Waiting (13)
"Ah, aah...."
She could not say a single word.
Already, in Robert’s mind, visions of the worst possible future Valdes had described were swelling and blooming like dark smoke.
There were the many monsters in the other laboratory. There were the lowly, bottom-rank demons under Valdes’s command. Both were things she had already seen more than enough of.
In dungeons, on battlefields, in laboratories, in mage towers.
That was precisely why she could imagine it so vividly. It would be a nightmare for her, of course.
"Pwahahaha!! Look at that face. Now that’s what I’m talking about!!"
Seeing Robert’s face twist and rot completely, Valdes laughed crudely. It was the sort of behavior he had used back when he was still a mercenary, but for mocking her, it fit perfectly. Besides, the thought of telling her the final future still made him feel even more entertained.
"What’s with that face? I haven’t even told you the fourth and fifth yet, have I?"
"……."
Even now, the homunculus looked like she was seconds away from dying, and Valdes went on with his explanation.
"Fourth. I’m going to take everything from you."
"……."
Still no answer.
From her point of view, everything had already been taken away.
She had lost her magic and, with it, her past. She had been forced into a body she had never wanted, her present stolen from her; and as a woman, her future had been held hostage. With that alone, Robert was already nearly beyond recovery. What she had built over decades had come crashing down.
"Why do you already look like you’ve lost everything?"
But Valdes wanted more than that.
"You still have grandchildren, don’t you?"
"?!"
Robert was not blessed with particularly good looks. Even so, she had been able to marry. No matter what she looked like, there were more than enough nobles who would gladly seek the child of a man of her standing, a tower lord. She, too, had entered into a political marriage, taking a bride who looked like the best of the lot.
The child they had produced died during the war, and his wife later passed away of old age. But there had been a grandson and granddaughter who inherited his blood strongly and showed outstanding talent in magic. She had not been a good grandfather, but neither had she been so cold as to dismiss them entirely.
Then, at the mention of the trace of the great archmage even Robert herself had not recalled, she shouted.
"W-why...!! Why would you do that!!"
"Why? Because I’m going after your bloodline?"
Looking at the woman glaring at him with bloodshot eyes, Valdes sneered.
"Look at your reaction. It’s effective, isn’t it?"
"...!!"
"The great archmage is so worked up she can’t even speak properly. That’s plenty enough for revenge, don’t you think? Still, don’t worry. I’m not planning to kill them or anything. Your grandson and granddaughter... I’m going to make them very, very happy."
"That’s nonsense!! Do you really think revenge and happiness can coexist—!"
"Of course they can. Because the thing is...."
His eyes, full of mockery and contempt, swept over Robert’s body once more.
No matter how he looked at it, it was an exquisitely made body.
"Fifth."
"...?"
"This body of yours... it’s exactly your grandson’s type."
"...!!!"
"...You’re insane."
Even Vilma was forced to stare in shock at those words Valdes tossed out with a laugh. She even swore out loud without meaning to. That was only natural, because she had been the one who had modified the face and body of the homunculus Robert was inhabiting.
Startled by her own words, Vilma snapped her head to the side and looked at Valdes, but he paid the curse from beside him no mind at all. He himself thought this was not a normal method, after all. Even Irena, when she heard it, had shown a faint trace of disgust in her eyes. He still remembered that clearly.
"Y-you, you, you...."
"I’ll keep your identity a secret from your grandson."
"You think I’ll just sit there and take this—!"
"Then what are you going to do?"
"That’s...."
Her mouth, which had been spilling rage so furiously, came to an abrupt stop.
There was nothing Robert could do.
For Valdes, it was enough to succeed only once at the beginning. After that, Robert would never be able to tell her grandson anything. If she let even one wrong word slip, her grandson might go mad. And even if that didn’t happen, he would still be shocked beyond the limits of what most people could endure. Robert had no confidence at all that her grandson could bear the truth.
"Hmm. Anything else you want to tell me?"
Valdes’s attitude was entirely calm as he stood before his enemy, writhing in a swamp of despair she could never claw her way out of.
Robert, who had been dreaming only of a hopeful future, never knowing a thing. Even if she had once been a great archmage, she was already finished the moment she went to sleep without realizing an enemy was aiming for her. The dungeon had been exposed, and that was the end of it.
Valdes understood that perfectly, which was why he considered her the easiest revenge target he had ever handled. It was not over yet, but she was already beyond recovery. All that remained, in his mind, was bringing in a subordinate to manage the dungeon in Vilma’s place.
If there was anything that worried him, it was only that Robert might have a total mental collapse before he could make his move in the empire. She had reached the highest realm as a mage, so losing mana probably would not crush her will completely, but even so, the future waiting for her was no ordinary thing.
That part would have to be handled with some care and a few prayers.
"Well, looks like there’s nothing else."
"……."
Robert gave no answer.
She no longer had the strength even to vent her rage.
Silently, she lowered her head beneath the story of despair, then despair piled upon despair.
"Hah. Three down already."
Leaving behind one last sneer, Valdes turned away from the fallen archmage.
The number of revenge targets he intended to deal with personally came to a total of eleven.
Five were former comrades who had directly participated in his death: the warrior Marc, the mage Robert, the saint Claudi, the dwarf paladin Luciano, and the elf archer Angelina.
Six had influenced his death directly or indirectly: Queen Beatris of Ulsro, the emperor of the Dezac Empire, the dragon of the Union Republic, the leader of the Three-Region Alliance, the traitorous demon, and finally the goddess herself.
Of those, revenge on three had already been completed.
One had been forgiven and taken as a lover, one had been utterly broken, and another was still in progress, though in truth the rest would be little more than toying with the dead.
But there were still eight enemies left.
"Nice."
Valdes grinned broadly.
Eight remained.
There were eight people left on whom he could pour out his revenge to his heart’s content. Most of the plans for them were already finished. Even the one whose position had been ambiguous had nearly had his identity pinned down. There was one especially troublesome target, but he did not worry about that.
He had no doubt that someone like the goddess, whose entire job amounted to handing down oracles for the appointment of heroes, would be incapable of doing anything meaningful.
"Vilma."
"Y-yes."
The boy, with a frozen expression and a smile twisted to one side, spoke.
"Send in the monsters."
"...Yes."
Even if Vilma had a naive, foolish side, she was not stupid enough to ask questions in a situation like this. Sending them in would simply mean locking them together in a larger prison, and as for what kind of monsters to bring, she guessed she would have to decide that on her own.
Unbelievable....
The mage shivered at the faint creep of fear running down her spine and glanced back at the contractor’s figure.
Just one look was enough to make the chill in him palpable. More than any other side of him he had shown so far, this felt like the true face of a demon prince—and of a demon. It might be prejudice, but to her, a black mage, that was exactly how it felt.
She had been surprised when he first said he would put Robert’s soul into a female body. But the fifth future he revealed as Robert’s destiny was truly beyond anything she could have imagined. How could a mind come up with something like that?
What was even scarier was that the emotion Valdes was showing now was not relief at having achieved revenge. It was regret that there were still enemies left, and dissatisfaction that he had done so little so far. From her point of view, the Valdes before her was a clear monster.
And yet, at the same time, she was glad.
He is ruthlessly cruel to his enemies, but endlessly attentive to what belongs to him. For a ruler, that is the finest possible quality.
Vilma’s eyes sparkled.
The form Valdes was showing her now was exactly the kind of ideal leader she had in mind. She was very glad it was he who had become her contractor. And she believed that if it was him, he would truly make her wishes come true and bring down the emperor.
For her, the emperor—her father—was an object of both love and hatred.
A cold-blooded iron ruler to everyone.
And that included his own family. She did not even hope for her father’s affection. But she could not tolerate the way he intentionally drove wedges between siblings and stirred up conflict. Vilma had no doubt that the emperor was the single greatest obstacle to reconciliation with her younger sister.
In that sense, Valdes’s attitude made her heart tremble.
With faith and expectation.
"Um, Valdes-sama."
"Hm?"
As Vilma called him cautiously, Valdes’s face had already turned calm and unreadable.
"Aren’t you going to watch?"
"Watch? That? Why would I?"
"……."
"It’d only be a waste of my eyes. What about you? Want to look?"
"Hmm... honestly, I don’t want to."
She smiled bitterly.
Vilma was angry at Robert too, but nowhere near to the same extent as Valdes. And even if twelve years had passed since she had been presumed dead, the memory of Robert’s older, uglier face was still vivid in her mind.
No matter how beautiful Robert might be now, if she had to see that wicked thing, her imagination would probably run wild all over again. Even beyond that, she had once admired the man, in her own way, so she felt a little pity as well. Or maybe it was because she had just heard what fate awaited her.
"Then should I seal it off completely...?"
At Vilma’s question, the boy shook his head.
"I don’t want that kind of thing carved into my precious head, but I’d still like to hear the sounds, at least."
"Oh, I understand!"
Having pried out everything she needed to know, Vilma quickly disappeared toward the monster experimentation lab.
Left alone, Valdes entered a nearby research room and casually leaned back in a chair.
Then he closed his eyes quietly and sank into thought.
Vilma. Wilhelmina de Dezac.
Setting aside her unusual personality, she was an excellent talent. Her bloodline as the First Princess was more than enough as a pretext for swallowing the empire whole. Her loyalty could be solved for the most part simply by giving her the thing she wanted, and the rest could be handled with a stigma and a lower body to wrap around her.
Her magical talent was one he would call a rare genius without hesitation. Even taking into account that she was a black mage, there were hardly any peers who could match her. The problem was that little word hardly. Unluckily for her, there were two people around Vilma who were younger than she was and yet even greater geniuses.
The Fourth Princess, Theresia Dejac.
And Robert’s granddaughter.
Both girls were disciples of the current tower lord and possessed talent approaching Robert’s own.
The only one unlucky enough to have been born at the wrong time was Vilma.
Of course, Vilma did not dislike the two girls she was close to like sisters. But the world around them would not leave them alone. For the sake of the next emperor’s seat, the empress and concubines had driven the half-sisters apart, and the emperor had deepened the rift. The current tower lord, too, was obsessed with politics and favored only his own disciples.
Thanks to that, the genius girl magicians had been trapped inside the boundaries the imperial family had created.
This was the part that made Valdes certain they would not come to the Holy Kingdom. Without them, there was no young mage who could defeat Vilma. And if there was one, then he would remove that opponent by any means necessary.
Honestly, meeting Vilma was heaven-sent.
He was savoring that joy in silence when a woman’s scream began ringing in his ears.
"A... a... th-this is insane!! No matter how you look at it, a minotaur, a minotaur is too much!!"
No, no... where are you taking me, y-you bastards, aaaaaah!!
What, what? There’s... another one?
Stop it... stop!! I’m not a doll—kyaaaahhh!!
No, not there... I, I’m a man...!!
K-kah, kuhk... k-keh, kheuk, ku, kuuuuh....
St- stop... stop putting it in... cough.
N-no more... I can’t take any more.... This, this isn’t something a human can, ugh! a-accommodate—hek!
Haa, haa... th-this insane body... how, cough... if you’re going to modify it, nghh! y-you’re even putting it into the chest...
Huh? Huh? Huh? I-it’s mov—uk, mm?!
Kyaaaaaaaah!! It hurts!! It hurts!! It hurts so much—!!!
Stop!! Please stop!! Ngh...?! U-ugh... cough!! A-ah, aah, ugh, ugh, stop, please, this, this isn’t—
My stomach hurts. My stomach is being pierced.... It’s being pierced, you crazy bastards, aaaaah!!
H-hah, hek, heuk.... S-shit, shit, shit.... I’ll kill you all. I’m going to kill every last one of you, you goddamn, goddamn mutt—huh? W-wait.... What are you doing, what are you doing!! That’s, that’s really not right!! I’ll die, I’m seriously going to die, you crazy bastards!! That hole is...!!
"How does she still have the strength to stay angry? That’s fascinating."
She had seemed to be floundering in despair, but the moment a real monster appeared before her, her energy had come surging back. Of course, from the words and screams drifting over, it did not seem as though that would last very long. The fact that the supposed monologue from someone who would never receive an answer was steadily fading while the screams grew more frequent made that obvious enough.
"Hmm... she gets bored faster than I expected. Maybe I should go over my plans."
Having grown tired already, Valdes rose again and started heading upstairs.
He thought he might sleep especially well tonight.