65. No Shackles (6)
65. No Shackles (6)
- 1 -
The severed head of the Claiamel family head lay on the table, its face twisted in agony.
"He had style, but until the very end, he was a pathetic man. Just as I expected."
The woman who had rested her hand atop that head looked down at Eleanor and spoke.
"He said he could never form a contract with me. Even though I had his bloodkin as hostages."
A contract, after all, required the contractor's voluntary will. But the Claiamel head had refused, and because a mature elite easily developed resistance to poison, her words implied she'd had no choice but to kill him in the end.
"So I intended to honor that will by beheading him in one stroke, and then this time he begged me to spare him instead. He said, since you were the one who started this, kill you and spare himself. That he would even make a new contract."
But those words did not end there.
The content was shocking indeed. That the uncle who had always cherished her would say such a thing.
"...Truly, was he not a wretched man. The ones who drove you to such a state were also the old relics of this family."
It was simply that for Eleanor, the voice speaking those words was more shocking than their content.
For a woman who had grown up bearing all the family's grudges, there was nothing more important than the honor of nobles and family.
"H-how, how... can you be so at ease after killing someone, a noble, so wretchedly...?"
"Well..."
A voice as calm as ever.
Yet to someone familiar with that voice, it held the faintest hint of mockery lurking in a corner.
Of course, to Eleanor's ears, she was simply a woman like a psychopath who could kill a person and then speak of that person's death to their family without a care.
So she could only be bewildered by Libertas's next words.
"Eleanor. If you were to kill the household of Count Julheim, do you think you would feel guilt over it?"
"What... are you saying...?"
"It is a question asking whether Count Julheim's family is separate from the targets of your revenge."
"Of course they too must pay the price...!"
"Yes. I am the same."
Libertas nodded without any change in expression.
Yet Eleanor still could not grasp the meaning and simply stared with confusion in her eyes.
Those words meant, after all, that Libertas held a grudge against them, but as far as Eleanor knew, the Claiamel family had never incurred such deep resentment from another noble house.
Even considering the family's long history, she understood even less upon hearing what came next.
"Ugh... huh...!"
"I, too, hold a grudge against you. Eleanor. Against you, and against your entire family who raised you to be that way."
As she placed her heeled foot atop Eleanor's stomach and pressed down firmly, Libertas spoke in that same quiet voice as always.
Words that Eleanor still could not comprehend.
"What... are you saying...!!"
Libertas did not answer Eleanor's question, but simply looked to one side and waited for a moment.
At that, Eleanor's gaze naturally turned in that direction as well, and as soon as it did, she could only widen her eyes in shock.
For there was a scene that forcibly made her, still in a dazed state until then, recognize reality.
"M-Mother! Sister! Al! Everyone! Wake up!"
The mother who, suffering from dementia, always troubled the hired servants, yet whom Eleanor still loved.
The earnest older sister who, aging as an old maid, still maintained her affection and devotion to family.
The younger brother who, born with a congenital intellectual disability, had declared he would become a warrior to help the family and his older sisters.
The uncle's wife and concubines, and four of his children.
All of her family were bound there, unconscious.
"Elders...? You all...?"
People she could not exactly call close, but whom she recognized as distant relatives.
The old men who had always spoken of family pride since her childhood, forcing training and austerity upon her, and the young men who had always been full of complaints about the world.
Those branch family members were pointing blades at her family.
"I'm sorry. Eleanor."
"We have to do this to survive..."
"Th-this is all because of your mistake."
Those who averted their gazes, unable to meet her eyes, and the sight of her family on the verge of losing their lives at any moment beneath the blades they aimed.
Beside them, figures clad in armor and thick hoods stood waiting with even more wicked weapons...
But Eleanor knew instinctively.
That those branch family members were holding their weapons at least halfway 'of their own volition.'
"What is the meaning of this! What is the meaning of this, I said!!"
With that, Eleanor felt a surge of emotion—as if reality had crashed over her and receded, leaving only hatred for those people and the woman before her eyes.
"Do not worry. They will not kill your family just yet. Eleanor."
"What did I ever do to you...! Just what did I do to make you do this...!!!"
"Right... even if you die, you deserve to know the reason."
Libertas, who had been pondering for a moment with an expressionless face, nodded.
She spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"The monsters you summoned. A portion of those that you scattered throughout the city killed one of my subordinates and wounded another. Eleanor."
"Sub...ordinates?"
"Yes. A subordinate who worked diligently for me."
"You're saying you committed such an atrocity over a mere one or two subordinates...?"
The moment she heard those words, Libertas felt her jaw tighten.
She knew that in a world with a class system, treating servants and slaves as a matter of course was normal, and subordinates were easily seen as akin to a lord's garments or livestock.
But seeing with her own eyes the attitude of not even regarding them as 'equal lives' at all—that knowledge had vividly come to life, so to speak.
However, what displeased her more was that this puddle of solitude had disparaged her subordinate.
'I, too, categorize people by familiarity or the benefit they bring me, but...'
Didn't everyone do that, being human.
At the very least, she did not go about openly flaunting such thoughts, and she was the type who acted on them while knowing it was 'not right.'
To the people of this world, it seemed, such thinking was rather natural.
Which side was truly worse?
'No, more than that.'
And what if she were to say this.
Libertas, who had quickly shaken off the heavy emotion, opened her mouth with curiosity.
"He was a mage. A highly talented mage... so excellent that in the future he would have naturally obtained a noble title on his own. He was too... precious to die in a place like this."
"Even so...! You could just kill me! Just me!"
And from Eleanor came a reply that made her feel satisfaction and interest at the same time.
Satisfaction at having learned the norm of this world, where it was perfectly natural to judge a person not as a person but by their ability or status.
Interest at how Eleanor, once made to grasp the status of the deceased, began to feel the grudge was justified.
Then, if she were to speak according to the norm of this world... it would be right for her to say this.
"Eleanor."
"...?"
"What do you think is the reason people follow others?"
"What...?"
"Ability. Personal connection. Sometimes conviction or will. There would be many things. But what a lord must give to her subordinates is fixed."
Libertas lifted Eleanor's chin—still slack with confusion and drooping toward the floor—with the tip of her parasol, and whispered.
Her thoughts on the master-servant relationship.
"A minimum guarantee of livelihood, to be endlessly fulfilled so long as loyalty is given. Luxury and honor befitting one's station and the years devoted in service."
"Isn't that obvious...?"
These were words that were close to being obvious to Eleanor as well.
The scale or proactiveness of the reward might differ, but nobles, too, guaranteed the livelihood of their servants and soldiers, and increased their compensation over time, so it matched common sense.
"Lastly, protection of the person and their bloodline."
But the words that followed were different.
The resistance was immediate.
"What noble in the world does that...! It's natural for each person to protect themselves!"
"Is that what you think?"
"There are so many who could become demon beasts and adversaries in this world! If you try to protect all your subordinates, even a king won't be able to manage his own life!"
Her words were not wrong.
For in this world, potential and fatal threats were scattered in all directions. If one tried to provide protection against all of them, the lord's fatigue would endlessly rise—that was only natural.
"I do not think that way. Eleanor."
But Libertas shook her head.
"And you ruined this. You put to the test my ability to protect the subordinates I have."
She declared with a smile that seemed painted on.
That a lord ought to protect the safety of her subordinates.
"Having failed to provide protection to a subordinate, a lord's ability can only be doubted. In that case, must I not inevitably prove that protective ability through another ability?"
"So that's why you're doing this? So you're going to... kill my entire family?"
"Could that not be the case? For the ability to protect can sometimes be substituted by the ability to take revenge."
Failure of protection, avenged through retribution.
The ability to make one's subordinates believe, at the very least, that their lord would avenge them and make the one who caused their death pay the price.
That was the final virtue of a lord, Libertas believed.
Of course, this was not to say she would pour out everything she had like some honor-bound lord somewhere, but should she not at least do the basics?
"Just kill me... just kill me! That's enough, isn't it!"
But those words did not seem to have been accepted by Eleanor.
In truth, it was something that could never be accepted.
If she affirmed this, would she not end up affirming the reason for her own and her family's deaths?
Yet, of all things, she had already uttered words that would deny what she had just said.
"Such a half-hearted thing isn't called revenge. We've discussed this."
"...That's!"
"Revenge must be done as lethally as possible, in a way that utterly crushes the enemy. So, Eleanor."
That face was exceedingly gentle and soft. That voice was still mild and low.
Yet now, to Eleanor, that appearance and voice felt like looking at an incomprehensible monster.
Like a creature from another dimension wearing human skin.
So that resistance was not born of reason but welled up purely from instinct.
"You shall have to form a contract with me for now."
"Do you think I would do that...?!"
Tak.
Blocking Eleanor's words by tapping her forehead once with the tip of the parasol, Libertas continued with an expressionless face.
In that still mild manner of speaking.
"Then, we can all die together."
Chk...
One of the branch family elders raised the tip of his blade and pointed it at Eleanor's mother.
Though the tip was trembling, it was firm, as if knowing exactly what his role was.
It was a natural progression that Eleanor's gaze and plea, upon confirming that sight, turned toward Libertas.
"I'll... do it! I'll do it, alright! Please... my mother is a pitiful person. After the family fell, after Albert was born like that, she was never in her right mind even once..."
"There is no need to make unnecessary examples. I am glad you are a smart child."
Accepting that naturalness, the Dungeon Lord nodded, still elegantly.
- 2 -
This time, there was no need to make the provisional contract deliberately loose as with the previous contracts.
Back then, since I could not forcibly control them with mana, I had no choice but to write the conditions weakly in consideration of the recoil from contract enforcement removal, but now my mana was sufficient.
The condition of the contract was the Claiamel family's obedience. The penalty for breach of contract was the death of a random one among them.
Of course, since it was one contract per family, there would be no need to witness the sight of them gambling their lives on a gacha draw.
Though they were all consumed by twisted grudges against the world and driven mad, at least they seemed to know how to cherish themselves and their families.
"The one who rules us will find you..."
"Well. Whether he can find me is a secondary matter, and I am uncertain whether he, upon learning of me, would try to take revenge on me for your sakes."
"What does that mean...? What are you?"
"You will know when you go."
Eleanor endlessly spewed curses and threats, but since those were words spoken without knowing I was a Dungeon Lord, they hardly bothered me.
For whatever demon tribe he might be, he would not go out of his way to make an enemy of a Dungeon Lord just because of some human's family.
Unless the man happened to be another surface Dungeon Lord—but even then, who could say.
In the first place, they could not even track me, so all these assumptions were meaningless... and if they did find me, I could simply mobilize another method then, so it was of no concern.
In any case, no grudge would return to me.
"Talhan. Recover all the remaining assets here. How many will you need?"
"I will take five and one noble."
"Very well."
Talhan took the family head's eldest son with him, and my soldiers stepped out from the shadows to follow.
Since those soldiers were all wearing thick hoods, it was fine for them to come out and move about even at night.
They were the ones who had been watching over the family when I contracted with Eleanor.
I recalled Scarlet mentioning there was a magic hood that 'made exposed skin appear human.' I would need to acquire a few of those and carry them around later.
"Um, excuse me..."
"Ah... there you were."
"Hehe... may we, now, be permitted to leave?"
"You damn bastards..."
The branch family nobles approached me with their hands bound, bowing with ingratiating smiles. Eleanor watched them, grinding her teeth in fury.
I pondered for a moment, but...
"Yes. I did say that once this matter was finished, I would set you 'free.'"
"You did say that, indeed."
As I thought, it would be better to retrieve the mana restraints.
"Eleanor. Would it not be good to kill traitors yourself?"
"W-wait...!"
"What!"
"Huh?"
Eleanor, who had been looking at me with brief bewilderment, soon bared a fierce smile at the corner of her lips.
Though she had shown nothing but helplessness until now, she was still a warrior consumed by vengeance.
"...Was that not the promise? That you would spare them."
"Yes. I said I would set them 'free.'"
"You lied! You deceived us!!"
"I do not tell lies. To people."
Regrettably, those who trust the words of an enemy promising to spare them while pointing blades at the family they had lived alongside—such creatures are not called people.
In the first place, I had said I would set them 'free,' but I had never once said I would not kill them.
Which meant, so long as I did not turn them into undead under my command, I would be keeping the promise.
"Come... here—!!!"
"P-please, spare me!!"
Peok!!
"Kyaaaak!!"
Skak!!
Bound by the contract, yet with limbs free—an elite magic swordsman.
Not only were their limbs restrained, but the eight opponents of mere advanced rank or lower were even fitted with mana restraints.
The slaughter that bloomed beneath the two-handed sword I had placed in Eleanor's hands did not take long to reach full bloom.
'A housewarming gift has been made.'
"Load the corpses of your 'former' family onto the cart. Noble-born slaves. We shall move now."
After confirming the scene of Eleanor's family retching as they loaded the corpses onto the cart, my steps turned not toward the outside of the village but rather deeper inward.
For there lay the second objective I wished to recover.
"Why here...?"
"You will know once we enter."
That objective was, of course, the Dungeon Lord that would be within the mine. Or the core, perhaps.