismantling the thawed Artificial Divinity comparatively easy.

What we hadn’t expected was that not only the future-seer’s sister, but possibly two of the six girls used as components could also be restored.

Amazingly, two of them still had nearly intact brains and hearts.

Thinking back, there had been a clue.

According to Tsubaki, the Artificial Divinity had “lots of mana hearts.”

The unknowable magic organ that generates mana — the “mana heart” — is located in the head. If the magic organ remained intact, then the brain probably survived too.

There was also a clear reason the hearts remained intact: according to the records, it was protection against instant death magic.

With seven hearts, they could withstand instant death magic six times.

Four of the seven hearts had already rotted before Hiyori froze the creature, making them unsalvageable. But three remained intact, including the future-seer sister’s.

Three people had both head and heart preserved. Not just one — three girls had a chance at survival.

Because of the evil modifications designed under the assumption they’d face instant death magic, not only the future-seer’s sister but two of the six girls used as parts might also be saved.

With Hiyori lowering the operating room’s temperature to minimize decomposition, I devoted myself every day to reconstructing the dismembered bodies of those two-plus-one girls.

Blood vessel by blood vessel. Cell by cell.

I carefully restored them to the arrangement of “human beings,” making sure not to damage even the tiniest piece.

Meanwhile, Hiyori experimented with all kinds of magic on the corpses’ organs and bodily fluids, trying to restore them.

After spending eighty years traveling the world searching for resurrection magic, Hiyori had learned countless other spells too. She was the ancient witch who knew the second-largest number of spells in the world.

If there was any witch capable of magically restoring mutants to normal, it would be the Blue Witch.

One month deciphering the research records.

One month performing restoration surgery.

After spending that much time, we hit a wall.

Fundamentally, there simply wasn’t enough body left.

Too much of their flesh had been deemed “unnecessary” for the Artificial Divinity and discarded.

Even the “Bloodstained Demon,” whose original body remained most intact, had lost 44% of her body.

And the “Great Cat Demon,” whose body had been carved away the most, had lost 75%.

With over half their bodies missing, resurrection magic simply wouldn’t work.

No matter how skillfully I tried to reconstruct them, or how much Hiyori tried restoring them with magic, if the original body parts no longer existed, there was nothing we could do.

How were we supposed to solve that problem?

We had no idea.

About a week into agonizing over the seemingly impossible dilemma, while Hiyori and I sat at a desk covered in documents with our foreheads pressed together discussing solutions, two visitors arrived.

The ones who entered the dim underground laboratory filled with the smell of chemicals were the Hero, Conrad Williams… and some hunchbacked ghost-looking person completely covered by a white bedsheet.

Who the hell was that?

“Who’s that?”

The question showed on my face, but Hiyori actually said it out loud.

Williams shrugged and gently pushed the white-sheet ghost forward.

The figure staggered toward us unsteadily and spoke in the exhausted voice of a young man.

“I’m the current future-seer. First… thank you for trying to save us. I truly appreciate it. But… can’t you just let this end already?”

His voice was clear enough, but completely devoid of spirit or energy.

Hiyori and I exchanged glances.

End what? What was he talking about?

All I really understood was that he’d picked the least intimidating outfit possible before coming here.

“What do you mean by ‘end’? We’re still working on resurrecting your sister.”

“It’s impossible anyway. I’m tired. I know you’re trying to help out of kindness, but… I don’t want to see anything anymore.”

“Huh…? Why are you being so negative? You survived.”

“Light… at this point? I’ve had enough. My sister probably won’t come back anyway. We can’t restore her. Tell me… what will I be forced to foresee next? Where will I be imprisoned next? Who will use me next? How many years will they lock me up this time? Why did you revive me? Everything had finally ended. You should’ve just let me die…”

After hearing his despair-filled monologue, Williams and Hiyori lowered their eyes sadly.

The atmosphere grew unbearably heavy.

…No, why???

Why did things suddenly get so depressing?

I understood that the mood was heavy, but I didn’t understand why. What was going on?

“Are you seriously listening to yourself right now? Are you sane?”

When I voiced my sincere confusion, the future-seer turned his cloudy white eyes toward me through the small viewing hole in the sheet.

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, you spent ten whole years living only for other people, right? Then for the next ten years, you live only for yourself. At minimum. You suffered for ten years, didn’t you? Then spend the next ten enjoying yourself. Otherwise the math doesn’t balance out. Why are you already talking about living for someone else again? It’s arithmetic! You got hit with a minus ten, so now you take a plus ten. Live selfishly as much as you want. Isn’t that obvious?”

After a long silence, the future-seer answered.

“It’s not that simple. You saw what happens when my power is abused, didn’t you? My existence is harmful to society.”

“Huh? Wait, are you actually stupid unless you rely on magic? Society’s the thing that harmed you. If society had done its damn job properly, you never would’ve been captured by trash like Kauhan. You’re not the harmful one — that scumbag Kauhan, the country that let him run loose, and the police who failed to stop him were the ones harming you.”

“I… see…”

Yeah, exactly.

Sure, self-reflection matters and all, but from everything I’d heard, the future-seer hadn’t done a single thing wrong.

That means the people around him were the problem. Kauhan was evil, and society was at fault for failing to crush him sooner.

Honestly, I thought he deserved to seize all the filthy money Kauhan hoarded and sue the country for emotional damages. Then spend the rest of his life playing around happily with his sister somewhere far away from where I’d ever see them.

“Besides, your sister’ll cry if her big brother dies. Don’t make my friend cry.”

“Hm? Friend?”

“Friend. Okay, sure, there’s an age gap! But friendship doesn’t care about age, right?”

I’d never heard of age restrictions on friendship, so it should be fine.

When I glared at him like, You got a problem with that?, the future-seer hesitantly said:

“Uh… it’s not really the age thing… It’s just… no offense to my sister, but when you met her, she was… uh… in a pretty horrifying state, wasn’t she?”

“Ah, yeah, but she was incredibly earnest. She was crying, begging to see her brother and asking for help. She even gave me the prettiest stone she had. Honestly? She was adorable.

OH! But just so we’re clear — a friend’s older brother is only a friend’s older brother. Don’t go acting all buddy-buddy with me.”

When I carefully set up my defensive disclaimer, the future-seer went speechless and turned to look at the blond elf-eared man behind him.

Williams smiled.

“He means every word sincerely.”

“Is he sane?”

“Wonderfully so.”

The future-seer looked genuinely bewildered, and Hiyori spoke to him gently as well.

“The regrets, suffering, and painful memories carved into your very soul will never disappear. For the rest of your life, they’ll torment you from time to time.

But… a life spent gathering more happy memories than painful ones isn’t nearly as bad as you might think.”

“…………”

The future-seer fell silent.

But little by little his hunched back straightened, and the gloomy atmosphere around him grew lighter and brighter.

…So what?

What the hell is going on?

I could tell some kind of complicated conversation beyond my understanding was happening.

I just had no clue what it meant.

They were definitely using some advanced metaphorical nonsense. Stop that! I hate conversations like that!

“What’s with you people? Talk in a way I can understand.”

“Apparently, I was an idiot. That’s the gist of it.”

“Huh? Then my understanding was right. Listen carefully: if you’re at minus ten, you need plus ten just to get back to zero. To actually go positive, you need plus eleven or more. Learn some arithmetic.”

“I’ll remember that. And… yes. Give me one month. This time, I’ll try properly looking toward the future. Not for anyone else — for myself, by my own will.”

After saying that, the future-seer bowed lightly to Hiyori and me, then staggered away while being guided by Conrad.

I watched him leave and sighed.

Seriously, the future-seer really was pitiful.

“Life’s rough for him. He got kidnapped as a little kid, so he never even learned arithmetic. That’s why he can’t understand such simple logic… tragic.”

“No, that’s not what this is about. Well… whatever. Maybe it’s fine if you stay like this.”

Hiyori looked like she wanted to explain something, then gave up and laughed.

I didn’t really get it, but whatever! All good.

And then, one month later…

I learned just how monstrously capable the supposedly dumb future-seer actually was.

Wearing the same white bedsheet and shambling around unsteadily like before, the future-seer appeared again while Hiyori and I were still completely stuck on resurrection research.

Then he started speaking rapidly.

“Blue Witch, I absolutely need you to use Absolute Death Magic. Feed intermediary-processed iron to a familiar created from my sister’s flesh and blood, then use Absolute Death Magic to create Life-Iron. We’ll need at minimum this much volume — about thirty kilograms in weight. Can you do it?”

Caught off guard, Hiyori nodded vaguely.

“I-I can, if you’re asking whether it’s possible… Though, I assume you’re only asking because you foresaw a future where I succeed. What would we even use Life-Iron for? A magic sword?”

“No. During the refinement process, Life-Iron is magically recognized as the same entity as the life sacrificed to create it. Life-Iron refined from my sister’s body can serve as a substitute for the body parts she lost.”

“…Really? I’ve never heard of such a property.”

“I foresaw it.”

The future-seer said it so casually that I was horrified.

Wait, didn’t he just say something insane?

America had been pouring absurd amounts of research funding for years into discovering applications for Life-Iron… and this guy found one?

Using future vision magic?

In just one month?

This dude’s terrifying.

What even is this?

At this point it’s basically omniscience. He can figure out anything.

I mean, I know future vision isn’t actually all-powerful, but when he pulls off stuff like this it’s hard not to think otherwise.

While I was still shuddering, the future-seer turned to me next.

“Dairi, your dexterity is essential. I want you to recreate my sister’s missing body parts as precisely as possible using Life-Iron. It’ll become metalwork. Can you do it?”

“…So not making prosthetics, but more like crafting ultra-precise models of body parts, right? How accurate do they need to be?”

“As accurate as physically possible. If you do the best work you can, not only my sister but her two friends can also return to life. It’ll be difficult work. But no one except you can do this.”

“!!!”

Being praised and encouraged like that made me grin instinctively.

Ohhh! So this is a high-level task only I can do?

I see, I see.

As expected, my dexterity really is the best in the world! Gahahaha! Leave it to me!

Once Hiyori and I obtained the ultimate commander — the future-seer magician — every obstacle we’d been hopelessly stuck on vanished at absurd speed.

Whether magic approaches or physical approaches, everything worked astonishingly well simply by listening to the future-seer and following his instructions exactly.

Honestly, things went too smoothly. There’s barely anything worth talking about — it was all predetermined, efficient work.

And in only two months, the future-seer’s sister and her two friends were revived with ridiculous ease.

Failure was never even a possibility. No hardships, no dramatic struggles. To the future-seer, everything was simply a clearly visible predetermined route.

Terrifying, honestly.

The three girls who returned to life were:

A demon girl with wildcat ears.

A slender pale-skinned demon girl wearing a vivid red scarf around her neck.

And my friend — the dark-skinned girl.

Once his sisters had been revived, the future-seer quickly disappeared together with the three girls after offering only brief thanks.

No one knew where they went.

Williams ended up assigned to investigate the disappearance of the important persons connected to the incident, though he didn’t seem particularly motivated about it.

Tsubaki tilted her head in confusion and said, “I said sorry for stepping on her back then… but who was that girl?”

Hiyori looked refreshed and immediately started planning our next journey.

And I kept rereading the single letter the future-seer had left for me.

In clumsy Japanese, it said:

“To Doctor Dairi. Thank you for saving us.”