I Never Imagined This Would Happen
Ilia Anies woke with a jolt, a sudden, stabbing pain slicing through her skull like a blade driven straight into her brain.
Yet even as she opened her eyes, the world remained nothing but pitch-black darkness, exactly as it had been moments before.
Her body jerked in panic, every instinct screaming to pull away, but the moment she shifted, a metallic scrape echoed across the stone floor and her torso swayed dangerously.
She stumbled toward the center of her own weight, about to collapse, when something stopped her mid-air.
“W-what…?”
Her hands flew down to check. Cold steel cuffs circled her waist, heavy and unyielding, linked by thick chains to the wall behind her.
She was suspended against it, arms pinned, body hanging helpless in the gloom.
The realization slammed into her like ice water. She was trapped. Chained. And no one was coming.
“Who… who did this to me? Why me?”
Her voice cracked, but she forced herself to keep talking, anything to keep her mind from shattering.
A heavy presence moved somewhere nearby, and a sliver of dim light cut through the darkness.
She risked a glance around. Stone walls, iron bars, the faint glow of distant torches.
…A prison cell. Of course.
The sound of a heavy door swinging shut followed, darkness swallowing the light again.
But then another faint beam appeared, footsteps—measured, deliberate—and the dragging scrape of something being pulled across the floor.
The footsteps and the light were coming straight toward her.
Ilia’s heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought it might crack the chains.
The footsteps stopped right in front of her cell.
“Oh? You’re awake?”
The voice was one she knew too well—Eve’s, from only moments ago. But the emotion in it was nothing like the calm, clinical tone she remembered.
Excitement. Pure, giddy delight.
“Timing’s perfect, really. I was just about to switch shifts.”
“E-Eve-nim…? What… what is this?”
Eve didn’t answer with words. She simply unlocked the cell door, stepped inside, and hurled something toward the floor beside Ilia.
A dull thud. A sack.
Ilia’s eyes tracked it before her brain could stop them.
“Hic!”
It was Chloe, barely recognizable. Her clothes hung in tatters, yet her skin looked unnaturally clean—perhaps from whatever they’d done to her first.
But the face… the face was a ruin. Lips parted, drool sliding down her chin, shallow, broken breaths escaping.
“C-Chloe…?”
The same Chloe who had once served Eve with perfect, silent loyalty. The woman who had always worn that cool, professional mask.
Ilia’s knees buckled. Her entire body shook.
“F-fuh…”
A laugh exploded from Eve’s throat—too loud, too bright, completely unhinged.
“Puhuhu… aha ha ha ha!!”
She doubled over, howling with laughter until tears streamed down her face.
“Hahaha… no, really, I’m sorry. It’s just so funny.”
She wiped her eyes, still grinning, and turned that terrible smile on Ilia.
“I never imagined this would happen.”
Ilia trembled violently beneath the chains, staring up at the woman who had once seemed so kind.
Eve’s expression was pure contempt now.
“After treating your master the way you did—mocking him, belittling him—you never thought this would happen?”
Ilia’s mind spun so fast she could barely keep up.
Treating her master…
That was her.
Eve noticed the confusion and tilted her head, that eerie smile never fading.
“No self-awareness at all, huh?”
Slap!
The sharp crack of a hand against Ilia’s cheek sent stars exploding behind her eyes.
Her head spun. A cold voice whispered directly into her ear.
“Now’s not the time to wonder if you have any self-awareness.”
Slap!
Ilia’s other cheek burned. The pain was so sudden, so complete, that her vision whited out.
“W-what I wanted, or what I was made to do… it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Slap!
Hours blurred. The wet, meaty sounds of fists meeting flesh echoed through the stone cell like a nightmare refrain.
By the time Eve finally paused, breathing hard, Ilia’s face was swollen and purple—ugly, grotesque, a ruin of what it had once been.
Tears poured from her eyes in endless, choking sobs.
“S-sorry… please… forgive me…”
“…”
Ilia just cried and begged, completely broken, offering anything to make it stop.
Eve’s eyes were ice.
She had seen this exact scene only hours earlier—Chloe breaking under the same blows, the same desperate pleas.
So that was how it was.
“Well, then,” Eve said, voice light again, almost cheerful, “how about you leave the duke’s house.”
“…What?”
“Quit your maid duties and get out of the Ignis duchy.”
“…”
Could she even do that?
Honestly? Working at the duchy had been… exhilarating. A position of trust, protection, status.
But the thought of taking another beating and still refusing? No. Impossible.
Just like she had told Chloe.
Ilia looked up, still dazed.
“…But I—”
“You don’t want to leave?” Eve tilted her head, feigning innocence. “Why not?”
“T-that’s…”
Ilia’s face twisted in genuine confusion.
Chloe had refused to leave the duchy too—died trying, perhaps, but still refused. She hadn’t been able to explain why.
There was something here. Something stronger than magic. Something controlling them both.
Eve could sense it. She had felt it in the way Chloe’s will had crumbled.
But without magic, she couldn’t dig deeper right now. So she would watch. Observe. Wait for the perfect moment to strike.
“Fine,” she said, shrugging. “If you don’t want to go, that’s your choice.”
“…”
Ilia was still murmuring under her breath, dazed and lost.
“Me? Ever since I was a child, you were all so hateful to me…”
Eve’s voice suddenly turned soft, almost nostalgic, as if speaking of a distant memory.
“Our beloved family. And you, Riel—the most adorable, loveliest little Riel.”
Her smile widened with genuine warmth when she said the name.
“All the maids tried so hard to please us, and back then… it really was heaven.”
Then the smile froze. Became something sharp and cold.
“But then he appeared. Alan Ludwig.”
“…”
The name hit Ilia like a hammer.
Eve noticed. Of course she did.
“At first I thought, well, he’s polite, good-looking, maybe he just didn’t know any better.”
Ilia’s body jerked again, chains rattling.
“Then everyone went mad and forgot whose master they were supposed to serve.”
Eve’s gaze flicked to the broken Chloe slumped in the corner.
“Even Chloe, who once followed me so faithfully…”
Her teeth ground together.
She walked straight to Ilia, crouched, and locked eyes with her.
“When I hit you, it was nothing more than a child’s strength. And I was afraid to use real magic—it might kill you.”
Eve leaned in close. Her hand moved to Ilia’s swollen cheek, and faint magical energy flowed from her palm.
“But you were so young, and you couldn’t even meet your father outside. You tried sending letters… only for them to disappear into thin air.”
The magic healed the worst of the damage, but Ilia’s face remained slack, empty, as if she couldn’t quite grasp what was happening.
“Well, later I just got so angry I gave up… but even now I’m trying to fix it.”
Ilia mumbled something small and broken into the silence.
Eve listened, then pressed her ear closer to Ilia’s lips.
“Alan… Alan… Alan… Alan…”
Over and over.
Ilia kept whispering the name like a chant, eyes glassy, completely lost.
Eve pulled back and watched her with that same eerie, satisfied smile.
“Just like Chloe. Same reaction. It has to be him.”
Alan Ludwig.
The name burned in Ilia’s mind. She couldn’t remember the details, but the fear was there—raw, visceral, undeniable.
Eve stood, cracking her knuckles.
“Enough playtime.”
She reached down and unlocked the chains around Ilia’s waist.
The moment the cuffs fell away, Ilia’s legs crumpled. She tried to crawl back, trembling with terror.
Eve grabbed the back of her neck, fingers digging in hard.
“You don’t want to leave the duchy? I already know that.”
“Y-yes…”
“Then I’ll make you want to leave.”
She hauled Ilia up by the collar and started dragging her toward the door.
“W-wait… what are you planning to do?!”
“Oh, me?” Eve’s voice was light, almost playful. “I joined the magic division and fought a lot of battles.”
Ilia stared at her, still dazed.
“Not just monsters. Bandits. Fugitives. People too.”
Eve smiled—warm, gentle, terrifying.
“So I learned how much pain it takes to break someone.”
“T-that can’t be…!”
“Chloe lasted a while before she broke… but how long do you think you’ll last?”
Ilia screamed and thrashed, chains swinging wildly as Eve dragged her toward the exit.