Disclaimer: this has no affiliation with Noblesse.
I didn't add to this side story/deleted scenes collection for the longest time cos I wanted to write a sequel to Double Toil Trouble but...nothing came to me. So, this instead.
This chapter was supposed to slot between 39-40 or in chapter 40 of Who is the Monster, but it didn't flow so it got cut. There's some callbacks to chapter 7 as well - it was my attempt at reconciling Victor Frankenstein to our Noblesse Frankenstein.
The Ends of the Earth
Frankenstein stood at the tip of the cliffside, looking out beyond the horizon. Below was a dark and perilous sea crashing against the rocks of the shore. There were no marks around him, no break in the smooth sand or unflattened grass. Frankenstein peered over the water, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't see the other side. He couldn't see the land from which he'd come.
Frankenstein was good at vanishing. He was good at picking out noble mutant contractors from noble knights, which to carve up so that they never had a story to tattle, and which to wipe silly so he would again have never existed to them. He was good at burning covers — the kind doctor had packed up and left one town for another, the skilful hunter had gone into the woods and never come back, the tailor's helping hand had resigned for something better. There were no true records of him left. There were no more friends who knew his name. There were no more people willing to remember it, for all the trouble it had caused.
For another kind of people, "Human," became his name, and it became more and more spoken, followed behind him closer than ever.
Now the sea between him and the mainland was vast and stormy. It would wash away any trace of him, wash away this shadow of a journey that had never happened. It would be as if Frankenstein had never existed — and that would be for the best. Let the Union run around in circles chasing their tails trying to find a disappeared man, while he put his eyes on the nobles from the inside.
"As expected, the nobles have lost my trail," Frankenstein said, speaking to himself. A bad habit; a habit that had turned bad the moment there was no one there to console. His eyes turned downwards to the rocks, seeing how high up he was. "They'll never imagine I am here in their stronghold. Lukedonia."
His eyes turned up again, looking into a distance that never ended. "How very like them to make such a mistake in their arrogance."
"You are not wrong."
This was the end of where he had been, and would ever be, chased.
It was where all his research and effort had bought him. He hadn't planned to be here so soon, hadn't figured out what to do once he got here, or how to protect himself. He was surrounded and he took a risk and maybe his luck ran out.
"We never imagined you would come here, Human." Gejutel K. Landegre strode out into the open with the air of someone who looked the exact opposite of wanting to engage in light and pleasant conversation.
Soon after, Ragar Kertia appeared at his side, and Frankenstein had to rethink how good he really was at vanishing. Frankenstein put on a smile that wasn't kind.
"Tell your Lord he can come here, if he has business with me. What's it to me, if he's the Lord?" Frankenstein said, proud, "He's Lord over the nobles, and I'm clearly human. He hasn't a right to order me around."
Kertia peeled at his mask, a bad habit his own. "We granted you the grace of delaying your punishment for the unforgivable crimes you have committed. Your hunting of nobles…"
"So that's why you're after me," Frankenstein replied.
Landegre butt-in where he hadn't asked. "If you had not taken the lives of nobles, nor used them in your experiments, our people would not be after your blood. Nor would we, the Clan Leaders, have become involved."
Frankenstein wanted to make him swallow his words. "That's funny," he started, a lilt in his voice, "So nobles are allowed to hunt humans, but humans are forbidden to hunt nobles?"
Kertia turned away sharply and talked while not looking at him. "Hmph. Attributing the deeds of mutants to us nobles? Your actions were fuelled by delusion, then."
Frankenstein gritted his teeth so hard they made audible sound. "So the deeds of mutants have nothing to do with you nobles?" he said, riled, taking personal offence that these high and mighty nobles had not even an idea of what was really happening within their walls, or where they deployed their leeches of knights.
"Mutants are born suddenly, out of nowhere, are they?!"
Landegre's brow furrowed. "Don't be unreasonable, Human," he said, his tongue rolling over the world reasonable. "We have no control over the actions of mutants."
The man in the ditch whose corpse was days-cold from a dream Frankenstein had yet to have was a friend. Most of the village had been overrun by mutants. The ones that didn't turn were either too injured to or gone. In reality he did dig that ditch himself, he did place the innocent dead to rest, he did linger on his best friend's face as he touched his neck and apologised for everything, anything. For being smart but not smart enough to stop this; for being fast but not fast enough to be here; for being powerful but not powerful enough to be at all places at once, to save everyone who needed it.
"Mutants are created when the human contractees of nobles choose to make other contracts as they please," Kertia stated beside him, like he was stating facts that didn't matter because they didn't affect him at all. "This can be considered the result of human foolishness."
The woman in the bed whom Frankenstein had fed his own blood to stave the craving was his mother. The craving was going to kill her if the disease wouldn't first. Back then there was no certainty as to what was culling back half the country. They called it a plague, a curse, a scarlet fever, but Frankenstein knew better. It started with a bite. It always did. In reality she would never crumble, she would never beg to be saved either. She was going to turn into a mutant and there was nothing Frankenstein could do but watch. So he watched her up close, putting his forehead up to hers as she consoled him.
Frankenstein's face twisted. His palpable anger was putting his enemies on edge but he didn't care. "In any case, at the very top of the line of contractors — are you, nobles."
Kertia didn't turn at all this time. He didn't even feel the need to share a look with his conspirator, just took his accusation and stood calmly with it.
The boy in the snow Frankenstein had scooped up in his arms was frostbitten, paralysed in the face of the mutant he'd freshly dispatched. He was just a boy, and Frankenstein couldn't reimagine the kind of wrenching feeling inside him the moment he discovered he was alive in the wreckage. He made him his apprentice and then taught him how the universe really worked, how much Frankenstein hated nobles for what they'd done to him and the world.
Frankenstein hated nobles.
He hated them for creating this hostile and superstitious world, where people died pointless deaths, greedy monsters infected others for a finite power high, and his entire life had been stolen from him in the blink of an eye. He didn't care about getting his life back. He didn't care about having a first name. In this moment he cared about nothing but killing these careless men, who carelessly walked among humans as if they were gods, and carelessly talked knowing nothing at all about what they had truly done.
Frankenstein wanted to kill nobles, he wanted to kill nobles for sport, he wanted to tamper with their minds to see how they liked it, wanted to spend his last night on earth doing what he'd always dreamed of, if this was the very end of the chase.
Frankenstein was completely alone, more companionless than he had ever cared to realise. He had took a last breath and stole away to Lukedonia. He had nothing but something to prove — humans weren't as sickly and weak as this heedless noblekind thought.
He went to Lukedonia, all grand gestures and flamboyant words, to demonstrate to the nobles that humans were not weak and probably meet his end in the process. Maybe he thought that was how he could best do good in a world that was out to get him. Maybe he had a sliver of a hope that his former apprentice could continue his work, if he wanted it.
"In the end…" Frankenstein stepped towards Ragar, his hand crawling with purple by the time he lashed out, "Mutants are just monsters that you nobles have created!"
I'm kind of sad Henry Clerval, Franken's old best friend got nothing when I wrote something for Elizabeth Lavenza, who lived cos I liked her too much in this 'everyone dies' sad Vicki Franken story. Maybe I will do something for him later.
All of the dialogue is from chapter 240 and onwards of egscans translated noblesse, (I read from mangareader) which is all killer and made noblesse sound so awesome, and since the switch to the official translations nothing has been the same. Seriously though, the translation quality has gone down so much everyone sounds like mojo jojo. But then again, can't complain since I'm still getting to read noblesse!
