BAD ENDING: Northern Grand Duchess Sonya's New Life 2/5
BAD ENDING: Northern Grand Duchess Sonya's New Life 2/5
"Traveling across multiple worlds... sometimes comes with risks."
Sonya agreed with those words. After all, it was obvious.
"In the past, I had an excellent bodyguard to prepare for such situations, but..."
Sonya sympathized with these words.
Because losing someone is a sad thing.
And the other person was making a sad expression as well.
A metallic bracelet that looked extraordinarily refined.
When he pressed a square plate embedded there instead of a gem, a blue hologram video the size of a palm floated up.
A video heavily filled with noise.
But even Sonya could recognize it to some extent.
Inside the video stood a female knight with a build similar to Sonya's, wearing silver armor that also looked similar.
Her eyes were completely empty, and her movements were unnatural like a doll, though.
The voice heard when speaking beyond the video. The voice of the person standing right in front of her right now could be heard.
**
**
[...Unit 05, damage to power section confirmed due to external impact. Determined unrepairable.]
[Regrettable, but in accordance with Asset Protection Protocol, disposing of said unit. Afterwards, planning to search for a new vessel.]
'Is this the end of the record recorded in the magic tool...?'
The stranger bowed his head as if trying to hide his sorrow.
"...The bodyguard I worked so hard to secure passed away while trying to save me in an unforeseen accident..."
"...I am truly sorry for your loss."
The Northern Archduchess didn't understand everything, but she still offered her condolences with a sincere heart in her own way.
Sonya blamed the strange sense of discomfort she felt from the female knight's empty eyes in the video merely on the video quality.
He aimed for that exact moment.
From the very beginning.
"How about it, Young Lady? If it's you, I feel like you would be more than enough to fill that empty spot."
His voice was sweet like honey.
"With a beautiful, strong, and noble warrior like you, no danger would be scary."
"Would you not travel the unknown among the stars with me? I will show you wondrous worlds you couldn't even imagine."
The offer was impossibly enticing.
Although his way of speaking still felt like reading a book, as if he were a real theater actor...
Even so, if one were an adventurer—no, any ordinary human—it was a dreamlike opportunity nobody could refuse!
However.
Sonya shook her head.
"If it were a different situation... I would have considered it seriously. I am sorry."
Sonya's gaze was as clear and solid as the night sky of the North.
"I swore to protect this North where I was born and raised with my life."
"I am currently carrying out that oath as well."
"I am a knight who does not break promises. I am truly grateful for your offer, but I cannot accept it!"
Pride and honor.
Sonya clearly expressed her intention to decline while revealing the values she cherished most.
'Kheu... This is it! Isn't this the very paragon of a knight?'
While she was soaked in self-satisfaction, thinking about how splendid her answer was and how it would become an anecdote worth bragging about to people in the future...
'I got another story to boast about to the heroes who visit next time!'
After all, it wasn't like she had done anything bad.
At that moment, the emotion that appeared on the stranger's face was far from disappointment.
It was the extremely cold and satisfied smile of a hunter who succeeded in driving prey into a trap—or by the standards of the people here, of Sonya, someone closer to a Black Magician.
'As expected of a top-tier vessel. The stronger the self-awareness and the higher the pride, the thrill when broken down and the depth of submission are beyond imagination.'
With that thought being the last, no more 'text' was entered.
The stranger slowly put down the massive black backpack behind his back.
After opening the zipper, he reached his hand inside.
The movement was slow yet deliberate.
Just like a priest taking out tools to place on an altar before conducting a sacred ritual.
Even if that slowness was a calculated slowness fabricated to lower the vigilance of Sonya, the Northern Archduchess.
That was all that was happening right now.
The Northern female warrior was currently in a state where she had lowered her sword.
Sonya, who until just a moment ago had been swept up in a subtle emotion blending shyness and pride at the stranger's words lavishing praise upon her.
Before Sonya could even compose those feelings, the scientist raised a small sphere he took out from the backpack behind his back right in front of Sonya's eyes.
"What kind of object is this?"
Mismatched responses.
Mismatched timing.
The result was irreversible.
What burst out from the sphere was not an explosion, but pure light.
Although it wasn't a flash so intense that it would blind the eyes...
"Eo...ra...?"
The moment that suspicious flash touched the golden eyes of the Northern Archduchess even slightly.
"Ah...?"
The nervous system dominating Sonya's entire body screamed all at once and stopped functioning.
A brief groan.
That was the last sound Sonya could utter.
Perhaps the last line... text Sonya could speak as the Northern Archduchess.
As if Sonya's body had frozen in accordance with the cold North, she hardened right on the spot.
A sensation on a completely different dimension from freezing to death exposed to extreme cold.
'Th-this... this is... th-this is...!'
Her consciousness was perfectly intact. And vividly clear at that.
But. Not a single command sent from her brain to her limbs was delivered.
A terrible sense of helplessness, as if only her soul remained while her body had turned into a perfect stone statue.
Sonya became trapped in the prison that was her own strong body.
"I am truly sorry."
Scientist. Researcher. The voice of the person who had expressed himself with such words was... calm.
Putting the sphere he had just used back into the backpack, he spoke with an atmosphere as if apologizing for a minor mistake.
Though his actions and tone of voice were merely proving that all of this was not an accident, but a thoroughly planned affair.
[It seems I gave Young Lady the grave misconception that you had a 'choice'.]
"...?! ...!!"
Sonya's golden... blue... eyes blazed with shock and fury.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to roar that she would crush this rude stranger's head right this instant.
Having thought so ten times over, all Sonya could do was glare fiercely at him with her lovely golden eyes.
If only she had been a little more cautious.
If only she hadn't overtrusted her trained body.
If she at least hadn't fallen for his deceptive praise and lowered her sword.
Flames of regret flared up inside, but it was already spilled milk.
['Orb of Paralysis'... That seems to be what it is called in this world. Is that not so?]
As if trying to satisfy the curiosity of the frozen Sonya, the scientist kindly continued his explanation.
[It is an artifact that temporarily and completely paralyzes the motor nerves of all living beings in the vicinity except for the user.]
"An entity with strong physical resistance like you will break free soon... but that 'soon' is time enough for me."
A plan containing clear intentions...
The scientist kept rummaging through his backpack.
He pulled out two additional items and set them down in front of the immobile Sonya.
One was a liquid contained in a transparent glass bottle. It was a blue slime that looked highly viscous.
The other was a strangely shaped helmet embedded with purple crystal lenses that slightly covered only the front of the eyes.
Sonya, drawing upon every last drop of her fading consciousness, understood that the name of that item was a 'visor', but...
"It is a 'Mental Synchronization Device'. It is used very usefully to 'recruit' new bodyguards whenever needed. When? Just like right now."
Even so, nothing changed.
"Eeu... eut...!"
'Just like right now.'
His words were the signal.
The scientist wore a cold smile as he approached Sonya holding the purple visor.
Sonya resisted desperately.
She tried to twist her body by applying force to the muscles of her entire body, but she couldn't move even a single finger.
Sonya felt the object called a visor press lightly against the front of her eyes.
And the sensation of a cold piece of metal locking into place behind her head at the cervical spine with a 'click' sound.
She could only helplessly feel it all.
Next, the other person opened the lid of the glass bottle containing the blue slime.
Without a moment's hesitation, he poured the cold, sticky slime over Sonya's armor, down between her voluminous cleavage.
"Heub...!"
At the touch of the cold liquid against her bare skin, Sonya's body trembled unnaturally.
'It's... not a slime?'
This was not a substance that flowed down along gravity.
It also began to move on its own like a living creature... but it wasn't a monster called a slime either.
While covering Sonya's chest thinly and uniformly, it paused for a moment around her nipples...
And turned into an even deeper blue.
The name of this substance wrapping around her firmly erect nipples in such a manner was latex.
As much as the expression 'shape memory' was attached in front of it...
The remaining slime flowed down along her navel, stopping after drawing an intricate pattern over Sonya's lower abdomen and pubic area.
It also looked like a brand asserting ownership of a slave... an object.
The scientist's finger pressed firmly into Sonya's thigh covered in slime.
Unlike her stiffened muscles, the soft fat layer yielded to his finger, indenting inward.
The other person muttered as if satisfied.
[An excellent vessel. The ratio of muscle to fat is perfect. With this level of elasticity, the synchronization rate with the nanomachines should be top tier as well.]
[Do not worry. The brainwashing won't take that long. On the contrary, I assure you that once this process is over, you will feel much better than you do now.]
Having finished checking her state, the scientist left his back defenselessly exposed to Sonya as he went back and sat where the campfire had been.
Just like an audience member at a play, if someone were watching this process, as much as possible into a corner so as not to get in the way,
quietly in a location unlikely to appear on screen or in the scene.
He prepared to enjoy the 'show' about to unfold from now on.
[Well... from now on, you will see the world as I desire. Soon, you will be begging to become my personal bodyguard anyway.]
"...! ...!"
Sonya squeezed out her last remaining strength.
Of course, what came back was merely the unpleasant warmth emitted by the metal plate attached behind her head.
Soon after, accompanied by a sharp pain as if her entire head were being pierced by tens of thousands of needles, a sensation of something being forcibly stirred inside her brain began.
First of all.
The landscape before her eyes blurred.
White snow, frozen trees, the remaining embers of the campfire.
Her short-term memories of where she was and what she had been doing were wiped away.
Teong.
The sensation of her mind being emptied blank.
It was terror itself.
The terror was not long.
After a few minutes passed, the thoughts that had disappeared slowly began to return.
Could the returned thoughts be considered Sonya's thoughts?
The thoughts newly filled into the emptied space were, how should one put it...
Unfamiliar, yet felt like a truth so completely obvious and irresistible.
"...?"
What surfaced first was an incomprehensible question.
'I... no. I—'
**
**
'Why did I resist the offer to become that great person's bodyguard?'