The Beginning of the Imprint
Deep beneath the Detached Palace, in a cold detention cell.
The assassin was lashed tight to the wall. Both arms were broken, and still her eyes glittered with venom.
"Ptui! Abilityless trash with nothing but a pretty shell. Kill me now and be done with it!"
Her vicious thrashing changed nothing. I only stepped in close and laid my hand over the back of hers.
My unique ability, the one the transparent tablet had shown me: Imprint.
To trigger it, it seemed I had to touch skin directly.
Imprint.
I drew the word up in my mind and pulled on my mana. A pink geometric pattern rose across the assassin's pale hand, then sank away as if it had soaked into her flesh.
"…Huh?"
Behind me, shock spread for the first time across Seria's blank face.
The bound assassin's eyes flew wide as well.
"Y-you—you didn't draw a single reaction from the Tablet of Revelation in the audience chamber today! You're an Abilityless! What kind of mana stone did you just use?!"
"It wasn't a mana stone. It was my unique ability."
At that, both their gazes wavered. They had taken me for a despised Abilityless, and I had used a power as naturally as breathing. Of course they were stunned.
But the real problem started now.
How the hell do I use this?
The Imprint had taken. I had no idea how to steer it.
I tried questions. I tried commands in my head. I even released the mark and engraved it again, over and over, and her body gave me nothing.
"Hahaha! What is this? Here I thought you were putting on a show to scare me."
The assassin snorted, mocking me as if the whole thing were absurd.
"I'll grant you it's surprising you have a unique ability at all. But if it doesn't do a damn thing, it's garbage worse than a rat. You're no different from the abilityless!"
"Haa…"
I raked a hand through my hair, irritation crawling up my neck.
This is really pissing me the fuck off.
I seized the back of her hand again and spat the words out in a fit of anger.
"Run that mouth one more time, and I really will have you tortured."
A soft gleam.
The Imprint engraved itself once more. Still, nothing changed at once.
"God, this ability is a fucking nightmare. How am I supposed to use it?"
The moment I grumbled and let go, she scoffed.
"Look at you, putting on airs. Torture me with a tin-can power like that? I'd rather die on Seria's sword—khak!"
The mockery never finished.
A pink pattern that had been invisible a heartbeat ago flared blindingly across the back of her hand.
"Gaaah—!"
Her body bent like a drawn bow, and dark crimson blood burst from her mouth onto the floor. Veins swelled as if they might split. She couldn't even draw a proper breath, writhing under a pain that looked ready to tear her apart from the inside.
"Kyaaaah! Hrk, hk…!"
It was far too sudden, and far too horrific. Seria and I froze, staring at each other.
"What?"
I wasn't holding a single instrument of torture. The Imprint had only shone, and the assassin was convulsing as if her organs might rupture and kill her on the spot. I looked down at her where she lay coughing blood and asked,
"Hey. You all right?"
"Hrk, hk… Y-you son of a bitch…! What the hell did you do to me…!"
The instant the curse left her tear-smeared mouth—
Flash—!
The pink pattern on her hand blazed again, fiercer than before.
"Gyaaaaaah!!"
This time the pain seemed twice as bad. Her eyes rolled white as she retched blood like a madwoman, and a hideous scream—as if every joint in her body were twisting—rang through the cellar.
"…Ah."
Only then did I understand it perfectly.
No way.
The words I had spat in anger while the Imprint was taking.
Run that mouth one more time, and you will be tortured.
Right after the mark had set, she had mocked my ability and run her mouth. The second time, she had opened it to curse me. And each time, a horrific pain on the order of torture had been forced into her.
The condition that activated my ability was the declaration of a rule.
This is… a completely insane ability, isn't it?
A system this perfect.
I laid my hand on her trembling one again and willed a single word inward. Release.
The pink pattern vanished, and her pain stopped as if it had been a lie.
"Hrk… hk… hk…"
The assassin spilled spit and blood onto the stone and heaved like a beast. The venom in her eyes was gone. What remained was instinctive terror. I grabbed the chin of the woman gasping on the floor and forced her eyes to mine.
"Haa… haa…"
Prey, already trembling into submission.
I gave her the warmest, coldest smile in the world and laid my hand once more against the pale nape of her neck.
"Sorry for startling you. I only just figured out exactly how to use this."
"Hiek…!"
"The real interrogation starts now. I'll engrave a new Imprint."
Cool mana seeped into her nape, and the assassin shuddered. I brought my lips to her ear and whispered, low.
If you lie in answer to my questions, you go into heat.
She flinched at the whisper, then snorted.
"That's insane… You think a mana stone, or an ability that ridiculous, even exists?!"
"Then we'll know the moment we test it."
I rose and sat in the old chair Seria had dragged over, crossing my legs. At my leisure, I asked the first question.
"What's your name?"
The assassin glared at me with venom and spat it out.
"My name is… Jane. A wandering mercenary from the back alleys."
That instant.
A soft gleam.
The pink pattern on her nape shone with a lewd light.
"Kkh, nnh…!"
It was nothing like the bone-breaking agony from before. Her pale face flushed red in a heartbeat, and a stifled moan broke from her lips.
"Haaang…! Ah, aht…! Wh-what is this…!"
The price of a lie. Extreme pleasure forced into her, and the boiling heat of going into heat.
Both arms broken, she collapsed and thrashed, hips jerking off the stone. She twisted her legs together and panted, and there was nothing left of the vicious assassin from a moment ago. I looked down on it with a numb gaze and asked the second question.
"That was a lie. I'll ask again. Your real name, and the house you belong to?"
"Haa, haa… Sh-shut… nnh! I… nngh! I don't belong to any house… hik!"
Flash—!
The pattern shone again.
"Aaaht! Haaang, hk, huaaang…!"
This time pleasure crashed over her like a wave, and her eyes rolled white. Ecstasy past the reach of reason was melting her mind blank. With her arms broken she couldn't even soothe it herself. She ground her body against the floor, tears and spit spilling freely.
"Ah, please… please…! My body, my body's wrong… aht, hnnh!"
"I still haven't heard an answer. Your name."
"E-Ella… hrk! Ella von Cross…! Of the Cross Viscounty… haa, haa!"
The moment she finally vomited the truth, the pattern's light subsided and the wave of pleasure stopped.
Ella lay facedown, panting, her face a wreck of sweat and tears. The pride of the haughty noble lady who had called me a rat only moments ago was already shattered.
Gun was savoring every second of it.
I didn't bother hiding the cold curl of my mouth as I asked the last, decisive question.
"Good, Ella. Then I'll ask. Who sent you?"
"…"
Her body locked up. As if that one name was the thing she could not speak, she bit down hard on her trembling lips and chose silence.
Of course. My black-hearted second brother.
I already knew. What I wanted was her perfect submission.
"Not going to answer? Silence counts as a lie, too."
Flash—!!
"Hiiiik—♡!! Aaht! No, please! Huaaang!"
When the third heat penalty detonated, the last thread of Ella's reason snapped. She howled like a beast, crawled across the floor, and rubbed her face against my trouser leg. Trying somehow to crush the pleasure down herself, she pressed her cheek to the toe of my shoe in place of her broken arms and begged.
"I'll talk! Haaang, I'll t-talk, so please, please stop this horrible feeling…!"
I rested my chin on my hand, smiled coldly, and looked down at her.
"Go on."
"H-His Highness Kyle…! The Second Imperial Prince, His Highness Kyle… haang! He ordered me to assassinate you…!"
The instant the Second Prince's name left her mouth, I willed it again. Release.
Pleasure receded like an outgoing tide, and Ella collapsed. She lay flat beneath my feet, tongue lolling like a spent dog, able only to pant.
"Good girl. But why are you following Brother Kyle?"
"His Highness Kyle promised… that when he becomes emperor, he would take me as his first empress."
At that confession I let out a short, incredulous laugh.
"First empress? You?"
"…"
"You really don't know my second brother at all. That man always plants the sweetest fantasy in a piece he means to use and throw away. You swallowed that blatant lie whole and crawled all the way here."
At the merciless fact, Ella's eyes trembled with despair. The knowledge that the lord she had staked her life to serve had thoroughly deceived her mixed with the shame of the pleasure she had just endured, and it broke her completely.
I seized the nape of the woman prostrate on the floor once more, roughly.
"You told the truth, so you deserve a reward. I'll engrave a new rule."
A soft gleam.
Once again the pink pattern seeped into her pale skin. This time it was not a conditional penalty. It was absolute dominion, tight enough to bind even the soul.
From this moment, you obey me absolutely.
"Ahh... I will remember."
You cannot harm me, and you will not speak a single word of information about me.
Toward Ella, I whispered the cruelest command in the world, low.
When Brother Kyle takes tea with the young noble ladies, kill every woman in that room.
Then pin every one of those assassinations on the Second Prince himself, so perfectly that the guilt is his… and kill yourself.
"…!"
At the cold command, Ella's body locked rigid.
"P-please, just once, have mercy…! I don't want to die, please spare me…!"
She beat her forehead against the floor and begged through a face drowned in tears. The venom of the woman who had come to kill me was nowhere to be found. I looked down on that miserable sight with utterly frigid eyes.
"Was I offering my neck in my sleep because I wanted to die?"
"…Hik."
"Why is your life so terribly precious, while you meant to take someone else's without a second thought? If it fills your pathetic ambition, is another person's life just worthless trash you can treat however you like?"
Under that cold interrogation her lips went blue, and she stammered out excuses, trembling.
"Th-that was…! It was His Highness Kyle's order, so I couldn't resist… I-I had no choice…!"
"No choice, was it."
I let out a short laugh and lightly stroked the crown of her head.
"Well. I understand. Truth is, I'm no different from you."
"…What?"
"If someone isn't mine—if they aren't inside my boundary—I don't care at all whether they drop dead or not."
I withdrew the gentle hand and smiled coldly, the way one looks at an insect.
"So you, as just some stranger, go ahead and die nicely. Quietly. Splendidly."
Ella's eyes froze over with despair. I turned without a shred of lingering attachment and snapped my fingers.
"Seria. Untie her. She can't do anything without my order anyway."
Listening to Ella wail behind me, I strolled out of the detention cell at my ease.
And so the Detached Palace's quiet night deepened.