Chapter 83: Meanwhile, the Hero's Party...[R-18]
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 83: Meanwhile, the Hero's Party...[R-18]
“Hyun-woo? You’re Lee Hyun-woo, right?!”
Rose gripped the iron bars, pressing herself against them.
She dragged her body forward, looking up at me.
As soon as she confirmed it was my face, her eyes suddenly welled with tears.
“Y-You came to save me…! But how? It hasn’t even been that long…!”
“...I have my ways.”
“L-Listen to me. That bitch Claire finally… Ah, first, can you get me out of this!”
Rose banged on the bars.
She knew very well how simple it was for me to break them.
But I just stood there, looking down at her in silence.
“Hyun… woo?”
Only then did Rose study my expression.
Seeing my face, she realized something was wrong.
“W-Wait a minute. You’re not blaming me, are you? Leon was the one who kicked you out. I was against it! You know that!”
Rose’s sudden change in tone was quite amusing.
Her usual high-and-mighty, prideful attitude had already vanished.
“A-After you disappeared, you have no idea how much we felt your absence. I kept trying to convince Leon that we needed you!”
Had her suffering truly changed her?
Or did she just realize how desperate her situation was?
Either way, it had nothing to do with me.
“O-Okay, of course I was in the wrong too! So I’ll apologize! I was going to make it all up to you after we defeated the Demon King. So just let me out first. You have to let me out for me to even pay you back.”
“And if I let you out?”
“Huh?”
As I spoke for the first time, Rose froze like ice.
“If I save you from here… you’ll just go back to Leon, won’t you?”
“W-Well…”
Rose’s mouth hung open, unable to answer.
The truth was, no matter what happened, she had to see Leon.
Whether it was to claw at the other bitches.
Or to get her reward from Leon for all her suffering.
Or even to demand he dump that bitch and take her as his legal wife.
In the end, Rose had no choice but to return to Leon.
She had already invested too much.
‘She’s prideful, but she’s the type of bitch who’d throw it all away for her own gain.’
If she had any common sense, she’d know I wouldn’t take her in.
And returning to her hometown as a failure would be far too humiliating.
By tomorrow, news that Rose had been abandoned and captured by the Demon King’s army would spread throughout the entire kingdom.
An elf who let the Hero use her body as he pleased, only to be captured by the Demon King’s army and subjected to who knows what?
Who in the world would take her after that?
She’d be lucky not to be pointed at as a disgrace to her clan.
‘Well, those are all things you can only worry about if you’re alive.’
That was why Rose was so desperate.
Being scorned by the outside world was still better than being a prisoner of the Demon King’s army.
She had been filled with a sense of betrayal and rage toward the Hero and the Saint.
But the moment she saw me, the reality of being a prisoner who could be killed or tortured at any moment must have dawned on her.
“H-Hyun-woo? No, right? Y-You have to get out of here too! I can be useful! Just give me a bow and I can provide all the support you need! Uh, if you don't have one, I'll be your shield!”
Seeing Rose cling to me so earnestly, I barely managed to suppress the smile that kept trying to break out.
What a far cry from the arrogant elf she used to be.
‘Still, regret, no matter how soon it comes, is always too late.’
If she had been this submissive from the start, back when I warned her.
If she had grabbed my leg and begged for forgiveness when I left the Hero’s Party, would anything have changed?
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
Rose was already trembling, from her ears to her entire body.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
Her gaze was fixed solely on me.
“P-Please… please… You’re all I have now. Please don’t abandon me…”
She had already been abandoned once by the Hero and the Saint.
She wouldn’t want to go through that a second time.
Especially not as a prisoner. Rose’s mind wouldn’t be able to handle that reality.
Should I offer a word of thanks to that train wreck of a Saint for creating such a wonderful situation?
‘I’ve had my fun. Now it’s time for me to get to work.’
I spoke to Rose in the gentlest voice I could muster.
“Don’t worry, Rose. I’m on your side. I came to save you.”
“R-Really?”
As if, you moron.
I forced down the words bubbling up inside me.
“Yes, really. I made a deal with one of the Demon King’s executives to save you. I offered him all the magic stones I have in exchange for him leaving your fate to me.”
“Y-You went that far? But why would you…?”
Rose looked puzzled.
After all, we weren’t on good terms, not even by a long shot.
“The truth is… I’ve been in love with you.”
“...Huh?”
Rose’s eyes went wide.
Her next reaction was for her ears to turn bright red.
Forgetting her situation, she grew shy at my sudden confession.
Just like a woman with her head in the clouds.
“W-What are you saying all of a sudden… I thought you hated me…”
“I only pretended to hate you because I was afraid you’d find out how I felt. Honestly, I was pretty childish back then. But being away from you, I found myself thinking about you all the time.”
“B-But, are you sure? As you know, Leon and I…”
Of course, I’d pass on a woman like you.
But for the sake of my plan, I could put on a little act.
Didn’t a certain genius with a Death Note use his silver tongue for his own ambitions?
“Of course, I’m sure. If I wasn’t, would I have come to save you in the middle of enemy territory?”
“Ah… Hyun-woo…”
Rose’s eyes filled with emotion.
Tears even began to well up.
In her moment of despair, having lost everything, a man had appeared, risking his life for her.
And what’s more, he claimed to have been secretly in love with her all this time.
It wouldn’t be strange if she saw me as salvation itself.
Though the reality was the complete opposite.
“First, take this.”
“What is it?”
I handed Rose a pen.
【Item Window】
Name: Pen of Trust and Happiness
Description: A woman marked by this pen's ink will experience a dramatic increase in feelings of trust and relief, causing her to feel a baseline of affection for the owner. The mark drawn on the body can be made invisible to others at will.
“It’s a magic item I made. If you draw on your body with this, it’ll reduce the pain, and they’ll have a harder time touching you.”
“R-Really?”
“Yes, but you might get caught, so… just draw a small line on your thigh. You never know when they might decide to torture you.”
At the word ‘torture,’ Rose scrambled to act.
With her own hand, she drew on her thigh with the pen designed to brainwash its target.
With this, Rose’s trust in me would rise considerably.
Rose handed the pen back to me and let out a small sigh of relief.
“…Thank you. A magic item like this must be incredibly expensive.”
“It’s a worthy investment for the woman I love.”
Rose’s face flushed slightly.
I sneered inwardly at the sight and continued.
“And there’s something I need to tell you about the truth behind this battle.”
“The truth?”
The elf’s ears perked up.
I spoke in a tone full of regret.
“The truth is, Leon has already chosen Claire as his partner.”
“…What?”
“And this whole operation was a scheme cooked up by the Church and the Hero to make it happen.”
“Wh-What did you say?”
Rose’s eyes filled with shock.
At the same time, the pen mark on her thigh began to glow with a pink light.
“I-Is that true? Did Leon really abandon me on purpose? It wasn’t just that bitch Claire acting on her own?”
“Yes. It seems he was politically unstable and needed the Church’s power. So he made a deal with them to choose Claire.”
“H-How could he… He was whispering words of love while holding me right before the mission…”
Rose still looked like she couldn’t believe it.
Or more accurately, like she didn’t want to believe it.
I drove the final nail into her coffin of doubt.
“Doesn’t it seem strange when you think about it? That they’d attempt such a reckless operation, and just happen to have a teleport spell to let the two of them escape safely, leaving only you behind to be captured by the Demon King’s army?”
Rose nodded her head violently.
“A-Actually, I thought it was strange too! Claire never once said she could use a teleport spell like that!”
“Exactly. It’s too perfect to be a coincidence. It was a trap from the very beginning to sell you out to the Demon King’s army.”
“W-Why would they go that far? Couldn’t he just choose Claire?”
“That would mean making enemies of the other elves and beastmen. He probably figured it was better for you to just die and disappear.”
Of course, that was a lie.
My guess was that Claire just ran because she wanted to save her own skin.
‘That bitch is too much of an airhead to plan something like that. It might be a different story if the Church was behind it, but the current Saint isn’t the type to allow such a thing.’
She probably only took the Hero because her divine power was so lacking that he was all she could manage.
And the reason she never mentioned the spell was to save it for a truly life-threatening moment, just like this one.
But for the Rose of right now, the truth didn’t matter.
“Sob… That bastard Leon… After I swallowed my pride and did so much for him…”
All she needed was a ‘plausible’ reason for why she was abandoned.
Rose clenched her fists tightly.
Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood.
Her eyes filled with hatred, her gaze stained with the thirst for revenge.
“In any case, you can’t just die like this. Right?”
“Of course not! I can’t die, not until I’ve put an arrow through their heads!”
Watching her, I laughed to myself.
The usual Rose would have been at least a little suspicious of my words.
But her desperate situation had clouded her judgment.
The Pen of Trust, which made her believe my words so strongly, also played a part.
‘I’ll have to give Lilith a reward later.’
Well, most people wouldn’t think I’d be lying to them in the middle of the Demon King’s army’s stronghold.
“So, I want to get you out of here, but…”
“What? What is it? Is there a problem?”
Rose asked urgently.
“They said they can’t just release a member of the Hero’s Party. In fact, I barely managed to stop them from torturing you.”
“T-Torture? N-No! I don’t want that! Absolutely not! I don’t want to die!”
“It’s okay. Calm down. That’s why I’m here.”
I looked at Rose with a serious expression.
“Actually, I negotiated that with the Demon King’s army, too. I asked them to entrust your… conditioning to me.”
“N-Negotiated? Conditioning?”
“Yes. You see, the Demon King’s army believes I genuinely hate you. So they thought it would be amusing to have a former comrade handle your conditioning. A perverted idea, fitting for them.”
—CRASH!
Just then, the sound of a foot kicking the iron door echoed through the room.
Rose flinched at the loud noise.
“...Anyway, they told me to condition you myself.”
“S-So you’re going to torture me? For real?”
Large tears began to fall from Rose’s eyes.
Even that prideful elf, now that she was broken, seemed terrified of torture.
“Ugh… Please… save me… Hyun-woo… You’re the only one I can trust…”
“Don’t worry. Of course, I have no intention of actually doing it. But it’ll be a problem if the Demon King’s army starts asking questions, so…”
I took a video device out of my subspace.
“Let’s just act. Just act like you’re being conditioned by me and enjoying it.”
“Act?”
“Yes. You just have to pretend you’re completely into the sexual torture and have become obedient. As long as we have proof, the Demon King’s army won’t be able to say anything. And of course, I won’t actually put it in. You can do that much, right?”
“Y-Yes…”
Good. I hope you’ll give me a convincing method performance, full of sincerity.
Because an NTL video is scheduled to arrive at the church where the Hero is staying very soon.
It’d be great if we could get some nice, sexy footage for it.