A Mob Character Who Just Wants to Get Banished and Escape This Death Game vs. The Party Members Driven Mad by the Radiance of His Brilliance - Chapter 14

According to Morglaid, Professor Ogd Alhansen’s intention was to confine me to a rear-line laboratory.

I couldn’t believe it at first.

“No way… There’s no way Agrastein would allow that.”

That crazed little brat would never permit a hunter to leave the battlefield. He’s the kind of military man who would rather kill a hunter than let them escape the fight against the fairies—if that’s what it took for humanity to win.

He won’t even let rookie hunters flee. There’s no chance he’d let someone like me—someone with a decent track record—just walk away from the frontlines.

But Morglaid slowly shook his head.

“No, Agrastein will agree to it. After all, Professor Alhansen personally begged for it—he said he was willing to stay tied to the military if that’s what it takes.”

“…It’s about No. 1, isn’t it.”

At Morglaid’s words, I grimaced like I’d bitten into something sour.

Professor Alhansen’s achievements utterly eclipse mine. Chief among them is his invention—Weapon No. 1.

After discovering that fairies consume the human heart—emotion itself—Professor Alhansen turned that fact against them and created a weapon straight out of their worst nightmares.

No. 1 is made from flesh manipulated from the emotional regions of a monkey’s brain. It becomes carrion, radiating a scent so intoxicating that fairies, driven by instinct, are helpless to resist.

Scatter them across the battlefield, and droves of fairies will devour it without hesitation.

Of course they would. The emotional aroma it emits surpasses anything that could come from an ordinary human. No fairy could turn its eyes—or nose—away.

But the real nightmare begins after the lucky fairy returns to the forest.

Weapon No. 1 begins to swell within their body. Then, from within, it emits that same scent of heart, drawing more fairies in from the surroundings.

It causes starving fairies to gather and turns them into a frenzy—compelling them to tear one another apart.

If the fairy that ate No. 1 dies, its corpse is devoured by another—and the weapon transfers into the new host. Then it begins to swell again.

Thus, Weapon No. 1 travels endlessly through the fairy population, spreading death as it goes. And all of it happens by the fairies’ own hands.

This is why Professor Alhansen is hailed as the scholar who contributed more than anyone to humanity’s military offensives. Thanks to his invention, most low-tier fairies were wiped out.

Now, Professor Alhansen is working to further refine Weapon No. 1. The military, including Agrastein, is keeping a close watch on his research.

That’s why he was granted a laboratory at the ruins of Castle Ogdanel.

By all rights, with that level of accomplishment, Professor Alhansen could have been promoted to a prestigious university post and left the weapon program behind. He’s that distinguished.

And yet, he said he’d stay in the military—if it meant continuing his research.

Given that, which do you think Agrastein would choose? A “hero” whose only claim to fame is being called one… or the key weapon that could decide the future of mankind?

“I—I shouldn’t have invited Professor Alhansen to the party in the first place…”

“You really are an idiot,” Morglaid said, shaking his head. “You’re not Ispharna, but that was a dumb thing to say—especially here, in the professor’s own lab.”

Seeing him put a hand to his forehead, I quickly shut my mouth.

Back then, I’d asked Professor Alhansen to join our party just because he was a character from the original game. That childish impulse had come back to bite me—hard.

Seriously, what am I even supposed to do now?

As I held my head in my hands, Morglaid suddenly narrowed his eyes and glanced toward the lab door.

“…Looks like this is where the conversation ends. Please, Mikkanen—try to talk the professor down. You’re the only one who can.”

And with that, Morglaid scattered into petals and vanished with the wind.

The next moment, the door to the lab swung open.

Professor Ogd Alhansen entered.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Now then, let’s resume the experiment.”

In his hand was a jar—with a severed human arm floating inside. I swallowed hard.

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“This arm,” Professor Ogd Alhansen said cheerfully, “was cultivated and created from Mikkanen’s own skin. If the experiment goes well, it may help explain why I’m able to trust Mikkanen.”

With a satisfied smile, he attached the arm to a set of electrodes. The moment he flipped the switch, the severed arm began to twitch—just like that of a living person.

The sight, mocking the very concept of life, made me instinctively avert my gaze. But Professor Alhansen only tilted his head at me, seemingly unaware of the madness in what he was doing.

“What’s the matter? It’s merely flesh. I don’t believe it’s something worth being unsettled by.”

I shook my head and said it was nothing, prompting Professor Alhansen to continue.

He explained the experiment. Compared to his previous ones, this was remarkably simple. It involved patting his head—once with my real arm, and once with the artificial arm.

“If either one causes a warm sensation in my heart,” he said, “then perhaps the shape of Mikkanen’s arm is the source of that trust. If not, then the cause lies elsewhere.”

With those words, he turned his back to me and sat down.

“I would like Mikkanen’s help with this. Please use both your own arm and the one lying over there to pat my head.”

As usual, I had no idea what this experiment was supposed to prove.

No matter how I looked at it, Professor Alhansen had been swallowed by madness.

Trusting someone doesn’t come from the warmth of their hand or anything like that.

And yet, Professor Alhansen hadn’t realized how distorted his thinking had become. He truly believed that trust could be measured through limbs—that it lived in a hand, or a foot—and had devoted himself entirely to chasing that idea.

And it broke my heart to see him like this.

When I first came across his name, it had been on a whim that I decided to read his thesis. But as I read through it, I felt like I’d been struck in the head by the sheer dedication behind every word.

I used to think he was just a genius character from the original game, someone who never struggled with experiments—someone who could always cut straight to the answer with ease.

But that wasn’t it at all.

His thesis bore the marks of someone who had bled and suffered for his work. Each test had been stacked upon the last, again and again, like some damned soul in the afterlife endlessly piling stones.

When I realized that, I was filled with shame at my own ignorance.

Professor Alhansen’s accomplishments weren’t born of natural talent. They came from that unwavering, unbreakable spirit that kept pushing forward—no matter how painful the path.

But the Professor standing before me now wasn’t that same man.

He was acting on impulse, not reason. That cold, almost cruel clarity he used to apply to every theory had gone silent. He was running blind through experiments, thinking he was still chasing truth.

This wasn’t the Ogd Alhansen I admired.

And the blame lay with me—because of something stupid I said. With Ispharna and Morglaid both out of reach, it was now up to me to bring Professor Alhansen back to his senses.

I clenched my teeth.

Then I’d do it. I’d convince him—not with emotion, but with experimentation, with logic, just as the old Alhansen once would have.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s start with Mikkanen’s arm.”

“Understood.”

Nodding, I reached toward the artificial arm resting beside me.