Chapter 83
Leon and Lenoa dragged Cersia into the laboratory.
If anyone happened to see this, they'd surely scream that they'd kidnapped the duke all over town.
"So this is the witch's laboratory? Not all that different from what I imagined."
Lenoa strolled leisurely around the laboratory, looking over this and that.
Nothing in here looked normal. It was obvious at a glance why outsiders were barred from entering.
Just this room alone was enough to prove the duke was a witch.
"Um... Lenoa? Could you explain what's going on? Your dad isn't really keeping up here?"
Cersia, with all four limbs bound, smiled without a care.
Leon held his sword to her throat from point-blank range, as if he'd cut her down the moment she did anything foolish.
"Let's not bother with such lousy acting. Watching it makes me want to retch."
"Oh? Acting? What do you mean?"
"I know you're a witch wearing the duke's mask."
The Lenoa who had been wandering the laboratory came to a stop before the kneeling Cersia.
"And that you're my mother."
"My mother? I'm a man, you know?"
-Squelch!
"Ugh!"
Leon stabbed Cersia in the knee with his sword.
"I told you not to do that pathetic act. Don't make me say it twice. There won't be a next time."
"Tch. You're too harsh. I worked so hard to act like the perfect duke. No one acts better than me, you know?"
Cersia pouted. Then, as if nothing had happened, Cersia broke into a bright smile.
"Lenoa, do you like playing dolls? Why don't you play with me? I've always wanted to play dolls with someone else."
"I'm not interested in playing dolls at all. I've never even tried it. Because someone locked me in the manor, I couldn't even make a single friend."
"I did it all for Lenoa. If you'd stayed here, only weirdos would have come sniffing around. Growing up this beautifully is all thanks to me. You're so pretty, just like me."
An innocent-sounding voice continued.
Despite the blood pooling from her pierced knee, there wasn't a trace of gloom on Cersia's face.
As if a child were talking about a picnic they had gone on.
With sparkling eyes, she looked up at Lenoa and chattered nonstop.
"And isn't that manor lovely? It's in the middle of the forest~ From the study, you can see the lake at a glance. I made everything to suit my taste. So? Did you like it too, Lenoa?"
The problem was that those coy words were coming from none other than Duke Pascal's mouth.
A nasal whine forced out of a middle-aged man's deep voice. A bright-eyed smile like a little girl's.
That mismatch between body and soul was enough to make anyone watching feel physically ill.
Lenoa's stomach churned. She swallowed hard and held back the gagging that threatened to spill out.
"My lady. Let's stop talking to her. She's not someone you can have a normal conversation with."
That was when it happened.
The smile vanished from Cersia's face, and coldness settled there.
Her stare at Leon was as sharp as a blade of frost.
"Where does some lowly slave get off barging into a proper conversation? Shut up."
At Cersia's blunt command, Leon let out an incredulous laugh.
To think he'd be treated like this even by a vile criminal.
Could he even live with himself?
"My lady. I'll contact the Imperial side and arrange for him to be handed over."
Leon didn't want to waste any more time. He wanted to finish off the problem in front of him as quickly as possible.
…….
Lenoa didn't answer. She still had business left with Cersia.
"You want to live, don't you?"
The intent behind the question was unclear.
But Cersia instinctively sensed that Lenoa was plotting something.
"Of course I want to live. If I didn't want to live so badly, do you think I'd have gone so far as to mate with a human and have a daughter? Why? Are you going to save Mom?"
"We'll see."
"My lady."
"Stay back."
Lenoa flatly cut Leon off.
Cersia's mouth curled upward.
"What do you want from me?"
"Simple. Just use that body to appoint me as your heir."
Only Lenoa and Leon knew that the duke was a witch.
If killing a witch looks like treason, the reverse is true as well.
If the witch names Lenoa as heir, everyone else will see it as the duke formally naming a legitimate successor.
That would let her seize the ducal house in one fell swoop.
"Impossible."
But Leon immediately objected.
Once it's known that the duke was a witch, even naming My Lady as heir would be meaningless. It would only make My Lady look suspicious.
"The goal is to subjugate the witch, not kill the duke, right? I'll transfer to another body. Then it'll look like a dying declaration. If you want, I can even control it."
"She's just trying to trick you into removing the bracelet. Don't listen to her."
Cersia shot Leon a glare.
"Why does that slave keep butting into the conversation? Lenoa, if you need someone to run errands, how about a doll instead of a slave? It's cleaner, cuter, and more obedient."
Lenoa glanced at Leon's expression and answered carefully.
"I'll pass. I prefer slaves to dolls."
…….
Ironically, it was Cersia, not Leon, who picked up on the emotion in that look.
Cersia's expression turned cold.
"What? It was broken after all."
An emotion that should never have existed was lodged in Lenoa's body, which should have been nothing more than an empty vessel.
Toward a mere slave, of all things.
Fear.
Despair.
Rage.
Self-loathing.
Those rotten, decaying emotions gnaw at the soul and fester in the mind.
From the standpoint of a witch about to possess the body, that was welcome. A body with no desire to live is easy to turn into a doll.
But affection or attachment like that was a completely different matter.
Attachment creates a reason to live and binds the self tightly to reality.
A soul with something to protect will resist fiercely the moment its body is taken.
That's why love is absolutely not allowed.
It would affect Cersia too, once the body was taken over.
‘I thought that because human blood runs in my veins, I'd never end up loving some human.’
At this rate, it had no value as a vessel, mana core or not.
No, killing the one they love would be a different matter.
"My lady."
"……All right. I won't do it."
In the end, Lenoa gave up on her greed and decided to listen to Leon.
"Wise choice."
Leon let out a sigh of relief.
"Send word. We'll wait here until they arrive."
Just as they were about to wait for the Imperial side to act.
"It sounds noisy outside."
"Does it?"
"Yes."
There was a commotion outside the laboratory.
As if something had happened.
Leon had a bad feeling. As expected, he glared at Cersia.
"You did something."
"As if I did. Even if I'm a witch, false accusations hurt, you know?"
Though she claimed to be hurt, Cersia was grinning.
"It was your doing."
"Ours?"
"You put this bracelet on me, didn't you? With the mana connected to the main body cut off, those poor dolls have no choice but to return to their rotten corpses."
Cersia has dolls hidden all over the manor.
Once the mana supply was cut off, all the people who had been walking and breathing normally died at once.
With such a sudden mass death, they must be in utter chaos.
"I don't really care. They were already dead anyway."
"You're my daughter, but aren't you a little too heartless? Though in some ways, I'm proud you're even more witch-like than I am."
Cersia's lips twisted unpleasantly.
"But it seems you still have a lot to learn."
"What are you talking about?"
"Did you know? Human blood contains a tiny amount of mana."
"What?"
The moment she finished speaking.
Leon was the first to notice that something was off.
He could sense mana flowing from Cersia, even though the bracelet was still on.
'No, it's not Cersia.'
Rather, it was behind her.
Sure enough, a sinister crimson light burst from behind Cersia.
Carved into the wall was a blood-red magic circle.
It had been secretly drawn using blood spilled under torture.
Of course, there wasn't enough mana to properly control the dolls or kill Leon, but it had at least achieved the minimum.
-Squelch!
……!
Lenoa's eyes widened.
A blood-red spike burst from the magic circle and pierced Cersia's heart—more precisely, Duke Pascal's.
"Ugh..."
The duke coughed up blood.
After giving Leon and Lenoa a cold smile, he soon collapsed to the floor as if his strength had drained away.
"A desperate gamble...?"
"Half right."
At the woman's voice coming from just beside them, Leon and Lenoa both turned at once.
One wall of the laboratory.
An open box resembling a coffin stood there. In front of it, a woman staggered out.
Her skin had dried like tree bark, every drop of moisture gone, her bones starkly jutting out, and only sparse white hair remained.
She was unmistakably a corpse, yet her appearance was clearly a perfect match for Lenoa's.
Lenoa felt a sense of déjà vu from the old woman. She was the same woman who had appeared in nightmares almost every day in the past.
Cersia's true body, stripped of all mystique by repeated soul transfers and the damage to her mana core.
"As a puppeteer, you should always... have one emergency escape route ready... cough, cough."
A dark red clot spilled from Cersia's mouth.
It really was just an escape route; even that body was already far from normal.
Still, it was enough to put on one puppet show.
"Did you really... think I wouldn't prepare at all?"
Just as the Imperial side had made full preparations to subjugate the witch, Cersia had also prepared for their invasion.
Cersia spread both arms wide.
That was the signal.
Light began to leak from the laboratory floor.
This time, even Lenoa could see it with her own eyes.
"A magic circle...?"
"Yes. But it's a little different."
A green magic circle filled the laboratory floor completely.
It wasn't just the laboratory.
"The entire manor."
Leon looked beyond the laboratory. His senses detected the enormous amount of mana enveloping the manor.
A magic circle large enough to cover the entire manor.
"Now, let the curtain rise."
For over a decade, Cersia had cloaked herself in the duke's skin and swallowed up this enormous theater.
It was a welcoming performance she had prepared for the day uninvited guests would step inside.
"A blood-soaked final puppet show for our daughter's greatest delight."
The manor was engulfed in light.