Waiting (17)
“Uuugh….”
Jurina opened her eyes.
As a dull ache pulsed through her stomach, she calmly looked around.
“Where am I…?”
What she saw was a place she knew very well. It was none other than her own bedroom—the one assigned to her by the knights’ order. She had only been living here for a few days, but because she had found it strange that there was a dormitory set aside for poor knights from the provinces, she remembered the layout exactly.
“……”
And yet, for some reason, Jurina felt an odd sense of déjà vu.
As if something like this had happened not all that long ago.
The difference was that back then, when she’d opened her eyes, she had been in an inn; the one who had knocked her out had been the Demon Prince, Valdes; and the first person she had seen after waking had been Princess Mari. But now, everything was reversed.
“You woke up later than I expected.”
Valdes, seated beside her bed, said it as casually as if they were discussing the weather.
“Why…?”
Jurina answered in a trembling voice.
She couldn’t make sense of anything.
Why was Valdes sprawled so comfortably beside her—especially in her room of all places? Why were shackles clamped around her wrists and ankles, anchoring her to the bed? And why had the last thing she seen before losing consciousness been Ethylene’s fist driving into her stomach? Finally, why had Mari been standing there smiling right beside her?
Nothing added up.
But Jurina was intelligent.
Her mind raced, and she reached the answer quickly.
“You… you fooled me from the very beginning.”
She realized that Valdes, Mari, and Ethylene had all been in on it together from the start.
“That’s right.”
“Ha!”
In disbelief, she nearly choked on her own frustration.
“……”
Unable to rise because all four limbs were bound to the bed, Jurina could only turn her head and glare at Valdes. Her sworn enemy—the man who had killed the person she loved, toyed with the royals she served, and even tried to kill her as well—was right in front of her, and yet she could do nothing.
No, even if she hadn’t been bound, there would have been nothing she could do. It had been that way all along. She had survived only by relying on her enemy’s paltry mercy, waiting in secret for a chance. And she hadn’t even realized how pointless that had been.
“What exactly are you after?”
“Hm?”
“You’ve toyed with the Ulsro Kingdom, and now you’ve even reached into the Ventorino Kingdom. Add the Demon Realm to that, and you’ve got twenty-five percent of the continent in your hands.”
“Pretty much.”
Valdes gave a small nod at her words.
There were countless islands at sea, but none of them amounted to large landmasses near the continent. Even when added together, all the surrounding islands scarcely amounted to one-hundredth of it. That was why islands were ignored when measuring territory.
The largest, the Dezac Empire, occupied about forty percent. After that came the Trident Alliance and the Union Republic, at roughly eighteen and fifteen percent respectively. The Holy Kingdom held barely two percent of the continent’s total landmass. Thanks to that, the Church of the Goddess and the papacy wielded far greater influence over the continent than the royal family ever could.
And the remaining twenty-five percent was the combined size of the two kingdoms and the Demon Realm. It still didn’t surpass the empire, of course, but it was far from ordinary.
“And yet that’s still not enough for you? Don’t tell me you mean to swallow the entire continent.”
At the horse-beastman knight’s combative question, Valdes smiled faintly.
He neither confirmed nor denied it, but the fact that he didn’t look surprised was answer enough for her. Silence could be interpreted in different ways depending on the situation, but here, anyone could see it was the former.
“You’re insane.”
“Think whatever you want. But listen.”
He paused, then lifted a hand and stroked Jurina’s forehead. She twisted her body to avoid his touch, but with her restraints in place, there was only so far she could go.
“My influence has seeped into far more places across the continent than you realize.”
It wasn’t just spies. Across the continent, things prepared according to his plans were scattered everywhere.
The other nations were rather underwhelming compared to the thoroughly prepared Ulsro and Ventorino, but it was still better than having nothing. More than that, the fact that the continent itself knew nothing about it only made it more frightening.
“……”
Jurina silently stared at the ceiling.
She had blurted out her anger for the moment, but in truth, she didn’t care that much about whatever scheme he was weaving across the continent. What mattered was that because of it, the man she loved had died.
“Was it really…?”
“Was it really?”
“Did you really have to… kill Lord Heik…?”
Faced with her sorrow-filled question, Valdes answered without a trace of concern.
“Heik? Who was that?”
“…!!”
“Ah, was that the captain of the guard who died in Ventorino? Come to think of it, you were chasing after me because of him, weren’t you?”
Jurina ground her teeth.
How could he forget his name? Even if she hadn’t killed him with her own hands, it was still the name of the captain who had died, dragged into his filthy scheme. And on top of that, he had exposed himself to her because of it, kept her alive, and brought her all the way here.
“Son of a bitch.”
“Sorry, but that kind of language doesn’t even count as cursing to me. Still, well… Captain Heik’s death was necessary.”
“……”
“It’s hard for some random half-demon commoner who isn’t even one of the native people to become a hero all on his own. And if both of us had stayed alive, the spotlight would’ve been too scattered. I might even have ended up buried in the noise. So I needed a dead hero. Unfortunately for him, he was the one who got the role.”
Jurina wanted nothing more than to scream every vile insult she knew at Valdes then and there.
Unfortunately, she had never been especially skilled at cursing to begin with. Even if she hurled whatever came to mind, it probably wouldn’t hurt him much. More likely, she would just end up making herself even angrier.
For now, she had to keep as calm as possible. Even if she had to bite her lip until it bled.
“I have something I want to know.”
“Ask whatever you want.”
“Why did you save me? Why go to the trouble of using Princess Mari to make me misunderstand things and drag me all the way to this country? And why are you suddenly revealing all of this now? I… I don’t understand.”
Seeing no way to escape, she decided to wring as much information as she could from Valdes for the time being. If she found a chance to get out, she intended to run straight to the empire or the Church of the Goddess without ever looking back and tell them everything she had learned.
Usually, clever villains became especially careless at moments like this. And from what she could tell, Valdes would be no different. Just like in that alley earlier.
“Why?”
Valdes let out a snort. It was pure mockery.
“There isn’t one.”
“What…?”
“No real reason. I was just killing time.”
“W-what…?”
“I saved you because I thought it would be fun. I tricked you because I thought it would be fun. But I got bored. So I told you.”
“……”
The knight couldn’t say a word.
Nothing came to mind that she could possibly say in response. She was so stunned her mind seemed to go blank. All the things she had worried over on her own had been rendered worthless in an instant.
“You, you… just what the hell….”
“Ha-ha. What, did you think there had to be some grand reason? Sorry, but you’re really, truly a pathetic little thing. I don’t have any special grudge against you, and I don’t need you for my plans. Nor are you important enough to stand in my way. You just got lucky—no, unlucky—enough to catch my attention, so I played with you for a bit. You hiding in that alley? Of course I knew.”
“Ha… ha-ha….”
Her brutal reality came crashing down.
A single tear rolled down Jurina’s cheek. It felt as though everything she was had been denied at once. And yet she couldn’t honestly deny his words.
Overwhelming helplessness pressed down on her entire body. Could there be anything more pathetic than this? Jurina thought there probably wasn’t. It wasn’t merely because she couldn’t do anything. It was that even if she did try something, it still seemed like it wouldn’t affect Valdes—or the future of the continent—at all.
“Kill me.”
“Huh?”
“I said kill me, you fucking half-blood bastard.”
Jurina shot him a glare full of hatred and rage, as if she had given up on everything. Her words were brutally rough as well. And what she wanted was her own death.
“Nope.”
“Fuck, just kill me already!!”
“Why would I do that?”
She began thrashing on the bed, enough to make her shackled wrists and ankles flush red. If the knights’ dormitory walls weren’t well insulated, the noise would have been enough to draw someone from the next room. But Valdes remained maddeningly calm as he toyed with her.
“I may be bored of you, but I still put in a lot of work, so I can’t just kill you.”
In truth, Mari and Ethylene had done especially much of the work, but work was work.
“The more subordinates I have, the better. And besides, I looked into you a little.”
“Don’t make me laugh!! Like hell I’d ever become your subordinate! Kill me right now!!”
“There are some people in your family who might prove useful.”
“Quit fucking around and hurry up…!!”
“Especially your aunt. She’s the commander of the Council Knights, isn’t she?”
“?!” Jurina was shocked.
Even among the Ventorino Royal Guard, which she had once served alongside, no one knew that much. The only one in Ventorino who knew was Heik. And it wasn’t as though there were many people in the Union Republic who knew her either.
Her hometown was not in the Union Republic but in the Ventorino Kingdom. Her aunt had also come from the same place. Most of the details about her had been kept secret in order to conceal the fact that the commander of the Council Knights was originally from another nation. This was not something ordinary intelligence gathering could ever uncover.
The Council Knights.
A martial force tasked with protecting the federal parliament where the upper and lower councils of the Union Republic were seated. Since it guarded a place that housed some of the most important people in the country, its status was on par with the personal guards, royal guard, or knight orders of other nations.
And being its commander meant, in Ulsro Kingdom terms, she was the equivalent of Serenia. In practice, too, her rank and position were nearly identical, even if she lacked an official title.
“H-how did you find that out…?”
“There are ways to know everything.”
“Hmph! A-and so what if you know that? You think you can hold my life hostage and make my aunt do something for you? It’s useless! My aunt wouldn’t be swayed by something so petty as personal sentiment….”
“We’ll see about that. And I’m not planning to do the same thing a hostage-taker would, either.”
Valdes’s hand slipped beneath Jurina’s top. As the hidden softness of her body was exposed, she gasped and thrashed violently, but only she was the one who suffered for it. The specially made shackles didn’t just suppress mana—they were also incredibly sturdy.
“Kuh!! Hands off!!”
“Hmm. Beastmen really are fascinating, aren’t they? How can the animal traits differ so much from one beastman to another?”
His fingers traced the smooth curve of her stomach, so sleek it was hard to believe she was a beastman at all, as he murmured to himself.
There were a few traits all beastmen shared, and a few others that were common within each tribe. Beyond that, however, the degree to which those traits manifested varied from beastman to beastman. Some were covered in thick fur like wild animals, while others were the opposite—like Jurina.
“Let go of this, this thing! …Damn it!! Damn it!! You bastard—!”
“Haaah. You’re really noisy.”
The Demon Prince’s cold gaze swept over the fragile body of the horse-beastman woman.
He wasn’t angry because of the swearing. It was just irritating how loudly she kept shouting. Her voice was high-pitched too, grating on the ears.
“Want to know how I got my hands on those two kingdoms?”
“…What?”
“I’ll tell you now.”
Valdes moved his hand to Jurina’s lower abdomen.
Then he used magic.
Since the first one he had marked on Vilma several months ago, he had already inscribed Stigma upon more than ten women. It was still too early to call himself fully skilled, but he had become quite familiar with it. Valdes deliberately moved his mana more strongly and more quickly in order to stimulate her.
“Kyah! Ah, hngh! Hh… hyang…! A-ah? Wh-what is th—hyk?!”
Jurina twisted violently at the incomprehensible pain and pleasure surging up from her lower abdomen.
She was used to pain from harsh training, but she had never become used to the kind of mana rampaging inside her body now. And mixed in with that was a pleasure so intense it kept dragging moans from her throat. She was utterly flustered. But before she could even form a proper question, the sensation crashed over her again, and all she could do was cling desperately to her fading sanity.
“Khngh…!! A-ah, huhh…. You, you bastard… kyaah?! K-kugh, hheek… ah, s-stop….”
Jurina tried to clamp her mouth shut, even to the point of biting her lip, but she had long since lost control. More than the pain, the pleasure was what she couldn’t endure. The impossible impact pounding through her depths and making her womb ring was not something a virgin beastwoman could withstand.
“Hah… hheh… just, just kill me… kill me already… hhehk!! …Bas— kyah….”
He continued ignoring her words and speaking at his own pace.
“This spell is called Stigma Magic. I’ve been researching it for quite a long time, but there’s still plenty left to do. I’ve already inscribed Stigma on several women, but there are still a lot of missing pieces.”
“Haaah, hngh… w-what the fuck, wh-what am I s-supposed to do about it….”
“But research has its limits if you don’t have test subjects. That said, I don’t want to just mark anyone at random either. The women I’ve already marked all mean something to me in their own way, so they’re all going to become my wives eventually.”
“Y-you… d-don’t tell me…?”
“A sturdy beastman body, a knight’s trained body. Don’t worry. You won’t die, and you won’t go mad either.”
The moment Valdes finished speaking, the mana inside her body began raging again. It was clearly meant to inscribe Stigma, but it was far more violent and savage than before.
“A-ah, w-wait… no… h-hyuk—?! Ah, hngh, kyaah…!! Haa, hahn… hngh, …hheek…♡”
“For the record, I also filed your leave request under your name. No one should be coming here for about three days.”
With those words, which stole away even her last hope without mercy, Jurina lost consciousness.
And a few seconds later, she woke again.
The hell overflowing with pleasure was only just beginning.