Duchess Maria (3)
Duchess Maria (3)
I grabbed the sword embedded in Balea's stomach.
Balea stared blankly up at me.
"Bear with it for just a moment."
"I'm already trying my absolute best to bear it."
At my words, Balea pouted.
Fortunately, she seemed all right.
I pulled the sword straight upward and out.
I had thrust it in while doing my best to avoid damaging her vital organs, but that didn't mean she hadn't been wounded at all.
Blood gushed out in spurts from the wound left by the blade.
I laid the other sword at my waist against Balea's body.
As I gripped the hilt and channeled mana into it, the bleeding quickly stopped.
Then the pain contorting Balea's face began to ease.
Her wound had healed.
Indeed, this sword was truly worthy of being called a proper Divine Sword.
After confirming that Balea was healed, I glared down at the sword that had pierced her stomach.
This sword was also a national treasure of the Kingdom, one that fell little short of a Divine Sword, but its efficacy seemed somewhat lacking.
If it granted mental immunity, how nice would it be if it worked just by being nearby? To think it only took effect when pressed directly against the body.
And restoring someone else to normal required pushing the mutated mana through the sword and into their body.
In the end, that meant you had to stab them.
It was a method where simply killing them would have been a hundred times easier.
Even I couldn't have pulled it off if I hadn't possessed a Divine Sword with healing abilities.
"What is this?! I absolutely, utterly detest you bastards!"
The enraged Maria—no, the Duchess—screamed.
Once again, mana raged violently inside the room.
Startled, I hurried to put the Knight's Sword in Balea's hand.
But Balea refused it.
"You need that sword too, Young Lord. It's all right. I can hide myself as well."
Lying on the floor, Balea activated her ability.
Gulp.
Once again, the floor rippled.
Then Balea's body sank beneath it.
She submerged directly into the floor, vanishing completely from sight.
I sheathed the Divine Sword at my waist and gripped the Knight's Sword in my hand.
Although the room was filled with the Duchess's mana—no, her ability—I no longer felt a headache.
"No, you cannot run away. Both you and Andres must suffer."
Watching Balea disappear, the Duchess sat back down in her chair and babbled incoherently.
Yet, contrary to her words, her actions were swift. She stood up and raised both hands.
"I can't take this anymore. I must turn you into my servant first."
I tried to stop her sudden move, but unfortunately, the rushing torrent of mana was faster.
Rumble.
The mana gathered in the room, along with all the mana spread throughout the entire village, surged toward me.
It was all mana mutated by the Duchess—mana designed to brainwash people.
Good grief.
She had gathered all the mana that had brainwashed this entire village—no, this entire basin—to attack me.
To think she could pour this entire ability onto a single person... I drew up my mana to its maximum, bracing for the impact.
"This is the power I prepared for Andres! Now he will never be able to reject my love. No, no one can ever reject me!"
Rumble.
As the colossal wave of mana pressed against me, I was pushed backward despite myself.
One step, two steps.
As I was pushed back, I tilted my head in confusion.
I had braced myself for pain and brainwashing, but I felt surprisingly fine.
Forget brainwashing; I didn't even have a headache.
Instead, the sword in my hand was glowing faintly.
The sword had been draining my mana continuously for a while now.
I decided I should take back my earlier judgment that it was worse than expected.
I couldn't speak for anyone else, but it absolutely protected whoever wielded it.
At the same time, the sound of people collapsing echoed from outside the window.
Plop, plop.
It wasn't just the sound of one or two people falling.
All the territory folk surrounding the mansion were collapsing.
The mana that had been controlling them had vanished.
Even though she had drained enough mana to make all the residents collapse just to attack me, I remained completely unaffected.
The mana was so dense that I could feel it clinging stickily to my skin, yet my mind remained as clear as ever.
Now, even my movements were no longer hindered.
I closed the distance she had forced me to put between us, then took another step toward the Duchess.
"This is impossible! Do you have any idea how I obtained this power? I stole my younger brother's mana to reconnect and recreate my severed ability!"
At the Duchess's words, I looked over at the young noble, still slumped on the floor with his broken sword in hand.
I had wondered why a noble would launch a surprise attack with a manaless sword instead of using his ability. Now I had my answer.
I didn't know what method she had used to revive her ability, but it seemed that her brother's mana and ability were required.
What kind of method could it be?
My curiosity flared up again, but I had no intention of looking into it now.
Still, to think she had gained such immense power simply by stealing her brother's mana. It was hard to believe.
"And do you know how many people I devoured to nurture this power...? There is no way this shouldn't work!"
The Duchess's words brought to mind the empty houses I had seen when entering this basin not long ago.
They were houses whose inhabitants had vanished over a long period of time.
In the end, everyone who had lived in those houses had died at the Duchess's hands.
She probably hadn't literally eaten them, but the Duchess had undoubtedly committed acts practically no different from that.
It was an atrocious, heaven-defying crime, but it didn't sound particularly shocking to me.
Considering the number of people who had died because of her, my own record wasn't exactly clean either.
Gripping my sword, I approached the Duchess.
I had already made up my mind.
I decided not to think about ethics or the aftermath right now.
She could no longer be allowed to live.
As I drew near, the Duchess recoiled in terror, her face pale.
"No, n-no... It shouldn't be blocked."
It wasn't me the Duchess was afraid of.
She was staring at her own mana, which was currently enveloping me.
I couldn't comprehend her expression. And even if I could, I had no intention of stopping.
The Duchess kept backing away until she was pressed against the wall, and I stopped right in front of her.
"No, please. Stop!"
The Duchess was in a state of complete panic.
It felt almost silly to cut her down with a sword.
But I couldn't just leave her be.
I gripped my sword tightly once more, but I couldn't swing it.
This time, too, the Duchess's mana was faster.
The mana that had been enveloping me rushed back into the Duchess's body.
Since it couldn't affect me, it was only natural for it to return to its master, but its movement was bizarre.
Instead of returning to where it had come from, the mana forced its way into the Duchess's head as if it were attacking an enemy.
Twang. Twang. Twang.
Sounds like snapping strings kept echoing from inside the Duchess's head.
"Ugh. Save... save me."
Foaming at the mouth and rolling her eyes back, she shrieked in agony.
It was shocking enough to make me take a step back instinctively.
After screaming like that for a while, the Duchess stopped moving.
Unfortunately, she wasn't dead.
The mana enveloping her head had vanished, and I could no longer feel any mana from her body, yet the Duchess was breathing evenly.
But her eyes were completely vacant. Even her deep wrinkles had almost disappeared.
Her blank face showed absolutely no trace of intelligence.
She wasn't dead, but she was no different from a corpse.
As I stared blankly at the Duchess, a voice spoke from behind me.
It was the voice of an old, exhausted man.
"That child has received her punishment. There is no need to heal her."
Even without the old man's words, I had absolutely no intention of healing her.
I already knew who the old man was.
The old man who had collapsed on the floor was Viscount Ibiza, the Duchess's father.
After the Duchess withdrew her mana, the unconscious Viscount had finally awakened.
It seemed that the Duchess's brother and the collapsed villagers would all regain consciousness in due time.
"Did the Duke of Gracia send you?"
Fortunately, there was no need for a separate explanation.
The Viscount had heard the conversations even while he was living as a puppet.
"When my daughter first returned home, I resented the Duke, but it turned out that wasn't the case. How did my daughter turn into such a monster...?"
The Viscount might not have known, but his daughter had become a monster a very long time ago.
But there was no need to say such things here.
Staring at his mindless daughter for a moment, the Viscount placed his hand on her head.
Then he channeled mana into his hand.
"Rest in peace."
The mana seeped into the Duchess's head.
The Duchess's expression, which had been staring blankly into space, softened peacefully.
It was the face of the Duchess I had seen in the past. That look of hers had seemed as beautiful as an angel's.
Only at the moment of her final breath was I able to see that face once again.
Thus, the Duchess drew her last breath at the hands of her own father.
It was a pity I couldn't kill her with my own hands, but it wasn't a bad outcome nonetheless.
Still, there were many strange aspects to this incident.
The fact that she had recovered her ability, and that she had died by her own mana, were things I had never witnessed before.
There was no way the Duchess could have known how to restore her ability on her own.
It clearly meant someone had helped her.
But this wasn't the time to ask such questions.
The Viscount's territory was already ruined beyond recovery.
His only remaining son had lost his ability, and less than half of the territory folk remained.
And the surviving territory folk were also a problem.
As I had expected, the awakened residents regained their senses.
Since the knights hadn't been killed either, they all drank potions and ended up confined to their beds.
But both the awakened residents and the knights harbored an immense amount of rage.
Their families, friends, and neighbors had been killed by the lord's daughter.
Even if she had done it to increase her power, no one would sympathize with that as an excuse.
On top of that, they themselves had been forced to live as puppets for years.
As it turned out, they remembered every single moment of their time as puppets.
It was only natural for them to be furious.
If the Viscount hadn't been the lord and an awakened noble, the residents might have started a riot.
No, they were holding back for now, but it felt like they might rise up someday.
At the very latest, once the lord grew old and died, his son, who had lost his ability, would surely be unable to protect this territory.
But none of that had anything to do with me.
Before the other knights could arrive, I left the territory with Balea.
As I was leaving the mansion, the Viscount spoke to me.
"Before my daughter recovered her ability, a robed person came to visit. He was a man whose age was difficult to discern. After hearing about my daughter, he asked to speak with her for a moment, so I allowed it..."
This was his answer to my question about whether anything had changed before the Duchess regained her ability.
At the Viscount's answer, a conversation I had heard before came to mind.
It was what the Crown Prince, the son of the Grand Prince, had said.
He had said that the person who bestowed the ability upon him was also definitely a man whose age was hard to discern.
'Sage of Awakening.'
Though the time and place were different, that story continued to weigh on my mind.