"Are you okay?"
Arriving at the patch of woods and finding a startled-faced Luna-senpai, Eleazar fumbled with his body and tore off a half-clean handkerchief, handing it to her to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
Luckily, he hadn't suffered much, come to think of it, with intermittent water and power cuts for three days and electromagnetic waves interfering with the instruments, the lab couldn't conduct any experiments at all, and all those speculations were purely said by that nasty woman on purpose to irritate him.
Luna stared at him blankly, trying to suppress the tears in her eyes.
Eleazar sighed and lifted her damp bangs for her.
If it wasn't for that psychotic saintess, they would have been rescued by the other acolytes long ago, and wouldn't have had to wait for themselves to come at all.
Luna-senpai couldn't hold back her emotions any longer and threw herself into his arms with a low whimper.
"Why do you always have to suddenly appear and then suddenly disappear like this..."
Eleazar lowers his gaze and looks around at the jittery-looking people.
"Where's the transporter you were talking about? Why hasn't it come yet?"
"Well, you're too fast, maybe the War Department hasn't reacted yet."
Lister pulled out his locator again and looked at it.
Hearing their conversation, the crowd became uneasy again.
"Please... Can we go home now?"
Lister looked around the crowd and said lightly:
"Don't worry, we're official, we'll go back and make a statement and leave, we won't take you into those weird labs again."
Lister also didn't care about those who were full of willfulness but didn't dare to run away, but warned with a serious face:
"I understand that there may be some of you who feel special, very different, and are complacent about it, even to the point of being unable to resist doing something to fulfill your selfish desires or to break the law."
Those lucky ones who for various reasons and thus possessed magical abilities either briefly or for a long time, and as a result were noticed by unknown organizations and were captured and prepared for various experiments, suddenly blanched. Liszt faintly preached, "What I want to tell you is that an outstanding life will not be colorful because of the lack of extra of a certain thing, experiencing shortcuts in life once is enough, taking more will instead lead to being trapped in a labyrinth and unable to extricate yourselves, and even bring about crises, I think that the display in that lab has already given you a deep enough lesson. "
Eleazar silently recalls the scene he went down to see.
Orcs that were stitched up with various animals, biochemicals that had instruments embedded in their bodies to try to activate them, experimental subjects that had their organs removed to test their vitality, and so on, all sorts of experiments that twisted human nature.
If this acolyte hadn't said that all of those fellows were going to be bait, he would have snapped the necks of all of them without a single one left.
"Vomit!"
It seemed that someone recalled those things they had just seen and couldn't help but bend over and vomit.
After another moment, several military trucks drove into the woods.
"Is this the transporter you were talking about? Not a flying machine?"
Eleazar looks at the parked truck.
Lister turned his head to look at him, "Are you that excited about one of those airships that looks like it's flying through the sky with a rope around its neck?"
An officer jumped down from the trunk and quickly reported back to them.
"Because we saw the indicator change back to safe, we sent other, more secure carriers instead."
Several doctors came down and started by giving everyone a general examination.
After making sure that they hadn't contracted the odd virus from the lab, they separated the crowd into several groups and placed them in the cars.
About to separate, Luna subconsciously grabbed the arm at her side.
"It's okay, go ahead."
Eleazar relieved her, "I promise I'll wait for you at your destination."
Stepping into a compartment alone with the acolyte and the officer, waiting for the departure of the train, Eleazar removes something from his wrist.
After a long period of overloaded excitation, the Skeleton Wristguard was already cracked all over the place, and it was estimated that it wouldn't take more than a few times for it to completely fall apart.
Lister took a look at it and said regretfully, "It's broken, huh? What a shame~"
Eleazar looked up and down carefully for a moment to make sure no repairs were possible before suddenly placing the gauntlet in his hand.
Lister looked down and slowly looked up again.
"You can't reimburse me for blackmailing me, why don't you take it back and stuff it for Her Highness?"
"I don't care."
Eleazar leaned against the wagon wall with his arms resting on his head and closed his eyes to regain his spirituality.
Lister looked at the damaged equipment in his hand and fell into deep thought.
...
It didn't take long for the convoy to make its way back into the city and pull up in front of a hospital that wasn't open to the public.
Those people would be examined in more detail here, and then a statement would be made explaining their accidentally acquired abilities before they were let back in.
Eleazar senses a distinct aura of cursed objects from several people.
"There's no such thing as getting something for nothing..."
Sighing, he sat in the hospital lobby waiting for the Dragon Lady to come down.
She wasn't carrying any contraband, she was only captured by the lab because of her special physique and should be released soon.
It wasn't long before Eleazar stood up as he watched her walk out alone with her arms wrapped around her.
"I'll take you back."
"What the hell is in my body..."
Luna was very confused about the changes in her body.
"Why is everyone so afraid of me, why does everyone always have to avoid me..."
Eleazar was silent for a moment and reassured her, "Don't think too much about it, you're just a little different."
"Why are even you afraid to look me in the eye?"
The Dragon Lady was a bit unstable emotionally, her dragon might was several times stronger than usual, and the pair of eyes that looked like lakes with mist seemed to reflect golden vertical pupils, and the astonishing intimidation almost made people's breath stop suddenly.
Eleazar just raised his head to meet her gaze and had to look away.
"That... Where are the glasses I gave you?"
"Broken by the gang..."
"That's okay, I'll send you another pair tomorrow."
Luna stopped abruptly.
"So it was my eyes."
She raised her hand hesitantly and looked at the two fingers.
The courage to poke oneself in the eyes is not for everyone, and a determination made in a moment of anger is simply not enough to sustain such a feat.
Eleazar took her hand and slowly helped her break her fingers back together.
"Hungry, going to dinner? I'll treat you."
With his interruption, her already shaky resolve deflated, and Luna could only lower her head and say sullenly, "Whatever."
"Let's go then!"
Taking the dragoness to a restaurant, she ordered two casual meals and then sat facing each other at the table.
Luna couldn't help but blush a little when she realized that she was still dressed as a patient and very undignified to be dining out with a man.
"Where have you been lately? I haven't heard from you since school started."
"Went to work on a little something."
"That must have been a thrilling mission!"
Thrilling indeed, but not that kind of honorable task.
Reflecting on recent events, Eleazar pulls out his silver flask and takes a sip.
Then only suddenly reacted to the fact that she had misunderstood her identity, and to prevent the other party from continuing to brainstorm an image of herself that wasn't honorable at all, Eleazar explained again:
"I was going to escape to a foreign country, but unfortunately I was recaptured and am now in the service of the Crown."
Luna asked cautiously as she looked at him dumbfounded for a long moment:
"Is it... as disturbed as I am?"
"No, not at all!"
"You're still in the human range, and I..."
Eleazar sipped his spirits and said slowly, "It's just like those human experiments you saw in that lab, and I... Was a piece of success."