McHart, Subjugated (5)
“Aaah—AAAGH!!”
McHart dropped the hand mirror he'd been holding, screamed, and toppled over backward.
The wretched figure reflected in the glass—he was no longer handsome, couldn't even be called ordinary anymore—and in it he could see himself fleeing in sheer horror.
Apparently it had been quite the shock to see his own bare face for the first time in nearly four years.
“Wha— wha, what?! Wh-why…. What on earth….”
McHart mumbled to himself, pawing at his face with his palms as though he couldn't comprehend what had just happened to him.
And it wasn't only McHart—most of the people present seemed unable to grasp the situation either, so I took advantage of the confusion to kindly explain to the others how the magic known as the Mirror of Truth worked.
“I once heard that the Mirror of Truth is a divine authority that lays bare a target's falsehoods and reveals their true form.”
“Miss Lilith?”
“Which means the Saintess's power can be used to single out the demons hiding among humans. After all, the demons' dark magic is nothing more than an act of concealing the truth.”
“Lady Lilith? Who exactly are you speaking to right now….”
“But if Prince McHart, having been bathed in the light of that Mirror of Truth, has transformed into this appearance… then might this actually be Prince McHart's true face?”
“……!”
At my words, McHart's face visibly went pale with alarm. And the others listening to me began, one by one, to nod and slowly make sense of what was happening.
“C-certainly…. If the Mirror of Truth turned him into something like that, then it really must have been a transformation spell….”
“A transformation spell is dark magic, isn't it? Aren't you forbidden from using dark magic unless you're a mage designated by the Empire?”
“The whole reason the state banned dark magic in the first place is because it's the magic demons use, you dummy.”
“Then don't tell me Prince McHart really is….”
Everyone was murmuring, yet none of them dared finish the thought—no doubt worried it might count as lèse-majesté.
That McHart had used dark magic to hide his true face and live as he pleased was obvious to anyone who looked, but McHart was, for now, still a member of the imperial family.
And amid all this chaos, apparently someone still wanted to buy McHart stock. One brave young noblewoman stepped forward in front of the crowd.
“N-no! Th-there's no way Prince McHart could be some ugly monster!”
Beige hair. Twin-tails.
She seemed to be one of the girls who'd entered with McHart earlier, but judging by how little I remembered her, she was probably an extra.
While the sons and daughters of noble houses—along with the guards and maids of the separate palace—buzzed in confusion, the brave Twin-Tails pushed forward and loudly proclaimed McHart's innocence.
“Y-you're all being deceived! There's no way Prince McHart is some ugly, plain-faced man!”
“…I-is that so?”
“But the Mirror of Truth….”
“So-someone must have cast a curse on Prince McHart! There's no way a man with such a hideous face could be the princ—”
“…No. That man over there really is my brother McHart, Lady Erischer.”
The one to appear, calling out the name of the Twin-Tails who had stepped forward to defend McHart—as if unwilling to accept that the man she'd been fawning all over just moments ago was such a homely creature—was Seraphin, the one person who knew McHart's original face.
“P-Princess Seraphin?”
“Whenever I found myself reminiscing about my time with my brother McHart, there were times I felt something was… odd.”
“Seraphin…? What are you….”
“In my memories, my brother McHart was always the same handsome man he is today. And yet, for some reason, my brother in those memories never seemed particularly fond of his own face.”
“Wh-what are you saying?! N-no! There's no way this is my real fac—”
“A spell that alters not only one's outward appearance, but even how one appears within the memories of others. Surely you're aware that such a power is forbidden even to the Empire's sanctioned dark mages, aren't you, my dear brother McHart?”
“…No, no…. Listen to me, please….”
Seraphin, having quickly sized up the situation and reached the conclusion that McHart had already borrowed the power of the demons, left the Twin-Tails—who had come out to defend him—holding the short end of the stick.
“Lady Erischer? Just now, you said my brother McHart had been cursed into this form, did you not?”
“Y-yes…? N-no, I mean…. I-I didn't exactly….”
“Then were you speaking so boldly, before me—a member of the imperial family—words you had no intention of answering for?”
“…….”
“It's quite all right, Lady Erischer. Since you seem to have genuinely believed my brother McHart was cursed, I shall give you the chance to verify whether he truly is under a curse or not.”
“……Pardon?”
The Twin-Tails was visibly flustered by Seraphin's unexpected words as the princess approached her. The moment I saw her, a thought flashed through my mind—she'd stuck her neck out for nothing, and now she'd pay for it dearly.
The reason Luminor Academy designated Seraphin as the “absolute force for good” was, after all, that she acted for the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
She imposed restrictions on the player at various points in the story because a single player's suffering could save countless lives.
She refused to back down in a disadvantageous succession contest and seized victory at the very end, because her becoming the Crown Princess could bring happiness to so many.
And the fact that she had scraped together a win in that succession contest against impossible odds meant that her skill at handling crowds like this one was unrivaled—so as I watched the Twin-Tails, on the verge of becoming the sacrifice for that exceptional skill, I offered up a silent prayer for her soul.
“Come to think of it, there's an old tale, isn't there? The story of the prince who was cursed by a witch and turned into a frog.”
“……Pardon?”
“And how that prince was freed from his curse by the kiss of a maiden who gave him true love. It's a famous story—surely you know it, Lady Erischer?”
“…….”
“So I shall give you a chance as well, Lady Erischer. If you truly believe my brother McHart is under a curse, then surely a heartfelt kiss from you would break it. Come along, now.”
Seraphin took hold of the Twin-Tails—whose face now clearly read something has gone very wrong here—and dragged her toward McHart, sprawled on the ground.
One look was enough to tell that a sheltered noblewoman who'd never even attended the Academy, let alone trained for combat, could never overpower Seraphin of the Combat Department by force. So the poor girl shuffled forward one reluctant step at a time, like a goat being led to the slaughter, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of pity.
“Now then, Lady Erischer.”
“…Y-Your Highness?”
“Quickly, please. Your kiss can break my brother's curse.”
“I-I-I-I'm sorry, I'm sor—”
“…I said, hurry up.”
“…….”
With Seraphin gripping the back of her neck, the Twin-Tails was forced to thrust her own face toward McHart's—who, for some inexplicable reason, sat there on the ground with a distinctly expectant expression.
Even if a kiss actually landed, no curse would break—but the mere premise of the kiss itself seemed, to her, utterly horrifying.
-Smack!
“Gack—GUOOOOHHH!!”
“…….”
“…Uuurk, huurgh…! Uuurgh…!!”
…Oh dear. How pitiful.
Apparently, the cursed face of McHart was not, in the Twin-Tails' assessment, particularly appealing.
The poor girl had knocked Seraphin's hand away at the last instant before their lips could touch, turned her head, and was now retching again and again.
As a result, McHart's suit was getting smeared with the Twin-Tails' vomit—but I felt no pity for him whatsoever. That suit was destined to become his burial shroud soon enough; he'd never be wearing it again.
“Oh dear, it seems your stomach was upset, Lady Erischer?”
“Hurk, hhup…. Bleeech….”
“Well then, shall we try again? It's quite all right that you soiled my brother's suit. If the curse breaks, my brother McHart will surely forgive you.”
“N-no…. I, uurp….”
“And if, by some chance, you've changed your mind and decided my brother McHart was never cursed at all—then I'll give you one final chance.”
“I-I'm sorry, Your Highness….”
“Anyone listening might think I'm threatening you. Weren't you the one who wanted to kiss my brother and break his curse?”
“No, I wasn't! That was absolutely never a curse! Prince McHart always looked like a rotten tomato, even before this! I don't want to kiss a face like moldy garbage! P-please, Princess Seraphin…!”
At the Twin-Tails' near-begging confession, the clamoring crowd went silent. No doubt everyone was feeling some measure of sympathy for her, in one way or another.
“I see. I truly believed that someone like you, Lady Erischer, would be able to break our brother's curse. What a shame it turned out this way.”
…Seraphin, saying words she didn't mean with such perfect composure, was honestly a little terrifying.
It was easy enough to predict that had the Twin-Tails actually gone through with a kiss, Seraphin would have pivoted to something else without missing a beat.
Something like, 'It seems Lady Erischer could never truly love my dear brother. Is there any other volunteer who would like to attempt breaking the curse?' And so on.
Having thus wrangled the mood of the crowd to her liking, Seraphin quietly released her grip on the Twin-Tails' neck—and the girl, having boldly bought McHart stock only to personally announce its delisting, bolted into the separate palace at a dead sprint.
And of those who remained to watch the scene unfold, roughly sixty percent were noble young ladies.
“Now then—might there be any other volunteers who would like to attempt breaking my brother's curse?”
-Whoooosh.
Before Seraphin's sentence had even finished, that entire sixty percent was gone.
“Oh, and for the record, it doesn't matter even if the volunteer is a man. Under normal circumstances this would be absolutely unthinkable, but when breaking a curse this wretched, it naturally counts as a special exception.”
-Whoooosh.
Three-tenths of the remaining forty percent fled as well, and aside from the separate palace's guard detail, only the key figures remained.
Me and Ethan, Serista, Seraphin, and McHart.
As for Gehmajoshigi-gwat and Agnes, who knew where they'd vanished to—they hadn't been seen even once since earlier. Things had worked out fine without them in the end, though.
At any rate, what mattered now was not their whereabouts, but McHart's lawful punishment. That he had used the power of the demons had been made indisputably clear by the Mirror of Truth just now, and the noble children of every great house along with the palace guards were all witnesses to it.
Just before his summary execution—his collusion with the demons now exposed—McHart found Seraphin gazing down at him like a condemned man at the gallows, and she spoke.
“Collusion with the demons. Use of forbidden dark magic. Memory manipulation against a member of the imperial family. Among numerous other offenses… do you have any last words, my dear brother McHart?”
“Y-you, bitch….”
“…….”
“That woman… she said… she's a fake… saintess….”
McHart mumbled in a trembling voice, thrusting a finger toward Serista.
Trembling all over from the shock of having the expectations he'd placed his complete faith in so utterly betrayed, he slowly shifted his gaze this time toward me—standing beside the pink-haired saintess.
“…………Huh?”
And then his pupils blew wide, as though he'd finally realized something.
Wearing the expression of a man who had never once anticipated this, not for a single moment—he met my eyes, and I curled one corner of my mouth upward in a faint sneer.
“D-don't… tell me….”
Just then, a dangerous word—the kind the palace guards should never be made to hear—was about to burst from the lips of the man who had at last understood everything. Fortunately, though, McHart's mouth was saved from itself at the very last moment, thanks to a little assistance from Ethan.
“Don't tell me, you're the Sain—”
-Sshlik.
…A disembodied head can only say so much, after all.