Stigma Effect

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The five children who came together to the Alchemy Tower all died.

Watching the children die one after the other, Baraha prayed that it would be his turn next.

His turn did not come.

Baraha twisted his body and glared at those around him.

“Isn’t that some kind of sleep attack?”

“It happens even when he’s not sleeping.”

“I don’t think it was written of his own will.”

“Actually it is. I had him write it down, but he just shouted that it was something he didn’t know.”

“Whenever he opens his mouth, it’s just curses.”

“Oh, I guess he still wants to curse.”

“Why is he so filthy?”

The alchemists looked at Baraha’s face and spoke.

His hands could barely move enough to write, and his mouth was gagged. Baraha wondered if they wouldn’t curse if they were in the same situation as him.

It was the first time in his life that he thought it would be better to die.

He never thought that he wanted to die, no matter how worthless his life was.

These alchemists instilled in Baraha the perception that death was better.

All the children who came with him died. The slave traders would bring other children and refill the room, and Baraha would watch them die again.

“Two of the things he wrote have come true. Even if it does not reach a realization range, he can predict it, and even accidents that we have decided to make artificially can be detected.”

“The prediction that came out yesterday was supposed to be an accident, right”

“Yes.”

What Baraha foresaw was a lot of incidents that caused a lot of casualties.

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The alchemists did not hesitate to create accidents to judge Baraha’s abilities.

“Setting the blast time to be non-fixable makes it unpredictable.”

“I guess he can only detect events that are sure to happen.”

“When the prophecy came out, he didn’t notice everything that was supposed to stop in the middle?”

“Yes. But to be sure, I’d like to make one more case.”

“Adjust it so that more than forty people could die. In the downtown area…”

Baraha felt disillusioned and looked at them. He wanted to curse , but it was lamentable that his mouth was blocked and he could only mumble.

“Well, it’s already dinner time. Let’s go.”

What was written on a piece of paper yesterday, Baraha also remembered. Among the many prophecies, it was particularly serious. Among the vaguely narrated prophecies, the death of a large number of people was attached with an ominous word.

Unprecedentedly terrible.

He didn’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘unprecedentedly’, but he knew what terrible meant. He often heard the word terrible.

It was a word often used by those who saw his appearance for the first time, or who abused him, pretending to be noble.

‘Look at that terrible thing.’

‘It smells terrible.’

Terrible was the word that meant Baraha’s condition.

It was a situation that really suited the word. To create an accident to prove a prophecy. It was as terrible as it could be.

Even so, there was no sign of guilt on the alchemists’ faces.

When it was the meal time, as usual, they chatted calmly and left the room.

“I’m glad there’s something about the Temple accident. If we make a deal with this information, the Temple will focus more on the Alchemy Tower.”

“The power of prophecy was originally held in the Temple, but how did it come to this?”

“Isn’t that an illegitimate child born in the Temple?”

Those who finished Baraha’s experiment were talking in a light tone.

There was no pity or compassion for Baraha in their voices.

The alchemists giggled and talked.

“Anyway, it’s to our benefit.”

“If the Temple finds out that they sent him to us, they will hit the ground and regret it.”

“There are many reasons to take him back, so we have to keep him a secret until the Temple finds out about the prophetic powers.”

“That’s right. Researchers with a light mouth are not allowed to even set foot in this way….”

“Anyway, the Temple guys are the problem. In front, pretending to be so elegant, but behind, giving illegitimate children….”

“Did you hear about the orphanage sponsored by the Temple? There is a child that the high priest brought. But, he brought the same child to the same orphanage a while ago….”

“Oh my God, there is no other devil… !”

“Right? I really don’t understand how they do that.”

“For such a young child, the punishment is… .”

“It seems that the high priest pressured not to punish him. Really terrible… .”

The voices of the alchemists who went out into the hallway continued faintly. He listened to the inaudible voices and barely heard their conversation. The voices through the door were not clear.

Several people were speaking at the same time, so their voices were more scattered. During their conversation, Baraha could only hear correctly that it was an orphanage sponsored by the Temple.

The word devil was mixed in the whispers. He didn’t know who the devil was, but there weren’t any more devils than those he had seen here.

The Alchemist Tower was a gathering place for devils worse than slave traders. Baraha bit his lips as he looked at the needle marks left on his arm and the traces of torture they had given him to write a prophecy.

In the slave shop, they abused Baraha, regardless of whether he would die or not. And the alchemists managed to treat Baraha so that he would not die and continue to write prophecies.

It wasn’t the first time he felt the pain where he wished he had died.

Knowing that the prophecy was not manifested by Baraha’s will, the number of tortures decreased, but they did not stop feeding him to make better use of him.

‘Who is the devil?’

Baraha bit his lips and pondered the conversation he had just heard.

‘There is an orphanage in the Temple… ?’

Baraha pondered, looking intently at the pen that was forcibly fixed in his hand.

Temple….

He thought that he would also have to escape and go to the Temple. He intuitively felt that if he went to the Temple, he would be able to meet something he wanted.

Baraha had expectations that had never gone astray.

‘Is it possible that I will be able to meet my parents? Even if it’s not my parents, I might find someone to protect me. It’s the Temple. The children who went to the Temple wouldn’t have to suffer like I did.’

Come to think of it, Baraha never knew about his birth. His circumstances made him unable to. Who would run around looking for their parents when they were in a hurry to run away to avoid abuse?

Baraha’s first memories began inside the cages of the slave traders. Since then, it has been a series of hardships for him.

He had no memories of the time before. He thought it was clear that his parents, who he could not even remember their faces, had sold him to slavery. However, that may not be the case.

Baraha, who was groping for a memory he didn’t want to think about too much, lifted his wrist and stared at the blank paper.

The alchemists firmly believed that everything Baraha wrote on paper was a prophecy.

Baraha never thought of writing anything other than prophecies. There was no reason for that, and it was difficult for him to come up with a crazy nonsense characteristic of his prophecies.

‘What should I write so that the alchemists will set me free?’

Disguised as a prophecy, he ambitiously held the pen on the paper to write to set him free.

“Fuck… ?”

The moment he was about to move his pen, Baraha noticed that the vocabulary he was using was quite limited.

He tried to write, but all he could think of was curses.

If the prophecy started with a shit, fuck, it was obvious that the alchemists would notice Baraha’s trick at once.

Baraha thought while constantly swearing.

For a while, he should expand his vocabulary by watching the prophecies he wrote and listening to the alchemists talk.

＊＊＊

Barhaha practiced his words by reflecting on the prophecies he wrote and the words of the alchemists. The tone of the alchemists was different from the tones of the slave traders Baraha always heard.

The alchemists spoke formally to each other, and their tones and accents were awkward. As he listened carefully to their voices, Baraha sometimes spoke without even realizing it, following their distinct tones.

Then he was horrified by the soft voice he spoke, shaking his body and shutting his mouth.

He didn’t have anyone he could have a proper conversation with, so the frequency of him speaking naturally decreased. He also found that spending time silently and idly was pretty good.

He was raised like an animal in a room without a window, and days of prophesying and writings followed.

It was around the time that Baraha had mastered the words frequently used in prophecies and the words of the alchemists. The alchemists occasionally spit out abusive language, but unlike the first time, they were relieved by Baraha’s calm behavior.

Baraha did not miss the gap in which their vigilance was loosened.

“Look at this.”

“This room is going to explode….”

“It is difficult to determine the exact date.”

“We have to move the room because the subject cannot get hurt.”

“There are no empty labs because the experiment is in progress, right?”

“No one knows about the prophecy except us, so we can’t tell them to empty the lab.”

“Then first, shall we move him to an empty room? He’s never been in trouble and he’s quiet.”

As he jotted down a prophecy that there would be an explosion in his room, he saw the alchemists making a fuss.

Baraha calmly drooped his body as if he had no intention of rebelling.

The alchemists seemed to have made a decision after seeing Baraha’s appearance.

“Let’s move him to an empty room.”