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“When ‘empty’ bodies absorb this water, they are possessed… Even if we only give them a single drop. In other words, the girls’ memories and experiences accumulate in this. In that sense, it might be safe to say that this water is their true form.”

“True form? Then you mean this water has a will, too?”

In response to Maiza’s question, Elmer spoke up from the side. He seemed to be itching to say something; his eyes were even livelier than usual:

“No, the water doesn’t have a will. It doesn’t have a brain to think with, or nerves to feel with, or flesh or lips or ears or eyes. To use another game analogy, the water’s more like save data. Once it pours information into the bodies—the ‘characters’—they start to move. It makes them able to feel things, and to think. If it has a human brain, it gains the same capacity for thought as humans have.”

As he thought about what that meant, Maiza fell silent. When Elmer saw this, he regarded the older man, seeing right through him.

“From our perspective, it’s probably a really smart being. After all, it can use five human brains at once, or maybe even more. I wonder what would happen if it was released from our restrictions and showed up as whatever it actually looks like over there. Would it think in a completely different way from what we’re used to? …Or maybe it’s not actually sentient at all, and it’s just operating on some survival program like your average insect. Maybe it learns human words and speaks simply in order to survive. That was a possibility, too, but…”

When he’d said as much, Elmer patted Fil—who’d been listening silently behind him—on the shoulder. She didn’t appear to have followed the conversation completely and seemed perplexed about a few things. She’d probably had trouble understanding once he’d started in with the game analogies. Of course, since she had absolutely no knowledge of video games, expecting her to understand from what she’d heard would have been unreasonable.

Elmer smiled warmly at her, then turned back to Maiza and continued, “But I don’t think it’s like that—or, honestly, I don’t think it matters either way. No matter what sort of being she was over there, she’s herself. She’s a little clumsy about life, but at heart, she’s kind, and she’s always thinking about other people. Right, Maiza?”

In response to that question, Maiza also looked into Fil’s eyes and smiled.

“Agreed.”

For a little while, Maiza examined the tanks. Then he spoke to Bilt, his expression intent.

“All right… Why did you show this to me? What do you want me to do?”

It was Elmer who answered the question.

“It’s simple: Mr. Bilt doesn’t have a whole lot longer to live. Well, I mean, from our perspective. Anyway, once he dies, this experiment will be over. There’s nobody to pass it on to, and he wants to end it, anyway. In that case, although there’ll be lots of confusion, he can just let the villagers go and that’ll be that, but… Before he does it, at the very least, he says he wants to save Fil.”

Picking up where Elmer had left off, Bilt began to tell his side of the story, a bit guiltily.

“I was always uneasy about the fact that my father and grandfather had thrown themselves into this terrible research with no hesitation whatsoever… No, I’m not saying Fil is terrible. I hear they made two groups of homunculi in the pursuit of ‘perfect knowledge.’ If they had them live forever, changing bodies as they went, they thought they’d accumulate experience and knowledge, and that in the end, they might be very close to homunculi in the true sense of the word. Based on that idea, they attempted to create a real homunculus. And so, to that end, my grandfather and father began a terrible experiment, backed by their abundant property and the connections our ancestor—Szilard—had made within the government.”

Almost as if he was frightened of his own sins, Bilt began trembling violently.

“In exchange for sizable debts and similar things, they ‘bought’ a large number of people. Many of them had children who had just been born! Then they forced them to become ‘residents’ of this isolated space. In some cases, they seem to have used other methods, more direct than money… However, I wasn’t there. When this village was created, I was still a very young child.”

Maiza simply accepted the old man’s long confession in silence. However, when he saw that the man had stopped talking for a moment, he asked a question in a grave, quiet voice.

“…Why did they go to the trouble of establishing that village?”

“It’s a simulation.”

Elmer fielded that question frankly, although Maiza’s face was dark.

“They probably didn’t want to toss the homunculi they’d created out into the world just like that. First, I bet they wanted to let them acquire a certain amount of knowledge in a ‘miniature garden’ that they had complete control over, and to study their growth processes when they interacted with people.”

“Just for that? They wouldn’t have needed to make an entire village… Couldn’t they have managed without resorting to human trafficking?”

“They were probably nervous. They wanted to keep it all to themselves. Yeah, if the ‘liquor of immortality’ hadn’t been involved, I bet things would have turned out differently, but, well, apparently everyone who gets involved with immortality goes a little crazy. Long story short: Mr. Bilt’s dad and granddad didn’t want any information about the liquor of immortality to get out. In other words, they weren’t planning to let a single person who was involved in this research leave.”

Ignoring Elmer’s masochistic smile, Bilt resumed his monologue, looking even more downcast.

“I always thought I needed to put an end to this, but…I was afraid; I couldn’t do it! When I think that I’ll have to atone for this horrible sin by myself, now that both my father and grandfather are dead… But until five years ago, when Elmer stowed away in my truck and came here—until he told me what the village was like—I never dreamed Fil was being treated that way! When she came here at the end of her lives, I didn’t notice any sign of that sort of thing… If I’d asked, she might have told me, but I didn’t even do that. Out of guilt over what I was doing, I intentionally avoided the child. It may do no good for me to say something like this at this late date, but at least, at the very least, I want this girl to be happy… If nothing else, I wanted to atone for that.”

Originally, they’d used a laboratory designed to look like a castle as their base. However, when they’d decided to build the village and observe Fil’s growth, they’d cut this area off from its surroundings. They’d injected the trees around it with the failed immortality liquor, creating a forest that would wither only from old age, never from any other cause.

After the village had been established, the alchemists observed the villagers as “traders.” From time to time, unexpected outsiders wandered into the forest, but the villagers seemed to be getting rid of them on their own.

Every once in a while, young people had stowed away in the truck, but they’d all been startled and awed by the outside world, and they hadn’t tried to return to the village. They’d been the sort who’d yearned for an “outside,” even though they hadn’t known whether it really existed. For them and the others who’d made it through the forest on foot and reached the world beyond, its fascination had probably been greater than their attachment to their families and birthplace.

That said, even if someone occasionally did try to return, the researchers had never let them back into the forest.

After listening to the old man’s confession, Maiza spoke quietly. His face was expressionless.

“If you mean to make amends, I think you should extend the sentiment to the villagers, too.”

“I’m well aware of that. However… Once freed, the villagers will have places to go and the family bonds they’ve created. Fil has nowhere except this village. Particularly since her life is so short.”

“But I went and promised, see. I told Fil I’d show her the whole wide world. I said I’d strike off her shackles and set her free.”

Picking up where Bilt had left off, Elmer spoke to Maiza, averting his eyes. He was speaking in a roundabout way, but Maiza immediately understood what he was after and asked him a question in return:

“In other words…you want me to extend Fil’s lives?”

“You’re so quick on the uptake, Maiza! That’s a huge help.”

“…Just for the record, I’m not making the elixir of immortality.”

“I know that, too. Even so, your knowledge could help the research along, right? Besides…we’ve got five alchemists here who’ve lived more than three hundred years each. I mean, I can’t force you, but if we all work on this together, I think we’ll probably find a way.”

Beside Maiza, who’d fallen silent, Fil went over to Bilt and began talking to him.

“Um…I don’t understand why you feel you’ve sinned, Master Bilt. I don’t know about the villagers, but I’m fine. Don’t look so sad. Please smile…”

Seeing her concern for Bilt, Maiza brooded for a while, a complicated expression on his face. Then, finally, he heaved a ponderous sigh and nodded.

“Show me your research materials, if you would.”

Several hours after Maiza had begun perusing the research materials, Elmer muttered:

“I came here because…well, I knew the people who ran this place had ties to Szilard. I’d heard a rumor that there was an alchemical facility in an old castle in the woods. I thought Szilard might come back here, y’know? If he had, I might have been able to talk the old guy around.”

“Elmer… You’re still saying that?”

“Well, if he’s dead, there’s no help for it.”

As he watched Elmer chuckle, Maiza was struck by a thought.

“Elmer. The information that you were here… You leaked it yourself, didn’t you?”

“Oh, you figured it out? Yeah, well, I thought I’d get ahold of Victor from here and see if he could put me in touch with you. He said he’d talk to the information broker about it, so I just took him up on it. Since it was you, I assumed you’d show up by yourself, but then there were four of you…”

“You were genuinely startled, weren’t you?”

“When Fil told me a ‘family of four’ had come to the village, I had no idea it was you. Thanks to that, I wasn’t able to give you a decent welcome, and I looked like a total idiot.”

Remembering when Maiza’s group had arrived at the castle, Elmer snickered to himself.

For his part, Maiza had put together a certain hypothesis from the facts he’d just learned, and he asked Elmer about it.

“…Were you trying to use my knowledge to complete this research?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Elmer admitted the fact easily, without a shred of apparent guilt.

“If it came down to it, I thought I’d have you summon the demon again or something.”

“You say that like it’s easy…”

Maiza covered his face as if he was appalled, but even then, he was smiling. It looked like he’d resigned himself, somehow.

“Have you given up alchemy, then?”

The casual question made Elmer go quiet for a little while. He gazed into space for a few moments, then spoke with some nostalgia.

“I got into alchemy for the gold. I just wanted money.”

“That’s unexpected.”

“I figured I’d become an alchemist and make mountains of gold, then give it all away to the poor. Of course I was going to keep some back for myself, too. I thought if I did that, I’d be able to make everybody happy.”

Elmer looked a bit self-conscious, even embarrassed.

“Dumb, right? It was a fundamentally bad move, in terms of both economics and sociology, and I didn’t give the slightest consideration to the fact that the value of gold would drop or production would stop. Well, I’ve lived a long time; somewhere in there, I learned about those things, and I realized human happiness wasn’t that simple… So now I don’t have any particular attachment to alchemy.”

When he’d gotten that far, Fil and Bilt came into the room. Seeing them, Elmer raised his voice, changing the subject.

“By the way, Bilt, I’ve been wondering for a while now. What’s the male homunculus up to? I asked Fil, but she said she’s never met him.”

For a brief moment, the old man seemed startled by the question. Then, as if something made sense to him now, he nodded.

“I see… He’s completely blended in with the village, so you’ve probably met him and didn’t realize it.”

His expression growing complicated, Bilt remembered a certain man—or rather, a certain homunculus.

“He probably realized he was being used as a guinea pig, and it upset him. He gave up the experiment of his own accord, before I came to my own resolution. I think it was about fifteen years ago…He infiltrated this place, destroyed the cultivation fluid his body was in, and left. He took the ‘water,’ his catalyst, with him, and he hasn’t been back since. That said, even if he had come, without the water, we couldn’t have done anything.”

Almost as if he was reminiscing about his son, the old man took a single photograph from his coat.

“If I recall, he’s on his second body now, and he should be around fifty years old… I expect he intends to live out his natural life as a villager.”

With the expression of a man hoping for the happiness of his own child, Bilt showed the photograph to Maiza.

“See? This is him. If you happen to see him, please greet him for me.”

The photograph Bilt held out to him was of a lean young man, with sharp, distinctive eyes.

“Let’s see. It does feel as if I’ve seen him somewhere before…”

As if his curiosity had been piqued, Maiza scrutinized the man in the photo.

“Huh…? If you do this—”

As if he’d realized something, Elmer rubbed a nearby eraser lightly on the desktop, then put the eraser shavings over the mouth of the man in the picture.

Fil peeked in at it from behind them, then shrieked a name in spite of herself.

“—Master Dez!”

There was a small well on the edge of the village. It had been dug deep, and it almost never froze over completely; the ice on its surface could be broken easily by dropping the bucket onto it. The village was far from the river, and so the well was an important reservoir, something at the very center of the villagers’ lives.

A lone man was standing in front of it. The man with an arrogant-looking mustache stood before the well, quietly gazing down at the water.

He didn’t move a single step. It was as if he was waiting for someone.

And then… The “someone” he was waiting for appeared.

“Master Dez.”

At the sound of a girl’s voice, the village headman turned. The girl stood there, out of breath.

“I was waiting for you. You took longer than I thought you would.”

The headman gazed at Fil’s face as if he’d grown restless with impatience. Then he muttered:

“So you know, huh? Finally. Or should I say you remembered?”

He grinned. In his right hand, he held a small bottle.

“You went to the outside with the trader, didn’t you? To that place: our cradle, and our grave.”

“…That bottle…”

“Right. It’s the glass bottle where you and I got our start. The only difference between us is which of those two bottles we were born from. That’s all it is.”

Speaking with some self-contempt, Dez held the bottle up for Fil to see.

“In other words, this is ‘me.’ Didn’t you hear from old man Bilt? It’s my true form, the catalyst to make more of me. My soul.”

Fil had absolutely no idea what Dez was trying to do. As if he’d realized this, Dez slowly began to twist the bottle’s cap. He was wearing that cold smile.

“For example.”

As if explaining a science experiment, he lectured Fil in a decidedly exaggerated way.

“When this water, my ‘will,’ is injected into an empty body, ‘I’ am the result… Now, what do you think will happen if I pour this water into the well and make villagers that are already living drink it?”

“…!”

Up until now, only empty bodies created in the cultivation liquid had been given the will-infused water. If ordinary humans drank it… What would happen to them?

“I tested it once before, on my father-in-law—in other words, the previous village headman—when he was dying of old age. The answer is ‘a struggle.’ Both wills fight for control of the body. Interesting, isn’t it? In other words, a brain that exists in this world as solid matter fights head-on with our minds, which are from another dimension. That isn’t alchemy anymore; it’s the realm of mediums and magic. Don’t you think so? A mind that has taken control is able to take all the other’s knowledge and experience for itself. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the system the immortals up at the castle have, the system of devouring each other?”

Why did Dez know that? It struck Fil as odd, but after a little thought, she realized that Sylvie had told Feldt all about it. It wouldn’t have been at all strange for Dez, his father, to have heard.

“And, I hate to break it to you, but I can’t imagine I’ll lose to the lot in this village, the sort of people who just get swept along by the world around them… Although I suppose it is a gamble.”

When she heard that, Fil finally realized what the man was about to do.

“No…”

“I’m sick of being shut up in this wretched little village. It might have been better if I’d just kept living the way I was, knowing nothing, but those outsider demons gave me a glimmer of hope. There’s a great big world outside this forest! It’s definitely there!”

With crazed, bloodshot eyes, the village chief—or the man who had been the village chief—went on quietly, intensely.

“I was thinking. Going out into the world with only my own life would feel really unsafe. However, if all seventy-six people who live in this village became ‘me’—that would make for enough power to handle the outside world, too, wouldn’t you say?”

The girl looked shocked, but before long, she got a firm grip on her heart again and spoke, slowly but firmly.

“—I won’t let you do it.”

“Oh? And what exactly is scum like you going to keep me from doing?”

Dez sounded entertained, but the girl told him in no uncertain terms what she meant.

“Steal the villagers’ minds… I’ll never let you do that.”

Half-afraid, but with a strong resolve in her eyes, Fil took a step forward.

“I see. That’s great.”

With absolutely no hesitation or worry, Dez began opening the bottle.

“Stopppp!”

With a cry that was almost a scream, Fil rushed at Dez. In an attempt to snatch the bottle from his right hand, she jumped as hard as she could.

In response, as if he’d been waiting for this very thing, Dez put his left hand into his jacket, pulled out a gleaming silver knife, and slashed diagonally at Fil’s arm.

A flash. Fil’s face twisted with a hot sensation of wrongness, and a moment later, her expression shifted into a grimace of pain.

“Good-for-nothing.”

As Dez glared at her, his eyes full of hatred, several drops of red mist struck his face.

“Waaaaaaaaaaah—!”

…But Fil didn’t stop. Without checking her momentum, she rammed into Dez with her whole body.

“Hunh?!”

The girl didn’t weigh much, and the body blow should have done almost nothing, but the ground around the well was frozen, and Dez’s feet slipped.

They fell together, beside the well, and began struggling fiercely.

Without the composure to act rationally, the girl howled like a wild animal—

…Several minutes later.

When the villagers who’d heard the uproar came to look, they saw…

…the figure of the “witch” they’d scorned, believing she was their inferior.

Her body was dappled with something red…and she was straddling another, fallen figure: the corpse of Dez Nibiru, the village headman. There was a silver knife stuck in his neck.

Hearing a crackling, popping sound, Czes slowly woke up.

His hands were bound tightly behind him; he couldn’t move his arms at all. He was lying on the floor, and he could feel some sort of warmth on his back.

Around him, he could hear several people muttering. Thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea to open his eyes right away, Czes opened them a mere crack and scoped out the situation around him.

From what he could see, he seemed to be in a spacious room in somebody’s house. The wooden walls were lit by a fierce, flickering red glow, in addition to lamplight. Apparently the crackling he’d been hearing was the sound of wood burning in a fireplace behind him.

Two other figures lay on the floor in front of Czes.

They were two of the five Fils. One was the Fil who’d been with Czes. The other was probably the village’s lone remaining Fil.

What on earth happened? As far as I know, we didn’t have any particular quarrel with the village over the past month… I wonder what Feldt’s doing.

“Hey. I think he’s awake.”

One of the villagers had noticed Czes’s slightly open eyes. He strode over to him, then slammed a kick into his side with his toes. The stabbing impact knocked the wind out of Czes for a moment.

“Gahk…”

“How’re you feeling, demon spawn?”

As Czes coughed violently, a burly man looked down on him, spitting the words out.

“Frankly, when we grabbed you, we still didn’t quite believe it, but when we got back to the village, we were sure. To think you’d try to poison the well…!”

What is he talking about? Czes was confused, but it seemed foolish to argue back and get himself kicked again, so for the moment, he decided to stay quiet and listen to what the villager said.

“Not only that, but when the headman tried to stop you, you stabbed him. This trash forgot the debt they owe the village for having put up with them all this time.”

As he spoke, the man kicked Fil in the stomach. She seemed to be completely unconscious, and her little body only rose slightly.

“Stop it.”

Czes spoke in spite of himself and immediately regretted it. Oh, that was stupid.

“Shaddup!”

Another kick flew at Czes’s torso. He’d known it was coming this time, so it didn’t pack as much damage as the previous one.

Another ten or so villagers were standing behind the man, but they just watched Czes with revulsion, and no one tried to put a stop to the man’s violence.

He didn’t think the two Fils were awake yet; they just lay limply where they were. From the way their shoulders rose and fell slightly, they didn’t seem to be dead. For the moment, he could feel relieved about that, at least.

However, they couldn’t stay like this. In an attempt to get a grip on the situation, Czes spoke to the villagers.

“…Why did you kidnap me? You only found out about the poison after you brought me here, right?”

His voice was as childlike as his appearance, and several of the villagers exchanged bewildered looks. However, the man who’d launched that first kick spoke to Czes with a smirk.

“Quit pretending you’re a kid. We know you’re actually a three-hundred-year-old geezer and that, other than not dying, you’re only as strong as a real kid.”

At those words, Czes sighed. Feldt’s face came into his mind.

Did he tell them all that…? Honest little fool. There’s no help for that guy.

“…I see. All right, then. From now on, I’ll talk normally.”

Czes’s voice and expression had suddenly turned mature, and when they saw this, a stir ran through the villagers.

“Keh! So that’s what you really are, huh?”

He was talking tough, but the guy who’d landed the kick on him did seem creeped out. With one eye on him, Czes asked only what he wanted to know, sounding indifferent.

“This is just a request, but… Who was it that came up with the plan to kidnap me, and why?”

The kicker turned to the other villagers, but no one tried to stop him.

“Right, well, you looked like the weakest one. We figured we’d wait for you to get careless, then nab you, use you as a hostage, and round up the other monsters.”

“…A hostage, when you knew I wouldn’t die? Why?”

The question was only natural. However, the man who’d kicked him answered with no confusion whatsoever.

“There’s all sorts of ways to do it. We could take you to the village forge, say, and mix you up with molten iron, then sink you to the bottom of the well.”

Imagining this, Czes felt a little dismal. It would be one thing if they put him on the bottom of the ocean; Maiza and the others would probably still save him. However, if they fused him with molten iron, would it even be possible for him to return to normal completely? That was the one thing that worried him.

Indifferent to Czes’s private thoughts, the man tried to threaten him as menacingly as he could. His build was clearly different from those of the villagers behind him. He was probably the one outlaw who always seemed to turn up in any group.

“Besides—maybe you can’t die, but you can feel pain, yeah?”

With those words, the man took something that looked like pliers out of his jacket.

“Ghk…”

Torture. As that word crossed his mind, terror blazed up in Czes’s heart.

He had a vivid recollection of the hell he’d been subjected to on that train seventy years ago.

Noticing that Czes’s expression had clouded over, the man gave a satisfied smirk and clicked the pliers together.

Seeing this, Czes spoke frantically. His palms were growing sweaty.

“Wait, please. Before that, I want to know… Who was it that put this plan together?”

Czes was positive that the answer to his question would be “Dez,” and he’d only asked it to distract himself from his fear, but—

The resulting answer dashed cold water over his heart.

The name belonged to a person he’d never have suspected.

“Feldt.”

Involuntarily, Czes raised his head, scanning the villagers who stood farther back.

However, from the way they looked, the man wasn’t lying.

“He’s been setting up this plan for several days now, for the sake of the village. I knew Feldt had it in ’im! He managed to throw you lot completely off guard. Ol’ Dez was useless, but if this guy’s gonna be the next headman, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Good God.

Czes was completely disgusted by his own foolishness. Logically, the idea was entirely possible. As a matter of fact, considered calmly, he might have been a more likely possibility than Dez. Even so, until this very moment, Czes had believed in him completely…even though he’d only talked to him for a day.

“Well, that takes the cake.”

Feeling as though he’d gone hopelessly soft, Czes sighed self-consciously.

“And here I thought I was used to being sold out. I’ve been through several things in the past that were much, much worse than this, and yet…”

Shaking his head in disappointment, he realized his heart had actually calmed down. His tone had naturally reverted to a child’s unique cadences, and the sights and sounds around him seemed vivid and clear.

“It hasn’t happened in a while, and this reminded me. I forgot it hurt so much.”

“Wh-what?”

Although Czes’s attitude bewildered him, the man prepared to strip off one of his fingernails with the pliers, but…

Czes looked at his face. Then he looked at the faces of the villagers behind him. He’d seen those expressions somewhere before. The emotion in the depths of their faces was…fear. Their eyes were those of people about to inflict violence on him in order to cover up their own fear.

This is different. They’re nothing like that monster.

Recalling the menace from seventy years ago, Czes compared it to the people in front of him. He couldn’t feel any terror for these people. On the contrary… He realized that they looked just like the immortal who’d once tried to kill him because he was afraid.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The instant Czes understood that, a great laugh burst from his lips.

It made the villagers freeze, but his voice seemed to have roused the two Fils. They gave little groans, and their bodies rocked and shifted.

“Oh, I see… I see. In the end, you’re just the same. Yes, you’re all the same, Fermet and the people of this village. You’re exactly the same. Of course you are. That’s normal, isn’t it? That’s right.”

Beaming in a way that was entirely at odds with the situation, Czes got to his feet, dexterously, using only his knees. He wasn’t laughing at the situation, but rather his past self.

Violent confusion ran through the villagers at this sudden turn of events, but still, his hands were tied, and the idea that he couldn’t do anything against numbers like these let them stand their ground.

However…in the next instant, Czes did something none of them had predicted.

“I see. Then it’s just like Elmer said. I’ve been living in the midst of miraculously good luck! To think I never noticed how lucky I was… It’s hilarious. It’s as if I took my own happiness and threw it into the ditch with my own two hands!”

As he finished shouting that long speech…

Czes leaped back—right into the blazing fireplace.

At that, all the villagers shuddered, shrinking back in spite of themselves. Even as they watched, Czes’s upper body was enveloped in flames…and the rope that had bound his arms burned away, freeing his hands.

When he was sure of this, Czes stood. His upper half was still shrouded in flames. The fire hadn’t spread to the rest of him, but the clothes on his upper body, still alight, had mostly charred away.

Half his face was hideously burned, but as the villagers watched, the flesh immediately began to heal.

Even if he was immortal, he must have been feeling ferocious pain far beyond heat. However, even under those circumstances, Czes was smiling brightly.