Carrot and Stick
Mind control complete.
Setting aside the fact that I was a magical beast myself… Eldrisa's resurrection was the kind of thing that could trigger a powerful rejection response from the hunters.
Because she was a witch. Not some unfamiliar type they'd never seen before, but a long-standing kill-or-be-killed enemy — which meant they were going to need an adjustment period.
"So I'm going to beat the living daylights out of Eldrisa!"
Kang Jiye laughed as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"That doesn't follow at all, you idiot. What does any of that have to do with picking a fight with her?"
"Hehe. Just watch. Eldrisa's about to learn what kind of life is actually a happy one."
The moment we stepped through the gate, they were already going at it full tilt.
Monstrous plants spewing corrosive venom from their flower buds, thorned vines lashing the ground like whips — and right in the middle of it all, Eldrisa vomiting up bizarre morning stars.
With a high-frequency shriek, brown masses poured from her mouth.
In response, Kratan stomped a true step into the earth and set the ground trembling. The hundreds of morning stars hurtling toward him instantly lost their speed and floated up as if gravity had simply quit.
Click — the hook on his right hand flipped open. Black pellets no bigger than a thumbnail blasted out like shotgun shot.
BAAAAANG!
Mana Net…!
Dark threads formed a lattice, linking the pellets together. The morning stars that touched the net were absorbed as if melting into it.
Eldrisa's face twisted. She stabbed her broom into the air, and the net rushing toward her shredded into fine scraps and scattered. But at the same time the pellets flared red-hot — and detonated.
KRA-BOOOOM!
The monstrous plants caught in the blast were torn apart all at once. Through the gray smoke, Kratan's figure burst forward.
Eldrisa swung her broom in a wide arc to stop his approach, but—
THUD!
"……!"
The broom buried itself straight into the left side of Kratan's neck. Shattered wood chips rained down.
This absolute unit of a pirate hadn't even bothered to dodge the witch's strike. He seized Eldrisa by the throat and drove his forehead into hers.
CRACK — the sound of stone splitting, and Eldrisa's head snapped back. In that opening Kratan drew his cutlass and whipped it through the air at blistering speed, then jammed a red-hot left-foot front kick into her.
KRAAAAAASH!!
Half-stripped Eldrisa spun like a top and flew off horizontally. Torn cloth and blood scattered in every direction.
"Whoa… isn't that enough to kill her?"
I waved off Kang Jiye's concern.
"She won't die."
"When the hell did you even make that freakish doll? It's ridiculously strong. Looking at pure mana, Eldrisa should have the edge."
"Hmm…"
Truth was, there wasn't much difference between them.
The same way Kratan had beaten the Specter King to death, Eldrisa could have produced a similar result.
So this was a matter of matchup.
Witches tended to lean hard on long-range spells and miscellaneous tricks, while Kratan was the type to ignore most hits and just charge. Of course she was going to struggle to handle him.
Even when I'd played as the protagonist, I'd always one-shot Kratan with a finishing move. If I didn't, he'd just keep coming until he self-destructed.
Watching the fight, Kang Jiye spoke up.
"I think we should step in soon. She's getting completely steamrolled at this point."
"Just a little longer."
Kang Jiye let out a hollow laugh.
"What, do you have some personal grudge against her?"
I shook my head.
"Eldrisa needs to learn a little humility. She's spent so long reigning as a ruler that the second she fully recovers her power, she's definitely going to cause an incident."
"Ah… so that's why you're doing this. But she's been quiet and well-behaved this whole time."
"That's exactly what's scary."
Normally they just killed each other without a word of conversation, so people never realized how practiced witches were at faking emotion — how cunning they could be.
They'd smile, cry, even act cute when it suited them… and then, in a blink, dig out someone's heart or chop off their limbs and stroll away. Cases of them deceiving even Royalty only to get torn apart for it weren't exactly rare.
"And you revived something like that?"
"Auntie told me to."
"I never said to make her S-class. If she goes wild now, I won't even be able to subdue her."
"Don't worry. That's why we're educating her like this."
If you couldn't make a mad dog behave, maybe you needed to consider whether the stick had been too soft.
Heading toward the scene where the fighting had wound down, I gave Party Bear an order.
"That one from last time — the one that got its ass torn open. Grab it and follow me."
"Byuu."
The teddy bear went scampering off between the alleys. Kang Jiye asked,
"What do you need that for?"
"I need to settle the hierarchy for a bit, and once the talk is over I'm going to need something to make me angry. Like you saw earlier — it's hard to come back on willpower alone."
"Ah—!"
Joker
The instant I became a pierrot again, I looked at Kang Jiye.
She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at me.
"You're ugly."
"……."
The transformation nearly dropped for a second, but I held on by thinking of Eldrisa's thoroughly pulverized face.
"I'll brief you on the plan!"
"Plan?"
"Where there's a stick, there has to be a carrot!"
"If it's a carrot, why did you transform? That's terrifying."
"Hehe — even the same reward hits different depending on who hands it out."
I looked down at Eldrisa sprawled across the carousel roof.
She was conscious, but not moving. Judging by the dozens of cuts and bruises carved into her whole body, she looked like she couldn't so much as twitch a finger.
The moment our eyes met, her face locked up tight.
"Eldrisa. You sleeping?"
"……."
"No answer and I'm burying you in the ground and starting the funeral!"
"Ah…!"
Eldrisa answered in a rush.
"I'm not sleeping! I answered!"
I laid a hand over my chest.
"Whew — I thought you were dead. From now on our Eldrisa has to play with me, you know!"
"That's… you're really too much……."
"Why too much? Is wanting to play too much?"
"It's only fun for the Queen of Siphonside. I've done everything you said until now — why are you doing this?"
I clasped my hands in front of me and tilted my head.
"You keep treating me like the bad guy? I haven't even done anything yet. Keep this up and I'm going to get hurt feelings, you know?"
I genuinely had no intention of harming her. The more it hurts, the more you have to smile — so I'd prepared a show, that was all.
I raised my umbrella and spun it around like a cowboy's whip. Any second now fireworks of every kind would go off and she'd be delighted. No woman alive hated sparkly things!
Eldrisa's face, already pale blue, drained to the color of dirt.
"Ah…! Ah! Please don't! I don't want to play!"
"Hm? No, really, I'm just…"
"Hey!"
Out of nowhere Kang Jiye cracked me across the back.
"……?"
We locked eyes for a moment.
Originally the plan had been to heal the injured Eldrisa and treat her with love — but this coward of a witch was way too terrified of me.
Improvising on the spot, Kang Jiye barked,
"What are you doing! You're scaring her!"
Aha.
Still spinning the umbrella, I asked,
"Hm? Does Mommy want to play with me too?"
Kang Jiye, who had been helping Eldrisa up, glared at me.
"If you don't cut it out, I'm kicking you out. I've never raised a daughter who bullies people who are hurt. Back off. Now."
For a second, Eldrisa's throat bobbed. Moved by Kang Jiye's kindness, maybe? Delighted by the change in her, I made the operation even more fun.
"Then I can play with people who aren't hurt!"
THUD!
Kang Jiye's body jolted and blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Eldrisa whipped around to stare at her in shock.
"There, I tagged her — now Mommy's it!"
Eldrisa cried out.
"S-stop it!"
"Stop what?"
"Th-that's…"
"You gonna play instead?"
"No, I…"
Eldrisa looked confused even by her own shouting. Staring at Kang Jiye clutching her chest, she answered like she had no idea what to do.
"Anyway, I was wrong. Please don't make me do weird games…… uh!"
Suddenly Kang Jiye set her down and charged me. She yanked both my cheeks hard and yelled,
"YAAAH!! That actually hurt! You wanna die?!"
"Ow, shit…!"
Kang Jiye locked her arms around my head and bit down on the crown of my skull. I flailed my arms in panic — and locked eyes with Eldrisa.
She was staring at Kang Jiye in pure, absolute horror.
"Y-you'll kill her like that!"
But Kang Jiye paid no mind and choked me from behind. Royalty or not, when family attacked, I couldn't fight back.
If I reflexively released mana, Kang Jiye could get seriously hurt. So I got strangled without even mana reinforcement.
As my consciousness blurred, I thought of zombie movies from my past life.
Hehe. Now I get why people die for their families…
……Thud!
"Huh? What."
Kang Jiye patted my shoulder. Then she gasped and started shaking me hard.
"Hey hey. Little one! You idiot! You're supposed to reinforce——##&&!!"
When I came to again, the amusement park had been cleaned up spotlessly.
The Party Bears had been hard at work restoring the wrecked buildings, and nearby on a bench, Eldrisa sat side by side with Kang Jiye, chatting.
Judging by the way she was rubbing her forehead like she was exhausted, she'd clearly been filled in on our "love" operation.
"You're something else yourself……."
"I'm sorry."
"That's not what I meant. I mean the courage to grab the Queen by the hair even after seeing her like that is impressive. It's not like you have spare lives."
"Our Pecia isn't that kind of bad kid."
Eldrisa let out a snort of scorn.
"Insane. From where I'm sitting, you're every bit as crazy as the Queen of Siphonside."
"I'm not crazy?"
Eldrisa, who'd been smirking, looked my way and went stiff as a board again. Kang Jiye gave the back of her hand a light pat and asked me,
"You're up. Feeling a little better?"
"Yep."
"Sorry for knocking you out. You're not mad, are you, little one?"
"Come on, what do you take me for."
I looked at Eldrisa and grinned wide.
"Wh-what is it?"
"Nothing. More importantly — I'm sorry."
"For what."
"For Kratan, and for scaring you for no reason!"
"I'm glad you understand. From now on, Your Majesty, please do not approach me."
"……The Witch of the Twilight Forest, you said?"
"That's right. Pecia revived her, apparently."
Hearing the Director's report, Kim Seojun's expression turned grave.
The Witch of the Twilight Forest had been the boss of a high A-class gate in the past. He knew they'd deployed an elite strike force specifically to minimize casualties.
"Of all the things to bring back. Is she planning to raise an army or something?"
"Who knows. As if anyone can read a magical beast's mind."
"Surely you're not planning to just leave her alone?"
At Kim Seojun's concern, the Director sighed.
"She's racked up a fair number of achievements, at least. I'll go see her once and then decide. Of course, I intend to request a reverse summon."
"Good thinking. You need to dispose of her."
"Right. Like my car."
"…."
Kim Seojun stared at the Director. The Director snorted a laugh.
"It was a joke."
"Give me your account number. I'll compensate you."
"I said it's fine."
"No. Give me the account."
"Hey now."
"I said give it."