Rust Causes a Ruckus at the Wedding!? #1
Baron Volterre was in an excellent mood.
The wedding he had poured every effort into arranging was finally taking place today.
Some dung-fly of a nobody shows up claiming to be a count’s son-in-law and has the gall to hold his head high—
The monk Hyde.
A green brat who wasn’t even born into true nobility, strutting around on nothing but the Agarpe name. When that same brat had the nerve to swagger in with the Archibold name on his back as well, Volterre had been furious.
But thanks to my son-in-law, I survived! A man really does need to pick the right side!
The second son of that “prestigious” House Orleans.
The Orleans earldom was every bit as ancient and storied as the Agarpe family in neighboring Palchea, and it had even produced Roland Orleans—one of the Knights of Six. Even among earldoms, its prestige towered over the Agarpe house, which had been cut adrift after the war twenty years ago.
If I’d stuck with the Agarpes and stayed loyal to the royal family to the bitter end, I’d be in the same sorry state! Count Doban, strutting around like a real earl—look at you now, you bastard!
Volterre was a man swollen with ambition for higher rank, advancement, and gold.
He found it deliciously satisfying that the balance of power with the Agarpe earldom—whom his family had served for generations—had finally reversed.
A man has to use his head. That’s what politics is. Stupid Doban. He should’ve married his daughter off to someone from a high house like I did.
The only way the Agarpe earldom could ever rise again was through Psyche. She was so renowned for her beauty, wisdom, and piety that every house wanted her as a bride.
Even Volterre, upon seeing the fifteen-year-old Psyche, had briefly wanted her as a second wife.
I heard House Orleans itself once pursued a match with Psyche. If Aaron Orleans had married Psyche instead of my Cathy, our Volterre family would never have seized a chance like today’s…!
But Psyche had refused the match with Aaron Orleans.
Illness, they said.
That illness had passed, and rumor claimed she had taken some man as her husband—a Wood Badge monk with no parents and no backing whatsoever.
Meeting him in person only confirmed it—a worthless cripple with nothing but a decent frame!
Why take a man like that as a son-in-law?
Had Doban Agarpe gone mad?
No. Doban was always a fool. A bastard who became earl simply because he was born the eldest son of an earldom. And that same bastard humiliated me at my twelfth birthday feast!
Volterre recalled that birthday banquet.
Young Rush Volterre had challenged Doban to a sparring match with swords and been thoroughly crushed.
After that public disgrace, Rush never picked up a blade again.
In the end, I won! And I beat that bastard Archibold too! When I declared I’d betray the Agarpes and side with the Church, he looked down on me with those ice-cold eyes!
Volterre hated Archbishop Archibold almost as much as he hated Doban.
But what of Archibold now?
They say Archibold’s been discarded by His Holiness the Pope—just a spent pawn. The story of how he was humiliated in the Holy City of Barakan is already the talk of the entire realm!
Agarpe and Archibold.
Both houses were destined to vanish into the dust of a bygone age.
Rush Volterre believed that without a shred of doubt, and he was certain his own House Volterre would fill the vacuum they left behind.
In fact, everything was already proceeding exactly according to plan.
Viscount Volterre, Count Volterre, Marquis Volterre—hell, if things go well, maybe even king! The throne in the royal capital is empty, isn’t it? Who’s to say I can’t sit there…!?
Rush Volterre was chuckling at the thought when a bizarre sound reached his ears.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa━─!!!!!!!!”
It was a scream—someone howling with pure malice.
It sounded half like a death-cry, half like a roar of rage.
The uncanny part was that the howl never stopped.
Ten seconds, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty—
To scream without drawing a single breath for that long was simply impossible for human lungs.
“Wh-what is that sound?”
“I don’t know—”
“Who’s wailing like that on a wedding day—”
The guests in the garden grew flustered.
Then they finally spotted something on the roof of the mansion.
Wh-what in the world is that—
It was a man in a vivid scarlet robe.
He wore a strange mask, but that hardly mattered.
What mattered was his lower half—
It had swollen and risen to a size no one present had ever seen in their lives.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
“I-It’s a fiend…!”
The women began screaming on pure instinct, terror seizing them.
Volterre felt the world spin at this sudden chaos, yet the only thought in his head was that he somehow had to force this wedding through to success.
“Who are you?! Who the hell are you?!”
“My name is Rust! You bastard Volterre—you held a wedding and didn’t even invite this body of Rust! For that insult, this body of Rust shall deliver your punishment—!”
Swish—.
The ruffian who had named himself Rust pulled a bundle of papers from his robes and hurled them with all his strength in every direction.
“Behold this masterpiece of Rust! Kahahahat! The title of this latest work is The Non-Virgin!”
People caught the fluttering sheets and stared at the writing. The one most stunned was the new groom, Aaron Orleans.
“…What? The new bride Cathy Volterre’s pussy is like a communal well? That countless men have already come and gone through it, and she’s even aborted children in her belly?”
It was a vulgar, filthy tale of how the unmarried girl “Cathy” had freely romanced one man after another.
Who would dare write and scatter such a monstrous story about a woman who was supposed to become the bride of a prestigious earldom?
“Cathy! Is what is written here true? Didn’t you tell me you had never even held another man’s hand? This is a lie, of course?”
Cathy Volterre.
She too felt the world tilt as she read the words on the paper.
“There’s no way such nonsense could be true! Father! What are you doing?! Drive that Gwichukdo cultist out at once! What is the meaning of this at my wedding?! Father!”
His daughter’s cry snapped Volterre back to his senses.
At that exact moment—
Whoosh—.
A wave of scorching heat rose, and flames began to lick up from the mansion.
The house was on fire.
“F-Fire!”
“Fire!”
The flames spread in an instant.
Amid the blistering heat and black smoke, the fiend Rust threw both arms high and burst into laughter.
“Kahahat! Setting fires is the thing I love most in this world! And what I love even more is the flame between a man and a woman! Cathy! You’re not going to pretend last night never happened, are you?!”
“Last night?! What are you talking about…?!”
The brown-haired woman with ringlets, Cathy, shrieked in fury.
Rust raised one index finger and began vigorously thrusting it in and out of a circle made with the fingers of his other hand. While every eye locked onto that blatantly lewd gesture, Rust drove the spike home.
“Cathy, the moans you let out while crushed under my massive cock are still ringing in my ears—what the hell are you talking about?! You weren’t a virgin to begin with! Isn’t that right, you filthy non-virgin bitch?!”
“N-Non-virgin—?”
Cathy was thrown into utter panic.
No! I am a virgin! With Tachanka I only used my ass! We did it from behind! So I’m still a pure virgin!
Cathy tried to soothe herself with that thought.
Yet under Rust’s relentless pressure, a crushing sense of “sin” and “guilt” began to well up inside her, and her hands and feet trembled with confusion.
Watching her, Aaron of House Orleans shouted even louder.
“Cathy! What is the meaning of this?!”
“I—I am a virgin! I’m a pure virgin more than anyone! Orleans, you’re not going to believe the words of that ignorant pervert over mine, are you? I’m cleaner than anyone!”
Cathy wept and pleaded with raw emotion.
Rust only sneered at her appeal.
“As if a pure virgin could exist in this world? If one does, it’s only the virgin Psyche…! Every woman except the virgin Psyche is a non-virgin…! But if you’re going to keep lying that hard…”
Swish—.
Rust raised his index finger and pointed straight at Cathy.
“I shall place the Curse of the Non-Virgin upon you. Cathy, if you are truly a virgin without a single speck of impurity in your heart, nothing will happen. But if you are a non-virgin, your body will break out in agonizing rashes and blisters…!”
Whoosh—.
With those words, Rust swept his robed arm in a grand, theatrical arc.
Among the books I had read at the Agarpe estate about the Volterre baronial house, one fascinating detail stood out: their grandfather had died in coughing fits, rashes, and agony after eating a peanut salad.
To my eyes it was clearly an allergic reaction, but the Church of the time had declared it “divine punishment.”
Well, people only learned about peanut allergies in the twentieth century, after all.
Did the people of this world know a damn thing about allergies?
So I had taken the peanut oil I swiped from the Volterre kitchen, used it to set the kitchen ablaze, and then flung that same oil across the garden with the grand gesture just now.
I had also coated the papers I scattered thickly with it.
Allergies are hereditary.
Young Lady Cathy Volterre would naturally have a peanut allergy as well.
“Ugh, aagh—uwaaugh—”
Just as if my curse had truly taken hold, Cathy Volterre began to cry out in pain and itch all over.
She dug her nails into her own skin and started scratching furiously.
I looked down at her and roared with laughter.
“Kahahahat! Congratulations, you lewd non-virgin! You communal-well pussy bitch! As a non-virgin, you will suffer this unbearable itch until the moment you die in agony!”