Chapter 8: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (3)
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novel about the soul,” the narrator began, but not in a spiritual sense. Instead, it’s about that concrete personality that makes us weigh norms against impulses when we act.
This aspect of the soul shows itself externally through a ‘medicine.’
Hyde’s form is pure evil. Pure, yet totally dependent on a guy named Henry Jekyll. At first, when Henry Jekyll shied away from evil, Hyde showed up all small and cowering.
“My evil side! The body of the villain, twisted by the drug’s power, was weaker and less developed than the body of the good personality that had just been booted out.”
But the more Henry Jekyll struggled to control the evil,
The bigger and stronger Hyde became—eventually, no matter how devoutly Henry Jekyll worshipped God and served his neighbors, Hyde pushed his way out of Jekyll.
Just as Hyde was enslaved to Jekyll, Jekyll was also shackled to Hyde.
“Ah! Welcome! I’m the alchemist Gallen Rennion! What an honor it is that the illustrious author Homer has graced this humble lab of mine! I worry it might be a bit of a letdown.”
And right now,
I had come to meet the creator of a ‘medicine’ inspired by Henry Jekyll’s concoction.
The reason was simple.
“What is this medicine?”
“Haha! Is that what brought you here? The creator of the story sure said so!”
I couldn’t even begin to guess what this medicine was.
“What part of my medicine are you curious about?”
* * *
Though the competition format was open to interpretation, I never imagined we’d see a ‘recipe from the work’ pop up—what a wild card that is!
But opening the bottle and testing the medicine on a whim? Not a chance.
It could just be a haphazardly written recipe in a novel, and who knows how such an occult thing would work? I mean, what if it devoured me like Hyde does to poor Jekyll? That’d be a real problem!
So, I went to see him.
The alchemist, Gallen Rennion.
“What on earth is this medicine for?”
“The work created by the story’s author inspired me like a guiding star, and I merely followed that spark to mix the medicine! If you’re asking ‘how’ I made it, then you must be curious about how the author could craft such a story! Haha!”
“…No, what exactly is this medicine? Is it like the one in the story that splits evil from the soul and possesses the body?”
“What in the world is a soul?”
People often jabber about the ‘star of the soul’ or ‘soul-stirring works,’ but in the end, they’re just emotional expressions, not actual souls floating around or anything.
“This drug reveals the soul’s form completely. Hmm, it’d be quicker to see for yourself! There’s a spare inside, but it’d be rude to let it sit for too long. Can you hand that to me? I’ll show you!”
Saying that, the alchemist snatched the drug from my hand.
He popped the cap and gulped it down like he was at a soda bar!
“Kaha! I made this, but it’s really tasty!”
“…”
“It’s strawberry-flavored!”
He described the taste of the medicine without me even asking, and then, suddenly, his face began to contort in distress.
“Krhhp, guk, aah—aah!”
The poor guy’s face twisted up. Veins popped in his eyes, and his facial muscles started twitching like they were having a dance party.
As I watched, a scene from ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ jumped into my mind—the moment when Hyde guzzles down a potion in front of Dr. Rennion.
[“The devil himself will be shocked and bewildered by the miracle that will confound your eyes!”]
[He looked like he was swelling up; his complexion suddenly turned dirt-colored, and his eyes and nose melted like wax!]
[The guy trembling in front of me, all pale and shaky, was none other than Henry Jekyll!]
The description fit the alchemist’s current situation like a glove!
“Ooh, this is a real pain. Honestly, it feels like getting beaten up by a bunch of thugs! Haha! But, doesn’t my current state look pretty solid?”
His face was as pale as a ghost, and his irises sparkled like oil paint mixed with water.
The whites of his eyes were a bit translucent, and his fingers had elongated, looking like they could snatch up anything in a jiffy. Overall, he radiated a quirky vibe.
“This is how my soul looks. It’s super comfy, and, honestly, I kind of love it! It feels a lot more natural and delicate than a polymorph potion, like shedding a layer of skin!”
“…What do you mean by ‘the appearance of the soul’?”
“I have no clue either!”
“What?”
“Just that each person has an ideal, comfortable form they feel drawn to, right? Or it might be a crude and blatant form like Hyde’s! For someone who wears a mask, their messy appearance at home might feel most ‘real’ to them. That raw honesty might be what really turned Dr. Jekyll into Hyde!”
By now, I realized that trying to decipher the ramblings of a madman was pretty much futile.
But hey, I did learn something.
“Ah, by the way, this stuff lasts about a day. Want to try one, author? I’ll pack a bunch for you!”
The medicine was strawberry-flavored.
* * *
“Is that your ‘soul’ you’re showing off, Lord Ed? It’s a little… exotic.”
In the end, I couldn’t handle the curiosity and tried the medicine myself. It would wear off in a day anyway, right? The result turned out a bit different than I expected.
“Yep, feels comfy, kind of like wearing perfectly fitting clothes,” I mused. “Alchemy is really something!”
In the mirror, my face was a 50/50 blend of my past life and this current one. Strange yet oddly familiar.
My voice had a similar quality. The tones from my past and present fused into one.
“But what am I supposed to do with all this…”
In one corner of the room, there was a mountain of ‘medicines’ Gallen gave me.
Now, what the heck to do with all this?
“Why not give them away as prizes?” I suggested out of the blue.
“Eh?”
“I heard you’re running a ‘fan art and story competition’ for ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. Since these medicines seem to have no side effects like the ones in the story, wouldn’t it be cool to give them as prizes to the winners? They’d get to experience what the characters went through firsthand!”
“Oh!”
For sure, all the contestants would be fans of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. Even if they weren’t hardcore fans, they had to be at least readers who really got into the story.
So, getting a chance to experience the protagonist’s adventures would have them over the moon!
“Great idea, Sion. You’ve got a knack for this!”
“You’re too kind, my lord.”
“Alright, then! I’ll take them to Ms. Dorling Kindersley. Sion, get everything ready.”
“Yes, my lord.”
* * *
Now, while the fanfiction competition was sailing smoothly, ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ had less social influence compared to ‘Don Quixote’, which belonged to the chivalric tradition.
Unlike the deep stuff that is Don Quixote, the genre was kind of unfamiliar, and let’s face it, shorter.
But it spread like wildfire among the public. The dry writing style, the shocking incidents, and the brief length all perfectly replaced the old boring popular novels.
“Hyde is the true essence of humanity! Jekyll is just a chain holding Hyde back! If people were free from judgment, wouldn’t they all act a little Hyde-like?”
“Honestly, it’s so refreshing! Way better than those stuffy, hypocritical knights!”
The elements of violence and tragedy sparked a wild response.
Hyde’s brutal edge really struck a chord with those who were tired of life. It was a real departure from the usual knightly code and the romance-laden “adult” literature.
In a way, it was kind of like the trend of “refreshing revenge” stories that swept through web novels in my previous life.
The appetite for raw violence surged, and some savvy popular novel writers began cranking out stories to satisfy that hunger. Ditching chivalry and romance to get right to the dry, violent nitty-gritty wasn’t exactly rocket science.
“Have you checked out this ‘Hammett’s Revenge’? It’s super satisfying!”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about revenge! Just trust me, it’s satisfying!”
“What’s the revenge for?”
“Well, uh, I don’t remember! But trust me, it’s satisfying enough!”
With the low barrier to entry and high demand, audiences were inundated with all kinds of stimulating works.
“Seriously? You’re making a big fuss over something like that?”
“What about you? What are you reading?”
“Mad Hammer! It’s this hulking dude with a hammer going around smashing everything!”
“That… actually sounds pretty entertaining!”
So, in this other world, the ‘hardboiled’ genre was thriving.
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