As Cheese spoke, a slight sound began to come out of a wall behind the workbench. The sound was much softer than when a normal mechanism door was opened, and it looked like the secret door must have been opened a lot lately, or someone was taking regular maintenance of the mechanism. Whatever the case may be, when the mechanism stops, a corridor leading to a higher floor appears in the room.

"The situation seems simpler than I thought. The mage craned his neck and looked at the staircase leading to darkness. As it turns out, there are no magic traps in this office. And the method of covering the secret door does not take into account the fact that it is completely wary of those spellcasters who have the ability to detect. This is a typical defense mechanism against ordinary people, and the builders have not taken the existence of the darkness into account at all.

"Are there no traps on these stairs?" Dr. Hill looked at the stairs, she couldn't recover from the experience as quickly as Cheese, and Hill was skeptical of the staircase. But before she could hesitate, the mage had already stepped into the hallway.

Seeing this, the Dementors knew they were overthinking. The line between cautious and suspicious is already blurred. Perhaps only a person like Cheese who has a certain degree of confidence in himself and thinks about things from a very objective perspective can grasp the scale.

When Cheese stepped onto the fourth floor of the theoretical existence of the Pharmacists' Guild, he soon realized that this was a pharmaceutical workshop. The large, dimly lit space was lit from top to bottom by a dark red light source, a large number of experimental equipment, the peculiar smell of alchemical potions, and an unknown test subject that had lost its vital signs in a cage. In addition, a man in a pharmacist's robe had his back to the mage, busily operating a large number of instruments on a long table.

"I always thought that the Apothecary Guild of the Grey Lion was more of an elven potion than this kind of thing. The mage said to the man with his back to him in the tone of an old friend. Without the need for other corroboration, Cheese could guess that the person in front of him must be Baron Gray's teacher, the one who is the current chief pharmacist of the Grey Lion.

"The effects of elven potions are too limited. Those long ears can easily cultivate things that we can't cultivate. The apothecary, who had his back to the mage, replied unhurriedly, holding up a clear vessel containing a green potion to observe something in the red light. When the chief apothecary turned his head sideways, Cheese noticed that his head was no longer human. The long snout and the whiskers sticking out of the tip of his nose all tell him who he is.

"I don't think a good pharmacist would ever experiment with himself. The mage frowned and said. By this time Ciel had already walked into the workshop, but the female doctor was not surprised when she saw the quiet gesture made by the cheese.

"Oh, you said I became a nezumi? I don't want to do that, but I happened to run out of materials at the time, and it was too much trouble to go out and find the right person...... But it's not bad, my sense of smell and vision has improved considerably, which is good enough for a pharmacist. The nezumi apothecary said, placing the vessel back on the table, reaching out and taking another red flask from the nearby shelf, and pouring it into the green potion.

"So he's the plague spreader?" asked Ciel, whispered behind the mage, ready for battle.

"Haha, I wish I was, too. It's a pity that I'm not qualified enough. Who remembered that Si hadn't answered yet, but the nezumi picked up the Dementor's words. He shook his head, the whisker on the tip of his nose quivering, "Rat-man plague, that's a good name. But this young lady, you have misunderstood one thing. ”

"The rat-man plague is not a disease, it is a curse. Cheese said that this conclusion had been drawn since his first encounter with the virus at the foot of Dragonspine Mountain, "and a pharmacist, no matter how proficient he is in pharmacy, cannot cast a curse." ”

"That's right. Honestly, Mr. Cheese, I really envy you. The nezumi apothecary shook the potion in his hand, and the red and green potions fused to turn an even more disturbing dark purple, "It took me most of my life to learn the truth about this world. For this knowledge, I gave everything I had, my family, my reputation, my status, and even my humanity. But you!"

At this, the former chief apothecary seemed to suddenly become agitated, and he pointed at the mage with the nezumi's long, thin fingers, and said loudly in the nezumi's unpleasant voice.

"You can grow up in the truth!

"Whew..."Looking at the other party's almost crazy appearance, Cheese sighed. He knew that no matter how methodical the other person's behavior was just now, this person had gone crazy. The nezumi in front of him was no longer an experienced apothecary, he was just another blind and pitiful being blinded by power and abandoning everything.

"Magic is not truth. I never thought that learning magic would bring me closer to the truth. The pharmacist uses the potion in his hand to understand the world, and the caster perceives the world with magic, and there is no difference between the two. The mage's expression was serious, and he rarely put on such a face. And those who are familiar with cheese know that when he makes such an expression, it means that the gray robe is really angry.

"You're a wizard anyway, you can say whatever you want!You can stun people on the first and second floors silently, you can open locked doors with one finger, and you can even develop a potion to stop the spread of the plague in a few days!You make the efforts of us mortals a joke!" The nezumi grinned and drank the dark purple potion he was holding. The sharp teeth were covered with the remnants of the potion, and there was something that looked like scrap of meat.

"Listen, I can stabilize your state. Free you from the blood-eating desires that plague you. This is your last chance. Looking at the other party's appearance, the mage made a final persuasion. He didn't want to kill the apothecary, in Cheese's opinion, the person in front of him was just on the wrong path of research, and the same purpose was the pursuit of truth, and the mage really didn't want to see a life with the same ideals as himself die.

But it was already too late. As the potion took effect, the nezumien's shriveled muscles began to expand at a rate visible to the naked eye, and the fangs in the long snout broke through the lips and protruded from the upper and lower jaws. Looking at the other party's bloodshot eyes, Cheese knew that the person he had just talked to was no longer there.