Fremd Torturchen - Volume 4 - Chapter 5

5

Doubting the World

The entire region was surrounded by a towering wall.

Not a single soul dwelled within.

After a banquet of torture that had lasted three days and three nights, they’d all died.

A decade or two before that fate had befallen the town, its lord’s sole daughter had been born.

Her name had been Elisabeth. She was a beautiful, lovely girl, born to the blessings of God and man alike. But tragically, her body had been frail, and the hope of a long life was denied to her at birth.

Even so, not once did she ever begrudge or resent others for living their lives to the fullest.

She merely endured her constant pain, all by herself.

After living a life of suffering and scrabbling to stay alive, she should have died, and the many who held her dear were supposed to have wept for her.

However, that simple, tragic destiny of hers was perverted. One day, Elisabeth underwent a change.

She tortured her populace, descending on the castle town like a ravenous wolf. Maiming and slaughtering her people, Elisabeth swallowed up their pain like a hideous sow.

Thus, the town—serving as a plate for the gruesome feast—was picked clean.

The Church feared that the massive number of corpses would bring about a plague, with small animals as its carriers. Ultimately, they decided to seal the gates and set the town ablaze. Ever since, the town and the huge wall surrounding it had served as a graveyard.

A town had died, and the Torture Princess had been born.

It was like a cruel, twisted fairy tale.

And yet at the same time, it was the bitter truth.

As proof of that, Elisabeth was currently visiting that place.

“I brought this about, and I’ve long since grown accustomed to such sights. Still, though, ’tis dreadful.”

The scene spread out before her was a hellscape, the likes of which were generally seen only in religious artwork.

The town was black and charred, with a number of torture devices strewn about it. Human skeletons decorated the town as well, most of them impaled, strung up, or bound. Ash and mud were piled up high along its roads.

Setting her feet upon them, Elisabeth strode forward.

At the end of her path lay a chalky-white castle towering above the town. It was almost eerie how its splendor had been preserved amid the ruins.

The sky was gloomy and overcast, and the air should have been chilly. However, it carried an unpleasant warmth instead.

The rancid wind brushed at Elisabeth’s black hair as it carried screams to her ears.

Loathsome Elisabeth, repulsive Elisabeth, cruel, hideous Elisabeth!

A curse upon you, a curse upon you, a curse, a curse, an eternal curse upon you, Elisabeth!

The silent screams echoed throughout the town, but Elisabeth’s expression showed no signs of changing as she advanced forward. As she walked, she passed by the skeleton of a baby who’d had all its limbs shattered and a woman’s skull that had comically tumbled to the side.

Eventually, her heels clicked as she came to a stop.

“Here it is, I believe.”

In front of her was the main thoroughfare leading up to the castle.

Compared with the rest of the ruins, it had more or less retained its original form. The road was designed to be wide enough for carriage traffic and had been crafted out of carefully laid bricks. Half-melted metal billboards decorated its sides, along with the still-intact frames of houses and shops. But due to the fight between Elisabeth and a certain necromancer, the entire area had been reduced to the remains of a battlefield.

Bones were scattered all over the ground, and many of the buildings had been brutally knocked down.

The brick road was stripped bare as well, and gruesome scars littered the earth. In the midst of all that, there was an area where the soil was piled unnaturally high. A wooden plank stood up from within the mound of dirt.

It was a grave.

On top of the plank sat a soiled hat. Elisabeth was surprised; she’d half expected it to have been blown away by the wind already. The white lilies that had once decorated its wide brim were, of course, no more.

Faintly narrowing her eyes, Elisabeth murmured.

“…Marianne.”

That name was dear to Elisabeth, but disagreeable as well.

Marianne had been Elisabeth’s tutor when she was young. Due to her guilt over Elisabeth’s murderous deeds, Marianne had gone mad, eventually falling into Vlad’s hands and becoming a necromancer.

The grave had not been Elisabeth’s doing.

That had been the handiwork of the man who’d finished Marianne off after she’d become a demon’s pawn: Kaito Sena.

After burying his father—or rather, the doll that his father’s soul had inhabited—in the rear garden, Kaito had mentioned he wanted to give Marianne a burial as well. At first, Elisabeth had flatly rejected the notion. But Kaito had been obstinate, and Elisabeth had finally acquiesced to giving him transportation, and nothing more.

Bringing back Marianne’s body would have been in defiance of both her wishes and Elisabeth’s, so Kaito built the grave on-site. However, the entire town was fraught with death. Countless corpses littered its streets, not a single one of which had received anything resembling a funeral. Choosing to bury just one of them was a comical act of self-satisfaction.

Elisabeth had shown no mercy in pointing that fact out to Kaito. However, he nodded, already well aware of that fact.

“I’m the one who killed her. This is my problem, not anyone else’s,” he’d said.

In a sense, the grave served as a monument to Kaito’s stubbornness as much as anything else.

Up until then, Elisabeth had never once felt the urge to visit it.

She didn’t make it a habit to think back on the people she’d killed. Nor did she pay heed to the entrails she walked over, nor the blood staining the ground in her wake. But now that all fourteen demons had been vanquished, things were different.

Now, she had something she felt she needed to say to the woman beneath the grave.

“Forgive me, Marianne, for I have lied.”

Her words, and the apology they carried, came from the heart. Clenching her fists, Elisabeth turned to look behind her. Her gaze was silent as she cast it over the ash-ridden town of death.

“Forgive me, you all. I said I intended to follow you all shortly. But it seems I cannot go yet. Please, wait for me.”

No voices rose up to reply. The wind simply carried the same resentment as always.

Loathsome Elisabeth, repulsive Elisabeth, cruel, hideous Elisabeth!

A curse upon you, a curse upon you, a curse, a curse, an eternal curse upon you, Elisabeth!

Elisabeth responded with a gentle smile.

Then she repeated the same words she’d once said, words that now amounted to little more than a soliloquy.

“I had no right to take the light of a single person in this world. Every person I killed led a vigorous life, a life they had every right to carry out as they pleased. They were innocent, and I murdered them. I killed you all cruelly, gruesomely, mercilessly, and unreasonably. And I’ve no intention of escaping on my own. I need put down but one more…or stop him, and that shall be the end.”

Her final words, and her final words alone, had a certain frailty to them.

Turning her head up toward the ashen sky, Elisabeth closed her eyes. Beneath her eyelids, the scene leading up to Marianne’s death played back. Clad in her mourning dress, her tutor hadn’t directed a shred of hatred her way.

Her eyes had been full of kindness, like those of an adult talking to a willful child.

“I loved you from the bottom of my heart, young miss. Even now, I adore you just as much as I did when you were a child.”

Then, with a deep, harsh sadness in her voice, she’d laid out the truth.

“Once you’ve killed me, I imagine there will be nobody left in this world who truly loves you.”

“Yes, I had no one. I was…supposed to have no one…”

“I like her a whole lot.”

“For that person’s sake, I could do or become anything.”

“To say such a thing of a woman who partook of a demon’s flesh and became the Torture Princess… What a complete and utter fool.”

As she shook her head in exasperation, Elisabeth went quiet. Then she turned back toward the grave. She was on the verge of saying something, but then suddenly, her face froze.

She’d suddenly been assailed by a deep sense of discomfort.

It felt like a needle, piercing its way into her brain.

“Wait. Just a moment. Just now, that…”

Feeling a shock run through her head, Elisabeth pressed down on her forehead.

She looked back over the scene before her. There was nothing strange about it, nothing out of place. There was nothing in particular about Marianne’s grave that could have set off such a reaction. Yet for some reason, the discomfort refused to fade.

What, then? What could it have been that I found so unsettling?

As she racked her brain, she found herself thinking back on a certain memory. She’d been very young, and she’d thrown her quill pen on the ground. She’d been sulking at a lesson that hadn’t made sense to her, but Marianne scolded her, kindly yet firmly.

“If you think about it carefully, young miss, it will all make sense,” she’d murmured.

Then she’d smiled. “Let’s go over it one more time, now, shall we?”

“Go over my last words…one more time.”

To say such a thing of a woman who partook of a demon’s flesh and became the Torture Princess.

Elisabeth opened her eyes wide in shock. Now that she thought about it, it was obvious beyond belief. But back when she’d been hunting the fourteen demons, she hadn’t had a spare moment to think about such things.

But now, she’d realized.

Therein lay a fundamental contradiction.

“I partook of a demon’s flesh.”

In and of itself, there was nothing strange about that fact. After all, Vlad and his compatriots had already summoned demons at that point. But just like her, Vlad Le Fanu was no mere human. He’d been the first of the fourteen to summon a demon, successfully forming a contract with the Kaiser, the strongest demon mankind could call forth.

Kaito had received Vlad’s help as an intermediary, but doing something like that alone was a feat no ordinary mage could pull off.

Compared with the Torture Princess, who’d butchered the entire populace of her fiefdom, Vlad’s power was surely inferior. But he himself must have eaten a demon’s flesh before making Elisabeth do the same and trying to mold her into his successor.

By eating a demon’s flesh, Vlad Le Fanu gained the power to summon a demon.

“Wait.”

It was contradictory.

It was wildly, overwhelmingly contradictory.

“Where did the first demon’s flesh come from?”

“As you haven’t replied yet, I will ask you again. From now on, serve me.”

“Hard pass.”

Jeanne, the new girl who’d introduced herself as a Torture Princess, gave Kaito a forceful invitation, and his response was swift.

The situation had taken an abrupt turn.

The calmness of the room had been shattered, along with all their plans. The beastfolk who’d promised to fight with Kaito as allies were all collapsed on the floor. And for some reason, the perpetrator, a girl he’d never seen before, was ordering him to become her servant.

Confused as he was, his response was as sure as it had been the last time something similar had happened.

An image of the brutally slaughtered, strung-up corpses flashed through his mind. And the people who’d been kind enough to believe in him were currently lying on the ground and bleeding out. Given those two facts, refusing was the only sensible option.

He was concerned her mood would sour, but for some reason, Jeanne nodded instead. But unlike Elisabeth, who’d reacted with amusement, Jeanne merely spoke unconcernedly in her barely human voice.

“Your response was rather quick, mister. While your response itself fell within expected parameters, its speed was quite unexpected. What a strange sensation—disappointing, and yet, at the same time, not. All is well, though. I have my conjectures, but would you mind elaborating on your reasoning?”

“First of all, I already serve the Torture Princess Elisabeth Le Fanu. Second, given that you committed all those murders, and you did this, you’re undoubtedly my enemy.”

“I suspect there is a third.”

Jeanne prompted him to continue. After taking a deep breath, Kaito spat out his answer with all the antagonism he could muster.

“My third reason’s that you make me straight-up sick.”

“I see. How illogical.”

Jeanne gave a light nod. Then she blinked a few times, her rose-colored eyes flashing as she did. Finally, she contorted her lips into what was likely meant to be a smile.

“As for your first reason, mister, I believe you’ve already parted ways with the Torture Princess, have you not?”

“Yeah, true. But even so, I can’t serve anyone else. She’s the one who called me, and she’s the one I serve. I swore to stay by her side till the end, so even if we’re separated, she’s still my master.”

“I see, a decision based exclusively on psychological principles. It’s no wonder I find it impossible to comprehend. After all, I’ve long since been deemed ‘heartless.’ As for the rest of your reasons, it would take too long for me to explain in my own words, so forgive me for borrowing the parlance of you lost sheep, but—they’re fuckin’ horseshit.”

Kaito unconsciously stared at her, befuddled.

Her features and expression were like those of a delicately crafted doll, just like always. Kaito found it hard to believe he’d heard the words he just had come out of her rigid-looking lips. But she went on much in the same way.

“Man, quit lining up one pointless-ass reason after the other, ya little shit. Why don’cha take a look around you and think about how outclassed you are before you go running your damn mouth. You should either crawl back into your cradle and start over, or go dig yourself a grave and lie in it. As I said, pardon me.”

“Wh…what’s her deal, exactly?”

“I’d guess the people she used as reference for her ‘parlance of the commons’ had rather foul mouths. While it’s a nonsensical method of finding common ground, it’s hardly unheard of among preeminent mages.”

A clear, deep voice resounded. Normally, only Kaito could hear it, but at the moment, it was emanating from beside him. Just like he did when he talked to Vlad or Elisabeth, the Kaiser was currently projecting his voice such that he could be heard by all present.

Disconcerted, Kaito looked to his side. At some point, black strands had started knitting themselves together in empty space. Sleek and obsidian, they began as supple muscles in the air. Then fine black fur sprouted atop them. Choosing this time to assume a form twice the size of an ordinary dog, the supreme hound finished materializing.

As he shook his whole body, he let out a humanlike laugh.

“Vlad and Elisabeth were fond of idle banter, you see. Those two should be taken as exceptions, not as any sort of standard.”

“Kaiser? You came out on your own? What, are things really that serious?”

“Ha. At this rate, you’re liable to carelessly get yourself killed. Take care, unworthy master of mine. You’ll find out quick enough if you inspect her mana and compare it to yours, but that girl is far, far superior.”

“Oh, a doggy?”

Jeanne tilted her head to the side, her choice of words almost eerily childish. She was silent for a few seconds, like a machine that had been shut off. After a moment, though, she clapped her fist against her palm.

“I’ve parsed the applicable data. I see, you’re the Kaiser! Y’know, this is all you guys’ fault, you puke-smellin’ pig humpers, or so I’d like to reprimand you, but for now, I bid you a fine hello. You look just like the books said you would.”

“Heh, your courtesy is lacking, but at least you’re polite enough to manage a half-decent greeting. The surprise is all mine—I’d hardly expected to see a Deus Ex Machina user in this day and age.”

“Oh my, mister. It’s a bit of a buzzkill that even you didn’t expect it.”

The girl and the hound engaged in a conversation, one that seemed frankly amiable. As they did, Kaito trembled.

He’d done as the Kaiser suggested and checked Jeanne’s mana supply.

This…this is some sick joke, right?

He hadn’t noticed it due to the chaos and confusion, but the amount of mana the girl had in stock was leagues beyond your average person. She was practically a match for Elisabeth. And unlike the roselike, sinister sharpness to Elisabeth’s mana, Jeanne’s was sumptuous and cold.

She gave off the twisted impression of an artificial flower, one that ate people alive.

Kaito knew instantly that he was no match for her.

But I gotta do something about her, or I can’t save Lute and the others.

He could still hear them groaning. As far as he could tell, none of their wounds were fatal, but that might change if they didn’t get help soon. Beginning to lose his cool, Kaito asked the Kaiser a question while looking for an opening.

“Hey, Kaiser, what’s Deus Ex Machina?”

“Hmm? It’s an entity, one that requires a particular summoning rite to call forth.”

“A summoning rite?”

Upon hearing the unexpected phrase, Kaito narrowed his eyes. When he heard “summoning rite,” his mind immediately jumped to the birdlike creatures La Mules had summoned. But those things hadn’t looked anything like Deus Ex Machina.

Paying Kaito’s confusion little heed, the Kaiser nodded in assent.

“Elisabeth can summon torture devices without limit, can she not? What she does is use her own mana as a catalyst to drag formless, nameless, worthless masses of mana down from higher dimensions and temporarily mold them into the forms that best suit her purposes. Summoning beasts is similar. But whether one can do that or not, whether one is able to take formless things and mold them into shapes suited for battle, depends heavily on one’s nature. ‘Deux Ex Machina’ refers to the entity summoned when one uses a particular summoning rite that a mad sorcerer developed to subvert that restriction.”

The Kaiser swung his sleek black tail toward the horrible machines.

It was true; when you looked at them all lined up, they were clearly designed with only combat in mind.

“Deus Ex Machina is a weapon, designed so one can use it regardless of their nature or disposition. In order to continually materialize it, though, requires colossal amounts of mana. Using it at all is liable to kill the user. That lout Vlad was thinking of summoning it, but upon looking at its particulars, he deemed it a ‘hassle to maintain’ and abandoned the notion. However, it seems that lass there has mastered it, and with a mere human body.”

“It seems I’m being complimented, but we still haven’t shown you our true power. It’s true that the one you sealed in ice was part of Deus Ex Machina, mister, but it was nothing more than a foot soldier I made from the spare parts that these children gathered up for me. It certainly wasn’t one of the main units.”

Upon hearing what she had to say, Kaito shuddered. If that was the case, then just how strong were the main units anyways? After all, those were the ones Jeanne was casually surrounded by.

The Kaiser pointed his long tail at her. Then, as he murmured, he laughed at the girl who’d introduced herself as a new Torture Princess.

“Surely, I can think of no explanation besides her having eaten a demon’s flesh.”

“Wait, what?”

The Kaiser had suddenly dropped a new piece of information on him, one that was wholly unthinkable.

Kaito was aghast. Did that mean the girl in front of him was just like Elisabeth, a person truly worthy of the title of Torture Princess? There was no way that could be possible.

At the same time, he felt a degree of satisfaction at having resolved the contradiction between his conjectures and the Kaiser’s proclamation.

Just like the torture devices Elisabeth summoned, Deus Ex Machina itself was wholly unrelated to demons. That said, though, its master had obtained her power by consuming a demon’s flesh.

So in other words, the massacres had both nothing to do with demons and everything to…do…?

It was at that moment that Kaito arrived at a new, horrifying question.

Supposedly, Jeanne had eaten a demon’s flesh. It was unclear when that had happened, but it didn’t appear as though any of the fourteen contractors had known of her existence.

Hypothetically speaking, if one of them had reached out to her and offered her the meat in order to form a collaborative relationship with her, they would surely have called upon her aid before being killed by Kaito and the others.

But if that’s the case, then which demon’s flesh did she eat?

Once more, Kaito trembled.

“On that note, shall we take our leave, mister?”

Jeanne’s voice was as light as a small bird chirping.

The hell do you mean, “on that note”?!

But Kaito had no time to be baffled. The girl extended her hand to him, as though inviting him to dance. The chains dangling from her wrists made her look almost like a prisoner.

Unclear as to what she meant, Kaito tilted his head to the side. Holding her halberd in one hand, Hina took a step forward.

“I believe Master Kaito already declined your nonsense.”

“Oh my, oh my, oh my. Y’all still don’t get it, do ya, dumb-asses.”

Jeanne spoke, her expression blank. Her chains rattled as she propped her index finger up on her lip.

Then she went on, as though trying to explain something obvious to a child.

“Allow me to put it the way you would, mister. First of all, the lives of all the beastfolk here rest in my hands… Oh, how unfortunate. I suppose the ‘first’ point was all I had.”

It seemed like she truly found that fact unfortunate, as she cast her rosy eyes down. However, she soon got over it. She pointed one slender finger toward Lute.

Kaito looked at him. As he kept pressure on his wounded flank, Lute met Kaito’s gaze and shook his head. He was silently screaming at Kaito not to go with her.

He hadn’t even tried to ask Kaito for help. He seemed to be planning to oppose her on his own.

Next, Kaito cast his gaze around the council room. Again and again, he received the same response.

All the beastfolk had responded the same way.

That was enough for him.

“Hina, put down your halberd… So where are you planning on taking us?”

Kaito placed a hand on Hina’s shoulder. With a small nod, she lowered the tip of her weapon.

As Kaito stepped forward to cover Hina, Jeanne responded matter-of-factly to his question.

“As things stand, not a single one of you stray sheep truly understands the situation we are in. But the world is in a state of crisis, and the situation grows more dire with every passing second. I intend to prove it to you with the most direct methods at my disposal. My reason for that is that fully explaining would take longer. You’re the Kaiser’s contractor, mister. And you’re a valuable piece of bait for the Torture Princess, too. I will make you understand, whether you wish to or not. Now then, get your ass over here already.”

Silently, Kaito came to a realization. He and Jeanne were never going to be able to see eye to eye.

I can’t even begin to understand what she’s going on about.

The girl herself, however, seemed to think her duty to explain the situation wholly fulfilled. Still expressionless but with an oddly satisfied demeanor, Jeanne extended her hand to him a second time.

Accompanied by Hina, he took a step forward. When he did, though, someone grabbed his leg. With a start, he looked down.

The expression on Lute’s face was desperate as he tried to stop Kaito.

“Sir…Kaito… You…mustn’t go… That…girl…is mad…”

“I’m sorry. I dunno what’s going on at all, but it looks like I got you guys wrapped up in something terrible. If we leave with Jeanne, at least no civilians will get hurt. Once we’re gone, shout for healers.”

“But…what about…you—?”

“I’m really sorry about this.”

Kaito found himself at a loss for what to say next. Lute’s breathing was ragged. After glancing between his golden eyes and the brutal wound carved in his flank, Kaito decided to speak from the heart.

“I was really happy that you guys all believed in me. Thanks…and make sure you take good care of your wife.”

With those parting words, Kaito began walking again.

Lute frantically scrabbled at Kaito’s ankles, his sharp claws scraping at Kaito’s black pant cuffs. But before long, Kaito advanced beyond his reach. As he strode forward, Lute scratched at the ground. But his body refused to move.

No matter how hard Lute struggled, he couldn’t follow.

At the same time, he hadn’t called for reinforcements. No shortage of powerful soldiers had already fallen. In order to avoid adding to the victim count, Lute chose to just see Kaito’s departure through to the end. In spite of that, though, he couldn’t keep himself from letting out a weak, rumbling moan from deep within him.

“Urooooough, urooooough, uraaaaaagh!”

Kaito took Jeanne’s hand. When he did, she squeezed his hand tight. The gesture seemed almost innocent, and she gave a mechanical nod.

At some point, the Kaiser had taken his place by Kaito’s side.

Then the Deus Ex Machinas moved to surround them. With bizarre movements, they began spinning around Kaito, Hina, the Kaiser, and Jeanne. Golden flower petals and white feathers began fluttering along beside them. The two dazzling hues seared the scene into the vision of all present.

It was a magnificent, elegant spectacle, but at the same time, it had a certain coldness to it.

Jeanne shouted from the eye of the vortex.

“Please, set your hearts at ease! Pleasant misters, rude misters, despicable misters, all of you! There is no need for any of you to mourn or lament!”

Then the Torture Princess Jeanne de Rais,

the oppressor of slaves, the savior of the world, the saint, and the whore, made her sonorous declaration.

“All this is for the sake of salvation!”

The golden-white light vanished.

And when it did, Kaito and Hina left the land of the beastfolk behind.

Lute had been left behind, and his furious, frustrated howls echoed off the walls.

In all honesty, Kaito was prepared for the possibility of death.

The things Jeanne was doing and saying gave him no confidence in her sanity. And not only was he unable to tell what she was thinking, but he couldn’t even figure out what her objective was. Based on the fact that she’d referred to him as “a valuable piece of bait for the Torture Princess,” he clearly held some value in her eyes, but past that, he was in the dark.

Given all that, he wouldn’t have been shocked to discover that their destination lay a mile up in the air or something.

Hina and the Kaiser were quick on their feet, so he wasn’t particularly worried about either of them. But he had little confidence that he himself would be able to make it out of such a situation in one piece.

I’ve gotta be ready for whatever comes my way.

With all that in mind, Kaito put up his guard. The golden petals and white light had melted together before his eyes and formed a firm cylinder, but before long, it shattered and collapsed like molten gold.

It turned out that Kaito’s fears had been partly unfounded, as their destination was on proper, solid ground.

The spectacle before him, however, was bizarre enough to make up for that fact.

“…Wh—?”

Kaito had found himself standing in a small village wedged in the ravine between two precipitous mountain ranges.

There were lines of tightly packed, slate-colored buildings flanking him on both sides, both of which seemed to practically cling to the narrow ground. Based on their appearance, the buildings looked to have been made exclusively from boulders quarried off the mountainsides. Each one probably weighed a considerable amount, but they’d been expanded so haphazardly that the pressure had caused them to warp. A few of the buildings had even caved in from the weight of their neighbors.

All in all, they gave off a similar impression to cotton balls packed tightly into a snowdrift.

In other words, the village was old, decrepit, and desolate.

The gap between the mountains that the village sat in grew narrower the higher up one went. As a result, simply by standing in the middle of the town, Kaito felt as though something was oppressively looming over him. Furthermore, the whole place was starved of sunlight, and not even the wind could reach its streets. A single brush with illness could have spelled disaster for its entire populace. But while no standards would have deemed it fit for human habitation, the town’s most peculiar aspect was unrelated to its layout.

The honor belonged to the fact that human corpses sat crucified along the walls of each of the buildings.

Their bones were countless and filling up the view for as far as the eye could see.

Three descriptors immediately rushed to the forefront of his mind.

Massacre. Sacrifice.

And finally, torture.

The crucified corpses had iron stakes running from their palms to their shoulders and from their feet to their thighs.

They also looked rather old, as their flesh had long since rotted away. Because of that, the scars on their bones were visible, making it evident that the iron stakes weren’t the only form of torture they’d suffered.

The anguish they’d felt leading up to their deaths looked to have been fierce and protracted.

Every single building in the town was decorated with corpses in that state. Kaito didn’t feel the need to bother checking inside any structures to confirm his dreadful theory.

Even if we went looking for survivors, I think the odds we’d find any are slim.

In all likelihood, every single person in the village was dead. The mountain-cradled settlement was like a single giant coffin.

On that note, a vague thought drifted through his mind.

It reminds me of Elisabeth’s…no, the Torture Princess’s hometown.

“You know of a similar location, don’t you, mister? She and I are both Torture Princesses, after all.”

Once more, Jeanne displayed her cheery expression as she spread her arms wide. The chains on her wrists rattled as she spun around, and her honey-blond hair glistened as it swayed.

When she did so, the ornamented, exposed nature of her attire caused her to evoke the very image of a dancer.

“As you’re well aware, birthing a Torture Princess requires the pain of a suitable number of sacrifices. Elisabeth killed her people and offered them up to herself. I was given offerings, and those were who I killed. Same difference, ya feel me?”

Kaito frowned. He had no idea what she meant. But even though he couldn’t understand her, he could somehow make out what she was trying to say.

This village was similar to Elisabeth’s hometown in many ways. But there was one major difference between the two.

There were no resentful voices here.

Countless people had been tortured and killed here. Yet in spite of that, Kaito couldn’t sense any malicious aura emanating from the gray settlement. The air filling the village was still and silent.

“Elisabeth killed her people and offered them up to herself”… “I was given offerings, and those were who I killed.”

Kaito turned Jeanne’s words over in his head. “Same difference.”

In other words, this village’s inhabitants had willingly offered themselves up to the Torture Princess.

But why?

“Call forth Vlad, boy. We’re making no progress at this rate.”

The Kaiser growled, and Kaito turned to look at him. When their eyes met, the Kaiser scoffed.

“Twisted as you are, your form was originally that of a proper glass sphere. Don’t be conceited enough to think you can converse with the likes of her. The best way to deal with a lunatic is to send a lunatic of our own.”

“You have a point there. I can’t even begin to tell what she’s talking about.”

Nodding at the Kaiser’s suggestion, Kaito fed mana to the stone in his pocket.

Azure petals and black feathers swirled through the air. Their numbers were on the reserved side this time, but Vlad made his ever-extravagant appearance from within them regardless. He crossed his long legs in the air.

His eyes were glittering with childlike curiosity. Without so much as a preface, he launched into his speech.

“How intriguing, to artificially construct a Torture Princess that way. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but I certainly can’t deny its creativity. I have to say, though, I find myself more interested in the creator than the creation… Just who was the beautiful madman who devised you?”

Vlad’s head seemed to practically be in the clouds, the question he was posing having just about nothing to do with Kaito’s. Still expressionless, Jeanne pointed toward one particularly misshapen building. The bones crucified against its warped walls were clad in gold adornments.

“Mm.”

“Ah, martyring even himself, I see. How thorough. You’ve been entrusted with the rest, then, I take it. Which brings us to Elisabeth and Kaito Sena. You’re trying to make them your servants.”

Upon hearing her infantile response, Vlad stroked his chin in understanding. Jeanne nodded back. Apparently, the two of them had been able to successfully establish communication. That said, Kaito still couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

He frantically called out to Vlad.

“Hey, Vlad, hold up a minute. What the hell were you able to get from that? As far as I’m concerned, it was all just more gibberish. What happened here? What’s her goal? If you understand what’s going on, man, you gotta lay it out for me.”

“First, let me start with a fairy tale.”

“Excuse me?”

It seemed even Vlad planned to talk in riddles. He’d always been odd, but Kaito was concerned that he’d finally broken. Across from him, Vlad took an elegant bow, like an actor giving a performance.

“Perhaps you’ve heard it, my dear successor? No, wait, you hail from another world. It would be odd if you had… Confound it. Now all my fun’s been spoiled.”

“I don’t care what’s spoiled. Just answer the question already.”

“Long, long ago, a saint carrying God in her body remade the world, then vanished. Today’s story takes place just afterward.”

Ignoring Kaito’s complaints, Vlad carried on undeterred.

His voice proud and velvety, he poetically spun his tale.

“Now, for some reason, a whole clan of pedigreed alchemists went missing. It’s said this set back humanity’s magical developments by over a century. Everyone and their mother went searching for them; even I myself spent some time trying to hunt them down. The likeliest location was held to be the stretch of land between the beastfolk’s and the demi-humans’ lands—the two races share an amiable relationship, so surveillance at the border is lax. People suspected they’d taken up hiding in a blind spot between the two.”

“So what?”

“That is precisely where we’re standing right now.”

Vlad’s story had seemed unrelated, but everything suddenly fell into place.

Flustered, Kaito cast a sweeping glance over the village among the mountains. It was true that the village was short on paths or other ways to get in and out. Describing it as hidden would be completely apropos. But if Vlad’s story was true, then why had the alchemists chosen to shelter in this place?

Waving his hands like a conductor, Vlad gestured at his surroundings as he continued his fairy tale.

“The alchemists hid themselves away here and spent many years searching for a method to work against a certain objective. In the end, they created a Torture Princess. The clan had bolstered their ranks through inbreeding, and they all gave themselves up as offerings to empower her.”

“Why the hell would they—?”

“…In short, you’re saying they needed martial power?”

Hina, who’d been standing beside Kaito on high alert, finally spoke.

Vlad cast his gaze toward her, as though he’d only just registered her existence. He seemed altogether surprised. But then his mouth curled up into a gentle, refined smile.

“Good thinking. It would seem the rubbish I once tossed together has attained excellence. Your growth far exceeds my expectations; as a mage, I must say I find that rather delightful. Why, you seem downright human.”

“Given that they were willing to go so far as to sacrifice themselves, I conjecture the opponent they were facing was not an enemy of theirs personally. After raising her as the Torture Princess, they entrusted her with fighting against ‘something’ that, while dreadful, they had no personal connection to. That is my hypothesis, as someone familiar with the power and fate of another Torture Princess, Lady Elisabeth. Would you agree, Master Kaito?”

Splendidly ignoring Vlad’s rude remarks, Hina laid out her theory. Kaito glanced over toward Jeanne. He hadn’t expected a response out of her, but she actually gave a small nod. In other words, Hina’s hypothesis had been on the mark.

As he considered that, he found himself plagued by a violent sense of dizziness.

Every answer he got was raising new questions.

In order to fight this “thing,” whatever it is, they made a Torture Princess? Man, sacrificing themselves must have taken a boatload of resolve and conviction. What in the world were they fighting against? Torturing themselves and feeding demon flesh to her would—no, wait.

Kaito quickly hit the brakes on his runaway train of thought. Then he gave voice to the question that had just bothered him.

“So which demon’s flesh did she eat, exactly?”

“Since you’ve already died once, mister, you should already have something of an idea even if you don’t know the answer, right?”

Jeanne turned to Vlad and prompted him on. He nodded, having understood.

Kaito instinctively fixed a stare on Vlad. Vlad then whispered to him, as though he were sharing some great secret.

“I suspect the flesh she consumed came from the same demon mine did, you see.”

If he had eaten the same flesh Jeanne had, then that meant…

It’s not the Kaiser’s meat… No, wait, that’s just totally wrong.

“That’s…right…”

Finally, Kaito realized the contradiction therein. Vlad had been the Kaiser’s contractor. In order to accomplish that, he’d somehow procured demon flesh. Kaito had never spared that much thought. But without getting help from someone, he would have needed to eat a demon’s flesh in order to be able to summon the Kaiser.

And anyway, there’s no way the proud Kaiser would ever allow anyone to consume his flesh.

After gathering up enough pain to preserve his own life, Vlad had chosen to take on a mentorship role and had stopped accumulating strength. As a consequence of that, he’d been beaten by the Torture Princess. But even so, Vlad was no mere human. He’d fed a demon’s flesh to Elisabeth, his successor, and he’d no doubt partaken of demon flesh himself.

If that were the case, though, then which demon’s flesh had he consumed?

Vlad gave a hearty laugh, and his expression contorted into one of pure evil, a sight Kaito hadn’t seen in quite some time. The man whose very existence seemed demonic went on in a honeyed murmur.

“When I was searching for a way to summon a demon, I arrived at the most efficient way to attain the power I desired. And after negotiating with the individual who brought me that information, I received a demon’s flesh from him as well.”

“Who was that?”

Kaito’s response was near-automatic. A glimmer of bloodlust flashed across his eyes.

Just like Vlad, that guy’s responsible for the fourteen demons terrorizing the world. And if not for him, the Torture Princess wouldn’t have had to fight… Well, I guess in that case, her illness would have killed her, but still. Still! Vlad’s real body got burned at the stake, but what about that guy? Is he still alive?

If whoever it was was still in good health, Kaito had an idea of how to proceed. As Vlad watched Kaito’s fierce reaction, his smile grew broader and broader. But in the next moment, he gave a theatrical shrug.

Then he shook his head, as though disappointed.

“Oh goodness, to think it had still escaped your notice. Why, I doubt you so much as suspected a thing! Quite frankly, I’m astonished! I can’t say I was much help on that front, but still. For you to be this dull…”

“Quit playing around and spit it out already. What was it I didn’t suspect?”

Kaito had recoiled upon hearing Vlad’s wording. He’d been implying the mystery individual was someone Kaito knew. But even counting both his lives together, the number of people Kaito knew was hardly vast. He frantically racked his brain.

Who could it be? Who do I know that…?

“…!”

“…Hina?”

Hina reacted, having thought of the party in question quicker than Kaito. He looked at her, silently asking her what answer she’d arrived at. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask. Her face had gone terribly pale.

“It can’t be,” she silently mouthed.

“Oh, but it can,” said Vlad’s smile.

“The Butcher told you himself, did he not? He deals in meats, no matter what kind of meats they may be.”