Duchess Maria (1)
Duchess Maria (1)
After checking on the villagers, I stopped Balea.
"It seems I should go in alone."
Seeing the empty houses and the strange villagers, I decided it was too dangerous to go inside with Balea.
I explained the villagers' behavior to her.
Balea tilted her head.
"Is it some kind of brainwashing?"
"I originally understood it as an ability that raises people's intimacy toward her to an extreme degree, but..."
I had believed that until now, but after seeing the villagers, I wasn't so sure anymore.
And I had heard that the Duke had gotten rid of her ability.
But since an ability so similar to hers had appeared...
In any case, I knew her ability was something no one could withstand unless they were highly sensitive to mana, like me.
Even that outstanding Duke had been under its influence for a long time.
Even if Balea was an outstanding ability user, there was no guarantee she'd be safe.
"Yes. I'll wait."
Fortunately, Balea listened to me.
She sat on a rock beside the road, with the two horses tied to a tree.
She waved to me as I headed toward the village.
I walked toward the village, gripping the Divine Sword.
It was a fairly large village, with houses of various sizes clustered together.
As I approached the village, all the villagers who had been moving came to a halt.
Adults and children, men and women—all stopped in their tracks and stared at me as I approached.
The sight of dozens of expressionless faces watching me was incredibly eerie.
At the village entrance, which was roughly enclosed by a wooden barricade, two territory soldiers stood guard with wooden spears.
"This is the territory of Viscount Ibiza. We do not admit outsiders, as we have business within the territory. Please turn back."
Even as I approached with a sword in hand, the territory soldier recited the words as if reading from a textbook.
'If this is the second wife's ability, it seems more like it has degenerated...'
In the past, her ability had simply made people like her, without causing any other abnormalities.
It wasn't supposed to make people act this strangely.
In any case, I stated my business.
Originally, I had planned to scout the area first, but that didn't seem possible.
If everyone was on her side, scouting or sneaking in would be nearly impossible.
Besides, if she could spread her ability to this many people, the knights coming behind me wouldn't be safe either.
First, I sheathed my sword and spoke.
"I have come from the Gracia Dukedom. I am here to see Viscount Ibiza."
At the mention of the Gracia Dukedom, the soldier flinched.
Mumbling as if trying to decide what to say, the territory soldier finally opened his mouth.
"...Please wait for a moment."
He left me with the other soldier and ran inside.
While he was gone, the remaining soldier silently pointed his spear at me.
He didn't say another word, and his spear didn't even tremble.
It was as if that soldier was completely incapable of doing anything else.
And yet, they had left a soldier alone like this.
For such a large village, the surveillance seemed rather lax.
But the guard in front of me wasn't the only one watching.
Every villager inside the wooden barricade was watching me.
It wasn't just the people outside, either.
Even the people inside the houses were watching through the gaps in the windows.
After a while, instead of the soldier, a knight in his thirties ran to the village entrance.
Clad in full plate armor, the knight stopped in front of me.
He seemed reasonably skilled, but he, too, was far too strange.
A knight in plate armor running around the village, with no one bowing or greeting him even after seeing him, was nothing but bizarre.
"If this concerns the Gracia Dukedom's previous request, we have decided not to answer. If that's why you're here, please turn back. Or did you come to discuss something else?"
The knight's words were strange, too.
They had rejected the request, yet he was asking if I'd come to discuss something else?
At that moment, an idea came to me.
If the strange occurrences in this territory were because of her, this might just work.
"I wish to see Duchess Maria."
"Maria has been waiting. Follow me."
At my words, the knight immediately bowed his head.
Oddly, his voice sounded incredibly bright. His tone was blunt, but somehow, he seemed excited.
I tilted my head, unable to understand why he sounded that way.
The knight immediately led me across the village, all the way to the mansion on top of the hill.
As he guided me, the soldier lowered his spear, and all the gazes fixed on me disappeared.
Once again, the village returned to its normal appearance.
It went back to being a highly orderly, yet somehow bizarre-looking village.
We passed through the strange-looking village and arrived at the mansion.
The mansion was ordinary.
It was a modest residence, just the right size for the lord of a territory this scale.
Several knights had come out into the small garden and stood in a neat line.
It was as if they were welcoming me.
I didn't know why they were going to such lengths, but fortunately, things seemed to be going well.
It happened just as we passed through the main gate and walked between the knights.
Suddenly, the knight guiding me asked a question.
"May I ask your name?"
It was an ordinary question, so I answered normally.
"If you tell her my name is Alex..."
But before I could even finish, I realized I had made a mistake.
Crack.
My suspicion was correct.
The knight, who had been kindly guiding me, came to a dead stop when he heard my words.
Screech.
The knight turned his head toward me.
His head turned slowly.
Though it was a human turning his head, it looked like an unlubricated robot turning its head.
Then his mouth opened.
"Alex?"
A sharp voice rang out from his mouth. It was neither his voice nor a man's voice.
It was a voice I had heard before—the second Duchess's voice.
"You, how dare you show your face here!"
I was utterly shocked.
The Duchess's voice was coming out of a knight's mouth.
No, could it be possession? I had thought her ability had degenerated, but was that not the case?
At the same time, the knights lined up side by side immediately drew their swords.
Murderous intent surged around me. Strangely, the knights' overflowing mana and murderous intent all seemed to be connected.
Watching them, I drew my sword as well.
It seemed I wouldn't get to see her without a fight.
Whoom.
Then mana flared intensely from the center of the mansion.
It spread beyond the mansion and across the entire village.
It had changed slightly, but it was the same mana I had seen long ago.
It was the mana unleashed by the second Duchess—the very mana that was difficult to see or feel unless one possessed 'Mana Resonance'.
As the mana spread, the villagers down the hill began to move differently.
Everyone who had gone inside their houses burst back out.
Not only the people who had already been outside, but even those who had been inside came out.
The people who emerged had weapons in their hands.
They carried everything from pitchforks and worn-out kitchen knives to sharp farming tools.
Adults, children, the elderly, and women alike—all of them walked toward me, holding anything they could use as a weapon.
"This is getting troublesome..."
Seeing them, I let out a bitter smile.
Indeed, the Duchess's ability hadn't weakened.
To brainwash the entire village... The method had changed, but she had definitely grown stronger.
If I wasn't careful, I could end up a mass murderer who slaughtered all the residents of this territory.
I couldn't let that happen.
But escaping without a fight wasn't easy, either.
The area was surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, and the villagers were rushing toward the only escape routes.
In the end, I had no choice but to deal with the knights here and settle things with the Duchess.
I swung my sword at the rushing knights.
At the same time.
Balea sat on a rock, leisurely watching the village.
She was extremely relaxed.
There was no way anyone in such a small territory could match Alex.
Although the Duchess, who was said to have been exiled here, was using a strange mental-type ability, Balea had heard that Alex had defeated her before, so she wasn't particularly worried about that, either.
It was a pity, of course, that she couldn't enter the village with him, but simply traveling together like this brought her no small amount of joy.
He didn't seem like he would leave her because he was weak like her father, and unlike her father, he treated her preciously. There could never be another person like him.
And with the civil war keeping both the Princess and the Grand Archduchess busy, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to spend time alone with Alex.
As she waited happily, lost in such thoughts, a sudden pounding sensation struck her head.
Whoom.
Balea stood up.
The village had changed. People were running toward the mansion, weapons in hand.
Anxiety, worry, and apprehension filled her mind.
Then she heard a voice calling to her from the direction of the village.
"Young Lord Alex?"
It was clearly too far away for sound to travel, and it wasn't even Alex's voice, but Balea didn't realize that.
She simply couldn't hold back and ran toward the village.
Just like the other villagers.
"Damn it."
I had knocked down all the knights, but curses spilled from my mouth.
My head kept throbbing painfully.
I knew why it hurt so much, too.
It was because of the mana flowing out from the mansion.
That mana that bewitched people.
Thanks to my Mana Resonance blocking it, I was able to remain sane, but it couldn't stop the headache.
"If I weren't used to pain, I might have been rolling on the ground, clutching my head..."
Frowning, I walked toward the mansion.
I could clearly see where the mana was coming from.
The attacks continued even after I entered the mansion.
A maid rushed at me with a fire poker, and an old man who appeared to be the butler tried to stab me with a pair of scissors.
There was even a chef who lunged at me, holding a kitchen knife in each hand like a dual-wielding swordsman.
It seemed all the mansion's employees were throwing themselves at me.
Since I couldn't kill all the brainwashed people, my progress was bound to be slow.
Still, I knocked down the attackers one by one and managed to approach the source of the mana.
I passed through a hallway decorated with beautiful paintings and sculptures and stood before a door adorned with a bright pattern.
I grabbed the door with both hands and flung it wide open.
"Die!"
Inside, I saw an elderly man stretching his hand out toward me.
My vision went dark for a moment. At the same time, I sensed murderous intent from the side.
I drew the dagger at my waist and swung it toward the source of the murderous intent.
Crack.
With the sound of a blade shattering, my vision cleared again.
The old man who had reached out to me had collapsed on the floor.
"Ah..."
Where I had swung my dagger, a young man stood holding a broken sword, staring blankly at me.
And behind the fallen old man, there she was.
The person who had killed me first after I was born into this world—and the person who had killed me more times than anyone else—was sitting on the sofa in the drawing room.
Although she had changed a lot since before, I recognized her.
Maria de Gracia.
She was definitely the second Duchess, who was said to have lost her ability to the Duke.