Karen Florence (17)
Dizzy and nauseous. The vile stench of blood, thick enough to deaden my sense of smell entirely, brought the bile surging up my throat. If I hadn't been standing in front of Rihardt, I might actually have been sick.
Fighting down a vicious wave of vertigo, I surveyed my surroundings. Just how lavishly had he played, for blood to be splattered everywhere like this? It was a scene that sent a chill straight through the chest.
Before I knew it, my gaze had fixed on Rihardt. Meeting my eyes, he gave a cheeky little shrug.
"Bit of a mess, isn't it?"
Rihardt was holding a dagger in his right hand. Flesh and blood clung to the blade—presumably Karen Florence's.
"What condition is Karen Florence in?"
With a fresh, sunny smile entirely out of place in this charnel house, he deliberately dodged my question.
"Well, glad you made it anyway. Karen's been waiting for you a good long while too, Lucy."
Would she, really? Karen, who had been shrieking loud enough to split the air until a moment ago?
"Somehow I doubt she had any spare thought for me."
"None of that here. Come on—let's go to Karen."
The dagger in his hand flashed a frigid blue. As if the man weren't menacing enough already, now he had to go and pick up a blade. It amounted to an invitation I could hardly refuse.
"Understood."
Perhaps it was because I'd sprinted here with everything I had; my footsteps felt impossibly heavy. Could the cell where Karen was kept always have been this far away? I moved after Rihardt.
Abruptly, a ragged, irregular panting reached my ears. My eyes followed the sound—and my breath caught.
Red.
Redder than an apple at the very height of its season. I wasn't remarking, once again, on Karen's hair or her crimson irises. Her skin. Her body. All of it so terribly red. Naked as she was, she was red.
Seeing me dumbstruck, Rihardt made a joke of it.
"Guess my appetites had built up. Once I got going, I couldn't contain my excitement."
Couldn't contain his excitement? To my eyes, he had looked utterly composed and calm the entire time?
Grinding my teeth, I took in the state of her. Karen Florence lay curled into a ball like a hedgehog. There wasn't a spot on her without a wound. Her body looked as though a flower of red had come into full bloom across every inch of it.
"Guess I'm a little rusty—been a while."
Rusty? With cuts laid at perfectly even intervals from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes? They say that when shamelessness goes far enough, even rage gives up. The saying fit to a T.
What wrong did Karen Florence ever commit, that she should suffer like this? Being cast as a side character in a novel of a horrific genre? What a damned reasonable excuse that is.
The sight of Karen, shredded and sodden, raked great claw-marks across my heart. This had gone further than what he'd done with Bianca—it was no mere feeling. At this rate, wouldn't blood loss put Karen's very life in danger?
"Young Master, haven't you been rather heavy-handed?"
"Karen's built sturdy, you know. You have to go this far for it to even register with her."
"Even so, that..."
"Look there."
Rihardt pointed at Karen with his index finger. Astonishingly, her wounds were slowly closing. Those grievous wounds, healing this easily? Without a single healing potion?
"Lucy, what do you think goes into making a healing potion?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
The topic had come so far out of nowhere that a flustered protest tumbled out of me. But instead of pressing me on it, Rihardt simply carried on with his explanation.
"A healing potion takes a great many ingredients. But the most important one is the blood of the deeply devout—of those whose divine power runs high."
Ah. So Karen Florence's blood was the primary raw material of healing potions? And so what? What of it?
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
"To put it plainly: Karen's body is permanently steeped in raw healing potion. So any halfway-serious wound closes right back up—like this."
So that was the reasoning behind calling Karen "sturdy." Rihardt kept talking.
"Of course, even her recovery has its limits. Let her bleed past a certain amount, and she'll be in as much mortal danger as anyone else."
Rihardt kicked the crouched Karen. She was already ruined body and soul; the moan that spilled out of her was only natural. Before I could help it, my face had contorted at the sight.
"Maybe it's her remarkable regeneration—Karen's numb to being wounded, and she has a fair tolerance for pain on top of it. Breaking someone like that is quite the chore."
"...Stop. Stop it. The pain... no more, please..."
It was a frail voice. A sound so weak it could never have belonged to that bold girl. I wanted to screw my eyes shut. I wanted to plug my ears.
"And for all that effort, it isn't even entertaining anymore. These by-the-book reactions have gone stale."
Rihardt's shoe came down and crushed Karen's crotch. Perhaps he had carved scars there with his knife as well—blood welled and spread between her legs.
"Hghk—! Hik—!"
She was in that much agony—Karen Florence's hands and feet shivered uncontrollably. Rihardt paid it no mind and went on grinding his foot slowly between her legs.
"Oh—by the way, Lucy, I do feel a little guilty toward you."
"...And what would that be?"
"You must have had your own way of handling Karen. That's all."
"I'm not bothered."
I despised how pathetic I was, unable to reproach him even now. A wretched helplessness and disillusionment gnawed at my mind. Whether he read any of that in me or not, Rihardt kept tormenting Karen as he continued.
"You were going to torment Karen sexually, weren't you? And honestly, I was curious. A woman with Karen's pride, her self-regard—rubbing her own crotch like a slut and begging me for it... I figured that would be funny to see with my own eyes. Surely it would've been a hell of a lot funnier than this, at least? Than watching her cave to pain and drool all over herself like this?"
"Hgh—d-don't—don't—step on it—ah, ahh, it h-hurts—!"
Please, stop. Stop hurting Karen. Please. Knowing full well he wouldn't listen if I said it aloud, I could only turn the words over and over inside my skull.
"Anyway—like I said, everything's gone sideways and it's all a shambles now."
Rihardt, who had been at Karen, strode toward me. And then both his hands clasped mine tight. I flinched hard at the suddenness and stared up at him.
"...Young Master?"
"Well, what can you do? Things have turned out this way, so I'll simply have to find other amusements."
Rihardt pressed the dagger from his own hand into mine. The handle, still lukewarm and slick with blood, felt revolting—unbearably unpleasant.
"Cracking the shell of someone with Karen's pain tolerance was no small task, but as you can see, I managed to whittle her down all the same. The tasty parts, I'll yield to you, Lucy. From here on, even the lightest prick will make her weep so prettily."
What on earth had he done while I was gone? I swallowed down the question along with the revulsion climbing to the back of my throat.
"I taught you properly last time, so you'll do better this time, won't you?"
The memory flashed back through my mind—that first day, when he'd handed me a dagger and ordered me to carve Bianca to ribbons. Nothing, not one thing, had changed between then and now, and the fact settled heavy and bitter on my heart.
"Yes."
Pathetic as it was, Bianca had made an effective teacher. Where to stab so the bleeding was light. Where to stab so the pain was worst. With a grim face, I lifted the dagger.
Karen Florence, cowed beyond recognition, was watching me. The proud, self-assured woman no longer existed. All that remained was a fragile girl with crimson hair. Could a human being truly break this badly in a matter of hours? Gooseflesh crawled over me at Rihardt's extraordinary talent.
"Begin."
My hands started to tremble. I couldn't bring the blade anywhere near Karen's body. The technique had sunk deep into my muscles—but my heart recoiled from pointing it at Karen Florence. Even watching me dither, Rihardt said nothing at all. He simply watched.
It was Karen Florence, looking at me like that, who opened her mouth first.
"...Lucy. I'm... I'm all right. So hurry up. Just do it."
But you said it hurt. You said you were suffering. You begged him to stop. After all that whimpering, why were you putting on such a transparent front in front of me? You'll scream just the same when it's my blade. You'll sob that it hurts, that you can't take it.
It was the sensation of something coming apart from the very depths of my heart. Because we'd grown close. Because we'd drawn near to one another. It hurt more. It cut deeper.
Perhaps my dithering was past enduring. Rihardt's voice turned needle-sharp.
"What's this, gone soft on me? Now that it's time to actually do it, sympathy comes bubbling up? What is wrong with you? You're the one who offered to be my partner in the first place. This is everything you chose, Lucy."
His mockery became thorns, jabbing into my chest again and again. It wasn't as though I hadn't known it would come to this. I did know. I knew—but I couldn't simply turn my back on wherever my heart insisted on pulling me. People, and the bonds between them, never obey your plans. I like Karen. I like Karen Florence—kind, sunny, and sweet.
"You're endlessly soft on anyone you've grown fond of, Lucy. And yet you stabbed away at Bianca just fine."
How could he be so gifted at scooping out a wound with words? I imagined burying this dagger in his chest, again and again and again. A fantasy that would never, ever come true.
"...Hah."
A sigh escaped me. Gripping the dagger Rihardt had forced into my hand, I steeled my resolve. There would be no more hesitating.
Karen bore it well. It had to hurt—yet I could see her enduring it, jaw set. I hurt. It's too much. Please, stop. She had said all of that under Rihardt's hand, so why wouldn't she say a single word to me? Don't act like you're fine. Please. Say something. Anything.
My eyes met Karen Florence's. She was smiling. A soft little hehe.
That was the breaking point. My short, pathetic patience snapped clean in two.
Clang.
The dagger I'd been prodding Karen with dropped from my hand. To anyone watching, it was unmistakable defiance.
Rihardt's gleaming, fascinated eyes swung toward me. I steadied my breathing, then spoke.
"Young Master Rihardt. I'm sorry. I can't do this."
"Oh? And what do you plan to do about it?"
"Perhaps I could take Karen's place, and—"
"Lucy."
His huge fist smashed into my belly. It was suffocating, agonizing—pain enough to curl my toes. Clutching my stomach, I retched out coughs.
"Khh—kghk—kheh—!"
"I told you I wouldn't force you into becoming my toy. Didn't I say that plainly enough last time?"
"Hhk—then h-how... is this... any different... from a toy...!"
"It's different. You haven't surrendered of your own will, have you? As I keep saying—what I want is for you to beg, Lucy. To give in because you choose to. Well, now that I've confirmed you care for Karen, I'll make you an offer."
An offer? I gave Rihardt a look brimming with suspicion.
"What kind of offer?"
Rihardt's lips curled pleasantly.
"Lucy—do you touch yourself?"
At the question from absolutely nowhere, a question mark floated up in my head.