Chương 284: Chapter : 284

"But why would a pharmaceutical company buy a cure and then make it disappear?" Risa asked, her sweet face creased with genuine confusion.

"Wouldn't selling a miracle cure make them even richer? They could charge anything for it." Luna, who had been dozing in a wingback chair near the fireplace with a blanket pulled up to her chin, slowly opened one eye. She had been half-listening to the entire conversation while pretending to be asleep, a skill she had perfected over many years.

"No," Luna said lazily, her voice heavy with tired wisdom. She rubbed her eyes and sat up slightly, her silver hair falling around her shoulders like a curtain.

"It wouldn't. Think about it for just a moment."

"A permanent, one-time cure eliminates the customer forever. One treatment and they're done. No more prescriptions. No more hospital visits. No more ongoing revenue of any kind."

"But a treatment that only manages symptoms without actually curing the disease? That's a customer for life. Monthly prescriptions. Ongoing consultations. Regular hospital visits. Repeat business guaranteed by the very nature of the disease." She yawned and leaned back.

"A permanent cure for cancer would completely and utterly obliterate the trillion-Bel medical industry controlled by the noble factions. Why sell one pill that cures when you can sell a hundred pills a month for the rest of the patient's short, miserable life?" The library fell silent. The brutal economic logic of Luna's explanation was so clear and so horrible that it took a moment for the full weight of it to settle over the room. The truth was worse than any conspiracy. It was arithmetic. Numbers didn't lie.

Numbers didn't have conscience or mercy. Numbers simply added up, and in this case, they added up to the systematic extermination of hundreds of thousands of people for the sake of quarterly profit reports. Ken stared at Luna with an expression that was hard to read. His usual goofy smile was gone, replaced by something quieter and darker.

"That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard," he said softly.

"And I once read a book about a goldfish who outlived its owner." Nobody laughed. The goldfish comment landed like a pebble in an ocean of horror. Risa's face had gone completely pale. Her hands were gripping the edge of the table so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Her green eyes were wide with dawning comprehension, and her lower lip was trembling visibly.

"Mr. Carrion wasn't murdered for an Eternal Youth potion," Risa whispered, her voice barely audible.

"He was murdered because he found a way to synthesize Devil Flour. He created a permanent cure for magical cancer." She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor.

"He didn't need the natural plant anymore. He engineered a synthetic version that could be mass-produced. A cure that anyone could afford. A cure that would make the entire treatment industry obsolete." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"My analysis confirms it," Risa added, gesturing to her medical equipment.

"The petals from his secret chamber contain synthetic Devil Flour compounds. They're still active. Still destroying cancer cells in my test samples. After years in storage, the cure still works." Risa pressed her hand against her mouth, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"All those people. All those years. The cure was sitting in that chamber the entire time, and nobody knew. Nobody came looking."

"And the pharmaceutical companies killed him for it," Sayma finished, her voice hollow and cold.

"They killed him to protect their profit margins. Billions of Bel in ongoing cancer treatments were at stake. A permanent cure would have destroyed their entire business model."

"They didn't just kill a man," Naomi said quietly, her green eyes blazing with fury.

"They killed three hundred thousand people a year. Every year the cure is suppressed, another three hundred thousand die. That's not business. That's mass murder with a corporate letterhead." Iris gripped the edge of the table, her violet eyes blazing.

"They murdered a scientist who was saving lives. A man who cured cancer. They killed him because curing cancer was bad for business." Her voice cracked, and she steadied herself with a breath.

"This goes beyond corporate greed. This is evil. Pure, calculated, profit-driven evil wearing expensive suits and hiding behind legal frameworks they wrote themselves."

"The Benjamin Group and the Anti-Empire faction are connected," Zinia said, flipping to a page in her notebook.

"The pharmaceutical monopoly is one of the faction's primary funding sources. If the cure had reached the market, it would have cut off billions in revenue." Billions that flowed directly into the treason network. The Anti-Empire faction and the Benjamin Group were two heads of the same serpent, feeding on the suffering of the very people they claimed to serve.

"So Carrion's murder wasn't just about corporate profits," Iris said slowly, the pieces clicking together.

"It was also about protecting the funding for a revolution. Two motives, one assassination. Corporate greed and political treason, working hand in hand."

"Two birds, one stone," Ken said from the couch. His expression was unusually serious.

"Kill the scientist, destroy the cure, protect the profits, fund the revolution. Everybody wins except the cancer patients." The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. For all his goofiness, Ken understood what was at stake in a way that was deeply personal. People were dying so that rich men could grow richer. It was the oldest, ugliest story in the world. He glanced at Risa, who was sitting very still in her corner, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed on the table.

Her face was pale, and Ken noticed that her knuckles were white. He wanted to say something to her, but the right words wouldn't come. Risa spoke up quietly from her corner.

"How many people die of magical cancer each year in Belmontia?" She almost didn't want to know, but she forced herself to ask anyway. Risa's voice was barely a whisper.

"Approximately three hundred thousand. Every single year. Three hundred thousand people who could have been saved." The number hung in the air like a verdict. Three hundred thousand lives a year, sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit and political ambition. A holocaust in slow motion, paid for by pharmaceutical invoices and authorized by men who had never set foot in a cancer ward. Laxmi's hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and tiny flames flickered between her fingers.

The temperature around her rose several degrees, and the books nearest to her began to smoke.

"I want to burn that building to the ground," she said.

"The Benjamin Group headquarters. I want to reduce it to ash."

"We will do this properly," Iris said firmly, though her own anger was visible in the tight set of her jaw.

"We will gather evidence. We will build a case. And we will take this to the Upper Council. The law will bring them down."

"Not fire. Not revenge. Justice. That is what separates us from them."

"And if the law isn't enough?" Laxmi challenged, her flames still flickering.