TBR CH94

“Never assume the outcome is decided until the enemy has drawn their last breath.”

— From John’s class notes seven years ago, a line marked and attributed to his teacher, “Kingfisher.”

“Are you sure the direction you’re suggesting is correct?”

If Asta hadn’t noticed anything amiss after being guided by the Black Book for nearly half an hour, then he would hardly be considered sharp. In the institute, an ordinary researcher shouldn’t be so hard to find. The monster casually tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash can at the end of the hallway and stared at the book’s pages with his dark eyes.

The World Consciousness could only play dead. Asta glanced thoughtfully at the blank sheet of paper and finally asked:

“Which way should I go next?”

“…To the right,” the Black Book had no choice but to write. “Probably to the right.”

Asta closed the book without hesitation and walked left instead. He still kept the World Consciousness firmly bound to his hand—this way, even if it was useless, it couldn’t go off and relay information. The monster remembered the little daily details Isidor had told him in idle chatter: his workstation, his office, the dessert shop he passed on his way to work.

For some reason, the World Consciousness was lying. That meant it could also find him itself.

The Black Book lay in Asta’s hand with a sense of despair, watching helplessly as he expertly retraced every wrong turn, eventually returning to the starting point of all mistakes. This time, he turned right and again helped himself to a free mocha from the coffee machine—after all, two drinks wouldn’t fill a monster’s stomach.

Turn right. It remembered Isidor had mentioned a decorative potted plant with white blossoms, a nonsensical painting on the office wall that he had complained about. Asta moved through the institute with practiced ease. Some areas were inaccessible, so he found a spot to morph into a transparent tentacle and slipped through under supervision effortlessly.

Until Asta stood in the area where Isidor’s office was—he could already see his desk.

The monster didn’t rush in. It was work hours, and all the humans in the office were busy typing at their desks, the rhythmic tapping of keyboards sounding in unison. Everyone—except Isidor. He wasn’t in the office at all. Asta recognized his seat at a glance: on the desk sat a plump octopus plush toy, but nothing else.

That was not normal.

Asta thought for a moment. He didn’t go inside but kept walking and turned a corner. He remembered Isidor saying that his office was close to the library. If this wasn’t just a coincidence, then Asta had decided to clear up a lingering confusion.

If Isidor had only stepped out briefly, Asta would notice when he returned.

Isidor sat in a dark room. He lifted his eyes to stare at the empty seat in front of him, fingers lightly brushing a wrist cord wrapped around his wrist. Hanging from it were two black stars and a green gemstone.

The gem grew slightly warm beneath his fingertips—or rather, it was actually a communication device. Only from Isidor’s perspective could he clearly see the projection displayed before him. Others used the same method to contact him. It was the only way he could secretly communicate with people outside the institute.

“I see,” he said. “You intend to cooperate with other monsters. Have you considered the consequences of doing that? The ones capable of helping break through the institute’s defenses are all vicious beings. You should have done your research.”

The person on the other end seemed to be rebutting him.

Isidor’s fingers tightened, feeling the sharp edges of the stars. He slowly smiled.

“Of course, I have no objections. You can rest assured on that. If there’s someone who needs to be killed, just let me know.”

The researcher’s voice was gentle, but his words sent chills down the spine. “After all, I’m the one who most wants ‘it’ to break free from its cage.”

From his perspective, the people across from him stared at him in silence for a few seconds before finally relaxing their gaze. There wasn’t just one of them—it was a group. Men and women, all bearing the same branded mark on their wrists: two black stars. In their eyes burned a fervor far removed from reason, as if some fanatical will drove them relentlessly forward.

“For the god that is soon to descend,” they said.

Isidor repeated the phrase, and only then did the long conversation finally come to a pause.

He didn’t get up immediately. He simply leaned back in his chair, lost in chaotic thoughts, but in the end, every thread always led back to it. Protect Asta, help it escape, fulfill its wishes—these simple goals felt like countless strings entangling him, tugging at every part of his being.

He knew full well that Asta had no intention of becoming anyone’s god.

He also knew Asta didn’t want to hurt any living being.

Asta… why hadn’t it sent him a message yet? Normally, when the Child of Fate left, Asta would always leave all kinds of thoughts and comments in the Black Book. Just thinking of it made Isidor’s tired eyes brighten again. He stood up and looked around, but didn’t see the black-covered book anywhere nearby.

Isidor hesitated. Perhaps he was simply overthinking things, feeling uneasy just because of a brief silence.

Should he go back? The thought circled in his mind, but quickly died down. His fingers touched the cold metal on the table—a small, sharp dagger resembling a miniature rapier. It was heavy, carrying an aura of misfortune and death, but felt familiar and comforting to him.

There were still other tasks he needed to complete.

The library was packed with books and files, and also had a computer with a search system—completely a product of human civilization. Fortunately, Isidor had introduced Asta to the concept of computers when it studied human knowledge systematically. Asta found it novel. It placed a tentacle on the keyboard and tentatively pressed down—a character appeared on the screen matching the key.

…Humans have ten fingers, yet the number of keys far exceeds that. Asta mused: if it were him, he could assign a tentacle to each key—typing would be much faster that way.

He shook his head and returned his attention to the screen.

“Please enter user ID and password.”

Its ID was completely fabricated by Isidor, so of course, it wouldn’t work. Asta tried entering Isidor’s ID. The system showed successful authentication, but the password field cursor kept blinking, awaiting the rightful user’s input.

Was it his birthday?

It tried—an error popped up in red. Before it could continue thinking, the Black Book struggled in its hand, opening to a page and helpfully suggesting: “Why not ask him? You can write the question in me, and I’ll deliver the message. That way, you’ll get the correct password quickly.”

The World Consciousness was behaving oddly. And Isidor wasn’t here. Asta quietly closed the Black Book.

Perhaps because its fingers were originally tentacles, it typed with a surprising agility. Asta sorted through all the numbers related to Isidor in its mind. With no high hopes, it entered a string of digits and pressed enter.

Login successful.

It had guessed correctly—Isidor’s password was the date he met Asta, seven years ago.

What Asta wanted to look up left almost no trace in the system, which wasn’t surprising. The “Flower” was either lying, or the things it mentioned involved secrets too deeply hidden to be found easily. The monster had intentionally blocked the Heavenly Dao’s prying gaze; with its strength, this wasn’t difficult.

The problem was, even the monster didn’t know why it was doing this.

The entry for “Kingfisher” was very clean. But at last, Asta got to see what this bird looked like—blue-green or emerald feathers, flitting agilely above the water. The search engine also offered some storybook excerpts mentioning kingfishers. Asta browsed carefully but found no content linking the bird to Isidor.

The results for “Isidor” were also clear. The system stored basic data on most regular staff. By all appearances, the green-eyed human was just a normal administrative worker at the institute—until seven years ago, when he was reassigned as Asta’s handler. His clerical duties became a mere side job.

Asta thought for a moment. This was probably enough—for now, it confirmed that deeper information couldn’t be found in the general staff files. But just before closing the search engine, he hesitated. For some reason, the cursor moved back to the input field:

“Incident seven years ago.”

That phrasing should be fine. No better term came to mind. Asta set the search to filter by time. The loading icon spun briefly—and in a burst, countless entries exploded onto the screen:

“The Monster Riot Incident Seven Years Ago,” “Dr. Xiwan on the Security Breach of the Event,” “Never Forget,” “Ten Clarifications: The Truth About the Event’s Safety Measures”…

The data was a mess, but they all pointed to one thing: seven years ago, there had been a massive riot by monsters at the institute. Asta had no memory of the event. He pondered—at that time, before Isidor arrived, the institute had used all sorts of methods to probe its weaknesses. For a long while, Asta had lived in a constant state of stress, with no room to care about anything happening in the outside world.

Was it at that time that something like this happened?
Asta wondered. If “the flower” referred to this point in time, then what did that have to do with Isidor?

It skimmed the homepage briefly, then cleared the browsing history. As if a spark of thought flashed in its mind, Asta changed tactics—this time, it tried searching for “riot incident” and “kingfisher” together as linked keywords.

Logically speaking, there hadn’t even been results for “kingfisher” alone, so using a more complex search method shouldn’t produce anything new. But this time, the webpage loaded unusually slowly. Finally, the search engine reluctantly spat out a new URL.

There really was a result.

Without hesitation, Asta clicked the link. However, no new webpage opened. Instead, a line of bold black text appeared:

For security purposes, regardless of your clearance level, relevant information may only be accessed through the internal computers of the Confidential Archives.

If there had been no results, that would have been the end of it. But now, there was an actual match. On one hand, it proved that what “the flower” said had some credibility—at the very least, it wasn’t complete nonsense. On the other hand, Asta would now have to go to the so-called “Confidential Archives” mentioned by the link in order to truly uncover the connection between the two terms.
Before that, it could also pay another visit to “the flower.”

Oh right—and Isidor.

When Asta passed by Isidor’s office, the seat was still completely empty. Even the way the chair was pushed in hadn’t changed, silently declaring that its occupant had never arrived.
The black-eyed creature stared intently for a moment, then shifted its gaze.

Since that’s the case, it should take care of other matters first.

The Confidential Archives were harder to find than most places.
But Asta followed a man dressed in a perfectly pressed suit into the work area reserved for higher-ranking personnel. Then, with polite manners, it casually stopped a hurried employee to ask for directions. Eventually, it ended up standing before the archive room’s door.

Clothing was easy to alter for a monster.
It mimicked the attire of people here, switching its lab coat to a black suit. No one would check the ID cards of someone wearing a suit in this part of the building.

But the archive room was different.

A quick lookup told Asta that the room was under tight security: access required strict identity verification and clearance by special personnel.
Asta had originally planned to improvise—as powerful as it was, it could always come up with some method.
However, as the creature stood before the archive room, all those concerns drifted away like smoke.

The black-haired, black-eyed monster stared carefully through the glass at the armed personnel sitting inside.
He looked… asleep.
His arms were laid forward on the table, his face slumped down, expression hidden. Whether he had fainted or been killed—it was impossible to say for now.

On the nearby surveillance screen, only a blizzard of static snowflakes spun.

The surroundings were eerily quiet. The archive room was rarely visited; everyone here had workstation computers, and most information could be accessed with just a few keystrokes.
Asta thought for a moment, then stepped out from a hidden corner—placing itself directly in the surveillance range. Normally, that would disable the monitoring system. But this time, it didn’t even need to bother.

The archive room, normally sealed tight, had opened its arms wide—as if inviting anyone to walk straight through its unlocked doors.

So Asta kept walking forward.
It could smell blood.
The sharp, metallic tang of fresh blood seemed to be silently flowing from some corner of the archive room, proclaiming a murder that had already taken place.
But Asta didn’t care. It was here for information, not to untangle the messy infighting of the institute. Besides, the smell was thick to the point of coagulation—it clearly had been some time since the incident occurred.

The internal layout of the archive room resembled a library—perhaps the institute’s human architects lacked creativity.
Stacks of towering files filled the room, mostly containing documents on the various containment subjects and periodic comprehensive reports. To reach the multimedia section, one had to walk past rows of densely packed bookshelves.

Unlike other areas, the shelves here were solid—you couldn’t see from one end to the other.

Asta suddenly stopped walking.

Its dark eyes narrowed slightly. It turned around.
There was nothing but the massive bookshelf in front of it—but its gaze seemed to pierce through layers of documents, through solid wooden planks, seeing straight across several rows.

There, just now—a faint sound had echoed.
Like the unavoidable rustle of footsteps when someone tried to move quietly.

No—its earlier judgment had been wrong.
The intruder was still here.

Asta didn’t bother to conceal the sound of its footsteps.
And now, as its steps came to an abrupt stop, the human in the distance seemed to realize this too.
He stood still, silent and unmoving.

Like two predators testing each other, even the air seemed to freeze.

The positions were like this—Asta stood closer to the exit, while the human was near the computers.
Therefore, for the person inside the room to leave, they’d have to pass through Asta’s area. That was probably why he hesitated now.

He didn’t know Asta was a monster. Such a thing wouldn’t happen once in a hundred years in the institute.
So perhaps he assumed Asta was someone else who had come to inspect the situation.
Given the heavy scent of blood in the air, and the risk of being seen clearly while escaping, the choice he was about to make likely wouldn’t be a friendly one.

They weren’t far apart, but the shelves blocked everything—cutting off their line of sight and impeding the movements of both man and monster.

Asta began to wonder what reaction it should have.

He didn’t actually care much about who had committed the crime here, or what their motive was. But the current situation was a bit troublesome. The longer the silence stretched, the more clearly they became aware of each other’s presence. Asta precisely counted which bookshelf the human was hiding behind—he could even smell the scent on him.

—A strong stench of blood, mixed with the cold scent of metal. That meant he was carrying a dagger.

Asta thought for a moment about what he himself smelled like. Even after taking human form, he couldn’t completely get rid of the damp scent of seawater—but that probably wasn’t something humans could detect. Right now, the smell on him wasn’t dangerous at all. In fact, it was pleasant: the warm aroma of a latte and a handful of peppermint candies he had stuffed into his pocket from the employee break room.

After a brief pause, the monster decided to make the first move by releasing a friendly signal.

It was best that, in this kind of encounter, no one saw the other’s face. He wasn’t planning to meddle in anyone’s business—time was limited. After all, he was only a fragment of the massive main body and still had to divert some power to suppress the Black Book that kept trying to escape. Although there was still a chance the other party wanted to eliminate him, it was at least worth a try.

Asta turned around and took two steps back, facing away from where the human was hiding.

That was the signal. The sound of human footsteps echoed almost simultaneously. This mysterious stranger moved with remarkable agility, swiftly heading toward the door. His footsteps barely touched the ground. Asta slowly backed away, and as the human approached, he could sense more and more.

…Wait.

The monster suddenly turned around, its steady steps faltering. Asta didn’t have time to think. He quickly moved to the left until he had the doorway completely in view. His heart beat with strange intensity, and he realized it—placing a hand over his chest, he stared ahead without blinking. That unblinking stare was something only monsters could do.

The human’s footsteps stopped too. They were even closer now.

He was clearly suspicious of Asta’s sudden change in behavior. The heavy bookshelf blocked all lines of sight, and Asta’s fingers, through his skin, touched the human heart inside him—bringing a deeper confusion. It felt as though a sense of loss had suddenly risen from the depths of his being. If he just let the human in the room leave like this, some piece of the puzzle would be lost forever. Whatever he was searching for might never be found.

And for some reason, now that he was in human form, his heart had started beating faster.

Isidor once said that the human heart often reacts faster than the mind—perhaps this was what he meant.

The monster’s gaze was focused, listening to the human’s breathing, separated by just two or three bookshelves. They had almost passed each other peacefully. Distance was a puzzle, and Asta tried to unravel it, bit by bit. His next movement happened at a speed humans couldn’t even imagine—he rushed toward the man’s location.

At the exact moment Asta moved, the human did too.

Less than a second passed before Asta started to feel alarmed. He judged the man’s position by the sound of his footsteps while keeping a constant eye on the only exit. But the man in this room—if he could even still be called human—possessed a speed Asta had never seen in any human before.

Could he be a monster? But Asta could clearly sense the scent of a human.

Asta darted past shelf after shelf, the shelves blocking his vision completely. Their footsteps echoed through the archive room. The peaceful standoff had completely vanished. Many times, the human evaded the monster; and many times, the monster blocked his escape, forcing him to retreat. They circled almost every shelf, constantly shifting positions—until, finally, as if by some unspoken agreement, they both stopped.

Asta stared at the bookshelf in front of him, now standing closest to the exit, motionless. On the other side of that thin wooden board, the human was holding his breath and standing still.

Just a little more.

He wanted to see the man’s face, though he didn’t know what that meant.

This time, the silence carried a trembling weight. The tremble was silent, but it felt like the air itself was buzzing, speaking in their place. On either side of the bookshelf, he looked at him, and he looked at him—yet neither saw the other. Asta knew he was about to win. Their positions confirmed everything.

No matter which direction the human ran, he would end up in Asta’s line of sight.

He should have felt relaxed or even pleased—but neither emotion entered the monster’s mind. Asta waited for the human to make his final decision, though he suddenly felt a stronger pounding of his heart. The human heart was truly an incomprehensible thing. The monster raised its hand, and then—

The bookshelf in front of him let out a sharp shriek—the sound of a blade piercing into the wood. Asta saw the tip of a knife emerge. If it had gone just a little further… The man had made his move. The gap in the wooden panel widened, letting light spill through.

Just a little more, and he would be able to see his eyes.

The relief of a wish fulfilled came crashing in, mixed with fear. Asta suddenly turned, realizing something was wrong. He reached out with all his speed. In that instant, he summoned all the power of this avatar, even ignoring the awareness of the world itself. And the human must have done the same—he slipped past Asta from behind.

Asta touched his hand. Before his gaze could fully adjust, he tried to grab anything that could hold him back. But the human and the monster’s fingers merely brushed lightly. His fingers were cold—even colder than the monster’s.

“…Isidor…?”

He didn’t know what kind of mindset he had when murmuring that name—in this situation, facing a human who absolutely couldn’t be him. When the name escaped his lips, it burned him. And in that moment, he understood why he had hesitated at the last second—what he was truly afraid of seeing.

By the time Asta fully turned around, the human was already gone.

It wasn’t him. And it never would be.

He opened his palm. Just a moment ago, he had desperately tried to grab something—anything—and succeeded. The human had worn a bracelet around his wrist, and from that bracelet, Asta had torn off something:

A black star made of metal.