The Knight Came to Hate the Ball (2)
Mystic races.
They were sometimes called the descendants of heroes granted special power in the age when the ancient gods still walked the earth, and just as many tales held that they were races born of the Fairy's Blessing.
Gods, fairies, and dragons. Springing as they did from beings at once holy and mysterious, the mystic races were strong, and they were set apart. A dwarf was an artisan born to uncanny hands. A mermaid, mystic race of the sea, was simply made to live beneath the waves.
True to the name, they were wondrous and hard to meet. People guessed the difficulty was not only that they were few. They also seemed to find civilized society distasteful, well aware of the risk that a step into that world might end with them sold as slaves.
So the mystic races as often as not refused civilization outright. Now and then one appeared on the southern continent, where Mystery was a familiar thing, under the pretext of coming to study. On the other continents most people treated them as creatures out of fairy tales and did not even know whether they existed.
They showed themselves only occasionally even in the southern continent. That was not the same as being easy to see. And even if you met one, the odds of recognizing a mystic race were slim. Barbarians were merely large and strong, and otherwise looked like ordinary people; many of the other mystic races were much the same. If it could not be helped, then it could not be helped.
And yet—
"...I-it's real! A r-real mystic race just appeared...!"
Damian Paulet was aghast.
It glided through empty air, and from its back spread something like a bat's wings. The eyes were red. The hair moved as if it had a will of its own.
And worse.
An air that bewitching...!
A dizzying fragrance hung about her, enough to fog the mind at a glance and make a man want to surrender on the spot. It was a demonic allure no man could have resisted. Anyone losing their head would have been the natural course of things.
And yet—
"Wow. I beat you like this and you still won't die? You're something else."
"P-please spare me. N-no, I mean—please stop hitting me..."
"Do you die if I cut your head off? Or do I have to burn you? If not that, then..."
"Eeeek!"
"...Look at you, scared stiff. I'm not gonna kill you, idiot. I was just giving examples."
"......"
"Hmm. Still, burning does kill you, right?"
"P-please spare me...!"
"I see. So fire kills you. Good to know."
"Huuuuh!!"
The dream fiend wept as if her heart would break, but unfortunately none of it reached him. He had been beating her for a full seven hours and still showed no sign of being satisfied. Irritation plain on his face, the knight spoke.
"Knock it off. Before I actually go get a torch and some oil."
"......"
He had meant every word of the threat. The dream fiend's crying cut off at once, though her body still trembled.
...So she does want to live.
Damian Paulet found himself looking away from that strange and brutal sight. Step into that, and—
I'd only be cutting my own life short.
Where the dream fiend had sprung from, and why she was being beaten, he was desperately curious. Damian buried every one of those questions in his chest. Half a year living as an assistant instructor under a monster, and even if you wanted no part of learning to read a room, the life forced it on you.
The assistant instructor took up a hoe and went to pull the weeds in the instructor's field. It was a Sunday morning, and the weekend had already gone completely off the rails.
So this one's true identity was a mystic race.
A dream fiend, at that. A race that worked dreams and lived by feeding on a man's vital essence. Impossible not to think of a succubus, and among the mystic races one of those cast out as readily as vampires and witches.
Is that why old Raphael called her a pitiful child?
He thought he understood why the old priest said "brother" to the other clergy and "child" to Judia Pierre. It was unofficial, but the temple had not yet shed its revulsion toward mystic races. And not some other race—a dream fiend? Accepting that would be the stranger thing, and the moment her identity came to light—
I'm not joking. She'd be the one under interrogation.
The one dragged before an inquisition would be her.
Also.
"...So. Who are you?"
"...Pardon?"
"The redhead I know doesn't seem to be you. That's why I'm asking."
"......"
"Thought so."
...Even if she were interrogated, the trouble was that she would have nothing to feel wronged about.
The trait Hypersense.
According to the System Window, it was Lee Han's trait, the one that granted senses close to Mystery itself, and that Hypersense fed him a great deal of information as it happened. Just as seeing the duke and his adopted daughter the day before had told him they were father and daughter, his senses, taking in Judia Pierre, told him many things.
"Looks, the way you talk, your personality, of course. But the little habits, the tremors, the tone of your voice, even how you use your hands. Nearly all of it is different. Like a completely different person."
"Y-you can tell all of that?"
"It's obvious at a glance."
"...You haven't, by any chance, had a thing for me all along?"
"Disgusting thing to say. Guess you want another beating."
"N-no! I absolutely don't...!"
She denied it like a shriek, and then went on.
"I-I was just that shocked. I n-never even imagined there would be someone who could clearly tell Pierre and me apart."
"...Hmm."
"L-let me introduce myself again. I-I'm Judia. ...Another personality, one that shares a soul and a body with Pierre."
"...You sure know how to make it complicated."
When the simple explanation was sitting right there: a split personality.
Judia Pierre.
No—the personality that bore the name Judia opened her mouth.
"Even among the mystic races, dream fiends are one of the kinds treated as no different from demons. It's unfair, from where I stand, but a dream fiend has no choice. We live by drawing out other people's vital essence. So being cast out can't be helped either."
"You're not wrong."
"A-at a time like this, isn't the proper thing to call it pitiful and comfort me?"
"You think comfort is going to come from the man who nearly had his essence sucked out?"
"...I-I don't do any harm. Even if I feed, all you feel is a little tired..."
"What you're saying is the same principle as a thief telling a rich man he's got money to spare, so taking a little is no loss. You shameless wench."
"A-anyway!"
"...Shameless woman."
Judia shamelessly went on.
"D-dream fiends, you see, are a race born by chance through a human womb, the way witches are. The difference is that a witch comes into the world already holding the knowledge of the witches before her, while a dream fiend is born an ordinary human and only one day realizes what she is. So originally, I..."
"Got mixed into human society and caused some accident, I bet."
"No. I was kidnapped."
"......"
"There was a power that kidnapped only mystic races. They took me, brainwashed me, and drew my blood. It hurt so badly that I denied even the self I was, and what was born then... was Pierre."
"......"
At those low words that trailed after, Lee Han's eyes sank deep. It was not sympathy for her story that did it.
Only this.
So what that man of Galahad said wasn't complete nonsense after all?
What scraped hard at his nerves was a power that kidnapped mystic races. Lee Han's instinct was certain those bastards were tied to the counterfeit Blood Cross. No question about it.
"So, to sum it up, it hurt so much you needed someone to hurt in your place, and you made a personality. That it?"
"...Doesn't that make me sound like complete trash?"
"......Well, aren't you?"
"......"
Her face wanted to deny it, and could not quite manage the look. Someone else might have fallen head over heels for that sultry, mysterious air and tried to comfort Judia. On Lee Han, the mystery simply did not take.
What held his interest lay elsewhere.
Pierre, was it. So that was why.
He remembered the madman who had fought him and, the instant defeat looked certain, leveled a gun at his own brow. A man who had seemed to find no meaning at all in his own life.
A manufactured personality...
Emptiness would settle into a life like that. It stood to reason. But pitiful as it was, he was not going to curse Judia for cowardice.
Because—
...If I had been able to, I would have made one too.
It hurts. It hurts so much....
Mom....
P-please save me! Save me!!
He was no older than three when his parents sold him into slavery and a mage bought him. Children his own age thrashed in pain, whimpered, and died in droves.
When a child he had spoken with one day lay the next morning as a cold corpse, what he felt was truly dark. How much longer did he have to thrash in pain like this? He had even raged.
Why do I have to suffer like this...?
He had repeated words like that several times a day.
If it was going to be like this, I never wanted to be born!
He resented everything in the world, and he hated all of it.
I used to imagine how good it would have been, if only there were a double to take the pain in my place.
He had called her trash, but it was not an opinion he failed to understand, and where no one could see it Lee Han hid a bitter smile. It was a feeling he did not want caught in front of another person.
"...I really didn't think one would appear either. A new personality showed up out of nowhere, and I never imagined that personality would take my body..."
"Is making a personality a dream fiend's power too?"
"I-it has to be, doesn't it?"
"...And if you don't know?"
"...I've never seen a dream fiend besides myself."
"......"
"D-don't look at me like that!"
Judia Pierre... no. Judia's personality was, frankly, frivolous. Toward anyone weaker than herself she was arrogant without limit, and toward the strong she turned humble without limit. That much he could see, and so Lee Han was certain.
That's the one. That's the villainess he was talking about.
Judia Pierre, one of the three great villainesses. A figure out of the thing they called the original and the thing they called a game, and the true body that had driven that dark-skinned brat to such fury. In his heart Lee Han was sure it was none other than this.
And how could he be sure?
"Hey. Bit late to ask now, but why'd you try to jump me?"
"What? Th-that's..."
"I won't get mad. Talk."
"...I just needed vital essence. And if I was going to take it anyway, wouldn't it be better if it came from a man whose essence ran... strong?"
"......You fucking bitch."
"Th-that's too much..."
Look at that. A woman whose conscience was good and dead.
Lee Han would have sworn that even if this dark redhead were hauled before an inquisition, she would have nothing to say for herself.