A Debt from Ten Years Past
The distant ruins of the faraway earldom (3). It was damp.
Inside the cave where thunder rumbled from somewhere far away, something damp wrapped tightly around me, like the parasitic wasp cocoon that had once encased me.
“Uuuuugh……. U, ut……. Et……?”
With my mind only half returned, I blinked several times. It was dark. I couldn’t see anything. I tried to circulate my mana to float a simple illumination spell above my hand, but the hand that should have held the light refused to move. My arms were bound tight.
“Hello, hello…, yo……? Is anyone there?”
Something like cloth was wrapped all the way over my head, making it stuffy, but at least my mouth wasn’t covered.
Am I inside a sleeping bag or a cloth sack? Why…?
Don’t tell me I’ve been kidnapped again. Being drugged, losing consciousness, and getting gang-raped wasn’t exactly a new experience for me, so being captured one more time shouldn’t have felt surprising…… But how? I had passed out in the dining hall on the first floor of an inn in a major city, surrounded by plenty of people.
Come to think of it…, I had lost consciousness right after drinking that fermented drink. Had someone slipped something into it? That man? Or the waiter? A respectable inn in a big city that proudly served delicious food was actually a den of indiscriminate criminals?
That couldn’t be right. In a city where the border count’s private soldiers kept the peace so thoroughly, and where the merchants’ guild even maintained its own vigilante force, it made no sense for an inn to pull something like that……
…Then again, what Zophy had done to me hadn’t exactly been “proper” either.
My mind, filled only with memories of abuse that crushed my spirit, writhed with anxiety and terror at what might happen this time…… and, shamefully, with a flicker of anticipation that something lewd might be done to me.
A strong hand reached for me from outside and roughly yanked the cloth off my head. The moment the thick fabric that had been stifling my breath disappeared, light flooded my vision.
“Hah…. Wh-what are you trying to do! Let me go……, huh?”
I shouted the moment breathing became easier, but the face before me was…… an ordinary man looking down at me with a worried expression. It was the very same man who had bought me a drink yesterday. He only looked startled by my sudden outburst, eyes wide.
The thing I had thought was a sleeping bag was actually the inn’s blanket. I had been rolled up inside two layers of it like a cocoon and left completely immobilized.
“Wh…, what! So you did drug that fermented drink! You want my body? Or my money? What’s the point of robbing a traveler like me! You’re going to hell! Th-that’s right. I’ll spread my legs for you, so just leave the money…. Oh, and the book! The brooch! The watch too!!”
“Huh? Ah, no, drug? What book, what brooch…. Don’t you remember thrashing and squirming all night, Miss Mage?”
Still wriggling like a larva with no sign of the ropes loosening, I glared at him with a sulky expression.
“What? Thrashing and squirming…, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Then I heard the truth. Or rather, the truth flowed out of a small box. The man took out a small device resembling a music box. After a crackling noise, a voice emerged as the spring mechanism wound. My voice.
“Heehee……. Give it to meee…, huh? Huh…? Your cock…, mister, your cock…, gimmeee…….”
The moment I heard it, my cheeks flushed bright red.
H-how? I don’t remember saying anything like that at all.
“I told you no. Just what kind of life have you been living, young lady…….”
“Hwaaang…? Huh? Cock, ugh…, cock, gimme……. Hehe, huh?”
After the childish, almost infantile voice, came the sound of the man clicking his tongue, accompanied by the metallic scraping noise. The sound quality was poor, but I could clearly tell it was my own voice. Then this music-box-like device……
“I figured you might say something different later, so I deliberately brought out the phonograph. Surprised? It’s a dwarven machine that records sound by scratching a tin plate with a needle. Thanks to the enchantment, you can even erase what was recorded.”
“I’ve seen something like that at the Magic Academy before…, no, wait, then why am I tied up like this?!”
The man set the phonograph down beside me with a nonchalant expression. In sound quality far worse than anything I had heard on Earth, our voices continued to play.
“Phew…, she finally calmed down. She was small, so at least she was easy to restrain, but… she really was a troublesome girl.”
“Heh…, heek…, heeeek……. Hihihihit…, good, go-good, ah♡ Even though I was wrapped up in the blanket…, even though I couldn’t move at all, all tied up tight…, my body got hot…, don’t look at me like I’m pathetic…, touching me…, soaking the blanket with my juices, so pathetic…, drooling like an idiot……. Ehehe…….”
…This was…, me?
The voices cut off there. After that came only ragged breathing mixed with static and wet, sticky sounds muffled by thick cloth, until the phonograph stopped.
“You downed the drink I bought in one go, then the moment you slumped over the table you started saying lewd things. Everyone was at a loss. My friends and even the staff had to rush over and barely managed to get you to the room.”
I hung my head…… or tried to, though I was still wrapped in the blanket, and buried my face as best I could, cooling my burning cheeks.
“Even after we got to the room you still couldn’t sober up. You suddenly started stripping and saying embarrassing things about wanting a man, then with that limp body you kept trying to pull down our pants. There was nothing else I could do. I had to wrap you up in the blanket so you couldn’t move.”
“I…, see…….”
Now I understood why the blanket had been damp. While moaning lewdly with no one to respond, I had touched my shameful places with my immobilized body inside the blanket, soaking it with sweat and love juices……
…I even wet myself a little whenever I came, so maybe some urine had come out too.
Ugh, what the hell. Doing something like that in front of this man.
Overcome with shame, I sniffled and deliberately turned my head away. I didn’t want him to see my bright red face. I should have thanked him and his companions for not laying a hand on me despite seeing me in such a disheveled state, but the embarrassment made it hard to even say the words.
“Th-thank…, you……. Hic…, I-I’m…, sorry…, I’m sorry……. Hwaa…….”
“Well…, it’s fine. I didn’t know you were that weak to alcohol either, so it was my fault too. Still, you sure drank well.”
“It’s just…, my father used to make it often with leftover bread when he was baking, so…, but I’ve never drunk an entire large mug in one gulp before……”
The man chuckled softly, as if finding it cute.
Still, why was he still here even though morning had long since passed? Something suddenly occurred to me, and I asked uneasily.
“Um…, did you…, stay here the whole night?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah, I did. I didn’t stay awake the whole time, though. Once you stopped touching yourself and fell asleep, I got some rest too. I just dozed off leaning against that chair over there.”
“Wh…, why? You could have just left me alone. Even if I was drunk, you could have let me tire myself out and sleep……”
The man didn’t answer. He simply stared at me quietly. His upright face and my own, still lying bound inside the blanket, exchanged uneasy glances. After a long silence during which I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, he finally spoke.
“Haha. You really have grown up since then. I can see a few white strands mixed in among your hair. The flustered little girl who used to run around now even knows how to say dirty words. Time really has passed.”
“Wh… at……?”
“I’m just an ordinary mercenary doing odd jobs now, but ten years ago I served as a centurion. During the war against the Demon King’s army.”
The Demon King’s army. The moment I heard those words, a shiver ran through me. Even wrapped in the warm blanket, a chill slid down my spine.
I…… even after ten years, still couldn’t forget that time. The black blood that had splattered on my body, the corrupted humans and demons turning to ash beneath the saint’s sword……
Azalea’s skull fragments scattering, her headless body slowly turning black……
And the pleasure of obedience the Demon King had forced into me. I couldn’t forget any of it.
The man looked down at me with eyes devoid of laughter, confirming my reaction. Then, as if now completely certain of who I was, he continued calmly.
“Since this is my hometown, I was under Count Bestebene back then too. It’s embarrassing to admit to my men, but I took an axe to the thigh from what looked like a small-unit commander of the Demon King’s army—a creature three times the size of a man and clad in full plate—and was immediately sent to the rear.”
Only then did I look at his leg. Below the left thigh was nothing but a wooden prosthetic. I hadn’t noticed yesterday because of the table, and now because of the blanket and loose trousers.
“I never expected my first step into the capital would be as a patient being carried into a hospital. In that hospital, there was a small female mage running around casting pain-relief spells on the beds of patients missing limbs or with torn bellies. She was trembling, terrified of the smell of blood and guts, and scared that a patient might die right in front of her……”
I said nothing, simply meeting his eyes. I could tell he wasn’t lying.
“Then one day she disappeared. When I asked the doctor, he said the little girl had been chosen as a hero and sent to assassinate the Demon King. Honestly, I didn’t believe it at all.”
“Um, excuse me……”
I wanted to say something, but no more words came out.
“I’m Tilke. I’m obviously not a centurion anymore—just a scruffy mercenary. It’s too late to express my gratitude, and no matter what I do I can’t repay the favor, but I’m glad we could meet like this, even now. Hero.”
Everything I had done, everything that happened in the hospital, even the time I waded through the uninhabited forest drenched in the black blood of monsters three times my size—none of it had been forgotten, even after I became a wanted criminal of the Empire and went into hiding. Someone still remembered……
“It would be a problem if my benefactor caught a cold because of me, so staying one night to look after you should be fine, right? It was an interesting experience in its own way. …Even the strange smell of bread that lingered on the bed. The scent of freshly baked bread rising in a hospital filled with the smell of blood—I missed that sometimes. You really are our hero, young lady.”
To him, I could only manage a single, quiet reply.
Without even trying to hide the tears that streamed down my cheeks for no reason,
“I see.”
That was all I said.