Chapter 36
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: I'll Tell You Everything
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In the original story, Aira was a completely different kind of slave from Piel.
While Piel was the type consumed by fear, simply accepting the pain inflicted upon her, Aira was the type who never gave up until the very end.
Even without her sight.
Even without her tongue, unable to speak.
The moment she saw a chance, she would try to escape by any means necessary.
She knew that getting caught meant even harsher torture awaited her, yet even as her body was battered beyond recognition, fainting over and over, that girl never stopped.
As if the act of running away was its own purpose.
Or more precisely... she clung to the mere possibility that she could escape.
If she could just break free from the clutches of the Argent family, surely there would be a better life waiting.
Even if that belief had no basis in reality.
...Of course, in the original story, even after successfully escaping with her broken body, she had nowhere to go and ended up falling into another hell.
Still, that girl believed in 'hope' right up to that moment.
"She was a child who kept running without stopping, even knowing that escape led nowhere."
In the original story, Lucas Argent treated such an Aira like a toy he managed carefully to avoid breaking.
It couldn't compare to the Imperial Water of Life, but there was the spring of red water bubbling up in the center of the Argent territory, possessing healing powers close to it.
The spring called 'Immortal Blood,' pooled like a lake of blood.
He would secretly fetch that water every dawn and force it down Aira's throat.
There was no delicacy to it.
He simply poured it in like slop.
The results were a mess.
Teeth sprouting haphazardly from her gums.
Eyes that burst and regrew multiple times before finally settling into place.
She was alive, but it was too crude a recovery to call it 'restored.'
Still, the original Lucas deemed it sufficient.
After all, as long as she could be fixed, he could play with her again.
Knowing all of that... that's why I knew.
Aira would always try to escape, no matter if her master was kind or cruel.
"Aira, stay still. Otherwise... I'll have to tie you even tighter."
"Can't you just untie her, Piel?"
"I-I want to, but... she'll run away again! So, I don't think I can."
The moment I left the room, Aira seized that brief opening perfectly.
A loosened guard from our first encounter.
She probably thought it might actually work as she dragged her still-healing body, stumbling out the door.
Of course, what followed was exactly as expected.
She got caught in the net Piel and I had set up before she could take more than a few steps, and Aira was dragged back into the room.
This time, bound so tightly with rope that escape was impossible.
And then evening came.
The dining hall wasn't usable since there was no cook to begin with.
Thanks to that, Piel, Aira, and I sat around a small table placed in the middle of my room.
Of course, Aira was tied to her chair.
"Even after making me drop my guard by calling me a bastard child and an idiot in front of others... the Argent bloodline is truly something."
Aira smiled bitterly as she spoke.
"I didn't expect to get caught so quickly."
"You had 'runaway' written all over your face."
I answered flatly.
"Your body's in no shape for it anyway. You must have figured we'd let our guard down."
"Impressive."
Aira's gaze briefly swept over me.
"As expected of the bloodline that grips the continent's underworld... You've seen right through this slave from the start, haven't you, Lord Lucas?"
It was thanks to the original story's memories, but there was no need to correct her.
After Piel left to fetch the food, a brief silence settled in the room.
Aira kept her head lowered, fiddling cautiously with the slave collar around her neck.
The cold, metallic touch unique to iron.
A shackle that wouldn't come off until death, unless removed by her master.
After stroking it several times, the girl lifted her head and looked up at me.
Her expression was surprisingly calm.
"...So."
She asked carefully.
"What punishment am I in for now?"
"...Punishment?"
"Yes. I'm prepared for it. Even as a slave without eyes or a tongue... I've heard it all with my ears, what happens to slaves who try to run from their masters."
Her words were calm, but soon her eyes squeezed shut, and her entire body began to tremble faintly.
She did feel fear.
Yet even so, her posture never faltered.
Demure and composed.
As if she wouldn't let go of her royal dignity even in her final moments.
With only her eyes and mouth restored, she was no different from the Aira I'd seen in the original story.
She knew full well.
What punishment awaited a slave caught trying to escape.
Violence that crushed the belly, torture that snapped fingers one by one, ways to pulverize a living human.
Her face showed she was braced for it all.
I looked down at her for a moment before speaking.
"You'll be fine, right?"
Aira's shoulders twitched.
"You'll surely regret those words later."
"...!"
"Promise me now, and I might let it slide. Swear you'll never run again."
A short silence.
Usually, in such moments, people lie to survive.
But Aira was different.
"...I can't."
She raised her head.
Her green eyes met mine directly.
"I will leave this place. I will become free!"
Her voice trembled, but her words were clear.
"Because... I still have something I must do."
Whether due to royal pride, or because that 'something' truly existed.
Either way, she chose to declare, right before her master, that she would escape to the end.
I smirked at the sight.
Gulp.
I could hear Aira swallowing dryly.
Her eyes betrayed fear, like a herbivore facing a carnivore.
Looking down at her, I said,
"Fine."
Aira's body stiffened.
"Then as punishment, Aira."
I paused briefly to gauge her reaction.
"I'll have you serve under me until you become a royal who can truly stand as 'one person's worth.'"
"...Pardon?"
Her face showed utter disbelief.
Fear and resolve alike adrift, nowhere to go.
I added, watching her reaction,
"If you want freedom, first gain the strength worthy of it. Until I teach you that, you're mine."
The reason Aira struggled to escape slavery to the end was simple.
It wasn't for freedom.
She still believed she could turn it all back.
That if she could return to the kingdom now, awakened as a high elf, everything would go back to how it was.
That dream her mother could never let go of.
It hadn't vanished; it had taken deep root inside her daughter.
It didn't matter if her body was ruined. Even if her dignity was trampled, as long as she could rise again, it would be fine.
As long as she returned alive, proved her talent as a high elf, and stood as the 'princess' of the elf kingdom her mother so desperately wanted.
All that suffering would finally gain meaning, even if belatedly.
So, remaining 'someone's slave' was not an option for Aira.
Training and preparation could come later.
First, she had to reclaim her status.
That's why she ran.
Over and over, even knowing her body would shatter.
And in the original story, that obsession became reality.
About eight years later.
When Piel awakened the hero's power and first cracked the Argent family, Aira seized that gap and escaped successfully.
And only then did 'some power' awaken in her high elf body, deemed talentless—a power destined, like fate.
It was more than enough to prove who she was.
So Aira returned to the elf kingdom.
As a royal miraculously returned alive.
And she was acknowledged.
Not as a princess, but as a 'queen.'
Or more precisely... after turning the kingdom into a sea of flames.
After sweeping away commoners and royals alike, standing alone atop the blood-soaked ruins.
She became the queen of an elf kingdom that was hers alone.
That was Aira's original story in Vengeful Goddesses.
'The pain and humiliation endured as Lucas's slave for eight years, and the longing for her family, turned to betrayal in the kingdom—Aira burned it all to the ground right there.'
The child who craved just a word of praise or recognition from her parents became an irreversible vengeful spirit from that day.
A cliché from your typical tragic tale, if you could call it that.
But even after her revenge, Aira felt no refreshment.
Because that wasn't the ending she truly wanted from the start.
When her rage subsided and she returned to her senses, nothing remained in her hands.
Not even a reason to cling to life.
So she tried to die.
Until Piel, who followed after, hurriedly stopped her.
"If you die like this, we'll be the ones who suffered all that for nothing!"
Piel said.
That the world needed her power to be saved.
More precisely, it was a proposal to join her in revenge against the root of all evil that inflicted such suffering on them—the Argent family—and protect the world together.
Aira neither refused nor accepted those words; she simply couldn't die and began traveling with Piel in a state of limbo.
And finally, when they confronted Lucas Argent, who had trampled her for so long.
While Piel crushed his balls one by one with her hands, Aira repaid the 'pain' inflicted on her in full.
The torture of gouging out eyeballs and pulling every single tooth.
But I have no desire to endure that much.
"You'll... help me with my training?"
"Yes. I already know who you are. The youngest princess the elf kingdom hid away. The blemish they erased from existence because she was useless."
"H-How did you...?!"
True to its reputation as the sole nation in the continent's east, steeped in tradition and notorious for its isolationism, the elf kingdom kept her existence known only to a tiny few.
A 'child that didn't exist,' hidden away tightly.
Aira froze, swallowing hard at my words that pierced her identity as if I'd known it all along.
That gaze mixed with shock and admiration.
I didn't miss her reaction.
Instead, I seized it as an opportunity to thoroughly 'educate' her here and now, nipping in the bud any chance of her growing into my enemy in the future.