The Most Vicious Restraint Beyond Hypnosis
As the thick wall turned transparent with a soft magical hum, the bedroom where Karin had, only moments ago, been forced to swallow her shame beneath Edric’s insistent touch was laid completely bare.
“...Damn it.”
She had already guessed the room’s obscene purpose after witnessing the moment her mothers’ bodies had tangled together in Camilla’s chambers. Yet the belated realization that her own shameful cries under Edric must have been watched in full by her mother sent a furious blush racing across Karin’s face.
“Yes, Karin? What’s wrong?”
Camilla’s dreamy voice drifted from right beside her, making Karin flinch and whip her head around.
“You... you saw everything we did in here just now, didn’t you? The way he—”
Unable to finish the sentence through the crushing wave of humiliation, Karin fell silent. Camilla, however, offered her daughter a sultry, shameless smile.
“I did. Every single second. Hehe, sorry. But Karin, you watched me and him rolling around in the manor too, didn’t you?”
“That’s different! I was... I was forced—!”
Karin tried to protest, her face scarlet, but Camilla simply leaned back against the sofa with the lazy familiarity of someone who had long grown used to spying on the next room through this bizarre voyeur chamber.
Karin let out a quiet sigh at the sight of her mother, now willing to do anything her master commanded, then pressed both trembling hands over her mouth and stared through the glass wall.
And she found herself unable to look away.
Edric was there.
He sat on the cold marble floor, gently resting Carna’s head—lost in deep slumber—upon his lap. His long fingers moved with exquisite slowness through her brilliant golden hair, stroking it as though it were the most fragile treasure in the world.
Beneath that tender touch, the woman who had only minutes ago burned with bloodshot eyes and muttered terrible vows of revenge now looked peaceful beyond belief. The murderous aura had vanished like a lie, and she slept in her son’s arms with the most serene expression imaginable.
“...Mother.”
A faint, enchanted sigh slipped from Karin’s lips.
The soundproofing of the magical device turned every word beyond the transparent wall into indistinct noise, yet Edric’s face remained painfully, vividly clear. It was a face steeped in profound sorrow and affection, a son’s expression so devoted and gentle it made her skin prickle.
When he leaned down and reverently kissed Carna’s forehead, Karin’s throat closed completely.
Until now, their own room had been nothing but a horrific, damp training chamber of depravity. No matter how much she told herself it had all been training to overcome hypnosis, the acts had been an endless parade of obscene violations.
Yet the sacred way this son cared for his mother appeared, inside this cursed Blake County Estate, like the only true paradise of beauty and peace.
Karin remained frozen in silence for a long while before she finally spoke in a tiny voice.
“...What was it like? The things you did with that... that bastard master?”
Camilla’s languid gaze sharpened instantly, kindling with blue flame.
“Brutal. Violent. Nothing but an endless series of one-sided acts meant to crush my pride and force the most shameful, greedy service imaginable... all to satisfy his need to conquer. Hehe. The kind of pleasurable violence a Sword Master like me had never felt in her entire life.”
Karin swallowed the nausea rising at the mention of the Count and let out a heavy sigh. My poor mother. To think she had to live her whole life being violated by such a monster. The realization that her own mother had become yet another doll serving that disgusting Count after Carna made bile rise in her throat.
She gazed at her mother with infinite pity—the woman who had been remade to feel happiness even in violent abuse.
But Camilla paid no attention to her daughter’s compassionate stare. Instead, her eyes carried a jealous chill as she watched the mother and son beyond the glass. She whispered with a sigh.
“Then what about you, Karin? How does it feel when you mix your body with Edric’s?”
“...Like the infamous scoundrel he is, he handles a woman far too skillfully. It’s infuriating.”
Karin turned her head sharply, trying to sound curt. She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood in an attempt to deny it, but she could not lie to herself about the devastating pleasure that had turned her mind white and melted her body whenever his sticky touch landed on her skin.
Watching her daughter’s reaction, Camilla whispered in a voice thick with genuine envy.
“Really? To me, he looked incredibly gentle and sweet. Honestly, watching from the side, I couldn’t even compare it to the way I used to writhe like a beast beneath him... Edric treats you as something precious. It makes this mother burn with jealousy.”
Treats you as something precious. Enough to make this mother burn with jealousy.
Those words began to churn violently inside Karin’s head. Could it be that Edric truly saw her as special—enough to make even her proud mother, once the Empire’s greatest sword, show such naked envy?
Even if this whole nightmare had begun from a mere scoundrel’s desire for revenge, perhaps the warm embrace that now held her was undeniably real.
Karin’s crimson eyes shook as if struck by an earthquake.
He was the blood of her mortal enemy, yet he was working to save her fallen mothers. Above all, Karin had watched him play the perfect, infinitely tender ‘lover’ in front of her while still acting as the ‘scoundrel’ before the Count every single day.
Perhaps... all this bizarre confusion is simply a cruel trial we must endure before our family can truly become happy.
The vicious cognitive dissonance finally began to devour the proud knight’s once-unyielding reason.
The sweet trap of ‘false salvation’ that Edric had so meticulously woven was dragging Karin deeper into the delusion that she was the pitiful, tragic heroine of a third-rate romance fantasy novel.
She slowly lifted her gaze to Edric. In his coolly shining golden eyes, she saw what looked like deep affection directed only at her.
“But... aren’t you ultimately the same as your father?”
In the darkness of the secret room, Karin recalled the miserable, grotesque look in Carna’s eyes when her ego had briefly resurfaced, along with the horrific confession of how a human being’s dignity had been trampled. She crouched beside her mother and asked in a trembling voice.
It was only natural. The sweet whispers of love and devoted behavior the Count had shown Carna before their marriage... were terrifyingly similar to the tenderness Edric now showed her.
The terrible history of how he had completely reassured a noble genius mage, only to open the gates of hell on their blessed first night, shred her soul, and turn her into a doll. The fear that this same tragedy was about to repeat itself with her tightened around Karin’s chest.
“Are you... planning to completely break me like you did Mother? To turn me into a doll that can’t even breathe without your orders? Answer me, Edric.”
Karin’s sharp question was aimed at Edric, who was using Carna’s head as a lap pillow and gently stroking her golden hair, but there was no way he could hear her through the soundproof glass.
A bitter scoff escaped Karin’s lips as she sat crookedly on the sofa.
“I must be crazy... Am I really about to give my first time—my everything—to that scoundrel?”
She covered her face with both hands. The low voice that had tickled her ear not long ago, promising to make her the only ‘heroine’ in this hellish story, came back to her. She had expected roughness, yet the memory of his careful, persistent, almost reverent caresses that had melted her body resurfaced vividly on her skin.
Her mind screamed that she must keep doubting and pushing him away, but the hot, wet heat rising from deep within her lower belly filled her with intense self-loathing.
Just imagining the ‘real’ first night that would soon come with him made her despise her own body—the body that threw away a knight’s pride and burned like a bitch in heat.
“Who knows? If he truly intended that, Karin, he would have turned you into something like your mother from the very beginning. There would be no reason for him to go through the trouble of leaving your ego intact and wasting time listening to all your sharp-tongued accusations, would there?”
It was Camilla who shattered Karin’s vicious self-loathing and anguish. Like a loyal spokesperson translating Edric’s dark intentions into the language of ‘love,’ she whispered softly.
“It would be far easier for Edric to completely destroy your mind, collapse your spirit, and turn you into a meat doll that moves only according to the false self our administrator implanted. Shall I be honest? No matter that you’re my daughter... the way you’ve treated Edric until now has been more arrogant than anything my sister ever did to the Count. You didn’t even treat him like a human being.”
Camilla’s gaze lingered on Edric beyond the glass wall.
“The Count couldn’t tolerate even that small arrogance and broke my sister. But Edric has accepted every thorny word and action from you. Perhaps... the feelings he holds for you are far greater and more blind than the ugly possessiveness the Count felt for my sister.”
At Camilla’s brutally honest confession, Karin’s crimson eyes shook uncontrollably.
The reason of a proud knight, the fragile emotions of a girl who wanted to fall into sweet delusion, and the body already tamed by her master’s touch all tangled together and screamed inside her.
Should I... No. Does this mean I have to open my heart to him completely now?
Camilla quietly read her daughter’s complex, precarious heart—where fear and anticipation intersected.
The ego of Camilla, once the Empire’s greatest sword, had already completely collapsed long ago before Edric’s pleasure and the justification of ‘family.’ The woman sitting on the sofa now was not a devoted mother worried for her daughter, but a chef carefully preparing the perfect prey for her great master’s meal.
Wearing the same captivating, deceptive smile Edric always made when handling Karin, Camilla began to pour cunning psychological pressure into her daughter’s ear like a devil’s serpent.
“Karin. What are you truly afraid of? Are you afraid of losing everything and being broken like my sister beyond that glass wall?”
“That... that’s...”
“Then the answer is actually quite simple.”
Camilla gently clasped Karin’s now-cold hands.
Her body heat was warm, but the words that left her lips were chillingly alien.
“The Count broke my sister because she kept pretending to be noble and rejected him until the end. But Edric is different. He’s giving you a choice right now. He’s patiently waiting for you to come to him of your own will instead of being forced into his arms and broken... He’s waiting for you to stand by his side not as a mechanical doll, but as a true partner.”
“Partner...”
“Yes. If you offer him everything first and completely capture his heart, Edric will never treat you as a worthless doll. Instead, he will protect you—and our entire family—perfectly as the true mistress of this estate. You can walk a different path from my sister.”
Karin’s ragged breathing gradually calmed.
Camilla drove the wedge deeper, striking at her daughter’s softest spot.
“Do you want to keep doubting and pushing him away until his patience runs out, only to be forcibly trained and reduced to a doll like us in the worst possible ending? Or will you embrace him of your own accord and become the mistress who saves us all?”
Savior. Mistress who will protect the family.
Those words shattered the last defensive wall left in Karin’s reason.
Just as Camilla said, offering everything while pretending to love him before it could be taken by force felt like the only shield that could protect both herself and her mother.
Yes. It’s not being taken by force. It’s my choice. I will believe in him completely, offer him my everything, end this bizarre tragedy, and protect our family’s peace.
Karin had perfectly reframed herself—not as a noble sacrificial lamb, but as the heroine who had realized true love.
She didn’t even notice that her mother’s current behavior, which was persuading her so eloquently, was something a ‘hollow doll absolutely obedient to the Count’ could never do.
Finally, the sharp suspicion toward Edric completely faded from her crimson eyes.
Watching the thick swamp of cognitive dissonance swallow her daughter, Camilla confirmed that those eyes had grown hazy and docile like a tame prey animal. Then she smiled with incomparable ecstasy at the completion of the perfect ‘meal’ she would offer her master.