66 Side Story - Frankenstein Report ①
This is a story that never existed because it was forgotten by time.
No one remembers its existence as it dates back to 2000 years before Razel's current situation.
This is the forgotten history of the first generation of humankind.
◇◇◇
Olympia Republic.
It was the location of a laboratory.
The republic was the only country in this world.
According to the recordings, they have been living here for exactly 1000 years.
A long time ago, colonists left in interstellar ships to find a place to live.
Their planet had no contamination and no wars for resources.
They simply decided to expand further because of the world's overpopulation.
Many spaceships travelled to different destinations looking for places to live.
One of them landed on this planet.
They settled down and sent a message that they found a place to live.
But no one came.
As time went by they forgot about that and started to build their civilization.
Everything went well for the first few centuries, but one day... they were invaded by mysterious beings of a giant reptile species that they called "dragons" according to children's stories.
These dragons were huge beings that spat fire, lightning or poison.
The republic wore power suits better known as Battle Armor.
They were gigantic robots in every sense of the word.
Some were 24 meters long... others were over 100 meters long.
There were also unique robots known as artificial intelligences.
Round spheres with colorful eyes.
The fight with the dragons turned peaceful humanity into hostile terrain.
They changed their peaceful style to that of warriors.
Education for the future as farmers, doctors or teachers changed to soldiers and medicine to heal the wounded and send them back to fight.
Humanity lost 15% of its population in those 1000 years.
One day, thanks to a person known as Professor Epstein.
Humanity pushed the dragons back, regaining ground and sending them to a distant island.
At this moment, that person was watching a monitor.
He was playing with his long hair while chewing on a sweet.
"Professor, stop playing around and get serious."
"Frankenstein-kun, I'm being very serious-desu."
"That weird way of talking makes no one believe you."
"Puhh~"
"Kuh, this person is-!"
Professor Epstein was a very childish and strange man, he would go days without eating or sleeping when he locked himself in his room to write new inventions.
At these times, he was very bored.
He fiddled in his chair even though he was a well-known and respected person.
He went round and round making his assistant, who was a fellow student at the national university, dizzy.
Frankenstein, a young man with white hair and red eyes, left some documents on a table.
A hovering robot used its arms to process the documents.
"Tell me how the data is coming along."
"There is an 85% probability that the experiment will be negative."
"That much?!"
"Yes. The test subjects would die before the drug takes effect."
Frankenstein touched his chin in thought.
"The test subjects are negative for testing then. Using animals instead of dragons doesn't seem to do the trick."
He turned to look at his superior, who was now blowing bubbles with a toy.
He scowled at him and then said.
"I'm going to lunch, a human being can't think clearly on an empty stomach. Although I don't think you're human to begin with."
Just as Frankenstein was leaving the room.
"Stop right there!"
He was stopped by Professor Epstein who stood up shouting.
"Frankenstein-kun! What was that you said?"
"Eh? I'm going to eat."
"That no-desu!"
"You said 'you're not human', didn't you?"
Epstein smiled in a wicked way. Frankenstein knew that smile.
"What are you thinking?"
He put his finger to his mouth as he walked in circles.
"You said I'm not human, but I look like one."
"Yeah, so?"
The smile grew more wicked.
"What if we create artificial human beings?"
That really surprised Frankenstein.
"Isn't that forbidden?"
Epstein raised his finger to indicate.
"It is! But only on the origin planet. On this planet there is no such law. So we need not fear for such things as creating impostors."
"We have lost 15% of our population in the last few years. So using fake humans will keep us from losing loved ones."
Frankenstein looked confused at his superior and at the robot next to him who seemed to understand that he was looking for an external response.
"There is no violation of human rights or anything similar as the professor says. I can contact the higher-ups to make a video call and suggest this proposal."
"Please do."
"Understood."
Frankenstein sighed as he watched Epstein jump for joy like a small child.
◇◇◇
Twenty-two years have passed since then.
Epstein and Frankenstein have spent two decades researching the creation of new humans.
Due to technology, people extended their lives because of greed and because they didn't want to die.
But eventually the body has a limit to what it can tolerate.
The estimated lifespan is 150 years.
At the moment, they are both 53 years old.
The first process was to open the pandora's box of forbidden secrets and reveal clones.
They were imperfect.
By creating them in test tubes, the growth process took 3 days, but their life expectancy was only 2 months.
After several imperfects, they used fake wombs.
The growth process lasted between 20-25 days and a life expectancy of more than 2 years.
The clones were forgotten after many failures.
Then they used homunculus, beings created in human wombs.
Their development was a maximum of 50 days and they lived up to 20 years.
The difference between clones and homunculus was that clones were physically weak and homunculus developed a strange pathogen.
To go outside, they wore masks with oxygen tanks on their backs.
The homunculus also used a strange red crystal, which they called a philosopher's stone, as the core that made up their heart.
But it was still inefficient.
By now, Epstein was irritated.
He was staring in frustration at a 2-metre long tube with a creature inside.
It was a woman.
Her hair was blonde and her ears were long.
"It's a failure."
Frankenstein, who was standing next to him, was reviewing some notes.
"Is it like that? It's a bit strange, yes, but I don't think she's a failure."
There were several long-eared women in similar tubes with bright green liquid.
"I just don't see much to them. I don't think they're any good to us."
"It's not our business whether they serve us or not. They must serve on the battlefield."
"I'm going to eat, can I get you something?"
"An energy bar."
"I'll call you the mad scientist of the energy bar at this rate."
"Puhh~."
◇◇◇
A few days passed. Frankenstein came to the room he used to work in.
As it was a holiday, he didn't come to work since a week ago.
He wanted a break.
When he opened the door, everything was dark.
Except for a bright spot in the background.
He pressed a button to turn on the light, and when it came on, he was startled by what he saw.
There were strange images.
He could see numbers, like coordinates of something.
Also a strange drawing of an eye and some kind of door.
Epstein was sitting in a corner looking at a small box.
There was nothing inside, just a piece of cloth.
Frankenstein knew what the piece of cloth meant.
He said nothing, but Epstein spoke to him.
"Frankenstein, do you know what I have discovered?"
He didn't answer, as he thought it was a rhetorical question.
But he was tugged and watched as Epstein's glowing eyes were red.
"I've made an incredible find! It's something I never thought possible... in fact, I still think it's a dream."
"No, it's not. If it were, I'd have woken up and forgotten by now."
"Do you want to know? Fine, I'll tell you."
Epstein leaned close to Frankenstein and whispered.
"I found the door to our questions."
"What door?"
Frankenstein said, as Epstein gave him a terrifying smile to say something that would mark the fate of the entire republic.
"The door to something beyond our understanding."
Frankenstein's thought sometime later was.
(If only I had stopped it... perhaps none of this would have happened.)
