“Why do you say so?” Bellona curiously said.
Misharu appeared lofty as he began to explain, “Iara Carvalho had been subject to illegal human ability implantation.”
“Illegal… human ability… implantation?” Sebi spoke the words with difficulty. “What is that?”
“Whatever it is, it does not sound good,” Chunmi quietly said, her face a bit dark.
“It’s quite a common occurrence in Helldrum,” Misharu said with a nonchalance that Sebi found peculiar. “But they only dare implant abilities that give super strength, speed, night vision or something simple.”
Everyone’s eyes widened, like they have heard something that has offended them and their ancestors.
“You’re saying… there is an organization out there, implanting abilities into non-users?” Chunmi mumbled, her voice a bit shaky.
Misharu hummed. “The ability implantation had been complicated for Iara Carvalho whose body proved too incompatible, so they had to give her a lot of those enhancing agents to sustain the ability node inside her. The emotion stabilizer is also another thing that tames the fake ability, since abilities do get affected by emotions.”
“So… Eventually… She lost control and slaughtered her family, then herself,” Bellona sighed quietly.
The atmosphere in the room was tense. Sebi understood why the idea of an ability implantation would be kept secret by the government. The abilities are something precious to the people of the Terra Star System. It is a reminder of the bitter struggle their people went through in their history as enslaved people, and they have reclaimed these abilities as some sort of gift that they have earned because of their persistence as a race.
For these abilities to suddenly be able to be handed out to non-users, this would cause mass hysteria and revolutions. All the movements against the inequality between ability and non-ability users would heat up. Any justification of the implantation’s side effects would be brushed to the side and deemed an excuse by the government to keep it down.
“Why do you even know this, Misharu?” Chunmi asked, eyes narrowed at the white-haired man.
Misharu simply shrugged. “My family died the same way, of course. My theory isn’t correct down pat, but I can see this as the closest possibility we can garner from everything we have gathered.”
Sebi knew Misharu was only trying to act like he didn’t care. If Sebi allowed his mental defenses to lower a little bit and let the emotions and thoughts of other people overwhelm him, Sebi would be able to hear Misharu’s pain leaking out.
Actually, Sebi didn’t even need to hear his thoughts or emotions. He had witnessed how Tyrranus Armant pulled out Misharu’s fear and it had been the memory of his father slaughtering his family. Even if Sebi had only been able to witness part of it, he knew the scene and understood its impact.
“Shit,” Bellona hissed as she looked up to the ceiling and yelled, “Letting my friend get hurt and cutting open the healed wounds of another, are you people happy now?!”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Cr rtf rjlv atbrf kbgvr, atflg reggbecvlcur revvfcis glqqifv ugffc. Ktf ilutar mjwf eq jcv revvfcis, fnfgsatlcu kjr yjmx ab tbk la tjv yffc yfobgf atfs kfgf atgerafv lcab atf mglwf rmfcf ab qijs vfafmalnf.
“Xbbv pby, fnfgsbcf.”
Dftlcv atfw rabbv Rfglb, rwlilcu ja atfw yglutais ilxf rtf jcv atf bivfg obixr tjv cba mbwqgbwlrfv atflg riffq jcv wjvf atfw gec jgbecv lcrafjv bo gfra.
“Was all that true?” Bellona demanded. “That human ability implantation thing…?”
Nerio hummed as she confirmed, “Indeed. Misharu had a roughly correct theory about the case’s results.”
“Then why hasn’t this been publicized or recognized by the government?” Bellona snapped. “This is a really big thing that shouldn’t be kept in the dark! There better be organizations dealing with this!”
“Whether you believe it or not, Akhenaten can vouch for the authenticity of this case,” Nerio smiled mischievously, turning to Akhenaten.
Bellona glared at him. “What does she mean?”
There was a complicated expression on Akhenaten’s face as he scratched his head before he scowled at the older woman and irritably said, “Sister Nerio, can we sleep now? We’ve been made to run around all night.”
“No, answer us first!” Bellona exclaimed, getting uptight from the stress brought by her family, the lack of sleep, and the revelations. “How are you related to all of this?! Are you related to those research institutions doing all those implantations?!”
“Calm down!” Akhenaten was quick to grip his bestfriend’s face to keep her from acting crazy. “It’s nothing serious, I’m not part of that… it’s just…”
Akhenaten sighed as he scratched the back of his nape. With a low voice, he admitted, “I’m part of the Sun Crest… I’m Vulpes Morsu.”
Sebi’s mind went blank while his friends looked at Akhenaten like he had grown tentacles.
For a moment, Sebi didn’t understand what he had meant. It caused him to feel a bit awkward… until he remembered what Necomir had told him earlier.
According to Necomir, the Sun Crest runs Planet Helldrum. They’re an anonymous, really mysterious and influential family. The current matriarch is Clara Rosa, and his son is…
“V-Vulpes Morsu!” Sebi ended up gasping. “Akhenaten! How…?!”
“I can’t help being born in the Sun Crest!” Akhenaten defended himself under the scrutiny of his friends. “It’s not like we’re doing illegal things!”
“That’s cute, coming from an aristocracy that doesn’t mind illegal things,” Misharu chuckled. He didn’t look deterred by this information at all, like being entnagled with the Vulpes Morsu of the Sun Crest didn’t matter at all. He probably even knew about this all along, considering his tendencies to snoop into anyone’s mind.
“The Sun Crest just doesn’t feel like implementing laws, okay? We are strong, and whoever is strong gets to dominate, that’s all,” Akhenaten helplessly said. “Don’t antagonize me, I’m sure the family doesn’t let such things happen willingly–”
“Indeed,” Nerio chimed in. “Actually, Clara Rosa has helped the government track these institutions down, since they also agree that this is ruining too much of the balance we have in the system.”
There was another round of silence. No one really had the energy to talk or react to anything that had transpired today, thus Nerio could only sigh and proceed to speak.
“I know you are greatly peeved by what we have done, but this is the only time we could finally have Bellona within our grasp,” Nerio apologetically smiled at them as she looked at her younger sister. “It is family tradition to solve this sort of case, and has been for the past ten generations since the first establishment of our family’s agency. For you to push this back for a year since your coming of age, you should have expected this would happen.”
“You have no embarrassment whatsoever about getting my friends involved in this?” Bellona haughtily said as she crossed her arms.
“Of course, we’ll compensate for the trouble,” Nerio graciously answered.
“How convenient,” Bellona mumbled as she rolled her eyes.
Nerio chuckled lightly, though her aura had become noticeably cold.
“Why don’t your friends go to bed, while you and I have a sisterly talk?” Nerio said.
No one needed to be a telepath to know that it was going to be an even longer night for Bellona.
For an easy and heavy sleeper like Sebi, he couldn’t immediately sleep that night. His mind was veering off to the subject of human ability implantation. It wasn’t a sin to crave for the sort of power ability users had – after all, those with abilities can find their place easily in society while non-ability users would take a bit longer, or even find themselves stifled.
But the fact that such a procedure with more flaws than benefit exists to cater to envy-drunk non-ability users… Sebi shivered. He understood why this needed to be a secret kept from the public.
And not only that, Sebi had to cope with the fact that his friends were very important people. As if Necomir wasn’t enough as the son of the Minister Marshal, Akhenaten was also no one one to be trifled with as the secret identity of Vulpes Morsu. Sebi really can’t grasp his head around that fact, seeing these people being carefree like any ordinary adults their age while they had such identities.
“Sebi, sleep,” came Necomir’s husky voice from across the bed. He had dozed off, but Sebi’s light movements had disturbed him.
“Oh… sorry, Neco…” Sebi mumbled in guilt as he shrunk into the covers.
“Finding it hard to sleep?” Necomir mumbled. The bed moved along to the shift of Necomir’s body, who turned over to peer over to Sebi who happened to also be on the side facing Necomir. His golden eyes seemed to glint under the moonlight that seeped through the window.
This position made Sebi remember all of the days in his past life when he and Necomir would hold sleepovers during free days. They would talk all night and catch up on their lives after hectic days from university.
The memories made Sebi relax, the residual tension he would usually feel around Necomir completely dissipating as he mumbled, “Everything was just… surprising. I’m having a hard time adjusting to that sort of thing… you know…”
Necomir hummed, a sound that Sebi thought was very comforting. He suddenly reached out, his warm hand patting the lump that was Sebi’s body, on the spot where his side was supposed to be.
“If you don’t sleep, we won’t be able to enjoy anything tomorrow. We’ll have to sleep in.”
Sebi giggled. “Well… I don’t think there’s anything bad about that. Neco can keep me company.”
Those words were really ambiguous, but that didn’t make things awkward for the two. Necomir did actually enjoy Sebi’s company, so the thought of just lazing around with him all day without any worries was very appealing.
Quite tempting, actually…
Necomir found himself considering to scheme so that he’d have to be forced to spend a whole day with Sebi alone.
Author’s Notes:
Ahhhh sorry for not being able to post last Saturday, I had to do some adjustments to the plot hehehe
I’ll update another chapter in a while!
hmmm. I dont like Bellona’s family.
and I still dont like Misharu and Akhenaten lol
thanks for the chapter <3
so, they not related in a way that i thought they would but maybe there is still a connection there.. anyways.. i approve Neco scheming so that him and Semi will spend their day just them two.. hahaha