5 4th Move | Bio Tinker
After coming off the victory high from yesterday, the goblins were nervous, as the dire wolves lived right next to them despite them submitting to their rule. It does make sense. Just like the hidden disdain between the many southeastern Asian countries like China, Japan, and Korea, you can't remove generations of trauma just by saying 'get along you two'.
Now, I would try and help Rimuru out with this but... I'm still angry at him.
"You're on your own," I said to him after waking up and seeing the tense situation, the constant quick glances that the goblins would make towards the direwolves, and the way the wolves would flinch as a goblin nears. "I suggest you unify them quick enough that way dissent wouldn't start to form."
I looked out towards the hill where a large majority of the wolves died. Since the side of the hill facing towards the village didn't receive any wolves, it was still fully green, a veil to conceal the carnage on the other side.
Surprisingly, [Biology], [Surgery], and [Chemistry] all giving me many blueprints for things I can build, even with dead and rotting flesh.
A particularly notable creation is this one biological mobile workbench and storage I can make that digests biomass or, if I modify it, hydrocarbons, to fuel itself. Placing the first charge of the day into this thing called [Magicule] gave me a modified blueprint to make the workbench run on ambient magicule instead.
What the hell is this magic bullshit.
I can create a creature-a chimera if you will- capable of essentially eternal life through the absorption of local magicules-mana.
As I reached the edge of the goblin village, a sudden thought struck me. "Goblins... dragons... magic... what is this, a Tolkien novel? Am I in some kind of world based on Tolkien's works?"
I said to no one and none heard me as they were rallied around the announcement that Rimuru was making.
The idea that I may be in some kind of Tolkien-knockoff world is... scarily believable.
[Silenced Emotion: 65%]
Near instantly, I calmed down and started to focus on the task at hand. Complete the mobile workbench first, Scientia, and explore the world later.
Picking up a bucket and a pair of water-tight spider silk gloves I had made, I continued with my journey towards the slaughter field.
After a few minutes, I reached the top of the hill. Looking down on the other side, I saw a field of hundreds of wolf corpses. Crows, flies, and other carrion feeders have already started to eat the dead.
Complete indifference, that's what I'm feeling right now. [Magicule] whispering basic spells to raise the dead as my own personal army...tempting but I prefer science over magic.
Sighing, I placed the bucket on the ground and took out another knife I'm naming 'Dasher'.
Despite my new strength of being able to easily break a bone in two, my hands can't offer the same precision that a knife possesses. Moreover, most of the corpses had probably already undergone Rigor Mortis, where the limbs and muscles have gone stiff due to chemical changes in the muscles, but it could be different since this is a magical world.
[Biology] is completely silent on the matter until I dropped a charge into [Magicule] and gave me several creations that wouldn't decompose the same way as would a normal corpse.
Equipping the pair of gloves, I touched each of the dead wolves, to see what biomatter I can salvage before [Biology] pointed to a corpse still somehow undergoing Algor Mortis, where the body's temperature reaches that of ambient temperature, somehow and completely defying what I thought was possible.
Turning to observe the corpse, I saw that it was a body hopelessly entangled in spider silk and with spikes stabbing into the main body, causing a slow and rather painful death through blood loss.
A sensation of phantom pain lit up around my back, where I'd gotten stabbed once the cause of death for this particular direwolf was known to me. Humans need to lose several liters of blood to become deceased, the same applies to animals and is directly proportional to their size. Although [Magicule] combined with [Biology] disputes this once again.
Predictably, magic makes a mockery of the conventional theories of biology...
God damn, it's been hours since the trap was sprung and the body is still warm? I thought when I observed the corpse. [Magicule] and [Biology] told me this animal died much later as its companions left him to his fate when they rushed towards the village.
I furrowed my eyebrows at the information I skimmed from a singular corpse. I had joked to Rimuru that enough charges into [Biology] and I can probably know someone's life story from a single look at their outward appearance.
I may be able to do exactly that.
"How quaint, to know someone better than they ever knew about themselves with a single glance is a..." skill that would've been ridiculously useful in the day-to-day operation of Human Resources. I tilted my head as I stared at the corpse, "Well wolf-1, sad to say you died for nothing, but at least you get to be part of the future I'm bringing to this world huh?"
I shrugged as I crouched, cutting away the strings tangled with the body before taking out a blanket from the bucket and covering the mostly intact body like fruits in a grocery bag. This corpse will be the main skeleton of my mobile workbench, so it's best to preserve the body as much as possible.
While I would like to build laser guns and the like, biological organisms like the wolf in front of me are probably the most complex thing I have access to at the moment.
Moving on to examine the rest of the 200+ bodies that litter the landscape and occasionally harvest away useful materials [Biology] pointed out. It took the whole day but thanks to my Perfect Homunculus physiology, I was able to continue without breaks. In the end, I was able to fill the bucket full of first-rate material for me to use to create a mobile workbench that'll follow me wherever I go, ensuring that I'm never out of tools-
I looked down at my hands, then at the androgynous body, I was given in this life. I've never noticed it before but [Biology] and other specializations are all silent on ways to improve it. Wherever I look, [Inspired Inventor] gave me options and blueprints on how to either improve the target or ways to harvest it for resources to build another project. Yet I've been given literally no clue when it came down to my own body. Hell, I can even see ways to improve Rimuru if he'll ever let me.
The only other time this had ever happened was to Veldora, but I attribute that to the fact I didn't have [Biology] at a high enough level or any specializations aimed at a True Dragon.
Picking up the heavy metal bucket and the wolf corpse that's finally beginning to go into rigor mortis, I began to walk back to the village since the sun is starting to set.
"!" I saw a very interesting sight in front of me: several buff male and slender female goblins that looked like humans painted green if you would just ignore the head. [Psychology] tells me they are nervous about something. Once they saw me, they rushed forward, worry clear in their eyes and causing me to stop and drop the items I'm carrying.
As they neared, they suddenly got onto their knees and begged, causing me much discomfort despite [Silenced Emotion] running at 50%. "Lady Scientia!" They yelled.
They're... goblins? No, they more resemble a subspecies of goblins. A Hobgoblin, according to [Biology]. Interesting, how did they change their species?
I closed my eyes in mental discomfort at the way they begged. Seriously, have some class damn it, "What is it, and how did you guys change your species?"
The one closest to me raised his head but his body is still on his knees. They're worshipping me like I'm some kind of messiah, which I seriously do not enjoy. While this may give other people an ego trip, I just find such things uncomfortable, I'd much prefer a mutual interest or a giving-and-taking type of relationship.
"Well...Lord Rimuru set out to name each and every one of us! but after he named Ranga his body has become like water!"
He what?
Doesn't naming things cost magicules? Did he forget how— right, isn't this his first time naming people? Well, [Magicule] and [Biology] are telling me he should wake up after he's regenerated enough magicules.
Making eye contact and causing the goblin to instantly look down on the ground, my eyes twitched. "Listen, just keep him in a safe place, he's passed out due to magicule depletion and he should awake at the latest seven days from now. If he still hasn't awakened yet, notify me."
"Thank you for your wisdom, Lady Scientia!" They said as they hurriedly left.
"Oh, and before you go, I'm going to go tinkering, tell everyone to not disturb me unless it's an emergency!" The hobgoblins nodded their head as they bowed before continuing on their run back to the village.
[Silenced Emotion: 10%]
Good god, am I actually going to become a lady now? The concept of androgynous must be foreign to these barbarians. Well, not like I care anyways. Perhaps being in the other gender would help me better adjust to my new life here, in this world.
Looking up to the red sky filled with clouds, I began to plan for the future, after all, Veldora said that my species is seen as an abomination to every single nation in the world, and such cultural prejudice doesn't just disappear overnight.
It's a matter of when, not if that I'm found out. Veldora said how they would send whole armies, every man available, just to annihilate a Perfect Homunculus. And since this planet seemed to be a 1-to-1 replica of Earth if the gravity value of 9.8 meters a second is any indication, to survive I would need to become the sole enforcer and provider of force in this world, essentially the only superpower and all others mere de-fanged states like Japan after WWII.
And even then I would risk assassins constantly coming to kill me in secret.
If they managed to kill my predecessor, they must have a way to kill me as well.
I reached the temporary lab and opened the door. The room is rather spacious but I'll need to upgrade it soon enough. placing the body onto the operating table, I picked out some scalpels and tweezers alongside a selection of chemicals and got to work.
[Multitasking] allows me to tinker with the body while planning for the future.
Humans are savages back in history, I thought as I picked a heart out of the bucket, the Roman Empire was built upon the backs of millions of slaves, the Great Wall of China was created first during the tyrannical reign of Qin Shi Huang, who was the greatest mass murderer of his time, Genghis Khan killed so many people during his conquest that he literally forced China to go ultra-conservative and isolationist, and the echos of the atrocities Stalin ordered can still be felt right before I died.
[Silenced Emotion: 68%]
I would need to win hearts and minds, but I'll also need to prepare for the eventuality of total annihilation of my enemy, which would include the oppression or even genocide of millions (I doubt this world has over a billion humans) with nuclear attacks or something equally destructive. Potentially I would also need to wage a world war just to cripple every other nation that is antagonistic against me.
After tinkering with the heart and changing it into an Ambient Magicule Absorber, I cut open the corpse and started to take all the unnecessary organs out.
Things like the entire digestive tract and the respiratory system, are all rendered obsolete by the AMA and taken out and placed within preservatives for later use.
A set of four numbers appeared in my mind, something that made me somewhat queasy even with [Silenced Emotion] running so high,
"1984, the novel made by George Orwell that pretty much became a dream for totalitarian governments."
I... could use that novel as a guide when setting up new governments. With [Inspired Inventor] I can easily set up a surveillance state where privacy is non-existent. I could even make the oppression worse. Within the book, they don't have any of the super technology and gene editing power to turn people into content at being slaves to the system.
People would never have any discontent. They would always be satisfied.
A post-discontent society. The dark reflection of post-scarcity.
A place where instead of there being more than enough material goods to satisfy people, the people themselves are always satisfied no matter how low their standard of living is.
I think I could even do a Matrix.
Placing the remaining charges into [Political Science], my mind was rolling at the sheer complexity and intricateness of alternate forms of dictatorships, each more effective than the last, some capable of making the people just as happy and content as democracies despite my normal brain telling me it just shouldn't work.
Well, on second thought, they're probably only happy because their minds are filled will propaganda that is so effective they might as well as be memetic weapons.
I took out the rib bones and dropped them into chemicals that will rearrange and harden the calcium structure into something stronger than steel. Perfect for tools to use on the fly.
I paused and looked as the ribs bubbled within the chemicals, pondering the question of whether am I really going to establish a dictatorship within this world that people can never escape from because they are made to love the Party. Where individualism is nonexistent since their mind are altered in such a way that it's almost a hive mind?
My gut instinct is silent on the matter.
My logical side is telling me yes, that way they can never harm you.
But the side raised by my very liberal parents says no, it's a monstrous endeavor.
[Silenced Emotion: 45%]
I stopped working, and really, REALLY begin to ask myself the deep question, staring at my own hands as I do.
I, alone, have the power to advance this primitive society where people don't even know what anesthesia is, where basic hygiene is nonexistent, where savagery reigned supreme.
I highly doubt Rimuru is willing to get his hands drenched in the blood of innocents just to change the world, [Psychology] says his morals are too good for that. Yet modern society is built upon the corpse pile of countless failed societies that fell to others, a massive Darwinian struggle spanning the entirety of written history, each empire competing against the other for the dominance and supremacy of their ideology or something similar.
I tighten my lips and stopped working on the mobile workbench. the wolf now lacked a mouth and parts of the brain. I left its ear and enhanced its eyes so it knows where to go as well as retaining the 4 limbs and general body shape, only this time the main body has 2 hatches that can open up to get the tools inside the body.
A new day has come and five new charges lit up like a constellation in the night sky.
I've reinforced the dire wolf's legs with muscles from the others, that way they can support many times their original limit.
Due to my current lack of any metal or electronics, I'm forced to use biological ones, so when I placed 2 charges into [Cybernetics], I got an idea for what is essentially an octopus hat- 8 fleshy tentacle limbs that respond to vocal commands which can be worn like a hat. the idea persisted until I placed two charges into [Connection] and got a way of neural connection to the limbs instead.
Putting the final charge into [Resource Extraction], I am again bombarded with ideas and blueprints for ways to mine out entire mountains. Pickaxes and drills that are many many times better than their normal counterpart are ways to efficiently extract gold from the ocean and turn a profit.
Assuming that this world also uses gold, I'll probably crash the entire global economy by devaluing gold harder than post-WWI Germany.
Putting the idea of the tentacle arms on the backburner for a moment, I inserted the key that could activate the mobile workbench/storage.
*Pop!*
The joints and bones popped and groaned as for the first time in forever, the cells began live once more. Despite my dislike for magic, I placed a small magicule absorber underneath the neck to repair the dead cells of the body. I modified it in such a way that the chance of cancer due to too many cellular divisions was nulled.
[Silenced Emotion: 20%]
"It's alive! it's ALIVE!" I said while grinning wildly to myself even though the being in front of me is more akin to a flesh golem than anything nature could produce. The workbench/tool storage moved to howl only to fail since the vocal cord was taken out.
As it began to move around, I issued my first order: "Stay." Instantly it stopped, and sat down, awaiting my next order.
Its intelligence is less than a normal wolf's, but it can understand my body movement since it's ingrained into its programming. I smiled at my work, feeling-
*knock, knock, knock*
The pride I felt was extinguished like a flame in a rainstorm as I heard someone intruding upon my moment of success. I heard no screams nor any commotion from the outside so it was definitely not an emergency.
"What is it?" I demanded to the one at the door, only hearing an 'eep!'
"W-well Lady Scientia, Lord Rimuru has finally awakened." I placed a hand upon my chin in deep thought, it should be only a day, shouldn't it? That was rather quick. I placed a hand on my forehead and realized some of the sparks are faded—
The hell?
Opening the door, I am greeted by what used to be the village elder who is now more like a buff 50-year-old, and asked, "how long has been since I was in here?"
Seemingly at a loss of words, whether due to the suddenness of the question or some other benign reasons I won't bother to conjure up, the elder stuttered for a moment before answering, "Well it has been 3 days since-
I drown out whatever he was saying and realized I'd been tinkering away at the corpse for almost half a week when it felt like mere hours have passed. A haunting realization dawned on me that extra 5 charges expired when I was in the throes of passion and eagerness to make, [Inspired Inventor] urged me to create the first semi-autonomous flesh golem that I also included an acid pouch for cleaning any tools while also being able to squirt it at command.
[Surgery] seemed to have a thing for acid for some reason.
Well, you learn something new every day, don't you? I felt like kicking myself. Unknowingly to everyone else, I grip my hand so tight the skin started to show a shade of bright red.
I need fresh air, I thought as I rushed out the door, completely ignoring the elder.
"Ah, Scientia!" I heard my name being called. Turning around, I saw a crowd of other goblins that looked too close to humans for comfort. Most of them are wearing only a cloak or pieces of colored cloth to cover them up.
I am so going to introduce the idea of superior fabrics to these primitives.
I was dragged out of my thoughts by the sound of cheering. Looking toward the source, I found Rimuru being thrown up into the air as the hobgoblins cheered while the other direwolves just... opened and closed their mouth while looking at Rimuru. I feel like I'm watching one of those documentaries about tribes in Africa and seeing their cultural customs when I saw how the direwolves celebrate.
I think a biologist would be fascinated by these intelligent wolves.
"—!"
I felt a large presence behind me, whipping around with a hand placed above a hidden knife, I saw a gigantic wolf with a star and a horn on its forehead, bowing down to me.
'Master Scientia.' he greeted me telepathically. 'My name given to me by Master Rimuru is Ranga, if you need anything you just need to ask.'
Well, that's something you don't see every day now, is it? A massive wolf bowing down to you despite your thinning lips and displeasure at the gesture. Looking around, I saw the other wolves bowing down to me as well.
Seriously, I'd much prefer a handshake.
"Well, you'd probably best serve the direwolf's representative, their voice so to speak." I said, turning to Rimuru, "If we are to set up shop here, have you thought of what type of government are we using? And what about the laws and rights?"
Rimuru gave a sheepish look and used a protrusion to rub the back of his head, causing me to facepalm. God damn it why must I do everything? I thought tiredly, completely exhausted from working for 3 days straight and emotionally due to the loss of that 5 charges I could've used.
_____________________________________________
Name: Scientia Tempest
Species: Perfect Homunculus
Divine Protection: Storm Crest
Rank: A (S+ if given enough time)
Alias: Lady Scientia, ???
Skin Colour: Pale
Hair color: White
Eye color: Ruby red
Height: 167 cm
Gender: N/A (presumed female by the wider population, themselves use masculine terms.)
Unique Skill: [Inspired Inventor], [Guide to Victory]
Intrinsic Skill: [Limitless Regeneration], [Aristocratic Dignity], [Timelessness], [Berserk Mode], [Untained Perfection], [Silenced Emotion], [Only One]
Extra Skill: [Stab Resistance],
Common Skill: [Business Intuition]
Magic: [Alchemy], [Unlimited Alchemy].
