29 Filth (2/2)

”How dare you…”

All of those sounded high and mighty in retrospect, he had really blurted nonsense at her. Luckily, Catherine hadn't heard those.

After walking for a while, Joshua had calmed down a bit. He started to focus on the positive things. The source of their recent trouble had been eliminated. He had to scrap his plan to interrogate her, but they could now inspect the whole facility freely. Surely, they would learn something new! He took a deep breath and appeared outside, next to Catherine.

The rest of the party had arrived in the meantime. Eric and Cynthia were slightly bruised, Catherine was busy healing them.

”Is everyone all right? What happened to you people?”

”You were right about an alarm going off, we were attacked as soon as we passed the front door,” Catherine answered.

”Yeah, we got rid of the guards while Lady Catherine came to your rescue,” Cynthia added.

”I see. What kind of guards were they?”

”Rune-powered constructs, a bit like your robots.”

”Great, I need to take a look at them. Well, there is a lot to look at in here.”

He saw that in the corner of the room Delila's corpse had been covered by a drape. Maybe she had runes inside her body. He had never done an autopsy before but there was a first to everything.

He was about to leave when Catherine talked to him mentally.

”Do you want to talk about what happened?”

”...I'd rather not.”

”She was the one messing with your mind right?”

”Indeed, with her gone, we don't have to worry about it anymore.”

”...I'll let you off the hook for now, but if you ever feel like talking, my door is open.”

”Thanks, sweetheart!” he answered.

Joshua apologized to her silently. He wished he could share it all with Catherine but… he had worked hard to build a relation of trust with her. If he told her all what he had felt and why he had gotten so angry… she would think badly of him, and that's something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

He could never thank Catherine enough to have given him the opportunity to boost his knowledge. Seeing this whole lab open to him, he felt joy for the first time in a while. They would probably stay here for some time so since Luna couldn't scan the whole area at once, he examined each room individually.

Luckily, humans aren't only filled with dark thoughts. They may also bury more hopeful ones inside of them. Take Joshua, for example, he has claimed several times now his goal was to see mankind evolve. That's indeed the case and is an interesting goal in itself, but buried deep inside him lies the origin of that goal, something he has probably forgotten himself. Joshua was a man of science, he believed that every problem had an answer. If an issue cannot be solved currently, research must be performed to find a solution. Now, Joshua had unconsciously linked that thought to his own situation.

”If mankind keeps progressing, maybe someday I'll discover a way to fix myself.”