Chapter 85
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Kill Me, Pleeeease!!
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"Kill me! Pleeeease!!"
Levi was born into a world governed by the law of the jungle.
In monster society, any being with a frail body was practically a failure from the moment of birth.
No strength meant becoming prey, and failing to endure meant vanishing.
Levi's childhood was a time that repeatedly proved this simple rule.
'Then, like a miracle, I was taken in by a kind human elderly couple.'
A life where she didn't have to go hungry, even if just for a while.
Nights without beatings. Time when she was treated like a person.
Levi believed that was 'salvation'.
That was when she first learned life could have a sweet side.
But the most despicable thing in the world is taking back what it once gave.
In this world, medical treatment performed by human hands without magic had long been treated as taboo.
An act mimicking divine grace.
A technique that disrupted the order.
It was a clear taboo, even if not openly shown, and the elderly couple living with Levi had violated it.
Disinfecting wounds, suturing injuries, setting bones.
Treatment that was far too systematic for this medieval fantasy world.
If they had lived, they might have been the first to establish the concept of medicine in this world someday.
That's why it was dangerous, and why they were killed.
'Humans are the kind of animals who will kill to protect their rice bowl.'
In this world, healing belonged solely to the Papal Court and the Magic Association.
Among them, the Papal Court was the organization that held over seventy percent of the continent's healing mages under the name of 'believers'.
They reaped massive profits through monster subjugations and healing magic, all under the banner of divine justice.
People who couldn't afford expensive magical healing had no choice but to turn to 'doctors'.
Even those were treated as only slightly better than folk remedies.
But in such a world, the possibility of true medicine sprouting appeared?
To them, that was nothing short of blatant 'heresy', so the Papal Court had long been stamping out such possibilities.
Intentionally.
Systematically.
The elderly couple who had taken Levi in were merely one of the quietly eliminated victims in that process.
"Untie me!"
The room quickly filled with echoes.
Meaning Levi was rampaging and screaming.
"Why did you save me! I'll kill you! Let me go right now!"
Her reddened eyes glared at me as she lunged forward like she was throwing her body.
But she couldn't take a single step.
"Eek—!"
Aira had grabbed her arm from behind and slammed her shoulders back into the chair.
Levi's body twisted, and her bound wrists clanged against the iron chains.
"W-We worked so hard to save you for once, and you're asking why...!"
Aira's voice trembled.
"If you keep rampaging like this, we can't release you even if we want to!"
"Then kill me!"
Levi bared her teeth and shouted.
"If you don't want to die by my hand, kill me now!!"
At her side, Piel summoned her shield and positioned herself between me and Levi.
The hand gripping the shield trembled faintly.
"M-Master... what should we do with this girl?"
It had taken a full fifty hours.
Setting bones, reconnecting nerves, stopping the bleeding—just barely saving her life.
Yet Levi resented the very fact of her survival.
Piel and Aira could only panic at such a reaction.
They had only ever seen people who struggled desperately to live, including themselves.
They couldn't help but be shocked by someone who treated their own life like a fly's.
But I had seen this scene countless times in the original story.
Levi's 'self-harm show', starting just as always upon opening her eyes.
She always tried to destroy herself first thing.
"Aira."
I spoke without averting my gaze.
"Hold her tight."
"Pardon?"
"If you loosen even a little, she'll immediately slash her own wrist."
Aira's face hardened.
"H-Her own wrist...?"
At those words, Levi clicked her tongue.
"What do you know... It's my life anyway. So I'm going to die on my own—why stop me!?"
She sucked in a breath, then spat it out almost like a growl.
"Release me now, and I'll die by myself. But if you keep holding me like this..."
Her gaze locked onto me.
"I'll kill that master you serve first, then myself."
Those words weren't born of anger.
Nor were they a threat or a calculation.
Ever since that day when the human elderly couple—whom she first believed to be 'family'—were hanged for performing forbidden medicine.
Levi had thought that way ever since.
All of it was because of her.
In truth, looking at it coldly now, it was an ambiguous conclusion.
Whether Levi had been there or not, the couple would have ended up treating that young pair anyway.
Their temperament, as described in the story, was the type that couldn't avoid such choices.
And the outcome would have been the same.
Eliminated by the Papal Court.
But in Levi's mind, it didn't settle that way.
Because the demon 'me' had been there.
Because I got discovered.
They died, and only she survived.
So she deserved to die already, and even this moment of being alive was wrong.
That's why words like that came out without hesitation.
But to the two guarding her front and back, it was the 'worst possible move'.
"...What did you just say?"
"Kill... the Master?"
The air shifted.
Crunch.
The force pressing on her shoulders went beyond merely restraining a person.
"Eek?!"
A short, tearing scream.
Only then did Levi realize it.
The line she had just crossed.
I'd heard there's a saying on Earth.
Everyone has a plan—until they get punched.
The room, which had been filled with cries of "kill me" just moments ago, fell deathly silent in an instant.
It wasn't that the air had cooled; it felt like everything had just stopped.
The faces before her.
No more hesitation or confusion from before.
Just expressions that said if touched wrong, they could crush a person purely on instinct, without a second thought.
Even watching made chills run down my spine.
My heart skipped a beat, cold sweat trickling down my back.
And I wasn't even the target of those gazes.
How must it feel for the one receiving them head-on?
The effect was immediate.
Drip... drip...
Warmth she couldn't hold spread beneath the chair.
The face that had been bleating moments ago was now moist with tears, noticeably shrunken.
Out of sheer terror. Her body had broken first.
Like a mouse before a cat.
Unable to move or flee.
But.
"K-Kill...!"
"...!"
"Ugh..."
"Y-Yes... before you kill your master, just do it!"
Her body had collapsed, but that stubbornness refused to break.
A face with no desire to live, no reason to survive.
Only one thing remained.
The obsession to see it through to the end, somehow.
"Hurry up and kill me! Hic... Q-Quickly, kill me! Kill me!!"
Even those watching her couldn't maintain their killing intent anymore.
The grip on the shield loosened, and a faint tremor appeared in the arms holding her from behind.
Well, of course.
After wetting herself, screaming with a face smeared in tears and snot—not begging to live, but demanding death.
Even I found it bizarre enough.
"...Do you want to die that badly?"
As I opened my mouth, the room fell silent once more.
"M-Master...?"
"...! Y-Yes! I want to die!"
Levi's eyes widened as she yelled.
"Otherwise, I'll kill you!"
She hesitated for a moment but didn't bend her will.
Well, with Levi as she was now, I could end it quickly without even needing their hands.
And thinking ahead.
Recalling how she would later awaken her power, live on undying, and drench the continent in blood under the name of 'revenge'—ending it here might be the right choice.
But that was the calculation of a reader who had read the original.
I was a doctor who stood on the side of saving lives before reading that story.
"First off, let me say this."
I spoke slowly.
"I'm a doctor."
"A doctor?"
"The kind who heals and saves people without magic."
Levi's eyes wavered.
"Like the elderly couple who cared for you."
"You... know my grandma and grandpa?"
"Of course."
I nodded.
"I'm part of the dark Argent Family, after all. Investigating one slave's past is a snap—just a flick of the wrist."
In truth, I'd already seen it all in the original story.
Anyway.
"So, let me ask."
I took a step closer.
"You okay dying like this?"
Levi's eyes widened.
"Do you know how the corpses of that elderly couple—you called family even briefly—are being used now?"
"...Huh?"
"Corpses branded as heretics don't get buried. They're preserved with magic, then hung on crosses and paraded from village to village as examples."
The continent's sole religion.
Judges borrowing God's name, whom no nation could confront directly.
"Look, this is divine justice. This is what happens if you defy."
A method that needed no words.
Utter desecration of the dead.
And terror that quietly killed the living.
"Right now, they're probably displayed before crowds, heads severed from bodies."
Her face froze as if her breath had stopped.
So I delivered the final words.
"Even if you die, before that, you need to repay the debt to those who raised you."
"...!"
"I'll pull strings to bring their corpses to you."
Levi's lips trembled.
"If you want, I'll hold a funeral. And after, if you still wish, I can grant you a painless, merciful death."
"R-Really?"
"Yes. But..."
The condition was simple.
"Until you've fully repaid the funeral costs, obey my every command."
I added, steadying my breath.
"That should be a decent final task before death. Let's make that our 'contract'."