The Shackle of Control
The tingling sensation at my fingertips. A faint sting shot through me as I struck something solid, and I frowned slightly at the minor pain. But that was beside the point. I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from automatically curling upward at the ‘result’ I now faced.
‘To think that after blocking an attack of that caliber, the only damage I took was this much… As expected of the equipment the Demon King bestowed upon me. Its performance is rock solid.’
Cassandra, the general who ruled over Rob and a renowned holy knight throughout the empire. From what I knew, her combat strength was on par with—or even surpassed—that of Amelda, the elf paladin from the Hero Party. I was well aware that the blow she had just unleashed on me was no ordinary strike.
‘A charging attack using her shield… I think it was called something like the Shield of God?’
It was a technique she had used in the story to defeat one of the demon race’s high-ranking officers. If the one on the receiving end had been that fleeing officer instead of me, it would have inflicted quite a serious injury. The attack itself carried formidable power, and above all, it was infused with holy energy—the very antithesis of the demon race. In terms of compatibility, it was the worst possible matchup.
Yet at this very moment, even after taking her ultimate technique head-on, the aftermath I felt was literally nothing more than ‘a little painful.’ That was it. The armor I wore boasted exceptional defensive power, and crucially, no matter how much demon realm equipment I had equipped, I was still fundamentally human. I received none of the additional damage Cassandra had anticipated from our opposing attributes. On top of that, even setting all that aside, my base stats currently allowed me to utterly overwhelm her in every way.
From Cassandra’s perspective, it was a situation where she had simply picked the wrong opponent. A very wrong one, at that.
‘In that sense, pulling another trick like this shows they did their best in their own way. Not that it did them any good.’
The moment Cassandra’s attack was blocked, the woman who had tried to assault me only to have her neck seized in my grip… A member of the Hero Party whose name proudly sat on my blacklist. The beast-kin warrior, Terra.
Watching her writhe in agony within my grasp, I began tightening my hold around her throat with increasing force.
“Grrk—!”
Terra let out a choked scream filled with torment and desperately clawed at my arm in an attempt to break free. But the instant her neck was caught, she could no longer exert her full strength. Moreover, the defensive power of my armor was impossibly high, rendering her struggles utterly meaningless.
However, separate from her futile resistance, her desperate flailing at this moment allowed me to discover one crucial fact about her.
‘I thought it was just some accessory… but could this be…?’
My eyes caught the green-glowing shackle that had suddenly come into view. The moment I recognized what it was, a smile automatically spread across my lips.
‘The Shackle of Control… She’s wearing quite the valuable item, isn’t she?’
An item that shattered the wearer’s ego and turned them into a berserker who obeyed commands without question. In the game, only one could be obtained, and lore stated it was extremely difficult to acquire.
My gaze then shifted toward Cassandra, who—due to the power loaded into her greatsword—couldn’t even release her shield. More precisely, it moved to her fingers. The ring on her hand that served as the medium for the shackle.
Looking at it, one amusing idea automatically came to mind.
‘I was already planning my revenge anyway. This doesn’t sound so bad. Whether it’ll move exactly as the setting describes, I’ll have to test it… But even if it fails, I have plenty of other methods.’
The moment I reached that conclusion, I poured a sudden burst of strength into the hand gripping Terra’s neck.
Crack!
“Guh… Haaah…”
Terra’s body went limp as she lost consciousness from the instantaneous shock. I had controlled my strength, so her life was not in danger.
After confirming she had fainted, I released my grip and dropped her to the floor. My gaze then shifted away from Terra and onto Cassandra beside her.
At the same time, a deep expression of terror flooded Cassandra’s face. I extended my now-freed arm toward her.
And then—
“Th-This… can’t be…”
In an instant, the Demon King had snapped the beast-kin warrior’s neck and knocked her unconscious. Watching him effortlessly dispatch an opponent of equal strength to herself, and realizing that the gamble she had attempted had ended in complete failure, a far deeper terror took root on Cassandra’s face.
‘This… this is the Demon King’s power? N-No way… He’s far stronger than the rumors suggested! How… how could my trump card fail so miserably…?’
The Demon King had shattered Cassandra’s belief that a two-on-one fight would give her a chance of victory in mere seconds. He then turned his gaze toward the terrified woman.
His expression was hidden behind his helmet, making it impossible to read. Yet that very fact made the Demon King appear all the more terrifying. Slowly, he extended the arm that had been holding the beast-kin warrior moments ago toward Cassandra.
“Ah… Aaaah…”
Cassandra began to feel an intense fear at this hopeless reality. At that moment, no constructive thoughts entered her mind—no ideas of dropping her shield and fleeing, or drawing the sword sheathed in her shield to attack the Demon King. Her mind was filled with nothing but overwhelming terror. Captivated by that dreadful sensation, all Cassandra could do was tremble uncontrollably.
And in the next instant—
“Ugh!”
The Demon King seized the wrist of the hand holding her shield and twisted it. The cold, overwhelming power within that grip forced Cassandra to feel sharp pain, and she had no choice but to release the shield.
He then yanked her wrist with irresistible force and seemed to examine her. At his frightening and incomprehensible behavior, a single horrifying piece of knowledge regarding her future flashed through Cassandra’s mind.
‘Wh-Why isn’t he cutting my throat and doing this instead…?! D-Don’t tell me… is this… the thing I’ve only heard about in rumors? The fate of female warriors captured by the Demon King… used as breeding sows for the demon race, forced to bear their children before being killed…’
The miserable fates of those taken prisoner by the demon race—whispers that circulated among the allied races. Stories filled with humiliation and despair: violated by low-ranking demons like goblins and orcs, or taken as playthings by high-ranking demons and subjected to sexual abuse until they died. Though nothing had been concretely confirmed, given the wicked and cruel nature of the demon race, it seemed entirely plausible.
In that fleeting moment, as she imagined an even more detailed and hopeless future, Cassandra hung her head low while her wrist remained trapped in the Demon King’s grasp.
‘It’s over… The Demon King will kidnap me like this and subject me to all kinds of humiliating acts… He’ll mock me for serving the gods and inflict every kind of violation…’
For an ordinary woman it would be terrible, but for a holy knight like her, it was an absolutely unacceptable future. Cassandra despaired.
Then, suddenly, a story about the Demon King surfaced in her mind—one whose exact source she couldn’t recall.
‘C-Come to think of it… I’m not sure, but I think I heard somewhere that while his subordinates may differ, the Demon King surprisingly possesses the pride of a warrior…’
It was a tale with an unclear origin, so she couldn’t be certain. Yet at this moment, Cassandra found herself clinging to even that tiny grain of possibility as a sliver of hope.
‘Y-Yes… After all, if it fails, I lose nothing, right? Even if it’s not true and I fail, I’ll still end up suffering the same cruel treatment from the demons. In that case…’
Placing her hopes on that one-in-a-million chance, Cassandra began to tremble from the sudden surge of fear and tension.
At that moment—
“!”
The Demon King released her hand as if throwing it down with great force. Sensing that he had finished whatever he intended, Cassandra felt a surge of desperation and immediately dropped to her knees before him.
The single sentence that left her lips was born from a desperate desire to preserve at least the minimum honor befitting an imperial general and a holy knight who served the gods.
“Kuh! Kill me!”