Chapter 94

“I’ll be back.”

He spoke quietly, as if soothing her.

“Just wait here a little while.”

With that, he stepped outside and motioned to Kancher. The moment Kancher followed him out and shut the door, Dezeb seized his face in one hand and addressed another Dog.

“Someone go up to the main ship and put a gag in the Prince’s mouth or something.”

Through the gaps between his fingers, he stared into Kancher’s terrified eyes.

“If something strange happens, you report it. What the hell were you thinking, putting her on trial? Hm? That fucking signum... Even I don’t wear one.”

Kancher’s frightened pupils repeatedly dilated and contracted.

“What’s gotten into all of you lately?”

As his head was gradually compressed, his eyes began bulging farther between Dezeb’s fingers. Then Dezeb suddenly groaned.

“Ah.”

That hurts.

Grinning at the pain of his tongue tearing after his cheek had only just healed, he thought, He’s certainly trying everything.

“All I said was to gag him.”

Crack.

Kancher’s burst head spilled from his grasp in a viscous stream. Dezeb casually shook the sticky blood clinging between his fingers.

“You take care of her until I finish dealing with this. I’ll assign the surveillance team here too, so work with them. Give her anything she asks for.”

Then, deliberately tugging over the table mat, he wiped his hands on it and tossed it aside.

“Don’t make her hold things like this in her mouth.”

As he continued, the taste of blood from another tear made him click his tongue.

“Not one of you can do your job properly.”

It appeared they could not touch the Prince at all. As a result, the Prince who had been forced into Erabelle’s body was freely mutilating himself.

Dezeb felt a pang of regret.

It would be wonderful if he could dispose of the Prince and the Dogs alike and live alone with Erabelle.

Erabelle wouldn’t like that.

He sighed softly and headed up to the main ship’s containment room.

Inside the stark white, empty containment room, a small woman was screaming herself hoarse.

“I told them to put a gag in your mouth.”

The Prince had already begged him for mercy while pretending to be Erabelle.

“This is wrong. You have to release me...”

It seemed he had become certain in the meantime.

Even as he tore open that cheek and bit through that tongue...

Erabelle’s body was only level two. Even if the damage was transferred through the life vessel, its defense itself remained at level two. Repairing that would require raising Erabelle’s cognition, but that was difficult while her score remained at seventy-nine.

In any case, the Prince had run out of patience for continuing to impersonate Erabelle.

The sincerity more eloquent than a hundred declarations was carved densely across Erabelle’s body.

The Prince soon lost all reason.

“She’s dead... This is already, already—! Are you truly planning to take something like this as your mate? You aren’t, are you? You can’t be! How could you, after I—! After everything I did for you—!”

“What did you do?”

Dezeb lowered himself briefly until his eyes were level with the Prince’s.

“Hm? I asked what you did.”

“I-I...”

But the Prince could not finish.

“I...”

Something resembling a tiny snake—or perhaps a tiny centipede—was crawling across Dezeb’s black pupil.

“That’s right. This is what you did to me.”

Watching the Prince begin to hyperventilate, gasping and wheezing, Dezeb clicked his tongue.

“Seeing this expression on that face genuinely hurts me.”

He pressed lightly against the delicate hinge of her jaw and fitted the gag into place. Then he turned his head and spat out the sour fluid that had pooled in his mouth.

Black sorcery symbols surfaced, and Erabelle’s eyes turned white. The sight of her sinking into deathly stillness was truly traumatic.

“Bleeaargh—”

In the end, Dezeb twisted at the waist and retched violently.

“...Prepare to reclaim the divinity.”

Spitting out another mouthful of saliva, he spoke to Ol, who stood waiting behind him.

“The divinity may have tangled the link with the Prince.”

“Right away...”

“Not immediately.”

Dezeb took a long breath and steadied himself. Not yet. It was not time yet.

“Extract it and establish a temporary pin point. Find a suitable planet.”

“It will shorten the time you have left.”

Reclaiming the divinity from the Prince and using it to protect an entire planet that Dezeb deemed suitable from the rift would require an immense amount of energy.

“...It can’t be helped.”

Now that the link had become tangled, reclaiming it was unavoidable.

“What about Defit?”

Dezeb was asking about the Emperor’s illegitimate son, who was being held in Defit Prison.

“Virgo is there.”

“Tell him to educate the boy properly. Have him entered into the imperial registry first.”

The Dogs were preparing to restore the Emperor’s illegitimate son and have him inherit the Empire in place of the Thirteenth Prince.

Their parting was no longer far away.

“Yes. Understood.”

As he listened to the Dog’s reply, Dezeb took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Acrid smoke traveled down his throat along with the sour taste.

“...I wanted to have the wedding before we parted.”

Honestly, Erabelle Vermilion. Nothing involving you ever goes the way I want.

Erabelle felt someone watching her.

“......”

Staring intently at her.

She quietly swallowed a sigh. The tentacle-headed figures standing in the corner were all staring directly at her.

Not merely one head. Heads, plural.

Meeting dozens of eyes clinging to tentacles like barnacles was not a particularly pleasant experience.

What on earth do they want?

If they need something, they should simply say so. Staring at someone like this is genuinely uncomfortable. I can’t summon Miro in this body, so I don’t even have any emergency medicine on hand. All I have are the snacks they brought me... Is that what they want?

“Would you like one?”

Though it pained her slightly, she held out a hot bar. She offered it to the highest-ranking one among them. Kancher accepted it reflexively, and his tentacles drooped even farther.

“Why would you give him that?”

Aries belatedly tried to stop her.

He had arrived with Dezeb a little while ago and remained in Ilwol Palace with the entire surveillance team.

“You should eat all of those yourself, Lieutenant.”

You could have said that sooner. I’ve already given it to him.

Erabelle kept the thought to herself and quietly watched his reaction.

Aries looked strangely exhausted too.

Looking as though he had been violently tossed around inside a spin dryer, he handed her a new pad and told her to use it freely without bothering with a workaround.

And it was not only him. Every member of the surveillance team remaining in the Imperial Palace wore the same dejected expression. Their complexions were deathly pale, as though they had barely escaped after being half digested inside a monster’s stomach.

“Um, Lieutenant...”

“Yes?”

“May I ask you just one question?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Why do you keep wandering off?”

“...What?”

Aries buried his face in both hands.

“No, I’m not criticizing you. You don’t even like going anywhere... So why? Why do you keep...”

“I-I...”

Erabelle had been about to insist upon her innocence by pointing out that she did not possess the ability to do this, but she closed her mouth awkwardly.

“Why do you keep... Why...”

Aries had begun sobbing into his hands. After sobbing that way for quite some time, he suddenly jerked his head up with a vicious glare.

“What?”

Shrrrk.

The scales on Kancher’s tentacles scraped against one another with a sharp metallic sound.

At the same moment, the surveillance team moved in front of her protectively. It was as though a wall had risen between the tentacle heads—or rather, the security team—and them. The atmosphere, which had already been subtly strained, turned openly hostile.

“Back off. Don’t come any closer. I said back off. Actually, why don’t all of you go outside and die? Hm? Just go out there and kill yourselves.”

The situation was deteriorating rapidly.

Concluding that a fight was imminent, Erabelle began gathering up the snacks scattered across the table.

“What? What are you talking about? How am I supposed to trust any of you? Of course I don’t trust you.”

She was currently inhabiting the Prince’s high-level body.

There were no restrictions on instant food or alcohol, and Erabelle had no faith in the Dogs.

“I warned you not to come any closer. Take one more step and every last one of you is fucking dead.”

The Dogs had brought her frozen hot bars, chicken nuggets, and even Pistis beer. But Erabelle did not trust them to give her more later, making this unearned windfall precious.

“And keep those scales still unless you want me to rip them all out.”

Kancher, whose scales had been clattering sharply, regenerated his head in an instant. Then he exploded at Erabelle as she packed up the grease-soaked boxes.

“Oh, for—! What the hell are you doing?”

It lasted only an instant. Kancher swiftly snapped his head aside as something sharp hissed past his cheekbone.

“Who the hell do you think you’re yelling at?”

Aries fixed Kancher with an icy stare.

“Do you really want to die?”

“No, fuck! I was just—”

Kancher raked both hands wildly through his hair. Then the rustling sound of Erabelle packing away the snacks made him clamp his mouth shut for a moment.

“...Am I seriously the only one who thinks this is strange?”

Apparently still unable to accept it, he began shouting again.

“Am I the only one who thinks this is strange? Why isn’t she throwing up? Why? Why isn’t she crying, screaming, and running away?!”

The sight of him shouting while holding the hot bar was rather pleasing. It looked like a concert light stick.

“Fuck, I told you not to shout.”

“Am I the only one who thinks it’s strange?! You saw it earlier too, didn’t you? Huh? She put her hands over Dezeb’s wound—she held it shut with her bare hands while tentacles were pushing out between her fingers! I didn’t dream that, did I? Huh?”

“What nonsense is this lunatic spouting after the fact? Why are you always so late to catch on? Hm? Is it a hobby of yours?”

“It makes no sense. How could she...”

“I warned you that you’d die if you came any closer.”

Aries sliced through a tentacle that had begun creeping toward her, drew his military knife, and swung.