Ventorino Kingdom - Seed of Discord (3)
Late at night, a lone figure slipped quietly out of the royal castle.
Despite his massive build, he moved with such practiced ease that not a soul noticed him as he melted into the streets. He had only thrown a robe over himself, yet no one paid the hulking man any mind. With quick, light steps, he avoided the crowds and made for the pleasure district.
Even there, amid the lewd atmosphere and bright red lights, the man strode straight toward one particular establishment without the slightest hesitation. Thanks to the enchanted robe, not even the touts or the whores tried to approach him.
That was how he entered one of the three or four brothels he visited whenever stress piled up.
Even if it was called a brothel, it was an upscale place that nobles sometimes frequented as well. He rotated among a handful of such houses, but he had been there many times, and he even knew the owner.
Before joining the Hero’s party eighteen years ago, that owner had been a bandit, then a mercenary, and was now an underworld gangster.
Once he reached the building, the king of this country, Marc, removed his robe.
“Ah, welcome!”
He was wearing a mask, but since he always wore the same one when he came to the pleasure district, one of the employees recognized him at once and greeted him warmly. The staff did not know he was the king, only that he was a friend of the brothel’s owner.
“Where’s Double-Knife?”
“The boss is inside right now.”
“Take me to him.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the employee said, Double-Knife was in his office, counting money.
“Boss! Your friend is here!”
“Hm? Ah, he’s here? ...You can head out.”
“Yes, sir!”
Once the employee left, Marc removed his mask. For a man as broad as he was, the mask was a little small even for his face. Still, it was a special mask that made impersonation impossible, so he kept wearing it anyway.
“Long time no see, huh? I hear the princesses from the neighboring kingdom are in town. Is it really all right for you to come to a place like this?”
“......”
At Double-Knife’s joke, Marc’s expression turned vicious in an instant.
“Hey, hey. I’m kidding. Just kidding. Still, your timing’s good. I got in a pretty decent girl not long ago.”
“...Fine. Just take care of it for me.”
“Hahaha. Got it! Go on and wait in your usual room!”
Marc turned his back and left the office, cursing the man under his breath.
They had once been comrades, but never friends. That much remained true now. Double-Knife clung to Marc, who had become king, hoping to wring some benefit from him. He had been a bandit once, after all, so he was not exactly a man of refined character; naturally, he preferred to be the master of the back alleys instead of some noble lord.
Marc acknowledged the need for the underworld, and since it was useful to have someone he knew there, he had given Double-Knife a little support. Of course, he never let the man gorge himself on power and seize the back alleys outright.
He did not worry about Double-Knife learning his shameful secrets. A gang of that size could be crushed with little effort if he truly tried, and Marc knew all about the man’s crimes—he even had the evidence. Unless Double-Knife wanted to bring about his own ruin, he would not be stupid enough to do anything rash first.
An excellent girl, huh? That bastard’s standards aren’t very high, so I’m a little worried.
Meanwhile, Double-Knife was glaring at the door Marc had left through.
“That son of a bitch is worse than a dog. He sold me out, and now he’s got the nerve to show his face again.”
It had happened only a few days ago.
Some bastard of a man and a few women had shown up, torn his organization apart, and forced him into submission. He had tried to resist—he was old enough, and his temper was shit enough that he couldn’t help himself—but somehow they knew every crime he had committed, both past and present.
In the end, he had bowed his head to survive, but that did not mean his hatred had vanished.
The only person left in the world who knew about his past was Marc, so naturally his rage had turned toward the king. It might have seemed strange, since those people were also aiming for Marc, but he did not care.
I don’t know what those bastards are planning, but I hope you get yours too!
Completely unaware that some invisible hand was already reaching toward him, Marc sat in a soundproof room reinforced by magic, drinking and eating snacks as he waited for a woman.
Gulp. Gulp. Gulp... “Hah...”
After downing a strong drink, the door opened and three women appeared.
He knew only two of them by sight. Marc immediately realized the third was the new girl Double-Knife had mentioned—the supposedly excellent one. In fact, even if all three had been unfamiliar faces, he thought he would have known at a glance which one the gangster had meant.
“Ho.”
Her looks and presence were that striking.
Her short hair, falling just below her ears, made her look almost like a boy at first glance, only for the soft swell of her chest and her cute features to correct that mistake. Even without that, there was no way a man could wear such a sultry smile. The strange balance of her pretty face and that inexplicable sensuality made him keep looking at her.
It was not just her appearance, either. The atmosphere she carried drew his attention as well. In the pale light of her hair, the girl seemed almost aristocratic and elegant, as if she might have been a fallen noble. No—perhaps she looked like royalty. Come to think of it, she vaguely resembled that princess too.
Isabel Ventorino...
The princess of the former dynasty.
That was what kept him from looking away.
“...What’s your name?”
“Hm? We’re...”
“No, not you lot. Her.”
Marc cut off the courtesan he already knew and pointed at the nameless girl.
“Hello, my name is Rachel.”
The girl smiled.
“My name is Rachel.”
Rachel Ventorino.
She swallowed the words she wanted to add and continued.
“It’s an honor to serve someone as distinguished as you.”
Calm down. Not yet.
It was strange.
Though this was surely the first time she had ever looked at him properly, Rachel instinctively understood that he was her father—and her enemy. The former came from his oddly familiar face; the latter from the rage boiling up in her chest for reasons she herself could not fully explain.
Rachel sat down immediately to Marc’s right. The other two courtesans filled the remaining seats, but Marc’s gaze never left her. Fortunately, he did not seem to notice that she looked like him.
As expected, it was all thanks to Irena unnie.
Of course, the most important part of this plan was making sure no one discovered what was really happening, so every possible precaution had been prepared.
She wore a necklace and ring that blurred perception just enough to distort her presence, had herb dissolved into the alcohol to make it turn quickly in the body, and finally, Irena—who was secretly lurking and watching from the shadows—wrapped the room in a faint enchantment of seduction. Unless someone deliberately looked for them, the various other traps hidden in the room would be hard to notice.
Now... now it begins.
As she poured more liquor into Marc’s glass, Rachel recalled what had happened recently.
Just before they reached the capital, she had asked Valdes the same question she had once asked Yueli in the witch’s house. But he had shaken his head. Not because it would be useless, but because he wanted her to spare her body a little more.
When she had said that she did not mind whether she was a virgin or not, Valdes had instead devised a plan for her.
A plan that would drive Marc into even greater despair and humiliation.
Rachel had accepted it, and Valdes’s party had raided the back alleys of the capital to prepare it.
They had attacked every brothel Marc was known to frequent, one by one, and summoned the owners to break them as well. Fortunately, most of the establishments belonged to a single man, so the work had been finished quickly. Somehow, Valdes had uncovered all of their weak points and used them to pressure the gangsters.
This was the result.
No matter which place Marc chose to visit today, Rachel would be the one waiting for him.
Judging by the fact that he can’t take his eyes off me, it was worth all the trouble.
Until very recently, she had been so gaunt she looked as if she had not eaten in days.
To fix that, Rachel had worked herself ragged, training and enduring until Marc arrived. With a succubus who specialized in temptation and a spiritist bound to an ancient spirit both at her side, she had been turned into something more like a proper person, a proper woman.
Of course, Irena and Yueli had invested far more effort than she had, but pain was essential if they wanted rapid change in a short period of time. Fueled by nothing but the revenge her mother had planted in her heart, Rachel had shed no small amount of blood and sweat and endured it all.
“So, Rachel... why did you come here?”
After rambling on to himself for a while, Marc finally asked the girl a question.
At his words, the other two courtesans looked surprised. They had met Marc many times and even slept with him, but the man never asked questions. He only complained about his lot in life and cursed the people around him—people they did not even know.
He had asked a few things before, but as far as they knew, this was the first time he had ever shown any interest in a courtesan’s circumstances.
“Me? Heeheehee. Why do you think?”
“......!”
Has this bitch lost her mind?!
The other courtesans, unaware of the circumstances, were flustered, wondering what kind of disrespect she was showing the boss’s friend, who ought to be treated with the utmost care. But Marc did not get angry. If anything, he seemed to ponder her answer seriously.
“...Debt, then?”
“Something like that. No, I think that’s right. My mother’s debt.”
“Yes, most courtesans probably come here because of debt. Then you’re a fallen noble, I assume?”
“Mm... something like that too. I mean, my family fell apart before I was even born, so it doesn’t really feel real to me.”
“That happens a lot. I’m a fallen noble too.”
As expected, Marc found even that comforting.
The impression he had formed while thinking of Princess Isabel had already faded away. In its place was an inexplicable familiarity, a sense of closeness he could not explain. Though this was surely his first time meeting the girl, he felt strangely glad to see her. The relief he should have felt from family, he was instead seeking from a mere courtesan. He found the irony amusing, but since he was the king, he told himself he could not help it.
Marc and Rachel drifted off into a world of their own, leaving the two women around them behind.
“I don’t know why that woman is always like that. Even this time...”
“Ahhh, that must have been hard for you.”
Usually, it was that sort of exchange: Marc complaining, and Rachel chiming in. The other courtesans had done the same thing before, but for some reason Marc found Rachel far more sincere.
Time passed, and Marc kept drinking. Strong as he had once been as a member of the illustrious Hero’s party, without proper training now he was little more than a middle-aged man with a decent build.
Gradually, the alcohol took hold, and as always in this place, his lust began to rise.
“Heh heh heh... tonight, thanks to you, I’m in a very good mood...”
Driven by instinct, the king reached out and tried to grab the courtesan sitting beside him by the ass.
But then.
Tap.
“......?”
“......Wow, she really is crazy...”
Rachel’s hand slapped his arm away.
The sudden turn of events left Marc staring at her in a dazed silence. But Rachel only shook her head as if to say she had not made a mistake.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not that cheap.”
“Wha, what?”
“I can’t give my virginity to someone I only met for one night.”
“Ha, ha...”
He had been about to ask whether touching her ass wasn’t enough, but he stopped himself. This was a brand-new kind of courtesan. Still, perhaps because his affection for her had already built up, he did not feel offended or angry. If anything, he found it amusing.
“...Virgin, huh. So you’re a virgin... How can I make you give your body to me?”
“Come here often.”
“Come here often?”
“Yes. Come here often and show me your face, and tell me your stories. Then... someday, I’ll let you have my body.”
“......”
What a ridiculous thing to say.
For a mere courtesan to refuse to give her body, then ask him to come often. And then to talk about someday allowing it, as if that made any sense at all.
If he had been a noble, or at least a knight instead of the king, those words would have been nothing short of insolent.
“All right.”
And yet he accepted it.
“I can’t come every day, but I’ll visit as often as I can.”
To find out the reason for this strange sense of intimacy growing in his chest.
“Really? Well, that’s a relief.”
As Marc looked at the smile Rachel gave him, he smiled back.
Not knowing the slightest thing about who she truly was, or what she was really thinking.