Perzen von Schweik Brutein

Cold.

If he kept standing there, frostbite would not be far off. Tracing the memories assimilating into him as Perzen, he set out for the office he had meant to find in the first place.

"Shabby."

The table was cheap stuff. A musty reek drifted up, faint and stale, and the documents heaped on it were not paper but parchment.

What mattered now was warming the body. He crossed to the refined fireplace—oddly out of place in that mean room—lit a fire, and fed it wood. Then he sat and watched the logs crackle down, driving back a cold so vicious it seemed to bite.

What am I supposed to do now?

"Ah..."

He had only been murmuring it inwardly when he frowned. Let his guard slip, and Perzen's manner of speech bled out far too naturally. The dissonance was jarring. Twenty-four years had melted into him; it was only to be expected, and still the sense of wrongness would not leave him.

But that was not the point. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Survive, no matter the cost—serialization halted at chapter 57. The defeated protagonist, with the heroine Euphemia's help, had just escaped beyond the territory. To begin not at the opening, but after the water was already spilled, was wretched beyond words. If he allowed himself one thin thread of wishful thinking, it was only this: the ending had not yet been written.

Even if the protagonist nursed a grudge against Perzen—sleeping on brushwood, tasting gall—there was no guarantee that revenge would succeed. A world inside a novel, yes. But strictly speaking, reality. Killing the protagonist would not be impossible. Drag him all the way into a dead end, and he did not believe any protagonist's blessing would conjure a scenario in which the man walked out alive.

"Or else..."

There was another way. Feign Euphemia's death, and set her free.

Crack!

"Ngh!"

He bit his lip almost by reflex and wiped away the blood welling from the sudden pain. There was no room even for surprise. Euphemia was far too attached to this territory; she would never accept it—and so on, and so on. The very option he had just considered, he began to demolish with logic of his own making.

In the midst of it a fierce possessiveness toward Euphemia surged up, tangled with obsession, lust, and affection. A dizziness struck all at once, and he had to press a hand to his brow.

What in the world...

The pain throbbed. He dug his fingers into his temples, pressing hard, again and again, and then—thinking that by now he ought to be able to read Ernese perfectly—he turned his eyes back to the status window.

Corpse. A word for the dead body of a person or an animal. He wondered why he should possess talents that raised his affinity with such things and his comprehension of them—then recalled, without much difficulty, that Perzen was a black mage of Euclid rank, and that was explanation enough.

"The personality is a wreck..."

Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Obstinacy. Maverick. Not one of them could be called wholly good. The compulsion in particular—he wanted to know where it lay, and reached for it, but the window was unkind. No explanation appeared.

"......"

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, put simply: a mental illness that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drives one to resolve a specific anxiety or irritation at any cost. Mysophobia is the classic example. The trigger differs from person to person, and he needed to learn where Perzen's was. It was plain enough that, bound to that compulsion, the maverick streak and the obstinacy would strike a vicious synergy.

In the novel, Perzen hasn't been properly drawn yet. Inferring from the text will only take me so far.

So he waited, the sharp taste of blood lingering in his mouth, for the moment when all of Perzen would finish dissolving into him. It did not take long. Certain at last that the man's ego had seeped in whole, he understood, as if he had always known, what set the compulsion off.

Possession, and symmetry.

Whatever he decided he wanted circled his mind without rest until it was in his hands, feeding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠him anxiety and irritation. The instant he felt some symmetry had slipped, he could not shake the unease unless he was certain, with his own eyes, that it had been brought to perfect balance.

"......"

Fine Penmanship and Well-Groomed Appearance, written among the talents, were abilities acquired after the fact because of a compulsion bound to symmetry. There was no need to ask how severe it was.

Creak!

"I've lost my mind."

He had been staring into nothing, lost in the life Perzen had lived under that compulsion, and when he came back to himself he was shoving the office table this way and that—its left and right thrown out of true—trying to force it into balance. Only now did he understand why the window had recorded not mere compulsiveness, but obsessive-compulsive disorder. This was past severe.

"Still off."

He had lost count of how many times he had checked left against right, and still a subtle discrepancy remained. An illusion born of the compulsion? If he simply turned the table and set it flush to the window, the balance would be perfect, and he could be spared the strain. The moment he settled on that, numbers rose in his sight.

Angles...

Right—among the special abilities there had been something called Quantification. Taking the numbers for its work, he shifted the table until both angles read zero, and the irritation vanished clean.

"......"

With a compulsion of this order, it was no wonder maverick and obstinacy had been entered under personality. He straightened, looked around—and a curse tore out of him before he could stop it.

"Fucking hell..."

Vulgar speech, unfit for any etiquette. But seen through Perzen's ego, now fully dissolved into him, the office was far too crowded with things whose balance was broken. Seething, he still made use of Quantification until every object in the room stood in equilibrium, then dropped into the chair and let a heavy fatigue claim him.

And so...

He understood. Letting Euphemia go was something that could never happen. The obsession and affection braided into his compulsion toward her would keep her at his side even if she were a corpse. A black mage could halt a body's decay for good, and could control that corpse—put it to enslavement. A possessive compulsion fierce enough to rewrite an ordinary sexuality into necrophilia. Because of it, he had no choice but to weigh other paths.

Best of all would be to find the protagonist, Ciel Midford, and kill him before he could grow. But searching the north of Ernese, where summer had not yet come, was hopeless with the troops he had brought. The man might already have failed to endure the cold and died. Assumptions, though, must always be made at their worst. What had ever become of the enemies who watched the protagonist fall from a cliff and decided he was dead?

The trouble was that wanting to find him did not mean he could be found at once. By elimination, then, only one stance remained to him: strip the man of his purpose.

The novel had stopped at chapter 57, and the meeting with Euphemia had come at chapter 32. Protagonist and heroine or not, the bond they had built amounted to twenty-five chapters. What Ciel felt for her was, above all, gratitude—for having been helped, and cared for. It was not that he felt no love. But he had known from the start the gulf of station between them, and that feeling was barely rendered even by chapter 52. From Euphemia's side, the narration gave her more goodwill than he held for her; before it could deepen, however, the present Perzen—himself—appeared.

In short, if Euphemia came to love him, the protagonist would lose revenge as his reason for living. A hero storms the demon king's castle to save a stolen princess. If that princess is truly sharing her love with the demon king, by what right does he draw his sword and take the man's head? And that demon king, aside from having taken her by force, is guilty of nothing else.

A fine notion. But could she come to care for a man who had forced a marriage on her and ravished her? There was such a thing as Stockholm syndrome—a hostage coming to sympathize with her captor, to be won over—and it was real enough. Share a room with her, though, and he would have to worry whether Euphemia meant to kill him in his sleep.

"......"

He lifted his head, blank, and stared a long while at the ceiling sunk in dark. Then he dragged a hand down his face. If the first path failed, he would have to walk the second. If the second failed, the first. No need to think any deeper than that. He gave himself over to the hearth's warmth and sought a sleep that had come too late.

"Ugh..."

He had fallen asleep in his coat, and still the cold crept in—the fire had died—and dragged his eyes open. The clock read 6:20 in the morning. His breath rose in a thin white thread.

Indeed. The worst domain in the north, the sort no noble daughter of any house would willingly marry into.

For the lord of Ruerug, a match with the daughter of even a decent merchant company would have been no disgrace to call a joy for the house.

"Enough."

He set the chair he had slept in back into balance, left the office, and went to the room where Euphemia was. A knock seemed unnecessary. He opened the door and stepped in, and there she sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly out the window.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Euphemia."

"Don't put my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠name in your mouth."

"I see no particular reason to grant you that. Still, if I am to show some consideration... I'll call you my wife."

She bit her lip hard and turned, meeting his eyes head-on.

"......"

A considerable beauty, without question. Green hair as if it held the spring; golden eyes as if stars had been set into them; small, neat red lips; a straight nose. But set all of that aside, and what pleased him most was that her proportions were flawless—perfect, with nothing to reproach. The distance between the eyes. The placement of nose and lips. The balance her small head made with her height. An ordinary person's arms and legs never match in length exactly. Euphemia seemed to have no such flaw at all. A golden ratio, in the truest sense. Stand her beside a mannequin with only the face covered, and a third party would not dare say which one was alive.

He activated Quantification and looked. Not a hair of misalignment could be caught.

"Ah..."

When he came back to himself, he found he had taken both her hands, thrown aside the blanket over her naked body, and was appraising every inch of her. Shame filled her face. Contempt steeped her eyes.

"Pardon me."

He released the wrist he had gripped hard enough to leave a mark. At once she thrust a hand beneath the blanket, drew out a knife, and drove it at his heart. Had the motion been crisp, it would have been dangerous enough. He turned his body aside on a slant and brought his right hand down on the hand that held the knife.

"Ngh!"

"Sloppy. Bone and muscle guard the heart. If a woman's strength means to pierce it, you use both hands—or, with one, a reverse grip."

Smack!

Whether she took the words for mockery, Euphemia struck his left cheek, her eyes venomous. He was less angry than dumbfounded.

Smack!

Facing her, he struck the cheek that was left from her side of the mirror, setting a proper symmetry along the diagonal. His left cheek, which her palm would swell, and her left cheek, swollen by his: the discomfort that had briefly risen settled like a quiet lake.

At this point, madman would not be too strong a word.

She had taken the blow and lay sprawled on the bed like a corpse, making no move to rise, sobbing under her breath. He gathered the clothes strewn around them and held them out.

"Put them on. You'll catch a cold."

"......"

"If you don't, last night will be repeated."

At that she choked her tears back through swollen lips and began, in a frantic rush, to force the clothes onto herself.

"Stop."

"I'm putting them on, just like you said...!"

"You've got them on backward. This isn't a dress. Can you not tell the front of a rag from the back—the sort of thing only a poor commoner would wear?"

Unable to watch any longer, he stripped the clothes from her by force and dressed her with care, as if she were a child of three.

"......"

Half gathered into his arms, Euphemia had bowed her head in something close to despair and left her body to him. Once she was dressed, though, points of discomfort remained, and he reached out again to set the fall of the cloth to rights. Whether from the talent Well-Groomed Appearance, the wrinkles smoothed as neatly as if an iron had passed over them.

"Crazy bastard..."

At a gentleness so at odds with everything before, she muttered the curse low. He knew better than anyone that she was not wrong, and felt no need to answer. If someone says one and one make two, who is going to argue?