008 — Perzen von Schweik Brutein
The Count House of Genova.
The blood of that house was said, without fail, to be an awl in a sack. Every child was born already possessed of a talent that would pierce through in one field or another, and so the house's prestige, and the speed of its rise, were overwhelming. Isabel Ron Pierre Genova, above all, had done the astonishing thing of becoming an Apollyon-rank Elemental Magician at only sixteen.
Many houses therefore longed to marry into the counts of Genova and fold that blood into their own. House Genova alone kept to a closed path, steadfast even in the practice of marriage within the blood. Plenty of people, though they never let it show, condemned the house for it in whispers. Others thought a bloodline of that purity worth preserving even at such a cost. Not one of Genova's blood had ever failed to stand out.
Yet the house's extreme seclusion was not for purity alone. Blessed with a gift that must excel in some field, they were bound by a curse of equal price: the inescapable quirk of Genova blood. The moment one turned nineteen, the full moon brought on a fit.
…
Yes.
Laura de Charles Rosenberg leaned her head back in the moving carriage and called up, with terrible clarity, the memories of her previous life — the days when she had been Isabel Ron Pierre Genova.
Her nineteenth birthday. Whenever the full moon rose, the family gathered at the mansion as if by promise and led her down into the cellar they had never allowed her to approach, telling her the time had not yet come. What they showed her was a slaughter she could not believe. Her mother, once gentle and full of dignity, had become one body with beasts in heat and was coupling with them. Her father, a taciturn man who had nevertheless often smiled for her alone, was devouring human flesh with a ravenous greed…
It was a scene of madness, the blood of Genova gathered in one place to let their quirk run its full course. Isabel tried at once to flee. In the end she, too, was of that line.
There was a child at the domain's orphanage whom she had visited now and then, a child she had singled out to dote on. That child was dragged in as meat. When the child found her, sobbing, begging for help, Isabel tortured the child with extreme cruelty, and then she killed them. A quirk that made her want to kill anyone who bore her goodwill. Even as she wept with what little reason remained to her, Isabel was mad with the pleasure that came rushing in as she soiled and shattered the kindness that child had held for her.
When morning broke, the rest of the family — all but Isabel, whose soul had gone out of her — left the cellar in perfect calm and returned to ordinary life. Isabel, spilling empty little laughs like a madwoman, could not make her feet move until afternoon. Only then did she hear the truth of House Genova.
She understood at last that the house married within its blood not to keep that blood pure, but because it wished to hide this hideous underside. The Genova blood in her own body revolted her so deeply she might have vomited where she stood. Yet her family had come back as they always were, as if the night before had been a dream, and Isabel forced herself to look away from what was real.
The fits that arrived with every full moon gnawed at her mind all the same. For two years she struggled however she could to erase the house's curse. Then her father told her it was about time she married her own brother, and she made her decision.
She would wipe the house called Genova from the world.
Because she was a woman, passing the house's curse on to a child of her own was, for Isabel, no different from torture. And so she became a witch. She killed the innocent. She branded the blood of Genova, and she assassinated one of the imperial house, so that no matter how deep that line might hide, the blood would have no choice but to be cut off.
She did not kill her own family with her own hands. She judged that she, being of the same blood, had no right to do it, and she wished to preserve at least the reputation the house showed the world. Thus Isabel, acting alone and of her own will, took every infamy upon herself, concealed the house's hidden face, and died — and erased the name of Genova from the world. Because of that, the only stain left on House Genova in the records was a single charge: the crime of having brought into the world the woman called a witch, Isabel.
Surely I'm the only one who knows this…
Inside the smoothly traveling carriage, Laura could only keep sighing over a question that would not come loose.
On the birthday she turned thirteen, the wretched, hideous memories of her previous life had risen without warning. How great a shock they had been. The aftermath left her with a stutter. In exchange, she came to feel, with desperate clarity, how happy this life was.
I alone understand the whole life of Isabel Ron Pierre Genova. So why was she seized from me?
When she heard that the imperial house meant to put Isabel's corpse — the corpse of her previous self — up for auction, Laura had wanted it in her hands at any cost. She wanted the self who had passed through that wretched moment, and seized a life a second time, to watch herself become happy. Of course, the instant she learned that House Brutein would take part, she nearly thought she ought to give up. Then, by chance, she came into possession of a remark Perzen had once let slip, and she saw hope.
Honestly, she could not believe he had won cleanly, by skill, in a contest of aptitude — the kind that governs instantaneous comprehension and proficiency when rank is equal and the quantity of mana used is equal. And no wonder. It was House Brutein. She had been certain that a great many challengers had lost on purpose, in the manner called entertaining a guest, merely to lift his fame.
But Laura lost completely. Despite understanding the whole of Isabel Ron Pierre Genova's life, the corpse she had under enslavement was seized from her.
By what means…
From only a little information he had inferred that she had been a heavy smoker, along with various other grounds. That eye was certainly remarkable. Yet those were nothing but the faintest fragments of the life that made up Isabel Ron Pierre Genova.
You rotten—!
Retracing it all so slowly, Laura remembered one thing Perzen had murmured without thinking, after he pulled down the trousers of Isabel's corpse — her previous self — and looked at the groin.
The voice had been flat, and the gaze held no feeling at all. For Laura, the person it concerned, the shame was past bearing.
"My lady. Are you all right?"
"I-I'm f-fine."
Laura was an albino; the moment color rose in her face, it showed. Her wet nurse looked after her with open worry.
"Even so… I'm glad he isn't as difficult as I feared. Threatening to make you give presentations on a regular basis was harsh, I'll grant you, but he's never once shown himself in society. I was sure he'd have some great defect."
"Y-yeah…"
Laura nodded and settled her back more comfortably.
Whatever else was true, to have the corpse seized from her despite a perfect understanding meant that his talent as a black mage was beyond anything she had imagined.
Which means he isn't likely to teach in a way that mixes in his own know-how…
She carried the memories of an Apollyon-rank Elemental Magician, and even that did not weigh so very heavily on the Laura of now, whose aptitude was that of a black mage. The domains themselves were different. To obtain know-how of that sort in the first place, one had to spend a vast sum to engage a private tutor, then bind that tutor with an oath, sworn through mana, never to speak of it. Only then was it barely possible.
He would drone on about ordinary theory, deliver some dull lecture, and try to judge them with a suitable examination. And still he spoke as if it were too soon for the pupil to surpass the master. A typical man for keeping others in check, after all.
I don't really want to go…
The name of Rosenberg carried considerable weight, so no one would whisper about her in the open. Even so, what sort of sneer would they wear once they saw her stammer? There would be nothing worth learning properly. It would be a joyless life, she was sure of it. But with the might of the present imperial house in mind, she could not know what disadvantage might fall on her if she refused to enroll.
"And besides, my lady, we won't be able to keep your nineteenth birthday in the domain. That's quite a shame."
"Ah… y-yeah…"
At the wet nurse's words, Laura's body gave a small flinch. Nineteenth birthday was a kind of trauma to her. Of course, no Genova blood ran in this body. So surely nothing would happen.
Unlike Ruerug, spire-shaped buildings stood packed in tight rows. Euphemia walked with her eyes wide, like a kitten just taken into a new home.
"If there is somewhere you wish to see, you may go in. I shall not touch a thing. I will only follow behind you."
The streets were thick with people, so I stood at Euphemia's back and set my attention on nothing but the sight of her from behind.
"You need not worry about money."
She did not answer. At my words her shoulders flinched; she halted a moment, then went on.
"You may eat."
A street stall, sweet-smelling, tempting everyone who passed. Her gaze had rested on it for a moment.
"I know your appetite well. Filling your belly a little beforehand should do no harm."
"I thought you'd call it vulgar…"
She was right. In truth this body was showing its revulsion, and still I could press it down well enough. Because Lee Seojin's self was bearing on me, I could soften, to some degree, the way I looked at food. Honestly, to a modern eye, the antique show of medieval cuisine does not look so very refined.
"Do you want some too?"
I shook my head.
I had no thought of eating—
"No. I shall eat as well."
Eleven pieces of meat were threaded on the lamb skewer. If I bought one too, then together with Euphemia's that would make twenty-two.
"Th-three bern."
"I do not need the change."
"What?"
The smallest thing I carried was a silver coin. Three bern would mean taking ninety-seven copper coins in change, and I did not like that number. I could have told them to hand over only ninety-six, but I had no wish to give Euphemia anything that might become a clue to the compulsion. This was the best choice.
"You don't even know when money's being wasted…"
Euphemia looked at me as if she were staring at a madman. I paid her no mind and ate the skewer. The taste was, unexpectedly, all right.
"Eat so the sauce does not drip onto your clothes."
"I-I'm not that sloppy."
She had cast off those rag-like clothes and was wearing a pure white dress of frills. If sauce fell and stained it, that would be a problem. I had no obsession with cleanliness as such; if the sauce happened to fall into a symmetry pleasing to the eye, it would not matter. The odds of that were exceedingly low.
After I had let her take in Brutein at an easy pace, I brought Euphemia into a restaurant nearby. The people of the domain earned a great deal, and so Brutein had many places through which that money might circulate. Not a few of the shops served cuisine of a standard Perzen could readily accept.
"Euphemia."
"What…"
"There is no need to shrink in a place like this."
Her shoulders had drawn in at the luxurious interior. I spoke as if the sight were pathetic.
"You have too little self-respect. Far too little."
I had played no small part in that.
"I'm not really shrinking… Ah!"
"…? What is it."
"I-it's nothing."
Drawing out a chair to sit, Euphemia winced and lifted a hand. From the middle finger of her right hand, a faint bead of blood was running. It caught my eye.
"The grain of the chair's wood seems to have lifted a little. You only grazed it… It— it isn't your left hand?"
"…"
She watched me take hold of her left hand, baffled, and in a dazed voice opened her right for me to see.
Yes. I knew. I was no fool. There was no reason to confuse the two.
Only…
"I shall step away for a moment."
For an instant, as if some lingering attachment remained, I nearly put still more strength into the hand I held. I barely managed to rise, left the shop, and went into the small alley behind it, pressing a palm to my brow.
At the sight of the wound on the middle finger of her right hand, I had almost without thinking tried to carve the same wound into Euphemia's left. Had I done it, she would have taken the shock and broken into sobs, as if in a fit. Would she not?
A relief, if it can be called one.
Struck on the left cheek, offer the right. Strike the right cheek, and strike the left as well. That is Perzen. Yet when Euphemia had struck his cheek, he struck her in turn, succeeded in making a symmetry upon the diagonal, and felt at ease. She was his wife, and he her husband. Bound as a married pair, they formed an equilibrium.
My teeth ground.
So I lifted my left hand and bit the matching middle finger, lightly, as if to crush it between my teeth.
Hurts like hell.
Not like a prick. Not like a cut. A bite brings far more pain. The teeth broke the skin with a wet snap. Even so, I was gladder by far that the discomfort — the feeling that my insides were about to turn over — was easing, than I was troubled by the pain.
I let out a steady breath, pressed the middle finger of my left hand, and squeezed out in a single motion the blood beading there, scattering it across the ground. Only after I had staunched it with a handkerchief for somewhere between three and five minutes could I step back into the shop, calm, as if nothing at all had happened.