Polymath Redux

Chapter 12//Proof of Concept

In the game, the ‘Hundred Eyed Devourer’ was the mid-stage boss to a beginner-level raid dungeon. For its relative level range- around 20- it was frail, and most competent players could take it down with no problem. That said, it wasn’t particularly meant to serve as a challenge, but more as a tutorial monster to show fledgling players about specific raid mechanics. In this case, it taught players about ‘active threat management’; when its ‘obvious’ weak point of its centre eye was attacked, it would conversely enter ‘rage mode’ which halved its defensive capabilities but tripled its speed and attack.

In this manner, players had to actively decide which they thought was easier to take down for their situation. A party full of low damage tanks might be more suited to take on its ‘normal mode’, while a high mobility team composition might prefer its ‘rage mode’. Of course, the thing about ‘rage mode’ was that- even for some veteran players- it took a tremendous amount of skill to take it down while minimizing damage. Which is why, in his most sincere opinion, it was rather impressive that a mere team of five combatants from this world could take it down.

“What happened here?!” cried lieutenant Marianne as she came across the bloodied aftermath of a harsh battle. The land had been flayed apart by the signs of extreme violence, several shredded bodies laid scattered about, but most attention grabbing was the corpse of the monster similar to the one that attacked the village. “Did these people fight this thing?”

“That seems to be the case,” Mordred nodded as he walked over to one of the dead bodies. It was a woman of fair skin and serene white hair. A brutal sight; her entire upper torso had been ripped open with all her innards on full display, her arms were broken, and she had been missing her whole right leg. Suffice it to say, she was dead. “Lieutenant, I think this one might be alive,” he said as he secretly cast an intermediate-tier Cleric magic: ‘Second Chance’. It was a spell that temporarily resurrected dead players with 1 HP and 1 MP for about ten seconds.

“U- ugh…!” the horribly mangled woman let out a pained moan.

“What the? She really is! How is that even possible?” Lieutenant Marianne could not hide her shock. The level of damage this person had sustained was not trivial. In fact, Marianne herself had prior suffered a less potent injury but was still knocking on death's door; it could only be considered a miracle of god that this person could hang onto life so stubbornly.

The point of casting ‘Second Chance’ wasn’t to revive her, but to show the Lieutenant that this person was ‘alive’. Of course, after a few seconds she would die again, however, by that point it was safe for Mordred to take her back to the clinic and truly revive her through other means. He needed to change the situation from the dubious ‘resurrecting the dead’ to the more palpable ‘saving a dying person’. In other words, this was akin to a sleight-of-hand trick. If he didn’t go through this arbitrary deception, then their expedition would’ve ended with them burying the corpses, and that wouldn’t do. Inside the head of this ‘investigator’ was the wealth of information he wanted. “We have to quickly take her back to the village! I can’t save her with the limited tools at my disposal!”

“All right, I’ll lead the way!”

*

*

*

After quickly returning to the village, Mordred requested that no one bother him while he was operating on the woman to ‘save’ her life. Marianne herself volunteered to go back with a few extra soldiers to bury the corpses of the other fellows that was with this woman, and perhaps retrieve a memento.

“So, are you going to cast ‘Grand Mercy’ on her or what?” Morialia asked as she watched from the sidelines. ‘Grand Mercy’ was a master-tier Cleric spell that fully resurrected a single target with all their HP and MP, but at the cost of 50% of their experience bar and a 20% cut to equipment durability.

However, Mordred shook his head, “no”.

“What do you mean ‘no’? Then, are you planning to leave her dead?”

“It would be a waste to do it so simply. This is a rare opportunity to understand our own abilities in detail. For example, the master-tier Alchemy skill: ‘Anatomical Mastery’, reads that as the alchemist’s knowledge on anatomy increases, they gain additional proficiency and effect to transmutation-based skills. What I want to know is how that translates into reality,” Mordred then mumbled to himself about various hypothesises he had about the freedom of skills now that this was no longer a game. The biggest example was himself; he never studied biology in much detail back in his previous world, but if it was now, he felt that he could probably stitch this woman back together with little problem. “I suppose whether this succeeds or fails, it would be a proof of concept one way or the other.”

“Well, if you want to play god, I won’t stop you,” Morialia shrugged as she jumped onto one of the nearby beds.

“Play ‘god’? Don’t be ridiculous; I don’t have the hubris in me to view myself in such a grandiose light. In the end, I’m still Human.”

“At least you’re somewhat self-aware.”

Unlike how it was in the game, there was no restriction of having to target an entire body to execute skills on. For example, the elementary-tier Cleric spell: ‘Heal’, did not need to be cast on an entire person, but could instead be activated and maintained on a small scale. Using this concept, Mordred activated the skill at the tip of his index finger and moved along the dead woman’s body to ‘stitch’ parts together. Though, rather than ‘stitching’ this action was closer to that of ‘welding’.

At first, since he possessed no actual medical knowledge, even he had to admit this would’ve been an impossible task to properly orient all the pieces. However, as he continued putting her together, he found himself ‘instinctively’ knowing where to put them and how to stitch them correctly. If an analogy had to be made, it was as though he were putting together a thousand-piece-picture-puzzle; it wasn’t easy, but not impossibly difficult either. That said, as he continued, he came across a certain problem.

“This isn’t good,” Mordred’s hands stopped moving and he took a step back.

“What is it?” Morialia lifted her head in interest and asked.

“There aren’t enough pieces.” That was to say parts of her body were missing. Most likely they had been damaged and destroyed during her fight with the Hundred Eyed Devourer.

“I hope you have a solution to that. After everything you did to set this investigator up, it’d be a waste now if she couldn’t answer questions for you.”

“It’s not that I don’t have any solutions, but…” Mordred trailed off. He couldn’t be sure if the ‘back up’ plan would go as well as he envisioned. Still, with little choices left, he pointed to a vacant space in the room and activated an intermediate-tier Necromancy spell: ‘Corpse Carrier’. To put it simply, it summoned a grotesque monster known as a ‘Corpse Carrier’ that was basically a patchwork of numerous body parts meshed together in an excessively horrific way. His ‘plan’ had been to use ‘spare parts’ from this monstrosity. “I could ‘purify’ the parts I extract from the Corpse Carrier and implant them onto this woman, but there’s also the problem with organ rejection, differing blood types, among a myriad other.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what any of that means, but the way I see it, you don’t really have another choice if you want to patch that woman back together. Or am I wrong?”

“No, you have a point,” he conceded. “I suppose there’s no use in crying over spilt milk.”

Going with his plan, Mordred continued to patch the body of this woman together. The overall process had taken about twelve straight hours, but the finished product looked remarkably alive even though she was dead. Looking at her completed body, she was a fairly mature woman, perhaps in her mid-to-late twenties. Her hair was a long, silky silver and her complexion was pale despite having been a fighter. She was slender, but also had healthy muscles where it mattered- most likely a by-product of routine training and proper diet. Her hands in particular had developed callouses from having gripped the handle of a dagger for too long.

From what Mordred could see of her fight, she seemed to be an ‘Assassin’. This explained why she had been so pale, since that class often preferred to not be under any light.

“Hey, before you bring her back to life, I wanted to ask if this was all necessary.” Morialia interrupted. “You said it was supposed to be a proof of concept, but what do you mean by that?”

Mordred thought about it for a moment and uttered one word, “extra.”

“Extra?”

“It’ll become more apparent once we get to the capital, but our biggest problem is a lack of trustworthy allies. The ‘Familiar Insignias’ can only be used to summon one familiar at a time, and since you’re the strongest, there’s no reason to summon anything else. Summoned monsters from class skills are extremely limited as they possess no real intelligence and are good only for menial tasks. I have thought about anonymously outsourcing help but doing it that way carries too many assumptions and risks. Which leaves only one other option, to ‘create’ my own allies. If this experiment proves successful, then my options expand.”

“Wait, I thought you said you weren’t going to play god.”

“Who said only gods can create life?”

“You really want to… haaaahhhh…” Morialia let out a lengthy sigh. “Fine, whatever. I will not be held responsible for whatever happens then. Good luck to you, master!”

All that was left was to give life back to this body. The intermediate-tier Cleric spell: ‘Holy Decree’ was a relatively bad resurrection spell in that it was only one step above ‘Second chance’. It still revived people with 1 HP and 1 MP, but there was no ten second time limit. In this situation it was the perfect skill as it would serve as proof that his knowledge had indeed been improved with the various ‘mastery’ skills.

Mordred stretched out his arms, and a tranquil, glimmering breeze surrounded the woman’s corpse. As the light entered her body, signs of renewed life appeared. First her chest moved up and down as she began to breathe, and next the tips of her fingers twitched. “Prince… Bradley… I’m sorry…” she muttered an unfamiliar name in her slumber. Things already looked very promising for Mordred.

“Did it work?” suddenly interested, Morialia asked as she jumped off the bed and walked over to the operating table where the woman’s body had been laid.

“Most likely, though I want to study her condition closely for a few more days after this. It’d be a problem if there were some unknown side effects.”

“Mnnn… huh?” slowly, the woman’s eyes peeled open, revealing a serene emerald gaze. “What…” there were clear signs of distress on her face, but she would have had no stamina to act on those impulses. When she gazed down and noticed she was naked, she quickly reeled back and tried to cover herself.

“Careful,” Mordred called out to her. Like a frightened animal, she flinched when he tried to approach. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you. I know you might be feeling a little confused right now, but you can trust me. You were very close to death, so I had to operate on you to save your life.”

“Dea… th?” she made a pained expression. “What… happened…?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask you. Ah, but first, please cover yourself with this,” Mordred took off his white overcoat and passed it over to her. “Now then, please tell me everything you remember.” However, when she had remained silent, Mordred felt that something was wrong.

“I… Who am… I?” asked the woman.

“PFffftttt…! Aaaaa ahaahahahaaahahahaaa!” Morialia suddenly burst out laughing in that annoyingly high-pitched voice of hers. “Oh man! There go all your plans out the window! Amnesia! This is gold; I bet even you weren’t planning for a curve ball, now where you?”