Chapter 4

"Is he… dead?" One of the nurses asked.

They were cute and had experience, but I guess they were just nurses after all.

"No. He just passed out. Otherwise, he would heal. Now focus. We need to go faster."

I cut the ribs free carefully and handed them off to the nurse. If this boy wasn't the most interesting and important artifact I'd seen, I may have been distracted by her beauty. For now, I made sure to make contact with her hand romantically each time we handed something to each other. If anything, this intimate and professional dance between us made me more focused. Hopefully, the others didn't feel left out, but they would have their turns another day.

"Scalpel."

This next part would be critical. I didn't have time to hesitate, but I needed to take my time. I moved to cut the pleura. As soon as I did, the body began to reflexively gasp, trying to draw in air, to no effect as the lungs collapsed. How much time did I have? I worked quickly to remove the lungs. Damn it. There was still so much to do and still ensure the heart was in perfect condition. It's already a miracle he didn't die from the pain alone. Faster. Faster!

"Ah! Damn it."

I quickly removed my hands from the open chest as the lungs repaired themselves, blood around the room flowed back in, cuts healed, and skin rolled back into place. Oddly, I noticed the ribs that had been removed did not go back into the body. Instead, they grew back from what was left before being covered by skin. Once everything was healed, the artifact opened his eyes. They were fearful at first, but quickly became angry as they glared at me.

"Nurse?"

"3 minutes, 22 seconds into surgery, the patient died. No noticeable difference in health or response from previous life."

"I don't think this is going to work. Removing the heart before death is impossible with the present tools. Make a note to explore new tools and possible magical assistance. Magic can lessen pain and possibly be used to keep the lungs working after they collapse. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for the massive blood loss, and it might be difficult to find a mage willing to perform this kind of work."

"Perhaps ritual magic could be used?"

"... Sometimes I forget just how clueless most people are about magic. Especially ritual magic. But no. That's not an option."

"S-sorry, doctor."

"It's fine. Let's just move on to secondary objectives and report to the princess. At least I was able to see the ribs replace themselves instead of reabsorbing the old ones. This confirms that he can clone body parts. If we can start harvesting heroic hearts from him, we'll be in a new age of magical artifacts."

"Ye,s doctor. The secondary objectives are: eyes, teeth, ribs, and the femurs."

"Hmm, I understand the bones, but why the eyes?"

"The princess would like to try experimenting with the heroic parts in ritual magic. The teeth and eyes are both for this purpose."

"Oh. I see. Since the source may be infinite, it should be ok to see how they react in one-time-use magics. Normally, such a thing would be unimaginably wasteful. But I agree with her. It seems like a worthwhile experiment. How nice it is to have such a bright mind in the royal family. Let's begin then."

"Yes, doctor."