I Raised A Black Dragon

Seeing Adrian for the first time in six days, he was more emaciated than the last time Noah had seen him. His eyes were bloodshot, his shoulders and neck were slanted downward, and both of his cuffed wrists were covered in dried brown blood marks. A sling was wrapped over his left shoulder down to his right arm (which had been shot by Kyle).

Overall, he doesn’t look too bad, thought Noah.

However, that did not mean that his normal good looks had gone away but rather the emaciated look rather gave him a natural beauty that had never been there before. Deep depression still lurked in those green eyes.

Noah had something that could make his eyes shine at once. Doing away with the meaningless greetings and introductions, she pulled the pouch hanging on her waist and placed it in front of Adrian.

“Here.”

As expected, his eyes, looking like two fist-sized nuclei, widened. Adrian stared at it for a while with a look of agitation. The emotions passing by in those eyes were ones that even Noah could name. Resentment, hate, a tingle like a rake scraping his heart. Lingering feelings that appeared when the layer of those painful feelings was removed; faint longing and bottomed-out love.

When Noah had crossed the entrance of dimension with Muell and went back to her world, her face facing her family had probably been filled with those emotions.

“...why are you showing me this?”

Adrian’s voice was the same as usual but different at the same time. His tone was much lower and slower as the relaxation and slyness, which had always been there, were completely gone.

“Now you’re the one with that woman’s life in your hands, not me. But why are you giving this to me?” asked Adrian.

“I’m giving you a final chance. It’s up to you if you’ll accept it or not.”

“...explain it to me.”

His strange high-handedness despite being eaten up by extreme lethargy showed that this guy definitely was not normal. What's so pretty about sitting face to face with this kind of guy? No matter how much Noah thought, she was way too soft. But what could she do? They had already started. Quietly clicking her teeth, she opened her mouth.

“You know. I have a family. Though we aren’t the same blood.”

At her random, incoherent reply, he slowly nodded his head. She continued, not shifting her eyes away from him.

“I lived with them for about as long as the time you spent with Eleonora. It isn’t really a pleasant memory, so you’ll get the gist of it even if I give you a rough run-through. No matter how different the dimension and world are, the subject matter of the drama is exactly the same.”

“I guess you weren’t that close with them.”

“That’s right. I wanted to be loved, so I put in so much effort, but I fell short. I was neglected for quite a long time. I can’t say that I cried more than you, but I must have cried as much as you did,” Noah paused. “Then, I died.”

A speck of shock slowly appeared on Adrian’s face.

Noah shrugged. “Why are you so shocked? From the moment my soul entered the shell, it already meant I was brain dead.”

“That... is right.”

“There was nothing to see with those eyes. Though I regret I looked like that. I eventually had to die to realize that there are things in the world that I have to let go of. In that sense, I'm lucky that I fell into this world. Because I was able to force myself to sever ties.”

She continued, “I guess I need that in my life. A sweet and understanding savior who appears more or less like a miracle when I can't get out of a jam by myself.”

The latter, of course, meant her. Even at her shameless words, Adrian didn’t crack a smile and only studied her face.

“...that was meant for you to laugh; I’ll feel silly if you don’t. Anyway.”

Noah, rummaging around in her pouch, pulled out the whole nucleus. Soon, one person’s soul was placed on the table.

“At the trial tomorrow you will stand as the defendant. Your sentence too will be decided then. But you probably know that if you cannot let Eleonora go, your sentence or future or whatever will mean nothing.”

Adrian kept silent.

“The damage to the soul is too severe. But it still hasn’t completely disappeared. You’ll have to put it back into the body. But there is no promise that she will wake back up, and the ones who do wake up will never be normal. You, Adrian, know the price of a prohibited experiment. Of course, whatever side you choose, there is no happy ending for Eleonora. She killed lots of people and put so many more in danger and committed so many inhumane acts.”

Eleonora had already exceeded the limitations that her genius could cover. Now that the true nature of the replica project’s third stage was revealed to the world, there had already been well over twenty crimes on her neck.