Ch.89Humanity with Humanity #1

“Mmm…”

At the boundary between the farmlands of Earth and the developed regions of the Duke’s territory, Ellen was stomping her feet, showing signs of anxiety.

She was waiting for Zion, whom she had agreed to meet at this location, but there was no sign of him yet.

He’s not the type to break promises, could something have happened?

While Ellen was anxiously worrying that something might have happened, she felt a disturbing sensation and sharply opened her eyes.

I smell spirits.

After contracting with the highest spirits that reflected aspects of natural phenomena, Ellen had become more sensitive to their presence. Not only had her sixth sense for detecting people and danger improved, but her range for sensing spirits was much wider.

She felt her hair stand on end at the strange sensation flowing on the wind and ran forward.

An uneasy intuition that something might happen if she just waited quietly pushed her onward.

It’s as if she’s gliding over the ground.

Ellen’s feet were slightly elevated from the ground, making it look like she was truly sliding.

She was flying low, riding the wind, creating such an illusion.

“Y-Your Grace…!”

Neither the noisy spirit attacks nor the rag-like corpse that a man was carrying registered in her vision.

Right now, Ellen’s eyes could only see one man who was torn and burned all over, in a terrible state.

That man, Zion, fell to his knees as soon as he faced Ellen, coughing up a handful of blood.

“Cough! Finally… I’ll live… yes.”

“W-What should I do?! First, we need to… go to the mansion right away…!”

For some reason, he had been able to meet Ellen further ahead than their agreed meeting place.

Zion, grateful for this stroke of luck, struggled to throw down the corpse he had been carrying with his trembling arms. It was a piece of meat, cruelly mutilated with flesh carved away in places from elven attacks.

Ellen hurriedly approached Zion, kneeling beside him and extending both arms to support him.

She intended to carry him in her arms.

If they fled now, they could survive.

But that would mean losing the opportunity to interrogate, leaving only the corpse behind. Even in his blood-drained, hazy state of consciousness, this thought crossed Zion’s mind.

So, as Ellen embraced him in panic, he placed his blood-stained hand on hers and calmly spoke.

“It’s… okay. I won’t die. More importantly… catch the elves in the forest first.”

“But…!”

“Please… I definitely won’t die, so first catch them… but don’t kill them…”

Seeing Zion collapse to the ground before finishing what he wanted to say, Ellen’s eyes took on a desolate light.

She was determined to follow his orders, as they came from her master who was more precious to her than her own life.

Though Zion’s body was in tatters, his breathing was surprisingly steady, and not all the blood staining his body was his own.

From experience, she could tell that much more blood had spilled from the elf corpse he had used as a shield.

Though severe, he seemed to have somehow avoided critical injuries.

“…Yes. I will capture them and bring them before you without fail, Your Grace.”

Though she knew there would be threats and had agreed to the plan, facing this carnage filled her with rage.

Ellen bit her lip hard as she glanced at the barrage of magic spells flying toward them despite the situation.

She wanted nothing more than to tear them apart right now, but Zion’s order not to kill them took precedence.

“Fucking bastards. You should be grateful you’re not going to die.”

Ellen let out a painful groan as if forcibly suppressing her anger and extended her hand to the side.

She drew up mana to summon spirits, and the summoned spirits caused a disaster.

A wind so massive it could pierce the sky, uprooting everything it embraced, taking wild, maddened steps.

A huge storm that should have spiraled upward instead opened its maw sideways.

“What is this…?! Aaaagh!!”

A massive roar that could only be heard during a barrage of artillery spread in all directions.

The forest trees collapsed with cracking sounds like dominoes, and trees further away shook their branches frantically as if begging for their lives.

The screams of elves mixed in were an added bonus.

Pandemonium.

No word could better describe the current situation.

Trees twisted grotesquely or torn apart from the waist up,

Elves lying between them, groaning and bleeding.

Even the thick cloud of dust rising to the sky.

The one who created all this in a single moment, Ellen, was just looking at the wild dogs who had harmed her master with cold eyes.

She was so angry that she had become eerily calm.

◎◎◎

“…Is that so? Zion said not to kill them?”

A chilling sound of teeth grinding echoed in Duke Krauser’s bedroom.

Helena, the source of the sound, was gripping her sword so tightly that blood appeared on her palm. She was about to go berserk but calmed her breathing and asked.

“Yes. It was what the Duke requested just before he collapsed.”

“Then there’s no helping it. As much as I want to split their heads open with my blade right now…”

Helena exhaled hot breath and frowned with extreme disgust.

She couldn’t cause a commotion with Zion sleeping deeply right beside her. So she could only cool her temper by sighing heavily.

“My stubbornness can’t override Zion’s words. Anyway, where are those damned bastards now?”

“They’re imprisoned in the western garrison’s jail.”

“In the west? Even if they’re severely injured, they’re still elves. Can ordinary soldiers guard them?”

“I don’t think there’s any need to worry.”

Ellen confidently answered, knowing what Helena was concerned about.

It was because of a technique she herself hadn’t known well since she’d never had to use it.

Helena read the hint and calmly asked.

“You did something.”

“Yes. I took measures to prevent those traitors from summoning spirits. I forcibly severed their communion.”

“Communion is like the upper limit for summoning spirits, right? Severing it means…”

“It means they can’t summon spirits no matter what they do.”

Contracting with the apex of spirits meant that Ellen could use that authority.

Ellen had the same authority and power in reality as the apex in the spirit realm, and lower spirits had no choice but to submit to her.

Though she had only realized this a few hours ago, Ellen said it would be a useful technique in the future.

“Good. Then there shouldn’t be any major problems. Their bodies are damaged so they can’t move properly, and they can’t use spirits to lash out.”

“Yes. So why don’t we interrogate them until the Duke recovers and gets up?”

“Interrogate…?”

Helena trailed off, tilting her head briefly, then clapped her hands as she met Ellen’s eyes.

The sound wasn’t startling, but it was quite cheerful.

“That’s right. Zion’s words were to keep them alive, not to leave them untouched like honored guests.”

“I think so too. They need to clearly understand who they dared to touch.”

Usually, interrogation is conducted to extract information or to make someone confess their crimes.

But the two women, with the peacefully sleeping Zion between them, were only thinking about how to inflict pain on the captives.

Pain over information. Not just making them realize their place, but continuing to torture them even if they begged for death.

They agreed that only this would somewhat alleviate the resentment building in their hearts.

“I can roughly guess their motive… but we should still get a definite answer. And we need to find out who’s behind this.”

“That’s right. All of this is to tie up loose ends cleanly and definitively.”

The two women, their eyes gleaming at the thought of torture under the pretext of information gathering, left the mansion side by side.

◎◎◎

“Nngh, nnnngh…!!”

In the past, someone had said:

If you want to beat someone to your heart’s content, keep healing them and hitting them again.

Hit, heal, hit, heal, and hit again.

That way, you can beat them to your heart’s content without worrying about them dying, and instill a deep fear of endless violence in their bones.

As if trying to realize this, Helena had asked Eve, who lived with dark elves, to create items for healing magic.

It was a sensible judgment that she couldn’t bring her into the torture chamber, despite being consumed by revenge.

Was it because time had cooled her anger?

Zion might say so if he were awake, but unfortunately, her anger hadn’t cooled.

She had regained some rationality, but the madness-tinged reason of wanting to fully enjoy the torture scene was stronger.

“Will you talk? No, don’t speak. Please don’t speak.”

“N-No! I’ll talk! I’ll talk, so please… Aaaaargh!!”

A torture chamber with a chair, a warm fireplace, and cells at the back.

Helena forcibly silenced the elf who was trying to spill everything by thrusting a heated knife into his shoulder.

“I’ll say it three times, don’t speak yet. It’s still far from enough.”

Ellen was conducting torture in the next room, using wind to block the victim’s breathing.

Of course, she occasionally thrust arrows wrapped in wind into them, just like Helena.

“It’s been two days since Zion collapsed from your goddamn attack. Two days.”

“Nngh…”

“His condition is improving, but it will take more time for a full recovery. Unfortunately, the mages in our territory are not skilled in healing magic…”

“Aaaaargh!!”

As she deeply thrust the blade and twisted it, a harsh scream erupted.

The sound of a throat being scratched was so vivid due to the extreme pain, and the voice became increasingly hoarse from screaming so much.

“Does it hurt? Then hurt more. Consider yourself lucky that your head is still attached after daring to touch my Zion.”

“P-Ple… Please st… Aaaaargh!!”

Helena turned the sword a full circle, ignoring the ear-piercing screams.

She did so despite clearly feeling the blade cutting and scraping the inside of the shoulder.

Her eyes like an abyss, her voice utterly calm.

With a crackling sound like charcoal breaking, the elf, freed from pain, breathed heavily.

Helena had stuck the knife back into the fireplace, so the elf thought he could rest for a while.

Moreover, she called for an apothecary, suggesting she had no intention of further torture.

From the elf’s perspective, this was quite fortunate.

“Please heal him as much as possible. There won’t be any unreasonable orders to have him completely healed by tomorrow, nor any disadvantages for not doing so.”

“Ah, yes…”

The apothecary who entered through the firmly closed door nodded glumly and approached the elf slumped in the chair, holding a bundle in his hand.

Helena glanced at him, then left the torture chamber as if losing interest.

“How was it?”

Had she been waiting?

Helena turned her head toward Ellen, who spoke to her as soon as she left the room, and sighed.

“Not enough. I want to tear his throat out right now.”

“Me too. But at least we can return some of the pain that the Duke suffered this way, so I feel a little better.”

Releasing anger little by little.

I feel the same way, Helena nodded in agreement.

“By the way, is it okay for you to be away from your guard duty so often? I understand your resentment, but I think it would be better to stay by his side.”

“Oh my. Didn’t you dislike me being so close to the Duke?”

“This is an exception since Zion’s safety is at stake.”

“Don’t worry. I asked Olivia to watch over him for a while.”

Though she felt bad about involving a colleague who was busy with her own work, that person was actually very happy to have an excuse to skip work under the pretext of guard duty.

Ellen suppressed a smile, thinking that humans and elves were quite similar in that regard.

“Good. I have no complaints as long as Zion is safe. You’ve handled things quite meticulously.”

“Thank you.”

Helena gently placed her hand on Ellen’s shoulder as she bowed in thanks, and indicated the main entrance of the building with her eyes.

“Well, let’s call it a day and head back.”