Sylvie’s pupils contracted, trembling—as if trying to crush that cruel truth, along with the exquisitely beautiful yet insane face before her, and grind them into boundless darkness.
“Fertilizer…”
She repeated the word, voice so faint it was barely audible.
Her lips quivered. After a long moment, she rasped out one final question.
“Then… all that talk of ‘purification’… ‘optimization’…”
“Of course those were just excuses I threw together.” Klal shrugged, utterly unconcerned.
“…”
Sylvie plunged completely into despairing silence.
So…
All this slaughter, this purge sweeping the entire district, the lives of countless children vanishing in despair—
It was all just… to see if she would feel “anger”?
To satisfy a whim of cruel observation from the being on the throne?
“…Ha.”
A faint laugh squeezed from her throat.
Then, that subtle tremor spread from her pupils to her entire body.
The hands cradling her face could clearly feel it—the face beneath her palms, that body, beginning to disintegrate from within. Silent, violent shudders.
In her emerald eyes, the last faint spark of light extinguished completely.
In its place was not the anger Klal anticipated, nor deeper despair—but an emptiness so absolute it was deathly void.
“Is my anger… my emotions… that important…”
“I’m just… a filthy blood livestock… a lowly slave…”
“My body can be ravaged by you… my soul can be torn apart by you… everything about me is yours!!! Why?!!! Why do something like this!!!”
“Why?!!!”
The agonizing truth swirled in reality. All pretense, all endurance—shattered, crumbled in this moment. Revealing what lay hidden beneath the mask… despairing collapse.
Yet in Klal’s narrowed eyes, the overflowing amusement only grew—more delighted! More satisfied! More deranged!
“Ah~”
Klal let out a sweet, satisfied moan.
The already pathological smile on her face suddenly spread, deepened—blooming into a bone-chilling light of pleasure. Her crimson eyes curved into dangerous crescents, surging with pure, greedy enjoyment.
“This is it…” she repeated, tilting her head slightly to savor the girl’s breakdown.
“Despair pushed to its limit, finally tearing away all facades to expose the most fragile core… This face, this voice, this…”
She leaned closer, nearly nose-to-nose with Sylvie. Icy breath laced with bloody fragrance brushed trembling lips.
“…this ‘beauty’ where the soul itself seems to burn.”
She extended her tongue, gently licking the bloody tears on Sylvie’s cheek. The crimson in her pupils grew denser, more pathological.
“This is why, my dear. Your anger, your emotions… are infinitely important to me.”
“A million times more than the lives of those defectives.”
“Because… only these things—pain, anger, despair, hatred—can prove that within this beautiful shell still hides a struggling soul. Hahaha…”
“A soul that can hurt, hate, feel anger—not a perfect yet empty doll.”
Her smile softened, grew eerie.
“My dear Sylvie, everything about you is mine. Your body, your blood, your life… even your memories can be freely smeared, altered by me.”
“But there is one thing I cannot possess…”
She slowly rose from the throne, standing tall—looking down with immense pleasure at Sylvie.
Then she spread her arms, as if to lock the broken girl tightly in an embrace, brimming with pathological possessiveness.
“That is… the true reactions hidden deepest in your soul.”
“Submission is the result of taming. Numbness is survival instinct… But those are far too boring.”
“I want to see all of you… I want to possess all of you!”
“Not just physical obedience!”
“Not just ownership of your life!!”
“But the warmth of your soul!!!
“The allegiance of your thoughts!!!!
“Everything, everything about you!!!!”
“I will possess it all!!! Hahahahaha—!!!”
Her deranged laughter echoed layer upon layer through the dark hall.
Until, for the girl collapsed on the floor, only that piercing cackle remained in her ears.
“Now, do you understand?”
“Your anger, your collapse…”
“Is proof of my ‘possession’—a gift from me.”
“You should… thank me for it.”
The girl on the floor offered no reply—only stared ahead with scattered, unfocused pupils.
Klal deliberately softened her voice.
“This ‘purge’ is merely the first stage. While you were on your way here, I ordered it paused. But now… I’ve seen what I wanted to see. Do you think there’s any need to stop the slaughter, my dear Sylvie?”
She asked thus, watching the slumped girl tremble all over—then slowly lift her head. In those dim eyes seeped, sprouted a trace of struggling longing.
“Please… Master… stop it…”
Her abject plea hit exactly what Klal desired.
“You desperately want to save them? To end this ‘purge’? You’re lucky—I’m in a good mood today. I can give you that chance. As long as you…”
Klal’s voice dropped deliberately, carrying a bewitching sweetness. Her crimson eyes gleamed with cruel anticipation.
She slowly extended a hand toward the girl collapsed on the floor.
“Use your body, use everything you can…”
Her voice grew light as a whisper—stark contrast to her earlier deranged pathology.
“‘Satisfy me’.”
“‘Please me’.”
“Let me feel the warmth of your soul—not just pain and anger.”
Her fingertip gently hooked a strand of Sylvie’s hair, twirling and toying with it—intimate in a way that chilled the bone.
“Let me feel pleasure. Let me sense your lowly efforts, your utmost, desperate ‘devotion’—laced with anger I’ve never tasted.”
Klal leaned down slightly, crimson eyes level with Sylvie’s hollow emerald ones.
“Perhaps then I’ll consider stopping this little ‘purification game’.”
Her words fell. She savored the struggling, despairing light in Sylvie’s eyes trembling violently at her offer.
She extended her hand, palm up—halting before Sylvie like an invitation.
“Come now. Prove it to me.”
“Prove you’re more than a shell that can only suffer and collapse.”
“Prove… you still have just a little value I can use.”
Her smile deepened. Her crimson eyes overflowed with pathological control and toying desire.
“Use your body, your submission, every way… you can think of.”
Sylvie stared blankly at that hand—that pale, devil-like hand.
She had lived in the Penned District for six long years.
She knew well: in this city shrouded in cold and death, compassion, kindness, humanity… only brought more unbearable pain.
She had warned herself countless times.
Become numb. Become cold—like a doll, like the vampires!
That was the unchanging law of survival in Eternal Night City!
So there was no need for her to care about the lives of blood livestock she didn’t even know!
She only needed to live her own life!
She only needed—like every morning waking in the dark room—to console herself with those words: “Just stay alive!”
But… she couldn’t just… “ignore” it.
If…
If by serving the Queen as usual—satisfying those capricious, torment-laden demands—she would endure only a bit more pain and indescribable exhaustion than before… just like countless past nights.
If paying that price—she had long grown accustomed to, even numb to—could halt the bloody purge raging in the streets outside.
Could give the possibly still-surviving weak and helpless blood livestock—like Nia and Lynla—a chance to breathe…
Then this trade…
She slowly raised her own bloodstained, trembling hand—and gently took hold of that icy palm.
Was worth it…
Klal smiled in satisfaction.
“Very good… Tonight will be a sleepless one. Prepare yourself, my dear… Hehe…”