Someday Will I Be The Greatest Alchemist?

Pulsating fragments

There was a small town in the border regions of a nation known as the Divine Empire of Sydnia.
With the collapse of the country, its population flowed out to other places, and it turned into a ghost town.
Inside the rundown church there, it was slow, and it happened little by little, but it was growing steadily.

Several priests of the former Light God Faith wearing hooded cloaks concealing their faces were smiling eerily amongst themselves as they watched what they’re trying to accomplish make favorable progress.

◇

「Hiyaaaaaa!!」
「Zabe meeee!!」
「Gyaaaaaa!!」

On the outskirts of a ghost town, in the church no longer visited by people, agonizing death cries resounded.

「It would be easy if they are criminal slaves.」
「Yeah, it would be easier than bringing those people dying by the roadside in the slums.」

In front of the former priests, the remains of what once were humans lay scattered and entangled on the miasma tentacles emitted by the pulsing fragment.

Around the recently ruined men was an accumulation of more decaying, similarly wrecked biological matter.

They were the priests who came back from the Demon Continent, they purchased criminal slaves to offer to the fragment of their Goddess.
At first, they abducted people from the slums of various cities, where wouldn’t cause a panic even if they went missing, but this was more work than they had expected. More than anything, there was a convenient thing known as criminal slaves which could be obtained for a similar cost without taking any risk, so there was no reason not to make use of it.

Criminal slaves tend to be cheaper the more heinous their crimes were. The clincher was no one would want to own a criminal that has done atrocious crimes despite the fact that the criminal is unable to defy the orders of their owner because of the slavery contract.
That was why the criminal slaves who committed especially atrocious crimes were bought by countries and nobles sent into the mines where the harsh environments and deaths were synonymous. It could loosely be called a death penalty, as the criminals were disposable tools that had difficulty in returning alive.

It was for this reason that the former priests purchasing criminal slaves as offerings was an inevitability.

The present condition of the former Divine Empire of Sydnia also pushed the former priests.
After their nation’s collapse, the former Divine Empire of Sydnia had a fragmented government because of the Trination alliance of Valkyra Kingodm, Lomaria Kingdom, and Yggurle Kingdom, so, naturally, public order was deteriorating.

That deteriorating public order was favorable for the former priests. With the knights dispatched from the fragmented ruling of the Trination and the joint request from the Trination at the Adventurers Guild of their respective countries, the ex-adventurers and ex-knights-turned bandits which caused the public discord were being subjugated or arrested. And the captured criminals were being sold as cheap criminal slaves.

They were able to obtain offering without any criticism from anyone. The former priests snickered.

「For those of us biding our time and avoiding suspicion to the best of our abilities until the revival of our Goddess, criminal slaves are the best thing we could hope to have.」
「Yes, there is no need to rush. We have plenty of time.」

The vacant eyes of the former priests did not perceive the abnormality of the transforming fragment. They were no longer able to make normal judgements.

Beyond their gazes, the fragment placed onto an alter which absorbed the provided offerings had greatly changed from the appearance of a chipped purplish black fragment that it initially had.

There, the fragment covered in human flesh like a meaty baseball was enshrined.
This lump of flesh with no muscle or veins, and naturally no internal organs, was amassing miasma as it pulsated like a heart.

The former priests wished for their goddess…… wished for the revival of the Evil Spirit.

However, a more evil monster was being brought upon this world.

The world was not yet aware of that danger.

The grudge of the sacrifices and the miasma were mixing together, creating a monster egg.