Kisho walked through a stretch of darkness.
As he moved forward step by step, he vaguely heard something, as if it had been awakened by his footsteps.
Heavy breathing, the sound of grinding teeth, and the shrill screech of sharp nails scraping against metal.
All the way to the end, Kisho did not see the so-called researchers.
Kisho raised his hand and touched the wall at the end. The cold, smooth sensation traveled along his fingers and into his brain.
"...It's a glass wall."
He said silently to himself.
There was no second door on the wall, which meant this was a sealed room.
If that was the case, then it wasn't hard to guess what was making those strange noises.
Kisho turned around.
In the darkness, a streak of cold light suddenly flashed past. Along with a piercing shriek, wet blood splattered everywhere.
A monster that had been released at some unknown time was cut across the throat by his triangular spike the instant it lunged at him without warning.
The next second, dazzling lights shone down from the ceiling.
Everything in the room was laid bare at a glance.
Kisho slowly straightened up, kicked away the monster that had died with its eyes wide open, and surveyed his surroundings.
Dozens of cages were piled inside the room, filling both sides of the walls, leaving only a narrow path less than three meters wide in the middle.
These cages were pieced together from steel, without a single visible gap. Only the iron plate at the very front, used as the cage door, had ventilation slits.
Among them, one cage door had been silently opened at some point. The thing that originally lived inside that cage now lay dead not far from Kisho.
"Heh heh heh..."
The monsters in the other cages stared at their dead kin on the floor, their eyes filled with desire—they longed to devour the bodies of their own kind to gain greater power.
Foul-smelling saliva dripped from the monsters' mouths.
Kisho only glanced once before his eyes stung, and he quickly looked away toward the other side of the glass.
On that side stood three or four researchers.
Those positioned farther back were wrapped in heavy protective suits from head to toe, their faces completely hidden, making it impossible to tell their gender.
The one standing closest to the front had a head of brown hair that clearly hadn't been tended to in a long time. The research coat on his body looked like it hadn't been changed for ages either, even losing its original color.
He pressed both hands against the glass, staring fixedly at Kisho inside it, like a prospector who had discovered a gold mine, his eyes bloodshot.
"Aren't you supposed to be able to absorb the energy of experimental subjects?"
He shouted hoarsely, "Absorb it! Show me! Hurry!"
Kisho: "..."
He curled his lips coldly and said, "Who are you."
The brown-haired researcher froze for a moment. His cloudy eyes sized Kisho up and down, then he burst into wild laughter.
"Too interesting—you can actually disguise yourself as a human..." His face pressed against the glass as he stared straight at Kisho, as if trying to see through his exterior to whatever was hidden beneath.
"I... I am the one who created you."
He answered word by word, a morbid smile appearing on his face.
His posture was lofty, like a ruler who had created all things, looking down as he bestowed his mercy from above.
"You?"
Kisho glanced at him with extreme contempt. Too lazy to continue talking, he turned around and focused his attention on the room split in half by the massive glass wall.
The iron door behind him might not be easy to break through, but this glass... If he converted all of his Nen into "fire" and poured it into the triangular spike, breaking it point by point, it might not be impossible to shatter.
But not now. He had to wait until after departure.
There were already plenty of Nen users on the ship. If these researchers sensed something was wrong and sounded the alarm, even more people would be summoned aboard for support.
Kisho withdrew his gaze, walked to the empty cage, casually sat down, and closed his eyes to rest.
"I order you to absorb the energy of the experimental subjects!"
The brown-haired researcher was still shouting, but what answered him was a single eye-roll from Kisho.
After repeating himself several times to no avail, the brown-haired researcher stopped his pointless behavior and laughed darkly.
He looked at Kisho. After a long pause, as if foretelling something, he slowly said:
"...Experimental subjects that do not obey instructions will be punished."
After saying that, he no longer paid attention to Kisho. Instead, he operated the mechanical arm in the room, pulling a cage containing a monster out through the ceiling channel.
"Roar roar roar!!!"
The experimental subject inside the cage let out terrifying howls, but clearly the people in the room were already used to it.
A researcher in a protective suit took a vial of medicine from the laboratory freezer and began mixing it expressionlessly, his movements smooth and practiced—it was obviously not his first time doing this.
He walked over to the cage and plunged the syringe into the experimental subject's body.
"Heh heh heh! Wuu—"
A few seconds later, the violent howling and roaring gradually weakened, turning into broken screams, until they finally stopped.
"How long?" the brown-haired researcher asked.
"Thirteen minutes," replied a researcher holding a timer.
"...Adjust the component ratio. The experiment continues."
The brown-haired researcher looked at the corpse in the cage and frowned in disgust.
"What a useless thing. It couldn't even last fifteen minutes."
Kisho silently watched all of this, then slowly closed his eyes again.
The fist at his side quietly clenched.
As time passed, the people on the other side of the glass gradually stopped paying continuous attention to this side. Only the brown-haired researcher would occasionally look over at Kisho with an exploratory gaze that disgusted him.
"Sains, I heard that this kid drank the 'raw liquid' when he was upstairs."
One researcher walked over to the brown-haired researcher and asked:
"Do we need to prepare a second drink for him?"
"No need."
The brown-haired researcher called Sains spoke with interest. He looked at the peaceful youth sitting in the corner, a cruel light flashing through his eyes.
"I want to see what this little brat will turn into after the supply is cut off."
Their conversation did not avoid Kisho. Perhaps whatever reaction Kisho might have upon hearing it was also within their scope of observation and research.
But what disappointed them was that the youth remained serene and tranquil—as if the place he was sitting in was not a laboratory full of monsters, but a picturesque grassland.
Sains reached up and stroked his chin. After a moment, he let out a cold laugh.
"I hope that two hours from now, this kid can still be this calm."
He casually took off his filthy research coat and said,
"Those on duty, keep a close watch on the experimental data. The rest of you can go rest."
"It's the second half of the night when we need to give it our all."
"Yes."
The others bowed their heads and responded.
"Second half of the night?"
Kisho's ear twitched.
"He probably means after midnight. That's when the ship departs..."
"Judging from the threat he just made, if I drank the beverage at the banquet earlier, the time when the addiction flares up should also be after twelve."
"If he wants to do something to me when the addiction hits, then conversely, can't I also use that moment to catch him completely off guard and kill him?"
Kisho lowered his head, his gaze falling on his own arm.
"After all, someone who's used to pain won't be hindered by things they've already grown accustomed to."