887: Filuria

『Live forever……?』

I expected her to say something about giving herself eternal youth. But after listening to the details of the experiment, it was slightly different.

Filuria’s research was actually about creating a new body with life magic, and transferring a consciousness into it.

She wanted to live forever by constantly transferring herself into a new body.

『S-So something like M*mo……?』

（Ma*o?）1

『Uhh, just a fictional character. Don’t worry about it.』

Filuria apparently planned to use her Unique Skill “Mental Attunement”, to transfer her consciousness.

The skill can be used to interfere with another person’s mind, and if the target is in a state of mental exhaustion, she can even take over their body for a short period of time.

However, it was impossible for her to take over someone’s body for an extended duration, because such a prolonged synchronization would cause damage to both their brains.

She could perform an extended attunement with golems, but Filuria’s mind wouldn’t be able to withstand the differences between human and golem bodies. The same went for undead bodies reanimated by necromancy.

That’s why Filuria spent a long time searching for a body similar enough to a human, without a mind or soul to get in the way. She eventually arrived at the creation of such a body through life magic――something similar to cloning technology on Earth.

And for this body duplication technology, she required life-attribute mana, bodies with high affinity for life-magic, and expensive potions. Illegal slaves turned out to be the best way for getting those.

She welcomed Sophie not just because of her healing ability, but because she had the potential for life magic affinity. That’s why she wanted to get her hands on Sophie so much.

However, it turned out that Sophie’s healing abilities were purely the result of her magic songs. She had no talent for life magic.

「I had succeeded in duplicating a person’s body completely from their flesh and blood……」

Numerae was probably the result of her experiments. It seems Filuria had been controlling him with her Mental Attunement.

「All I needed next was enough life-attribute mana to replicate my own body……! Then, I could live forever as the reigning saintess of this city!」

「You caused so much suffering just for that?」

「Just for that……?」

「Nn. I feel sorry for those who died.」

Filuria noticed Fran’s furious gaze, but it seems her own anger won out over her fear. With a look of madness on her face, she let out a screech.

「Chosen ones such as myself deserve to live forever! Those vermin should consider themselves lucky to be sacrificed as my foundation! Otherwise, they’ll simply live and die as worthless sc.u.m! After I attain eternal life and become the permanent ruler of the city, even more will happy in the end!」

She’s beyond egotistical, that’s just plain insanity! Does she think of herself as some kind of G.o.d? After hearing this, Fran was unable to control her killing intent. Still, Filuria continued her maniacal rant.

「Why am I not called a saintess in the first place? My family background, appearance, and abilities, all point to me as the one who deserves to be the saintess! And yet…… this ignorant girl from nowhere gets the t.i.tle!」

Filuria bit her lips harshly, causing her own blood to drip downwards. Her vindictive curses did not end, as she continued to mumble and mutter.

After seeing her like this, I no longer had any doubts about her insanity.

Did we cause this by putting her through too much pain?

No, I have to say Filuria was probably insane from the beginning. She mentioned how her mind couldn’t handle the experiments on transferring her consciousness to golems and undead.

Transferring one’s consciousness to another body is a very dangerous thing to do. I know that very well due to how I attained this sword body. If the G.o.ds didn’t take various measures to protect my sanity, I would’ve easily gone crazy too.

Perhaps Filuria went insane as a result of those experiments? The only reason she could hold on to her appearances so long was because her plans were going smoothly. Now that we’ve torn off her mask, she could no longer pretend to be sane.

「Ahhhh……! With your abilities in life magic, my research will be complete!」

Filuria kept ranting about her experiments with life magic, but something didn’t make sense.

Now that I’ve erased Filuria’s ward with Magic Disruption, I was able to appraise her. However, I didn’t see Life Magic among Filuria’s skills.

She had low levels in her Alchemy and Drug Making skills too, so the only high level skills she had were Recovery Magic and Medicine.

Would it really be possible for Filuria to perform all those experiments alone? She must have had help. After questioning her about our suspicions, we found out she used to have an a.s.sistant.

It seems this a.s.sistant’s contract had already expired so they were no longer on the continent. However, the two remained in contact with each other.

And this a.s.sistant was the one who sent the letter informing Filuria that the Holy Nation of Silard had interest in the saintess.

Filuria didn’t know the details, but it seems her former a.s.sistant currently worked in Silard.

That’s how Filuria ended up having several exchanges with the Divine Sword Knight, and promised to deliver Sophie to Silard.

I see how it is now.

Ostensibly, the Divine Sword Knight would come to recruit the saintess to his country. But behind the scenes, Filuria had already promised to hand her over to the Holy Nation.

That’s when a faction of holy knights hastily intervened in an attempt to take credit for themselves, causing the commotion earlier.

Sophie was stunned. She never thought that Filuria would just sell her off like that.

Perhaps out of concern for Sophie’s feelings, Fran decided to change the subject and ask another question.

「Why were you inciting the war?」

「We don’t have enough slaves for our experiments……!」

So her reason for the war between gangs was to obtain more illegal slaves.

After the outlaws crushed each other, she would heal everyone out of the good in her heart. Then, she could find any with talent in life magic and mark them as dead, secretly enslaving them.

Filuria was not particularly concerned about the reduction of the city’s forces against the antidemons.

「What does it matter if we have less living garbage? The adventurers and guards can protect us.」

Filuria had little battlefield experience, so she did not really understand the threat of antidemons.

It seems she did raise her level against antidemons, but that was all power leveling with the help of her guards. Filuria truly thought the antidemons were simply all fodder enemies.

She had zero sense of urgency.

「Besides, it doesn’t matter if this city falls. As long as I have the Life Orb and my experimental materials, I can resume my research somewhere else. No problem.」

「A lot of people will die.」

「So what? If they aren’t useful to me, then they should die for all I care!」

「……Just shut up.」

「Ahahahaha! All of you filth are worth less than tras.h.!.+」

「Shut up!」

Translation Notes

Character from Lupin III ↩