Hearing Gentlemanâs questioning, the people present react in different ways.
The one targeted is the Scientist called by name by Gentleman. For the first time, he felt his tongue may have been made too long and is tying up in knots. He is thinking quickly of an excuse to get out of this situation.
Detective shows a look of interest, scrutinising the wording different from the usual ones used by Gentleman. He called the man the name âBright,â and not his contestant number. This meant that, for one, he is emotionally invested; for two, he is nervous right now.
Oh, he doesnât mean some ludicrous plot development where the aristocrat falls in love with the slave, but that number 199 has become something of significance in Gentlemanâs mind, like a familiar pen, or a makeup used in daily routine, or a cigar brand that has become a favourite, that kind of significance.
An S-grade mystery has led to another mystery. Since Gentleman is an Inner City aristocrat, itâll be classified as A-grade. He believes he will no longer be bored for quite a long while to come. The heavens sure love him!
Director looks disapproving. He has noticed Hopkinâs attention to that slave early on, and warned him before, but he didnât listen. Director laments how â an old man's sayings are seldom untrue. â He is also complaining about Scientist in his mind. He doesnât even want to chastise him for being perfidious, but at least know to clean up properly afterwards. To be caught red-handed like this is just inviting trouble. So he decides to sit it out and not involve himself this time.
Scientist looks right back at the cold gaze of Gentleman. He had conceded that he had seen number 199 before and spent the night with him. When everyone is looking at him amorously, he swears he has never caused any irreversible damage. The man was still fine up to him leaving. He can prove that with a recording.
Scientist shows two camera recordings in public. One is number 199 walking into his house with him voluntarily, the other is the man leaving the next day morning, with his limbs intact and his mind normal.
Scientist knows if he revealed what he actually committed, he will draw the ire of the Inner City aristocrats, especially Hopkin, and even lose his chance to play with number 199. It is because they will think he cannot control the man properly and was dominated by him. This will be the most unfortunate and undesired outcome.
Hopkin does not believe him, but he knows he can get no further in his investigation, and he can seek more opportunities later. His eyes are cold, with fury from being offended condensed inside. He warns Scientist, âthere will be no second time.â At the same time, it is a warning for everyone else present. Do not get their hands on Bright overlooking him.
âThen what will you do?â Detective asks.
âIâll take care of my own business,â Hopkin emphasises the word âown,â âand give everyone a suitable response.â
âI believe weâll hear good news from you soon.â The Detective is implying him not to let this drag out.
âNaturally.â Hopkin gives a fake laugh.
The Gentleman has always been rational. He owns and is familiar with number 199, and he is the one to ask about things relating to the slave. Unlike Detective who managed to dig out nothing and Scientist who betrayed their manners, he does seem the better choice.
Detective mockingly laughs in his mind, ha, youâre the one thatâs most entrapped in this.
This outcome on how to handle the situation is viewed conservatively or cautiously by some among the Inner City aristocrats, such as Director who thinks Gentleman is not rational enough in the handling of this up to now, but he says nothing out of respect, given Gentleman is the one affected in this incident. A favourite toy has apparently been broken by someone else will naturally elicit some response. If it were him, perhaps a response more violent in nature. So he is in no position to say anything, as long as he doesnât want to affect their relationship.
Suddenly, someone asks, âshould we send him to the Citadel?â
As soon as someone says so, a momentary silence blankets the scene.
The City is divided into Citadel, Inner City and Outer City from the centre outwards. Inner City is in charge of the affairs of the City and is where the powerful and influential live. In the centre of Inner City is the Citadel.
No matter who, including Inner City resident and Outer City citizens, if they enter Citadel then they never come back out alive. Only alive specimens enter the place but never does one come out from it. Not even corpses. Thus, even the Inner City residents do not know who lives in the Citadel or how many. Sometimes even Detective suspects everyone in there is long dead, and who is making orders is actually an AI. Though the Citadel seldom interacts outside of itself, and thereâs certainly no interference in internal affairs or even power-play dynamics. So the Inner City residents let it be.
This wasnât the case a few hundred years ago when the Citadel would intervene in City affairs and communicate with Inner City, helping them resolve whatever issues they canât solve on their own. As time went on, however, the communication between Citadel and Inner City has lessened and lessened, sometimes not until dozens of years pass before a single communication occurs through the smart chip, reaffirming that unless there was something that would threaten the entire City, do not bother the Citadel.
Due to these circumstances, the Citadel is more symbolic in existence than influential. They are like a buddha statue you worship at home.
Inner City residents, who are used to being self-aggrandising, proud and arrogant, and used to giving orders from on high, would not purposefully look to hinder their usual activities either.
Even the one who just proposed to send number 199 to Citadel realises his mistake soon enough. A slave slightly stronger than normal is one they can handle easily. Thereâs zero need to contact Citadel.
The Inner City residents all implicitly stop the discussion on this.
Right now, number 199 has reached the outer fringes of the tribe of apes, and the Inner City aristocratsâ attention turns to him in time.
The apes, even when knowing they would die, do not fall back because it is their home behind them, and there is nowhere to fall back to! Under their pack leaderâs orders, they attack the man without regard for their own lives, and temporarily secure an advantage with numbers. Yet the man, with his power, resilience and willpower beyond human imagination, succeeds in breaking through every time he is surrounded and consumed by waves of the enemy.
A long-winded battle and the dash before did not seem to tire him, but instead stimulated his mental state, causing his eyes to brighten like the stars, his reactions to hasten like a leopard, and making his actions precise and decisive. He is cruelly, tediously reaping the lives of a sentient species one by one. He is going through a metamorphosis â an unspeakable change, a decay from his inside out. This change is extremely subtle just as it is extremely dangerous. It might just be one night, it might take his whole life, but before anyone realises, the metamorphosis is complete, and horns of the devil have grown out of his head, and the wings of death shooting out from his back.
He does not even seem to be cognizant of the âslaughter,â and seems to be only going about a necessary task, an objective he has to complete and reach a goal that was set. It is not a massacre of lives, but a surrender to natural animalistic instincts, like born predators such as tigers, lions, wolves⌠They kill because they need to. It is a natural cycle in the food chain. A lion will not experience guilt for killing an antelope. It was just necessary for it to do so.
From a certain perspective, Bright is strikingly similar to an Inner City resident.
Watching Brightâs fight as an invader against the apes, Hopkinâs understanding of him has renewed. He has always hated the soft, kind, just parts of the man, and wanted to eliminate those parts countless times. Sadly, his attempts have so far failed.
Yet someone, when he was not looking, when he was unaware, has moved on Bright. Whatâs even worse is that that person has done what he wanted but could not achieveââTo taint the man black.
This makes Hopkin jealous and painful. The source of these emotions in him is not love or hate, nor like or dislike, nor admiration or disdain, not any human emotion. It is a simple possessiveness. The slave is his thing, his property. Nobody is allowed to touch it, simple as that.
At the same time, Hopkin is angry about the âbetrayalâ of Bright. How is it that he allowed people to do what they wanted to him?
Look what he did! He spent a night outside with Scientist! Voluntarily going away with someone! Hopkin can again taste the blood in his mouth when he saw that audiovisual recording. He bit his tongue until it bled so that his rage as violent as a storm could be suppressed.
He wants to know what they did that night. The signs are actually there. Scientistâs bright looks and tone coloured with slight satisfaction when mentioning Bright are all indicative of his particularly satisfactory night. He doesnât even have to guess anymore, but Bright wanted to know those details, how it was done. Did Bright flirt with someone else? Did they touch each other? Did he obediently kneel down and show his soft, defenceless belly?
He is extremely regretful, not to have used that vibrator while it was new. Now someone else got a taste of it.
His heart is as if it is being consumed by a bunch of ants. Bite by bite, hurting silently every cell. The saliva of the ants also carries a poison, numbing the prey they are consuming, so that they do not violently struggle in pain. Before they know it, they have been eaten clean off the bone.
The young and strong of the ape tribe has over 50% casualty already, yet they are still unable to defeat the man standing there. Beneath his feet is a mountainous pile of corpses. The rest of the apes are refusing to advance. This terrifying grim reaper has caused their resolution and confidence to waver. They are barely following their leaderâs order to surround the man.
A great roar interrupts the standoff between the two. The leader of the apes has finally come forth. It is almost three times the size of a normal ape, seven to eight metres in height. A normal person at its feet must raise their head to see its head. Its brain is bigger and so is its intelligence. It knows to use soldiers to wear down the manâs stamina, and only appear after he has been wounded to a certain extent.
The leader of the apes is tactically rich, full of power and highly explosive. He can crush rocks with one fist, unarmed. Everywhere the two reach, dust fogs the surroundings. Only holes and fractures are left on the ground, everywhere is a mess. It is also good at utilising terrain, kicking up ash and dust on purpose to block Brightâs sight. It would force him into a corner and smash trees nearby into him.
The bone density of apes is five times that of humans. They are naturally physically stronger than man, and that is especially the case for this leader. Clashing with him is like hitting a piece of steel rebar in place of muscle fibre and tendons. It is rebounding on Bright so much that his arms are numbing.
Since their fight started Bright has been on the defence. Not that he cannot defeat it, but he is looking for the best angle to avoid the cameraâs capture. When the ape leader manages to sweep his legs making him fall to the ground, and is holding up a rock trying to smash into him, his great body has just managed to block all cameras completely. Bright uses that momentary window of opportunity, jumping up with inhuman speed and dig his fingers into the chest of the ape leader, crushing its heart, before quickly pushing a stone spear he got elsewhere into it.
What the others were able to see was just that the large body of the leader of the apes shook a bit and fell down after stopping for several seconds, no longer moving. A great dust cloud covered everything when it fell because of its weight. When the dust settles, the camera clearly shows that the chest is pierced by a spear, the eyes widened, having lost their lustre while in disbelief.
The man is standing next to the corpse grand like a mountain. His stance straight like a proud pine, an unwavering flag.
The battle has ended and the results announced.
All apes collectively yowl in unison, like mourning, like a song for the dead, sending away their deceased leader. Then the cry turns fiery and thrilling in tone. They throw their weapons away, surrounding the man in a circle from a distance. Each of them has their hand out in front of them and their heads lowered, in a subservient stance.
The apes are a communal species with a strict social hierarchy. In their culture, an act of greeting from below to above of this type is a confirmation of them ceremonially accepting an authority.
They are welcoming their new ruler!
Authorâs notes: Bright has been so greatly shaken that he almost descends and blackens into an Inner City resident, but he will try his best to resist the change. There is still kindness in his heart.
Bottom doesnât know Top already knows everything. Letâs rub our hands as the Bottom is next in the torturous plot development, itâs in the next chapter!