"Remember this: without my permission, you are not to touch anything in here, and you—" Bill was still lecturing him seriously, pacing down the aisle of the underground lab.
But when Bill noticed the brat walking behind him hadn't answered, his paranoid instincts flared.
He turn around.
Sure enough, the kid had wandered off and was currently picking up a heavy artillery tube resting on a workbench.
"Hey!" Bill barked.
'This little brat! I haven't even finished talking yet! That thing is—'
Just as Bill was about to scream at him, a jarring thought flashed through his mind, freezing the words in his throat.
Because what he was seeing was physically impossible.
The boy's expression was so relaxed and casual that Bill had failed to realize what was wrong at first glance.
Yes, something was very wrong.
If his memory wasn't failing him, that specific prototype artillery tube weighed at least seventy kilograms!
Forget a twelve-year-old brat, even a fully grown trained soldier couldn't lift that bulky chunk of steel so easily!
But what was happening right in front of him?
The brat was turning the massive object over in his bare hands, inspecting the iron sights and the firing mechanism like it was a cheap toy.
It looked as though the heavy steel had absolutely zero weight.
Hearing Bill's alarmed shout, Noah looked up.
Touching classified military gear without permission was definitely his fault.
So he casually apologized. "Sorry, I was just taking a look. The firing mechanism on this is pretty interesting. But there's a serious flaw in the barrel alignment. I think it would probably be impossible to aim this accurately in actual combat."
Noah handled the heavy weapon carefully.
Without a single tremor or sign of strain in his arms, he gently set the seventy-kilogram artillery tube back exactly where he found it on the table.
"..."
Bill was stunned.
Putting the kid's monstrous strength aside for a moment—
"You actually spotted the flaw in this weapon?"
A twelve-year-old brat actually understood complex ballistic engineering?
Seeing Bill stare at him in shock, Noah decided to reveal a tiny sliver of his "knowledge."
Showing a little value early on would save him from jumping through unnecessary hoops to prove himself later.
He offered a smooth explanation. "When I was little, I read some old books that introduced a lot of theoretical scientific ideas. I've always been interested in this sort of engineering."
No need to talk too much.
Just dropping the hook was enough.
"Old books?" Bill stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. "Where did they come from? Who taught you all that?"
"Mm... Mr. Isaac, Mr. Einstein, and Mr. Galileo, people like that."
"What?! There are actually so many great, unknown scientists out there?!"
Bill's demeanor shifted instantly.
His scientific curiosity overrode his paranoia.
"Where are these men? Are they citizens of the Empire, or—?" Though he looked excited, a sharp, glint flashed in his eyes when he asked about their identities.
Under the Empire's rule, if top-tier talent couldn't be harnessed for the Emperor's military, there was only one standard protocol: erase it.
If there were outstanding, revolutionary scientists hiding out there, they couldn't be allowed to live.
Otherwise, advanced weapons might fall into the hands of the foreign tribes or country, posing a grave existential threat to the Capital.
"They've all passed away," Noah said, shutting that thought down. "I've never met any of them myself. I only heard stories of their deeds and read a few of their surviving journals."
'Hm? So they weren't scholars from the current era?'
"Then what about those books?" Bill pressed. "Where are they?"
Noah gave the excuse he had prepared in advance. "They were passed down by my family's ancestors. I've been reading them since I was little."
"Passed down through your family?"
Bill frowned, clearly suspicious of that convenient explanation.
"Where are those books right now?"
When Noah heard that question, he raised a single finger and lightly tapped his temple twice.
"They're all in here."
"..."
Bill was speechless for a long moment.
If they were priceless texts, then naturally the kid wouldn't bring them out into the open so easily.
Even if Bill wanted to confiscate them, he couldn't force the issue.
After all, this child was legally backed by the Leiden family.
Still, those strange names were very intriguing. They didn't sound like fake names made up at random by a kid.
What was strange was that if these scholars had lived in a relatively recent era, Bill would have definitely heard of them.
'...Could it be that these men were legendary scholars from a thousand years ago?'
'And speaking of a thousand years ago... would that not place these men among the legendary craftsmen gathered by the First Emperor when he forged the Teigu (Imperial arms)?'
Several hundred years ago, the Empire had suffered a period of chaotic civil war and lost the vast majority of its ancient, world-building technologies.
Those men named Isaac and Einstein might well have been the lead craftsmen of that golden age!
"Alright, fine," Bill grunted. "Then what's with that insane physical strength of yours? Don't tell me you modified your own body?"
'Modified?' Noah mentally noted the term.
The fact that Bill could ask something like that so casually meant that within the Empire, human body modification was probably more than just a fringe concept.
It might already be a standard, practical science.
And if human body modification had reached the stage of practical military application, it meant that hundreds, maybe thousands, of human test subjects had already been sacrificed to perfect the surgical process.
As for whether those sacrifices had been voluntary soldiers or forced prisoners, Noah couldn't guess.
"I haven't modified my body," Noah replied smoothly. "I just exercise regularly."
The blessing of the Falna back in Orario acted as a catalyst to unlock human potential, not a chemical drug, so he technically wasn't lying.
Bill just stared blankly at Noah, his expression clearly saying: Do you really think I'd believe that crap?
Whether the instructor believed it or not, Noah couldn't be bothered to explain it further.
"Hmph," Bill snorted, adjusting his monocle. "I admit you've surprised me, kid. But let me tell you this right now—the work we do in the Scientific Corps is no child's game. Come with me."
Bill led Noah down a white hallway toward an isolation sector.
They stopped in front of an observation room.
Appraisal confirmed the large window was a pane of one-way glass.
The people locked inside couldn't see out into the hallway, but from the outside, the view into the cell was perfectly clear.
Looking into the sterile isolation room, Noah's eyes narrowed slightly.
Under the harsh fluorescent lights sat a little girl, clearly even younger than he was.
She was tightly strapped into a heavy metal chair with thick leather belts. Her small body kept jerking and struggling constantly against the restraints.
Her face was pale and twisted with a mix of madness and a desperate, agonizing craving for something.
She was suffering badly!
"This is... severe drug withdrawal?" Noah asked.
"Oh? You could tell just by looking?" Bill asked, a cruel smile touching his lips. "That's Subject Number Eight. She's one of the most important pieces in a new black-ops plan we're currently laying out."
"A plan?"
"Ah, that's right. There's no harm in telling you, since you're cleared for this sector," Bill said, crossing his arms.
"Since rebel espionage activities within the Empire have been spiking recently, we urgently need a highly trained, covert intelligence force to hunt them down. To ensure absolute loyalty and clean origins, we chose to use orphans bought and gathered from the slums all across the Empire."
Bill tapped the glass. "The girl you see before you is one of the elite survivors who lived through round after round of lethal selection. Though, honestly, she's only a defective product. The best seven subjects from her batch were already snatched away by a certain bastard from the assassination division."
Noah cast Appraisal on the trembling girl in the room.
Her name was Kurome.
According to the data, she had been pumped full of experimental combat drugs for over a month.
While her raw physical capabilities had been greatly enhanced, the chemical cocktails had planted severe, lethal time bombs inside her nervous system.
Extremely toxic synthetic drugs and raw strength-enhancing steroids were being mixed together, forcibly stimulating the girl's primal survival instincts.
The chemicals were literally converting her natural life force into explosive combat power, repeatedly driving her internal organs and muscles far past their biological limits.
No matter how one looked at it, the procedure was utterly inhumane.
Seeing Noah's deep frown, Bill grinned.
"Think it's cruel, kid?"
Noah didn't answer, but his cold silence was obvious enough.
"Let me drop some reality on you," Bill said, his tone turning harsh.
"Out of the several hundred starving brats we rounded up for this project, only around twenty survived the drug trials. Compared to the dead ones, these survivors are the lucky ones. And as for the several hundred brats who died? If the Empire hadn't bought them off the streets, they would've starved to death or died in a gutter anyway. Giving them one last chance to struggle and serve the Emperor before death is a mercy."
Looking at the instructor's dead eyes, Noah knew he wasn't lying.
He genuinely believed it.
The Empire's systemic rot was even worse than Laims had warned him.
Could this widespread hell really be the result of nothing more than one Prime Minister's greed and corruption?
"This is our main project right now!" Bill boasted, spreading his hands as if displaying a grand masterpiece, treating the suffering girl named Kurome like a simple tool he held in the palm of his hand.
In truth, under the Empire's laws, that was exactly what she was.
Property.
Though Noah felt a spike of disgust, he kept his breathing steady and didn't do anything rash.
If he let hot blood rush to his head and tore this underground lab apart right now, the core problem still wouldn't be solved.
Even if he slaughtered the guards and rescued Kurome and the other children suffering in this facility, they had already developed severe chemical dependencies on the combat drugs.
Even if he could magically heal their failing organs, what came next?
He couldn't spend the rest of his life personally hiding and caring for twenty traumatized, drug-addicted child soldiers.
Bill was right about one brutal fact: if these orphans didn't die in this lab, they would die somewhere else.
For abandoned children, this era was a living hell.
By comparison, sleeping in a cage here meant they at least had food and a roof over their heads.
And if they survived the trials and became official agents, they would receive a military salary.
The risks were high, but there were matching returns.
"Can you understand these medical materials?" Bill asked, handing over a thick folder containing the girl's physical examination reports.
After taking it and scanning the complex chemical data, Noah nodded. "Yes."
"Good. Then you'll handle today's physical examination. This will be your first job."
"Understood."
Picking up a heavy medical toolbox, Noah unlocked the door and entered the isolation room under Bill's watchful gaze through the glass.
Though they called it a medical isolation room, it wasn't built for actual healthcare, so the sanitary precautions were terrible.
The air inside smelled sharp and unpleasant, a mix of sweat, stale blood, and harsh chemicals.
Noah subtly manipulated the airflow with Weaver to vent the stench.
He pulled up a metal stool, sat down in front of Kurome, and spoke softly.
"Hello, Kurome. I'm the one doing your examination today. My name is Noah."
The girl's vacant, bloodshot eyes trembled.
Her pale, expressionless face slowly turned toward him, as if struggling to process who was speaking.
Because of the severe withdrawal symptoms, she was drenched in cold sweat and was already showing dangerous signs of hypertonic dehydration.
Her cracked bleeding lips, shriveled skin, and muscle weakness all pointed to critical fluid loss.
What she needed right now was immediate hydration.
Without Bill noticing through the glass, Noah silently used his magic to manipulate Kurome's internal nervous system, forcing her racing heart to calm down.
He uncapped a bottle of saline solution from the toolbox and gently brought it to her lips.
Because his calming magic worked so well, she didn't thrash or resist.
Instead, she cooperatively drank the water, taking small, desperate sips.
As the fluid replenished her failing body, the girl's vacant expression brightened slightly, and the color returned to her cracked lips.
She finally gained enough strength to speak.
"...Big sister..."
Hm?
Seeing her lips move, Noah leaned his ear closer.
Only then did he hear clearly that she was whispering "big sister" in a daze.
With a helpless shake of his head, he replied softly, "Sorry, I'm not your big sister. Here, drink a little more."
Kurome obediently drank the rest of the water, then fell silent again, merely staring at him with a blank, exhausted gaze.
Noah didn't know whether the drugs always kept her in this zombie-like state, but right now he needed her to cooperate so he could complete his first job and satisfy Bill.
Noah held up a few fingers. "What number is this?"
"Three."
"Good. Now, follow my finger with your eyes. Slowly... good. Now a little faster. How is it? Are you seeing any blurry afterimages?"
Kurome shook her head slowly.
"Good." Noah reached into his bag. "Calm yourself down. I'm going to check your heartbeat three times."
Noah didn't bother using the cold stethoscope from the kit.
He simply reached out and placed his bare fingers gently on Kurome's thin wrist.
Of course, he wasn't just taking her pulse.
He was using direct physical contact to drastically improve the amount of information pulled through Truth seeker.
'One hundred and twenty-one beats per minute?'
'Is that the resting effect of the combat drugs?'
For a human body, the heart was like a car's engine. The faster it pumped, the more power it could generate for the muscles.
But under calm, resting conditions, a healthy heartbeat should be just over sixty beats per minute.
Her resting heart rate was double what it should be.
The drugs were literally burning her heart out from the inside!
The issue was that Kurome's emotional state was also very stable at the moment.
She was not especially agitated, and her body was almost completely still.
In principle, a person with an excessively fast heart rate would have a correspondingly shorter lifespan.
After all, a human heart beat roughly 2.5 to 3 billion times over the course of a lifetime.
If one did not consider the influence heart rate had on the other organs and simply looked at the number of heartbeats alone, Kurome's lifespan might only be half that of an ordinary person.
Noah recorded each value, then compared Kurome's previous physical examination report with this one.
He discovered that her physical abilities had clearly improved, but indicators such as vitality had declined even more noticeably.
If things continued like this, Kurome's life might end very early.
Perhaps before thirty.
Or even before twenty-five.
'Twenty-five, huh.'
It sounded cruel, but the truth was that even without being ravaged by this kind of drug, the average lifespan of people in this world did not exceed forty.
"Let me see. Mm, nicely done. To be honest, this is even better than what my previous assistant produced."
Bill looked through the report Noah handed over, nodding in satisfaction as he praised him.
"Thank you."
"Hehe. Starting today, you'll be responsible for conducting physical examinations on Number Eight through Number Fourteen every morning. In the afternoon, come to my office. I'll teach you the knowledge you want."
Several files were placed on the table.
"I believe I don't need to say much more. Everything here is classified. Absolutely nothing is to be leaked."
There were exactly seven files.
No. 8, Kurome's file, was placed on top. Beneath it were the basic records of the other six.
Seven people.
In other words, the total number of people being handed over to Noah was seven.
Furthermore, these seven people had been grouped together as a single class.
Class A.
And starting today, Noah was the administrator of Class A.