“That’s not the kinda thing you’re supposed to say to your children.”
“While I am fond of Lady Elisabeth, I am Master Kaito’s maid and Master Kaito’s alone.”
Kaito and Hina spoke simultaneously. However, the Grand King paid them no heed.
Loud voices of praise rang out once more from behind her. She turned toward them and waved merrily. As she did, the blood and tallow staining the mirror dripped lazily onto the floor.
Then the Grand King turned back toward the mirror. Upon seeing her face, Kaito reflexively frowned.
Her expression had changed so drastically that he almost thought she was a different person. When she spoke, her features looked so elegant that she reminded him of La Guillotine.
“Now then, Elisabeth, enough with the tomfoolery. Let’s speak earnestly.”
The Grand King inhaled quietly and then took her time before continuing to speak seriously.
“The Church won’t save you. You will die. I will kill you, and you will die. Why, then, do you still insist on fighting? You have the right to stain yourself deep to the bone with evil and the power to do so, as well.”
Her thoughts inscrutable, she spoke on in a kind motherly tone.
“…Perhaps a story is in order. When I was a child, a good-hearted, foolish gardener caught my eye.”
Suddenly, the surface of the mirror wavered. A moody young girl and a gardener with a face that looked practically like a squished frog—but with a simple, genial expression—appeared on it.
The Grand King’s voice carried on.
“Day in and day out, the adults in my life showered me with sweet, affectionate lies. They hated my father, who’d come into wealth suddenly, but no matter what happened, they kissed up to him and constantly visited nevertheless. I was like a little queen. No matter what I did, the people around me never scolded me…but he alone did, and to make up for it, he never lied to me. ‘If you do bad things, punishment is sure to come, young miss.’ ‘God is always watching you, so you must strive to be a good person.’ Oh, what foolish things he said to me. But I liked that about him… Oh, I did. Laughable, isn’t it? I liked that about him.”
The Grand King spoke in a subdued voice, almost as though she were embarrassed. The next moment, however, a grim spectacle flashed across the mirror’s surface.
The man from before had been stripped naked and hung up from a tree. His body was swollen so badly he looked like a fresh-baked loaf of bread. He had been struck all over and was dying.
A young girl carrying sweets was looking up at him in a daze. The basket in her arms had enough baked sweets for two, so it seemed she’d been planning on sharing them with someone.
“But he died after being framed for a crime by the other servants. They said that he’d stolen my mother’s golden comb and went out womanizing with the proceeds from selling it… What a lark. No other man was as straitlaced and devout as he, but…nobody lent an ear to that unattractive man’s clumsy explanations.”
The basket tilted over, and the baked sweets tumbled out. They rolled along, accumulating dirt from the ground as they went.
Then the image faded away. The Grand King returned to the frame.
Her lips were twisted ever so slightly, and her eyes were narrowed, as if she were glancing into the distant past. However, she eventually shook her head lightly from side to side, as if to say there was no use crying over spilled milk.
“It’s a trivial little tale. Yet, as a fable, I find it ever so relevant. Elisabeth, some day you, too, will understand. No matter how we amuse ourselves, live out our days, and die, that’s all there is to the world. Good, evil—it’s all the same. None will praise us, and none will punish us. And for the world to condemn you and then refuse to reward you for your efforts…I can’t bear to sit by and watch.”
The Grand King then brought her story to a sudden, somehow lonely end.
“You remind me of myself, in my youth.”
After hearing what she had to say, Kaito gulped.
Her thoughts aligned with his, if only a little.
The Torture Princess needed to atone. And she deserved to die grandly atop the pile of corpses she’d created. But was the punishment truly designed to shove all the responsibilities onto her and then look away?
I, for one, don’t think it is… And she’s right. I can’t bear to just sit by silently and watch it, either.
Kaito bit down on his lip. Elisabeth had yet to respond even once. Even so, the Grand King finished talking. She turned around, and her crinoline dress shook as she walked away.
Pulled by her rings, a number of underlings followed after her.
The mirror had cleared up, and the scene behind her was finally visible.
“—!”
As he saw it, Kaito suppressed an intense urge to vomit.
The Grand King was inside a massive circus tent. Countless men and women clamored from the audience. They were weeping, fervently clapping, and shouting out the Grand King’s praises.
The audience’s gaze was focused on a circular stage, atop which was a carousel. It was decorated as colorfully as a cake, and the people riding its blade-maned horses had their mouths stuffed with barbed wire. An underling with a bag over its head was supplying the carousel’s power and changing the speed at which it cranked the carousel’s handle on a whim.
Each time the wooden horses jerked up and down, the oscillations of their victims’ bodies caused their cuts to deepen and fountains of blood to spill forth.
The men and women in the audience raised their voices frenetically. However, one of them raised their voice a beat too late, possibly due to shock. An underling dragged her up to the stage. Her fierce screams were cut off when her mouth was stuffed full of barbed wire.
The Grand King turned around. The chains on her hands rattled as she raised them to gesture to the Hell behind her.
“Good, evil—it’s all the same.”
“She’s a monster!”
Kaito retracted what he’d thought earlier. He couldn’t agree with a single thing that came out of that woman’s mouth.
Anyone who enjoyed a spectacle like that was worthless. Kaito could have said it aloud. However, there was nobody there with the power to convey the truth of those words to that arrogant woman.
The Grand King spoke softly, as if she were looking down from above on humanity like they were worms.
“We have the right to oppress them, Elisabeth.”
“What do you think you are, sow, a god?”
A sharp noise rang out, and a lance pierced through the mirror’s face.
Shattered fragments of silver glittered as they danced through the air.
Awakened by the impact, the Marquis’s toes scraped against the stone floor when he took the attack after it passed through the mirror. He somehow managed to remain standing, supporting the dressing table all the while. From beyond the mirror’s cracked surface, the Grand King’s smile grew even deeper. The image she now gave was quite twisted, and a cold voice bored down on her.
“None possess that right. Not you, nor I, nor the people, nor kings, nor gods possess it.”
As he turned his gaze toward the source of that forceful declaration, Kaito breathed a sigh of relief.
A beautiful woman was standing atop the bed, as sharp as a blade.
“Elisabeth.”
The bondage dress she wore, crafted from her mana, seemed to be on the verge of dissolving. Its black cloth, which barely covered her body, hung in the air with the uncertainty of a shadow. Her skin was even more exposed than usual, and it was covered in the invasive crimson runes. However, her violated body didn’t stop her from looking down on the Marquis.
She clicked her tongue and then went on a displeased tirade.
“And who is it you’re saying you were in your youth? What a joke, Grand King. Care not to misunderstand me. Worldly rewards have naught to do with my actions as the Torture Princess. All I’m doing is paying the fee for the plate I li
cked clean, the plate topped with meat and blood and pleasure. A fattened sow such as yourself who refuses to acknowledge the annihilation waiting at the end of her road of slaughter and tyranny has no right to speak.”
“Elisabeth, you…”
“Why have you failed to notice? Good and evil—all the same? What a riot. Evil carries with it retribution. What you try to play off as the truth of the world is naught but your own arrogance.”
Elisabeth stared straight at the Grand King, her gaze filled with deep, frigid scorn.
With her animosity as bare as a wolf’s, the self-proclaimed sow carried on.
“Don’t use the past to justify yourself. All you’re doing is taking a single convenient aspect of it and speaking as if it is a unilateral truth. You know, Grand King, I pity you. You can’t bear to sit by and watch? Spare me your mercy. If you wish to torment me, then do so. If you wish to kill me, then do so. In any case, my death will be a cruel, solitary one. So be it. However, I’ve no intention of going down quietly. Should you cut off my head, I shall latch on with my teeth and rend you limb from limb.”
Her position was overwhelmingly disadvantageous, and Elisabeth’s face contorted even further.
With a smile the very picture of evil, she made one more declaration.
“I look forward to it, Your Majesty the Grand King! Let’s see just how far the face of a hag who forces others to praise her can twist!”
“…Don’t get all cocky at being shown a bit of kindness, little girl.”
The Grand King’s mask ruthlessly peeled off. Her beautiful, composed, showy-but-merciful expression had vanished.
As she turned toward Elisabeth, her sinister appearance truly befitted the demon she was.
“I’ll make a declaration, then. I won’t let you die peacefully—I will ravish you, violate you, rip out your intestines while you yet live, put them back, and grant you all the pains this world has to offer until you desperately beg and plead to me, cursing your own existence.”
“Splendid, what a fitting end for a torturer! But as you have your fun, the world will no doubt strike back at you…and I would have it no other way, Grand King. Here in my castle, I shall wait for my death and for your blood to be spilled.”
“You bark well! I hope you won’t regret this, Elisabeth Le Fanu.”
The Grand King snapped her fingers, and the light faded from the mirror’s surface.
As it did, the Marquis pitched forward. His whole body trembled and convulsed as he groveled on his hands and knees. However, he suddenly placed his hands on the ground and then leaped high into the air like a grasshopper.
Worried that he was planning to vomit out his heart, Kaito and Hina put up their guards. However, the Marquis successfully landed on his feet, gave a deep bow, and began awkwardly walking toward the window.
Hina aimed her halberd at his back but then lowered it. Kaito nodded, agreeing that she’d made the right decision.
The Marquis has the power to control minds. Honestly, I’m not sure if he can use it while the Grand King is controlling him, but…we shouldn’t carelessly attack him.
The Marquis scrambled over the window’s frame and then vanished from sight as though he’d fallen.
At the same time, Elisabeth collapsed to one knee atop the bed, her power spent. Kaito and Hina gasped.
The first one to react had been the Butcher. He’d leaped out from the shelves that he’d hidden himself in to support Elisabeth. He shouted as he held her shoulders in his scaly arms.
“Madam Elisabeth, please snap out of it! Look, it’s me, the Butcher! Your friendly neighborhood Butcher has you! Come now, Mr. Dim-Witted Servant, Ms. Lovely Maid, make haste!”
“I’m coming! Elisabeth, are you okay?!”
“Lady Elisabeth, please don’t push yourself! You must lie down!”
“My apologies. I’ve caused you all trouble… These runes truly are an annoyance.”
Elisabeth laid down on the bed, and Hina pulled a blanket over her. As her head sank into her pillow, Elisabeth gazed at her two servants.
Her face lit up a tiny bit. For an instant, her eyes softened with the distinct shape of a smile.
She then let out a small breath. She spoke softly, almost as if she were an aged king discharging an important adviser.
“The situation is as you heard. Over a thousand foes now make for the castle. I intend to fight, but I’ve no wish to get you lot mixed up in it. If you wish to flee, then do so. I’ve lived the solitary life of a wolf, and I shall die the pathetic death of a sow. All on my own. There’s no need for you all to come with me—you may help yourself to whatever riches you please as you go.”
“What’re you talking about, Elisabeth?! That’s nonsense!”
“I concur. Think about what you’re saying, Lady Elisabeth!”
“Hina, you’ve served me well. I shan’t forget your delicious cooking, nor how devoutly you nursed me… From here on out, live as you wish, with as much energy as your heart desires. I wish nothing but happiness upon you… And as for you—”
Elisabeth then looked up at Kaito. She snorted and then spoke quietly but firmly.
“You fool… You utter imbecile…”
“Geez, Elisabeth, even now, of all times?”
“You had the fortune of obtaining a second life… Just stop already. It’s…fine.”
Kaito swallowed. A gentle smile spread across Elisabeth’s face before him.
“You’ve done enough.”
For a moment, Elisabeth reached out. Right as her elegant fingertips were about to touch the wound Kaito had inflicted on his palm, though, she stopped and tightly grasped her own hand.
Gazing at Kaito and Hina both, she continued speaking in a distant, hazy voice.
“Don’t let yourselves be chained down by anything… Serve only…yourselves… ’Tis…for the best. I…”
Her eyelids slowly drooped. Kaito and Hina—Kaito in particular—swallowed down the words that were leaping into their mouths. Elisabeth, as if in a dream, continued speaking, her eyes hollow.
“I killed, I killed… And I continue to kill… My father, the…demons…”
Then she gently fell asleep.
Even assailed by pain and extreme fatigue, she had rejected the Grand King’s invitation. She fell back into a comatose state. As he looked at her sleeping face, Kaito ground his teeth so hard they could have cracked.
He desperately fought against himself to avoid letting out the anger bubbling in his chest.
What do you mean, there’s no need for me to come with you?! What do you mean, I’ve done enough?! We’ve still got plenty of time left together, right? I told you that, didn’t I?!
“And hey, you bringing me back to life and summoning me here must have been some kind of fate… So until you start walking the road to Hell, I’ll try and stick by your side for as long as I can, even if I’m the only one.”
Kaito had once said that to Elisabeth.
Elisabeth would die alone. Not even a demon would be by her side then. But perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad for one human to stay by her side until that time came.
Throughout Elisabeth Le Fanu’s bloody life, she was accompanied by a single foolish servant.
Kaito had thought that sounded just fine.
And there was one other important truth that he recalled.
The Torture Princess had taken pleasure in killing and slaughtering her people. Perhaps her heinous deeds, committed without fear of God, were all for the sake of extending her own life.
Or perhaps they were for the sake of defeating her “father,” whose power and allies had grown well past the point where any normal person could stand against him.
Her motives would remain a mystery.
She hadn’t once said.
“Mr. Dim-Witted Servant…are you all right? That’s quite the face you’re making.”
“…Master Kaito, pardon me, but—”
Hina and the Butcher cautiously called out to Kaito. However, h
e wasn’t listening. He clenched his fists and then took off in a dash.
“Mr. Servant!”
“Master Kaito!”
Kaito left the two of them and Elisabeth behind as he ran off and pulled open the door. He raced down the deserted hallway. His breath was ragged, and his eyes were burning with passion and fixated on the end of the passage before him.
He felt that something was wrong.
He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that there was something off about the whole situation.
The gray sky peeked in through the hole in the throne room’s wall. It was overcast again. The thick clouds looked like the belly of a whale as they sat above the trees.
Buffeted by the damp wind and dim light, Kaito stood in the center of the room’s stone floor and held a knife over one of his hands.
He spread out his palm, which he’d split open slightly during the Marquis’s raid. After giving a short nod, he deliberately plunged his knife into the cut. The knife buried itself in his flesh with a horrible squelch. After cutting to the depth he needed, he held the knife directly over the floor. His overflowing blood fell in a line on the stone.
Using his blood as ink, Kaito drew a rectangular symbol.
“—La (open).”
At his command, the blood loudly transformed into crimson flames. The fire burned fiercely atop the stone floor and then vanished without a trace. A black door appeared in its wake. Kaito didn’t touch it, yet it opened on its own from within like clockwork. A dimly lit space spread out inside it.
It was the entrance to Elisabeth’s Treasury.
“Oh, good, that worked. Go me.”
Kaito breathed a sigh of relief. He’d seen before how Elisabeth opened the Treasury. However, that alone wouldn’t have been enough to let him unlock it. In spite of that, though, he’d spontaneously trusted his intuition and managed to open it up.
Elisabeth had said that “all it takes to become able to use magic is a small trigger.” Until then, whenever he’d been on the verge of death, his soul had resonated with the powerful mana in her blood and played back her memories. Now that he was able to call forth the mana in her blood that flowed within his body, perhaps some information had spontaneously passed through it as well.
Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen, Vol. 2 Page 12