A few minutes later, I was lying on one of the Archduke’s workbenches, waiting to begin hibernation. The Archduke called it a “state betwixt life and death”, wherein I would be unconscious for an extended period of time, and most of my functions would be disabled. During this period, he would install a custom-made brain into my head, with reconstructed versions of the mysterious Earth-wizard powers...and my old memories.
“...I’m scared…”
“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about! I mean, if anything goes wrong, it’s not like you’ll ever know.”
“What does that mean…??”
“Well, either you’ll never wake up again, or your conscious mind will be fundamentally altered, essentially erasing this version of yourself and creating yet another. Which is a lot like never waking up again, actually.”
“...I’m more scared now…”
“Take it easy, friend. I’m 90% sure this experiment will be a success! And the sooner I finish, the sooner I can invite Tianqi over to cuddle my face...”
“What about Hizen?”
“Who— oh, that guy. I guess I do have to detach him, don’t I...lemme get my screwdriver…”
“I don’t want you detach him! I mean, I do want you to detach him, but I also want you to fix him!”
“Fix him?? Aw...well, on the one hand, I haven’t done much research on Cordyceps, so I wouldn’t know where to start...but on the other hand, it has been on my to-do list, and it’s not every day that you can get ahold of a Worm Feeder without a fight...but on the other other hand, just yesterday, the one and only love of my life whispered into my ear, in the most captivating, spellbinding voice ever manufactured, that all I had to do was ask, and he would come to call on me...”
“...Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you don’t help Hizen, then...I won’t let you do this experiment on me…!”
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“...You’re really not in any position to negotiate, you know. However, since I like you, I guess I can try to do something for your friend at some point.”
“At some point??”
“Alright, some point in the very near future; geez…! So pushy…”
“I’m just worried about him...before he went to sleep, he said he did something really bad…”
“Well, naturally. He did get discarded…”
“But he said he did something to me. And I think he felt so bad about it, it kinda broke his brain...”
“Oooh…”
“And if he never wakes up again, then I’ll never get to tell him...that it’s okay. And I forgive him.”
“...But you don’t even know what he did yet.”
“Maybe I will after this...but even now, I’m sure that no matter what it is, I’ll understand. Because I know Hizen would never do anything to hurt me on purpose. I just know.”
“...Well, that’s...uh…”
“Sentimental...?”
“...I was gonna say ‘a little stupid’, actually. But y’know, love is stupid! And I can tell that you love your friend very much~.”
“...Yeah. I do~.”
“Well, it’s been 115 seconds. You feel any different?”
“I guess, a little bit. Like, sort of...floaty.”
“Good, that’s a start...over the next few minutes, more and more of your brainstem functions are going to shut down, until you’re fully in hibernation mode. It’ll probably feel like very slowly falling asleep.”
“Okay…”
“When you start to come out of hibernation mode, you may experience a psychological phenomenon called a ‘dream’. Basically, your brain will create some...random scenarios while it wakes up.”
“Random scenarios…?”
“It’s like...you’re going to think you’re in places, or having experiences, but it’ll all be in your mind. Y’know, imaginary. And these places and experiences could be recreations of your memories, or they could be mixed together into totally new constructs.”
“...That sounds...annoying…”
“Maybe so, but you should appreciate it for the once-in-a-lifetime experience that it is. Most people never get to have a dream.”
“Oh…”
“If you do have one, I hope you’ll tell me about it. Y’know, for research~.”
“Right...research…”