Chapter 016: The Secret
"Her body was blue, and it felt like the ocean. She also had sharp claws, but she looked utterly ugly."
Kant wrote in his diary. Seeing this, Roger couldn't help but frown; he clearly remembered the scene he had seen under the moonlight that night, where Kant was completely lost in the moment, seemingly not disgusted by her at all.
Next, Kant recorded the ins and outs of living with the female Murloc, from hostility to resistance and then gradually accepting each other's existence.
The process was very lengthy, and various accidents happened during that time, including an unexpected attack. If it hadn't been for the desperate rescue of the female Murloc, Kant would have probably died long ago.
After that incident, Kant established an intimate connection with this non-human life. He even described in the diary the first occurrence of an unspeakable event between them.
For Kant, it was not a wonderful experience at all.
Because he was passive.
On a moonlit night, he passively endured the female Murloc's overwhelming hormones.
After the event, Kant needed a long time to rest.
In any case, an aloof man living in isolation and a xenomorph mostly driven by instincts developed incredibly sincere feelings for each other on this isolated island.
And as their emotions heated up, Kant's desires grew more intense; he wanted his partner to be able to speak and even to become a normal woman.
With that thought, he opened the "Soul Transference Book" once again, searching for a way to transform a xenomorph into a human!
Whether it was luck or disaster, Kant actually found a viable method.
"On the night of tumultuous tides, crush the heart of a young man, smear the blood all over the body, then aid with spells and formations, and initiate the Transformation Ceremony!"
"Repeat this, three times!"
Remembering the peculiar state of the female Murloc at dawn, Roger fell silent.
He knew that Kant must have tried this method, and not just once!
Indeed, he soon found related information in Kant's diary.
"The heart of a young man!!"
"A human heart."
"What should I do?"
"Kill someone?"
"No, no, I can't do that; it's wrong. Maybe I could sneak into a hospital and look around, with some luck, I might come across a fresh corpse."
Shortly after, the diary read again: "I have failed!"
"And I almost got caught, maybe this is my fate, actually living with Ivy like this is quite nice."
Ivy, he gave the female Murloc a name similar to that of a previous woman.
This marked a temporary cessation of the events, and Kant also put aside the thoughts in his heart, but not long after, an incident completely changed his life.
He found a drowned body by the seaside at dusk.
"A fresh body, and the sea was rising, everything seemed predestined by the heavens."
That night, Kant carved the Array and then pierced the dagger into the man's chest.
Something terrible happened.
The man he thought had died by drowning wasn't completely dead. Under excruciating pain, the man opened his eyes. Facing the heartbreaking and despairing gaze and accompanied by screams in his ears, Kant removed the man's heart!
"I didn't do it on purpose!"
"I didn't do it on purpose!"
"When I checked, he was clearly already dead!"
The diary was filled with lengthy passages of guilt.
At this point, Roger didn't know whether all this was an accident, or just Kant's attempt at self-justification under the weight of his sins.
Many times, human memory is deceptive, unconsciously beautifying itself, because no one can face an ugly heart every day.
Killing someone is like tearing a hole in his psychological defenses.
"It worked!"
"This Array and Spell are actually effective!"
"The scales on Ivy's body have receded a lot, except for the color, she looks very close to a normal woman now."
"Try it a couple more times, and I will definitely succeed!"
Coming across a drowned person on an isolated island was about as likely as waiting idly for a windfall; naturally, for a long time after, Kant caught nothing.
Realizing this, he began to take the initiative, and that led to the second proactive hunt.
The person he killed was named Nick.
A newcomer who had originally planned to take over Kant's job.
"He was indeed lying, this Nick wasn't his previous observer, he was assigned here to take over a new job."
Roger thought silently.
Being replaced at work was an affront to Kant's pride. Away from the isolated island, he would have nowhere to belong, and what's more terrifying, he couldn't hide a Murloc in either the city or the wild!
So even without the Array, it's highly likely Kant would have killed that new researcher anyway.
"The Array worked again!"
"The transformation in Ivy has become more noticeable, when the sun rises, she can fully become a woman, a perfect, complete woman!"
Kant's writing overflowed with excitement, but soon, reality struck him a heavy blow.
Because after the transformation, Ivy feared the sun and during the time she completely became human, she would completely lose her past memories, and Kant had no choice but to lock her in a cage during the day.
Reaching this point, Roger understood what the strange noise he heard on his first arrival at the lighthouse was about.
The cage on the fourth floor was extremely rudimentary, not designed to hold Ivy in her Murloc state, but to confine her during the day!
Faced with such a major change, Kant completely panicked.
Being harmed by sunlight wasn't utterly unacceptable in Kant's eyes, what concerned him was Ivy's memory.
He started to fear, fear that Ivy would completely lose her memory after fully becoming human.
And then, just like the Ivy before... she would leave him forever!
His diary was filled with confusion and hesitation, and after much consideration, Kant stopped his subsequent plans; he would rather choose a being with blue skin, a Xenomorph, than trust a beautiful human.
Until that night not long ago, while patrolling the seashore, he encountered Roger sprawled out on the shore.
At the moment Roger reached out for help, Kant's heart was in turmoil; he believed it was a sign from heaven, yet he feared the terrible outcome of the transformation.
In the midst of these mixed emotions, he still brought Roger back to the lighthouse, and after much thought, Kant decided to give up on continuing the transformation, which led to everything that unfolded later.
In order to avoid leaking the secret, he had to drive Roger out of the lighthouse, and by the pattern of previous attacks, he was fully capable of sending Roger away from the island before the next supply arrived.
Then he could keep the secret and live out the rest of his days on the island.
But, unfortunately...
The stormy night and the attack changed everything.
Reaching this point in the diary, Roger closed it with a long sigh. Even though Kant had wanted to kill him, he couldn't hold a grudge against the man."
Had he been in the same situation, he might have made the same choice.
Packing away Kant's diary and the Soul Transference Book, Roger turned and walked downstairs. As he passed the body of the Murloc Leader, the pendant he carried in his chest inexplicably heated up.
Roger uttered a slight sound of surprise and stopped in his tracks.