Mortimer, page 27
part #6 of Everybody Loves Large Chests Series
“Right, good point. Why him, though?”
“No idea, mate. And frankly, I don’t think I want to find out.”
“Still, a pet, huh? That doesn’t exactly explain why they’re so chummy and casual with each other. Y’know, all things considered.”
After all, one was a living weapon created to suit the Foundation’s needs, while the other was the person in charge of its creation. However one looked at it, Zilla should have definitely retained some measure of animosity towards Honoka, but that was very clearly not the case. Even taking into account the fact it had regularly been pumped full of mind-altering chemicals, the sort of devotion, patience, and understanding the abomination showed towards its own creator suggested there was something more.
“Isn’t that because the two of them are boinking each other?” said the third guard, though his voice had been a bit louder than he intended.
“Number 40151,” called out Honoka.
“Ack!” exclaimed the guard who made that scandalous remark. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I am docking your pay for the next two weeks.”
“What?! But I-!”
“I’ll hear no complaints,” she cut him off. “Also, if I hear you spreading slanderous filth like that again, I won’t hesitate to hand you over to Project Blackgate.”
Those words were profoundly terrifying to the veteran guard. While he didn’t know much about that assignment, he was aware of its reputation. Those sent off to Project Blackgate were never heard from again, and that was all he needed to know.
“Are we clear?”
“Crystal, ma’am.”
“Good. Now be quiet, the lot of you,” she warned, carrying on with her work.
While Honoka normally tuned out people when she was busy, she could never ignore that sort of attitude. The implication that the relationship between herself and Zilla was anything other than platonic was, frankly speaking, an insult to both of them. She would be lying if she said the sickening thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but the only reason she even entertained it was because other people kept mentioning it. While she thought dearly of the creature, it wasn’t in the sick way that moronic grunt had insinuated. Even though the objectionable and unethical nature of her work had knocked her moral compass somewhat off-kilter, she still considered herself a sensible woman. Not a good one, however. She never once deluded herself into thinking that she wasn’t a terrible person with many heavy sins, but she thoroughly believed her crimes against elfkind were for its own good.
Securing the prosperity of her nation and her people was far more important than any individual’s life, even if that meant turning a harmless creature akin to family into something it never wanted nor asked to be. If a few had to be sacrificed to ensure the survival of the many, she would not hesitate to play the part of the butcher, lest she find her own head on the chopping block. At least, that’s what she told herself so she could sleep at night. The bottom line was that Honoka, unlike some of her peers, still understood what was right and wrong. As such, the mere thought of having ‘relations’ with a monster – let alone her own childhood companion – was so repulsive that it made her physically ill. She used to throw up a little in her mouth every time she heard that sickening rumor when it first started making the rounds. Yet no matter how hard she tried to stamp it out, it kept rearing its ugly head like some sort of disgusting weed.
Truthfully speaking, the sort of people who perpetuated that lie only did so because it got a rise out of her. She was far too exploitable. It was the same reason why those same individuals kept sneaking milk into her tea, which would more often than not trigger an explosive response. One particularly entertaining instance had her screaming about ‘defiling her noble beverage with bovine ejaculate’ at the top of her lungs to a thoroughly confused lab assistant who had been tricked into preparing her tea wrong. As far as office pranks went, both of these were a little harsh, but Honoka wasn’t the only one who needed a distraction from her guilty conscience. She somewhat understood that, which was why she refused to stay mad at these people. Ideally, she wouldn’t even give them a reaction to begin with, but the stress she had accumulated over the years had made her somewhat emotionally unstable. It was probably why the Foundation’s leadership passed her over in favor of Malon when they were choosing a new facility director. Whether that man was a better Alchemist than her wasn’t nearly as relevant as his willingness to commit atrocities in the name of progress.
Honoka chased the errant thoughts out of her head and refocused her attention back to the simmering substance in the cauldron in front of her. Having judged that the Attitude Adjuster was just about ready, she moved onto the final phase. She always hated this part, as it involved placing her bare hand on the scalding hot silver cauldron. Even though she only had to do it for a few moments, and had grown more or less used to it, painful things were still painful. She breathed in, mentally braced herself, and did what she had to, wincing a bit as the searing heat seeped into her palm.
“Evaporate.”
The remaining liquid inside the cauldron began boiling so violently it caused its container to quiver and quake. A geyser of blurple-colored smoke was released into the confines of the elf’s Air Bubble, mixing in with the rest of the smog. Honoka gestured upwards, prompting the magical sphere to rise out of the cauldron and take the gaseous cocktail along with it.
“All done here,” she reported. “Now… to administer it.”
The pudgy Alchemist would be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to the next part. She commanded the guards to stay put and entered Boxxy’s cell with Zilla close behind. The creature that had reverted back into a faux wood chest began stirring, clearly sensing that the odd purple-blue ball floating behind the elf was not a good thing. Honoka reached into her lab coat’s right pocket and pulled out a small cube. It was only about six or seven centimeters on each side and forged out of a shiny sky-blue metal Boxxy hadn’t seen before, with nine runic symbols carved into one side.
The elf acted before the prisoner had a chance to play any more of its tricks. Thoroughly ignoring the creature, she tapped seven consecutive times on the item’s sigils in a very specific pattern. After inputting the right sequence, the giant cage of yellow light suddenly turned a bright blue. She gestured forward, prompting the gas-filled Air Bubble to float towards the containment field. It passed through the reconfigured Stasis Field unhindered, much to Specimen 68’s surprise. It seemed to hesitate for a moment, wondering if it should make a break for it. Ultimately, it decided against it since it was clearly wary of Zilla. Even if it did attempt an escape, it would have been a futile effort.
While the blue-shifted Stasis Field happily allowed things to enter, it would still not permit them to leave.
The Air Bubble burst with a snap of Honoka’s fingers, and the compressed blurple smoke inside instantly filled Boxxy’s new living space. The shapeshifter instinctively held its breath and tried to shield itself, but Honoka’s Attitude Adjuster could not be defeated so easily. As if it had a mind of its own, the cloud of smoke began surrounding the only living thing in reach and seeped into it despite its best efforts. Honoka watched with a crooked smile as a small roomful of her concoction was sucked into Specimen 68’s body in a matter of seconds, almost like an explosion in reverse. When it had finally cleared up and she could see her patient once more, it had become a solid bronze box with a distinctly purple tint. The crafty shapeshifter had probably tried to seal itself off by employing on that particular alloy’s magic-repelling properties, but humble bronze was not enough to halt the march of scientific progress.
“Can you hear me in there?” asked Honoka.
“Yes,” came the instant reply.
“Revert back to your base form.”
The Metal Mimicry was undone, and Specimen 68 promptly transformed into a steel-bound cedar chest.
“Your doppelganger form,” clarified Honoka, and Boxxy immediately complied. “Now take your own head off and eat it.”
The gray-skinned humanoid did not skip a beat as it ripped its own head off without hesitation, grew a new one, and eagerly slurped up the goopy pile of flesh that its old one had reverted into.
“Very good,” said the elf with a tiny breath of relief. “Now, tell me everything you know about the Calamity of Monotal.”
And thus Boxxy, who had completely fallen under the influence of Attitude Adjuster’s effects, happily began spilling its greatest secrets.
Part Six
“Then I realized the heart was the tastiest part only as long as the corpse was fresh,” Boxxy calmly explained. “Once it grows cold, all the juices start turning goopy and the flavor just sort of leaks away. I’d say the tastiness falls below the maximum threshold after about two to three hours, depending how much blood-”
“Oh my god, will you just shut the fuck up?!” Honoka screamed, and her prisoner went silent.
Needless to say, the interrogation wasn’t going quite as planned. When she asked Specimen 68 to reveal what it knew regarding the Calamity of Monotal, she said she wanted to hear ‘everything’. And ‘everything’ was precisely what she was getting. Every small, excruciating detail the creature could remember regarding the incident. A timeframe which, from its point of view, apparently went back to the moment of its birth.
“Honoka, do you want me to try?” offered Zilla, the only other soul in the room.
The elven researcher gave a tired sigh while rubbing her temples. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world. She certainly couldn’t stomach any more tips on how to eat humans. More importantly, she didn’t have any experience questioning others, neither was she ordered to actually do such things in the first place. Zilla, on the other hand, had received interrogation training. Or so she assumed. If nothing else, he seemed to understand his fellow shapeshifter on some more basic level. The subject itself had no say on the matter since Attitude Adjuster had rendered it extremely susceptible to anyone’s orders, not just the professor’s. The compulsion to speak the truth was just a side-effect, really.
So, all things considered, letting Zilla take over for a bit was for the best.
“Sure, go right ahead,” she granted permission.
“Alright then. First, I want to address a security concern, if that’s okay with you?”
“Oh. Err… Right, yeah. For sure. Wouldn’t want to take any chances,” she mumbled, slightly ashamed that she didn’t consider such things.
“Now then. Boxxy – open up your Storage and dump out everything in it.”
The monster complied and opened the swirling abyss to its own pocket dimension. However, the one-meter-wide tear in the fabric of reality idly stood there for several seconds before closing up.
“Is the gas wearing off already?” asked Honoka after an awkward moment of silence.
“Maybe not. Boxxy, is your Storage completely empty?”
“… Yes.”
The creature’s eye twitched ever-so-slightly when it unwillingly revealed this truth, a reaction that did not escape Zilla’s notice.
“That’s a shame,” he said with a slight sigh of disappointment. “Alright, moving on. Boxxy, earlier you were telling Honoka you had just dislodged the dungeon core from its perch. Tell me what happened to it over the course of the next five minutes and avoid going on any more food-related tangents.”
“I had Arms carry it with her while we made towards the exit,” it began explaining. “It kept sending me requests to be its dungeon master, but I kept denying them. At one point, it started flashing red at regular intervals, which I thought was some sort of alarm. It also began sucking in all the ambient mana while steadily growing larger. We had to start rolling it instead of carrying it towards the entrance because Arms was having a hard time keeping her balance. At the five minute mark, it had grown to about two and a half times its original size.”
“Why did this ‘alarm’ appear?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what or who caused it?”
“It was Hubert.”
“Hubert? Who’s Hubert?”
“I don’t know any Hubert.”
“…”
There was a brief pause where Zilla looked quizzically at his companion, but Honoka could only offer a shrug. Thinking he misheard or misunderstood, he decided to ask it again.
“Then who did you say caused the Ishigar Dungeon Complex’s core to start collecting ambient mana?”
“Gary.”
“So… who was controlling the core?”
“Janice.”
Just as Honoka started worrying whether her chemical incentive had somehow fried Specimen 68’s brain, she had an epiphany. She remembered something she read in a report, one regarding a certain mithril golem that had appeared on the Republic’s doorstep. A thoroughly unique specimen like her was sure to catch the Foundation’s attention. As one of the more influential people within the organization, Honoka had been briefed regarding her case, including an overview of her unorthodox religious beliefs.
“Do you mean the Goddess of Probability, perchance?” she interjected.
“Yes.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere!” she shouted in triumph. “So, this God of Uncertainty was the one controlling the dungeon?”
“Yes.”
“And how did you realize he was the one behind it?”
“Because he was theaaAAAAAARGH!”
Boxxy’s calm voice suddenly erupted into a piercing scream. It fell to the ground of its cage and began breathing heavily. It opened its vertical face-mouth and forcefully regurgitated the contents of its gullet in a desperate effort to get the taste of its own flesh out of its throat.
“Ugh… Urk!”
Seeing the disgusting display had a profoundly adverse effect on Honoka. She was already queasy from the monster’s graphic descriptions from earlier, and seeing it vomit in front of her wasn’t helping her keep her breakfast down.
“It seems we’re out of time,” Zilla stated matter-of-factly.
Indeed, the first dose of Attitude Adjuster had just finished working itself out of Boxxy’s system, though it had only been a couple of minutes since it was gassed. It would have lasted for about ten minutes on most subjects, but this particular creature’s mental defenses had proven to be just as exceptional as the professor theorized.
“I wiLL muRdEr yoU anD rAPe yOUr bRAiN!”
It let out an ungodly screech while madly lashing out against its prison of light. It struck at it in a blind rage, letting out a veritable whirlwind of claws, teeth, and blades as it desperately tried to gut Honoka. Realizing that her work here was done, the elf rapidly left the cell with Zilla in tow. That did little to quell the shapeshifter’s rage. If anything, her retreat only seemed to anger it further. It kept throwing itself against the indestructible barrier even after the two of them had vacated the holding cell and shut the door, as evidenced by the ungodly racket it continued to make. It howled, screamed, and wailed so much it made the guards gathered outside instinctively reach for their weapons.
“Zilla,” called out Honoka, “on second thought why don’t you go in there and see if you can’t make it stop. Wouldn’t want it to accidentally kill itself.”
Especially since a Soulstone wouldn’t work a second time.
“Are you sure it would go that far?” he asked with a slightly shocked expression.
“I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s the only way I see it making trouble for us.”
“In that case, I may need to restrain it directly,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, good point. Here, take the console.”
Honoka reached into her lab coat and brought out the blue metal cube that she used earlier.
“You remember the ‘entry’ code?”
“I do, yes,” Zilla reassured her. “Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure it doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Thanks, I knew I could count on you,” she said with a relieved smile. “And sorry about the ‘retarded fashionista’ thing.”
“It’s alright, you don’t need to apologize over something so trivial.”
Zilla nodded for one of the guards to open the bulkhead back up and walked back into the hollow metal dome. The Foundation grunts quickly sealed the door behind him as he steadily crossed the distance to Specimen 68’s inner cell. The prisoner itself was still going bonkers. It climbed up, down, around, and all over the insides of the Stasis Field in its arachno-chest form, wildly bashing away at it with a pair of steel flails grown from its own flesh.
“Could you bring it down a notch?” shouted Zilla. “I came here to silence you, so it wouldn’t look good if you just kept going berserk.”
The rampaging spider-box complied and began slowing down, gradually growing quieter until it came to a complete stop a few minutes later. It walked up to Zilla, who was standing right outside its cage, and sat down on the glowing yellow floor opposite its counterpart. The shapeshifter on the outside had taken this opportunity to transform into his own ‘base form,’ that of a 220-by-80-by-100 wardrobe seemingly made out of polished white cedar wood. It had a large relief of a scantily-clad elven maiden in a suggestive pose on each door and a pair of large drawers taking up the bottom quarter of its frame.
And now that they were alone once more, the two shapeshifters could finally continue their box-to-box talk.
“How are you holding up?” asked the sentient cupboard.
“That stuff was much nastier than you said it would be,” replied the animate chest.
“The first one is always the worst.”
“Whatever. Are you sure it won’t have any lasting side effects?”
“Quite sure. The mixture’s permanent properties don’t start taking root until the third or fourth dose, but with your Status you’ll be fine for at least a week.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” stated Zilla firmly. “I’ve been blasted with so much of the stuff over the years that I can probably squeeze out a purple fart if I really tried to.”
