23 Who Are You? (3)

True to his word, after two hours, the Association President personally led Aria down the final guarded hallway. The locked doors, which needed a combination of keycards, biometrics, pin numbers and an array of identification devices, were finally opened in their entirety. There was only one barrier left between Aria and her eventual target… And that was the final metal door that was easily pushed open.

"Aria, let me go through the safety regulations one last time..." The elderly man, who looked as bony as can be, grabbed the black-haired girl's arms. "You're only allowed inside the room for half an hour. You can attempt to talk to him and use your magic on him… However, you must always tell me what you're doing beforehand. I hold the right to overrule anything that you might want to do on him."

"Got it..." Aria nodded. Her body was shaking like a leaf, not because of fear, but a distinct sense of anticipation. What laid beyond this door… was a complete unknown. The being that was fished out from the S-Class Dungeon.

"Did you get him to talk?" Aria sucked in a mouthful of air, attempting to quell her beating heart. She made a thoughtless remark, not expecting any sort of reply. However, to her complete surprise, the Association President's mouth began to move.

"No..." The elderly man shook his head. "Once we've brought him to this secure location, the man seemed to be lost in a daze. He doesn't sleep… Doesn't eat… All he does is stare into space like a mentally-ill patient," the President continued.

Aria glanced over her shoulders, her eyes meeting the President's. "What about running DNA and blood tests? Are we even sure that he's a 'man?' Are we even sure that he's a human?"

Throughout history, there had been thousands of races. While a portion of them had taken the humanoid form, there was no guarantee that the man within the Dungeon shared the same blood as Aria or any of the humans in the facility.

"Of course we did that… However, we soon realised one thing..." The President gestured for his assistant, and she promptly arrived with a digital tablet. Tapping the screen a few times, the President found the one video he wanted to show, and widened it to encompass the entire screen. "Have a look..."

Aria blinked twice, confused about the President's behaviour. Still, she peered into the tablet, watching the video with the eyes of a hawk. Each frame passed like a slow-motion movie, depicting the scene of a few doctors surrounding the man from the Dungeon. One of the doctors held up a syringe with a sharp needle at its tip, carefully attempting to draw blood from the man. However, the tip of the needle never tasted the sweet zest of crimson life. In fact, it was unable to leave a single mark on the man's tough, brown skin.

The video didn't stop there. After that failed attempt to pierce the man's skin, multiple different Rankers came into the room, all wielding their own unique weapon. Even Rogue Lord Kama, the assassin with the sharpest blade in Yudonia, had a swing at the dazed man. However, nothing worked…

"That is..." The Archmagus gasped.

"Yes… It looks like the man has an invincible body, one that was immune to any form of damage." The President confirmed Aria's worries. "On the surface, it looks like he has a normal human body, but that couldn't be further from the truth. His skin is tougher than diamonds, and his flesh is no weaker than concrete. Although we didn't test the limits to his toughness, I can ascertain that no one in Yudonia has a harder body."

'This is far worse than I'd thought...' Aria gulped, completely floored by the revelation. The tanned man was like an onion. The more they unravelled about the man, the more questions they'd seem to get. 'An indestructible body that can't be breached… Wait!'

"How about getting a saliva sample? Maybe a cheek swab? That's non-intrusive right?"

The President sighed, "You're absolutely right. We did obtain a sample of his DNA through a cheek swab but..." His fingers gently swiped left, moving the video away and into a new dashboard. There were three distinct tabs, one showing the famous strand that all life had, the other showing charts matching that data point with six different races and the final one was just bits of raw data. Aria, being the researcher that she was, could roughly make out what the dashboard was trying to convey.

"He's not human? No… He's not even part of the greater humanoid species?"

"That's right..." The President nodded. "He looks human, but his DNA shows that he's anything but. In fact, we don't even know what he's most related to! Even with the shared database of DNA records, there was nothing that's quite like this man. We don't know if he's a human, a dragon or even a dinosaur! All that we know is that this man exists and he's the reason behind the world falling into chaos!"

At this point, even the old man seemed to be going out of his mind. Veins popped, and his glorious few strands of hair were finally losing to the stress. In a couple of days, Aria was confident that the President would lose all of his precious hair, eventually falling into full male baldness. The deep eye bags that were at least two-centimetres thick made the elderly man look like a walking corpse that was powered by caffeine.

"Alright…" Aria gulped once more, raking in the stale air of the chambers. "I'll keep that in mind..."

Eeeeeeee…

The final metallic door that blocked the Archmagus' path slowly creaked open. Aria's heart was pounding as if desperately trying to escape from her chest. Her face was flushed, and a throbbing heat was hitting on the back of her ears. The black-haired woman couldn't see her reflection, but Aria was sure that her eyes were fully dilated.

Stepping foot into the cushioned room, the first thing that Aria felt was the comforting warmth that came from the bright, white lights. The concrete walls that were reinforced with layers of protections were being padded by soft, white cushions. Aria felt like she'd walked in on a mental asylum's solitary cell, one that was protected twenty-four-seven by S-Rankers from all over Yudonia. It wasn't a particularly exciting place to live in, but the person within hardly cared about his accommodation.

At the very corner of the cell, there was a king-sized bed. Like the whole chamber surrounding it, the mattress was padded down with smooth cushions. However, there was one distinct difference. Metallic chains rose from the centre of the bed and bound the man who sat on it. Aria gulped one final time, observing every nook and cranny of the well-built man. He was wearing a simple, white silk V-neck shirt and loose cotton pants. His jet-black hair was unkempt as if he hadn't showered or combed in ages.

The man's head was hanging down while his eyes and mouth were completely shut. Aria tilted herself to catch a glimpse of the man brown, creamy face. It was chiselled with barely any excess fat on his neck. His chest expanded and contracted with each passing breath, hinting that he uses lungs the same way that any human does. In fact, Aria couldn't believe that he shared no DNA with herself.

Aria had only seen the man once when the S-Class Dungeon was first conquered. However, due to subsequent events, the woman hadn't really interacted much with him. She took slow steps forward, careful not to startle the slumbering man.

Tap… Tap… Tap...

Each step that Aria took created resonant sound waves that echoed throughout the chamber. The man's ears twitched like a bunny's and his shoulders shivered. Now that she was two metres away from the bed, Aria could clearly hear the man's constant breathing. Slowly, his body reacted to the oncoming threat. Awoken, the man gradually lifted his head up and consequently...

Clank… Clank… Clank…

The chains moved as well. They were cuffed to his wrists, ankles, waist and neck. Instead of an experimental subject, the man looked more like a dangerous felon that had to be chained. No one knew what the man was or what he could do. Thus, for the researchers' protection, they had to come up with some drastic measures. Aria felt a little bad for the man, before recalling that the being before her might not be a man at all. Ultimately, she threw out her compassion and turned on her researcher's mind.

"Hello?" Aria tried to break the ice.

The man looked up and stared Aria right in the face. The first thing that Aria saw was the beautiful pair of golden suns hidden within the man's eyes. Peering into those transcendent pupils were no different from witnessing the majesty of the Pomptinus Chapel. As a human, Aria felt an innate inferiority before those glorious eyes that shone like the summer's sun.

"..." The man didn't reply. He looked right at Aria, completely absorbed in his own thoughts.

'Are those eyes even looking at me?' Aria thought. She knew that the man had come from a much more ancient time and most likely didn't speak her tongue. However, at the very least, it was worth giving communication a shot.

"Don't bother, Aria..." The President tapped on the Archmagus shoulders. "He doesn't respond to English or any other language, even Latin. If you want to experiment on his body, go ahead, but you'll only be wasting your ti-..."

"(*&%%e%(($("

"!!!"

Time froze. The President dropped his jaw, as did Minerva and his secretary that followed him into the room. Outside, researchers dropped their tablet machines and notepads, all while their eyes widened up. Did the man… The man who raised doubts as to whether he was human or not… Just speak?!

Aria was in a similar shocked state. Her face was flushed, and her jaw was slack. Did she really just make the man speak?!

"(*$@%&*&((##%^()$%$@" The man spoke again. This time, his eyes were directly connected to Aria's. His voice was soothing and silvery, akin to that of a soft wave that ran across the sandy banks of the beach. Though no one could understand his language, they could hear the genuine intrigue in his tone.

"Holy shit! He's speaking!!!" The Association President shouted. He immediately turned to the busty woman who stood just inches away from Aria and himself. "Jessica! Are you recording this?!"

"Yes, everything is on record!" The secretary hollered back. It was a historical moment and missing out on video footage was tantamount to throwing a trillion dollars away.

The brown-skinned man didn't care about the commotion. Eyes still firmly plastered over Aria's body, the man spoke one more time: "$*@#@&@$%&((*#%("

"W-What are you saying?" Aria tripped on her words. Even with her vast intellect, there was no way that she could understand a language eroded to the annals of time. She could, at the very least, tell that the man wanted something, but what he wanted… was completely unclear.

"..." The man's rosy red lip puckered up as his eyelids dropped. A human-like expression that portrayed frustration. If a child showed this kind of emotion, everyone would simply giggle at its cuteness. However, seeing the man display human emotions sent a thunderbolt piercing through every single soul witnessing his behaviour.

"He's showing human emotions?! I-Is he really human?!"

At this point, even the researchers doubted their machines for measuring DNA. Everything from his appearance to his overall demeanour… Yet his ability to speak in human tongue, they were all so similar to humans! What the hell was the man?!

"W-What do you want?!" Aria, never one to miss a chance to unravel the unknown, leaned in with beaming eyes.

The man blinked twice, before finally raising up his creamy, brown right hand with his five fingers bent. From Aria's perspective, the man looked like a beggar asking for cash or food.

"%^!" The man said one syllable. His golden eyes moved their gaze from Aria's face to her left hand, which was just a metre away.

"What?"

"%^!" The man repeated himself, this time pointing his left hand to Aria's arm.

Aria, finally comprehending what the man wanted, raised her left hand up and cupped her wrist with her right hand. Pushing the hand a little forward, she asked: "You want my hand?"

"%^!" The man winced. It was probably the gesture for saying yes in his culture, instead of the universal nod that everyone was familiar with. The sides of Aria's lips began to curl upwards as her already hot face grew even redder. She had communicated with the man from another time! As insignificant as it may seem, the man had once rested in the Treasure Room of the strongest S-Class Dungeon ever recorded. If Aria could just unravel the secrets of the man… She could be one step closer to discovering the true nature of magic!!!

The Archmagus took one deep breath in. She raised her left hand as requested by the man, not even caring about the potential consequences that might occur. At that moment, the slackjawed President came to his senses. "Aria, wait!" The elderly man wanted to stop the twenty-three-year-old before she did something stupid, but it was far too late.

When Aria's fingers were just a mere five centimetres away, the man lunged his right hand forward and firmly grabbed onto the Archmagus arms.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttttttttt!!!

An electric shock buzzed throughout Aria's consciousness, turning the world into a patch of white. A high-pitched resonance pierced through the woman's mind, breaking all five of her senses. At that moment, Aria felt like her entire soul was being scoured by an almighty force, one that couldn't be stopped even if she resisted. Transcendent mana, one of the likes that she'd never faced before, filled her entire being like water entering a bottle. However, the mana left her body just as quickly as it went in, and in a few moments, sentience returned to the drunk woman's body.

"Aria! Aria! Are you alright?!" Minerva's worried voice was the first thing that the Archmagus heard. Aria opened her eyes, only to see Minerva's face just centimetres away from hers. She was still in the same padded cell, but her body was sprawled out on the floor.

"Y-Yeah..." Still in shock, Aria gently rubbed the temples of her forehead. "W-What happened?"

"The man pulled you onto the bed, that's what happened!" Minerva's exasperated voice echoed through the chambers. "You really should think before you act! You're lucky that the President acted so quickly! If not, who knows what he would have done to you?!"

Peering over Minerva's shoulders, the Archmagus could see the elderly man performing a wrestling move on the brown-skinned man. People tend to forget, but the Association President was once a dominant S-Class Martial Monk back in his prime. In fact, there were few S-Rankers in Yudonia that could possibly match up to his masterful techniques. The brown-skinned man was already in chains; thus, it wasn't an issue for the President to further bind his movements.

"Aria! Are you okay?!" The President shouted, his arms still wrapped around their prisoner.

"Y-Yes! I'm fine!" Aria immediately answered back. A flash of white light had befuddled her mind for a brief moment, but other than that… The woman was in pink-perfect health.

"Good..." The Association President released his hold on the man. The man's body was invincible, so he probably didn't feel any pain from that manoeuver. However, for the moment, he seemed to have returned to his hibernation state. "We were careless… We'd thought that since he's been unresponsive over the past few days, he'll stay the same with you. I apologise Aria."

"No worries..." Once the buzzing in her head was phased out, the Archmagus got onto her two feet with Minerva's support. "My curiosity got ahead of myself. I should have been a little more careful."

"Yeah, you really sh-..."

Before the President could finish his sentence, the man threw his head back up. This time, his face was fully refreshed, as if he'd just come out from an hour-long comfort spa. Just like before, the man's attention was plastered wholly on Aria. He wore a charming smile, one that wouldn't lose out to the most dashing of Princes.

The first thing that Aria noticed was the change in the man's eyes. Before, he was absent-minded and honestly… a little dull. He would be looking at her, but in truth, his mind was focused on something that wasn't her. However, now… There was comprehension in his eyes.

"You persistent little..." The Association President wanted to slam the man's face onto the bed once again but was stopped by Aria's raised palm.

"Wait!" The Archmagus hollered. Aria's gaze changed between the President and the man in chains. The chambers fell silent, with no one daring to breathe a single word. Everyone's attention was wholly focused on the red-faced woman who took a few steps towards the bed. Minerva tried to stop her, but Aria just tapped on her hand while shaking her head.

"Don't worry, I'm staying here," reassured Aria as she pointed to her feet. Minerva and Aria were two metres away from the bed while the President was already holding onto the man's chains like a leash. It was near impossible for the earlier scene to repeat itself at this distance.

Heaving in a deep breath, the Archmagus contained her beating heart. She stared right at the man, who was still holding onto that disgustingly charming smile. And then, she repeated her first word to the man.

"Hello!"

The sides of the man's lips curled even higher this time, showing his full set of pearly white teeth. He was happy and genuinely amused. In a move that once again stunned all the scientists in the room, the man proudly exclaimed in his beautiful, majestic voice.

"Hello, Aria!!!"