Ventorino Kingdom - Downfall or Capture (19)
“…….”
The king clamped his mouth shut. In this instant, he had no idea what expression he was supposed to wear, or even what he was supposed to feel. Everything had gone hazy; everything was rattling his mind apart. The moment he had feared most, the one he had never wanted to face in his lifetime, had finally arrived.
Delphasis.
It was a word he had not heard in a very, very long time.
Ever since this nation had established its new dynasty, no one had spoken of it—his origin, his root, the source of it all.
The boy who had brought it up could only be Pedro. Not merely because he had mentioned that old family name. Every single thing about him was warning Marc that this was Pedro: the expression, the tone, the posture, the aura, and more. His mind strained desperately, trying to prove that Valdes could not possibly be Pedro.
And yet, at the same time, he could painfully feel how meaningless that struggle was.
Marc finally spoke.
“Why... how are you alive...?”
For once, Rachel—the very girl who had been throwing him into confusion until a moment ago—did not even cross his mind.
Only one thing mattered now.
How had he survived that absolute signal of death? And how had he ended up with a body like that?
Valdes answered his question obediently, in the same tone he had always used before.
“That was your mistake. You brought the whole castle down to kill me for good, but that ended up being exactly what let me live. In the brief moment while you were all escaping, I ran to the Demon Realm.”
“That’s impossible!!”
It was an answer Marc could not make sense of.
They had expected him to escape the castle as well, which was why they had divided the area and thoroughly watched the collapsing ruins from every direction. They had few people, but their preparations had been perfect. Not only on the ground, but in the sky and underground as well.
It was a surveillance net that blocked every angle. To slip past their eyes from that place should have been impossible unless there was a traitor among them. More than that, it would take several days to travel from the third fortress to the Demon Realm. It was not a wound a human body could survive while carrying that kind of journey on its back.
“So there was a traitor after all....”
“What? Puhahaha!!”
“…….”
“Are you trying to make me laugh to death, Marc!? The traitors are you people—!!!”
At that savage shout, Marc flinched.
From the way the boy stared him down, eyes wide and feral, it was obvious how furious he was. The body trembling with barely contained violence looked as if it might lunge the moment Marc let his guard down.
“Hah.”
But Valdes calmed almost immediately. He had no intention of killing Marc with his own hands right away, and there was still far too much left to say.
“You probably don’t believe me. But I could do it. I used spatial magic.”
“...What? What are you saying...?”
“I’m a genius. Surprisingly, not just with the sword, but with magic too.”
“…….”
“And... I was suspicious of you all along. To be honest, I wanted to believe you more than anything else... but look at how things turned out. Of course I’d keep a few trump cards hidden.”
Marc’s pupils shook violently.
It was a chain of statements he could not possibly believe. Pedro was alive, had become a demi-demon and taken the name Valdes, could use spatial magic—something even ordinary mages found extremely difficult to handle—and had used it to cross a distance that should have taken days in an instant. And yet, if it had not been something like that, he would not have survived at all.
Their preparations had been that thorough.
“T-the Grand Magus... Manuel didn’t notice...?”
“That was your mistake too. Or rather, maybe Manuel’s mistake? You installed too many magic circles in the fortress, so he didn’t even notice the faint signs of spatial magic.”
“…….”
Pedro—no, Valdes—patiently answered every one of Marc’s questions.
It was not simply because he was kind or generous. He was only drawing Marc’s eyes and attention toward himself. Marc was so consumed by Valdes that he could not notice anything else, and beyond Valdes’ line of sight, the women hidden by Irena’s magic were already moving.
One of the spells a succubus was especially skilled at: illusion magic.
It was not Irena’s specialty, but she was still a succubus, and that meant she was fairly proficient with illusion and mental magic. Added to that were the various magical concoctions Rachel had been made familiar with, and Marc had been dragged deep into a false reality.
The fragrance he had noticed the moment he entered the room had been part of the potion as well.
Through it, he had happily chatted with the illusionary Rachel and humped his hips away with far too much enthusiasm, never once realizing that Valdes had already taken a seat behind him.
Unfortunately, the real Rachel had never entered the room in the first place, which was why her presence had not been sensed. Still, everything the fake Rachel had said had indeed been words Rachel herself had spoken. Right beside Irena, who was controlling the illusion, Rachel had supplied the lines she was supposed to say.
“It’s ready.”
And now it was time to take all of the illusions away.
“Ready...?”
Marc sprang up from the bed, only to freeze in a posture that was clearly meant for retreat. He happened to be half-undressed below the waist, making the sight horribly pathetic, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Setting aside the fact that he had no weapon at all, he had not been able to devote himself to martial training for a long time. He had kept up with physical conditioning whenever possible, so there was still some muscle left on him, but his combat ability was miserable. Even among the countless demons, there was no way he could compare to Valdes, who had once saved the royal family.
Wait. Among demons... don’t tell me?
Marc realized something, but he had no time to continue that thought.
That incident back then too...
Snap.
“...Huh?”
With the sound of a finger snapping, the scene before him appeared.
The arrival of three women made Marc go rigid.
It was a moment of shock that surpassed even Valdes’ identity—perhaps even more than that. Not only did they have no business being here, but the postures and expressions they wore were completely beyond his comprehension.
“W-what... you...?”
“Well, because this gentleman...”
His wife, Katarina.
“Our...”
His illegitimate daughter, Rachel.
“Master♥”
His daughter, Clara.
“...What?”
The words that came from the mouths of the family he loved—and the daughter he had newly gained—overloaded Marc’s brain completely.
“……”
Valdes smiled in satisfaction as he watched Marc’s face go blank with utter confusion. It was not exactly pleasant, but it was the kind of expression that pleased him nicely. However, Marc’s despair had only just begun.
“Ah, I’m having so much fun that I don’t even know what I should say first, or what I should do first. I definitely thought about all sorts of things ahead of time, but... I can’t remember half of them anymore.”
“Uh...”
“This really must be what revenge is supposed to feel like. Just the pleasure building up inside me is on a completely different level from when I dealt with Bess.”
“B-Bess...? Bess? Beatris?”
“Yeah, that’s right!”
“...Right. You... came here with the Ulsro Kingdom’s delegation.... Hah, come to think of it, this whole conference was that woman’s idea from the start.”
Marc let out a hollow laugh.
He was not stupid, and he knew Valdes reasonably well. They had once been comrades, after all. Valdes might have hidden plenty of things from him, but there had been even more that he had not hidden. That was why Marc had already figured out that Valdes had been behind most of what had happened recently.
“You’ve made... a lot of preparations, haven’t you.”
“Of course. It’s the former hero’s long campaign of revenge. A revenge drama for the continent—and the world. Better than charging in like an idiot, isn’t it?”
“Keh...!”
Valdes was mocking him.
In any battle, Marc had usually been the one at the front, leading the charge first. And yet, when it truly mattered, he had always taken a step back and only watched from a distance. Just like when the former dynasty of the kingdom had been wiped out.
“Heh-heh-heh, this is really funny. Not just your face either. I never understood why villains always explained everything one by one in the end, but now I get it perfectly. It feels amazing to have someone dancing in the palm of your hand...”
“...Those kinds of villains... always end up getting what’s coming to them.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s true enough. But... what exactly can you do here?”
“……”
Slowly, his eyes began to move from side to side.
Marc’s gaze drifted away from Valdes and toward the people around him—the three women who had shocked him so deeply, clinging to Valdes and surrounding him from all sides. His damp, heavy eyes, unlike his build, settled on one woman in particular.
“Katarina...”
Unexpectedly, the first person to catch his eye was his wife, Katarina. He had thought his love for her had already cooled because of all their conflicts, but it seemed that had not been true.
Perhaps, even now, she had been the one person he still trusted. Though he believed his own love had faded and that even if Katarina strayed, some part of her would still love him deep down. That was why the sight of his wife hit him all the harder.
Even after seeing the pitiful look in her husband’s eyes for the very first time, the queen snickered and mocked him.
“Oh my? What’s with that look?”
“……”
“Didn’t you already know? That I... was cheating on you with Valdes, hehe.”
Katarina smiled seductively and pressed herself even closer to Valdes on his right.
Perched on the bed and rubbing her sensual body against a boy who still looked only a little older than her son, she was far too coquettish to be called a husband’s wife and the mother of two children. It was not just the flirtatious pose; her clothing only made that impression stronger.
It was a half-naked outfit that exposed this and that, something Marc had never seen before. And yet there was no doubt her clothes had not been made to cover her body, but to seduce a man. And if her husband was not the intended target, then the answer was obvious.
“T-that’s... N-no, but you clearly...!”
“You believed that?”
“W-what...?”
Katarina sneered.
“After all, you never trusted me, did you? You kept doubting me until the very end.”
“……”
“I’m not going to blame everything on you. I also... had my own faults.”
At her words, which seemed to carry a twist, a flicker of color returned to Marc’s face.
“Then...!”
“But.”
“……”
“It’s already over.”
“Ah...”
“Compared to you, I already prefer Valdes-sama’s... huge cock. By a lot♥”
The wife who had boldly declared her adultery in front of her husband puckered her lips toward the man she was cheating with. Valdes responded in kind, turning his head and sharing a deep kiss with Katarina.
“Mm, ngh... ahh, uh... chuup, chwap, churuup...♥”
Once you stripped away the outer shell of a young mistress and a boyish young man, their kiss was nothing less than the adorable, intimate kiss of two lovers. The kind shared when a couple who had been dating for years finally began pressing their heated bodies together.
“Ahh... n-no, nooooo...”
Marc was crushed by the emotions contained in their kiss.
His legs lost all strength, and before he even realized it, he had collapsed onto the bed.
Despair and fury surged up from the deepest part of his chest, but for some reason his body would not move properly. It would not take strength. The successive waves of monstrous shock were wrecking him from the inside.
“Hah, ngh... haa...♥”
After a kiss that felt like ten years had been compressed into ten seconds, Katarina’s body gave a shudder and she wore an expression of bliss.
“Marc.”
“……”
“Your wife’s kisses are amazing, huh?”
“...!! You fucking bastard...!!”
His body had gone limp like that of an old man, but Valdes’ words, delivered with a sleazy grin, stabbed straight into his heart. Marc tried to shove himself up and charge, fueled by the fierce fury that boiled up from the depths where a volcano, resting only a moment ago, was now spewing lava once more.
But the attempt ended in futility.
He froze.
“Keh! W-what the hell...!!”
“Wow, you can’t even handle this much mana pressure? You really have gotten pathetically weak.”
“B-bastard, I’ll ki—”
“Say whatever you want. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to stay right there and keep watching and listening. To us.”
Marc strained every muscle in his body, trying to move. But the tremendous pressure crushing down on him from all sides did not allow even the slightest motion. If anything, it pressed him harder. Then, as though that still was not enough, it forced his body—already pitched forward—backward and slapped him down flat onto the bed.
“Ha... ha...”
He let out a hollow laugh.
Even now, he had once been a swordsman who had stormed all the way to the Demon King’s castle. That was why he understood it. The absolutely impossible gap in power between himself and Valdes.
He had become strong again, just like he had eighteen years ago—no, far stronger than he had been back then.
“Still, shouldn’t you be getting this worked up over only this much? I’ve still got plenty more to show you. Right, Katarina?”
“Yes, Valdes-sama...♥”
Valdes’ hand naturally slid onto Katarina’s breast and began kneading it. The boy’s hand, thrusting without hesitation into the sheer, translucent lingerie she wore, openly toyed with those enormous breasts as though they were his to claim. And Marc’s wife accepted it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Ahh...♥”
She even let out a languid, sensual moan.
Marc, who now seemed to have aged by more than ten years in an instant, turned his eyes next to the bottom of the bed, where his daughter was kneeling between Valdes’ legs.
“Clara...”
“Hehe, sorry, Dad♡ I... just love Master’s cock too much♥”