"Just because of that?"
"What else? Your boss keeps dangling a fat carrot in front of you to make you finish the project, and then, right when the whole thing is about to collapse, he sacrifices your life to give it a transfusion—he wants you dead. And if you can still stomach working under a guy like that, then you're one of these!"
Filth threw up a thumbs-down. Young as it was, it was no fool.
The other side didn't care about you at all, and here you were still playing the fawning lapdog.
How pathetic could you get!
And so Filth came to its senses. It no longer wanted to keep tangling with Geno, but it also couldn't get out of Geno's body, so it could only laze around inside him, doing nothing at all.
Sure, there was nothing it could do—but simply being alive was already pretty good.
Life, after all, was just about being born and living on.
It figured it had life pretty well figured out.
And whether or not it was because it had burned through too much of its power before, the voice of the Progenitor in its ears had also grown less and less clear. By now, it could no longer hear the Progenitor's voice at all.
It seemed the other party had already given up on this pawn of theirs.
"To sum it all up, I won't keep interfering with you. And you'd better not go looking to get yourself killed either—after all, if you die, I don't get to live."
Filth said it very offhandedly, and indeed it wasn't lying. Yet for Geno, questions still remained.
"You said you can't get out—why? And what the hell is that thing?"
As Geno spoke, he even pointed at the 'statue' behind him. In response, Filth told Geno everything it had come to understand.
"You remember that needle? Aside from carrying a portion of Filth energy that can turn ordinary people into Sacrifices, that thing also contained some special ingredients—capable of controlling a person's mind. Probably some kind of banned drug."
As it spoke, Filth walked up in front of the monster and waved a hand.
"You've seen it too—this guy completely ignores us. Its essence is similar to mine; it's also a mass of Filth energy. But because of those drugs, once it took form it failed to give birth to a self-consciousness. It only responds to specific commands."
Realization dawned on Geno. So this was the method Hartman used to drive those Ethereals.
But that still didn't solve Geno's current predicament.
"The problem right now, though, is that this guy has seized the right to use the body. I don't know how I'm supposed to leave here."
Although Geno now understood how things had come to pass, faced with the creature before him he still had no good solution. Just as he couldn't get rid of Filth, so too with this thing that also carried Filth energy—he could suppress it, but he couldn't eradicate it.
"My troublesome tenants have multiplied. Say, since you and he share the same origin, couldn't you help me think of something?"
"Why should I? It's a huge pain, you know."
Geno caught it—it was a pain, not an impossibility.
Hearing Filth answer that way, Geno realized there was hope.
"You've lived in my place this long, after all. Consider it paying a little rent and lend me a hand~"
Watching Geno start acting shameless, snuggling up to Filth with no dignity whatsoever—
Filth, who shared the very same face as Geno, put on a look of disgust, yet found itself with no way to deal with this guy.
Just as it had said, at best it counted as a tenant here. Though it couldn't be driven out by Geno, resisting the landlord was flat-out impossible.
"Get off me!! Fine, I get it, I get it—I'll agree, all right?!"
Seeing Filth relent, Geno immediately dropped that shameless act.
Filth, meanwhile, heaved a long sigh and, reluctantly, stretched out a hand to Geno.
"Here—I'll split off a portion of my power to you. That way you'll be able to communicate with that thing's consciousness. After that, all you have to do is cleanse away the bad parts inside it, turn it back into pure Filth energy, and the problem's solved."
Filth explained it clearly enough, but from what Geno himself heard, he had only one thought.
"That's it?"
"What more do you want? Hurry up and go, stop bothering me."
Filth made a shooing noise, the kind you'd use to chase off a puppy, and then lay back down again.
"And once you're done, remember to give my power back."
Watching Filth in that give-up-on-everything slump, a bead of sweat rolled down the side of Geno's head.
This guy—how did it always manage to look so punchable?
Nevermind, nevermind—now's not the time for that.
Geno shook his head, then, feeling out the power Filth had handed him, reached out to touch that flamboyant monster.
The instant he made contact, Geno felt his consciousness seemingly connect to some strange thing, which prompted him to close his eyes and feel it out carefully.
What he didn't know, however, was that after handing its power over to him, Filth's state right then could hardly be called good.
Its face twisted with pain, it collapsed to the ground and thrashed, yet couldn't make a single sound—exactly like a fish starved of oxygen.
Its power had already been nearly depleted when it healed Geno earlier; the sliver that remained barely sufficed to sustain its very existence. But surrendering a portion of it to Geno meant its own existence had come under threat.
Filth's figure flickered like a signal with a bad connection, breaking apart into strings of mosaic static.
You'd better hurry it up—I can't hold on much longer...
Watching Geno, now fully immersed, Filth prayed in the depths of its heart that he'd finish soon.
And from the moment Geno connected to that monster, Geno's body in the real world began to show corresponding reactions.
The most obvious sign was that Lycaon, who hadn't yet decided how to act, noticed Geno's movements had come to a halt.
"What's going on here—why did he stop moving?"
Eous watched the scene with some confusion, and before long Miss Fairy provided a precise answer.
[Within the individual designated 'Geno,' multiple streams of highly active Ether reaction detected.]
[Inferred results as follows.]
[One: the subject is a schizophrenic.]
[Two: the subject is engaged in a left-brain-versus-right-brain struggle.]
[Three: the subject's consciousness is being disrupted by something and is fighting hard to resist.]
[Conclusion: the probability of the third possibility is as high as 93.87%.]
"Next time you can just give me the conclusion straight! Lycaon, Geno's probably ended up like this because he's being disrupted by something. Do you have any good ideas?"
Hearing Eous's question, Lycaon rubbed his chin and said with some difficulty:
"Lord Proxy, as a professional butler, telling one's master that something cannot be done is indeed unbecoming. But a butler is human too, and in the end there are things that simply cannot be done."
Though he had studied a great deal of knowledge in order to become a professional butler—including, indeed, learning about pharmacology—when it came to healing an Ethereal...
Pardon his bluntness, but that fell somewhat outside his field of expertise...
____
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