Ventorino Kingdom — Negotiations (6)
"Cheer up a little, Vice-Captain."
"……."
"How many days has it been now? The commander’s been dead for five days already. It’s about time you—"
"Shut up."
"...Haa, do what you want. But if the commander were alive, he wouldn’t want to see you like this."
"……Get lost."
Creak—thud.
Jurina, vice-captain of the Royal Guard, had become a shell of herself over the past few days.
More precisely, she had been a wreck for the five days since she confirmed the death of Heik, the man she loved. No—she was still a wreck now. She’d locked herself in her home and done nothing but drink. She hadn’t even gone to the joint funeral two days ago. If she saw Heik’s corpse there, she’d have no choice but to accept that he was really gone.
"...What am I supposed to do now...?"
She no longer knew what to do, or how to do it.
The great hole torn open in her chest felt like it was swallowing everything—thoughts, memories, even her will to live. Her head was empty. Her heart was empty. In the midst of that overwhelming loss, she had even thought about following the commander into death.
"Drink... Let’s just drink some more..."
And if she wanted to forget even that sense of loss, alcohol was the perfect tool.
Jurina lifted the bottle on the table and brought it to her lips, only to frown. Nothing came out. She shook the bottle lightly, but not a single sound answered. With a small sigh, she pushed herself to her feet to fetch another bottle.
"Ngh...!"
But after only a few steps, she staggered and sank to the floor.
"Haa, fuck..."
Compared to humans of similar level, beastfolk were supposed to have stronger tolerance for alcohol. And yet Jurina was so drunk she could barely keep her own body pointed in the right direction.
"Kh... Hah..."
She braced a hand against the floor and tried to rise, but no strength answered her. When even her desperate effort failed to produce the slightest sign that she might stand, she grabbed the nearby table and hauled herself up instead.
"Fuck, I’m going to die here... Hm?"
As she muttered bitterly to herself, a single torn sheet of paper caught her eye.
It was the code she had copied down—the one Heik had left behind before he died.
"Ah..."
Tears began to well up.
Her vision, already blurred by alcohol, grew hazier still. Her eyes—once praised by the person she loved for being bright and cheerful—filled with tears.
"Damn it..."
The Royal Guard’s duty was to protect the royal family, and like any specialized force, they had their own secret codes. This was one of them. The problem was that it couldn’t be deciphered. Not because she didn’t know how to read it, but because the code Heik had left behind had been written with no meaning at all.
"Why... why would you write something like this, Commander... If you had the time, you could’ve at least left a last message..."
Of course, she understood that was impossible.
At best, it had only been three characters. He probably hadn’t had time to write a long farewell.
"Why... whyyyy... ...Why? ...Seriously, why...?"
A weak spark of awareness flickered in her alcohol-drowned eyes.
Why had the commander bothered to write three meaningless characters?
She thought about it.
He’d had too little time to leave anything behind, but he still wanted to leave proof that something had been left. If he’d only written one or two characters, it might look like he’d simply run out of strength halfway through, or else she might miss it altogether. So he’d made it three. Jurina, who prided herself on knowing her beloved commander better than anyone, came to that conclusion.
"Commander... was there something... there? Something you wanted to leave behind...?"
She had been the first to arrive at the scene and found Heik’s body. After that, she had tried to kill the two unconscious Dark Elves who’d been bound there. She didn’t know whether those two had personally killed Heik, but at the very least they had contributed in some way. And even if they hadn’t, they were demons all the same.
But she’d cried over the body for too long, and by the time she realized it, the others had already arrived. In the end, they had restrained her and taken away the chance to do what she wanted.
For Valdes, it had been a tremendous stroke of luck.
"What... what was there...? Did you learn something from the demons? Or maybe..."
Convinced that Heik would never have left such a thing behind without reason, Jurina’s eyes—those of a beastman who had lost the person she loved—began to burn with hatred and a thirst for revenge.
"We’re here."
"Thank you for guiding me."
"Not at all. I’m simply honored to guide the Hero."
"Haha..."
"Then I’ll take my leave for now..."
The prison door closed, and Valdes let the tense expression on his face fall away as he looked inside.
Beyond a specially reinforced wall that looked as though dwarves had made it, he could see the Dark Elf twins, Shurette and Shurti. A dividing wall stood between them, meaning the cell had likely been built for two from the start. It was probably soundproofed thoroughly as well, and their mana was sealed too, so they likely didn’t even know the other was right beside them.
"Well, I guess Shurti isn’t even awake anyway."
Valdes muttered as he stepped up to the wall. Even with his liege’s voice right in front of her, Shurette did not react. He was more impressed by the cell’s quality than he’d expected to be.
Judging by Shurette’s quiet demeanor, the cell wasn’t only blocking sound—it seemed to be suppressing presence itself. To think it could stifle the instincts of a highly trained spy and assassin to this degree. He silently admired the prison’s craftsmanship and opened the door.
"What kind of torture is it today—ah."
"I’m here, Shurette."
"You have arrived, my lord."
Only after the door opened did Shurette realize who he was and hurriedly try to kneel. But the dozen or so chains attached to her body made the movement awkward.
"Ugh. I’m sorry to greet you like this."
"I should be the one apologizing. You’ve had a rough time, haven’t you?"
"Not at all. This much torture is nothing compared to the shit that bastard Eldrif did... Ah, s-sorry. I said that without thinking..."
"You’ve got a lot bottled up. Swearing’s fine. Don’t worry about it."
Valdes smiled and unfastened every chain binding her body.
He had the royal household’s full trust thanks to what had happened five days ago—trust from the king, and even from the jailers. Because of that, he’d been able to obtain the keys without any trouble. In fact, they’d handed them over so readily that he’d briefly wondered if there was some trick behind it, but after checking, there wasn’t.
He’d also managed to get permission to question her alone. The guards had only laughed and told him to be careful not to overdo it, so the treatment would be easier later. They’d mistaken his intention, assuming he didn’t want others to see how brutally he handled interrogations. Since there was no need to correct them, he had simply smiled at them in silence.
"How’s your body?"
At his question, Shurette moved her limbs a little and tested herself.
"I’m in good shape."
"Good. Then let’s go."
"Yes, my lord."
Valdes and Shurette stepped out of the cell.
It wasn’t an escape attempt. If that had been the plan, there’d have been no need to be captured in the first place. The reason Shurette had let herself be taken was to feed false information—convincing false information—to the continent’s side. After all, information that came from a prisoner would naturally seem far more credible than something from a demon traitor.
They needed to make a convincing show of interrogation, so they had to stay here for a while. And during that time, Valdes intended to do something else as well: subdue Shurette’s twin sister, Shurti.
Erase Eldrif’s existence completely from her mind. That was what Shurette wanted. She had said she didn’t care what method he used. That was how deeply Eldrif had been carved into Shurti’s psyche.
So Valdes decided to use a slightly more forceful approach.
"The drug should be wearing off soon, right?"
"Yes. Even so, she should stay asleep for at least another day. ...Unless we give her this."
Shurette crossed into the adjoining cell and looked down at her still-sleeping sister, then produced a pill from between her teeth. It was a hidden antidote she’d been keeping tucked neatly against one molar.
"Shall I give it to her now?"
"Not yet. I’ve got one thing to do first."
"Understood."
Like he had with Shurette moments ago, Valdes approached Shurti, who was tightly bound in chains. The younger twin had been put to sleep for five days by the drug her sister had fed her. He lifted her top and brought a hand down to her lower abdomen.
"Are you planning to carve a Mark into her?"
"Yeah. This seems like the safest option, and the most reliable."
"I understand. I’ll assist you."
Shurette didn’t ask a single question about why he was carving the Mark, or what he intended to do with it. She simply helped him faithfully.
Wooooong—
Valdes forced his mana into Shurti’s body. Her frame jerked in resistance, but it was a meaningless struggle. When Shurette began massaging her sister’s body, kneading her muscles with practiced hands, even that resistance gradually faded.
"Oh, that’s interesting. You said it’s been that way since birth?"
"Yes. Eldrif told me that our mana resonates with one another, calming both body and mind, and affecting us in various ways."
"Hmm. Because they’re twins? Or maybe there’s some other reason... I’d like to study it sometime."
"If my lord desires it, I would gladly serve as a research subject."
"Probably after the war, though."
It was an intimate conversation, wholly unsuited to what they were doing and what they were about to do. Yet Shurette’s voice carried a deep trust in Valdes. That was why she could help him carve a Mark into her own sister.
"But you’re really not going to ask until the end?"
"...I think it would be pointless."
"Well, I suppose that’s true. You asked me to erase Eldrif from your sister’s mind, didn’t you?"
"Yes."
"After I looked at her last time, it seemed like ordinary magic wouldn’t do the trick. But I didn’t want to drag it out slowly for too long, and if I tried to do it quickly, I was worried about side effects."
Psychic magic was infamous for one thing: the side effects were proportional to its usefulness. That only made sense. It was a matter of tampering with a living being’s mind, with the brain itself—the most unknown territory in the body, far less understood than any other part. There had been plenty of people left as hollow shells because of badly cast mental magic.
Valdes possessed astonishing talent and skill, but even he avoided using mental magic whenever possible. If he did use it, it was only at a very mild level—enough to stir emotions, or suppress them.
But in his view, Shurti would need something far beyond that.
For more than ten years, she had undergone mind training that was little short of brainwashing under Eldrif.
As a tool rather than a person, as a dutiful subordinate, as a lowly being, and as an eternal slave.
It wasn’t for nothing that Shurette had asked him to erase those memories by any means necessary. She knew her sister wouldn’t be able to live normally otherwise, and that was why she had remained silent while Valdes carved the Mark.
"So you’re planning to use the Mark as the medium."
"Exactly. That seemed like the best option in several ways."
"I see. Th-then... I’ll be in your care."
Seeing Shurette’s shy expression, Valdes smiled faintly.
"Of course. It’s the request of our precious intelligence chief, after all."
It wasn’t long before the Mark was complete.
After confirming the vivid pink Mark carved into Shurti’s lower abdomen, the two of them gave her the antidote. The effect was swift. In less than twenty minutes, her eyes flew open. And the instant she saw them, she bared her fangs in fierce resistance.
"The enemy of my masterrrrrr—!!"
Her voice thundered through the specially forged metal chamber.
Her emotions escalated so quickly that veins stood out at the corners of her eyes. If not for the chains binding her body, she would have lunged for his throat without hesitation.
Valdes snorted at the Dark Elf’s fury and laughed at her.
"Your master?"
Then he stepped out of the cell for a moment and returned with something he had prepared in advance.
"You mean this?"
"……!!"
It was Eldrif’s head.
Severed by Valdes, though the outside world had been told Heik was the one who’d cut it off. Eldrif was now nothing more than a head.
That had been the last of the three things Valdes had been granted permission to bring in before entering the prison.
There were several reasons Ventorino Kingdom had kept Eldrif’s head. It was meant as a warning to the demons, and among other things, it was to intimidate any demon prisoners they had captured. That made this easy enough to approve as well.
"A-ah, m-master... Master... sob..."
The moment Shurti saw the head he’d thrown to her, she burst into tears and began to wail. She could not even stretch out her arms to clutch it, and tears poured down her distorted face.
"……."
"Hey. What are you doing?"
"……?"
"Wow. You’re getting drenched in tears and still managing to keep your face together."
Valdes spoke in that strangely detached way of his, then strode up to Shurti and crushed Eldrif’s head beneath his boot.
"Aaaahhh!! You fucking bastard!! Where—!! Where is Master’s heeeead—!!"
"You’re not answering? Want me to split his head in two too?"
The head of Eldrif, and Eldrif alone, slowly opened his mouth.
"...H-how... did you... know...?"
"!!"
"W-wha...? M-master...?"
The two Dark Elf twins were stunned beyond belief by the fact that he was still alive. It was something neither of them could have imagined. No matter the race, when a neck was cut, you died. Yet in defiance of such simple logic, Eldrif was still alive.