On the top floor of Eblis Corporation.

The head of the Evil Organization, Regalia, received a report about the scientist from her secretary.

“─That’s all.”

“Hmmm… I see. Did they show any intention of betrayal?”

“No. It seems it was more of a personal favor towards Niberna rather than aligning with the heroes. In fact, Niberna hasn’t revealed the scientist’s identity either.”

“Then that’s settled.”

Though Regalia hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, she knew that Eight had made a suit for Niberna. It wasn’t surprising at all, considering that everything about Eight—from where he lived, the buildings he traded, his identity, to the cards he used—came straight from Regalia’s wallet. Depending entirely on her for food, shelter, and everything else made it impossible to hide anything from her.

Of course, when he suddenly made a suit for a hero, it had startled her a bit…

‘As long as he’s not thinking of betrayal.’

If Eight decided to defect to the Hero Association, it would have caused quite a headache. He was already aware that his technological prowess wasn’t ordinary. Just revealing even a fraction of the knowledge he had in his head could easily lead him to amass a fortune, securing him a way to protect himself in no time.

Naturally, given Eight’s personality from what Regalia had analyzed, he wouldn’t attack them, but losing access to the knowledge he brought from Earth was a massive problem.

After all, Regalia had a dream she wanted to achieve through the Evil Organization, and she desperately needed the scientist’s help to realize it.

“Well then, let’s consider that hero Niberna is half our organization member and support her.”

“Yes. How should we support her?”

“Let her shoot a few commercials and transition from being a certified hero to a freelance one. It seems a bit off to entrust a hero with our scientist’s suit to the Hero Association.”

“I doubt the association will allow that.”

“Just tell them that we’ll reduce their sponsorship money.”

With Regalia’s orders given, the secretary lightly bowed her head and quickly exited the chairman’s office. She needed to move fast to carry out her orders.

Alone in the room, Regalia sighed softly, looking up at the black ceiling. It was plain and featureless, a perfect backdrop for her deep thoughts.

‘…The possibilities are starting to show.’

The reason she established the Evil Organization.

The possibility of achieving that long-unrealized goal was beginning to appear at last.

All thanks to the scientist who had fallen from Earth.

His knowledge of Earth and the technologies that had evolved in completely different aspects had opened a path that had been blocked until now.

‘Until then, I must not let him go.’

Until she achieved her goals.
Regalia vowed that she wouldn’t let the scientist escape no matter what happened.
No matter what.

*

I had set up a shop for fun, but going to work every day was still a hassle. Especially on days like today when I had an unbelievable urge to just do nothing.

Deciding it was a self-appointed holiday, I kept the shop closed and lounged around in the laboratory. When I wasn’t going to the shop, my routine consisted of lounging around in my lab.

While reading research papers on abilities, the door to the lab suddenly swung open, revealing Aile.

“Sc-scientist! Good morning…!”

“Aile? What’s up?”

“Scientist! Do you have time right now…?”

“I always have time. If Aile asks me for something, I can make time out of nothing.”

“T-then right now! I want to briefly introduce someone to you…!”

As Aile said this, she pulled me outside the lab. Since she had no friends, the only person she could want to introduce was probably an organization member.

Just my name alone hints at Eight (that would mean at least seven more organization members are around). Yet oddly, the only executives I’d met so far were Galm, Aile, and Levitan.

Curious about the new organization member I was about to meet, I followed Aile outside, only to be greeted with a stiff surprise at the sight of someone I never expected to see there. The other person seemed to notice I was frozen and burst out laughing.

“Haha! Aile, look! He’s so surprised, he’s completely stiff.”

“It’s o-okay, Scientist! This is Bira unni… she’s one of our organization executives.”

“…It’s Eight.”

I said this, extending my right hand before awkwardly retracting it, instead offering my left. Anyone would act that way when meeting a woman confined to a wheelchair without an arm or a leg.

Bira grabbed my left hand with hers. Upon closer inspection, her left hand wasn’t very intact either; it was riddled with burn scars. It was the sort of thing that could make anyone turn their face in instinctive disgust. I did my best to maintain a stoic expression, though.

“Bira, an executive of this organization.”

“An executive, huh.”

“Why? Is it surprising that a disabled person without arms and legs is an executive?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Not at all, huh? The look on your face says otherwise.”

Left speechless, I kept silent, while Bira let out suppressed giggles as if she found it entertaining.

“Well, let’s end the jokes here. I just figured I hadn’t introduced myself as an executive, so I came to do that.”

“Two introductions and I feel like my heart might drop…”

“Oh please, it’s nothing. If I really get serious, I could silence dozens of people!”

Given the unexpected reality of her statement, I chuckled lightly, shrugging it off. Bira seemed to enjoy teasing people like this and kept throwing me tricky comments afterward.

After a while of casual banter and chatting, Bira cautiously brought up a topic.

“By the way— it was you who helped fix Galm’s body, right?”

“Eh? What do you mean…?”

“I heard you made some sort of energy drink for him.”

“Yes, I did make that.”

I couldn’t recall fixing Galm’s body; that energy drink only temporarily revitalized a person. It wasn’t medicine for actual injuries or anything.

However, Bira spoke as if that was more than sufficient, her voice filled with hope.

“So, can you make me a prosthetic limb?”

“A prosthetic limb…?”

“Yeah! One that moves the way I want it to and has feeling!”

As she said this, Bira pulled out a wooden prosthetic limb from under her wheelchair. Creaking, she assembled her right arm with one hand and attempted to move the wooden prosthetic.

The clumsy prosthetic was barely working; fingers were falling apart, and the wrist or arm could barely rotate.

“See? This was made by a prosthetic limb expert… and even with their expertise, it’s a complete mess. There’s no power control and it doesn’t move the way I want it to.”

“So you want me to make you a new one?”

“Yes! Since you’re such a brilliant scientist who fixed Galm’s body, making a prosthetic limb should be a piece of cake!”

She asked with such hopeful enthusiasm, but unfortunately, I lacked those skills. Creating a prosthetic limb at the level she desired required a complex set of advanced technologies.

And the most critical technology was the shaping technique. A prosthetic limb that worked just like her original arms and legs… That required dexterity rather than scientific knowledge, so even I couldn’t easily reproduce it.

“I’m sorry. That might be a bit difficult.”

“Excuse me— you can’t do it?”

“There are things that are impossible, you know. I’m not a god.”

“…I see. So you can’t do it.”

Feeling sorry for the downcast look Bira wore as she seemed disappointed, I felt a pang of guilt. But then she quickly changed her expression and beamed broadly.

Surely, she must have recognized that no one could casually smile if a disabled person was looking gloomy.

“Well, then! Is discovering something the genius evil organization’s scientist can’t make my victory?”

“This doesn’t seem like a conversation of winning or losing…”

“Who cares? What’s it to you? If you don’t acknowledge my victory, do you want to see me cry? You don’t want to see a veteran disabled person shedding tears, do you…?”

From there, I was pulled around by Bira’s insistence to concede victory, and after a three-hour marathon of chatting that made my ears ring, I finally broke free.

As I arrived back in the lab, adding another example to my list of “none of the executives are normal,” I couldn’t help but smirk at the memory of Bira’s previous expression.

‘Why in the world does she ask for a prosthetic limb that’s this hard to make?’

Honestly, asking me to grow new limbs would probably have been easier.

So, I decided to go ahead and think along those lines.

I began researching the components of that red potion.

*

Creak, creak—.

Bira wheeled herself back to her room. More like a hospital room, it was a bleak place without any personal items.

With natural movements, she transferred from her wheelchair to the bed, disassembling the prosthetic limb and tossing her clothes aside as she flopped down.

Desperately stripping away her clothes without any limbs felt like turning into a caterpillar. The realization that she’s creating less value than even a caterpillar further engulfed her in self-loathing.

“…I want to die.”

Alone, any slight gloomy thought plunged her mind into darkness. It had become a regular greeting to feel like dying whenever something unfortunate happened. Today’s despair was just another formal start for her, as she buried her face into the pillow.

Breathless. If she lay still, she might just truly die out of the sheer heaviness pulling her down. So, her survival instinct kicked in, and she flipped over.

‘I thought I could make it.’

Subtly, her gaze shifted toward the limbs she had lost. The injuries incurred while protecting her boss. Although she had received compensation for not having to work for life, what meaning did that hold? She was nothing more than a caterpillar that couldn’t walk on her own.

Even with prosthetic limbs available, moving around felt just as inconvenient. Fake limbs wouldn’t fill the void left by her real ones.

To make matters worse, her abilities were based on having limbs. With half of her limbs missing, she had become an incompetent person unable to use her abilities properly. In fact, the loss of her limbs was less shocking than losing her abilities.

The one who had protected the young lady based on her abilities could no longer do that.

‘Ah, I’m feeling down more than usual today. Is it that day…?’

While Bira was desperately trying to shift her attention away from her gloomy thoughts by calculating the time of her cycle, someone knocked on her door even though it was late.

—Bira? Are you inside?

“Umm…? Who—?”

—I’m the nurse. May I come in?

“Come in—.”

After getting permission, the nurse entered and tidied up the disheveled room, throwing away her discarded clothes while also massaging her body. After confirming if there were any discomforts while rubbing her arms and legs, the nurse took out a pill and handed it to her.

“What’s that?”

“It’s something the scientist asked me to deliver. He said to take it before bedtime.”

“Umm—? Got it.”

Not knowing what kind of medicine it was, she tilted her head but swallowed the pill. After taking a bath with the nurse’s help, she collapsed onto her bed.

As she leaned against the soft pillow, she felt a question about whether her life had any value. Each day felt like hell. She was merely a corpse living on without dying.

‘Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year… Will I just continue living like this forever…?’

With those dark thoughts, Bira fell asleep.

*

“Aaaah…”

It had been a long time since she had a dream and felt pinned down by sleep paralysis. Her whole body felt tingly, yet she couldn’t move an inch.

Finally freed from the suffocating grip, Bira stretched as she got out of bed. However, since she had only one leg, she often stumbled, so she focused on keeping her balance as she stood…!

Thud—.

“…Huh?”

As she stepped off the bed, Bira noticed something strange and fiddled with her left foot with her right arm. There, she felt a leg. The leg she had lost years ago.

Thud, thud—. As she fumbled with the leg, Bira realized that she was using both hands to touch her legs, meaning her left foot that had disappeared, as well as her right arm, had returned.

“Ah, um, uh…”

Bira, unable to express the reality she found unbelievable, carefully glanced into the mirror. There stood the figure she thought she’d never see again.

No grotesque burn scars, no distorted limbs chopped off.

Her past self.

“Ah, ahaha— this isn’t a dream, right…?”

Tentatively pinching her cheek, she felt a tingling pain, confirming this wasn’t a dream. An unimaginable reality lay before her.

“It isn’t, is it… a dream?”

For some reason, her vision began to blur.

Tears obscured her view.

In that instant, Bira realized she had previously thought she wasn’t someone who cried this much. Even when she had lost her limbs, she hadn’t shed this many tears.

The tears she couldn’t let flow back then were now pouring out.

She simply…

Wept, endlessly.