Chapter 119: Love Doll
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 119: Love Doll
Stretching her hand out, Evangeline realized she could control the seawater far in the distance. And so she did. On the vast expanse of the sea, a wave suddenly surged.
The water swirled, gathering in one spot before finally—BOOM!—it exploded. From this distance, she could control the waves and even induce a nuclear fusion explosion using the seawater…
Realizing this was no different from her own hand touching it, Evangeline quietly looked down at her palm.
‘So this is awakening…’
It felt as if incredibly fine, invisible threads were extending from her body, connecting her to the entire world. And those threads allowed her to manipulate the world as freely as if it were her own body.
However.
‘The magic consumption is fast. Does just maintaining this cost magic power?’
Evangeline quietly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. A moment later, though invisible to the naked eye, all the threads that had emerged from her body vanished.
She could create and destroy these threads at will. But since simply maintaining them was an ordeal, Evangeline decided not to go around with them constantly extended.
‘Ah, no. One last thing…’
Glancing in the direction of her disciple, Evangeline raised her hand and sent the threads toward him. Then, she began to poke and prod.
‘I’m starting to want to touch my master’s body… I’m starting to like my master…’
The moment she cast the preposterous, sure-to-fail spell, the threads began to shatter. She tried casting magic on him a few more times after that, but none of the spells worked properly.
It meant that Yohan’s magic nullification was something even an awakened witch couldn’t break through.
How boring. Pouting, Evangeline lay down again and gazed at the sea.
She was starting to get tired of this view, too.
“Yohan.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Shall we go back?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Yohan seemed to be of the same mind, readily agreeing to Evangeline’s suggestion. There wasn’t much to pack. Yohan had a scroll with space magic.
The two of them just packed their clothes, like underwear and swimsuits, and returned to the hotel.
After they got back, she started to feel like she had forgotten something.
“Huh… I feel like I left something behind.”
“It’s probably just a feeling. Ugh, why is it so cold here?”
Evangeline shivered in the Empire’s cool climate and dramatically hurried to her room. Yohan tilted his head in confusion but followed her inside.
It was only three days later, when Hekaterina returned on her own, that they remembered they had left her all alone on the beach.
*
There were several reasons why the Empire, a civilization of guns and cannons, did not invade the Holy Kingdom, a medieval civilization that still charged with swords and spears.
One was the Emperor’s remarkable judgment that it was more profitable to exploit the kingdom as a sort of colony rather than invade it. The other was the existence of God.
While it couldn’t be proven whether God actually existed, weren’t the kingdom’s Holy Knights using a peculiar power that ordinary humans could not?
As long as the source of that power was unknown, they couldn’t act rashly. If a real god did exist, there was no guarantee that divine punishment wouldn’t fall upon the Empire for touching the Holy Kingdom.
“The kingdom seems to be getting a bit too bold lately.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What should we do?”
“Haven’t I always said it? Just shoot them all to death with cannons.”
The Emperor shook his head at the words of the vassal who valued firepower. It wasn’t that he couldn’t kill them; he was choosing not to.
As the Emperor rejected that opinion, another vassal proposed a different plan.
“It has been said since ancient times that there is no better way to wound a civilization’s pride than to eliminate their dangers for them.”
“Eliminate their dangers, you say.”
“I have heard that in the kingdom, there is a monster that the Holy Knights went mad trying to defeat, only managing to seal it in the end.”
The Holy Knights, with their divine power, were capable of cutting through magic. However, monsters were not so weak as to be defeated by such simple tricks.
Even without the ability to cut through magic, a few dozen soldiers with spears were better than a single Holy Knight.
Thanks to this, while they committed the absurd act of hunting witches, it was a daily occurrence for them to suffer damage from their inability to hunt monsters.
“They call it a dragon, I believe.”
“A dragon.”
“To the barbarians with their swords and spears, it may be a monster… but not to our army. It is merely a large lizard.”
And contrary to the kingdom, while the Empire couldn’t prevent damage from witches, their losses from monsters were next to none.
That was why they employed witches and used their army to fend off monsters. The fact that the Northern Defense Line, where hundreds of monsters appeared daily, was still holding was proof of that.
Guns, cannons, and gunpowder were that effective against monsters. So much so that even a child who knew nothing could hunt one.
“Send the army, Your Majesty. If it is under the pretext of vanquishing a monster, the kingdom will not be able to refuse.”
We shall bestow our grace.
A grace of copper bullets.
A festival of blood and gunpowder.
*
In the quiet dawn, when everyone was asleep, the phone rang.
Yohan answered the call, rubbing his eyes as he went to wake the witches.
“Time to deploy… anyone want to go…?”
In the late dawn, faint groans of disinterest escaped the witches’ lips. In the end, Yohan roused Linna, who had the fewest points, and they headed to the Northern Defense Line together.
Forced to come along without a full night’s sleep, Linna grumbled with slight irritation and immediately climbed onto the city wall. As she indiscriminately fired a rifle imbued with the power of annihilation, hunting the monsters below, Yohan yawned widely and dozed off inside the walls.
“Um… Mr. Yohan?”
“Hm?”
Just then, one of the soldiers cautiously approached and spoke to him. Yohan tilted his head and looked at the man, checking the rank insignia on his shoulder.
Private First Class. He wasn’t the lowest rank, but he was the one right above it. He was essentially a grunt, the one stuck with all the errands.
“What is it?”
“I’m, I’m truly sorry to ask this, but… I have a favor to ask.”
“Of me?”
Wondering what favor could be asked of him, who wasn't even a witch, Yohan tilted his head at the soldier. The soldier, looking apologetic as if this wasn't his own idea, began to speak.
“You know the elf who’s on telephone duty…”
“The elf? Ah, you mean the doll.”
“Yes, yes. That doll… I was wondering if, perhaps, you could make one more…”
“One more? The doll doesn’t sleep, so there’s no need for two.”
“That’s not it. It’s… in a way that we could use.”
Hearing the soldier’s words, Yohan finally understood what he was talking about. The Northern Defense Line was an extreme environment where you couldn’t find a woman no matter how hard you looked.
And in a place like that, there was a beautiful elf, even if she was just a doll. It was inevitable that men in their prime would lose their minds.
In other words, he was asking him to make a love doll for the soldiers.
“You know I have no reason to grant such a request, right?”
“Yes! I’m sorry. I didn’t want to ask this either, but my seniors…”
“I will bring this up directly with the Emperor.”
“W-What!? T-To His Majesty the Emperor…? P-Please, spare me! I’ve made a terrible mistake!”
Watching the soldier suddenly drop to his knees and apologize, Yohan tilted his head as if to ask what was wrong.
“What are you doing?”
“Please, spare me! If word of this reaches His Majesty’s ears, it won’t end with just my head!”
“…That’s not what I meant. I was going to ask the Emperor how much he’d be willing to pay to introduce love dolls.”
“—S-Still, it’ll be the same! If His Majesty hears that I dared to make such a request of a witch…”
“As far as I know, that’s not likely to happen. He seemed like a nice person.”
Of course, there were no records of soldiers in the 21st century being supplied with onaholes, love dolls, or prostitutes… but if you went back a little in the past, providing soldiers with a means to relieve their sexual urges was quite common.
Since they couldn’t find any women here where there were only monsters, a doll that could be used for sexual purposes was a perfectly viable option.
“Y-You think so?”
“Besides, sexual desire is one of the three basic human needs, and satisfying it is also a duty of the state. It would be a problem if men driven mad by lust started causing trouble.”
Above all, love dolls were an exclusive product that only Beatrice could make. A love doll that could talk, think, and move. Recalling that nothing similar was even dreamed of in the modern era, this was a huge advantage.
Not only could she monopolize the market in an instant, but it was also a way to legally spread the witch’s golems throughout the Empire.
‘If this goes well, I might even be able to replace the Empire’s soldiers with Beatrice’s dolls…’
If that happened, or even if it didn’t, just the fact that he could spread dolls that could one day become enemies throughout the Empire…
The love doll business was a very attractive proposition.