Chapter 138. My Name Is Victoria Frankenstein (1)
Seryun’s gaze became fixed on the red stone as though his consciousness were being sucked into it.
A moment later, a groan-like murmur escaped his lips.
“My word. I suppose I really have lived too long.”
“I’m starting to see things.”
Yukgap answered firmly.
“You’re not seeing things.”
“Then... are you seriously telling me this is the real Philosopher’s Stone?”
Seryun still looked unable to believe it.
But that was not what mattered to Yukgap right now.
“Yeah.”
“It’s the Philosopher’s Stone.”
Yukgap placed the stone beside Victoria.
Her chest had been torn open where her heart should have been, and she lay motionless in a pool of blood as though she were merely asleep.
Seryun looked back and forth between Victoria and the Philosopher’s Stone.
“So the rumors that Doctor Mary created the Philosopher’s Stone weren’t just rumors after all.”
“Then that means the Philosopher’s Stone was...”
“Right.”
Yukgap cut in.
“It’s been acting as Victoria’s heart this whole time.”
“But after it was ripped out, Victoria stopped moving.”
He spoke faster and faster, then almost pleaded,
“You can save her, right?”
Seryun looked between Victoria and the Philosopher’s Stone several times before letting out a low sigh.
“I can’t say for certain.”
“More importantly, I’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”
Yukgap raised his voice without realizing it.
“Then try something!”
“You’re an alchemist too!”
Seryun immediately snapped back.
“I have limits to my abilities too!”
“Being an alchemist doesn’t make me omnipotent!”
“More importantly, the Philosopher’s Stone is so rare that only a handful have supposedly appeared throughout all of human history.”
“How exactly do you expect me to know how to handle one?”
Yukgap had hoped that because Seryun was also an alchemist, he would know some other method.
Apparently, even that hope was gone.
Meanwhile, Seryun examined Victoria with open fascination.
“Still... this is genuinely new.”
“A being that uses the Philosopher’s Stone as both a power source and a heart.”
If there was one fortunate thing about Victoria’s chest being torn open, it was that her internal structure was clearly visible.
Her blood vessels, flesh, bones, and even the arrangement of her organs had all been formed around the heart.
It was as though her entire body had been designed around the Philosopher’s Stone.
“This can’t even be compared to an undead, chimera, or homunculus.”
“The Philosopher’s Stone functions as her heart while constantly reconstructing her body into an ideal state and regulating it to maintain immortality.”
“This is practically the creation of an entirely new life-form.”
Seryun carefully inspected Victoria’s body.
At this point, Yukgap naturally became curious.
“You really had no idea Victoria had a body like this?”
“I had already realized that the owner was not an ordinary being.”
Seryun answered honestly.
“But I never imagined she had a Philosopher’s Stone inside her chest.”
Her absurd physical strength.
Her terrifying regenerative ability.
The fact that she could block Yukgap’s attacks with her bare body.
Those alone had already proven she was not a normal human.
There was only one being who might know more.
“Scrap metal.”
“You knew, didn’t you?”
Yukgap looked toward Robert, who had been reduced to nothing but a head.
He was the only being who had been with Victoria from the beginning.
If anyone knew what Victoria truly was, it had to be him.
[...]
Robert hesitated.
It seemed as though he was deciding whether he should answer.
Eventually, he told the truth.
[Correct.]
[Both the Doctor and I were creations of Mary Frankenstein.]
Yukgap immediately leaned forward.
“Do you know how to bring Victoria back?”
[I do not know how to use the Philosopher’s Stone either.]
[Only Doctor Mary knew its proper method of use.]
It was a devastating answer.
Yukgap staggered, his face going pale.
“Then Victoria is... really dead?”
[...]
“Because of me.”
“Because of me, Victoria...”
Yukgap could not finish.
His vision blurred on its own.
The guilt and shock of believing Victoria had died because of him left his mind completely blank.
[Calm yourself, fleshbag.]
[Expelling high-salinity fluid from your body serves no useful purpose in the present situation.]
Robert spoke bluntly after seeing his reaction.
Yukgap wiped away the tears that had gathered without his noticing.
“You sure used a lot of words just to tell me not to cry.”
[Regardless, the Doctor is not dead.]
Yukgap immediately looked up.
“Really?”
[Correct.]
[More precisely, the functions of her body have stopped.]
Yukgap stared at him in disbelief.
“That’s the same thing!”
[Only from the perspective of you fleshbags.]
Robert suddenly asked an incomprehensible question.
[I have been broken, repaired, destroyed, and rebuilt countless times.]
[Does that mean I have repeatedly died and been resurrected?]
“Well...”
Yukgap opened his mouth, then stopped.
No proper answer came to mind.
Robert was a golem.
Being broken, blown apart, and destroyed only for Victoria to repair him had practically been routine.
Applying the standards of living creatures to something like him was meaningless.
Apparently understanding Yukgap’s hesitation, Robert continued flatly.
[It is difficult to answer, is it not?]
[That is because I am not a living organism.]
[The death you fleshbags speak of does not apply to me.]
[Even if my current body is destroyed, I only need to preserve a backup of my brain circuitry and transfer it into a new body.]
Seryun urgently asked,
“Then are you saying Doctor Victoria can also be revived in a similar way?”
[It is possible.]
[The Doctor was created by combining parts from you fleshbags.]
[In that sense, she is an artificial organism similar to me.]
Robert looked toward Victoria and muttered something cryptic.
[The only difference is that the brain inside her is the brain of the ‘real’ Victoria Frankenstein.]
Yukgap frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Are you saying the Victoria lying there is fake?”
Robert’s tone became unusually grave.
