Ch. 252: I'm Gonna Wreck the Chimera Society

Victor looked at him, his brows knitting together.

"Why the sudden question?"

"I'm gonna wreck the Chimera Society," Mo Fei said. "Starting with Chimimi."

Victor sized him up. "Why?"

"They destroyed something I cared about!"

Mo Fei started with the four kittens in the alley and went all the way through to Chimimi's caged wagons and the iron door deep in the abandoned mine.

"...Behind the door was a facility. There was a woman in there named Tacksha. She used to be a lecturer at the Royal Alchemy Academy until she got dismissed. That first big rat-hound monster in the Lower City—it escaped from her."

Victor, whose eyes had been half-lidded until then, raised his head.

"Those three kittens were stitched onto a monster." Mo Fei clenched his cloth-wrapped hand. "In the end, I was the one who put them out of their misery."

The basement fell silent.

After a moment, Victor finally spoke.

"The people you're after—I have a score to settle with them too."

"Good. Looks like we've got a common enemy."

"What you ran into was a stitched chimera. Things like that don't even deserve to exist in this world." Victor's mouth twisted. "Chimeras fall roughly into three kinds: stitched chimeras, grafted chimeras, and embryonic chimeras.
A stitched chimera is parts from different individuals joined together. Most of those parts can't grow into the body—they're just patched on. It's shoddy garbage imitating life. The whole thing usually moves by outside force, not much different from a puppet.
A grafted chimera is parts implanted into a host, where they grow together with it and become part of the host itself. The animal-ear transplants I'm researching are that kind."

"Transplants count too? Then the tail you fitted on the City Lord's wife—does that make her a chimera?"

"Broadly speaking, yes. As far as life transmutation is concerned, there's no real difference between people and beasts."

Mo Fei was left speechless for a moment.

Victor went on. "Embryonic chimeras are a special case. The germ plasm of different creatures is combined in them from conception, so they're born as a single complete organism."

Mixing them from the embryo stage... Isn't that just genetic engineering?

"That rat-hound monster you brought back is an embryonic chimera... Strictly speaking, it's a self-propagated offshoot of the original. Not many people can make something like that, and most of them come from the Chimera Society. So that woman you mentioned is most likely one of theirs too."

"Then how did she end up over there?"

"My guess is she went to Chimimi. After the academy threw her out, she lost her materials and her place to work.
You said Chimimi's caged wagons drove straight into that facility... So Chimimi most likely supplies the animals and the space, and she handles the research. The people running the Chimera Society now only care about turning chimeras into weapons and selling them. Stitched chimeras are quick to make and can be mass-produced, so that's all they do now. They won't let her do the research she wants. Someone who can make embryonic chimeras going back to stitching things like that—she's probably desperate to show results."

Victor scoffed. "Hanging up a sign about taking in strays, then hauling the cats and dogs nobody looks after off the streets, cartload by cartload, for people to take apart."

When he said it, every trace of laziness had left his face.

"Who else is in the Society? Where are their bases?"

Victor looked at him for a while.

"I don't know. The only base out in the open that I know of is Chimimi," he said. "How do you plan to deal with Chimimi?"

"The Bureau's still investigating. I'll start by feeling things out there."

"Don't count on them. The radical faction inside the Bureau has always had dealings with the Chimera Society."

Mo Fei froze.

So that's why, even after they found the secret passage, Greg still said they lacked direct evidence...

"That's all I can tell you." With that, Victor headed for the stairs.

Seeing that, Mo Fei asked, "You've been going out every night lately. What are you actually doing?"

Victor's steps paused.

"There've been a lot of patients lately."

Then he went up without looking back.

Mo Fei watched his retreating back and stood in the basement for a while.

I can't find a single person from the Chimera Society. The only one I can reach is Chimimi. If Chimimi goes down, Tacksha won't get any more animals...

---

The next morning, Mo Fei opened the Spirit Phial. TampTamp crawled out, shook out its fur, hopped down from the workbench, and went straight to kneading the floor.

The kitten, which had been curled up against Phoebe's side, wriggled out of her arms the moment TampTamp appeared and trailed after it.

Phoebe watched the two little fluffballs wander off one after the other, flicked her tail once, then got up and slipped out through the gap in the window.

Mo Fei glanced after her. Off to find herbs?

Mo Fei poured milk into a saucer and set it under the window. The kitten bent its head and began to lap. TampTamp came over for a sniff, reached out a front paw to knead the rim of the saucer twice, then lay down snug against the kitten.

Toby and Mira arrived at the workshop, said their hellos, and each got to work.

The door banged open.

Barney stood in the doorway. He was about to speak, but his gaze landed under the window.

The kitten was curled up beside a small orange creature, and his eyes fixed on the ribbon tied around that orange creature's neck.

Barney stood in the doorway for a good while before he finally looked away and came in.

Mo Fei glanced at his shoulder. "How's the wound?"

"I'll live."

He glanced at Mo Fei's cloth-wrapped hand. "You?"

"Just a flesh wound. It'll heal in a few days."

"The rat-hound monsters have been multiplying again lately," Barney said. "Got any more rat poison?"

Mo Fei shook his head. "I dropped it all in the mine. I'll ask the Chamber for more."

"Fine."

Barney turned to leave, glancing under the window once more on his way out.

Mo Fei lit up his speaking rune.

"Young Lady, that last batch of rat poison worked great. Could you send another batch?"

Flora's voice came through. "How much?"

"As much as possible. They've been popping up in the Lower City again, and the Brotherhood is waiting on it."

"Then will the Brotherhood be paying for this batch?"

"Last time was a free trial for them. We didn't charge. But masks have been selling pretty well lately, haven't they?"

"...They've been sold out for days."

"Everyone in the Lower City is on guard against those rat monsters. If the rat poison really works, there'll be no shortage of buyers. Let the Brotherhood use this batch to show everyone—think of it as advertising for the Chamber."

"You certainly have your sums worked out." She paused. "Fifty portions used up in just a few days?"

"Well... there are a lot of them in the Lower City."

The other end went quiet for a while.

"...Very well. This young lady will arrange it. But let's be clear: after this batch, we negotiate the cost separately." She added, "And one more thing—don't you dare get yourself into trouble before you've handed this young lady the barcode scanner."

"Yes, yes."

When the call ended, Mo Fei set the speaking rune down.

He mulled it over. The abandoned mine case is in Greg's hands, and the caged wagons full of animals were sent by Chimimi... Could he be one of the "radicals"?

An image of Greg surfaced in Mo Fei's mind, always worn out and in a hurry to clock off. However he looked at it, the man had nothing to do with being "radical."

Let's just try and see what I can get out of him.

Mo Fei dug out another rune, a grayish-blue one, and lit it. He waited until a muffled yawn came from the other end before he spoke.

"Does that box still need taking care of?"