Vengeance (Part 2)
I couldn’t just leave Lily like that.
“Somebody help me! Glub!”
“The Planon River isn’t that deep, but it’s more than enough to drown a person.”
How the hell was she still alive? Just as the question crossed my mind, Lily spotted me through the crack in the carriage door and screamed.
“B-Big Sis?! Save me! Hurry up and get me out of here!”
“Even looking like that, you’re still giving orders?”
Like mother, like daughter. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve just finished her off right then and there. But since I was now the second Olivia, I had to properly carry out the first one’s revenge.
I’d told her I’d keep her alive and torment her for the rest of her life. But my thoughts had completely changed now. It would be better to capture Lily and send her mother along with her.
“Was it you who did this to me, Big Sis?”
Look at her. Still failing to grasp the situation and blaming me.
“No. This is the will of House Ashtar.”
Actually, this was probably for the best. Drowning was painful, sure, but compared to what the first Olivia had suffered, it felt far too merciful.
“That’s ridiculous! You planned all of this, didn’t you?! Save me right now! W-Wait, glub glub—!”
I climbed onto the sinking carriage, reached out, and firmly pressed my foot down on Lily’s head as it poked out the window.
“Still giving orders, I see. Still giving orders.”
“Glub—glub—!”
“Might as well just stomp you to death right here. Since you’re going to drown anyway, I can at least decorate your final moments, right?”
Unless this bitch was a complete idiot, she must have realized by now that she could actually die. So I considered just pressing down harder and ending it—
“Glub—glub—!”
“……”
Why wasn’t she dying? No, I was missing something important. From the carriage’s tracks, it looked like it had been submerged for several hours. Yet Lily was still alive. That was strange.
Looking closer, I sensed something odd coming from her. That’s right. It felt like a monster. Demonic energy. And there were small horn-like protrusions on her head.
“Oh. So you’ve undergone succubus transformation. No wonder you can last in river water.”
Any normal human would have died by now, but a succubus was a different story.
“What are you talking about?! Just save me already!”
“Do you even know there are horns growing out of your head?”
At my words, Lily reached up and touched her own head. The moment she realized the horns were real, her face turned deathly pale. No matter how stupid she was, even she had to know how monsters were treated in this world.
“H-How did this happen?! This is your doing too, isn’t it—!”
She was beyond saving. That whore of a mother must have taught her all of this as well.
“You keep blaming me for everything, but this is entirely because you contracted with a succubus.”
“Contracted… with a succubus?”
“Yeah. This is the first time I’ve seen anything like it, but maybe it’s because you used her powers for so long without meeting the proper transformation conditions.”
She had implanted powerful brainwashing into the first Olivia. On top of that, she had gradually seduced more and more nobles, stacking up experience. Then, when she was on the verge of death, she must have awakened as a succubus. This girl really should have been born a monster.
“What the hell are you saying?”
She was stupid, sure, but if her body had only been average, she still would’ve driven men insane with lust.
“In short, if you’d been born with the right body, you might have become a Succubus Queen. Then again, with a whore for a mother, I guess it makes sense.”
“Is insulting my mother the only thing you know how to do?!”
No, she really was a whore. Even on the brink of death, she should at least be able to tell the difference between insults and the truth.
“I usually try to avoid personal attacks if I can help it. But when I think about what you did to me before, even killing you wouldn’t be enough.”
“What are you—?”
I stretched out my right hand and aimed it at Lily.
“In the past, psychokinesis was considered a psychic phenomenon, but it can now be implemented through magic. Honestly, I do respect human rights to some extent, so I don’t usually treat people like objects, but…”
“Stop saying things I can’t understand!”
Yeah. I didn’t expect her tiny brain to comprehend me anyway. To put it simply:
“Monsters get treated like objects.”
Using psychokinesis, I pulled Lily out of the completely submerged carriage. It was a relief to see the small wings and tail sprouting from her. If I had left her there, even an idiot like Lily would have instinctively completed her transformation into a full succubus out of pure survival instinct.
Even with her stick-figure body, the succubus correction might have evolved her into something capable of seducing men. And since she would freely use her succubus powers, she would have become a real pain in the ass. She had already wielded Nora’s power like it was her own—and far more than necessary.
“Kyaaah?! O-Okay! If you just put me down like this—!”
“Who said I was going to put you down nicely?”
“Huh?”
I slammed her straight into the ground.
Thud!
I’d held back, so she only fainted. There was a separate place I planned to execute her.
Lily has been subdued. Succubus transformation detected. Demonic energy confirmed.
I tossed Lily into my subspace, then teleported to Moran—one of the Empire’s border villages.
And there I saw her.
“Oh, big brother. How about tonight?”
A woman who had already become a middle-aged auntie, yet still had pink hair, enormous breasts, and a huge ass, clinging to men young enough to be her nephews and calling them “big brother.”
Yes. Lily’s mother.
Having inherited the first Olivia’s memories, I knew exactly who she was. Come to think of it, she had acted the same way when the first Olivia went to see her.
“Get lost, you old hag! Who do you think you are?!”
She was rejected in the end. Age really was a cruel thing. Whether it was punishment or not, this woman had aged far too quickly. Of course, with proper makeup she might have hidden it, but because she caked it on to cover the wrinkles, she looked even older.
I approached her from behind and whispered softly.
“You haven’t changed at all.”
She jumped in fright and whipped her head around.
“You… O-Olivia? What’s with your hair?”
As expected of Lily’s mother. She really knew how to provoke people. But that ended today.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“W-Why are you here? Is this about what happened back then?”
Now that I thought about it, this was the first time we’d met since then. Originally, knights had been dispatched, but since Noah had healed the first Olivia from the black magic, there had been no evidence against this woman. So she had only been placed under surveillance. Not long after, Lily’s abilities had driven the first Olivia mad.
“The fact that you bring it up before I even open my mouth means you must feel guilty.”
Both mother and daughter were equally stupid. How could they be this dense?
“I thought that matter was already over? You’re alive, aren’t you? So isn’t everything fine? You came all this way for revenge over something that happened years ago?”
“Who knows?”
She really shouldn’t be in any position to laugh right now. Or maybe she still didn’t know what was happening in the capital? Ah, that made sense. Moran was basically in the middle of nowhere. It was mostly filled with adventurers. News from the capital would take a long time to reach here.
“Well, since the Crown Prince broke off the engagement with you, you’re taking it out on me instead? But what are you going to do about it? I’m going to be the mother of an Empress. Do you really think you can touch me? If you lay a hand on me, you have no idea what will happen to you next.”
Mocking others while selling your body—maybe she should worry about the consequences first. No matter how I looked at it, something was off. If what she said was true, this woman should have stopped working long ago. House Ashtar would never have left Lily’s biological mother to rot. Yet here she was, still whoring around. It was obvious what that meant.
“It’s quite amusing to see the future mother of an Empress selling herself to street thugs. Or were you simply trying to satisfy your lust? In that case, shouldn’t you be the one paying the young men?”
She was a pervert through and through.
“W-What did you just say?”
“From the way you look, it seems the surveillance on you has been quite lax. If you had just run away, you might have lived. I guess the news reached you too late.”
She never knew her place, yet she only knew how to get angry. Who the hell did she think she was, raising her voice at me?
“What have you been saying since earlier—?”
“In short, today I’ve caught you.”
I knocked Lily’s mother unconscious as well. Now I just needed to find a suitable place to deal with her.
Ah, now that I thought about it, there was an abandoned mountain stronghold north of Moran. It used to be a bandit hideout. Eugene and I had cleared it out together. Memories of that bastard came flooding back.
-Hey, gloomy mage.
-What do you want, brain-dick hero?
-Those kidnapped women over there… Can I pretend to be a bandit for a bit?
-Excuse me, you crazy bastard?
It had been fucking awful. I had seriously started questioning whether this guy was really the Hero. Anyway, although we had wiped out all the bandits back then, the stronghold itself was still there. It was the perfect size and isolated enough to bury someone without anyone noticing.
I threw the clueless whore into the stronghold and bound her with magic. It would be annoying if she tried to escape.
“W-Where am I?”
She woke up just in time.
“This is an abandoned building nearby.”
In other words, the place where you’re going to get fucked.
“Why did you tie me up like this? You know this is wrong, right—?”
Smack!
She talked too much, so I shut her up with a blow. It seemed she still hadn’t come to her senses.
“Do I look like I’m joking right now?”
There was something I wanted to know. This wasn’t just about revenge. The scroll containing the Demon King’s curse was the real problem.
“Cough… cough… What exactly are you trying to do?”
“Interrogation.”
Revenge would come after.
“Interrogation? You suddenly show up and—?”
“Five years ago. That day.”
“So you really did come for revenge over what happened that day.”
Thud!
I drove my fist into her abdomen. I really hated it when people interrupted me.
“I hate it most when someone cuts me off mid-sentence. If you don’t want to get beaten, you’d better not talk back to everything I say.”
I kicked the whore, who had collapsed and was trembling, then dragged over a wooden chair from the corner and sat down.
“Cough, cough.”
Women like her needed a good beating to come to their senses. Well, since she was going to die anyway, there was no point in coming to her senses. She would die without ever reflecting on her sins or realizing what she had done wrong.
“Then let me ask. Where did you get the scroll containing the Demon King’s curse that you used on me that day?”
“Even if you suddenly ask me that, how am I supposed to remember something from five years—Kyaaaaaah!”
As expected of Lily’s mother. She really couldn’t read the room. Even if she was going to die, shouldn’t she at least choose a painless way to go?
“Where did you get the scroll containing the Demon King’s curse that you used on me that day?”
“I-I really don’t remember! I’m telling the truth! I’m not lying! Haa—Gyaaaah! My arm! My arm—!”
I broke her arm with psychokinesis. Then I asked again.
“Where did you get the scroll containing the Demon King’s curse that you used on me that day?”
“Sob… It was a black mage… A black mage was selling the scroll! I-I’m telling the truth! I already told you back then!”
A black mage who dealt in scrolls. I could already guess who it was. He was someone the current me would find difficult to meet.
“Did you know him before that?”
“N-No, I don’t! This is the truth! How would someone like me, a whore, know anything?! I just bought it because he said it was a curse spell scroll! That’s really all!”
This was also the truth. In any case, it was clear the person was connected to the Demon King.