The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

Chapter 282: The Contamination (3) The Madman Dissection

"It’s not my first time dealing with... questionable ingredients," he said with a shrug. He paused, holding up a severed limb.

"Neutral. Useless for food but decent for alchemical study."

Mikhailis murmured under his breath.

"Interesting."

"What’s interesting?" Vyrelda’s voice carried a hint of irritation.

He looked up briefly, his smirk returning.

"The science of it. You wouldn’t understand."

Vyrelda scowled, gripping her sword tighter.

"Try me."

"Later," he said dismissively, returning to his work.

"Right now, I need to focus."

His hands moved meticulously, separating flesh, sinew, and bone into their respective piles. The "edible" pile remained small, containing only a few organs and tissue fragments. The "poisonous" pile grew rapidly, its stench becoming more unbearable with every addition.

Lira finally broke the silence.

"You still haven’t answered the most important question. Are you planning to eat that?"

Mikhailis didn’t reply immediately, his focus entirely on a particularly intact organ. If I had the chimera ants here, this would be so much faster. They’d sort through this mess without a second thought. He sighed softly, his hands continuing their precise work.

"Your Highness," Lira pressed, her voice firmer now.

He finally looked up, meeting her gaze with a faintly amused expression.

"Only if it’s cooked properly."

Lira’s composure cracked.

"You’re impossible."

Estella threw up her hands.

"This man is going to kill us all."

Cerys’s lips twitched into what might have been the ghost of a smile.

"Not if he kills himself first."

Good to know, Mikhailis thought, carefully sealing the edible parts in another container.

But thne suddenly.

Growl~!!

I’ts clear to see whose stomach is the culprit as Cerys immediately held her stomach in reflex.

"See? Even Lone Wolf’s stomach approves," he muttered under his breath, drawing a curious glance from Lira. He ignored it, focusing instead on a particularly resilient piece of corrupted muscle tissue.

"I don’t!" Cerys rebuted.

Estella, who had been watching from a safe distance, finally stepped closer.

"What exactly are you looking for?" she asked, her curiosity overriding her discomfort.

Mikhailis paused, considering his words carefully.

"Signs of alchemical tampering," Mikhailis said vaguely, his voice calm but laced with an undercurrent of intrigue. His blade sliced through another section of sinew, exposing what looked like a fused mesh of muscle and foreign material. He turned the specimen slightly, the firelight catching faint glimmers of something metallic embedded within the tissue. Find your next adventure on novelhall.Côm

"The kind that explains why these things are so... broken."

The group exchanged uneasy glances, their discomfort palpable. Estella took a tentative step forward, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Broken? What do you mean by that?"

Mikhailis didn’t respond immediately, his attention focused on the intricate patterns within the tissue. His glasses glinted faintly as Rodion’s data streams played silently across the lenses.

Mikhailis adjusted his glasses, his expression darkening.

"They’re engineered to fail," he murmured, more to himself than to the others.

"Fail at what?" Lira pressed, her tone sharp. Her arms were crossed, but the faint tremor in her fingers betrayed her unease.

He finally looked up, meeting her gaze with a faint, humorless smile.

"Fail at being anything more than weapons."

"This isn’t food; it’s... it’s corruption incarnate!"

Mikhailis turned back to his work, seemingly unfazed. He knelt and held up another piece of flesh, this one faintly glowing with an unnatural luminescence. "N

ot this part, obviously," he said, tossing it into the "poisonous" pile with a flick of his wrist.

"But the tissue I’ve isolated here? Completely safe. Relatively speaking."

Cerys’s green eyes narrowed as she crossed her arms, her posture rigid.

"Relatively? That’s not exactly reassuring, Mikhailis."

He straightened, brushing his gloves off on his cloak. "L

ook, everything in life is relative. If we were in a civilized city with fresh bread and roasted venison, sure, I’d pass on this. But we’re not. We’re here. And unless you’ve got a magical feast tucked away somewhere, this is what we’ve got."

Estella let out a soft groan, burying her face in her hands.

"This is madness."

"It’s survival," Mikhailis countered, his tone sharp enough to draw her attention.

"I’m not saying we dig in raw and hope for the best. We cook it, we purify it, and we live to see tomorrow."

Lira’s dark eyes flicked to the small container, her expression a mixture of revulsion and reluctant consideration.

"And what about the other parts? The ones you’ve been so carefully sorting?"

Mikhailis crouched again, gesturing toward the distinct piles he had created.

"Poisonous," he said, pointing to the greenish-purple heap that exuded an acrid stench.

"Don’t touch unless you want a quick trip to the afterlife. Neutral," he continued, indicating the limbs and hardened tissues.

"Not edible but useful for alchemical study. And then..." He held up the container again, his smirk widening.

"Edible."

Estella took a cautious step forward, peering at the contents of the container as though expecting it to leap out at her.

"And you’re sure this is... safe?"

"As sure as I can be without a full lab and a week to run tests," Mikhailis replied, his tone light but underpinned with a seriousness that gave them pause.

"My analysis supports it."

"What analysis?" Lira pressed, her eyes narrowing.

Mikhailis’s smirk faltered slightly.

"Just... a theory," he said quickly, waving her off.

"Let’s call it an educated guess."

Cerys huffed, her arms still crossed.

"And what makes you so confident you’re right?"

Mikhailis gestured to the monstrous remains around them.

"Because these creatures didn’t die of their own volition. Something—someone—did this to them. And if I can figure out the how and the why, we might be able to stop this from happening again. In the meantime..." He held up the container once more, the firelight catching the faint sheen of the tissue inside.

"We’ve got this."

The group fell silent, their unease palpable. Even Vyrelda, who rarely hesitated to speak her mind, seemed at a loss for words.

Finally, Lira exhaled sharply, her hands dropping to her sides.

"You’re impossible."

Mikhailis grinned, his confidence unshaken.

"And yet, here we are."

A low growl broke the tension, drawing their attention to Cerys. She stiffened, her hand instinctively going to her stomach as her face flushed.

"Again. It wasn’t me," she muttered quickly, but the timing betrayed her.

Mikhailis’s grin widened.

"See? Even the Lone Wolf’s stomach agrees. Twice."

Cerys glared at him, her tone defensive.

"It’s not agreeing—it’s protesting!"

"Protesting starvation, maybe," he quipped, turning back to his work. His blade moved with swift precision, carving away another section of tissue.

"We’ll eat. We’ll live. And tomorrow, we’ll figure out what the hell happened here."