Chapter 9.1 - Whose Hero?
It was already morning, but the sky that was starting to brighten would never shine into Helen’s underground laboratory. She opened her eyes, waking from her ten minute nap. A strong scent of alcohol still lingered about the tip of her nose.
The laboratory that was originally spotless was now a mess. Empty bottles of alcohol were tossed about everywhere, and the carts that were originally full of petri dishes had half a box of strong alcohol that was still untouched.
Persephone sat in the middle of this pile of empty bottles, a bottle of half finished alcohol in her left hand. Her head was hung, and her right hand forcefully grabbed at her soft gray hair. Her arms were wrapped around her knees. On her body was still a set of dragonrider uniform that didn’t really seem to match her body. In addition, one could see from the lieutenant commander insignia that this wasn’t her uniform at all. Her upper clothes only had two buttons fastened, and behind them was supple and snow-white skin. It seemed like Persephone wasn’t wearing anything under the uniform.
An intense wave of pain woke Helen up. She frowned, rubbing her head that felt like it was going to split open before standing up with some difficulty. However, when she stood up straight, her stomach suddenly rolled over and over, and her weak legs almost couldn’t support her body. Helen’s face immediately became pale as she grabbed the laboratory table beside her to support herself. She took a moment to compose herself and waited until the parts of her body that were unwell settled a bit before taking out a syringe and injecting it into her thigh. Only after two minutes had passed did some color return to her face that was as pale as paper.
It had already been several years since she was last drunk like this. Helen loathed the feeling of losing control, and thus she disliked alcohol. She could count the number of times she got drunk on her fingers, and they were almost always related to this worrisome Persephone. As a dragonrider general, Persephone’s powerful constitution allowed her to drink several boxes of strong liquor before feeling a slight buzz, while Helen without any abilities could only drink a single kilogram before losing consciousness.
The drug quickly flowed through her bloodstream, comforting Helen’s stomach that was tossing about and turning itself inside out. After drinking a cup of water, she felt a bit better.
“Dear, what have I done?” Persephone asked somewhat ambiguously.
When she heard this question that had been asked at least seven or eight times already, a raging headache returned to Helen’s head. She forcefully suppressed her disorderly mood and repeated her fixed answer, “You did what you had to do, you captured Su.”
“Su?” Persephone suddenly raised her head, her gray hair drawing a beautiful arc through the air. She finished the what remained in the bottle in her hands before laughing self-mockingly. “Going to bed with him once means that I’ve caught him? Heaven knows how many women have gone to bed with him!”
Helen gave herself another nutrient-filled injection. While injecting herself, she said, “You are different.”
“Haha! We’re all women, so how am I any different?” Persephone’s laugh seemed a bit on edge.
“Of course you are different! How much have you paid for Su? Moreover, it’s not unreasonable to say that you saved his life. Even though Su has never brought these things up, I believe that he remembers them all in his heart. Meanwhile, all of your investments will return several times in the future! These investments obviously include going to bed with him!” Helen injected all of the contents of the syringe and then tossed it into the disposal box. Quite a bit of color returned to her face.
Persephone sighed and said, “Saved him? But if it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have even entered the Black Dragonriders. Also, you keep saying go to bed, go to bed, but I even screwed this up.”
Helen said in a resolute manner, “Don’t worry, with your rank of general, there is no way you messed it up!”
“But… I always feel as if I’ve stolen him from someone else!” Persephone’s voice turned into a whimper, as if she was crying a bit.
“Before obtaining it, it is stealing, but once it’s in your hands, it’s yours.” Helen expanded on the logic of robbery in a rather self-righteous manner. In this era, stealing was what was normal human behavior.
Persephone grabbed another bottle, and with a light twist, she twisted off the cork together with the bottleneck. The alcohol poured into her mouth like a stream, immediately emptying a small half of the bottle into her stomach. Helen’s comforting was still unable to calm her down and instead often had the opposite effects.
Helen started up the complete scanner. She slowly dragged the snow white reclining platform from the semi-cylindrical apparatus and said towards Persephone, “Stop drinking. Come, lie down. I am going to examine your body.”
Persephone walked over, and after hesitating for a bit, she took off the uniform and laid down on the platform that Su had already experienced too many times. When the Black Dragonrider uniform was removed, one could see many traces of that intense battle she fought against Su on her sparkling and snow white skin. When she saw this, the corners of Helen’s eyes twitched ever so slightly.
The scanner slowly closed, and then it released a slight rumbling sound. An enormous display stood vertically to the apparatus’s side. As the scan progressed, the screen continuously flickered with data, and it also formed a three-dimensional image of Persephone. Helen pulled up Persephone’s past data, and while comparing it with the current data, she said, “It seems like your gains from the northern front weren’t small.”
A small screen displayed the naked Persephone who was lying on the scanner. She shifted her gaze to the side camera and asked, “How many evolutionary points?”
“196 evolutionary points. The Holy Crusaders’ losses truly were severe. What do you plan on doing now? Develop a new eighth level ability or save up more evolutionary points to produce a ninth level holy grade ability?” Helen asked.