novelraw Chapter 296: What She Concealed
Chapter 296: What She Concealed
"Dong! Dong! Dong!"
The bell tolls above the church violently chimed, embellishing the atmosphere of the cramped room opposite the confessional. Fisher expressionlessly looked at the handwriting in his hands; and before him also lay a rosy-complexioned rabbit Miss Nun, Ilos.
"Pardon me, Sister Ilos."
"Ah, um... mhm..."
Fisher didn't wait for Ilos's consent before gently reaching out a hand and placing it on her lower abdomen. Upon touching Ilos's lower abdomen separated by a layer of nun's clothing, she inevitably pursed her lips slightly. Her right hand also subconsciously gripped the bedding beside her, as if the other party's large hand had produced contact with the fetus within her body along that simple barrier.
Wasn't this far too strange?
But the Fisher beside her held no such extraneous thoughts in his heart like Ilos did. He was genuinely researching the biological traits of the Moon Rabbit-kin and exploring why she had falsely become pregnant. Regarding the cause of the false pregnancy, he roughly had a bit of a guess. But first, what he needed to do right now was to confirm whether she exactly had a child or not.
The next second, the mana circuits upon the palm Fisher touched Ilos with abruptly lit up. That mana unceasingly transmitted into Ilos's body, simultaneously lighting up the mana circuits on her body that vastly differed from a human's.
"Are you wanting to inspect whether there are mana circuits of a newborn within her body to inspect whether she is pregnant?"
Hearing the quiet questioning of Emhart beside his ear, Fisher shook his head, replying to him,"No. She only exhibited such symptoms last night. Even if she was truly pregnant, new mana circuits wouldn't appear this rapidly. But I indeed want to take a look at the condition of her own mana circuits..."
Looking back at the soul theory Fisher previously obtained, please contemplate another question: when does a person's soul enter their body? Is it after a mother confirms pregnancy, or does it wait until the newborn departs the mother's body and descends into the human world?
Fisher could provide the answer to this question: the answer was the former. A child's soul would enter their body prior to being born from the mother's body.
In the past when Fisher conducted magic research, he had previously researched a topic regarding mana circuits: that is, when certain female magicians engraved magic crests during their pregnancy, strange phenomena would emerge. This included a substantial increase in the probability of magic turbulence, the insufficient efficacy of the engraved magic, and so forth. He thus wrote a related academic thesis.
The magicians from before subconsciously believed this was triggered due to a decline in body functionality caused by pregnancy. But looking at the related experiments thereafter, the more active the fetus within the magician mother's abdomen was, the more severe this situation became. This could only indicate that the unconscious, turbulent mana circuits of the fetus within the mother's abdomen interfered with their process of engraving magic.
"A soul generally enters a fetus's body between 22 to 24 weeks after pregnancy. The time when mana circuits appear is also around this time. But prior to this time, the Spirit World will lock onto this vacant [Slot] in advance. Because of this, the magic efficacy engraved by those magician mothers become affected..."
"Therefore, I want to take a look and see if the Spirit World has locked onto Ilos. This is the most direct proof method."
Fisher spoke softly, opening his mouth to explain to Emhart. However, the inspecting actions of his hands weren't slow in the slightest. Under the stimulation of his warm mana circuits, the mana contained within Ilos's body itself also grew excited. Although the quantity wasn't large, it was exceptionally active; there was no phenomenon of it being pulled by the Spirit World at all.
This also proved that Ilos's pregnancy was indeed false. The changes occurring on her body right now were entirely just special reactions she produced due to physiological reasons.
Although the result was within his expectations, for an unknown reason, Fisher still gently breathed a sigh of relief.
Seeing Fisher's expression, the Emhart beside him actually already knew the answer. However, he still sighed somewhat regretfully. After all, he truly wanted to see Fisher's expression of being in a terrible fix from being hunted down by other women because of a child.
Fisher silently withdrew the hand placed on Ilos's body. Since it was already confirmed that she was falsely pregnant, then the next step was to establish the cause of the false pregnancy and research her a bit to obtain the biological research progress of the Moon Rabbit-kin.
"There isn't a new life within your lower abdomen. Otherwise, your mana circuits would definitely be affected as a result... Do you know what mana circuits are? It's..."
Ultimately, before Fisher even opened his mouth to explain for her, Ilos unexpectedly rushed to answer first,
"I-I know... Sister Charut told me about this. She said it was a thing that everyone has on their bodies. It can use the power inside to engrave magic. I've seen her engrave magic previously, but she didn't teach me. She said my mana pool is truly far too small..."
Fisher cast a somewhat surprised glance at her. He didn't expect that Sister Charut who raised her was actually a magician too. But thinking about it from another angle, it wasn't without reason that this Healing Rot Church stood tall and uncollapsed for so many years. Adding onto the fact that apart from researching magic, he also researched demi-human races himself, the other party learning a bit of magic while serving as a nun wasn't much of an issue either.
"Previously when Sister Charut was still around, she would engrave a few simple magics and take them inside Hearthome Castle to sell. They could exchange for lots of money. But ever since she passed away... the family ran out of money. I-I could only go pick up wild shells outside to eat..."
Fisher cast a glance at the pitiful-looking Ilos before him. He then cast a glance at this tattered Healing Rot Church that was about to fall apart. He thus increasingly felt that her circumstances were immensely tragic.
It was just a pity the treasure he obtained from the Flying Fish had all sunk into the sea along with that vessel. Otherwise, he could have very well used those gold pieces to repair the church a bit for her.
However, he also had to be thankful for Ilos having received the nurturing of magic knowledge previously. Otherwise, Fisher would still have to expend half the day explaining the corresponding contents to her.
"Since you know the related concepts, I won't perform excessive explanations. But knowing whether you truly have a baby is still just the first step. I need to know the specific cause in order to formulate a solution for you..."
Actually, according to Fisher's speculation, this Moon Rabbit-kin's false pregnancy symptoms were definitely not normal reactions their race ought to have. Thus, he only needed to search out her unusual characteristics and her feelings from yesterday to be able to roughly generate an investigative direction.
While Fisher grasped his pen and drew Ilos's approximate body shape and all sorts of assorted data within the notebook, he concurrently made her recall what differences she had compared to her fellow clansmen from when she was young.
"Differences? Let me think... um, I-I don't have very many... hairs on my body, does that count?"
"No body hair?"
Fisher's writing action slightly paused. Raising his head to look at her, he indeed saw Ilos's complexion was rosy; she seemingly felt somewhat embarrassed.
"Mhm... ever since I was young, my body hair was much lesser than other Moon Rabbits. On my body, only my head hair, ears, and tail have hair; other places have nothing at all... Thus, when I was young, I didn't like staying together with my peers. I liked staying on the boat with my father..."
Upon hearing this, a hint of an imperceptible expression of disappointment flashed across Fisher's eyes.
Do not misunderstand; Fisher didn't have a weird fetish regarding the supple hair of rabbits. He was merely saying that if the other party was a special individual within a population, this would undoubtedly create an obstruction towards the biological research progress of this Moon Rabbit-kin race. But during this period of time when he was recording data, the Demi-Human Completion Handbook was also heating up. The progress should be considered fairly gratifying; he thus didn't take it to heart.
"Moreover, I frequently saw very strange things at night. Sometimes many bizarre, weird figures. They would even speak to me, wanting me to help them complete certain things. Thus, for many nights I didn't sleep extremely well... However, my father said this was remarkably normal. He said he would constantly converse with those existences."
Fisher nodded, looking into her eyes. Ilos's pupils during the daytime were black coloured, yet he possessed an immensely profound impression regarding those pink eyes steeped in moonlight from last night.
If he hadn't guessed incorrectly, the figures Ilos saw previously should all be souls that hadn't completely dissipated yet. This wasn't very weird. But evidently, the Moon Rabbit-kin could see much clearer than other races, as they could even conduct conversations with souls.
He still remembered when he was in the Southern Continent: the soul of the Wolfman Race Qiqi had dissipated before him. But regardless of her physical form or the words she spoke to him, Fisher felt they were extremely blurred. This was enough to prove the Moon Rabbit-kin was distinctly unique compared to other races.
Since the Moon Rabbit-kin could obtain much stronger soul vision from the moonlight, and souls became much more active at night... didn't these phenomena simultaneously indicate the moon and the Spirit World possessed a profoundly deep connection?
Fisher suddenly recalled the giant full moon he dreamed of in the dream. Connecting this again to the many clues obtained presently all pointing to the Phoenix race also being related to the Spirit World... or rather, a certain pollution originating from the Spirit World. Then, which existence did the [Spirit World Contamination] mentioned by the Demi-Human Completion Handbook originate from?
Regardless, the only thing Fisher was currently certain of was that Renee possessed strong correlations with the Spirit World. And this was information she had never revealed to him.
How many more things are you concealing from me, Renee?
"Beep, beep, beep!"
The Demi-Human Completion Handbook within Fisher's embrace grew increasingly scorching. The information within his mind regarding the Moon Rabbit-kin unceasingly transformed into biological research progress. But right as Fisher wanted to take out the Demi-Human Completion Handbook to inspect it for a bit, the card Lord Cardinal had previously given him suddenly emitted a flurry of alert noises.
Furrowing his brows, Fisher withdrew the card in his embrace. He nonetheless saw that at this time, the lit light dot on the card's surface was continuously approaching the card's bottom. It had been said before that the light dot on the card represented the position of Lord Cardinal's Cardinals. And the light dot constantly nearing the bottom also meant there was a Cardinal approaching Fisher!
His complexion changed slightly. Hurriedly standing up, he looked outside the door.
"Dong! Dong! Dong!"
The church bells rang aloud again. Following those soundwaves, looking outside the church... within the forest on the outskirts of Hearthome Castle, a black carriage with an understated exterior was sluggishly driving towards the Healing Rot Church at the coast's edge.