Forty minutes after her first training session, James changed out of her dirty workout clothes behind a screen in the infirmary. It had taken her that long to cool down from it. She could feel that she’d be sore tomorrow, and she appreciated the feeling of growing stronger. She knew she would practice the palm strike movement more in front of a mirror when she got back home later. She was nothing if not dedicated. And she wanted to be strong. She didn’t want to require guards. She wanted to be so strong she was the sole guardian. She quickly modified the though, she didn’t want to guard anyone, that would require voluntarily being close to them.
Stepping out, she put her hair in a ponytail again. “What are we doing now?” Turns out that nothing much. Somebody had been able to provide a bunch of boxes, and she helped to sort all the medical supplies that had been brought over by the rest people in the Tutorial.
Every so often, Christian would make his rounds, occasionally declaring someone cleared and dismissing them. This was always met with a holler and cheer, as the other patients saw their fellow comrades leave with regrown hands, feet, and fingers. Apparently, those were the easiest injuries for the System to heal. James imagined it was also a nice commotion for the people outside the infirmary to hear. It was a visible promise to the remaining patients of their own personal recovery. And a sign to the people outside that if they ended up in the infirmary, they would leave it healthy and alive. James enjoyed it too, nothing like it had happened the day before. But it did make her wonder, it seemed that whatever had afflicted Jean Paul and Louis had either been somehow more severe or didn’t involve severed limbs.
Sometime during midday, Arthur came in to have lunch, bringing meals for her, Christian and her bodyguards. Like yesterday the patients were given different food that was easier to digest than the meat. Nobody acted surprised when he came in for lunch, and James reaffirmed her opinion that Christian was high on the ladder of authority than she had initially estimated. She tried once again to convince him she wasn’t important, but he ignored her. She didn’t like him.
At least he gave her permission to dissect a goblin, which she did as soon as he left. She wasn’t sure why she asked for permission. She was too used to being at a university where everything was regulated.
Sending Louis to grab a body from the cooking area, she set up a table for her and Christian to work together. Jean Paul was put on tablet duty since she didn’t want to soil it with any bodily fluids, and soon enough Louis was back. Together with Christian and comparing the results to her downloaded textbook, they saw that the goblins were closer to monkeys than apes she had initially observed.
For one thing, their feet had long toes that appeared more suited to running across branches than swinging across them like apes. She noted that that feature didn’t appear to stop them from attacking the clearing, which would required them to run on land after a certain point.
Starting the dissection, they saw that despite having no tail, like apes, the goblins didn’t have an appendix, like other monkeys. Asking Louis to grab a scale at that stage, an excuse he quickly grabbed, running away before Jean Paul could replace him, they weighed out what organs they did find. The eyes were certainly small and beady, and she put them aside, determined to study them more in depth later. When she walked back with Louis and Jean Paul the goblins had obviously been able to see them. It was weird given how closely their eyes resembled moles.
By the time they got to the brain it was almost time to clean up. Weighing it out, James was happy to see its small size and weight, especially when compared to the rest of their body. That almost guaranteed that they truly were monsters and not sentient. Looking at it, she tried to consider what she was missing. She knew something was off about the brain in front of her. Something other than the monsters being so similar to pre-System animals. Suddenly, it came to her.
“Christian, look at the brain. Look at it!” He wasn’t with her at the moment, talking to a patient who wanted to leave prematurely. Something he never tolerated. After she had questioned him privately earlier in the day he explained that according to his observations if health points dropped below 10%, the person wouldn’t feel battle-ready until they were over 90% full. He couldn’t let them out in a situation where they would potentially have to defend themselves and others in such a state. It was probably what afflicted Jean Paul and Louis at the time too.
Excusing himself, he came over and looked at the brain in her hands. At first glance, it didn’t appear too special other than the familiar purple tint from the goblin blood on the grey organ. Though he had to admit he was curious what she had discovered in those five minutes by herself. What would make her disregard everything else enough to call him over, something which was clearly not in her nature.
“Oh Lord, do you think Nature is still running? We’ve got to photograph this. This could be the discovery of the decade! Louis, call Arthur!” Suddenly it clicked, and Christian grabbed the brain from James and examined it with renewed vigor. Louis dashed out, he didn’t know what had made the two most clear-headed people in the clearing react like that, for all he knew it was a sort of poison. Huffing and puffing, Arthur came rushing in.
“What happened?” His presence took over the small infirmary, engulfing it. James backed upped a couple of steps, freaked out for a different reason now as the headache she seemed to associate with him blazed. Even Christian’s Calming Aura seemed to be negated by Arthur’s current presence. Arthur’s eyes focused on her, quickly jumping to the conclusion that she had created a problem since Louis had urgently brought him over. Christian stopped him from making such a critical mistake, but not before James saw the look in his eyes. The damage had been done, as it were.
“Arthur, look at the goblin’s brain!” Arthur refocused on Christian, his presence slightly abating even as he walked closer. Taking James’s previous position, he tried not to make too much of a face over the opened-up goblin on the table and the brain in Christian’s hands. He didn’t exactly succeed. Rolling his eyes, Christian thrust the brain towards Arthur, ignoring his disgust in favor of showing their discovery. “Arthur, it’s missing it’s visual cortex. The goblins are blind. They’re blind!”
Ah, finally starting to earn that science fiction tag!
Now, onto something I didn't think I'd ever actually get to do- shout outs! Thank you to Kevin, Zivlanir, brett, thkiw, Franananachi , and Daniel. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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