Samael, the Serpent of God - Chapter 3

During treatment, I had actually planned to use kindness, pretending to be a good person and tricking the alter.

He exposed me without mercy.

“Why did they send a little runt to kill me this time?”

I froze.

“You’ve disrupted Lieutenant General Huo’s daily life.”

“Oh.”

He hooked my pen toward himself and spun it carelessly.

“So obedient? How much do you know about him?”

I said, “Twenty-seven years old, the Empire’s youngest fleet commander, with a family that owns a permanent fief covering an entire star system…”

He cut me off.

“I didn’t ask for an encyclopedia entry.”

“He protected the Empire.”

As if he had heard the funniest joke in the world, the alter sat up, shrugged, and grinned wickedly.

“By killing some people to protect others?”

“Doctor Wen, you’re from the Federation. You know best that the Empire has nothing good in it, don’t you?”

I paused, keeping my voice steady.

“Lieutenant General Huo, the fleet has protected the Federation too. I serve and remain loyal to the Empire. That’s reasonable.”

“Mm.”

He curled his fingers and tapped them against his temple.

“How boring.”

He put away his lazy posture and sat a little straighter.

“Let’s get on with the treatment.”

“And I’m not a lieutenant general. Doctor Wen, use my name to distinguish me from that kind of Imperial puppet.”

I nodded.

“Then what should I call you?”

“You name me. Don’t be afraid. I’m not as stiff as Huo Zhi.”

His voice was languid, the words drawn out.

“You could call me by a puppy’s name and I still wouldn’t get angry.”

Under threat that he would refuse treatment unless I named him, I called him Samael.

The venomous serpent of God. The dark angel.

It was the name of an angel from a myth of Old Earth.

Huo Zhi had received an elite Imperial education. The galaxy was too vast for him to know a remote myth like that.

I visited the previous attending physicians.

They all mentioned the same phenomenon.

The alter was suicidal.

“Guiding him toward suicide is an excellent treatment direction.”

So at our next meeting, I had the alter complete a questionnaire.

Severe anxiety. Mild depression.

He wasn’t interested in the result.

Instead, he asked me, “Do you think the Empire should be burned down and rebuilt, Doctor Wen?”

“Sorry. I can’t answer that.”

“Then let me ask it another way.”

He folded his hands, as if our positions had been reversed and I was the criminal under interrogation.

“Have you ever resented the Empire for indirectly destroying your homeland?”

“Yes.”

I answered honestly.

Our eyes met.

“Samael, we’re both curious about each other.”

“Shall we exchange questions?”

“All right.”

He nodded faintly.

“Why do you want to imprison that civilian girl?”

“No comment.”

He was impossible to move.

I said, “I answered you seriously. Please keep your promise.”

Only then did he lazily utter a single word.

“Desire.”

“Desire comes in many forms: lust, appetite, possessiveness, ambition…”

I took out the rabbit plush Huo Zhi had left behind and waved it.

“When you think of her, which kind of desire is strongest?”

The alter’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He raised a brow and sneered.

“Vulgar physical desire.”

He opened his hand and indicated a waist’s width.

“She’s very small, about this size. I could hold her waist in one hand.”

“But I still want to ruin her without caring about the consequences.”

A powerful urge to destroy.

I frowned. “So you don’t care if she cries?”

“Crying.”

The alter rolled the word around his mouth several times.

Then he raised a handsome face steeped in an almost demonic beauty.

“I think it would excite me even more.”

He was thoroughly bad.

I put aside my pitiful sympathy and decided to use the previous doctors’ method without guilt.

Find the source of his anxiety.

Guide him toward self-destruction.