The West Wind's Destination - Chapter 6
As if fitting for someone on the brink of death, his body was a complete mess. Bea had already crammed the necessary knowledge of human anatomy into her mind, but what lay before her was like a violently shaken puzzle. And yet, the original form must have been impressive enough to stir her motivation.
While aligning the torn human flesh correctly, Bea suddenly stopped her hand and knife.
“Ah… There’s a piece missing here.”
If an arm or leg had been severed, she could simply make a prosthetic. Even if an eye was gouged out, there were artificial ones.
But what about organs? She had never heard of replacing those.
Muscles visible on the outside could be trained and strengthened, but even the most exceptional warrior doesn’t know how to train their organs.
After pondering for a moment, Bea boldly cut out and discarded the organs that had begun to necrotize. Then, she stitched together what remained.
Be it experimental equipment or a human body, it’s the same. If a tube is corroded in the middle, you don’t discard it; you simply reattach it. Especially when there’s no substitute tool available, conservation is key.
“Ugh… Gaaasp…”
But as she proceeded, the body she had manhandled began to lose breath. The man was already bleeding profusely, and the repeated, painful procedures only hastened the body’s demise.
“No, no, you can’t die yet.”
Bea jabbed a syringe into his neck. It contained a homemade solution to replace blood and an immediate-acting painkiller. Once his breathing stabilized, Bea continued her work.
Humming as she rummaged through the bloody body, her appearance was hardly different from a wild beast tearing apart a carcass or a grave robber desecrating someone’s ancestors.
This puzzle was quite entertaining. She learned a lot. After days and nights of intense focus, Bea suddenly took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from her blood-soaked hands.
“Ah… It’s done.”
What a rare sense of accomplishment this was.
Looking down at the satisfactorily assembled puzzle, Bea let out a very rare smile.
Still though, there was so much blood splattered around, and it was impossible to clean it up because it had dried up.
With no other choice, Bea dragged him to a nearby pond. It was a pond she had made to ensure a steady supply of fresh water.
After a short contemplation, she plunged his large frame into the water. The dirty blood and dust washed off as the water rose up to his chin. Incidentally, absinthe-colored experimental fish that she had been raising attached themselves to him, then hastily detached.
She needed to check if the sutures held, or if there were any leaks in the body where fluids might escape.
‘I’m a bit tired…’
She didn’t know how many days and nights she had stayed awake. Suddenly, Bea felt a wave of exhaustion pour over her. Rubbing her eyes, which kept trying to close from fatigue, she examined his condition and was somewhat startled.
The half-dead man she had been working on was already awake and looking at her.
“Are you awake?”
Even if his focus was a bit blurry, there seemed to be no major impediment as he stared intently at her. Bea stroked his face to check for any further anomalies, and smiling broadly for the first time in a while when she found no significant complications.
She had felt it even when his eyes were closed, but now that the puzzle was complete, he looked quite respectable. Even to her aesthetically indifferent eyes, the man definitely resembled a sculpture crafted by a skilled artist.
As Bea continued to stroke the man’s face, warmth returned to her hands, chilled from the pond water.
“Interesting body. What a quick recovery.”
Having only been good at destroying and designing, Bea, who had never fixed anything, was quite pleased with this outcome.
“Fairy…?”
“…”
Aside from him making strange comments.
“Did I perhaps damage your head?”
Just to be safe, Bea tapped his head a few times with her fist. It was as hard as a rock.
“Angel…”
“Did I give you too much medication?”
Bea left him and returned from the lab with some dry food she had lying around, feeding it to him. As he accepted and chewed earnestly, it seemed the body Bea had repaired was functioning correctly.
“Good.”
Then he must have been odd from the beginning.
Bea found him more interesting when he was a torn rag. Once he fully recovered, her interest rapidly waned.
More importantly, she had found a clue to resurrect her master. It had been a beneficial study.
Confirming her success, Bea stood up. There was no time to waste. She needed to record what she had learned from repairing this near-dead body and move on to the next stage of her experiment.
But as soon as Bea rose, she staggered from intense dizziness.
“Ah…”
She had been too engrossed for days. Now that she thought about it, since she found this half-corpse, she couldn’t recall properly eating or sleeping.
Of course, she couldn’t afford a moment’s distraction, as the dying body would rapidly worsen if left unattended.
Collapsing to the ground, Bea tried to get up but fell again. This felt eerily similar to the time she ate some unknown roots and hovered near death’s door.
As her vision darkened even with her eyes open, Bea lost consciousness.
