Manual activity manual

They started the experiment.

The orange hair was mixed with black and brown, gradually turned gray and white, and finally became dirty and messy, like a weird jigsaw puzzle that was forcibly twisted together.

Compared with his predecessor, his current appearance is really "dirty".The long gray hair looked like spilled paint, covered with different shades of orange.Looking through the messy hair, on that pale face, the dark irises are embedded with broken and muddy blue, like a polluted deep sea, in which the silt is churning and almost flowing out.

The young man wearing glasses lowered his head, his indifferent eyes pierced into people's hearts like ice edges flying down.

"...I see. They did this to you."

The person standing in front of him—let's call it a person—turned his head slightly, as if looking at him, but there was a white film in front of his eyes, covering the eyes of others.

"And Xie Ye... Forget it. Get out of the way."

The figure was silent, neither moving forward nor backward, just standing in front of him.

"...Yes, I know who you are, why you are here, and what you are doing here, but—it has nothing to do with me." The young man's tone was extremely calm, as if these cruel words did not come from his mouth, " That's my answer, get out of the way."

The figure shook his head lightly.

Edogawa Ranpo stared at him.The young man's stature is not considered tall, but his aura is as deep as the abyss. His eyes, which were hard to see before, were opened, sharp and piercing like shattered marbles.

"Current technology can't really compile genes perfectly. You can only rely on yourself and them to survive the fittest in your body. Your body is an arena, and everyone is in the auditorium, admiring you fighting with yourself, Yukiya."

"The president's genes can't give you a healthy body, and Mori Ogai's can't do it either. Even if there is a temporary stabilization of the situation with Yosano, soon, your body will no longer be able to maintain balance..."

The figure continued to shake his head, apparently that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"..."

In the empty corridor, they resumed their silent gaze.

"I'm not a qualified acting president." He said, slowly taking off his glasses, "I'm not a qualified detective either. I don't know where they come from, I can't deduce the solution to the problem, and I don't even know that they are desperate What's the point of pinning hope on you."

"Because what happened with Yosano proved that human beings have limits, so you think that humans can't do it, only monsters can?"

"It's ridiculous."

"...You are very happy. Okay. The detective knows, if this is your wish," he took a deep breath, put his glasses back on, and looked at the other party intently.

"Then let's make a deal."

"Never become an annoying adult, Yuki. As long as you keep being yourself and being closer to humans... you will succeed."

"Probability and statistics are not everything. People are creatures who live for illusory ideals. Even if hope does not exist, they must be desperate."

"You will succeed, this is my super reasoning. My ability is super powerful."

He raised the corners of his lips and gently rubbed his messy hair: "Go."

He laughed, covering up the faint cry in his voice: "...I'm sorry."

Ranpo Edogawa disappeared, and an entity named Poe moved into the laboratory.

He is taciturn and rarely goes out, but his books are always left at the place Yuki happens to pass by when he is free.Once, twice, from the same reticence, to stumbling to say a few words about the story when I read the handover, it seems that it didn't take long.

Edgar Allan Poe seldom spoke, and only said "please call me Mr. Poe" at the beginning, and he didn't even respond to his reflections on his story.He was always sitting quietly, maybe looking at Yuki, maybe not.

Occasionally, he would give Yukiya a translucent spherical candy.The style is single and the colors are various. When you hold it in the palm of your hand, it looks like a glass marble.

One day, he said, "The time is coming."

Yukiya, who was lying on the table and fiddled with candies, raised her head.The long snow-white hair spread out like white silk, and the pupils of the eyes, which were closer to red than purple, opened slightly, revealing pure innocence.

Poe looked at him and said softly, "Shibusawa Tatsuhiko."

"Shibusawa-kun," Yukiya replied, "Ryuhiko."

"...Don't trust Fyodor." Poe raised his hand, as if wanting to stroke his long hair, as if thinking of something, his arms froze in mid-air, "At least remember this."

"Fyodor." Yukiya continued, "Head."

Poe closed his eyes.For a moment, he even wanted to give up thinking, give up resistance, and directly hand over his supernatural powers, no matter what they want to do.But whether it was Ranpo-kun's entrustment or his final expectation for this world, he couldn't really let go, and chose to end like Fitzgerald.

Especially, this kid named Yuki.Obviously, obviously not human...

"Why are you like this, Yuki?"

Yuki couldn't answer him.Even if he knew it before, he would not think of it now that most of his skull had been replaced.

However, Xingya tilted her head, looked into his eyes from under the messy forehead, and said slowly, word by word: "For happiness."

"It's not just...one person, fortunately...as long as..."

What God looks like, no one knows.

What the monster was, Poe had seen.

They are deeply jealous of the loveless and hateless god, even if they give everything they have, they want to pull him down from the altar.Take it to the world.

"You are too close to humans."

"Isn't that... nice?"

To be close to humans.Be the light of heaven.to shelter...

"The price is that you will fall and never climb back to your altar."

Give God an incomparable human heart, tell Him the pain and joy that belong to human beings, and let Him have the strongest desire since birth——

"A gaze too long, too focused, too direct, might make Venus fade from the night sky too."*

He didn't know if Yukiya could understand what he said, or even what he said.At this moment, he is only a few steps away from madness.

He slowly peeled off a candy, stuffed it into his mouth, put the bird folded from the candy wrapper in Yukiya's palm, and cast a gloomy and romantic look: "Don't trust humans. Trusting yourself is enough."

Xingya lowered her head, but what she held in her hand was not a bird folded from sugar paper, but a red diamond-shaped gemstone.

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*Rue Morgue