Episode 96 – Bug

*

Villard de Valguire, once the king of a kingdom, now a duke of the empire, and in the future, he aimed to snatch the emperor’s seat.

As high as his position was, his pride was equally immense and solid.

More painful to him than any physical torture was the baron’s boot, mercilessly crushing that pride.

The feeling of his pride, which had settled like a stone in his heart, breaking and shattering, the sharp fragments piercing and grinding his chest, sent a chill down Villard’s spine.

He was barely enduring it now, but the moment his pride crumbled, Villard’s mind would also plummet in an instant, shattering into pieces.

Villard was struggling desperately to maintain his sanity.

The problem was that the more he focused, the more vividly he felt his current miserable state.

Villard, with his arms and legs cut off, was writhing on the floor with only his torso remaining, and the baron was pressing down on Villard’s head, just enough not to hurt.

Villard groaned in shame.

The baron looked down at him as if he were a bug and said.

,Reading the documents detailing your misdeeds makes me dizzy. How could you shamelessly act as a duke and a king after doing such things?”

,Kheu-heuk!”

Whatever magic the baron had used, the severed ends of Villard’s limbs quickly healed, and not a single drop of blood came out.

However, for Villard, seeing himself crawling on the floor like a bug felt like a pain that pierced his heart more sharply than the fishhooks that Piadu had embedded all over his body.

Even in that state, Villard shook his head, trying to push away the baron’s foot, and glared up, starting to rant.

,Did the Emperor order you to do this!”

,…Oh, shut the hell up.”

,Or, do you even want justice? Are you trying to punish the wicked? You’re playing the clumsy hero, know your place! I will not yield to you!”

,Heo-“

,No matter what pain you inflict on me, no matter what humiliation you give me, I will not bow my head to you!”

As Villard said, he raised his head high and glared at the baron.

Villard still hadn’t figured out what grudge the baron held against him.

However, in the painful and terrible time the baron slowly carved out pieces of Villard’s flesh like sashimi, Villard seemed to have gained a hint.

Like a devout religious ritual of repeated prayers and bows, the baron cut off pieces of Villard’s flesh with a knife and recited his misdeeds.

Thanks to this, Villard guessed that the baron’s intention was due to a ridiculous sense of justice.

,Does this make you look like a better person? You’re just a kid who doesn’t even know how the world works!”

,…”

Back when Villard used to torture criminals, there were occasionally some extraordinary ones.

Those loyal bastards who screamed in terrible pain but never sold out their comrades.

Whenever Villard saw such guys, he would scoff at their loyalty as criminals, but he was also inwardly impressed by their choice to spit blood-mixed saliva on Villard’s face and choose death instead of begging for their lives.

Villard thought of them.

He couldn’t survive anyway.

But was it because of the adrenaline rush, or was it the mental strength exerted by burning pride?

The pain wasn’t as severe as he thought.

Then he would never react the way that baron wanted him to.

Villard resolved.

Even if he met his death here, even if he was betrayed by his son, the head of the Valguire family would not be toyed with by the justice play of that unidentified foreigner.

However, the baron chuckled at Villard’s desperate struggle filled with resolve.

,Justice my ass,”

*

I bothered to listen to all of Villard’s bullshit.

Cutting off his arms and legs from the start wasn’t even a process of torture.

It was just an analogy to my situation of being helplessly victimized, and it merely provided him with an eye level befitting someone who harmed others without hesitation to elevate his own position.

That’s not to say the pain of carving out his flesh wasn’t significant, but since I used divine power to stop the bleeding every time a wound occurred, it might be natural that Villard still had the strength to talk.

He didn’t even realize it was the help of divine power, and he was ridiculously funny, stubbornly clinging on, mistaking it for the strength of his own will.

I snorted and asked.

,Hey, Duke Villard. Have you ever thought about it?”

,Thought about what.”

,If my purpose from the start was to kill you, why would I bother wearing a mask?”

,…”

Villard was making a puzzled expression and racking his brain.

Come to think of it, Baron Salvie always wore a mask, and I heard that he had a large, hideous scar on his face, but there were no particular scars visible on my face, which was now fully exposed.

I slowly explained to him, who still couldn’t grasp it.

,Think about it. It’s obvious that there’s someone who would recognize me if they saw my face.”

,…”

,It’s a grudge, Villard. A grudge so strong that it can’t even be compared to your son.”

,…”

,Hey, Villard. I don’t give a damn about justice. I don’t have a hobby of catching people and torturing them, and I’m not the Emperor’s bitch either.”

,Then why the hell are you doing this to me?”

I picked up the carving knife that had been used to carve out his flesh and wiped the clotted blood on my shirt.

Even though I was healing him with divine power, the sharp pain wasn’t completely blocked, so Villard flinched and trembled.

I approached Villard and said.

,…To see you beg and plead for your life.”

I grabbed Villard’s struggling hair and lifted him up.

Villard glared at me with rebellious eyes, as if daring me to kill him.

,How long did Jennifer last?”

[36 minutes.]

,Let’s see if he can last longer than that.”

As he caught sight of the blade approaching his eyes, Villard’s rebellious gaze began to noticeably fade.

Villard shook his head like crazy and resisted, but when I pinned his head to the floor with my knee, he couldn’t move and only pathetically struggled with his limbless torso.

The blade slowly and smoothly slid into Villard’s eye, as if cutting through soft mud.

,Uwaaaaaaagh!”

I carefully inserted the blade only about a thumb’s length and swirled it around in his eye socket.

Villard’s screams and thrashing body reacted in unison with the rhythm of my hand’s movements.

Perhaps because his face was pressed against my knee, an unidentifiable liquid mixed with blood flowed out of his eyes as if it were being squeezed out.

I firmly grabbed his hair and pulled the blade out.

Villard’s screams echoed through the basement walls, shattering into pieces.

,Now, next is the other eye.”

,No! Aaaah! You son of a bitch! Even after you do this!”

,You’re still doing well, you’ll last longer than I thought.”

I smiled and plunged the blade into his other eye.

Villard seemed surprised by the vivid pain that felt different from before.

But he had no arms to stop me, no hands to cover and protect his eyes, and no legs to run away from me.

,You feel it too, the feeling of being helpless and defenseless.”

,Uwaaaagh! Eugh,”

,The feeling of being victimized without knowing any reason.”

,Man, aagh!”

,The feeling of being thrown into hell by the betrayal of someone you trusted. Feel it. Go on.”

I pulled out the blade, took my body off Villard, and stood up.

Villard, who was now covered in blood, struggled to lift his chin so that his face wouldn’t touch the ground.

It was because if the area around his eyes touched the floor, an unbearable pain would surely spread.

However, Villard’s muscles weren’t strong enough to hold his head up forever without limbs to balance himself.

Villard was slowly rolling to the side, trying to change his position.

,Rolling around like a caterpillar.”

,Gasp heok!”

I put my hand on Villard’s head and healed his eyes with divine power.

His two eyes, which had been grotesquely torn and stirred by the metal, instantly returned to their original state.

,…? What, what is this…”

,Now, quiz time. Duke. Who am I?”

,What?”

,From now on, this torture will only end in two cases: either you guess who I am, or you cry and beg for your life.”

The rebellious energy in Villard’s eyes had largely disappeared.

Perhaps because the pain from before was so vividly etched in his memory, he couldn’t even speak properly, let alone resist.

However, Villard trembled but spoke his conviction.

,…Th-There’s no way that will…”

,Is that so? Too bad… Well, it’s okay.”

I grabbed his head tightly once again.

Villard resisted even more fiercely this time, even making a groan.

I also pinned his head down well with my knee this time.

I said with a smile.

,This quiz show is generous, so you have unlimited chances.”

I plunged the blade into his eye again.

*

,Count Tacitus had a youngest son who was a newborn baby… Don’t tell me you’re the youngest son of the Tacitus family…?”

,Who’s that again? How many bad things have I done in the world that even after the 11th time, people keep coming to mind,”

,Eugh,”

,Well, that’s the wrong answer, so.”

,Ah, no! No, please stop!”

,Oh?”

After repeatedly gouging out and healing both of his eyes with the blade for the eleventh time.

Villard, unable to bear the pain any longer, unknowingly uttered the word “please.”

Even as I reacted to it, he seemed to feel more relief that he had postponed the blade entering his eye for a moment than shame or embarrassment.

I deliberately tapped his crown as if knocking, and said.

,Have you finally decided to beg?”

Villard didn’t bother to answer my question and slowly opened his mouth.

,…Pl-Please.”

,Hmm?”

,Please, spare me… Stop it.”

I smiled and tapped his eye area with my index finger.

Villard, traumatized, screamed and shook his head wildly as something approached his eyes.

I showed him my finger, which I had just held firmly in place after grabbing his hair and bringing it to his eyelid.

My finger was covered in the cloudy blood that he had squeezed out of his eyes.

,I told you to cry and beg, but this isn’t tears, it’s blood.”

,Th-That’s a stretch.”

,Yeah, I know.”

Once again, a terrible sound echoed through the basement.

[Aren’t you going to say anything?]

[…Yes, this time, at least for this person, I’m very angry too.]

[…That’s right, you have every right to be.]

.