A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 202 : Declaration of the Beastkin Nation (7)

The Report Log was found in a small drawer located at the very bottom center of the warden's office.

It was covered in dust, suggesting it hadn't been used recently.

It seemed to have been used in the past but had been neglected for some reason lately.

Sharaak-

As if he knew what Valencia intended to do without her saying a word, Tom untied the rope binding her wrists.

Well, it wasn't tied that tightly in the first place, so she probably could have freed herself even if he hadn't.

Her wrists now free, Valencia took the Report Log from the drawer.

Then, she held out a hand toward Tom.

Ssk.

"Stay back, Thomas."

"...Pardon?"

"I'm going to read this alone."

"..."

Perhaps because he couldn't understand the reason for her inexplicable refusal.

Tom stood still in his spot, a dazed expression on his face as if in shock.

Paying him no mind, Valencia went to a corner of the warden's office and sat down, leaning against the wall.

Sharaak-

Being a report log, it had no table of contents or cover.

Since there wasn't much time, she couldn't read the whole thing and had to start with the important parts, but there was no way of knowing where those might be.

So, Valencia slid her finger roughly into the middle and opened it.

And there it was.

[22nd Eastern Internment Camp Growth Hormone Inhibitor Effect Experiment]

A stark title caught her eye.

"..."

She had a rough idea.

The role of a Base Internment Camp was not to be taken lightly, but to use a space hidden this securely solely for slave trafficking was, in a way, a waste.

Because creating a secret base incurred more cost and hassle than one might think.

Even if that wasn't the initial intention, she had thought that this Base Internment Camp would naturally be used to perpetrate the dirty and cruel things that couldn't be done in the open.

Valencia reading the report log alone without showing Tom was also in a similar context.

Even without knowing its contents, she didn't think that the kind of acts committed in a place hidden from everything would be very humane.

Causing unnecessary agitation was something she wanted to avoid.

'...Growth Hormone Inhibitor.'

She had heard a bit about it from Jerry.

That all the Beastkin currently being trafficked in the slave market couldn't truly be called Beastkin.

They were administered drugs that suppressed their growth, preventing them from reaching adulthood.

And as a result, they lost their innate wildness and physical abilities, making them no different from children who only looked like adults on the outside.

"..."

At this, she could also make a rough guess as to why the report log had been neglected.

Before, when the Growth Hormone Inhibitor wasn't perfected, they conducted experiments and wrote report logs accordingly.

But now that the Growth Hormone Inhibitor was complete, there were no more experiments, and without experiments, there was no longer a need to write report logs.

Having grasped the general purpose of the report log, Valencia read the description below the title.

[22nd Eastern Internment Camp Growth Hormone Inhibitor Effect Experiment]

- Test Subject: #B337

- Record: Oral administration of 10.2mg to the test subject. Isolated observation for 24 hours. #B337 showed no vital signs for 17 hours, then suddenly complained of pain after 17 hours and 22 minutes. Bestialization proceeded 5 minutes after the onset of pain. Terminated.

Note: In the case of #B337, an individual among the Canine Beastkin whose Bloodline Genetic Factor level was 2.2%, exceeding the average of 1.5% by over 30%, it is suggested that the Bloodline Genetic Factor level has a tendency to strengthen the adverse reaction to the Growth Hormone Inhibitor...

"..."

The log's contents recorded the process and results in a rather explicit and stark manner.

Valencia hadn't intended to read it from beginning to end, but she found herself opening it to the first page.

Sharaak-

Sharaak-

And page by page, she flipped through, reading the processes and results of the experiments.

The numbers of the sacrificed Beastkin, and how they kept increasing.

She read on about the experimental methods that grew progressively crueler.

At the Northern Internment Camp, she hadn't been able to check for such traces because she had set the camp on fire and caused a mess.

If Valencia's thoughts were correct, this wasn't an experiment conducted solely here at the Eastern Internment Camp.

East, West, South, North.

There was a high probability that the experiments were conducted simultaneously at the four Base Internment Camps.

She didn't know the exact process—whether their respective fields of experimentation were the same or if they had slight variations.

What was certain was that the number of Beastkin sacrificed in the process was not small.

And that they didn't simply die, but became test subjects and suffered the ordeal of having even their dead bodies desecrated.

And in the heart of Valencia, who had witnessed the stark process of the experiments through writing...

"..."

Strangely, no emotion arose.

Without a doubt, countless Beastkin must have died.

Just roughly estimating the number of Beastkin who died in the experiments from the 1st to the 46th phase in this report log, the number exceeded almost a thousand.

Simply multiplying by the number of Base Internment Camps would make it four times that.

If, depending on the case, there were other camps in charge of different large-scale experiments, perhaps more than ten times that number of Beastkin might have been sacrificed in experiments designed to turn their entire race into slaves.

It was an event so cruel and tragic that she felt there could be few things as horrific, even if one were to turn the world upside down.

Yet she, who was one of those Beastkin and was supposed to reign as their monarch, felt no emotion at all.

'...'

...Something was definitely wrong.

To the point where she felt her pre-Succession self was closer to being a monarch , her current self was heartless.

At least back then, she had thought she couldn't show her face to the world out of guilt and the shame of her irresponsibility.

"..."

What was more confusing was her father.

That is, there was no reaction from the shattered Xuanyuan Sword, which housed the Vestige of the former king, Allen Tigris III.

While communication was possible on all other matters, regarding this feeling of hers, he would only say, '...You will come to realize it.'

He gave no other answer.

Just as Valencia was agonizing over the confusing situation and her own changes...

Slam-

Suddenly, the door flew open.

One might have been flustered by this development without any warning, but perhaps he had sensed the presence beforehand.

Tom naturally moved into the open doorway, hiding Valencia in his blind spot.

"Ha. So it's real?"

The Warden of the Eastern Internment Camp was revealed.

...He too was a Beastkin.

However, unlike the other Beastkin who had been stripped of all their wildness...

...he seemed to possess a faint trace of the Beastkin's original wildness.

"I had a feeling there were other bases. To think there really were."

"..."

The Warden, who chuckled as if amused, shoved Tom's shoulder and came inside, slumping into his chair.

Clink-

A bottle was in his right hand, and the strong smell of alcohol wafted from him, suggesting he had been drinking just moments ago.

"Well. Looks like you're also a Beastkin who started from the bottom and worked your way up."

"..."

"What's the occasion from an outside base? Nothing like this has ever happened before. Strange."

A Beastkin who came up from the bottom.

Those words meant that he, the one holding the position of Warden, was also a former slave who had once been imprisoned in this Base Internment Camp.

Tom thought that having come this far, he had seen all there was to see.

But since there had been no word from Valencia yet, he continued the charade with his original concept.

"A Beastkin trafficked from your base escaped. I don't know how you manage things, but she even knew the exact location of the Eastern Base Internment Camp."

"Escaped? I haven't received any such report..."

As the Warden stared at him with a look of disbelief, Tom pulled Valencia by the shoulder and said.

"...Are you denying my report now? I came myself instead of sending someone precisely because I thought you'd react this way."

"Hmm... hold on a second."

The Warden of the Eastern Base Internment Camp, craning his neck to examine Valencia, tilted his head and muttered.

"She's from our camp, you say?"

"...That's right. How else would she know the location of your base?"

"That's strange."

Flick-

Shaking his head, the Warden ripped off Valencia's hood.

At that rough gesture, Tom nearly lost his composure, but remembering that Valencia hadn't said anything yet, he barely managed to hold back his claws from emerging.

"If there was a face like this here, there's no way I wouldn't know."

"..."

"I make sure to set aside the pretty ones."

Despite being the same race, Tom felt a momentary sense of disgust.

He just couldn't comprehend how someone who had once experienced being a slave, someone who knew that suffering, could treat his own kind in such a way.

Psik-

"Nice glare."

Seeing Valencia's unwavering gaze fixed on him, the Warden smirked and leaned back again.

Then, he looked up at Thomas and said.

"I don't know how she found out our base's location, but she's not one of our slaves."

"...How can you be so sure?"

"If I say no, it's no. If she had this face, there's no way I wouldn't remember."

"..."

"If you really don't believe me, you can wait while I check the number that should be stamped on the back of her neck."

...This was the limit.

The point where any further disguise was impossible.

Just as Tom, having judged this to be the limit, was about to bring out his claws and subdue him...

"...More importantly, buddy. She might not be ours, but sell that bitch to me."

"...What?"

"I kind of want her. Not as a base slave. I want her as my personal slave. She might not be ours, but I'll pay you generously for the trouble of bringing her here. Hell, if that's not enough, I'll leave it out of the report, so you can pick a few to take with you."

"..."

The Warden muttered with a sinister smile.

And that point...

...was not only the limit of their infiltration, but also the point where Tom's patience reached its limit.

KWAANG-!

Veins bulged on Tom's forearm for an instant, and his arm shot out, slamming the Warden's head into the desk.

The desk shattered without resistance from the deafening crash, and when the thick cloud of dust settled, the Warden's face was already a bloody pulp.

"...Consider yourself lucky you're a Beastkin. You worthless bastard."

Tom, who had become half-beastified at some point, muttered as he looked down at the face.

No further blows were necessary.

The Warden was already on the verge of death from that single strike.

Tom was about to get up, but...

"Kill him."

"...?"

A low, unbelievable mutter came from behind him.

"Just kill him, Thomas."