Danmachi: Westward Cloud [Complete]

[Vol.3] Quest 263.7- Evaporation

The day after the raid.

Down below the third tower of the Artemis Familia home, beneath the training area.

“Let me go!!!” Thetis shouted in a cell. “Remove this thing around my core!!”

“You should be happy,” Nox said, looking at her with her legs crossed, sitting with a drink in hand. “Few could say they had Cirrus inside them.”

“You fucking relic!! He plunged his dirty human hands into my body!! Wrapping my core with a magic tool!!”

“It is so you won’t escape or try anything,” Circe said. “The moment you try to use magic, or what little you have left, will crush your core into dust.”

“So the faster you give us answers to our questions, the faster you can—”

“I would rather be held by my heel and dunked in fire!! I won’t give you diddly squat!!”

“Fine by us. Cirrus asked Circe here for a job to be done.” Nox said.

“And that is what?”

“Research,” Circe said, opening her cell.

“You don’t think I can’t fight a little shit like—Grab!!”

From Thetis’s shadow, several arms appeared and held her down.

“Hecton, chain her down with the special cuffs I made,” Circe said, putting on special gloves.

Hecton took out and put on Thetis five cuffs, two on her legs and arms, and one on her neck.

“W-what are you doing!?”

“Holding you down while I do my research into Demi-Spirits. (But though the earth is shaken to its core) [Atéleio̱tos Voyage].”

Circe’s gloves crackle with electricity. She waved her hands and Thetis’s cuffs slammed back to the wall of the cell.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Clang! Clang!

“Gah!? That hurt my throat, you runaway chicken!!”

“Nox, you know the schedule. I’ll see you next week.” Circe then puts on a white lab coat.

“Sure thing. Goodbye Thetis. I hope you have that flare next week if you can. Cirrus asked Circe to do a thorough look into you and your body.” Nox said, leaving.

“You can scream all you want, no one is coming to save you,” Circe said with a scalpel in hand.

“Heh… Try me, bitch!! I won’t give you the satisfaction of hearing me scream in pain!”

“Good, because I prefer peace while I work.”

Circe then cut Thetis’s skin.

“Grr!!”

“Red blood. Interesting.”

Circe began to conduct her research to find anything about Demi-Spirits for Cirrus.

Late at night in the Room of Prayer.

“So this belonged to a Demi-Spirit?” Said Ouranos, examining the magic stone from Arbuda.

“Yup, it’s a cut above anything else I've seen,” Cirrus said.

“Fels, what do you make of it?” Ouranos tosses them the orb of icy blue.

“Hmm… This certainly is something. Unfortunately, from what I can discern, it is still a magic stone yet something more.”

“Could I see?” asked Circe.

“By all means.” Fels hands the orb to Circe.

“Hm, hm… well, it holds Arbuda.”

“Hold her how?” said Nox. “Is that her true form? Is it like Thetis?”

“Well yes and no, it functions the same way a magic stone does for a monster, and this differs from that, but it contains their raw spirits magic from what I can tell from Thetis.”

“Oh?” Cirrus walks off and picks the orb from Circe’s hands. “Then this one we can consider it as a very high-grade magic stone then? No… since it’s like their heart, I think we should call them Spirit Cores.”

“I’m done with it!” said Nox, picking the core from Cirrus’s hands and looking at it with her eyes. “It distinguishes between common magic stones and high-end ones like this one.”

“What do you plan on doing with it, Cirrus?” asked Fels. “With it, the possibilities are endless.”

“Well—“ he snatches it from Nox’s hands. “I’ll probably hold on to it for now for when the right time comes. I have an idea what I’m going to use it for, but…”

“But what?”

“The stars aren’t quite aligned yet. For now, I’ll just keep it stored. Circe continues to use Thetis as a research subject. I want a magic tool that will let me take the magic stone but preserve the body. Even possibly see if we can’t make some kind of radar to hunt them.”

“Cirrus,” Circe said, coming up to him. “I… I would like to suggest once we gathered all the research data that we can that we… simply just kill her? I know Nox would agree with me that a life in bondage is not ideal. We can even use the magic tool and test it on her after we use it with some monsters.”

“I am willing to do that much.”

“Thank you and if possible, could you give her one last meal and time under the sun? She, despite what she did, deserves at least to die under the sun and not in the dark again.”

“I can do that. You never ask for much, so… I’ll do that.”