--- title: "Prologue · Vol 1 - Failed Experiment" url: https://deovandski.github.io/HusbandOutWorld/novel/vol-1/prologue/ section: Light Novel spoilers: public layer first, Behind The Scenes after sources: [Legacy/Behind The Scenes/Light Novel/Arc #1 - Dubious Contract/Vol 1 - Failed Experiment.md] --- # Prologue *Vol 1 - Failed Experiment* ## 1 ![Subchapter illustration](Vol1/0_1.png) 1039 A.G Paulin 14th, Gannday at about Sunnilow. Another beautiful average summer morning, with a humid wind carrying hints of salty, fishy air, contrasting with a warming sun tickling the skin. Birds doing birdy things, fish doing fishy things, and humans … doing fishy things too. Amongst all the commonality of what would be just another day, two people stood by themselves on the fourth floor of Sanbi Kingdom’s Castle Southwest tower, with one of them clearly not looking pleased. Gabiro Sanbi Royal, a one-of-a-kind scientist, agitatedly raised his voice at his apprentice, Kibe. “Why the fuck did you bring me a dead bagarisa?” Gabiro’s old frail body and whitened eyes contrasted with his youthful, emotionally charged response; his nose twitched, sensing the pungent, musky odor of wet dog mixed with woody notes, with aftertaste of rotten smell coming from the dead bagarisa—a pig-like animal with tusks pointing downwards, famous for its pungent scent glands found at the base of its red mane, making it absolutely gleam in the sunlight. It’s beautiful to look at from afar, but you might gag up close. *He’s crankier than usual.* A ponderous apprentice by the name of Kibe moved his eyes around the unusually large specimen of bagarisa, while avoiding glancing back at the source of the accusing voice. “You’re the one who asked me to bring the most powerful thing around.” Tightly clenching his teeth, Gabiro made a nerve pop up in his forehead. He seemed to hold back for what seemed an instant, but soon after he extended his hand towards the dead bagarisa, and exploded verbally. “Were you smoking Sanbi shit? How is a fucking bagarisa the most powerful thing?” A fly, perusing the corpse, decided to switch targets, and headed straight into Gabiro’s open mouth. Coughing, he spit the fly out. “Dammit, Kibe\! Why the fuck didn’t you use ice create?” *If you’re going to be this much of a jerk, then you should have just gone to pick it up yourself.* Kibe, still finding things to look at other than Gabiro, tried to mince his words as his wide shoulders shrugged. “Huh—well, first. You didn’t give me enough time or—” “Enough time? You had two fucking days\! That’s why we are meeting here instead, you asshole\!” Gabiro immediately shot down the argument, shooing away the other curious flies from his mouth—perhaps Gabiro’s old age was just as fragrant as the dead bagarisa’s. “—huh—second, you only gave me three aquamarines.” Kibe paused, waiting for the counterargument which surely was going to come. *And here we go again—* “Pfff. Three aquamarines are more than fucking enough. I could have negotiated for a Darfaries corpse with that kind of money. You’re not even trying\! You dipshit\!” A boastful speech came from Gabiro, but then his eyes narrowed as he grew suspicious. “How much did this shit cost?” *Oops.* A strained smile appeared on Kibe’s face, slowly rubbing his suddenly sore neck. “Two aquamarines and three amethysts.” His voice sounded sure on the surface, but hollow inside, just like a new facade of a crumbling building. “WHAT?” Gabiro raised his walking stick, covered in cyan fish scales, and prepared to jam it on Kibe’s guts. His trembling hands raised the massive weight of the stick—it was just a normal walking stick, but it was simply too much for Gabiro’s bulimic forearms. *I hope he buys it.* Kibe, appearing to use his muscle reflexes, grabbed the end of the trembling walking stick, and calmly held back the attempted stabs. Breaking eye contact, he slightly shrugged, “Expensive, yes, but I had no choice. The two aquamarine adventurers did not want to negotiate\! They said they brought it back from south of Hifuna to mount as a trophy.” The jab attempts stopped. Gabiro now looked at the dead Bagarisa with a meticulous scientific glint in his eyes. “Was it that hard to hunt it down?” “Well, they called it the amethyst smelly killer.” Kibe let go of Gabiro’s stick as he felt the jabs stop. His eyes finally had enough courage to glance back at Gabiro, rubbing his hand on his chin. Gabiro sized up the corpse, paying close attention to its large, wide back, and impressive dark red mane. Gabiro’s chin-stroking paused as his eyes shifted back to Kibe. “You didn’t tell them what this was for, right?” Kibe remembered meeting with the two adventurers, then happening to go drinking with one of them, a taller muscled human by the name of Lukino. His mind was slightly sparse on the details, possibly due to over indulging in talking to Lukino amidst pounding a few beers in a local bar. At the same time, he for sure remembered renting the most expensive room to get to know that adventurer through means other than talking. “Noooo—?” Kibe’s voice ended with somewhere between an exclamation and a question, holding back what appeared to be another grin forming. Gabiro sharply asked, “What did you tell them?” “I didn’t tell them anything\!” Kibe’s voice trailed as his eyes began looking away again. *Well, I guess I did tell them a bit.* His voice trailed off, “Other than say it was for an experiment—” “And you didn’t go into the details?” Gabiro raised one of his white, hairy eyebrows. “Of course not\! I didn’t tell them we were experimenting with a new fake skin.” Kibe’s hand moved by itself towards his nose to scratch a sudden itch. “—that’s why I didn’t tell you the truth, you dumbass.” These words slipped out under Gabiro’s breath, barely making it to Kibe. “Sorry. What?” Kibe was still remembering the intricacies of how he got to know Lukino, so he was half-heartedly paying attention. “Whatever. They are going to spend all the balls on the pub anyway—let’s get this shit over with.” Gabiro placed his walking stick on the table, and proceeded to disrobe by untangling the blue ribbon on his stomach, and opening his bathrobe-like clothing like he was a diva—full of prideful elegance. Kibe, turning himself away from viewing such a decrepit body, glanced around the room. A closed door, a few bookshelves, and wooden drawers encircled them, but that was it. He suddenly realized there was something crucial missing as his eyes widened. “Wait\! Where’s the guy? The body\!” Gabiro, disrobed down to his blue boxers with white fish symbols, was browsing the drawers. Without even looking at Kibe, he continued to search for something. “We’re doing something different today.” With his left hand, he grabbed a simple-looking short knife that contained beautiful carving of a fish jumping, and stood back in front of the corpse. Both hands were in front of him, close to chest level. His left hand held the knife pointed towards the right palm, which was laid with its fingers laid out flat, as if trying to high-five the knife. Kibe watched the knife, ready to cut Gabiro’s old frail skin. “Okay—that’s why we are going old-school?” Gabiro took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “Because I felt like it. Now shut the fuck up, and get ready to feed nari until we reach eleven.” Gabiro proceeded to slice open his palm, making two similarly sized squares, leaving the first square empty and making a plus sign inside the other. “No logogram?” Kibe could not help himself, taking a peek into the bleeding carvings in Gabiro’s rubbery skin. Refusing to acknowledge Kibe, Gabiro clenched the fingers of his right hand, leaving the bleeding palm exposed. A trail of harmless white fire emerged from his middle and ring fingers, and rushed up his arm, in a vein-like pattern, towards his back. Afterwards, five circles of white fire popped into existence around his right arm—surging from the white fire in his arms. Gabiro let out a long-frustrated groan, and began chanting, almost as if he had memorized it like the lyrics of a catchy, but cringy song. “A man out of this world\! He needs to stand big and tall, but not a giant like Darfaries. He must be assertive, yet charismatic\! A true listener\!” *This is ancient stuff\! Is this still for Maiara?* Kibe, meanwhile, stayed silently watching whatever Gabiro was attempting to do. His eyes shifted to the box filled with nari stones—a stone encapsulated by a green wood frame that allowed multiple stones to be chained together, forming a stick. Each stone had a blue hue inside that felt like a trapped gas of sorts, appearing as if the blue would swirl around if you shook it with your hand. Glancing at the size of each stick, and the sheer amount of them, Kibe gasped, “There’s like ten per stick? Did you use our entire budget for this?” Kibe’s eyes grew serious for once, “Am I gonna get my salary tomorrow?” A loud shush came from Gabiro. His eyes were forcibly shut, and his brows furrowed firmly, continuously speaking out loud, “His body needs to be muscular, yet he must be a comfortable body pillow—he needs to be fertile, and his schlong needs to be hard as rock, and veiny as a weightlifter, but not as big as a Darfaries’s. His balls must be filled with fertility, and warm to the touch. His eyes must be sparkly green, his hair must be golden blonde, and he must not have a beard, or body hair.” *That’s definitely for Maiara—no way the other princess would ask for something like that.* Kibe pondered more, looking at the dripping blood from Gabiro’s hands. *Strange we would be doing something this experimental though. I mean, it’s just a fake body, so why are we going through the trouble?* Kibe drew breath to speak, but then stopped himself short. *Aww whatever. If Gabiro defunds the department’s monthly budget, then I will just take it up with Neferteri.* Gabiro clenched his left hand, but left his middle and ring fingers out flat—kinda as if he was flipping the bird. When he did so, he caused a bluish fire to emerge from his left hand, and arm. It danced back and forth, like the flame of a gas stove if you move the gas dial back and forth. Even though this ethereal-like flame seemed to be in direct contact with his skin, it did appear to cause any kind of burns. As if he was practicing a ritual handed down through the generations, he then proceeded to touch the two left fingers into the right palm and moved the clenched right fingers to envelop the left fingers, looking just like a Venus flytrap catching flies. With absolute, confident trapping motions of the right hand, appearing as if it was eating the left fingers, a rhythmic wave of bluish excited flames arose high on the left arm and hand, before rushing towards Gabiro’s sagging, bleeding palm of his right hand. As it clashed, the blue flames disappeared inside the palm, all while a white ball with a trailing tail composed of double helix strands, like a yarn ball made of DNA, emerged into existence and spun around on the smallest ring around Gabiro’s right arm, as if trying to free itself. ## 2 ![Subchapter illustration](Vol1/0_2.png) Five white balls of DNA appeared on the soul rings: two on the smallest one, closest to Gabiro’s wrist, and three on the following ring. Kibe avoided eye contact with Gabiro’s exposed skin, but his eyes were just curious enough to bring them back. “White balls?” Kibe paid close attention to how ghastly white the balls were. “What are we doing messing with the soul? That’s dangerous\!” Gabiro entrapped his left fingers again, but this time things behaved differently. The blue flames of his left forearm rushed thought the hand, and into the palm, then flamed out, while no new white ball of DNA appeared in the rings once he stopped entrapping. “You’re out.” Kibe, grabbing one of the nari sticks, placed the pointy edge of the blue nari stones towards the bloodied palm. Gabiro clenched his hand, making the blue hue inside the nari stone rush towards the palm, leaving behind an empty, crystalline, diamond-like stone. *Getting paid good money to do this ain’t bad.* Kibe, dropping the used nari chain in the ground like a filthy smoker would throw out a cigarette butt, grabbed another chain, and repeated the process. His satisfaction started to wane, as he mechanically kept feeding one chain of nari after the other into Gabiro’s palm, leaving behind an almost empty box. “Eleven.” Kibe confirmed the eleventh ball of double helices had just come into existence by itself in the third ring, after a lot more than eleven nari chains were fed into it. Meanwhile, with deep breaths and beads of sweat running down his forehead, Gabiro placed his right hand in the bloating corpse. His face clenched in revulsion and disgust as the corpse juices dirtied his saggy hand. As Gabiro slowly unclenched his fingers, it ripped apart the rotting skin, exposing the worms from underneath having a feast on the dead flesh. The rings around his arms collapsed into one another, growing brighter as they rushed towards the hand, traveling through the wrist, and exploding outward from the palm with a white flame that covered the butt of the bagarisa corpse, appearing to liquify the flesh from within. *That’s new.* Kibe, speechless, and incapable of blinking, watched every detail of the white fire as it slowly swallowed the entire bagarisa corpse, like a snake eating a deer. The flaming white ooze began to spread on the table, slowly inching to its edges like thick molasses. “What interface is that?” “Hrrrrgggghh,” Gabiro replied with a pained grunt. He opened his eyes, looking at a worm about the size of his thumb rapidly burrowing itself on his hand. “Fuck\!” Flinching, Gabiro pulled on the worm with all the waning strength that he had, tearing it in half, spilling its worm guts and blood everywhere, and throwing it into the ooze puddle. Seeing the white fire consuming the worm, liquefying it into the ooze, Kibe felt a primordial fear strike at his chest. He stepped back, just in case whatever this ooze thing was started to crawl towards him as it began to drip onto the floor. “AWW\! FUCK\!” Gabiro clenched his teeth. Looking at the hole left behind by the worm, he saw the same white flame oozing out. “AW SHIT\! QUICK\! Grab the knife\!” Gabiro held his right arm, applying as much pressure as he could, trying to restrict the blood flow, while a white curtain of flame constantly marched steadily towards his forearm, liquefying his own flesh and making it drip onto the ground. “Ahhhh—” Frozen in space, Kibe only let out a murmur, seeing Gabiro’s forearm becoming oozy and pooling in the ground. “DAMMIT, KIBE—” Before Gabiro could finish his sentence, the flame reached his elbow, gaining momentum as it dissolved everything on its path. Letting go of his arm, he grabbed the knife with his only hand, and stabbed his shoulder. He grunted from the pain—the same white ooze poured from the stab wounds, rather than blood. “KIBE\! FUCK\! Do something\! Cut my head off\!” Gabiro moved his old frail hand towards Kibe, and tried to take a step, but didn’t move very far. “NOW\!” With his heart pounding, Kibe still could not move. He watched Gabiro scream in pain, his body slowly melting away into a white fiery ooze. Kibe could not fathom a thought, watching with pure fearful awe the growing brightness of the two ooze clusters, roaring in flames as they drew closer to one another, nearly touching. Like a flashbang, a suddenly blinding flash lit up the entire room, taking over his senses, including his capability of thought. Kibe felt himself levitating, as if he was going down on an intense roller coaster, only to have a sudden feeling of being crushed as if a drunk truck driver rear ended him. A numbing feeling appeared next, followed by intense comforting warmth, like entering a hot tub in the middle of the winter. Kibe’s vision, fussy and tunneling, spotted a torn up room, with a weakening white fire on top of the table, slowly revealing a corpulent human body. He tried to move his neck, but it didn’t budge. He tried to move his fingers, but they refused to acknowledge its owner. A breath, maybe he could breathe—nope. He was stuck, paralyzed inside his own dying body. Kibe blinked. Like waking up from a dream, Kibe took a deep breath, opening his eyes, but now he saw himself in a private hot spring accompanied by large friendly humanoids that he could not fully identify. The comforting warmth, the natural forest aroma in the air, plus the company of people he liked meant the world to him. He relaxed his face, dipping further into the hot water with a vacant mind.