Chapter 97: This time will be different

"If they do it this way, it will work better."

Michel was giddy as his pen raced across the paper. The adults were attempting to create a chemical with a specific desired effect, pooling their knowledge to solve the problem.

"Then you just mix these two chemicals together. We won't know for sure until we experiment, but what do you think?" Michel had asked them, looking up hopefully.

For the first time in his life, he felt like he was of value to someone. This was the only proper way to make use of Michel, who had been born to make his parents miserable. At least, that was the foolish dream he'd had.

"Michel," One of them said, voice ice-cold. "You really are a little reaper, aren't you?"

Their eyes pierced him. Michel couldn't move. The adults looked down at him and whispered to one another.

"What's going on? How is he so good at making chemicals to kill people?"

"Well, no one's taught him. It must be innate talent, just as his father said."

"If we mass-produce these chemicals, our country can win the war with barely a life lost. But is making use of a demonic invention like this ethical and humane?"

His father had been right. Michel really was brought into the world to make people unhappy.

In the end, that chemical was never used. The royal palace where the research took place was raided, and everything was burned, the records of their experiments turned to ash. His father and the other alchemists lost their lives.

Michel alone escaped the fires of war, traveling on his own after that. Thanks to his father's name, Michel received a warm enough reception in any country that valued scholarly pursuits.

His father's published research was full of things Michel himself had come up with in that dark mansion, but he didn't care about that. His studies were all he had, and once he came to grips with that, he found alchemy surprisingly enjoyable.

Research done to satisfy his own curiosity and not for someone else's sake left him feeling peaceful and placid. He wondered if this was what it was like to spend time with friends or family. Therefore, when he finally invented gunpowder, Michel was satisfied. He'd created it because he was good at bringing misfortune.

Just like Michel himself, his gunpowder had the power to bring about despair. And anything brought into this world had to fulfill its purpose.

"Something poisonous is only valuable when it kills someone, thereby fulfilling its duty."

Come to think of it, the other day, Rishe had said; "People don't need a purpose to exist in this world."

But that wasn't true. Everything needed a meaning to live. Otherwise, it would be weeded out.

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A little ways away from him, Rishe began speaking, looking straight at Michel.

"When I heard those words from someone in the past, I simply asked him, 'Can a poison really never better someone's life?' That was a mistake. I should have come right out and told him."

His momentary student completely denied Michel's way of thinking. "Even poison can better someone's life."

She really was a strange girl.

"You shouldn't take the words of people like me so seriously."

"I suppose that's true. You can't mindlessly accept everything a professor teaches you."

Michel listened to Rishe with a smile on his face. It was almost the eighteenth hour. There was room for a slight margin of error, but at roughly that time, the three gunpowder barrels he'd set in Galkhein's capital city would explode.

With its mild climate, a spring day in Galkhein was the perfect condition for his creation to function. He'd done tests in deserted spaces outdoors, but this was his first experiment in an urban center.

Michel had been planning a remote experiment like this for some time now. The climate, the level of humidity, the weather, the density of the buildings—he'd strolled around Galkhein's capital city, finding places that fit his specifications. And on a supremely dry day, after a string of clear skies, he'd shaken his tails and set up all three locations for his experiment. He used clock parts to rig a timer for the explosives. He expected the damage to be extensive; there would likely be some casualties.

If the effects were anything like he was hoping, Galkhein's warmongering royal family would surely take notice of his invention.

The time was rapidly approaching.

"I'm sorry, Rishe, but that's just how it has to be. I made you my student to play at being human, but I've always been a monster."

"No one can decide a person's worth. Not you or anyone else! To you, I might just be your student in passing, but I want to play a different role!"

After that, Michel thought he heard her whisper slowly, "This time will be different."

Then, Rishe turned to the tall, gray-haired man behind her.

"Lord Lawvine, please forgive me for lying about my identity. But first, I would like to clarify something about this situation. Michel Hévin has not yet stated what he plans to do. Am I correct?"

"It is as you say, my lady."

True enough, Michel had yet to explain what gunpowder was or the nature of the attack he had planned. Experiments could go wrong without a steady handle on unpredictable variables, and remote experiments always had unpredictable variables. The detonation of the hidden gunpowder could fail.

Because of that, he hadn't shown his hand. Had Rishe picked up on his plan? If she had, she was predicting him easily, as if she'd been his student for years. It struck him as awfully strange.

There's no way I'd ever keep someone beside me for long.

Kyle's face floated to Michel's mind, but he waved it away. In any case, it was nearly time.