Morning sunlight slanted down through the narrow skylight. Amidst the interplay of light and shadow, a hint of unnatural paleness showed beneath the brown-haired boy's tender skin.
He slowly opened his eyes, his deep blue gaze sweeping over four walls so white they were almost blinding. Then, he placed a thin, small hand over his slightly sunken stomach.
"So hungry..."
The boy's voice was soft and weak. Almost simultaneously, a section of the wall silently depressed and slid open to reveal a doorway.
"Tike, it's time for your treatment."
A voice as gentle as a morning breeze drifted in from the hallway. The boy, Tike, turned his head to look at the mysterious woman standing in the doorway—the one who always wore a veil.
Although he had never seen her true face, Tike could smell a faint fragrance radiating from her—the scent of "beauty."
This was an innate ability of his; he could smell things ordinary people couldn't.
Based on his life experience before coming here, Tike knew that women with this scent were always good-looking.
If they hadn't met in a place like this, Tike felt he probably would have liked this woman. He forced himself to perk up, blinked his big blue eyes, and pleaded in a cutesy, wheedling voice, "Can I please eat first?"
"No, we have to finish the morning treatment first." The woman shook her head gently. She reached out to Tike, her fingers looking exceptionally pale under the indoor lights. "Come here."
"Okay..."
Tike lowered his head. His bare feet stepped onto the cold floor as he moved toward the door with a lonely air. Behind his back, however, his fingers secretly formed a circle—a silent curse for the woman to remain single for the rest of her life.
It was the only way he could vent his frustration.
The moment Tike stepped out of the room, the door behind him slid shut without a sound, merging back into the wall until only a pure white surface remained.
Just then, the adjacent door quietly slid open. Another veiled woman was forcibly dragging out a little girl who looked a few years older than Tike.
"No... I don't want to..." the girl sobbed, her voice filled with terror. "It hurts... I want my mommy..."
Tike could completely understand her pain because the "treatments" here were anything but gentle.
As his only surviving partner in these treatments, he wanted to help cheer her up and bring the light back into her eyes.
Of course, if he could also score an unwanted chicken leg from her meal tray, that would be perfect.
With that in mind, Tike gave the little girl an encouraging look.
"Cheer up, big sis Ultear. We both have to do our best for today's treatment."
The girl, Ultear, turned toward Tike. She looked at him through teary eyes, about to say something—
"Once you're cured, your mother will come pick you up," the other woman stated in a mechanical, emotionless tone. She yanked Ultear harder, forcibly dragging her in the opposite direction.
Watching their retreating figures, Tike softly and sarcastically whispered a single word in his heart: (Liar.)
Compared to the woman beside him, that other woman had absolutely no scent of "beauty"—to the point where Tike couldn't ignore the stench of lies radiating from her.
But Tike didn't care about the scent of hypocrisy that seemed common among the people running this facility. He was more concerned with the thick aura of "yearning" that surrounded Ultear.
Unlike her, Tike didn't have anyone to miss.
In his few years of memory, his parents' faces had always been a blank slate. He had been wandering this world alone for as long as he could remember.
Compared to the days when he used to starve, this place at least guaranteed two meals a day.
Tike felt that paying a certain price for that was something he could grit his teeth and bear.
However—
(She's different from me. She can't even eat; she just wants to go back to her mom...)
(But these adults are definitely going to be in the way.)
Pondering this silently, Tike followed the woman in front of him, slowly walking toward that cold "Treatment Room."
As the heavy doors slowly opened, a complex mix of odors rushed into Tike's nose. Amidst the stinging smell of disinfectant, there was something darker, something unsettling.
The familiar scent triggered countless similar memories, causing Tike's body to tremble imperceptibly.
"Lie down."
The woman pointed to the cold metal bed in the center of the room. The edges of the dark brown leather restraints were frayed, clearly worn from frequent use.
"Okay~"
Tike responded with a forced cheerfulness. Suppressing his inner fear, he pretended everything was fine as he walked to the freezing metal bed, allowing the woman and her colleagues to strap him down.
This was the first lesson he had learned in this world: adults generally showed more kindness to obedient children. So, he had long become accustomed to acting the way they wanted him to.
It worked here, too. As long as Tike cooperated, he got more food.
The woman took a syringe from the cart beside the bed. The tiny needle accurately pierced the boy's arm, which was already riddled with needle marks, slowly pushing a mysterious purple liquid into his vein.
Tike felt a burning sensation in his arm, as if fire were flowing through his veins.
He could handle this level of pain.
But he knew this process too well—this was only the beginning.
Sure enough, the woman began picking up syringes one by one, injecting liquids of various colors under his pale skin.
As the agents spread through his blood vessels, waves of intense pain began to rampage through Tike's body like electricity, tearing at every nerve until his entire world turned into pure agony.
Tike clamped his jaw shut, trying to suppress the groans of pain rising in his throat, but broken whimpers still escaped through his tightly closed lips.
By the end, his body arched involuntarily on the cold metal bed before slamming back down heavily. The leather straps dug deep into his slender wrists and ankles, leaving shocking red welts as he struggled violently.
As his consciousness began to blur, Tike faintly caught the conversation between the woman and her colleagues.
"Magic power has increased by 123%. That's nearly 5 percentage points higher than last week's data," a strange male voice said.
"Mm, this formula is indeed more effective than the last one," the woman responded softly. "Antibody reaction is also within a controllable range."
"Should we try this formula on Subject 99, too? Her magic affinity is even higher than this kid's. She is Ur's daughter, after all."
"We can, but we'll need to adjust the dosage. Her tolerance isn't as strong." The woman paused. "By the way, remember to record this..."
BEEP— BEEP— BEEP—
Suddenly, the monitoring equipment let out a piercing alarm.
"Blood pressure plummeting!"
"Damn it!" For the first time, the woman lost her composure. "Quick, get the stabilizer ready!"
Tike felt more needles piercing his skin, but he could no longer feel the pain. It was as if his soul were floating outside his body.
"Vitals continue to deteriorate!!"
"No good, he can't hold on!!"
The room instantly descended into chaos, with the hurried footsteps of medical staff intermingling with the alarms of various machines.
In the final moment before his consciousness fell into the deep abyss, Tike smelled that unique scent—Death.
It was so cold, yet seemed to carry a trace of gentleness, like a silent old friend finally coming to greet him.
And so, Tike met his death...
Or did he?
Pitch-black liquid began to ooze from beneath Tike's pale skin, slowly spreading beneath him. Like a grotesque painting in the making, it radiated an ominous aura, resembling whispers from the abyss.
"My God! What is that thing?!"
"Quick! Initiate emergency disposal protocol! This situation is completely out of— AHH!"
Before the woman could finish her sentence, the black water coiled around her ankles like a starving python. In an instant, it swallowed her and everyone else in the room.
Immediately after, the pitch-black water of death surged through the entire facility like an uncontrolled flood. In the corridors and laboratories, blood-curdling screams echoed through the air, only to be quickly replaced by an eternal, deathly silence.
Not long after, Tike regained consciousness.
He slowly sat up on the now-decayed iron bed, looking around at the devastation in the room and the scattered bodies. His expression was calm to the point of being eerie.
Relying on his unique sense of smell, Tike found the woman who had been looking after him near the door. He gently lifted her veil—
Where her face should have been, there was only a yellowed skeleton.
"So ugly."
Tike stood up and slowly walked out of the "Treatment Room."
He couldn't say exactly what had happened.
He just had a vague feeling that he was the one who caused all of this.
This realization didn't make him feel the slightest bit of unease or guilt.
From the first day he was captured, Tike had understood the situation from the scent they gave off.
They weren't good people, and this was never a charitable medical institution. It was a sinful place that used children like him for experiments.
Even at his young age, Tike knew this was a very bad thing.
After all, besides the pain, this place really smelled terrible.
But compared to that stench and the pain of the experiments, Tike found starvation much harder to bear. So, he chose to endure it silently as the price for food.
Since they were all dead now, Tike was more concerned about where to find food than anything else.
He hadn't had a bite to eat today, and his stomach was protesting.
It was still broad daylight. If it were night, Tike could have taken a bowl of water, waited for the moon to reflect in it, and gulped it down in one go. He called it "eating the moon." It was a psychological trick that helped him stave off the hunger a little bit.
(Before going to find food...)
Tike twitched his nose slightly. In this place shrouded in the scent of death, he caught a whiff of life.
The scent was incredibly familiar to him—it belonged to Ultear, who had been captured and brought here with him.
Following the scent, Tike arrived at the laboratory where Ultear was kept. He gave the door a gentle push, and it collapsed with a heavy thud.
Inside, Ultear was strapped to a cold experiment table, just as Tike had been.
The black water that had devoured the lives of everyone else in the room had miraculously gone around her.
Because of that, her restraints were still intact, leaving her tied down.
Tike felt it was only natural that Ultear survived.
She was a victim, not one of the researchers, so it was perfectly normal for her to live.
With that thought, Tike walked forward. As he approached, the ominous black water seemed to recede like a tide, gradually dissipating.
Tike reached the bedside and deftly undid Ultear's restraints. He asked softly, "Are you okay?"
Ultear was still in shock. She grabbed Tike's hand tightly, practically throwing herself onto his small, thin body. It took her a moment to ask, her voice trembling, "Tike, do you know what's going on?"
Smelling the mix of fear and confusion on her, Tike thought for a moment and decided to tell the truth:
"I think I killed all the adults."
"You...?"
Ultear straightened up slowly, looking at the harmless-seeming boy in front of her with disbelief.
"Let me try."
To prove his words, Tike stood still and reached out his palm, attempting to control the black water again.
However, this time, no matter how hard he tried, the mysterious black liquid didn't respond to his summons.
"Uh... it's not working anymore..." Tike withdrew his hand and laughed awkwardly, quickly changing the subject. "Don't worry about the small stuff. The important thing is you can finally go home to see your mom!"
"Mom..."
That simple word seemed to hold magic. Ultear stopped caring about what Tike called "small stuff," and the light returned to her eyes.
"I'm going home!"
Determined, Ultear turned eagerly to leave, but then suddenly looked back at Tike.
"What about you? Where are you going?"
"To the kitchen. To find some food," Tike answered without thinking.
Ultear paused for a second, then gently shook her head. "I didn't mean that. Where will you go after you leave here? Are you going home?"
"I don't have a home."
"No home?"
"I mean literally," Tike shrugged indifferently. "I haven't seen my parents since I can remember. I've been surviving on my own this whole time."
"Eh?"
Ultear froze, a wave of bitterness rising in her heart.
Only now did she realize that Tike, who always tried to make her laugh and brought her hope during these dark days, had been alone since childhood, never knowing the warmth of a family.
A thought quietly formed in her mind.
Ultear looked up and gazed earnestly into Tike's eyes.
"Do you want to come back with me? I'll ask my mom to let you live with us."
Tike looked surprised. He could smell the scent of kindness radiating from Ultear and knew her offer was sincere.
But—
"Go to your house..." Tike hesitated, then asked the question he cared about most. "Will I be able to eat until I'm full?"
Ultear patted her chest, the corners of her mouth lifting into a bright arc—her first smile in this gloomy place.
"Of course! My mom is a great cook! You'll love it!"
Hearing this, Tike couldn't find a single reason to refuse. He nodded excitedly, then grabbed Ultear's hand and strode out of the room.
As she was being pulled along, Ultear felt the surroundings looked increasingly familiar, but it didn't look like the way out.
"Where are we going?"
"To the kitchen! To find food!"