The Tyrant Queen Tears Apart the Semen Thief - 3
“ …So I came to report to Your Highness.”
After the lengthy tale concluded, Beatrix’s eyes sharpened.
For the first time, she thought she had done well to send Albert.
Somehow, Jenny’s gaze at Albert had felt quite unsettling.
‘What’s with that?’
At the same time, she felt a wave of confusion.
It was one thing to come calling late at night, but she had never imagined she would come here to reveal her teacher’s crimes.
“ You don’t look like the kind who follows the law well?”
“ It’s not the law. It’s because I wanted to live.”
Wanted to live.
At the strange reply, Beatrix tilted her head.
“ Wanted to live?”
“ Yes. Your Highness is such a wise yet cold person that I assumed you would know your servant’s true feelings.”
Jenny’s ability was still weak.
She had not noticed anyone spying on her, nor had she thought anyone would.
However, she had believed with certainty that Beatrix would definitely discover what was going on.
It was a decision made purely on intuition, but in the end, the choice had been very right.
If she had stayed silent out of fear, she would have truly lost her head.
‘Amazing.’
She had sold out her own teacher just to live.
That sentence alone made her sound utterly ungrateful, but the fault lay with the teacher.
So it was hard to call it wrong for a student to speak up in order to live.
Beatrix folded her arms and lightly tapped her apprentice’s arm with her fingers.
Even without the heavy silence inside the dark tent, her face had been filled with terror.
When one thought about it, mages had only chosen to live in a better situation, and they had not been truly devoted to magic.
Of course she had felt interest, but she had not been willing to devote her soul and her entire life like the other mages.
She could even be called materialistic, but that was perhaps not too much of an exaggeration.
After a long, heavy silence, Beatrix’s lips parted.
The honest admission that she wanted to live pleased her somewhat.
Without any superfluous calculations that would have shown she was merely trying to gain an advantage, she was even more satisfied.
“ Fine. I’ll spare your life.”
“ G-God bless you!”
Spare your life.
At those words, Jenny involuntarily knelt.
Her legs had gone weak from relief, and she had knelt out of gratitude.
She had been freed from slavery, yet the slave in her had not completely vanished.
“ Let me ask one more thing. Where is that semen you said you kept hidden even after stealing it?”
“ Pardon? Yes. It is in my pocket. It is small, so it is easy to store…… ”
Jenny stuttered in surprise.
She had been so flustered that she spilled out everything without being asked.
“ Enough. Stop.”
“ Ah…! I apologize!”
Only after Beatrix interrupted did Jenny hurriedly close her mouth.
“ Continue to live as usual with your teacher. Do not let anyone know you came to see me. Can you?”
“ Y-Yes! I can.”
“ Then return to your post. I will handle everything once the hunt is over.”
She would have to wait a long time if she wanted to receive the proud magic formula or items Jenny had mentioned.
So when she had made her decision, she had long since abandoned the thought of receiving any reward.
It would cost quite a bit, but it was not valuable to Beatrix.
“ Pardon? You won’t… not even use your hand?”
Jenny cautiously lifted her head and asked with confusion.
If she had known her dark intentions, Beatrix should have dealt with it without delay.
She had shown such caution that it was hard to believe she was a tyrant.
Perhaps her teacher held a rather high position in the Magic Tower?
As Jenny’s mind filled with speculation and bewilderment, Beatrix answered.
“ Even if it is for some pretext, eliminating the corrupt is beneficial to the kingdom. Those lowly things might regain their strength if they retreat.”
“ Ah…!”
Only now did Jenny nod frantically, as if finally understanding.
Her complicated thoughts felt refreshing.
“ If you understand, then begone. As I said, do not let anyone know.”
“ Yes, Your Highness!”
Because of the joy of having survived, Jenny answered with an unusually bright voice.
*
“ Shit…! What the hell is going on?!”
A man screamed in a panicked expression.
Blood was splattering everywhere, heads rolling, and many lives were being cut short.
There is always a shadow in the place where people live.
The shadow never disappears, even if it shrinks.
That was one of the teachings the rulers received when studying the Imperial Studies.
The rulers should not personally intervene; instead, the local governor should handle it himself.
That too was one of the teachings.
Yet there were often exceptional cases.
Today was one of those: personally intervening to clear out the corrupt.
‘If the world flowed according to the teachings, it would be infinitely reasonable.’
Humans are rational on the surface but irrational at heart, so something always goes wrong somewhere.
Exactly like right now.
Beatrix walked alone through the vast underground, crushing every eye-sore she encountered.
Customers were customers.
Carriers, sellers, and executives were executives.
Human trafficking was the same. How absurd.
With every head that fell, a deep sigh escaped Beatrix’s lips.
Even though she prided herself on having good order, illegal goods were flourishing everywhere.
Especially drugs.
Although small in scale, the sight of them being properly distributed made her brow furrow.
Beatrix shook her head at the women glazed with drugs.
Even while the heads were rolling, her brow furrowed at the women pinned against the wall corners, unable to recover.
It was only natural that rare labor power was being wasted like this.
‘Is this it?’
She had left the drugged women behind and was stirring the underground market alone.
Beatrix reached the deepest, most solemn place in the underground market: the warehouse.
The executives who had tried to flee with their wealth were already dead, and their property had been seized.
So she had expected the warehouse to be empty, but surprisingly, there was still quite a bit of remaining wealth.
“ Hmph…… ”
People shun dirty money, but actually, there is no dirt in money.
It is only the humans who use it who are dirty.
Beatrix’s hand flicked through the air, and a black hole appeared, sucking in the remaining wealth in the warehouse.
It was like a black hole.
With a plop, after all the wealth had been sucked in, the black hole sealed its mouth tightly.
“ Your Highness! Are you safe?!”
Just in the nick of time, a middle-aged man in armor came running breathlessly.
He was the local governor, Baron Neil.
Beatrix casually turned her back and met his gaze.
“ I’m fine. What about you?”
“ H-Huff, huff…! I-If I may… Uh! I’m all right.”
Baron Neil answered while catching his breath.
He had just run, so his breathing was ragged, but there were no visible injuries.
“ How is the situation?”
“ Y-Yes. I have already captured a few sellers and put them in separate confinement. Thanks to Your Highness acting, there was no great difficulty.”
“ Good work. Did you apply pressure on the wounds?”
“ Of course. However… I only wish I had not made Your Highness intervene directly.”
Baron Neil closed his eyes in embarrassment.
It seemed he was blaming himself for the incompetence of not having dealt with the underground market that had roots in his own territory.
He truly loved his territory and felt the heavy responsibility.
However.
“ You did well.”
With a light flick of her fingers in the air, a red line appeared on the baron’s neck.
The line slowly widened, and drops of blood welled up.
“ C-Could… could you?!”
Baron Neil grabbed his own neck and knelt.
He desperately tried to suppress the blood spurting out.
“ C-Cough…… ”
Baron Neil glared at Beatrix with wide eyes.
It was not resentment, but a mixture of anger and despair.
From Beatrix’s perspective, it was ridiculous.
The baron had been a corrupt man who had profited from the underground market.
“ Don’t be upset. You deserve to die.”
As Beatrix walked away, the baron’s gaze followed her back.
He did not reflect on his own mistakes until the end, only cursing the queen and those who had been caught with her.
Finally, the baron’s head fell to the ground, and blood flowed.
Beatrix slowly climbed the stairs to the surface through the messy chaos.
The remaining soldiers were too busy with cleanup to notice that the baron had died.
“ Your Highness. The palace knights…?”
When Beatrix emerged, the knight waiting for her asked cautiously.
All the palace knights, including her, were in light armor.
“ It’s fine.”
Beatrix sighed briefly and continued walking.
Since the baron left no traces in the underground market, it was a good opportunity.
She had used him to clean things up.
The mages had dared to steal Albert’s semen.
Both were criminals who deserved their heads.
‘They all have to die.’
No matter how good the pretext.
Beatrix slowly walked to Jenny kneeling in the corner of the warehouse.
And beside her stood another Jenny.
The underground market, true to its name, had a secret entrance in a grand company building.
Including an emergency escape route.
“ The medicine?”
Beatrix casually extended her hand, and Jenny, as if waiting for it, rummaged in her pocket.
“ Here it is.”
With the medicine in her pocket as if waiting, Jenny handed over the bottle containing Albert’s semen.
She had secretly taken it while her teacher slept.
“ You worked hard.”
Beatrix took the bottle and placed it in her pocket, then slightly lowered her gaze.
Jenny looked up with wide eyes, bewildered.
She had already heard the full story since she was caught.
That today’s breakfast had been drugged without her noticing.
That Beatrix had personally sealed it with magic so she could not use mana.
“ Your Highness…! It would have disappeared if I just washed it with water. Why did you do this?!”
Jenny appealed in an aggrieved voice, as if waiting for it.
The filth would have washed away cleanly if she had just done laundry.
She had only used the filth that needed to be dealt with, so why was she being so harsh?
It was a reasonable complaint, but it did not reach Beatrix’s heart.
“ Washing away filth and stealing my things are completely different matters. There is proof right in front of you.”
Beatrix shook the glass bottle as if to show it off.
“ What kind of sophistry is this?!”
Jenny’s expression twisted in anger.
Meanwhile, Beatrix’s face remained expressionless and cold.
“ Those who followed my orders and those who secretly stole are different.”
“ Uuu…!”
Jenny clamped her mouth shut, her entire body trembling.
Seeing her cover her ears, rage boiled up.
“ Do you have anything else to say?”
Beatrix glanced at her neck and asked.
She had held her breath, curious what he would say before killing him, but her expectations had been off.
“ I have plenty to say! After doing this, do you think you can get away with it?!”
“ Yeah. I’m safe.”
As her ancestors had done.
With a sharp sound, the blade scraped her throat.
The focus left Jenny’s eyes.
She had deliberately not cut the head, but severed only the carotid artery.
“ C-Cough…!”
Jenny gasped like the baron had moments earlier, struggling for a moment.
She tried to use magic to stop the bleeding, but the mana would not cooperate.
The mana flow had already been completely disrupted.
With a plop, Jenny’s body slowly tilted and collapsed onto the floor.
A clear stream of blood flowed down her throat to the ground.
It was a rather empty end.
She had not cut the head but the carotid artery, not for any other reason but because of Jenny’s request.
She would die for her crimes, but she wanted the body to remain intact.
Whether it was due to guilt or pretense, it did not matter to Beatrix.
With a pop, Beatrix pulled out the lid of the bottle and poured the semen into her mouth.
Thanks to the preservation magic, the scent was still strong and sticky.
‘In the world.’
Jenny watching with wide eyes looked shocked.
The cruelty of someone who slaughtered countless people without blinking an eye, and then the composure of actually tasting the semen while chewing.
It was exactly the tyrant she had heard about in rumors.
The knights, too, belatedly realized what kind of person their lord was and straightened their minds.
After marrying Albert, she had seemed more lenient……
But the essence had not changed.
Even if it had, it was only for Albert’s sake.
While everyone was lost in shock and silence, Beatrix alone moved the mana and pulled the long tube from the ground.
It was a tube she had created by applying magic to handle the earth.
“ You all go back separately. I will stop by the Magic Tower and be back.”
Beatrix gestured to one of the knights, and Jenny’s corpse and the tube lid floated in front of her.
Soon, the floating corpse was placed inside the tube, and the lid returned to its place.
Immediately after.
Beatrix’s fingers snapped, producing a crisp sound.
“ Ugh?!”
The knights groaned while covering their eyes with their arms.
A sudden, intense blue light burst out, enough to blind them.
The blue light grew larger, enveloping Jenny, the tube, and Beatrix.
It was the result of using teleportation magic to head toward the Eastern Magic Tower.