Chapter 84
Light surged from the massive magic circle and enveloped the mansion.
Rinoa had squeezed her eyes shut and hidden behind Leon in the glare. Leon watched the situation with narrowed eyes.
His hand was already on the hilt, ready to draw his sword at any moment.
For a brief moment.
The light faded.
Rinoa slowly opened her eyes.
“What happened…?”
“I’m not sure.”
Leon walked over to where Cersia had been.
Cersia, who had cast some unknown spell, was sprawled on the floor.
Even the last trace of life had vanished from her corpse-like frame.
“Is she dead?”
“It would seem so, but…….”
Leon couldn’t say for sure, even though what lay before him was undeniably a corpse.
She might have slipped into someone else’s body and gone into hiding somewhere.
“You don’t need to worry. She’s really dead this time.”
At the discordant voice that broke the silence once again, both of them turned at the same time.
“…A doll?”
What greeted them was a doll. A small doll patched together from scraps of cloth.
It was alive and moving. With its hands clasped behind its back, it toddled across the table.
“Honestly. I really didn’t want to use this one.”
Each time the doll moved its mouth, a familiar voice spilled out.
There was noise mixed in, but it was unmistakably Cersia’s voice.
-Swoosh!
Leon drew his sword and swung without hesitation. A thin arc of sword aura sliced through the doll’s neck.
Stuffing flew everywhere as the doll toppled over with a flop.
But Cersia’s voice did not stop. Another doll began moving on its own.
“Don’t handle it so roughly. Do you know how much trouble I went through to make that doll?”
“How long have you been practicing puppetry, exactly?”
“Let’s see? I’ve been doing it since I was little, so it’s been over a hundred years, I guess? Why?”
“You’ve been practicing puppetry for a hundred years and that’s the best you can make?”
Silence fell instantly.
“…………Huh?”
After a long pause, even what Cersia spat out was a single, uncertain sound that barely counted as a word.
“No, I mean, look at it. The proportions are a mess, the buttons are all different sizes and colors, and the seams are crooked.”
“That’s…….”
“And even the lengths of the arms and legs are different, so even its stance is unstable. Isn’t it far too crude to say you’ve been making these for a hundred years?”
“I…….”
“I think I could do better than that even if I started learning now. Wouldn’t you agree, miss?”
“…….”
“Miss?”
Rinoa couldn’t bring herself to answer right away and averted her gaze.
Then she blurted out.
“……Still, isn’t that kind of cute?”
“Huh?”
It had been such a tiny murmur that you would have missed it unless you were listening closely.
“Right! It is cute!”
But Cersia had astonishingly picked up on that faint mutter.
The doll vigorously flailed its short limbs as it made its case.
“Handmade dolls aren’t supposed to have all their proportions perfectly matched! If anything, this kind of irregular charm is what gives them life and brings out their unique appeal!”
“Hmm…….”
“Perfect symmetry has no humanity. Art comes from empty space and daring. There’s no way a slave like you would understand that feeling. Rinoa, you’re my daughter after all! You’ve got an eye for things!”
Leon looked at Rinoa again. She still couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I didn’t say that.”
“I didn’t ask anything.”
He had only been staring silently, but Rinoa, feeling guilty, rushed to defend herself first.
The fact that she didn’t even deny it seemed to mean she agreed with Cersia.
No matter how much she denied it, blood was still blood in the end.
Watching his master form a bond of sympathy with the final boss, Leon found it absurd.
Rinoa, noticing Leon’s expression, changed the subject.
“What do you mean, you’re dead?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I’m dead. Hiiing.”
“Then who’s inside that doll?”
“My lingering consciousness.”
“Lingering consciousness?”
Cersia’s body had long since lost its function as a witch’s vessel.
The moment she fled into this body, there was no way out.
But in preparation for a day like this, Cersia had drawn magic circles throughout the entire mansion.
A spell to transfer her consciousness into the mansion.
“Her consciousness… into the mansion?”
“Yeah.”
Normally, it would be impossible to cast such a large-scale spell with a body this worn out.
But by using the circles I drew in advance, I could manage to make it work to some extent.
And with the witch’s body as well.
Even if it no longer served its purpose, it was still a body that had once housed the Great Witch.
If I used that as a medium, I could pull off tricks like this.
“This mansion is one giant puppet theater. I’m the puppeteer, and you’re the dolls.”
The doll let out an unpleasant laugh.
It was at that exact moment.
“Aaaaaah!”
A scream rang out from outside.
“What was that?”
“We should probably go check it out.”
Rinoa agreed.
The two of them hurried to leave the laboratory.
“You’ll pay dearly for ruining my plans. You too. And those imperial bastards too.”
Leon cut the doll down once more. Cersia’s voice could no longer be heard.
They left the laboratory.
Screams were pouring out from all around.
The mansion trembled, and deafening crashes erupted everywhere.
It was plainly a dire situation.
“Miss. Stay right behind me.”
“Okay.”
The two of them slowly advanced down the corridor. What brought their steps to a halt was the pungent smell of blood.
When they turned the corner, Rinoa gasped at the scene before her.
“W-Why are you doing this? It’s me, Sila!”
The maid, slumped against the wall, begged pitifully.
At the end of her gaze stood a fellow maid, holding a kitchen knife that dripped with blood.
Even at Sila’s scream, the maid raised the knife with a blank expression. The blade came down without mercy.
-Thud!
But the knife never plunged into the crown of Sila’s head.
Leon closed the distance in an instant and seized the maid’s wrist.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“…….”
The maid turned her head stiffly, like an unlubricated machine.
There was no light in those eyes.
They looked as if doll eyes had simply been glued into place.
-Crack, crack.
The maid’s arm, held by Leon, bent at a grotesque angle.
A deformed movement no human body could possibly imitate.
It must have been excruciating, yet not a trace of expression changed on her face.
Still in that state, the maid lunged at Leon.
Leon sidestepped lightly and brought his pommel down on the back of her neck.
The maid’s eyes rolled back as she collapsed flat on the floor. It looked like she had lost consciousness, but—
-Whoosh!
Once again, the maid’s body jerked up in a grotesque motion.
As if someone had yanked her, the prostrate body sprang up like a roly-poly toy.
Even with her neck bent back and her gaze fixed on the ceiling, the kitchen knife in her hand shot straight toward Leon’s chest.
“Tch.”
Leon clicked his tongue and drove a kick into the maid’s solar plexus.
-Thud!
The maid flew backward and slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.
With her limbs completely twisted out of shape, she could no longer stand. She only writhed on the floor, her joints broken.
Leon, staring at the strangely inhuman form, turned to Sila.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-Yes…”
“What exactly happened?”
“I don’t know. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and then they started coming at us with kitchen knives…….”
The maid, who had been speaking while trembling, suddenly clamped her mouth shut.
At that instant, Leon caught the light disappearing from her pupils, and at the same time—
Sila lunged at Leon, both arms outstretched for his throat.
-Smack!
Leon grabbed Sila’s arm and, without hesitation, threw her out the window.
A moment later, the sound of a fall followed.
Leon looked down into the garden below.
She had fallen from the second floor—a height that wouldn’t kill her, but high enough to cause serious injuries.
But Sila, sprawled on the ground, began twitching before long.
Soon, Sila managed to stand unsteadily on her two broken legs and dragged her battered body off somewhere.
The image of her shouting to be saved only moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
“So that’s what Cersia meant.”
This mansion is a giant puppet theater.
The people inside are reduced to dolls, left to be toyed with however Cersia pleases.
Even if their limbs are broken or they lose consciousness, they won’t stay down.
“Let’s move for now. It’s dangerous to stay in the mansion.”
“……All right.”
The two of them started walking again.
Their journey out of the mansion was anything but smooth.
With every step they took, countless people who had been staying in the grand mansion blocked their path.
“Don’t come any closer! You’re trying to kill me too, aren’t you!”
“Nonsense! Put that sword down right now!”
“I said don’t come any closer! Take one more step and I’ll kill you!”
The people could no longer tell friend from foe and were threatening and attacking one another.
A knight driven mad by distrust drove his sword into the heart of the man who had been his comrade moments earlier.
A young servant hiding in terror in a corner was struck down by the club of a retainer with rolled-back eyes.
Blood sprayed, and the mansion filled with pleas for help and screams steeped in curses.
A slaughter in which people suspected and butchered one another. It spared neither young nor old, nor the highborn nor the lowly.
The fallout from that madness swept toward the two of them as well.
“Die! Just die, all of you!”
A mage of the family cast a spell recklessly.
An indiscriminate wide-area attack spell.
Fireballs flared violently from his fingertips and swept in all directions.
-Boom!
The mansion shook with a tremendous crash. The blaze swallowed the corridor and spewed out searing heat.
Just as the flames, hot enough to sear the skin, surged toward them, Leon swung his sword.
The cold sword aura that cut through the air held back the rushing flames like a curtain and protected their space.
-Sizzle!
The flames ripped apart, and thick black smoke billowed up. Even amid the chaos of the blocked view, Leon’s response was flawless.
Leon’s sword strike flashed fiercely through the smoke.
-Slash!
The sword aura shot through the air and severed the neck of the mage who was preparing a second spell.
The head fell away, and blood spurted up. The headless body crumpled powerlessly.
“Leon. That one just now…….”
“I know. He wasn’t a puppet being controlled, but a person. But that no longer matters.”
This is a situation where someone who seems perfectly fine can become the witch’s puppet in an instant.
If you let your guard down because they’re human, they could ambush us like that maid did.
“Why not restrain them instead of killing them? Tie them up so they can’t move, or something.”
“To do that, I’d have to get close to each target. How am I supposed to subdue and bind them one by one? There’s no telling what might happen to you in the meantime.”
There was no telling where an enemy might spring from.
Leon couldn’t leave Rinoa’s side for even a moment.
It was clear what had to come first.
“Don’t think about showing mercy. It would only make us more vulnerable.”
“……All right.”
Rinoa bit her lip. She looked around, turning her head this way and that.
Everywhere she looked was a scene of ruin.
Every breath she took brought in the smell of blood and burning flesh.
The beautiful mansion was broken in places, and the people who had been tending it just moments ago lay scattered about.
Above them, the unhinged survivors and the puppets waged an endless slaughter.
The petty ambition to take down Cersia before the imperial main force arrived and claim all the credit for themselves.
It was a scene brought about by the impatience of those who had rushed to secure their standing within the family.
Guilt washed over Rinoa, but she clenched her trembling fists tight.
‘It’s okay.’
For now, it was fine.
Because she had Leon.
She just had to clean up this mess. Once it was cleaned up, she could get back on her feet however many times she needed.
If anything, her position would become even firmer. She would become the hero who saved the family.
For that, this much damage was nothing more than a sacrifice of the few for the many.
“Let’s go.”
Rinoa reassured herself.
She moved forward again.