Karma Goes Round and Round (1)
"Silvia! What in the world do you think you're doing?!"
"Haa…. So you're going to play dumb right to the end."
"Gyaaaaah!!"
A thin needle of Red Lightning Silvia had forged punched through Bardo's flesh and muscle.
Through the haze of pain, Bardo struggled to make sense of his situation.
He was locked in the head of the family's chambers with no one else present. His hands and feet were bound; escape was impossible. The whole setup looked exactly like Silvia meant to torture him for information.
Damn it! How the hell did that bitch Silvia survive those bandits?
Unlike knights, mages were physically frail. Even an ordinary person with no special abilities could ambush one without much trouble.
And those bandits had the lethal poison I gave them. One stab from a blade and she shouldn't have walked away!
Even a pack of second-rate thugs only needed a single surprise thrust to finish an assassination. The plan had been perfect.
And yet Silvia was fine. Not a scratch on her.
It doesn't make sense unless she already knew the bandits were coming.
When she ran away from home, the only person she'd taken with her was some worthless maid. No escort knights, not even a single attendant — if bandits had attacked, she should have been wounded at the very least.
Bardo reached his conclusion. The plan had been exposed.
When did she find out about the assassination? How long has she known?!
When he'd been caught sneaking into her bedroom at three in the morning? Or had she known about the bandits before they were even sent?
He wrung his mind dry, but no answer came.
Huu. The assassination failed, but I'm still fine. She hasn't proven I was behind it.
The bandits had been hired through multiple layers of subcontractors. Even if Silvia had captured them, there was no way to trace the trail back to him. All he had to do was deny everything to the bitter end.
"Father. What are you thinking so hard about?"
"S-Silvia. This is all a misunderstanding. I don't know what you're imagining, but I swear to you it's a misunderstanding!"
The head of the family's chambers had been specially soundproofed with magic so that no voice could escape. You could hold secret conversations, sing at the top of your lungs — or scream as loud as you wanted.
I never thought the soundproofing would come back to bite me like this.
Bardo wanted nothing more than to thrash his past self for ordering that work done.
"S-Silvia. I don't know what you've been through, but it's all a misunderstanding. If you just think it through carefully, you'll see!"
"…Heh."
Looking at the wretched figure of the man before her, Silvia found her own situation a little absurd.
"To think this was the man I called Father."
The sleek, swept-back hair that had once projected authority was a tangled mess. Deep wrinkles carved his face, proof of the years he had lived. The father who had always worn such a stern expression now looked every bit as pathetic as the bandits who had attacked her.
"How weak you are."
"Silvia! I don't know who told you what, but it's all lies! Trust your father!"
He wailed for his life, his face twisted with abject desperation.
"I did trust you, Father. Just not anymore."
A child believes their parents can do anything — that they are extraordinary people.
"Just once. Trust me just this once more! It's not too late, Silvia. If you let me go now, I'll pretend none of this ever happened!"
But as a child grows, they come to understand that their parents are no different from themselves. Parents, too, are merely ordinary human beings. Realizing that is part of becoming an adult.
In this very moment, Silvia understood. Her father Bardo was a weak, ordinary man.
"Ahaha. Why did I work so hard for the praise of someone like this? A worthless man who never achieved a single thing on his own — who simply inherited a title."
"Who the hell has been whispering this nonsense into your ear?! There's no way you could change this completely overnight!"
"You're right. Without his help, I would have spent my entire life trapped in your shadow."
"His? Don't tell me you mean that bastard child of House Valentir."
The bastard of House Valentir. At those words, Silvia's brow furrowed.
"…How do you know about Sir Rix, Father? You couldn't possibly have thought of him just from what I said."
"I knew it — that dog Rix put you up to this. Silvia, you're being deceived! That bastard lied to you so he could use you!"
"Shut your mouth."
"Gyaaaaah!!"
Without mercy, Silvia drove a lightning needle into Bardo's thigh.
"Sir Rix is the man who saved my life. He is not someone you get to insult as you please."
"Ghk, uuugh. So blinded by a man that you don't even know your own father! I am your father! Would you commit such unfilial sin?!"
Silvia looked down at Bardo with a face of ice.
A harmonious family. Parents and children who loved one another. Some people might call that ordinary — but for others, that ordinary was nothing more than a fantasy. An ideal they would never reach, not even on the day they died.
"I'll gladly be an unfilial daughter."
"W-What are you saying?!"
She paused the torture there. If she kept going, he might die, so she needed to let him rest and recover some strength.
Silvia took a step back and surveyed the head of the family's chambers.
"Silvia, a lowborn bastard like him couldn't possibly know our family's affairs! That man is a fraud!"
"Really, Father. Have you already forgotten what happened at my social gathering last time?"
"The affair scandal? That bastard was clearly digging up dirt on the nobility. A worthless nobody like him would stoop to something that filthy!"
"Haa…. This was supposed to be break time…."
Silvia approached Bardo.
Crunch.
"Gyaaaaaaah!!"
She put her full weight on his hand and crushed it underfoot.
"There are plenty of ways to cause pain that don't involve magic."
She ground her heel into his hand a moment longer, then stepped back.
"Uuugh. You've finally lost your mind!"
"The one who's lost their mind isn't me, Father. You're the one who tried to kill me first."
"Proof."
"…What?"
"I asked if you have proof. Do you have any evidence that I tried to harm you?!"
"…."
Every truth she had uncovered so far had come with Rix's help — conclusions only, nothing more. She had no evidence.
"Hahahaha! Of course you don't! Silvia, this is all a misunderstanding. I've done nothing wrong!"
Bardo laughed in satisfaction. The laws of men could not punish him.
"Young Master. I've bought all the ingredients you asked for. Just say the word and I'll cook you anything you like."
"Thanks. Can you hand those over to me?"
"What? You're going to cook, Young Master?"
"No. I've got another use for them."
"…You're going to use a pig's head for something other than cooking?"
Hanna held up the sack containing the pig's head and looked at me with a puzzled expression. It had to be heavy, but she didn't show the slightest strain. As expected of the strongest maid alive.
"You got the fruit too, right?"
"Yes. I found some."
A pig's head and an assortment of fruit. All the materials were ready.
Preparations complete.
Right about now, Bardo was probably congratulating himself that there was no proof he was the culprit. Bardo was a psychopathic serial killer who had murdered his own wife and taken a new one. Regardless of whatever decision Silvia made, I couldn't just sit back and watch an evil man live in comfort.
Wasn't this supposed to be a romance fantasy novel? What's a guy this vicious doing here?
Noble politics and schemes I could understand — this was a RoFan world, after all. But a psychopathic serial killer? That felt off. Bardo was the kind of character who belonged in a crime thriller, not a romance fantasy. No matter how I looked at it, he was way outside the normal range for a RoFan villain.
I was tilting my head over that question when it hit me.
Right. This was a haunted book.
The place I'd fallen into wasn't an ordinary romance fantasy novel. It was a mysterious, demon-possessed RoFan novel that some chaebol granddaughter had gotten her hands on from who-knows-where. That was the world I was living in.
Damn it. Does that mean there could be more lunatics like him out there?
Not a normal romance fantasy — a demon-haunted romance fantasy. I had no intention of standing by while innocent people suffered. Yongwang-shin wouldn't want that either, and more than that, I simply couldn't allow it.
Bad people deserve to be punished.
If men could not punish him, then it was only right that a god deliver the sentence.
I set up a small stage in the front courtyard of the manor. I laid a long Western-style table out on the lawn and arranged the pig's head and various fruits on top of it — offerings for a god.
"Young Master. What are you doing?"
"Think of it as a hobby."
"Understood. I won't ask any more questions."
Hanna picked up on my discomfort and shut her mouth with admirable tact.
I took a ritual knife and a bell — tools mages normally used — one in each hand. Properly speaking I should have been using a fan and a rattle, but substitutes were better than nothing.
I stood in the center of the courtyard and quieted my mind.
All right, then….
Time to open a gut.
Clang—, clang—, clang—.
I moved my body as if dancing, shaking the bell and the knife.
Karma goes round and round.
The gut I was performing now was not a curse. It was only a prayer to hasten the flow of cause and effect. The good would receive blessings. The wicked would receive punishment.
Which of the two Bardo would receive was obvious.