Witch Hunt (2)
Witch Hunt (2)
Irion and Renoa dragged Sercia into the laboratory.
If anyone were to witness this scene, they would surely scream to the high heavens that the Duke was being kidnapped.
"So this is the witch's laboratory? It's not much different from what I imagined."
Renoa strolled leisurely through the lab, inspecting various items.
None of them looked like normal objects. It was immediately clear why outsiders were barred from entering.
Just showing this room would be enough to prove that the Duke was a witch.
"Hey now... Renoa? Won't you explain what's going on? This Papa is having a hard time grasping the situation, you see?"
Sercia, her limbs bound, spoke with a childish smile.
Irion held his sword at point-blank range, as if ready to slit her throat the moment she tried anything foolish.
"Let's stop this pathetic acting. It makes me want to gag just watching it."
"Hmm? Acting? Whatever do you mean?"
"I know well enough that you are a witch wearing the Duke's skin."
Renoa, who had been pacing the lab, stood before the kneeling Sercia.
"And I know that you are my mother."
"Mother? But I'm a man?"
—Pu-uk!
"Ugh!"
Irion stabbed Sercia's knee with his sword.
"I believe I told you to stop the pathetic acting. Don't make me repeat myself. There won't be a next time."
"Tch. How mean. Do you know how hard I worked to play the perfect Duke? There's no one who acts as well as I do, you know?"
Sercia grumbled with a pouty expression. Then, as if nothing had happened, she beamed a bright smile.
"Renoa, do you like playing with dolls? Why don't you join me? It's been my wish for a long time to play with dolls with someone else."
"I have no interest in something like doll play. I've never even tried it. Someone locked me in a mansion, so I couldn't even make a single friend."
"It was all for Renoa's sake. If you stayed here, only weirdos would have flocked to you. It's all thanks to me that you grew up so beautifully. Aren't you so pretty because you take after me?"
The innocent voice continued.
Despite the pool of blood forming from her pierced knee, there wasn't a single shadow on Sercia's face.
It was as if a young child was talking about their impressions of a picnic.
She chattered incessantly, looking up at Renoa with sparkling eyes.
"And isn't that mansion lovely? Right in the middle of the forest~ You can see the lake at a glance from the study. I made it all according to my taste. How is it? I hope Renoa liked it too."
The problem was that this aegyo-filled tone was flowing out of none other than Duke Pascal's mouth.
A nasal whine forced out of a middle-aged man's bass voice. A bright eye-smile like a young girl's.
That appearance, created by the discrepancy between the flesh and the soul, caused a physiological revulsion in those watching.
It was nauseating. Renoa suppressed the urge to gag.
"Agassi. Stop talking to her. She is not someone you can have a normal conversation with."
It was at that moment.
The smile vanished from Sercia's face, replaced by a chilling coldness.
The gaze glaring at Irion was as sharp as frost.
"How dare a lowly slave butt into a conversation between people without knowing his place? Shut your mouth."
At Sercia's stern command, Irion swallowed a hollow laugh in disbelief.
To think he'd be treated like this even by an atrocious criminal.
It was enough to make one miserable.
"Agassi. I will contact the Imperial Family and hand her over."
Irion didn't want to drag this out any longer. He wanted to deal with the problem in front of him as quickly as possible.
"......."
Renoa didn't answer. She still had business with Sercia.
"You. You want to live, don't you?"
It was a question with unclear intentions.
However, Sercia instinctively felt that Renoa was plotting something.
"Of course I want to live. Why else would I have mated with a human and even given birth to a daughter? Why? Are you going to save your Mommy?"
"Depends on what you do."
"Agassi."
"Stand back."
Renoa cut off Irion's attempt to protest.
The corners of Sercia's mouth curled up.
"What do you want from me?"
"It's simple. In that body, just appoint me as your successor."
The only people who knew the Duke was a witch were Renoa and Irion.
Just as killing the Duke would look like treason, the reverse was also true.
If the witch appointed Renoa as the successor, in the eyes of others, she would become the official heir appointed by the Duke.
She could seize the Dukedom in one fell swoop.
"That's impossible."
However, Irion immediately denied it.
"If it's discovered that the Duke was a witch, appointing Agassi as the successor will be useless. Instead, people will become suspicious of Agassi."
"The goal is to subjugate the witch, not to kill the Duke, right? I'll move to another body. Then it will look like a final will. I can even control it for you if you want."
"She's just playing tricks to get the bracelet off. Don't listen to her."
Sercia glared at Irion.
"Why has this slave been butting into people's conversations since earlier? Renoa, if you need an errand boy, how about a doll instead of a slave? They aren't dirty, they're cute, and they listen well, you know?"
Renoa glanced at Irion's reaction and replied.
"I'll pass. I like slaves better than dolls."
"......."
Ironically, it was Sercia, not Irion, who noticed the emotion contained in that gaze.
Sercia's expression turned cold.
"What. You were already broken."
In Renoa's body, which should have been an empty tank, an emotion that shouldn't be there had taken root.
And towards a mere slave, at that.
Fear.
Despair.
Anger.
Self-loathing.
Such rotten emotions gnaw at the soul and make the mind fester.
From the perspective of a witch awaiting possession, it's usually welcome. A body with no will to live is easy to turn into a doll.
But that kind of affection or bond was a completely different matter.
Attachment creates a reason for living and binds the ego strongly to reality.
A soul that has found something to protect will risk its life to resist fiercely the moment its body is stolen.
That's why love, of all things, was unacceptable.
It would even affect Sercia after she took over the body.
'I thought that since my blood flows through her, she would never end up loving a mere human.'
At this rate, regardless of mana cores or whatever, she had no value as a vessel.
Well, if she killed the one Renoa loved, the story might change, but...
"Agassi."
"......I get it. I won't do it."
In the end, Renoa gave up her greed and decided to listen to Irion.
"You've made a wise choice."
Irion breathed a sigh of relief.
"Send word. Let's wait until they arrive."
Just as they were about to wait for movement from the Imperial side.
"It's a bit noisy outside."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
It was chaotic outside the laboratory.
As if something had happened.
Irion had a bad feeling. He naturally glared at Sercia.
"You did something."
"My doing? Even if I am a witch, false accusations hurt, you know?"
Despite saying she was hurt, Sercia was smirking.
"That's something you two caused."
"We did?"
"You put this bracelet on me, didn't you? Since the mana connected to the main body was cut off, the poor dolls had no choice but to return to being rotten corpses."
Sercia's dolls were hidden all over the mansion.
When the mana supply was cut off, the people who had been walking and breathing normally all died at once.
Since a mass death had occurred so suddenly, everyone must be in a state of panic.
"It doesn't really matter. They were already dead people anyway."
"Even though you're the daughter I gave birth to, aren't you too cold-hearted? In some ways, you're more like a witch than I am, which makes me proud."
Sercia's lips twisted unpleasantly.
"But it seems you still have a lot to learn."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you happen to know this? The fact that human blood contains a tiny amount of mana."
"What?"
It was at the same time those words ended.
Irion was the first to notice something strange.
He felt a flow of mana from Sercia. Even though the bracelet was still on.
'No, it's not Sercia.'
To be precise, it was from behind her.
Sure enough, a crimson light of ominous energy burst out from behind Sercia's back.
What was engraved on the wall was a blood-colored magic circle.
It was something she had secretly drawn with the blood spilled from her torture.
Of course, since it was such a small amount of mana, it was impossible to use puppetry or kill Irion, but she could achieve her minimum goal.
—Pu-uk!
"......!"
Renoa's eyes widened.
A blood-colored spike that shot up from the magic circle pierced Sercia's—more accurately, Duke Pascal's—heart.
"Keo-heok......."
The Duke coughed up a glob of blood.
He showed a cynical smile to Irion and Renoa, then soon collapsed onto the floor as if crumbling.
"Desperation......?"
"Only half right."
At the female voice that immediately followed, Irion and Renoa's heads turned simultaneously.
On one wall of the laboratory.
A box reminiscent of a coffin was open. A woman stumbled out from in front of it.
Skin like tree bark with all the moisture sucked out, a skeletal frame, and sparse white hair.
She looked like a total corpse, but her appearance clearly resembled Renoa.
Renoa felt a sense of déjà vu from the old woman. She was the woman who had appeared in her nightmares almost every day in the past.
It was Sercia's original body, which had lost its mystery due to repeated soul transfers and a broken mana core.
"Any doll master worth their salt... always prepares a way for an emergency escape....... Kul-leok, kul-leok."
Dark red blood clots flowed from Sercia's mouth.
It was literally just for escape; that body was already not normal either.
Still, it was enough to perform one last puppet show.
"Did you think...... I wouldn't have prepared anything at all?"
Just as the Imperial Family had made thorough preparations to subjugate the witch, Sercia had also prepared for their invasion.
Sercia spread her arms to the left and right.
That was the signal.
Light leaked out from the laboratory floor.
This time, even Renoa could see it with her naked eye.
"A magic circle...?"
"Yes. But it's a bit different."
A green magic circle filled the laboratory floor.
It wasn't just the laboratory.
"It's the entire mansion."
Irion's gaze reached beyond the laboratory. His senses detected a large amount of mana enveloping the mansion.
It was a magic circle massive enough to cover the entire estate.
"Now, let the curtain rise."
It had been over a decade since Sercia had donned the Duke's skin and swallowed this giant theater.
It was a welcoming greeting she had woven together, anticipating the day uninvited guests would set foot inside.
"The bloody final puppet show that my daughter will enjoy the most."
The mansion was engulfed in light.