Chapter 1: v1c1

Asgela Fotini Melina was escorted by 2 guards armed with assault rifles to the room arranged for an interview with one of the subjects who had the potential of becoming an Enforcer—the military personnel this nation craved as it was stuck in a Cold War with other major countries.

Melina stopped in front of the door, a folder with many pages of files in her hand. She had read about today’s interviewee: a girl of Tretian descent, blond hair and blue eyes, had shown incredible growth in her manipulation of LE(Life Energy) particles, and was perfect in terms of discipline.

Like every other scientist tasked with developing Enforcer candidates in this underground facility, Melina thought that the girl was a perfect soldier; that was her opinion as a professional. However, personally, she thought that the 12-year-old girl was uncanny.

Melina knew that the girl had discipline, sure, but she saw it differently from others: the girl did not have a soldier-like discipline, but a more ruthless, robotic discipline of a machine operating without a single human emotion.

Despite being tasked with creating and developing a soldier for her nation, Melina feared that she had instead created a killing machine who would shoot even her allies to get her mission accomplished.

Taking a deep breath, Melina nodded to one of the guards, having him open the door leading to the interview room for her. She walked in.

(There she is…) Melina tried her best to not let tension show on her face once the girl sitting on one side of the table in the middle of the empty room entered her sight.

Sertoria Aemilia Fulvia took a quick glance at the nameplate hanging from her interviewer’s neck.

“Hello, Researcher Fotini,” she greeted the scientist with a perfect smile she had spent so long practicing.

“Hi, Subject Aemilia.”

Although the girl had greeted her with a smile, Melina could immediately see right through its artificial surface. She pulled a metal chair prepared for her on the opposite side of the table, and sat down.

“It seems that this is my last week here at the facility,” Aemilia said.

“If this interview goes well, you will be officially put into one of the Enforcer divisions within the week, yes.” Melina replied as she arranged the documents on the table and prepared the topics of the interview.

“What if it doesn’t?”

“If the interview doesn’t go well, you’ll be stationed somewhere else instead, Subject Aemilia. It depends on internal and external circumstances.”

“I see.” Aemilia nodded.

Being on the receiving end of that lifeless smile, Melina hoped the result of today’s interview would be the latter, which would mean that Aemilia would not be registered officially as an Enforcer and would be sent to a station somewhere outside the border, hopefully to a warring country like Derosia or Chiosia.

Of course, she knew that such a thing was a pipe dream since Subject Aemilia would likely answer the interview’s questions perfectly; her robotic mind worked that way, after all. Melina had seen how this girl treated human relations and emotions no differently from math equations.

(Heck, she looked at my nameplate the moment I walked in. She probably can’t even remember my name and my face despite us having met almost every week for the last 5 years!)

Holding in a sigh, Melina finally finished the arrangements. She began the interview.

《❄》

After the interview finished, Melina returned to her office—which was also used as her living quarter—with heavy steps. Entering her bedroom, she threw herself down onto the soft cushion as she let out a tired sigh.

—It had gone as she had expected: the girl got the perfect score on the interview.

After she left the room, Melina had immediately sent the result to other departments and took a day off her work. To her, spending more than an hour with Aemilia in that small, empty room was more taxing on the mind than holding a volatile chemical solution that could explode with slight vibration.

“I really, really need to request for a redeployment.” Melina groaned. “I’d rather be developing LE-based bullets to be fired at the enemy instead of concocting weird medicine to be injected into these kids’ veins…”

This country—Unified Territory of Oresia—was currently locked in a Cold War against 2 major nations: The Council of Theoria and The Empire of Aberdenia. It was desperate for any fighting power. And for half a century, the country had enacted a special policy.

Every newly-born child would be tested for LE potential, and—albeit rare—those that reached the standard would be taken from their family to an underground facility like this one. Then, they would be trained and underwent multiple experiments, consuming many types of chemical to improve their capabilities.

Finally, those “graduating” from the facility will become an Enforcer—known in the Empire as “Mage,” and in the Council as “Elite.”

However, Melina knew very well that not every child who came here managed to leave.

—Anyone could look into the database with a few clicks and see the statistics of the number of children who could not endure the injections and died.

“I didn’t graduate from the Academy back in Theorita for this!”

Melina could remember how hard she had studied back in her university days at the capital. She had managed to graduate at the surprisingly young age of 19 while hoping that the Oresian government would put her in the LE technology department, where she would spend her day testing and designing many innovations.

Sadly, a graduate from the Academy like her could not choose her own occupation. In the end, she was sent to this place, performing multiple human experiments instead.

She had managed to endure it for the past 5 years. But not anymore.

“I’ll do it!”

Melina sprung up from her bed, motivated. She sat down at her desk in her office and began typing into her terminal furiously.

“A request for transfer… There should be atleast a spot open for me in other LE research departments. It might not work the first time, but I’ll keep sending this kind of request until it does!”

Finishing her last paragraph, Melina pressed Enter, sending the request.

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《❄》

Waiting for the reply for her transfer request, Melina spent the next 2 days working like how she normally had: researching in the lab with other scientists, visiting the Subjects to check on their health, and conducting some tests.

She stood with other researchers in the observation room, looking through bullet-proof glass down at the large and open training room. From there, she could see the 1st Subject—a young boy of around 8 years old—and the training officers giving instructions.

She watched as the boy took a handgun prepared on a nearby table and loaded a magazine filled with LE-based explosion-type bullets before aiming it at the targets set up on the other side of the training room.

“What is the Subject’s LE bank again?” One of the researchers asked.

“2546 units.” Another replied.

“So he can shoot 2546 standard explosion-type shots, huh?”

“That’ll depend on his proficiency with LE particle manipulation too.”

The boy pulled the trigger, firing the LE-based bullet infused with his purple-colored LE particles.

The bullet left a purple trail as it tore through the air. When it made impact with the target, it bursted into a huge explosion, destroying the target completely.

She covered her ears with both hands in preparation before the LE-based bullet made impact, at which point it bursted into a large explosion, destroying the target completely.

Looking at the spectacle, the researchers began writing down their notes.

“He infused too much LE into the bullet.”

“That means he has poor control, I see.”

“We have to recalculate his dosage of medicine to focus on the accuracy of his LE manipulation, then…”

After the 1st Subject finished his testing, the 2nd subject—a girl of around the same age—got inside the training room.

Melina flipped through the files in her hands.

(This girl had only 1522 units of Life Energy.)

Like the boy, the girl took the handgun, loaded it, and aimed it at another target. Following the instructions of the training officer, she infused the bullet in the chamber with her LE particles and then pulled the trigger.

The bullet drew a green trail this time.

Another explosion occurred when the bullet hit the target. However, it was smaller than the boy’s, yet concentrated enough to destroy the target completely as well.

“The 2nd Subject had higher control over her LE particle than the last one.”

“Unfortunately, the growth potential of her LE bank was limited.”

After both tests were over, Melina and other researchers returned to their lab to compile the results of the test. They would need to adjust the dosage of medicine for the 2 Subjects according to the tests’ results in order to maximize the possibility of improvement.

This kind of test would be conducted for every subject in the facility, so this was the work that Melina had already been used to doing for the past 5 years.

Once the day’s work was over, she made her way back to her office.

Seeing today’s test, Melina thought back to the similar test 4 years ago, in which the Subject was that girl.

Compared to those 2 Subjects, Aemilia had a gigantic LE bank of around 8700 units. Not only that, she had extremely high precision over her manipulation of LE particles.

Melina could still remember the astonished faces the researchers who were in the observation room made.

Since Aemilia was a Subject under her care, she had been praised by everyone for “creating such a perfect specimen.”

But no matter how exalted this accomplishment of hers was, Melina swore to herself that she would never take any Subjects under her medical care again. She did not want to turn more children into killing machines like that girl.

(It might be because of the dosage I gave her that she turned out that way…)

For the past 4 years, the facility had asked her to supervise and adjust the chemical dosage of more Subjects, but Melina had managed to refuse by using the excuse that she wanted to focus only on developing Aemilia.

However, now that Aemilia was going to “graduate” from the facility within a week, Melina would lose that excuse.

“Ah… My head hurts.” She groaned. “I guess my only hope is that I get transferred to somewhere else before they make me take another subject under my care…”

Melina prayed again and again that she would be able to get her request of redeployment through to the top brass within a month or two.

—However, she did not know that the reply to the request she had made 2 days prior was already sitting there, waiting in her office’s terminal.

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