Parallel World Pharmacy Vol 4 Chapter 12

Published at 6th of September 2022 10:17:07 AM

Falma follows the female alchemist down a long spiral staircase leading into the building’s underground complex passageway. The *katsun* *katsun* (SFX for the footsteps that are sliding and clattering) the sound of the shoes echo eerily. The air is gradually becoming cooler and more humid as it descends further underground. We arrive at a large cavern.

“Where is? This place? Where are we?“

Ellen listens to Falma without slowing down.

“It’s a cave.“

The stairs descend into the underground cave. The whole cave appears to be made out of limestone cave and has an underground lake. How far have they gone? It has a feeling of an unpleasant sensation as if the stairs are suspended above something and they are taken into the bottom of the earth. The female alchemist stops silently.

“You don’t want to go any further, even when there is a homunculus in such a place?“

“What’s that?“

Following Falma, Ellen questions the female alchemist. Her train of thoughts suddenly becomes suspicious. When the three feel the disturbance in the air, the fire from the female alchemist’s lamp she’s holding goes out. Everyone who relies solely on the light has zero visibility.

“Gua !?“

Pierre suddenly screams, and the loud sound of water splashes out. He falls into the underground lake. He is pushed down by someone …! 

“Pierre!?“

(Who did it?!)

At this moment, Falma regrets not having brought his Medicine God’s staff, but immediately after that, he switches his thinking as he quickly takes out the great treasure, the semi-materialized staff ID, from his pocket. When Falma taps into the divine power of the great treasure, Falma himself emits a strong light, giving rise to him being lifted, a sudden buoyancy, by unknown force. Falma’s halo illuminates up every corner of the cave. Pierre floats on his back at the surface of the underground lake far below. He’s still breathing. There is no visible trauma as Falma uses his [Diagnostic Eye]. Someone deliberately pushed him down.

“Ellen !?“

As Falma’s eyes regain his vision with the illumination, the sight of the female alchemist who’s attacking Ellen comes into his view as the female is about to cut into Ellen’s throat. Falma strikes her knife with the great treasure. The female alchemist becomes startled and scuttles away from Falma.

“What are you doing (?)!!“

He realizes that Ellen could have been killed, as Ellen finally notices she has blood on near her head.

“Water Lance“

When Ellen recognizes Falma’s voice, she quickly pulls out her staff and uses divine art to blow away the female alchemist further. The female alchemist withstands Ellen’s close range attacks, grabs the edge of the stairs with one hand, and prevents her fall into the underground lake. She flutters her body like a light spring and lands at a higher spot on the stairs than Ellen and Falma. She pulls out a black longsword.

“What’s your plan? Are you trying to get rid of us at the bottom of this lake?!“

At that time … a huge, dark figure shadow appears from the bottom of the underground lake. The figure doesn’t show its whole body and begins to open its jaw to swallow Pierre who has fallen into the water and is currently floating at the surface. It’s mouth opens as wide as a whale?

“Hii …“

As Pierre’s face becomes distorted and fearful, Falma kicks off into mid-air from the stairs into a free fall.

“Pierre!“

Falma grabs Pierre’s hands and lifts him from the surface at that critical moment. However, just before Pierre is about to be swallowed by the monster’s mouth, Falma feels a tingling sensation on his hand as he touches the water of the underground lake. He notices a faint pungent odor.

(This underground lake, consists of a strong acid!)

Falma isn’t glad to see this. Strongly acidic sulfate lakes can go as low as the pH of 1 commonly exists in the volcanic zone on the Earth. But why is it in this imperial capital !? Falma can’t afford to ponder more. While holding Pierre’s hand, he uses his right hand to invoke his erasure ability.

[Sulfuric acid elimination]

When Falma uses the erasure ability, the lake’s water disappears along with the sulfuric acid, and the dark figure that is about to close its jaw falls deeper to the lake’s bottom. With the success in erasing the sulfuric acid on the body of Pierre and himself, Falma escapes from the monster’s attack. Falma flies by using the buoyancy created by the great treasure while bearing his and Pierre’s weights, and returns to the ledge. [1]

“Flying … how !?”

The female alchemist is stunned. She can’t see the great treasure that Falma holds within his hand. Even if she sees it, she will not fathom the content.

“I was wondering if I could make an attempt in dissolving him by dropping him into that lake of sulfuric acid, but that’s a pity.“

After hearing how the female alchemist tried to murder Pierre, Falma becomes battle-ready.

“I believe you’re cornered.“

Ellen corners the woman at the edge of the stair with her staff. The woman may have a long sword, but if she pulls back even one step further, there lies the abyss’s bottom. Ellen is willing to make her fall.

“Surrender now, throw away your weapons, and come toward me slowly.“

Falma orders the female. He is planning to capture her, then force her to admit her wrongdoing, and turn her over to the guards.

However, the woman quickly reaches out and clutches the tip of Ellen’s staff, and attempts to break Ellen’s posture in order to push Ellen into the abyss. Falma quickly pulls on Ellen’s waist, grabs the stairs’ railing and stands affixed in place. However, the woman loses her balance because of Falma’s sudden action, and lets out a resounding scream while falling towards the bottom of the lake head first.

Falma takes hold of the great treasure and gives chase after the woman towards the bottom of the lake.

“Damn it!“

But Falma is unable to grab her hands in time. As he arrives quickly at the bottom of the lake, Falma immediately adjusts the buoyancy of the great treasure and rapidly reduces his speed.

(Couldn’t get there in time……!)

She dies an instant death. Falma cannot utter a word. If Falma didn’t erase the sulfate lake, her life could have been saved. If she was to suffer from the fall, she could still survive and he could invoke the power of [Relief of the Origin], but Falma is powerless to prevent her death. She was the one who initially attempted to kill Pierre and Ellen. Even if he blames her karma on her evil deed, his guilt doesn’t disappear. Her body will soon be swallowed into the sulfate lake. He recovers her ring, which is considered as a relic.

He realizes that he has unconsciously gazed towards the bottom of the lake during his daze. A layer of crystals is densely exposed on the bottom of the lake. This scenery appears like he is in a crystal mine, and he admires its transparent brilliance.

As Falma becomes fascinated, a fluffy thin film of light appears and wraps around the body of the dead woman. The film quickly sucks the body into the crystal’s lake bottom within seconds. If a human has a soul, this sight manifests itself as if the soul is drawn into the crystals. Falma eyes are wide open.

(Is this the same material made for the Medicine God’s staff?)

The moment Falma lands on the crystal layer at the bottom of the lake, the whole surface emits light as it’s reacting to his divine power. Among the crystals, there are some crystals with extreme clarity. Falma picks up a transparent crystal that has fallen around him like gravel. When he injects his divine power into it, his divine power amplifies.

(This crystal stone … It’s similar to the one attached to the Medicine God’s staff. Why is it in such a place … Hmm? What is that?)

A square stone slab with the size of a person’s body is embedded in the center of the crystal layer that spreads throughout the lake on all its four sides [2]. The stone slab has water droplets all over it, and the water droplets are getting bigger and bigger, probably oozing out sulfuric acid.

(Is this stone slab the source of this huge sulfate lake?)

It seems that the sulfate lake was formed in this cave after a tremendous amount of passing time, possibly decades, or even hundreds of years in the making. It turns out that the stone slab was made by magic that Falma doesn’t know, and it still contains residual divine power.

“What’s going with this attraction?“

The stone slab and the great treasure in Falma’s hand are attracted to each other. He can’t ignore the attraction’s power and feels drawn to it as well. Falma slowly approaches and cautiously investigates the stone slab.

“This is … ”

It’s as if it has been waiting for Falma’s arrival, the stone slab is engraved with the god’s crest woven by the circulation of light. Under the Medicine God’s crest, it displays “This is the home of the wandering soul. At the end of the fountain, we wait for the arrival of the appropriate being.” The letters made of light display in the olden language suddenly disappear without a trace. As soon as Falma brings the great treasure closer to the stone slab because the force of attraction, the moment of contact, the white luminescence that wraps the treasure instantly changes to a ray. The infinitely straight and transparent light points in a certain direction, leaving a beautiful sparkle that awakens his eyes. Falma is overwhelmed by the mysterious sight.

(Maybe if I follow this light, I will reach the ruins related to the Medicine God?)

Perhaps what the light points to is the sacred spring that Salomon was discussing about. The light emits for a moment, then the laser-induced artificial ray from the great treasure quickly dissipates and is absorbed back into the great treasure. Falma hastily calculates the rough location based on the floor plan of the aboveground building, then imprints the trajected direction near his chest indicated by the ray of light from the stone slab and the great treasure

“She was instantly killed. The body could not be brought up … But I found a clue about the sacred spring.“

Falma invokes his flight ability, darts back to Ellen and Pierre to tell them what transpired, and becomes overly excited. Ellen stares at Falma with uneasy eyes. Pierre fainted from fear and shock after being rescued earlier,..

“Let’s go back.“

Within that moment, he hears something dashing upwards along the stairs.

“Someone was here!“

“Maybe it was Hermès! Get up Pierre!“

Falma takes hold of the great treasure, and leaps up along the spiral stairs almost vertically. However, when he launches up the stairs and through the aisle at a tremendous speed, there is no figure to be seen.

Falma activates the [Diagnostic Eye] and detects the biological reactions throughout the entire building. Hermès has no serious illness, but he has hyperopia (farsightedness), and Falma uses the numbering method and designation of location of the ones that have the issue as clues in performing personal identification. Of course, during the alchemy show, he carefully acquired the features of Hermès through the use of his [Diagnostic Eye]. Based on that information, he can’t even detect the reaction for hyperopia. It is possibly because Hermès has escaped by using a secret passage way somewhere by means of a horse.

A while later, the sound of the shoes clattering that belong to the two people from below is heard near the stairs, and Ellen and Pierre finally caught up after their ascension. In a particular appearance, it seems Pierre lacks exercise. He is bending over while holding his knees.

“Thank you, both of you. I don’t know who the figure belongs to. But if it’s Hermès, he’s gone.“

Falma assists the two afterwards. Unlike Falma, they have to ascend the underground stairs for over 100 meters with their own strength.

“Fu, H- … how did Falmsama climb the stairs so quickly?“

Pierre doesn’t know that Falma was flying, and grunts enviously at Falma’s youth and  abundance in physical vitality.

“I wonder if you’ve noticed … while I was distracted by my friends, he ran away. I failed to catch him.“

Ellen exudes her regret and slams (the tip?) her staff on the ground.

“No, he hasn’t escaped yet. We’re in disguise and haven’t taken them off. I can meet Hermes as early as tomorrow.” [3]

“Eh eh … what do you mean?“

“I’m trying to remember, where I heard that voice before?“

They’ll eventually confront the culprits to uncover the injustice, punish the guilty alchemists for deceiving others, and solve the mystery of the homunculus. This is Falma’s goal.

Chapter end