This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Kain retrieved the space ring from the Doctor's hand after Elemental Guardian, now in its fire-attribute form, melted the ice surrounding his body. Kain's fingers curled around the small object that, according to the extracted memories, contained the man's twisted research notes.

The guards who were previously knocked unconscious all had a split of Bea in their minds in order to extract their memories, since they were no longer able to resist and had no further value, Kain ordered Bea to simply eliminate all of them by wiping their consciousnesses.

While the Queen and her guards focused on guarding and healing the children, Kain and Serena swept the rest of the building.

In one of the larger rooms, they stumbled upon a treasure trove of research notes and books about the cultivation methods of other nations as well as less sensitive research results compared to what was in the space ring that Kain obtained.

About to leave, they happened upon a small, almost hidden room tucked away in a far corner of the building, and within it they found another child. Kain looked at the child's face and compared it to those of the missing children's posters that he'd seen, and confirmed that this was the very first child to have gone missing—all 8 children were now accounted for.

Unlike the others, this one was not in a container but restrained to a bed, his frail form lying unconscious. The child was pale, his breathing shallow but steady. The colour of his dishevelled hair had changed since the kidnapping from the brown seen in the photos to a light blue-grey. The faint scars lining his wrists where the restraints had bitten into his skin were almost fully healed, showing how much longer he'd been held compared to the others.

Serena stepped forward, her face a mixture of relief and pity. "When we only saw seven children in the laboratory…I honestly thought that we were too late and one had died."

Kain nodded grimly. "Let's get him out of here."

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Carefully, he lifted the boy into his arms, his expression softening as he felt how light and thin the child was.

With the final child secured, they regrouped. The laboratory was silent now, the echoes of battle replaced by a heavy, oppressive quiet.

Before leaving they chose to have Serena's Elemental Guardian set the entire building ablaze, not wanting to risk that they accidentally left behind any clues that would have what happened here getting back to them and the people behind this lab finding trouble with Kain's family.

The group moved swiftly, the oppressive silence of the burned laboratory behind them, carrying the unconscious children toward the isolated house they had rented before this operation began, just in case they needed a location to heal themselves and/or the children.

After all, they couldn't take their time healing the children in the laboratory where the 6-star beast-tamer could be coming back at any time, nor did Kain wish to worry his family with Cherry's current state by bringing her and the others back to the orphanage.

Once they reached the house, Kain gestured for the Vespids to set the children down gently in the prepared beds.

Each child was had a pallid and sickly complexion, their breathing steady but shallow.

Cherry, in particular, seemed restless, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Kain frowned, his sharp eyes catching the subtle movements beneath her skin—small, disturbing ripples that seemed almost as though something alive was squirming within her. Find your adventure at empire

"What the hell is this…?" Kain muttered, kneeling beside her. His gaze swept over the other children, who showed similar signs, though the movement under their skin was subtler.

Unlike Cherry, they seemed to have adapted more to whatever was inside them, likely due to the longer acclimation time, their expressions while asleep did not seem as though they were uncomfortable.

Serena joined him, her brow furrowed. "Do you have any idea what could be wrong with them?" After all, between the 2 of them Kain was the only one with some research experience, and due to the nature of his second major he may have been exposed to knowledge not taught to the pure beast-taming students.

Kain shook his head. "No, but I will in a bit. Give me a moment." He reached into his pocket and retrieved the Doctor's space ring.

Although their was a security mechanism on it to prevent anyone from accessing its contents, Kain and Serena were already prepared for this before this mission, and Serena had already brought a high-quality one-time use artifact capable of resolving the security mechanism. Kain was once again thankful that he had her help, because to get an artifact at such a high-level would not have been possible within a short time with his current meagre connections.

After a brief focus of his spiritual energy into the artifact, the contents of the ring were made visible to him: stacks of books and papers, an assortment of peculiar tools, and a variety of valuable spiritual materials that could be used for evolution.

He retrieved the research notes and began flipping through them, his expression darkening as he pieced together the truth.

"These children… are part of what they call the E-series experiments," Kain explained, his voice heavy. "The Doctor and his backers were trying to create beast-tamers—allowing those without affinities to develop them by implanting what is called an 'artificial star space.' It's supposed to guide their spiritual energy into forming a star space resembling a natural one. This unnatural star space, in theory, should possess the materials within the artificial implanted device that can boost the chance of awakening an affinity."

Kain continued reading further solemnly, "However, none of the test subjects have survived long enough to prove his theories. According to these notes, the implanted star spaces tend to destabilize and… well, explode. Cherry and the others are essentially ticking time bombs."

Kain continued skimming the notes, his gaze sharpening as he searched for clues. "The Doctor was studying cultivation methods from other nations to refine his technique. There's a chance we can reverse this—or at least stabilize the star spaces—if we act quickly. But I'll need more time to go through all of this."

As Kain spoke, Cherry stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She whimpered in pain, her small hands clutching at her stomach. Queen leaned closer, her antennae twitching as she continued to channel life-attribute energy into her.

Kain looked at his sister with a pained expression, "Thankfully…thankfully, it doesn't seem as though the device they implanted into Cherry has been in her for long and it hasn't been fully assimilated yet. Therefore, it can still be removed. However, we would need to cut her open...and she will need to be awake while we do it."