I Expected It, So It’s Not Really Surprising
“Pack up the goods, quick, quick! The medicine! The medicine is precious, so don’t you dare break it!”
At Zelpine’s command, the subordinates moved busily, without even time to rest their injured bodies.
His own shoulder, where flesh had been torn away, was burning, and he felt like his head was going crazy, but they had no time to rest.
“Boss! We have too much luggage, can’t we leave some behind?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, you moron?! Are you planning to shut down the business?! Don’t talk nonsense and move it now!”
If they were late, they would be caught by the guard.
If that happened, it was obvious that they would all never see the sunlight again, and if things went wrong, they could even be beheaded.
Considering what they had done so far, the latter was more likely.
That’s why they had to run away as quickly as possible, and in order to get back on their feet after running away, they absolutely needed the medicine.
And yet, to suggest abandoning it, what a stupid thing to say.
“Stop complaining and move the luggage! You don’t want to be caught by the guards and rot in prison for the rest of your life, do you!” “N-no, sir.”
Zelpine’s roar completely deflated the subordinate, who continued with his work.
“What a bunch of blockheads.”
He was in an extremely sensitive state, as he had to worry about where to run and what to do in the future.
So, to give his head a little break, he sat down on a box as if it were a chair and let out a curse-filled groan.
BANG!
To him, the subordinate who suddenly burst through the door could only be seen as annoying.
“Which bastard…!”
But his anger quickly cooled, and he swallowed the words he was about to say.
Who would curse at the sight of him dragging his broken leg, covered in blood?
“B-boss…”
His unfocused eyes,like those of a lost soul, were filled with tears that seemed ready to spill over at any moment.
At the same time, his mouth was grinning, so broken that he couldn’t even control his own emotions.
“W-what’s wrong?!”
What worried him more than that was the blood he was covered in.
There weren’t many wounds, so whose blood was that?
As Zelpine pressed him, feeling a bad premonition, the subordinate chuckled and said,”We’re all gonna d-“
But before he could finish his sentence, his head was cut off.
“Eek?!”
“Wh-who is it?!”
The others screamed and panicked, but only Zelpine stared intently at the severed head of the subordinate.
And as the headless body collapsed and a woman appeared, he resigned himself to his fate.
‘This is the end.’
Her long, flowing golden hair cascaded down like threads made of gold, but the color had faded slightly as it was stained with blood.
At the same time, the calm look in her youthful face made the hearts of those who saw her flutter.
A beauty literally covered in blood.
If you were to face her, you would feel a terrible beauty that could only be described as despairing.
Especially if she was like a grim reaper who had come to take his life.
“Are you all of them?”
Ershi, who was wiping the blood from her face with her sleeve, opened her mouth.
But no one dared to open their mouths at her words.
If they moved carelessly, they would die.
Their instincts told them that, so even uttering a single word was a matter of life and death.
In the end, since no one answered, Ershi rolled her eyes and looked at their faces.
Among them, a man who seemed particularly calm, Zelpine, caught her eye, and she fixed her gaze on him.
“You there, you’re the boss here, right?”
“…That’s right.”
His lips, which opened heavily, were trembling slightly.
No matter how much he had anticipated death, he couldn’t be completely calm in the face of that fear.
“Get up.”
So he obeyed her words obediently.
If he was compliant, it might lessen the pain he would suffer in the future.
“You made a mess of my house while I was away?”
Ershi, who was sneering and narrowing her eyes even further, continued her words with emphasis, as if chewing them.
“You, trash like you, dared.”
Someone was heard swallowing.
As if that was a signal to start, Ershi instantly unleashed fire magic, and everyone was engulfed.
Even the medicine they were trying to take and everything else.
“Aaaah!”
“H-hot! Aaaah!”
“Please save me! I-I’m sorry!”
“Boss! Please save us!”
As the flames burned their entire bodies, the subordinates struggled while they were still alive.
But that was only for a moment.
Before long, they turned into black piles of charcoal, not people, and the foul smell of burning corpses filled the air.
“Ugh…!”
Zelpine, the only one not engulfed in flames, looked at the dead subordinates and almost threw up, but barely managed to hold it back.
But unlike him, Ershi just stood there as if nothing had happened.
In the hellish scene she had created, her gaze was still directed at him.
‘This is freaking bull! I should have refused no matter what back then!’
Horrified by Ershi’s composure, he began to tremble.
Was it because he had secretly looked down on her, thinking that even if she was a genius, she was just a young lady who had grown up in a wealthy family?
At the sight of her, who could be more cruel than he had imagined, Zelpine then deeply regretted what he had done.
He had touched something he shouldn’t have.
It was too late to regret it now.
“W-wait a minute! We didn’t want to do this either. We were just ordered to, so we had no choice!”
“…You’re saying you did it because someone ordered you to?”
At Zelpine’s words, who was kneeling and desperately talking, Ershi frowned.
It was effective.
Judging so, he nodded and continued to speak.
“Y-yes. It’s a name you’ll know if you hear it. Duke Paigle Tesvion. That man ordered us to attack your mansion.”
“…Ha.”
Hearing his words, Ershi burst into laughter.
Because it was absurd?
No. It was funny that the fact didn’t deviate from her expectations.
Just as she went to Paigle’s territory, Zelpine led his subordinates to attack the mansion.
If it’s just once, it’s a coincidence, but if it happens twice, you can’t help but be suspicious.
But this time, the timing was so perfect that it almost led to certainty.
“I
see,
that human…why?”
Ershi, who had been laughing softly, asked with a face that had lost all emotion again.
“Wh-what?”
“There must be a reason. Why did you target my mansion, not me, but the people in my mansion?”
“H-he didn’t tell me the reason! I’m in a position where I have to shut up and do what he tells me to do!”
“How useless.”
She clicked her tongue, annoyed that he didn’t know the most important thing.
Still, there was something she still needed to confirm, so Ershi approached Zelpine.
“Raise your head.”
As she knelt on one knee and commanded, he, who had been bowing his head in fear, obeyed.
His body trembled again as he met her deep eyes that seemed to swallow everything.
“The drug you guys are distributing, it’s Fairytale, right?”
“H-how did you…”
“Just answer the question. Is that also related to that bastard, Paigle?”
Zelpine nodded slightly.
She had just thought so, but it was really true.
How could nothing deviate from her expectations?
It wasn’t even surprising.
“Okay. I understand.”
Now she had found out everything she needed to know.
He got up, straightened his knees, recited a spell, and placed his hand on Zelpine’s head.
“…?”
But since there was nothing wrong right away, he, who had tightly closed his eyes, carefully opened them.
“The old empire was quite cruel. They even created magic specifically used for torture.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?”
“Do you know what I thought was the most terrible of them all? It’s self-harm magic, which makes you lose control of your body and makes yourself suffer on your own.”
When she suddenly started saying incomprehensible things, a change began to occur in Zelpine’s body.
At first, it was just a simple itch.
But the degree gradually worsened, and he couldn’t stand it and scratched his arm, but even so, the itch didn’t disappear.
No, it got even worse.
As he scratched wildly like that, pieces of flesh fell off, and after the itch flowed through his whole body, he screamed.
“Wh-what is this! What is this!”
“How is it? I made it with a little touch, are you satisfied?”
“Aaaah!”
At Ershi’s words, Zelpine answered by rolling on the floor.
He had two hands, but there were too many places to scratch.
Besides, now the itch started to run up his neck and even his gums, so when he scratched, his teeth fell out and blood dripped down.
Whether it was a blessing in disguise, the pain that would have caused him to faint from shock was swallowed up by the itch, so he didn’t lose consciousness.
You think I was going to let you go nicely?
Because of you, my people, Serena, were in danger of dying?”
“Did
“Ugh…!”
“If you keep scratching like that, you’ll be able to die on your own. It’ll be easier if I release it or you release it yourself…but judging by your level, I don’t think you can.”
Leaving behind the words that she had no intention of showing mercy, Ershi left the place leisurely without looking back.
As such, Zelpine kept scratching his body endlessly as she said, and as a result of bleeding a lot, he felt his body getting cold, and his breath became faint.
But the eyes that hadn’t even sensed that he was dying in pain until the very end were telling the story.