Fremd Torturchen - Volume 8 - Chapter 13

13

Something Broken

At that point

anyone who saw what was atop the chessboard

in that red, red room

would surely cry out. “Oh God, it’s horrible.” “What did I just see?!” “You saw it, too, right? That girl’s eyes?” “Please, someone, anyone, make her close them.” “I feel like I just got cursed.”

It was a later time and, moreover, a different place. Namely, the royal castle.

Specifically, the chamber that sat before the Room of Pain on the underground tomb’s lowest level.

Watched over by the rows of coffins and generations of deceased royalty stood two people.

Elisabeth Le Fanu and Maclaeus Filliana.

The Torture Princess and the human king.

Officially speaking, the Torture Princess was on the Most Wanted list, meaning their rendezvous was by necessity a clandestine one. That was what made that section of the tomb such a perfect spot—because the kings’ corpses were interred there, the entire chamber was sealed off. Even with the death of its former Grave Keeper, Vlad Le Fanu, it was unlikely that anyone else would come down.

There, the only company was the dead.

A large crystal gleamed under the room’s hemispherical ceiling. The dappled light it cast made the entire room look like the bottom of a pool.

Even so, though, it was still dim, and their expressions were grave.

Elisabeth spoke first, her tone detached.

“How many dead?”

“We don’t have hard numbers yet, but it looks to be over a third. The situation is grim.”

Elisabeth nodded. If anything, that was lower than she’d expected. She thought back.

After returning to the settlement, Jeanne and Izabella had aided in the retreat, as had Elisabeth, albeit from the shadows. By that point, though, many of the beastfolk and humans had already made their escape.

That was thanks to some decisive action from the Three Kings of the Forest, who had quickly decided to devote their full efforts toward protecting the survivors. Furthermore, the Sand Queen didn’t pursue them particularly far. The mixed-race people had wanted to give chase, but the Queen herself refused.

Her priority had been protecting the demi-human settlement.

Apparently, the mana in her corpse had taken on some of her personality.

And as a mother, that personality was intent on protecting her children.

It was also unclear whether or not Satisbarina’s son had survived, but at the moment, that was the least of their worries, and they didn’t exactly have the means to look into it anyway. Most of the dead beastfolk and humans had yet to even be identified.

And then there were those who’d been reduced to ash, those who would forever be listed as missing in action.

“The beastfolk trump card was bested, our foes have obtained a new weapon…and the Fremd Torturchen grew stronger still. We were successful in slaying Lewis, but even so, ’tis unclear which way the scales will tip.”

Elisabeth crossed her arms. Their overwhelming advantage had been overturned in the blink of an eye.

Now it was impossible to say which of the scale’s plates weighed heavier.

Everything was in absolute chaos.

This is what happened when rage was met with rage. The two would clash, and sparks would go flying every which way.

Now the true battle, the one they’d anticipated all along, was beginning.

The curtain had raised on a grand, all-encompassing war.

And ironically, it was a war nobody had ever wanted. Even the mixed-race people would be hard-pressed to say that this was the outcome they had sought. Elisabeth shook her head. Then she posed another question.

“…I know not her name, but last I saw, that saint girl was still alive. What became of her?”

“If it’s La Filsell you’re asking about, she’s resting in a Church clinic. She fractured half the bones in her body and suffered serious organ damage, but she narrowly escaped death. I hear that La Dhruv—a fellow saint whose divine beasts take the form of fish—is keeping her company as she recovers.”

“…The saints sympathize with her?”

“By and large, yes. But many of them are condemning her actions and calling her attack on Jeanne de Rais uncalled for. I don’t foresee this causing any problems with our ability to secure their assistance. They understand what La Christoph stood for and how he viewed salvation.”

…Do they, though?

Privately, Elisabeth wasn’t so sure about that.

For many of the saints, having their prayers granted left their bodies horribly disfigured.

To them, God was all they had. It wouldn’t be strange in the slightest if more of them resisted the prospect of having their connection to Him severed. These were people who didn’t even have families. If anything, it would be strange for them not to balk at losing the one absolute bond in their lives.

It was impossible for outsiders to understand just how alone saints were and how important their faith was to them.

Suddenly, Elisabeth turned her gaze to the wall farther in.

There was a carving there of the Saint embracing a blob of meat swaddled in cloth. And beside her stood her demi-human servant.

He, too, had ended his life while blindly believing in his mother. However, he left the world without a single regret.

Elisabeth wordlessly shook her head.

She turned her gaze back away from the carving and began thinking.

A way to sever our connection to God and Diablo, eh…?

Due to the fuss around Izabella and Jeanne’s engagement, Elisabeth had almost missed her chance to explain her plan to them. But explain it she did, and she was set on carrying it out. It was unclear if it would actually work or not, but she knew she had to go for it.

Even if doing so

would end up sending her to her eternal rest.

Maclaeus cast his dull green eyes downward.

That information was precisely why he had sought that meeting with Elisabeth out.

He hesitantly spoke.

“I heard about your plan from Vicker… Are you serious about that?”

“Aye. You’ve realized, too, I imagine? That until we’re freed from the system of God and Diablo, we shall never obtain true peace. Not until the end of time.”

Maclaeus’s expression darkened when he heard the certainty in Elisabeth’s tone. Patterns of light from the crystal danced on his face. Deep down inside, that was something he already knew. Mankind’s sole available path was both treacherous and paved with blasphemy.

The Torture Princess thought back to the plan she’d laid out right before teleporting away from Jeanne’s birthplace.

The first hurdle they had to clear was also going to be the hardest.

We have to capture Fremd Torturchen Alice Carroll, otherwise known as Sara Yuuki, transfer just Kaito Sena’s contract with Diablo into her body, then kill her.

In other words, they would return Diablo to whence it came.

That would leave only God behind.

After that, even if someone managed to summon Diablo, they could use God to keep it in check.

Then, if they eventually developed the ability to perfectly control God’s power without having it run amok, it would be possible to rid the world of Diablo’s influence for good.

All they needed to do that was to get God to recognize its every act of violence, including the lesser demons’ acts of destruction, as “destruction carried out before the reconstruction.”

That way, God would reject them as being violations of the system. And with Diablo unable to commit acts of destruction, God’s ability to influence the world would be severed in turn.

Once that happened, the world would be free from its role as the higher beings’ sandcastle.

The infinite cycle of being endlessly destroyed and constructed anew would finally end.

The one rub was that no mage alive had the power to completely control God.

Their only choice was to stake their future on finding a solution to that issue during the reprieve that temporarily getting rid of Diablo would buy them. It was a dangerous gamble, to be sure. However, mankind had already come up with a way to create the Fremd Torturchen. It would probably involve straying from the straight and narrow, but odds were good that there were other such innovative techniques just waiting to be discovered.

Someday, that hurdle would be cleared, too. The bigger problem was the here and now.

Too many people knew that Kaito Sena was the vessel, so leaving God with him was too great a risk.

As such, I have no choice but to make a contract with the Kaiser, grow my power through battle, and become God’s vessel myself. With Kaito Sena left behind… The amount of mana he’s amassed towers head and shoulders over that of any other. Keeping me hidden will be child’s play for him. It will wound him to have to do so, but…he’ll have Hina by his side. I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Elisabeth nodded as the image of that lovable maid flashed through her mind.

At the moment, they were storing the crystal outside the beastfolk lands. The beastfolk would want to point fingers for their historic defeat, and there was a fear that both Vyadryavka and the crystal itself would come under fire.

Right before moving it, Elisabeth laid out her thinking to everyone.

Izabella had hesitated for a moment, then replied simply, “It won’t be easy.” Jeanne just shrugged. And the Kaiser, as though filling in for Vlad, responded with exasperation. He shook his tail and laughed in that ever-so-human voice of his.

“Some God, getting dragged this way and that way and every other which way like that. Idiots, the lot of you. You know, I almost wonder what the greatest idiot I know would have thought of all this…”

Elisabeth didn’t have to wonder. Kaito Sena was going to be livid. This isn’t what I wanted for you! he would no doubt angrily cry. What do you think it was I fought so hard for?! However, the situation was different now.

She couldn’t protect him anymore.

Because of that, this was their only option.

Knowing that filled Elisabeth not with hesitation

but with an emotion that bore a strong resemblance to relief.

It was almost as though she actually wanted to lay down her burden.

However, Elisabeth chose to focus her attention away from that secret desire of hers. All that mattered was that her plan was the best one for the situation. If it didn’t change what she had to do, then how she felt about it didn’t much matter.

However, there was still an elephant in the room.

With Alice as she is, will we truly be able to capture her?

“I can see you’ve made up your mind… In that case, it’s paramount that we get a read on Alice Carroll’s movements. There’s a problem, though. At the moment, she’s completely vanished from the site of the settlement.”

“Aye, so she has. And I haven’t the faintest idea as to why.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it? Where could she have gone?”

Both of them had dropped their voices to whispers. They could feel it—something was terribly amiss about the whole situation.

Right after the humans and beastfolk made their retreat, one mystery had thrown everyone for a loop.

The disappearance of Alice Carroll.

And to muddy the waters even further, the first ones who’d begun searching for Alice were none other than the mixed-race people themselves. As it turned out, the scene from Vlad’s window was the last time anyone had actually laid eyes on her.

After that, she simply headed off somewhere without even telling her allies.

Elisabeth thought back to the way she’d screamed upon losing Lewis.

“How dare you. HOW DARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

That roar had been packed with more fury than should have even been possible. It was unclear what she intended to do next, but one thing was for certain. Her striking Vlad down was only the beginning.

Alice would never forgive them.

For just as I love Kaito Sena…

…Alice Carroll loved Lewis.

It was as a child loved their parent.

As a person loved another.

As one would love any whom they ought to love.

And as such, there could be no forgiveness.

Not for anyone.

Not ever.

Suddenly, Elisabeth realized that something was off.

Small specks of something were raining down on her shoulder.

She looked up in confusion, only to discover that small chunks of debris were falling from the ceiling. Well, no matter then, she thought and turned her gaze back down. A moment later, though, she let out a small gasp.

What was happening shouldn’t have been possible.

That chamber had been crafted by the Saint herself. Even the finest of modern technology wouldn’t have been able to replicate it, and its seamless walls boasted hardness unparalleled.

There was no reasonable way debris should have been falling from its ceiling.

The next moment, a violent tremor ran through the entire tomb.

Maclaeus lost his balance and nearly toppled over. He clung to a coffin for support and shouted.

“Wh-what…what’s that?!”

“It’s the surface! I can sense several sources of mana; this is—”

A chill ran down Elisabeth’s entire body. This was no ordinary dark magic at play. She could sense powerful, malignant presences appearing one after another, each horrible and alien enough to qualify as a monster in their own right.

During a brief moment of relative quiet, Elisabeth took off at a dash.

Leaving Maclaeus behind, she threw the chamber’s heavy doors ajar.

From there, she made for the stairs. Teleportation circles didn’t work in the tomb, and although there were a number of spots designated for their use, she didn’t have time to waste standing in line. Instead, she raced up the stairs alongside the paladins and Royal Knight guards doing the same. A handful of them noticed who she was, but none of them commented on that fact. They all just kept running.

All the while, the tremors continued, each one dashing Elisabeth against the wall. And they had only grown stronger by the time she reached the final set of stairs. Several people even lost their footing and went tumbling down backward. One knight was falling in a particularly dangerous-looking manner, so Elisabeth kicked him back upright as she made her way to the surface.

The moment she reached the entrance, she was greeted by the blinding light of day and a chorus of cries.

The voices were definitely human. However, they sounded as much like demons as anything else.

Eventually, she made her way outside

and discovered a whole new hell laid out before her.

A calamity cometh.

No

a calamity has come.

To all the people of the land.

The messenger blew the bugle of the end.

It’s time for a story.

Normally, when someone died a death as pitiful, unseemly, cruel, and gruesome as a worm getting stepped on, they didn’t get a second shot at life. It would be ridiculous to suggest that everyone simply got to go to the world of their dreams after they died.

To sum it up, the answer was simple. Miracles didn’t happen.

That was all there was to it.

Plus, even if they did get a second shot at life, sometimes all that awaited them were simply more horrors.

Right now, Elisabeth was learning that fact firsthand.

Pools of blackened crimson were spreading out all around the underground tomb. The pools, which looked like toxic swamps, were actually aberrant teleportation circles. They spread corrosively, paying no heed to the barrier the priests had set up around the entire Capital.

The ground frothed, like the earth itself was boiling.

Then several figures emerged through the circles, each more horrible than the circles themselves.

The figures were human. But so, too, were they weapons.

They had been transformed into fixed batteries.

And the treatment they’d undergone was crueler than even La Mules’s had been.

Their eyelids were stitched together, their tongues had been plucked out, their teeth had been removed, their limbs had been severed, and their bodies had been affixed to pillories.

And yet even so, they were still alive. All the fixed batteries were golems, which meant they were immortal as long as they didn’t suffer catastrophic blood loss. In other words, the fixed batteries…

…were the broken husks of what had once been reincarnations.

Elisabeth let out a faint murmur.

“…This is beyond the pale.”

Those were people who had no business even being in that world, all made to bear unbelievable burdens.

She had underestimated just how broken her late foe had been.

Summoning Alice had taught Lewis that his method worked. And because of that, he must have repeated the process, finishing up one reincarnation after another. However, he had only one heart to give.

That meant he could only make one Fremd Torturchen. If he tried to make more, it would only dilute the power each could command.

But then what to do with the rest of the people he summoned?

Worry not. There was no shortage of ways to put vessels with limitless mana to use.

For example, this.

He could assign demon contracts to the spare reincarnations willy-nilly, feed them pain, and expand their mana stores. From there, all he had to do was teach them how to shoot forward and train them to act on his signal.

That way, he could build himself a mighty fine collection of fixed batteries.

They had probably been in the proverbial shop up until then, which is why they hadn’t been deployed earlier. Now, though, they were seeing their first live battle.

As far as that world was concerned, it marked the first time someone had taken another sentient person and made them into a living weapon without their consent.

The reincarnations’ egos had been destroyed, but even so, the amount of hatred they fostered toward that world that had given them nothing but pain was downright terrifying. A bombardment poured from their mouths like both a wave of vomit and a chorus of screams.

They were calamities given flesh, spreading beams of absolute destruction wherever they faced. And all the while, their screams never ceased.

Nobody could so much as get close to them.

And standing at the center of all this was an adorable little girl.

Alice Carroll.

To. Fro. Chitter. Chatter.

There were voices.

Throngs of people sobbing and screaming and trembling. Someone was loudly screaming. There were no words, only pain. Someone else was lamenting the terror of it all, their tone that of a person dashing through a field with deranged abandon and laughing their head off. “What’s even happening?”

And there, in that place that seemed halfway between a nightmare and reality, a young girl spoke.

“Come now, let’s be good girls and sing a song.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall! Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

The one thing that truly can’t be put together again is this girl.

Alice Carroll was broken.

Elisabeth took a moment to let that fact sink in.

As she did, the girl stopped singing and slowly spun to face her.

The white, rabbit-ear-like ribbons attached to her oversized hat swayed from side to side. Just like before, Alice bent one knee in an elegant curtsy, and her white hair flopped adorably about.

Their surroundings had been reduced to a grim hellscape. This was the Wonderland Alice herself had built. However, the way Alice faced her was much the same as ever.

Alice spoke up.

“Come on, Elisabeth! Let’s plaaay!”

Her tone was bright and cheery.

It was as though she didn’t have a single care in the world.

Alice Carroll had broken past the point of no return.

Nobody could put her together again.

Elisabeth could tell that all this was happening because Lewis had been killed. But that wasn’t the whole story. The mixed-race people being killed had started it as well, as had Alice’s—that was, Sara Yuuki’s—brutal death.

By now, they were all avengers. Everyone hated everyone.

And the world kept on turning, just as properly as ever.

And in that moment, a thought crossed Elisabeth’s mind.

A thought she couldn’t afford to harbor.

…Why should Kaito have to protect a world such as this?

Why did the person she loved have to die?

Why, for something so worthless?

The expression vanished from Elisabeth’s face. However, she immediately dashed forward.

Hesitation wasn’t in the Torture Princess’s nature.

She did a forward roll, practically dancing her way across the field of death.

“Madam Elisabeth!” the knight she helped back on the stairs shouted. He rushed forward to try and back her up, but a blast struck him head-on and vaporized him in the blink of an eye. Elisabeth could tell what had happened, but she didn’t look back.

She knew that if she stopped, she would meet the same fate.

She ran with all her might. The blasts came in straight lines, so it was simple enough to dodge them. The fixed batteries almost resembled religious icons, and the Torture Princess deftly wove her way between them. As she pushed on forward, there was one thing she was sure of.

Alice needs to die.

She had become something that could not be allowed to continue living.

Killing her would ruin Elisabeth’s plan, but she was well past the point of worrying about that. She raced onward, eventually reaching her target.

Elisabeth drew her long sword from a swirl of black darkness and crimson flower petals. Her glossy hair swayed behind her as she appeared before the girl. Alice, for her part, was waiting for the Torture Princess without so much as a shred of fear.

Her arms were spread wide, and a broad smile sat plastered across her face.

It was like she was greeting a playmate

and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

Elisabeth’s sword was raised aloft.

Alice had her spoon in hand.

Crimson and azure petals were cascading all around them.

The Torture Princess gathered all the rage swirling in her heart, then brought her sword down

and—