According to the internationally accepted Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helsinki, human experimentation must adhere to the following ethical principles:
It must be beneficial to the development of medicine and society.
It requires the informed consent of the subject.
It must protect the interests of the subject.
It must be conducted with a rigorous scientific attitude.
"Of these four regulations, the most important are the first and fourth, as they relate to the final outcome."
"However, the ones that must be most strictly observed are the second and third."
The words of her childhood physician—Overseer Otto—still echoed in her ears.
The subject's informed consent.
The subject has the right to informed consent, which is the prerequisite for any human experiment. Any human experiment that uses deception, coercion, or financial inducement to gain a subject's acceptance is an act that violates morality or law.
Protecting the subject's interests.
Throughout the entire process of a human experiment, there must be adequate safety measures. If a situation arises that seriously endangers the subject's interests, the experiment must be stopped immediately, no matter how important it is, and effective measures must be taken to minimize the adverse effects on the subject's physical and mental well-being.
Finally, human experiments must be conducted with the joint participation or under the guidance of medical research experts or clinically experienced specialists, and must utilize the safest possible methods and approaches.
"Once the constraints of the second and third principles are removed, human experimentation, which should benefit humanity, will become a beast that has escaped its cage."
That is what Otto had told her.
Human experimentation was never something to be hidden in shame. What was shameful were the researchers who acted like beasts.
Bianka had always believed this.
She knew Schicksal conducted a large number of human experiments, but she would never burst into a laboratory to stop an experiment like Kallen, who had once slapped Otto across the face. That would be a ridiculous act. It would be a great disrespect to both the researchers who designed the experiment and the test subjects who, after understanding the details, had still resolved to participate.
Everyone had their own resolve, and outsiders had no reason to interfere.
But… what if those human experiments did not adhere to the required ethical principles? Was that still the same human experimentation she knew?
The golden-haired girl walked dazedly through the interior of the Tower of Babel, her expression lost. What met her eyes was not the laboratory she had imagined.
Dim lights, steel bars, dilapidated beds, and… girl after girl, their bodies bearing the clear marks of Honkai energy erosion, looking so weak they could barely stand.
There was no clean and sanitary environment, no qualified professors responsible for monitoring, no proper rest areas or recreational facilities to ease their minds…
The girls, who seemed to have just been released from their cages, looked at her—at the Schicksal insignia on her clothes—with fear, as if they were looking at a demon.
Could this place truly be called a human research laboratory?
The girl, who had never opposed so-called human experimentation and wouldn't even have minded joining an experiment beneficial to her own growth, like the Artificial Herrscher project, if she met the criteria, now felt her mind go blank.
Or was this the "beast that has escaped its cage"?
Durandal remembered Overseer Otto's description of experiments unrestrained by the second and third ethical principles, and her heart trembled.
Was this the reality within Schicksal's greatest laboratory of the 20th century?
"Can you tell me why you came here?"
The girl, who had originally just wanted to see what had motivated her perpetually slacking-off captain to take personal action, had instead stumbled upon this. She forcibly suppressed her emotions and asked a girl standing nearby.
The girl didn't answer. She only stared at the Schicksal insignia on Durandal's clothes, her eyes gradually filling with deep-seated resentment. She hated Schicksal and was unwilling to answer Durandal's question.
Receiving no answer, Durandal's mood grew agitated. She raised her voice and shouted, "How did you all get here?!"
It was by no means the attitude one should take with the people she was meant to protect, but Durandal no longer had the presence of mind to care. She needed an answer. A clear answer that would make the situation absolutely plain.
Perhaps the force of her shout reminded the questioned girl of the researchers, for a flash of fear crossed the girl's eyes.
"I… I had an incurable disease, so I signed the documents and came here."
She explained her reason for being there.
Durandal fell silent.
In the world of Honkai, humanity had faced numerous Honkai disasters in the form of diseases. The most famous of these was the Black Death that swept through Europe in the Middle Ages. That Honkai catastrophe, which humanity was medically powerless to resist, had once killed one-third of Europe's population. And the Black Death was far from the only disease the Honkai could cause.
In the modern era, humanity's medical capabilities had advanced unprecedentedly, but they were still helpless against many of the diseases caused by exposure to high doses of Honkai energy.
Clinging to a final shred of hope, countless patients signed voluntary consent forms each year and were admitted to Schicksal's medical facilities.
If she wasn't mistaken, these girls had all signed those forms with hope in their hearts.
Durandal's heart felt heavier than ever before. She could imagine how grateful these girls must have felt when they signed those documents, grateful for the chance to live on through Schicksal's advanced experiments.
But as these girls harbored that sliver of hope, desperate to be cured by Schicksal's medical technology, they never imagined that what awaited them were confinement pods as dark as prison cells, and Honkai energy injection experiments even more painful than their diseases.
What kind of damned thing was this?!
An unprecedented rage surged in Durandal's heart.
But—that wasn't the end of it.
Perhaps because Durandal's aura was growing more and more terrifying, the girl she had grabbed began to tremble slightly, then pointed to a few others.
"And… and a small number of them were adopted by Schicksal and sent here directly."
Adopting children and then sending them to a lab to be guinea pigs?
As if infected by the girl's trembling, the body of the girl carrying the symbol of the strongest Valkyrie—the Divine Key Black Abyss White Flower—also began to shake.
Her head ached. It truly ached, as if a steel needle was being stirred inside her brain. Her past understanding of human experimentation was shattering like glass struck by a hammer.
None of this was right! Human experiments were supposed to be built on the foundation of all participants having made their own resolve. Deceiving uninformed subjects into signing consent forms, then throwing them into a place with no guarantee of survival to conduct near-fatal experiments…
Flames of fury erupted in Durandal's heart. She slammed her fist into the nearby wall, shattering it.
This place was a concentration camp!
The scumbags who organized the Tower of Babel had to pay the price.
Instinctively, the girl who wanted to find her teacher lifted Black Abyss White Flower.
The Tower of Babel was a super-department. It even possessed a Honkai energy reactor second only to Schicksal's headquarters. One could imagine that the members of such a department held extremely high status even within Schicksal.
There was only one person in all of Schicksal who could direct the actions of an organization on the level of Babel.
Otto Apocalypse.
"Do not pity the Princess of Colchis. All her sorrows are of her own making."
This was the lesson Otto had taught her after telling her the story of Medea. Wrong is wrong, and right is right. To deny another's guilt out of sympathy and pity, to make excuses for them, was the most ridiculous thing in the world.
Durandal would absolutely not show mercy just because Otto was the teacher she respected most. Because showing mercy would be the greatest betrayal of Otto's teachings.
But—
As she turned to leave, she couldn't help but stop. Her grip on the lance loosened.
This was the year 2000, not her own era. If she acted rashly, the future situation—one where victory over the Honkai was finally possible—could be destroyed.
Though she was incandescent with rage, the girl, still retaining her basic rationality, hesitated.
The annals of future history recorded no event of a golden-haired knight storming Schicksal with Black Abyss White Flower to interrogate the Overseer. If she charged in now, she would be destroying history.
A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later. So, what would happen if a major event like an unknown knight attacking Schicksal was added to history? What kind of future would that lead to?
For a rare moment, the ever-gallant knight stood frozen in place, as if trapped in a mire.
On one side were the innocent test subjects who needed her to demand justice for them. On the other was the perfect future, a dawn of hope for defeating the Honkai.
If she had to choose one, the latter was undoubtedly more important. That was the most basic assessment of priorities.
But could she just let this evil run rampant?
From the very beginning, I was unable to just stand by and watch the destruction before my eyes—so in that moment, I had already decided what kind of life I would lead.
Soon, Durandal thought of a way to resolve the conflict between the two issues. Or rather, she thought of a person who could handle both.
She, who could only use brute force, couldn't solve both problems. So, she would entrust this matter to someone of exceptional talent.
The girl recalled the boy who, based on the Pufferfish's description, was unbelievably close to her, and took a deep breath.
He was a person far more excellent than her. If it was him, he could surely handle both matters at once.
The girl took a deep breath and ran towards the temporary encampment of a certain person.
Although… it was a bit dangerous for her to rashly approach him. Recalling the Pufferfish's words, the girl, who felt she was walking down a path of offering herself up as a freebie, had a somewhat stiff expression.
---o---
Meanwhile, in the area she was heading towards, a certain someone, who was about to be used as a heartless question-and-answer machine, was leisurely holding a teacup, enjoying the peace.
Miss Sirin's request had been surprisingly simple. She wanted to hold her wedding surrounded by her friends, in a place with sunlight and greenery.
"Honestly, is everyone this selfless?"
The boy, who had asked many girls the same question, sat at the table and sighed.
Almost every girl's answer was to have the wedding surrounded by friends and family, or just to have it with the two of them.
The one with the most requests was Wendy. Wendy's request was that after they got married, Li Zihan had to learn a musical instrument, and then they would embark on a journey without a destination, like the wind.
Should I learn the lyre?
The boy inexplicably thought of another Mr. Wen who shall not be named. But if I learn the lyre, will I get hit with a debuff that makes me suffer setbacks? The boy, who had no desire to constantly get thwarted, let alone have his heart ripped out in front of his own temple, fell into deep thought.
Forget it, no point thinking about that.
Li Zihan, feeling that such thoughts were useless, sighed. In any case, his next move was to impersonate Sirin and muddle his way through the Second Honkai Eruption. The boy, who possessed the Authority of the Herrscher of Reason and could transform into anyone, considered his plan.
However, that would create a problem for Bronya. He vaguely remembered that Bronya's tragic childhood was because her father, a high-ranking officer, died in the fallout of the Second Eruption, leaving her with no one to care for her. The boy's heart was a little conflicted.
I can't just kill my own father-in-law for the sake of restoring the timeline, can I?
Oh well, I'll just consider it defying fate for Bronya's sake this one time.
The boy, too lazy to think about how to perfectly recreate the events of the time loop, sighed. With her father around, Bronya's childhood should be much better. As for what impact overwriting the past with a new future would have…
Anyway, the one who'll get the headache is my past self. What the hell does that have to do with my present self?
The boy, who possessed extremely high temporal resistance and would be unaffected by any worldline reversal no matter what he did, nonchalantly tossed a massive problem to his past self.
"Thus, when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it first visits his heart and mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil. It exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extreme poverty. It confounds his undertakings. By all these methods it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies."
He'd just think of it as a trial for his past self.
The boy, unaware that his past self had thought the exact same thing, stretched and prepared to make breakfast. Miss Mei was temporarily unfit for kitchen duty after last night's frenzy, and Sirin, having been locked in a lab since she was a child, couldn't cook either. So, it was up to him to handle breakfast.
The certain someone, who didn't like cooking at all but loved to show off his culinary skills in front of his lovers, walked briskly towards the kitchen.
Then, he heard a knock on the door.
"Who is it?"
Li Zihan stopped, asking the meaningless, polite question. Among the people he knew, only one Dull Goose wasn't in this residence. If it wasn't the Dull Goose, who else could it be?
The voice of the Dull Goose came from outside the door.
"Captain, it's me."
The girl, carrying her lance, pushed open the door.
"I have a matter I'd like to ask your guidance on."