Chapter 3

"You are really useless!" Laonn could not believe that his most prized test subject had made him waste away the vile liquid that he called CHI-103. It was the most valuable vile of liquid that belonged to him, and there was no more. Most of every liquid disperses once it enters the bloodstream of any human. 'She really made me waste this entire thing. There will never be another chance for me to be able to find another monster with these genetics!' Going up to Seven, he had scared off the rats that all ran off.

The next thing that came through was a slap across the face, the stinging was there on her face while it sent a bit of stings through the rest of her body. Seven knew that he would be angry at her again; she fell off to the side with her body giving up after starving for who knows how many days in that cage after being given another vile of unknown liquid. 'I'm so tired. I want to sleep so badly.' Feeling her eyelids start to close, she tried to fight her exhausted mind and stay awake. It was impossible, though, with how exhausted her mind and body were together.

"Useless!" Laonn had decided to vent his anger on her as she felt the sole of his shoes that kicked her harshly on her tiny and frail body. It was as if Seven could not feel the pain through all of it, as if she were already dead. Once Laonn had finished venting his anger, he had left soon after with Seven lying still. None of them felt that they could form any more words from their mouths to encourage each other to stay alive. It was as though they all had become mute from all the pain that they had to endure from Laonn.

Seven continued to lay down before feeling her consciousness slip back, feeling her body still ache in tremendous pain, feeling them all try to hold her hand as they knew that it was still painful for her since she was the one who was mainly abused out the rest of them—knowing fully well that they were encouraging her to keep holding on a bit longer for them all. A smile formed on her face even though her eyes were shut closed. There was a sense of comfort from the others who were urging her to stay strong, and perhaps they could all escape together from this hellish place.

With the passing of days, her cellmates would try and feed her bits that they could from being fed such poorly given meat. Seven was left with a running fever once more; the three other children were locked up in the same place as they kept an eye on her to make sure that she was still alive. Tapping on her cage bars as though to get a response back from her to signal her current state of strength.

'Ugh… I hate my life.' Seven said, losing consciousness soon after from all the pain she was feeling at once. It had been making her slip in and out, but this fever made it feel worse as if she could really die this time.

"It seems as though this one is sick." Laonn had returned to take a look at the situation. Finalizing in his head, he looked down to see that Seven may not survive this. "Hmph, we do not have any room for this one. We will be leaving this place since the emperor has grown too suspicious, and that wretched Archmage has been getting closer and closer to finding me. I cannot leave any traces left behind to make myself be captured. I will not allow my experiments to fail and be left as evidence against me." Laonn had cast a spell with a chain locking all three surviving children around the neck, which looked to be like a shock collar made specifically for them. They kept trying to fight back and bring Seven with them, but she could only watch as they were dragged away with a flicker of fire burning the whole place right before her.

'Why?' Seven did not want to experience the same thing over again. 'I don't want to die again. All alone. I'm scared of being alone.' She had tears that were forming in her eyes, feeling the fire burn closer to her. Her fever started to rise again with the feeling of the fire; then, a sudden warmth was entering into her body. 'This warmth… it feels nice.' She thought. A sudden red glow was wrapping around her body.

***

A Lion beast man walked out from the palace; he sighed to see how things had been getting harder and harder for all of them. Shifting back to his human forms after the meeting was usually the best option not to have prying eyes on them. Working to the bone, he knew that the case was almost at a close since they finally managed to find out who the mage was that experimented on children, but they would prolong the case again if they lost their culprit. "Archmage! Archmage!" He did not know what this was about when one of the apprentice mages ran towards him. He was a fellow beast-man as well, but he took on the form of a human—most of the human form.

"What is it?" Looking to the apprentice mage, he hoped that it would be valuable information that would help him with the case. "Hide yourself. Remember that humans do not like us." He reminded the young mage.

"Oh! Sorry!" The young mage hid his bear ears that popped out. "Many have been saying that there is a strange forest that one would always get lost in. Some either make it out alive or just disappear forever. I do not know if it is valuable information, but I feel like this may be where Laonn Garfanini is hiding and doing all of his test experiments." Seeing how this apprentice mage was so determined to find the location of Laonn Garfanini.

"…" Looking at this young age, he could only go along since he still wanted to be able to find time to meet his family, whom he hadn't seen in weeks since the case took place. "Let's hurry up." He went ahead of the young mage, hoping that they would be able to find some close to the case very soon.

"What are you people doing here?!" Once they both reached the forest, the fire was burning all around, and both figures were confused about what they had stumbled upon. 'There is no doubt that Laonn had been using this place for his experiments.'

"What happened here?" The young mage asked the man who had been trying to help get rid of the fire in the forest. He was covered in some of the ashes around.

"There was a fire that started in the forest, and no one ever lives in it other than hunting that takes place, but even hunters know that fire is not allowed. We are trying to take it out in case it comes to our crops and houses." The man replied and left to get more buckets of water to stop the fire from spreading further.

"Well, it seems as though what you thought was true." The archmage looked around, sensing that the fire everywhere was made by none other than another mage. "This must have been his home. I can sense his magic that strongly lingers around here still." Looking up, he saw fire move in a direction that he did not know if it was just him alone who saw it. It did not look like any ordinary fire that was floating to burn everything around it. His senses sharpened at the same time. Leaving the apprentice mage behind, the young mage did not know where he had gone since he was so fast.

Following the line of fire, he stopped to see a large body of a beast that held large flame-like wings with many tails looking at him with its entire body made of only fire. "What are you?" He asked. It only ran as he went after it, not even realizing that it was leading him away from something or someone hidden in the bushes. The sharp eyes of the flaming beast growled.

"Archmage!?" The beast had gone towards the young mage, who was startled by the beast's sudden appearance. Never had they seen a beast fully made of fire before.

"Don't let it escape!" The Archmage shouted, but it was already too late as the beast dispersed into thin air. Looking around, the beast had left no trace behind for any of them to sense it nearby or where it had gone.