Chapter 322 - The Eighth Generation

I immediately returned to the village with the Cane’s portal, and went to Rat, who was busy constructing her Carriage-type body for Mii-kun

It would be nice if I got some good info out of this.

Rat: “There is a strange stone embedded in it. Do you understand anything about it, Marquis?”

Naofumi: “I can’t understand anything about the time I turned strange.”

Apparently, I was really smart, but that doesn’t matter.

And wait, if I was able to grasp something about this, it would actually be amazing.

Raph-chan: “Rafu~?”

Naofumi: “Do you know anything?”

I ask Raph-chan, but there’s no way he’ll give an answer.

Is what I thought, but he let out a meek voice, and nodded.

Raph-chan: “Rafu~.”

Raph-chan jumps on top of the tablet we were analyzing, and beckons Raphtalia to come closer.

Raphtalia: “This again… Why do I have such a bad premonition…”

Naofumi: “Even if you say that, it’s best if we investigated it, right?”

Raphtalia: “Understood.”

Raph-chan makes Raphtalia touch the tablet, and the rock around the stone begins to recede. The stone is on its way out.

The scene was quite Sci-fi.

“Oh.”

With his tail held high, Raph-chan puts his hands in the newly-made hole, and begins decoding something, but after a while, a large X mark popped up, and it seems that he can’t make any more progress with it.

Rat: “To get it out, we may need Raphtalia-san’s DNA. Next is… the part Raph-chan managed to decrypt himself.”

To see what RAph-chan was stuck on, Rat started violently tapping on the keyboard.

Rat: “Ara. It’s asking for a password. What’s more, its protecting the most vital information.”

Password… I never thought I would hear such a word in this Fantasy Parrallel World.

But will we be able to crack the code?

It would be nice if there was a hint somewhere…

Naofumi: “Do you think ou can crack it?”

Rat: “I think it would be simple if Mii-kun returned. You did make him so he was able to freely alter things like this.”

Raph-chan: “Rafu~.”

Raph-chan shakes his head left and right.

Naofumi: “He says it won’t work.”

Rat: “Really… Ah, I see the system Mii-kun’s equipped with installed here. This is an artificial lifeform in the shape of a stone tablet. I guess it won’t work.”

Naofumi: “That so?”

Rat: “Yeah. It’s something made of the same design as Mii-kun. A conscious Fire-Wall system.”

Net terms are starting to pop up in this Fantasy. Andit’s of the same type as mii-kun… I guess we’re out of our area of expertise.

Rat: “If we engaged it and won, that would be nice, but it may be designed to self-destruct upon death.”

Naofumi: “So force won’t work…”

After getting all the way here, going any further is impossible…

For it to be protected this carefully, it must be hiding something extremely important.

Rat: “You get three tries at the password. Marquis is the one who made it, so do you have any ideas?”

Naofumi: “Even if you ask me… Wouldn’t it just be ‘Raphtalia’, or something?”

Rat: “It would be nice it it was something simple like that.”

Rat enters Raphtalia’s name into the tablet.

The board beeps, and gives a warning sound.

Rat: “Yes, first try failed.”

Naofumi: “What should we do…”

Rat: “We have two left.”

We’ll give do all or nothing bet, and have Mii-kun try to access it anyways when we’re down to one.

Now about the strange me… He made this when he thought Raphtalia was dead.

If I looked from that perspective…

Until recently, I was quite dense.

I thought of Raphtalia as my daughter, so perhaps that Password’s in that direction.

Naofumi: “Try inputting, ‘To my beloved daughter’.”

Raphtalia: “What’s with that phrase!? Who is whose father!?”

Raphtalia’s retort was on the mark.

But that’s what came to mind, so there’s no helping it.

Rat: “… It worked…”

Raphtalia: “Naofumi-sama…!”

Naofumi: “Nope, not my fault.”

Daughter… she is my skillful right hand man, and she doesn’t have any parents, so sometimes I do think I’m acting as their replacement.

There’s no mistake.

Looking at the information that was displayed, Rat nodded.

Rat: “Fumufumu… It seems you had the Bioplant continue the research for the Eighth Generation of Raphs. You prepared it just in case you were to perish.”

Raph-chan: “Rafu?”

Rat: “This child’s existence in itself is a sort of black box. His directive is unknown.”

Naofumi: “You weren’t able to decode it?”

Rat: “You need a higher authority than Mii-kun to control this one. If we tried to touch the stone, it would have fallen to pieces. It seems this child knew that.”

Naofumi: “And? Just what is he?”

Rat: “A completed sample of the Eighth Generation. The Raphtalia that you were trying to bring to this world. Or perhaps he would be the threshold between Raphtalia and Raph.”

Raph-chan: “Rafu~!”

As if he’s saying, ‘What do ‘ya think about me now?’ Raph-chan sticks out his chest with pride.

Ah, yes, yes.

I know that you’re amazing.

There’s no helping it, si I start patting his head.

Raphtalia: “The Eighth Generation…”

Rat: “His specs are in a different dimension from the Seventh Generation.”

Naofumi: “Really?”

Rat: “The time it took you to make the first through the seventh generations was only a week, you know. If this plant were to continue that research without rest for all this time… what do you think would happen?”

Let’s see. I was defeated at Raphtalia’s hands, and about two and a half weeks passed before I met Raph-chan…

Rat: “Though the continuation was conducted by AI, it had quite a bit of success. It also seems that if the Raphs naturally carried on the cycle of life, one like this would be born someday.”

It somehow… sounds like a manga I read a while ago.

A researcher was killed by his own test subject, but a computer continued to finish his research.

Anyways, regardless of the outcome, an Eighth Generation would have been born…

Rat: “Uwah…”

Naofumi: “What’s up?”

Rat: “It looks like all of the Raphs are connected. When greater power is required, they can pool their abilities, and the EXP they get is redistributed to this one… you’re also included in that EXP pool, Marquis.”

Is it that?

When the curse was taking away my gained EXP, it was flowing to Raph-chan along with the other Raphs?

The reason Raph-chan’s level was so high, and why it arbitrarily continued to rise, was because he was getting EXP from the other Raphs.

Rat: “If he wanted to speak human tongue, I think he could. I mean, with these specs, it’s more than possible.”

Raph-chan: “Rafu?”

Rat: “Can you speak?”

Raph-chan: “Rafu~?”

He’s tilting his head.

It he playing dumb…? No, it doesn’t seem that way.

Rat: “It appears to understand your situation… does it really not have speech capability?”

Since he sensed that I don’t really like talking monsters, he decided not to develop speech?

The reason he fit a lot of my preferences was this?

Naofumi: “So if I taught him, he could?”

Rat: “It’s a possibility.”

Rat continues to read off the deciphered information.

Rat: “It seems you spliced some Filo Rial data into here too. You used their shape changing function as reference.”

Naofumi: “Ah, so that’s why he can change form.”

Rat: “Yes, him changing form to Raphtalia was something like that. And that was your goal in the first place, so it goes without saying.”

Well, I did have a vague idea that it was something like that.

I mean, the research was intended to replicate and revive her.

Naofumi: “… Why did I take such a roundabout path, without making a Homunculus?”

Rat: “That’s a mystery. But as a fellow alchemist, it’s not like I don’t understand what you were trying to do.”

Naofumi: “How so?”

Rat: “I told you why I stopped considering remaking Mii-kun as a Homunculus, right? By that Marquis’s logic, a Homunculus is but a Homunculus. He wanted to make the real one, so he couldn’t do that.”

Naofumi: “And so… Isn’t this the same thing?”

Rat: “Then let’s do an experiment. Raph-chan, where did you first meet the count? 1. Near this village, 2. Somewhere else.”

Rat randomly picks up some stones, and lines them into a row of 1, and a row of 2.

Raph-chan goes and sits down by Row 2.

Naofumi: “Well… that’s true.”

I mean, he’s right.

Rat: “You probably continued to correct your research as you strove to create the real one. This should have led him to have some fabricated memories and experiences in his body.”

Raphtalia: “That Naofumi-sama… thought about it that much.”

Naofumi: “…”

I have no idea what I was thinking back then, but I guess that’s true.

And wait, just how much did I like Raphtaila?

Did I plan to take the organism I created myself, and make it my girlfriend?

Even so, the password was, ‘To my beloved daughter’.

Rat: “It’s good that Raph-chan understands, but if handled poorly, there was a chance he could have swapped places with the original.”