A small office, hastily constructed from a simple steel frame and covered in specialized plastic sheeting, served as an emergency cleanroom. Despite the limited space, Charlwind—a Hunter with a natural affinity for his craft—already possessed these materials in his inventory. He just never imagined he would have to use them for an "emergency operating room."
Malloch's body, riddled with blisters and molten glass shards, lay flat and submerged in a layer of liquified glass. He was breathing shallowly; if this giant were a normal human, he wouldn't have survived this long. Charlwind and Alka hoisted him onto a metal table, equipped with a diving oxygen tank—one of the few things they could scrounge up for the task.
"I suppose next time I'll have to stock some proper medical equipment in my inventory," Charlwind remarked playfully, conjuring a blade from his palm and twirling it with a grin. "How long has it been since I last dissected a living subject?"
Alka had heard that researchers often went mad because of their work. He had always agreed with that sentiment, though he had never been this close to one until now.
"...Do you know why I must perform surgery on a live subject, hmm?" Charlwind asked.
"...I wouldn't know, sir," Alka replied. He knew this man was unstable; he could tell by how his personality had shifted since they first met. He tried to maintain control of the situation, unsure of when the Professor might snap.
"It's because the De-vons brought many unknown things with them—artifacts, objects, diseases, and more. But those things lead to evolution. And yes... that includes biology and mutation in living organisms. Check his pulse for me, and tell me how his heart is beating."
Alka removed his black gloves and pulled on a pair of rubber ones before pressing his fingers to the pulse point on Malloch's neck. "His pulse is hammering against my fingertips."
"Swollen veins, a flushed face, and heavy wheezing... classic symptoms of hypertension," Charlwind explained, even as he struggled against a faint, wicked whispering in his ear.
He offered a slight smile to the voices as he moved to make an incision on Malloch's leg after clearing away the tattered fabric of his pants. He pressed down a few times with his fingers before drawing the blade across the skin.
As the tip of the knife touched the taut skin, blue blood sprayed out in a low arc. But instead of spilling across the metal table, the fluid crawled up Charlwind's blade as if it were alive. Malloch's leg jerked in a reflex action, causing both men to recoil. When nothing further happened, they settled back down.
"Fascinating," Charlwind muttered, lifting the strand of blood to examine it. It could stretch quite far, but once the knife moved beyond a certain range, the long thread snapped. The remaining blood began to flow from the wound onto the metal table, trickling underneath and clinging there. Not a single drop touched the plastic-covered floor.
Charlwind touched the clump of blood clinging to his knife. Despite the weight of the blade, the liquid behaved like a mass suspended in zero gravity.
"...It reacts to metal." Charlwind flipped the knife back and forth vigorously, causing the blue blood to ripple. "...This attraction... static electricity, or perhaps... magnetic properties."
Alka stared at the blood with a sense of wonder. He had never seen anything like it. "...Magnetic...?"
"Yes, magnetism is highly likely, though it could just be a static reaction. Regardless, our blood contains 'iron' as a metallic element, but it doesn't possess 'magnetism' within it. This substance, however, seems to have that property."
"Then using metal surgical tools won't work," Alka noted.
"I actually have a ceramic knife, but in this case, I'm hesitant to use it... It's a fine blade, but it's 'too fine.' It's so sharp that I'm not sure I could control the pressure enough to avoid hitting a major artery under this much blood pressure."
Charlwind set the knife on the table and stared at Alka in silence until the younger man felt compelled to ask.
"Professor, what do you need me to do?"
"Actually... I was thinking of something. But first, let me ask: can you 'construct' what I need out of ice?" Charlwind asked with a smile.
"You want me to make a scalpel?" Alka asked.
"It's a bit of a flight of fancy, and I have no experience using such a tool. But if there's a chance, I'd like to try, and I have enough reason to believe it's necessary."
"...If you say so. Let me see the scalpel you want me to make," Alka conceded.
Charlwind conjured a scalpel for him to examine. Alka studied the angles and shape for a moment before holding out his palm. A sphere of water appeared, molding itself into the shape Charlwind requested. Then, Alka used his wind skill to supercool the water until it froze, trimming the edges until the surface was as smooth as the original prototype.
When finished, Alka compared the two before handing the ice scalpel to Charlwind.
"Will this work?" the cloaked man asked.
"You are full of surprises. I only speculated, but I didn't think you could actually apply water and wind skills to create this," Charlwind said, twirling the ice scalpel, which had a weight and shape nearly identical to the original. He looked up at Alka. "Interested in becoming my assistant once we get out of here? A talented man like you shouldn't be involved in the illegal circuit anymore."
"...I'll pass," Alka said shortly. "Now, what do you need me to do?"
"Monitor his pulse as before," Charlwind instructed. "If he spasms, help me pin his leg down again."
Alka nodded. "Understood."
"Good, because I'm going to continue dissecting this fellow," Charlwind said, his expression unchanged. "Blue blood... there must be a reason for its existence. No matter how many unexpected things happen in a dungeon, they are still founded on causes and factors."
Alka watched with uncertainty as Charlwind performed the surgery with the ice blade. However, the moment the ice touched the skin, there was no spray of blood, nor did it cling to the blade like before. Instead, the blue blood seemed to have transformed into something more like a gel.
"We don't have any blood pressure medication here, so we can't lower it during the operation. Reducing pressure with localized cold like this is much better. Even with the risks and my hands getting cold—I'm a Hunter; this little bit of cold won't numb my hands," Charlwind joked.
After cutting into the skin for a while, Charlwind smiled. Beneath the incision, white living creatures were burrowing through muscle tissue filled with blue blood gel.
"Are these... maggots?" Alka asked, a mix of shock and revulsion in his voice.
"I don't think they're ordinary maggots," Charlwind said, taking a pair of tweezers from Alka to pull one out and place it on the metal table. The blue blood was sucked toward the surface, crawling like a living thing beneath the table, leaving only the white worm wriggling before it slowly grew still.
Seeing this, Charlwind poked it with his knife. Once it stopped moving, he used the sharp ice blade to slowly slice through it. The keen edge separated the tissue, and a yellow fluid sprayed out, splattering across the Professor's body and face.
Shocked, Alka summoned a ball of water in front of Charlwind so he could wash his hands and face.
Charlwind pricked his own finger with the knife and saw that his blood was now blue, just like Malloch's. "I need some blood. I want to prove something."
Alka tensed up for a moment before calming down. He summoned his own knife and sliced his finger. He walked over and dropped his blood—which was still red—into the yellow fluid of the insect on the table.
Charlwind used the tip of his knife like a mixing trowel to blend the two fluids and waited for the result. Alka's red blood slowly turned blue. Though it wasn't as deep a blue as Malloch's yet, Charlwind was visibly excited to have found the source.
"How did these worms...?" Alka was still confused. He couldn't understand how Malloch's body could suddenly be filled with maggots.
Charlwind gave a mocking smile and laughed softly. "I see... so that's it. We've been falling for a trap all along. Dammit, right from the start."
Alka didn't understand what Charlwind meant until the Professor turned to him.
"...Do you know the 'Bat Fly' (Nycteribiidae)?" Charlwind asked.
"...As I recall, it's a parasite that lives on bats," Alka said, flinching as the realization hit him.
"Exactly! The one clinging to the main artery here... though it's not identical, its growth pattern is remarkably similar, Alka. But it has evolved much further! Instead of the mother carrying the offspring, it injects eggs into the host. Once they burrow into the flesh, a substance within them changes our blood into an environment suitable for their growth! If there's enough stimulation, it triggers a violent reaction."
Charlwind's face looked bright and full of excitement, a stark contrast to the fact that he himself had these parasites inside him.
Alka stood listening with a heavy heart. He didn't know what to feel other than a desperate urge to leave. He felt like he wanted to just snap his fingers and vanish.
"The first thing these larvae do is find a blood vessel wall and anchor themselves to enter the pupal stage. Then, they cling to the host until they mature!" Charlwind continued with even more fervor. He reached out to grab Alka's shoulder, but the younger man dodged just in time. "The bats we fought were just the bait! These parasites must jump and cling like ticks or fleas...!"
"Professor..." Alka warned, seeing the man spiraling. "Focus on helping Malloch first."
"I can help him... but with the parasites having altered his blood chemistry this much, how much humanity will be left in this fellow? I truly wonder," Charlwind said, carefully removing the parasites from the wound and placing them in a research container for further study.
Alka looked at Malloch's blood, which had turned a deep, almost blackish-blue. Compared to Charlwind's pale blue blood, Malloch was likely beyond saving, just as the Professor suggested.
"From now on, he will be a prime test subject for the Hunter Association. Just thinking about the evolutionary discoveries we might find beneath that blue blood... I'm so excited I can hardly stand it," Charlwind said.
Alka looked at his own finger with red blood on it and thought himself incredibly lucky that he hadn't gone near those Desert Bat Lords. He was a long-range Hunter, so he always maintained his distance. Even if people in the guild called it the coward's way, right now, that cowardice had saved his life.
But Alka thought that if he were Malloch, he wouldn't want to ever wake up again.