The Rewinding Witch's Retribution (2)
As I stood there completely naked, gazing down at Zophy, our eyes met. Her face was twisted in confusion. She was probably wondering whether this was a dream or a nightmare.
“It’s not a dream… Lady Sophie von Mittenburg…”
I spoke in a low voice.
“H-how…?”
She frowned as she looked down at her body, tightly bound with bedsheets. True to her quick, vicious mind, she seemed to have already pieced together what had happened to her. Even while she spoke, her thoughts were likely racing for some way out.
“……I managed to get out somehow.”
“How hasty. …I intended to release you soon.”
Zophy’s voice remained level, neither rising nor falling, perfectly composed. Even in a body rewound to her student years—and perhaps with a mind to match—she could maintain such calm. It was exactly what one would expect from a well-bred young noblewoman.
“No one knows you are the hero Kaira except for me and my two closest maids. I used the illusion magic I mentioned every time I entertained guests. And those maids are daughters of respectable noble houses; they will keep the secret. So once you were freed, you could have lived however you wished…”
Her words flowed like a serpent’s tongue, smooth and artful. What Zophy said was a mixture of truth and lies. Yes. I could tell at once that her statement was not entirely false.
The number of people with enough influence to connect with the daughter of a powerful ducal house and make use of the “Living Clockwork” service could only be a handful inside the Empire.
The servants and physicians who had silently aided my confinement. In other words, the lesser nobles with ties to the family, the wealthy commoners, and the true masterminds pulling strings from the shadows. Altogether, perhaps a thousand people at most.
I had been imprisoned for over a year by this world’s calendar. The number of guests I was forced to entertain during that time had also surpassed a thousand. There were days when I had to service more than seventy in a single night.
…It meant nearly every possible customer within the Empire had already come. There was no reason to extend the service to commoners Zophy didn’t even know or to lesser nobles with whom she shared little connection.
Therefore my usefulness would have vanished before long anyway. Her claim that she had planned to release me soon was not a complete lie.
After cutting off my remaining left hand, she would have “freed” me by selling me to some brothel as a cheap whore who sold her nights for a few coppers, or by severing my head entirely and dumping my corpse in some remote mountain or river to rot.
“I know you intended to release me… U-ugh…”
I couldn’t hold back the groan as my lower body reached its limit. Zophy’s beautiful blue irises, which had been darting about in search of an escape, narrowed sharply.
“S-so… I-I also… wanted to give you… a present, hehe…”
The muscles inside had reached their absolute limit.
I could no longer endure it. I released what I had secretly kept inside my womb. Sticky, obscene sounds followed one after another as blood-soaked things dropped with soft thuds onto the expensive carpet.
“W-what is… What on earth… is that…?”
Bewilderment finally broke across Zophy’s carefully neutral face.
She was a well-bred noble daughter; she had likely never witnessed a woman giving birth. Certainly not the sight of five fully formed fetuses pouring out of a womb all at once.
“Ehehehe… Look, Lady of Mittenburg… I… I… hehe, have given birth to the entire Mittenburg ducal family…”
No matter how clever Zophy was, she wouldn’t immediately understand what was happening. I picked up two of the fetuses for her and kindly explained.
“This one… is Duke Mittenburg. Your noble father who raised you to be such an outstanding aristocrat… Ehet. And this is Duchess Mittenburg… the mother who gave birth to you. How grateful you must be…”
Zophy’s shoulders twitched violently. A reaction exactly like the well-educated, university-educated lady she was. She had realized something, yet in her heart she was probably desperately denying it—just as I had done when I last faced my own father.
“N-no…”
“Lady Zophy, you were the youngest daughter of the house… I noticed it just now. For parents of a youngest child over twenty, the Duke and Duchess looked remarkably young… unnaturally so. Far too young. It was easy to see. They must have been among the guests who used me…”
With a lonely smile, I knelt on the floor and picked up the next infant.
“This one… is Karl of Mittenburg. He would have been the next Duke… An older brother who stood in your way, I suppose. And now…”
Still kneeling, I stamped down hard with one foot. The sensation of something no larger than a few finger joints—something shaped like a person—being crushed sent a pleasant tickle through the sole of my foot.
“The one whose entire body burst open like a bug, soft organs squirting between my toes, is Alina of Mittenburg. She was truly beautiful in her sleep. I’m sure many noblemen courted her… And this tiny baby beside the crushed Lady Alina was originally someone named Jakob of Mittenburg…”
Zophy’s whole body shook as she opened her mouth and cut me off.
“S-stop… stop it, stop, please…”
Her voice trembled violently. I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear, anguish, hatred, or disgust. Most likely all of them at once.
“I-I… I was wrong… I was wrong, please, my family… spare my family, sp-spare them…”
A despairing smile rose on her quivering face. I knew that expression. It was the face that appeared right before the mind shattered completely. How many times had I worn that same look?
“Y-yes, that’s right. Kaira, your mother… She’s alive. She’s still alive. The f-first guest, the woman who came with me… Do you remember her? That woman… we used her as a test subject. She was your mother.”
Even while breathing in short, desperate gasps as if suffering respiratory failure, Zophy kept speaking.
“She ended up in the body of a girl even younger than you, lost her memories, and was probably sold to some brothel somewhere in the capital, but she’s still alive. Kaira, I’m telling you this much, aren’t I? It’s true. Everything I’m saying right now… is the truth!!!”
I stared at her face with a blank expression. It was the first time I had ever seen her look so desperate. The words were clumsy, little more than pathetic excuses… yet I could feel that what Zophy was frantically spinning was not a lie.
Even though I had lived as a mage and dealt with all kinds of people, a highborn lady raised in luxury could not fake an expression like that through mere acting.
“So please, please… Kaira, I beg you, spare my family. I’ll find your mother for you. I swear I will. So turn it back… turn it back. You can do it, can’t you? If it’s you…!!”
“Lady Zophy, then… what about my father…?”
Zophy swallowed a sharp breath.
“T-that is…”
Of course she couldn’t say it. I smiled weakly.
“I thought so. You can’t tell me… Lady Zophy, the porridge you sometimes gave me, the one with minced meat… it was delicious.”
I watched her expression carefully as I spoke. Despite having deliberately served me that food to make me realize the truth, Zophy’s face had gone deathly pale.
I looked around at the four fetuses on the carpet and the single bloody smear that had once been a baby, then continued in a desolate voice.
“But I’m sorry, Lady Zophy. I cannot grant your request…”
The four infants no larger than fingers wriggled precariously, like cocoons carelessly touched by someone and now doomed to die.
“I don’t understand the principles or the logic, but my power only rewinds time. To take time that has already been rewound and fast-forward it back to before the rewind… is beyond my ability. It would probably be impossible for anyone, not just me… What’s done is done. Fetuses that have already left their mother’s body cannot survive.”
“Please, Kaira!! Didn’t I tell you? I had unavoidable reasons that forced me to dirty my hands…!!!”
‘The court… letter, was it…’
She barely managed to get that far before biting her lip and staring down at the infants at her feet.
Her eyes swirled with fear, hatred, astonishment, every negative emotion imaginable—and… regret.
Had that letter come only to Zophy? Since she had involved even the servants, it was likely she had conspired with one of the fetuses now lying on the floor. If anyone among them would do such a thing, it would be the Duke himself.
None of it mattered anymore. It was already too late to rewind time and hear the truth from every conspirator, too late to discover who had sent that letter.
“It doesn’t matter. To me, this is simply something that involved you, Lady Zophy. I don’t care who was pulling the strings from behind…”
I spoke desolately.
“The duel that day, the way you avoided me, the kidnapping, the amputation of my limbs, turning me into a living clockwork with my mind erased… and even what happened to my parents. You were involved in all of it, Lady Zophy. You simply received it all back.”
Then I changed my expression, offering a faint smile as I added,
“Instead, I promise I will find whoever it was in the imperial court later… Yes, I will definitely find them and take revenge. It would be unfair if only the puppet Lady Zophy had to suffer like this. Don’t you agree?”
She swallowed hard, visibly tense at my smile.
“Things like this… things like this…”
I took one more step. The sensation that should not have been felt through an ordinary footstep—the feeling of a tiny life bursting apart uselessly—crawled up my ankle like a tentacle and pierced my brain.
“You’re insane… you’re… insane…”
“That’s right… I am insane. Thanks to you…”
Three steps remained, but I stopped.
“Lady Zophy… I know the pain of losing family. So I’ll make you a promise. There are three left now. The Duke, the Duchess, and your eldest brother, Lord Karl. Choose one of them. That person… I won’t step on.”
I showed the duchess on the bed an empty smile as I made my vow. I had to give her a chance. I had to offer my enemy one last rope to cling to. Because I needed to watch her collapse the moment that rope snapped.