Chương 23: Mistrust and the Indestructible Revelation

The atmosphere inside Mireya's improvised laboratory shifted the instant Kurogami Ren weighed the cloth sack with the remaining gold coins and decreed the plan to depart for the capital. However, the scientist's pair of yellow eyes remained fixed on him, gleaming with a sharp mistrust that went far beyond the jealous teasing Selene had fired off about the harem. Mireya took a step forward, crossing her arms over her apron while her Neko tail whipped the air rhythmically.

Her mind was reviewing the data from the previous confrontation. She remembered perfectly when he had kicked open the inn doors and delivered the wounded Liora into her arms under the heavy rain: Kuro should have also been covered in deep sword punctures and massive bleeding. Yet there he stood, operating in plain daylight with intact skin and completely clean tissues, as if his flesh had never been torn apart.

"What happened to the cuts on your body, Kuro?" she asked, her voice dropping to a serious tone, cornering him against the edge of the reagent bench.

"I know anatomy and molecular alchemy. No human organism closes deep wounds like those without leaving a single mark. What are you hiding?" Kuro kept his expression entirely hollow, wiping away any frame of hesitation from his features. He sustained her gaze and attempted a classic bluff, keeping his tone of voice low, hoarse, and relaxed.

"You misjudged the situation under the effect of stress, Mireya. The lighting was terrible in the middle of the rain." The alchemist let out a loud huff of indignation, narrowing her eyes behind her glasses with a cutting look. She snapped her nails hard against the wooden table, making it clear she would not swallow an amateur excuse like that. Sitting in bed with her back supported by the pillows, Liora observed the loud discussion in silence.

Her crimson eyes maintained their usual sharp focus, capturing the gravity of the atmosphere. Sooner or later, the secret is going to crumble completely, Kuro calculated, his internal thoughts sharp. Selene has known since the attack in the forest, and Liora witnessed my arm get cut off and weave itself back together at the mansion. If I want them to operate as loyal allies in the capital, I need us to play with clean cards on the table. I just confessed to Selene in the dimness about the cold mist in my blood.

There is no point in keeping up this bluff. Kuro relaxed his shoulders, abandoning the charismatic facade. It was time for brutal honesty. Without a single word, he reached his right hand to his waist and drew his short blade with a sharp click. The sudden movement caused Selene to tense her body in readiness, but Kuro did not point the weapon at any of them.

With a gélid coldness, he turned his left palm upward and dragged the sharp edge of the steel against his own flesh, slicing open a professional cut from end to end. The crimson blood flowed heavily, dripping onto the rustic floorboards. Liora and Mireya held their breath, but Kuro's eyes maintained that hollow calmness. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Look at this," Kuro stated, his voice emerging firm and stripped of any pose.

"I will reveal the rule of this body once and for all." Before the girls' wide eyes, his organism began to act in silence. Without any intervention from an external magical flow, the tissues of his hand began to weave themselves back together at high speed. The blood vessels sealed and the skin reconstructed itself in seconds, until not a single mark remained—only the clean blood over intact skin. In the corner of the room, Selene took a step forward, crossing her arms to stamp the verdict in front of Mireya.

"I've already seen his body do the exact same thing in the forest," Selene intervened, validating the scene.

"He just heals out of nowhere, Mireya." With the barrier of mystery destroyed, Kuro threw the rest of his cards onto the table. He revealed to Mireya and Liora the whole truth hidden behind his physiology: the nature of his semi-immortal organism that regenerated flesh and bone, and that strange, cold, dense energy that awakened by instinct in his veins, explaining that on that specific occasion, the phenomenon occurred when his human mana hit zero at the absolute limit of death.

The punch of honesty unified the group in an indestructible pact of silence. Liora held her own pain with an even deeper respect for that shell, while Mireya felt her mind burn with the possibilities of that energy. Kurogami Ren wiped the blood from the blade, sheathed the weapon, and slipped his hand inside his cloak, pulling out a thick roll of parchment he kept hidden.

"And since we are playing with clean cards on the table..." Kuro murmured, unrolling the paper on the nightstand right beside the glass vial.

"Mireya, take a look at the project I intend to initiate in the capital." The technical blueprint was of an absurd, industrial-grade mechanical complexity: millimetric sketches of advanced mechanical engineering, the outline of a compact weapon projected to the exact size of a short sword, lines detailing runic channels where the mana stripes would pass, a slot at the rear custom-made for a mana stone, and the logical mechanism to hold exactly five projectiles capable of firing External Magic.

To any inhabitant of that political and medieval world, it would look like an incomprehensible legendary artifact. But the second Mireya locked her yellow eyes onto the pressure formulas and hand-drawn mechanical engineering, her Neko ears rose in a straight line and her body froze completely. Her intuition flared, breaking through the barriers of her subconscious. She raised her eyes behind her glasses toward Kuro, her breath catching for a frame, gripped by an absurd shock to her soul.

"This project... is from the modern world. I am from there." Kuro sustained her gaze for a few seconds, letting the weight of that mutual revelation settle in the room. He did not display the astonishment that anyone else would; instead, the corner of his lips tugged up in a subtle way.

"I already suspected as much due to your reactions and your method of organization," Kuro answered, keeping his tone firm and balanced, though a genuine spark of surprise surfaced deep within his features. He rolled up the parchment slowly and took a deep breath.

"And yes, I am from there too." The silence that followed was no longer one of mistrust, but of an absolute alignment of goals between the two reincarnators from Earth. Kuro stowed the parchment away and walked to the window, observing the skies of Oakhaven brightened by the day. With the decision made to advance their departure after the recent events, exactly one day remained for final preparations. They would depart tomorrow.

The countdown for the definitive exit from that inn and for the journey toward the gears of the capital had begun.