The moonlight filtered through the window of the room. A certain half-elf was lying on her comfortable bed, dressed only in her pink pajamas. In the middle of the night, the girl was… distressed for a good while.
"Why?" She asked herself in the void.
The sheets were tangled. Her forehead was damp with cold sweat. It wasn't the best night she had slept.
After she managed to finish reading the manga together with her spirit father and Beatrice in the library, they were interrupted by Ram minutes later. The maid had kindly asked her not to neglect her studies.
It seems that Roswaal had ordered her not to get distracted from her studies, even though she had made up for lost time and was no longer behind for not having studied for a day.
She hesitated a bit, but quickly accepted when, in exchange, they allowed her to have a day of rest together once Subaru returned to the mansion.
Perhaps Roswaal knew that was the best way to motivate her. In any case, it worked.
She studied a few more books with motivation, her fingers turning the pages with more energy than usual, a small smile on her lips at the thought of that free day. And yet, even with that latent emotion...
She simply wasn't happy.
"Why don't I feel… calm?" She placed a hand on her chest.
Her body was sweating cold. Her pajama stuck to her skin uncomfortably.
She had had another nightmare. Another dream… another false memory.
They were just scattered images. Without connection. Without meaning. Of more than one person.
There was a silver-haired elf girl.
A tall, green-haired boy.
Another yellow-haired elf.
And although she wasn't sure, she thought she had seen a black-haired child.
She couldn't remember most of it. Just mixed scenes from different times and places. It was impossible for her to reconstruct it, remember it, or find meaning in it. Honestly… she knew it made no sense to think about it.
But she couldn't help it.
She wanted to think more. She wanted to dream more. She wanted to remember more.
Even if her body and mind suffered with great terror and trembling at living those feelings… for some reason, she simply couldn't help but want to know more.
"I'm a disaster..." She scolded herself, bringing her legs close and placing her head on her knees. "What's happening to me? Why have I been so insecure these days?"
Emilia felt very… disappointed in herself?
No. That wasn't the best word to describe it.
Frustration. A bitter frustration that burned inside her.
She was simply very frustrated with herself for the poor performance she seemed to be giving over the past few days. How difficult it was to concentrate on her studies with the thousand and one thoughts that assailed her.
Some of those thoughts were good, of course.
She enjoyed imagining vivid, colorful scenes of Cid and Emily in her mind. She had even thought of several scenes that didn't occur in the manga.
She enjoyed imagining the moments she would spend with Subaru once he arrived at the mansion.
And she had even been imagining the two of them as protagonists of that story, with the rest of the mansion as supporting characters, but just as fun. They encouraged her.
But that's where the good thoughts ended.
Why is it so hard for me to concentrate on my studies? She didn't know.
Why am I having nightmares these nights? She didn't know.
Why do I feel… so incomplete? She didn't know.
The reason she wanted to read and complete the manga in the first place was because she believed that if she read it and saw the end… she would get some kind of answer.
It was intuition. Or something else. She didn't really have any reason to believe in it. But that's how it happened, and that was the plan she carried out.
But now that plan was over, she was left not knowing what else to do.
"What's happening to me? What am I forgetting?"
She looked at the ceiling, almost hoping someone would tell her what to do.
"What am I missing? What is the last piece I need?"
She clenched her fists tightly.
"Why am I…?"
"No, no…!" She shouted at herself inwardly, before another cycle of bad thoughts began. "Relax. Calm down."
She inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly. She relaxed her hands and placed them on a sheet.
"Everything is fine… everything is fine, nothing bad is happening."
It was the truth. Nothing had changed compared to a few months ago.
She had a plan to free the elves from the forest.
She was making new friends and connections besides Puck.
And on top of that, she believed she had chosen the boy who would be her Cid in real life.
But even though everything was fine… she didn't feel fine.
"Don't think about it. You can't let…"
She said in a low voice. Trying to calm herself. She didn't have time for it.
Boooom.
An explosion had occurred inside the mansion. Very close to where she was.
"What…!?"
Emilia jumped out of bed, her heart racing even more suddenly. She stood up abruptly and went through the door as fast as she could.
Seconds later, Emilia was running through the hallways of the mansion.
She ignored that she was only wearing a light pajama. She ignored that she had no shoes. The concern on her face was more evident than anything else. The noise that had sounded just moments ago should never have occurred in the mansion.
"What was that?" She murmured with her bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor as she ran.
When she turned at the end of a hallway…
"Ngh…!"
She managed to see several corpses on the ground. Several. In rows. A greater number than she would have liked.
Unknown bodies to her, with dark tunics and hoods that hid faces that no longer looked anywhere. They formed a totally unpleasant scene that almost made her look away.
"Ah!" An involuntary scream escaped her.
Another small explosion echoed at the end of the hallway. Making her worry.
Instants later, a new body was pushed through the air with brute force, crashing directly against the corner of a wall.
The impact caused whoever was behind the hood to die instantly. His body was destroyed, leaving a strong mark on the mansion wall.
The cause of that attack was none other than…
"Ram!"
Emilia shouted. The Oni maid had an expression of slight concern, which quickly calmed down as she looked at the half-elf in the middle of the hallway.
"Emilia-sama" She responded instinctively.
After giving a last wind attack towards the body on the ground, making sure it was really dead, the maid's body ran until she was in front of the half-elf.
Both wore pajamas. Ram wore a one-piece one of a color similar to her hair, only slightly paler. Her pink hair was disheveled, as if she had woken up from her room only seconds or minutes ago, with no time to fix herself in the slightest.
But neither of them could afford to think about that in this situation.
"Ram! What happened?"
Emilia asked forcefully. With notable pressure and concern in her emotions and voice.
She wasn't panicking, but her fingers were trembling. Her breathing was accelerating. She wasn't used to finding the mansion hallways covered in corpses and blood, after all.
"It's the Witch Cult" Ram responded, with a firm but grave voice. "They're attacking the mansion."
"Hah…!?"
That response… was clearly not what Emilia expected.
The Witch Cult.
Calling it a group or organization or any similar word would be very out of place for Ram. In her own words, she would describe it as a sect of maniacs with no chance of redemption. A set of beasts in human form who didn't bother to hide their subtlety when it came to murdering innocent lives non-stop if it helped them achieve their goals.
And she knew it very well.
"Ram?… You have no doubts?" Emilia asked, still in shock.
"None" Ram responded, with a coldness that was not directed at her, but rather at those monsters. "If someone belongs to the Witch Cult, I have no reason to hesitate in hunting them down."
She clenched her fists.
"I know very well what they are capable of if left unchecked."
But she didn't expect them to attack her home for the second time.
"…How? Where did these guys come in from?" Emilia asked, just beginning to understand the situation. Her mind was trying to process everything at once.
The mansion was under attack. That was obvious. She almost felt stupid for having asked in the first place.
But she had to concentrate. She had to figure out what to do! She could deal with her insecurities later. The important thing now was how to act.
"I sensed the forest was acting strange" Ram confessed, with a hint of guilt in her voice. "But I didn't think it would be an attack on the mansion."
"Ngh…!"
In the middle of their conversation, more cultists seemed to appear out of nowhere.
They appeared in a synchronized manner on each side of the hallway. They were approaching them quickly.
By their movements it was hard to tell, but they would say they were focusing on Emilia.
"Fu—!"
"Hu—!"
Both girls were about to attack in coordination towards each side.
But it wasn't necessary.
"This is too much noise, I suppose" A little girl's voice sounded from behind the door between them. Which suddenly opened forcefully.
"Minya."
Flying out of there immediately, several cultist bodies pierced by purple-colored crystals were quickly crushed against the wall.
Before the cultists even had a moment to react, it was already too late. A blonde-haired spirit had already ended all their lives without them realizing it.
"Don't dirty the library" She said indifferently.
She didn't care about the sight of the murders. Not one bit. And she almost didn't seem to have any reaction to the attack on the mansion or to the two girls present…
But she had agreed to help. That was already enough to cheer the two girls up a little.
"Beatrice-sama!" Said Ram.
"Betty!" Said Emilia.
"I've already told you not to call me that, I suppose?" Clarified Beatrice, walking slowly until she came out of the library and closing the door gently behind her.
"Betty was wondering how long it would take you to wake up and realize you're being attacked, I suppose."
Those words were enough to confirm the obvious.
From the way she said it, it seemed that the attack had been going on for several minutes since it started… and that she had been holding them back somehow.
"Beatrice-sama" Ram asked, maintaining her professionalism, barely. "Can you know how many enemies there are?"
Ram considered herself very capable of controlling her emotions. But even she couldn't deny that the possibility of releasing all her power and killing so many cultists at that moment was, at the very least, a tempting idea.
She swallowed her selfish desires. Any information she could have about the enemies would be much more convenient at that moment.
"They broke in with force and speed in the middle of the night into the mansion, In fact" Beatrice responded, with slight frustration. "I have no idea where they came from, I suppose. But there are several waves of cultists scattered throughout the mansion… and a quantity too large to count outside of it, who keep entering non-stop, In fact."
"Too many to count?" Emilia stepped forward. "What do they want?"
"I don't know. Do you really want to find out?" Said Beatrice harshly, staring at her.
Genuinely, Beatrice didn't know what the cultists wanted in this place.
But the attacks were clearly directed at Emilia. That could be a coincidence.
There was also the fact that she was a silver-haired half-elf, very similar to the description of the Witch. That could also be a coincidence.
But two coincidences cease to be when they appear together. For Ram and Beatrice, although it was not at all certain, the reason for the attack was nothing more and nothing less than Emilia's life.
"No time to waste, then" Decided Ram, ending the conversation and approaching Beatrice.
Then she observed the silver-haired royal candidate.
"Emilia-sama. Please, take refuge in your room… No. Better in Roswaal's office. There is an escape tunnel there. You can use it to flee."
"Flee!?"
Emilia felt annoyed and indignant.
She was asking her to flee? To step aside?
"Eh?! No!" She exclaimed, stepping forward. "I want to fi—"
"You not only seem to be the one in the most danger from the cultists" Ram interrupted her, firmly but without rudeness. "But you are a royal candidate. With Roswaal-sama absent, you are the person I must protect the most. Please, withdraw."
"But…!"
Emilia understood it. She really understood it.
But she didn't want to accept it.
It was happening again. Her mind went blank without knowing what to do. Her feelings, emotions, and desires fought among themselves without a clear winner.
"Do as she says, half-elf" Said Beatrice, crossing her arms.
"Beatrice!"
"Don't get me wrong. Unlike that girl" She pointed at Ram. "I have no reason to protect you. And I don't really care if you decide to fight or flee. But I know Bubby would want me to keep you safe. So thank Betty and leave."
"…"
Inside Emilia, a great chaos was created in her mind.
Emotions. Thoughts. Feelings.
They fought. Unable to win against each other. No matter how much time passed between them. It seemed there was never a real winner among them.
And for that very reason… Emilia could do nothing but do what others said.
For now…
"Okay" She said in a low voice. clearly not liking the idea, while Her shoulders slumped slightly.
"Beatrice-sama, Could you-?" Ram didn't have time to respond to the little spirit.
"I already know, I suppose" Without flinching, she raised her hand towards one of the hallway doors. It only took a few seconds. But everyone knew her magic and what she was capable of. No one doubted.
When Emilia approached and opened the door, it was no longer the hallway.
It was the door to Roswaal's office. The room where the Forbidden Library had been had completely changed. Emilia was not surprised at all.
Before saying goodbye… she turned around.
"Please… Be very careful."
Those were her last words to her friends before leaving. Closing the door behind her.
"…Now it will be the two of us against the attack, won't it?" Said Beatrice, once the door was closed.
"Yes. Ram is very worried about the village and whether the Cult has done something to it" She admitted, her fingers squeezing her skirt at the possibility. "But right now she will take care of defending the mansion."
"Good, I suppose" Beatrice nodded.
She raised her hand and changed the door where Roswaal's office was to a completely different room. A guest room closer to the mansion's entrance.
"Betty will take care of all the cultists who have already entered the mansion… and those who keep entering."
"Then I will take care of defending the entrance along with the rest of the cultists, won't I? Understood."
"You seem very confident. You know there's an absurd number of enemies out there, right?"
"Are you worried about me, Beatrice-sama?" Ram sketched a small smile.
"Don't talk nonsense, I suppose" The spirit looked away coldly. Although she continued looking at her out of the corner of her eye. "My son wants to see you alive. That's all."
"Yes" Ram inclined her head, with a mocking and proud smile. "When all this is over, I'll make sure to order Barusu to clean up all the mess."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Beatrice sighed. "You are a…-"
"Don't worry, Lady Beatrice" Ram interrupted her, as she approached the door.
"For many years" Ram's voice became lower. "Ram swore it. No cultist will be able to take what I want away from me again."
That was what the Oni goddess swore again in that place once more.
"…Then prove it, I suppose."
With a slight movement of her head, the little spirit said goodbye to the maid.
Ram took determined steps towards the door. Firm movements. Straight back.
She didn't look back.
Taking slow and calm steps, a maid walked through the hallways without stopping or thinking.
Step after step, after step.
The hallway was very close to the great entrance doors. If Beatrice hadn't taken her directly to that door, then it had to be destroyed or open. Either one.
And the path she was taking was, curiously, free of enemies.
There were corpses, yes. Obviously dead, on the ground. If she wasn't responsible for that, she could only thank Beatrice for defending the mansion in her absence.
She bit her lower lip.
She had been careless in not being the first to detect the enemies and take care of them. She couldn't help but blame herself and feel frustrated about it.
Luckily, when she left the mansion… she could confirm something.
"…Yes, she's right. They are too many to count."
They had enough strength and reasons to let out all those emotions that boiled inside her.
In front of her, even with the darkness of the dawn that had not yet arrived, she could notice the great number of beings around her.
All of them had different heights and, surely, different fighting styles and magic.
But they all shared that dirty uniform. Dark, hooded tunics that hid their faces, giving them a sinister, uniform, and anonymous appearance.
She could notice that their uniforms hadn't changed at all since that time.
She could intuit that their way of acting and attacking mercilessly, regardless of the innocent, had not altered since that time.
And she could assure that the hatred she felt towards each of its members had not weakened in the slightest.
"…"
The moment the cultists felt the presence of a new person, not many doubted or considered the danger.
Simply, without warning, a dozen of them rushed headlong to kill the weak girl in front of them.
"Although Ram hates to see them" She raised a hand reluctantly. "She must say she feels only a little grateful that they have come here."
The next instant, the bodies of the ten people who had jumped forward ended up flying back with force.
None of them had the strength to try again. After all, half of their bodies had been shredded without them realizing it. The few seconds of life they had left were the most painful they had ever felt.
"Oh, this is bad."
Ram released her horn from her skull. A large and beautiful white horn that shone in the darkness, like a moon in the darkness.
"It's been a long time since Ram fought seriously in front of anyone" She smiled. "She'll have trouble holding back."
Even she knew that was a lie. Because when she fought seriously, it was very unlikely that the ground around her would survive.
With that in mind, she would do what she could to kill all the cultists in front of her without destroying everything.
"Well. They're just a few hundred pathetic beasts" She shrugged.
The second attack of the battle was given by her.
Although attack would not be a word to describe her actions. No. It wouldn't be.
Massacre would be a better definition for the scene the cultists witnessed.
In a single instant, Ram's body had already positioned itself in the center of thirty cultists, who had no time to react or follow her with their eyes.
"Ul Fura" She whispered.
She was no longer inside the mansion. The amount of effort she had to make to avoid collateral damage was significantly less.
She cast a wind spell.
The thirty cultists around her were minced.
That was not a figure of speech. The wind gusts traveled so fast and so erratically that they were powerful enough to make the bodies of all the cultists disappear into small pieces in the air.
Only bloodstains remained on the ground.
"Ram hadn't spent so long keeping the mansion's lawn clean" She said with false concern.
She was lying. But there was no one to tell her so. Besides, she knew this wasn't over.
"It couldn't be that easy, right?"
She looked around again. Where just seconds before there was nothing, now there were more cultists.
They emerged from nowhere. A total of sixty enemies appearing in front of her.
Even if they were many, they were still weak. Ram knew they had no chance of winning. And yet they kept trying.
Why? What did they want to achieve?
To hold her back? To force her to keep them at the entrance at the cost of their lives?
"The lives of your comrades mean so little to you, don't they?" She said with genuine disgust. "I suppose it doesn't matter. I care much less."
She attacked again.
Even if she felt that this was what they were looking for, Ram did not leave any room for anyone to counterattack. As more and more corpses accumulated, more and more enemies kept appearing.
The Oni goddess was present to mark the end of all those who dared to attack her home for the second time.
She would not let any of them destroy her home again.
Inside the mansion, the battle was unfolding in a very different way.
The enemies were already inside. And, in fact, had already taken much of the mansion for themselves.
Many cultists ran non-stop through the hallways and rooms, surely searching for the girl they had come for.
However, no matter which room they ended up opening. At the end of each one, all the cultists always saw the same door.
"Minya."
Before being quickly repelled by the little spirit who seemed to be in all places at once.
"Since that maid went out to defend the entrance, the cultists have drastically stopped breaking in." Beatrice murmured to herself, closing a door behind her.
She had to admit it: Ram was a good warrior in terms of strength and skill. She would love for her to be so in her maid duties as well, but she supposed she would have to put up with it for now.
"The kitchen again?" She sighed, feeling another group of people identified as unknown and hostile. "How annoying they are, I suppose."
She closed the door to her library and took only a few seconds in that space to go out again.
Naturally, the exterior had changed once more.
"Minya."
Another spell. Fewer enemies.
The door-crossing that Beatrice was able to control allowed her to manifest herself through all the rooms of the mansion at a speed infinitely superior to anyone else.
And even if that had one or two weaknesses, there were practically zero people with that knowledge.
Perhaps some who had lived with her for a few years.
But these cultists? There was no way they could counteract it.
In addition to that, she also had the entire mansion map completely memorized. Every room. Every corner. Every door.
That, added to her door-crossing and her ability to detect hostile people crossing each entrance, made her the perfect girl to defend the mansion from the inside.
"Hah" She let out a dry laugh as she continued teleporting and attacking room after room without stopping to think. "Betty is working very hard, isn't she? This should be Roswaal's job." She got annoyed with the clown for that reason.
Even she was surprised at how willing she was to help defend this place, in fact.
If the cultists had attacked a few years ago… no, if they had attacked just two months before today, she would be almost sure that she wouldn't have cared in the least.
She didn't feel any connection with anyone in the mansion at that time… Well, surely with Bubby she did. But he was a separate matter.
He could easily defend himself and his daughter. They might even have decided to flee, leaving everyone to their fate.
She understood it. After all, they both had different but equally important things to protect for themselves.
Bubby had his daughter. Betty had her library and everything inside it.
Besides perhaps some other object, there was nothing and no one for which they would dare to defend…
Until her own son appeared before her once more.
He was, surely, the only living human being for whom she could genuinely say she loved him.
And she had thought about him a lot during the month they spent together since his return. And much more in these days they were separated without being able to communicate. Making her reflect on more than one thing.
The creation of their contract was one of them. If only her son had said yes when she asked if he was "that person"…
"…"
Ignoring that, the question the pink-haired maid had asked her a few days ago remained in her mind:
Her son… or her library.
Her duty as a mother… or her duty as a daughter and guardian.
Which of the two should she prioritize over the other?
Although she believed she already had the answer chosen, for some reason she still couldn't say it out loud.
However, that didn't matter right now. During tonight's attack, the answer was irrelevant to the actions she must take.
If the cultists destroyed the mansion, they would inevitably end up finding the library.
If the cultists destroyed the mansion, her son would have no home to return to. Not near her.
So the answer to both questions was the same: she must protect what she loved, I suppose. Her role as mother and daughter fought in harmony for this once.
She swore that this day she would protect both things at the same time. She was so immersed in her thoughts and actions that perhaps she got a little carried away.
Perhaps if she had lowered her determination and duty just a little, and had taken things more calmly, she would have been able to notice that there was an unwanted extra ally in a certain place in the mansion.
In Roswaal's office, in a corner of that room, there was a relatively hidden door.
That door connected to an underground tunnel. An escape tunnel that allowed exiting the mansion undetected by practically anyone.
All noble mansions should have at least one escape tunnel. The mansion within the Roswaal territory was no exception.
But the person there was not him. No.
It was a silver-haired half-elf girl who…
"What… am I doing?"
Emilia walked slowly, step after step. Clearly looking for an excuse to stop and turn back.
She didn't feel good. Not at all good. She didn't feel comfortable with the actions she was taking at that moment.
She understood the logic. Of course.
The mansion was being attacked by an undefined number of cultists. They could be surrounded by thousands or more enemies out there.
Apparently, she was the main target. And since they had no extra information about them and were not prepared for something like this, a plan where she ended up evacuating was natural.
No one would judge her for taking those actions, really. It was the most sensible thing.
But she felt like a coward.
She had left her friends behind fighting. They were the ones who insisted. But she had accepted. Even if they could fight without problems on their own, she wanted to help.
But she had fled just because… she was ordered to.
"…"
Without realizing it, she reduced the speed of her steps even more. Barely a step every several seconds.
Emilia felt that in these last few days her thoughts about herself and everything around her were causing her many problems. Or perhaps it was she who felt them as problems.
She felt as if, despite feeling happy and secure, she wasn't. That week in the mansion had been torture for her…
Well, let's not exaggerate. She wasn't really suffering. But she felt like something was missing.
She had felt uncomfortable since her friend had gotten involved with other girls in the capital. To the point where he ended up lying to her and hiding things from her.
What bothered her most was that when he felt pressured to go to another camp, she… couldn't say anything.
She hated it.
When everyone in the castle started insulting her for her resemblance to the Witch, and if it weren't for her father and her friend, she would have ended up bowing her head without being able to say anything.
She hated it.
When she arrived at the mansion, the first night she started having a kind of nightmare. Something she tried to remember and the more she tried, the more it hurt. She had taken refuge in the romance manga in an attempt to cope better and seek answers, instead of continuing to think about them strongly. Her fear and terror got in the way.
She hated it.
And like now, she had given in almost without resistance to Ram and Beatrice's orders to escape the mansion, leaving the two of them to their fate, while she followed orders without questioning them…
She hated it.
She hated herself.
She hated that part of herself that always seemed to find the excuse to get out of problems, hoping they would solve themselves.
She was a royal candidate. Didn't that mean she should maintain a firm queenly posture? Had she ever even behaved like a worthy queen?
What part of being queen meant not being able to make her own decisions and always leaving the most important decisions to others?
"…"
She crossed a second door in the tunnel. She was getting closer and closer to the exit.
She just had to walk for a few more minutes, and finally she would be out of danger…
"…Huh?"
However, she stopped when her pointed ears, much sharper than any human's, began to detect a sound.
Footsteps. Behind her. In the tunnel. Someone had managed to get in there.
Beatrice and Ram… she didn't think it was either of them. Did that mean someone had been able to surpass the defense of the two of them?
She only heard the footsteps of one person. Not of a group. So she could assure that the rest were still being held back by her friends on the surface.
Taking that into account, according to the orders she was given, she should flee, and…
"How much longer am I going to let them tell me what to do?" She asked herself with frustration.
She wasn't a child. She didn't want to be a child.
She was tired of continuing to accept everyone's words just to be kind and try to please absolutely everyone, accepting their words without objection.
"I can also fight" She said, trying to fill herself with determination. "I can also be useful. You know?"
She took space from the door behind her. She raised her right hand upwards. And with a determined and firm expression, she spoke:
"Huma."
Several ice crystals were generated in the air. Large enough to defend herself and attack against any enemy that stood in front of her.
"Show yourself, villain!"
She shouted with determination. Willing to face whoever was there.
"…Ahhh. Ahhh. Ahhhhh!" The responding voice was a whisper that grew into complete madness. "I finally found you!"
"…Huh?"
Emilia blinked.
But upon seeing that figure in front of her, that figure she saw for the first time… for some reason, her body reacted with a mixture of emotions that made her tremble, as did the crystals floating around her.
"That form! That figure!" The man pointed at her with a trembling finger. "Yes! Definitely yes! You are her! Her, her, her, her, her, her, her!"
With erratic movements, the green-haired figure in a dark tunic began to babble and repeat his words over and over again. Terrifying and unsettling the girl even more.
"How…?" Her voice came out broken. "You-? Geu##?… Who?"
She mentioned a name she didn't know. She was blank. Her mind wasn't working. She couldn't think.
When she looked at the man in front of her, she couldn't help but feel Fear. Nostalgia. Sadness and pain.
All the emotions welled up inside her… while destroying her mind and her seal at the same time.
"G-Geu##?… You are…?" She forced herself to speak, clinging to the words. "No. Who are you?"
She asked by instinct. Perhaps in an attempt to clarify her own doubts, or to calm the suffering she was feeling.
"My name?" The man stood still for an instant. Then, his face lit up with a smile that almost reached his eyes. "Ah, yes! My name! Haven't I said it? Oh, sorry for being so lazy! Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy!"
He shouted into the air. His arms raised towards the ceiling as if wanting to embrace something only he could see. His fingers bent and relaxed in a rhythm that followed no logic.
Emilia knew, at that moment, that she was not dealing with someone sane. But even so, she didn't have the strength to pull herself together. Her legs felt as heavy as lead.
Not caring at all, the man in front of her responded.
"I am an Archbishop of the Witch Cult" He straightened his back suddenly. His shoulders squared. His voice became almost… normal. "Representing the Sin of Sloth.
Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti…" He paused. He inclined his head forward. A perfect bow, almost theatrical. "DESU!"
The last shout came with a crack.
His head turned exactly ninety degrees to the right, as if someone had twisted his neck. Emilia heard the snap of his vertebrae with sickening clarity.
"Petel… Geuse?"
That name sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
But every time she tried to hold onto it, her mind clouded over. As if the memory were covered in mist. As if someone had put a fogged glass between her and her own memory.
Was that an ability of the Archbishop? Or a weakness of hers that she couldn't understand?
"W-What are you doing here?" She shouted, taking a step back. "Why are you here? Why did you attack the mansion? What do you…? Why are you…?"
The questions piled up on her tongue. She wanted answers. All of them. General and Personal answers at the same time.
She knew the man in front of her was dangerous. She knew she couldn't let her guard down. With that thought as a anchor, she extended her hands shakily.
Ice crystals sprouted in the space between her and him. A barrier. A distance. Something to separate her from that gaze she wished never to see again in her life.
At her questions…
"Because of you" Petelgeuse responded, with sickly tenderness. "Vessel of the witch."
"Huh?" She blinked, confused.
"To fulfill my goal. To pay her back for her love. To be able to reunite with her" His voice accelerated. "Yes! Her! The only woman I love. The one I love with all my devotion. Devotion, devotion, devotion, devotion!"
Emilia clenched her fists. The ice around her creaked. Something in his words made her both love and hate at the same time.
"…I can see there is a girl you truly love" She said, her voice firm and trembling at the same time. "I'm sorry, but I have to intervene."
She swallowed. Her fingers trembled, but she wasn't going to run away. She didn't want to run away again.
"Ahhh" Petelgeuse tilted his head to the other side. A full 180° turn. "A girl who defends herself. How diligent. Yes! You are definitely the representation of diligence. Diligence, diligen—"
"Please!" Emilia raised her voice, louder than she thought capable. "If you truly love someone… why do you hurt others? That's not love!"
"…"
The silence fell heavily at her words.
For an instant, Petelgeuse stood still. Too still.
His head turned again. Faster. Stronger. You could hear the sound of his head breaking.
"Love?" His voice became a dangerous whisper. "Hurt? Do you think you understand it better? No. No, no, no, no, no. That's not true. After all, you're just a vessel. An empty canvas. A distorted copy. But my love! My love is real! REAL, REAL, REAL, REAL, REAL!"
"Huma!"
Emilia didn't think. She acted.
Three ice crystals shot out from her hands with a sharp whistle. Her voice trembled, but her attack did not.
Three crystals seemed that they were going to directly defeat the green-haired man.
However, none of the attacks managed to hit. They all stopped in the air, as if colliding with an invisible wall.
Emilia could only grit her teeth and get frustrated by the archbishop's stubbornness.
"Please, just let yourself be defeated!"
Emilia almost begged. She wanted to end this fight as soon as possible. Both out of mercy and for her own sanity. She didn't want to keep seeing those eyes anymore.
She continued to launch one ice attack after another. After another. After another.
But none had the strength of a powerful half-elf who wanted to finish her enemy. No.
They had the strength of a seven-year-old girl. Desperate and terrified.
Perhaps she didn't realize how useless she was being by letting herself be carried away by her emotions. She didn't have time for that.
"Ah!"
Suddenly, she felt her legs lose strength.
She was going to fall to the ground…
No. She wasn't falling.
She began to float in the air.
Before she could realize it, her limbs were completely in an X shape in the middle of the tunnel.
Emilia tried to continue summoning more ice attacks while trying to break free from the invisible grip she seemed to be subjected to. But…
"Authority of Sloth" Petelgeuse whispered.
Emilia felt her mouth being pressed. As if an invisible hand covered her lips to prevent her from speaking.
That wasn't the worst.
She felt her head turn to the right… Slowly, without stopping. Unable to stop it.
Crack.
"Mpmmmmmh! Mghmmmmmm!" Emilia's body writhed in the air. But it was useless. Her neck kept turning.
"You will fulfill your purpose" Announced Petelgeuse, with a calmness that was scarier than his screams. "Your body will be offered. As sacrifice. As a sacrifice. YES! SACRIFICE, SACRIFICE, SACRIFICE! She will awaken again. The witch… MY WITCH!"
"MPHMMMMMMMM!"
The bones of her neck began to crack.
Her eyes began to fade. Lose their characteristic color.
Her vision became blurry. The edges became dark. They blurred. Petelgeuse's face became a green and black smudge. She was losing consciousness.
Until she finally fell into darkness.
The last image she got…
"Geu… se."
Was that of her father killing her.
"Ah…" Thought Emilia, somewhere beyond the pain. "Yes, that's right. That's why I didn't want to keep seeing your eyes."
Her last thoughts?
"It's because I wanted to see your kind eyes again."
Emilia's body fell to the ground like a marionette without strings.
Her arms lay extended at her sides. Her legs, twisted. Her violet eyes were no longer visible.
Instead, two white sockets looked at the ceiling. And her expression… was that of a completely shattered girl.
"Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Yes!" Petelgeuse raised his arms to the sky. "Finally!"
He walked towards her with quick and erratic steps. His feet resonated on the stone floor. He crouched next to Emilia's inert body, his knee resting on the cold.
"She's dead! Dead!" He shouted, almost with joy. "My love! Witch!"
He raised his right hand towards the girl's pale cheek.
"Witch… you will return soon. You will resurrect. I will achieve—"
He was going to touch her. He was going to savor his victory.
The contact lasted less than a second.
His hand froze. And then it broke.
The fragments of his skin and bone sounded as they fell to the ground like small ice cubes. Before disappearing into the air.
"…Ah?" Petelgeuse looked at his missing wrist, confused. As if he didn't understand what had just happened.
Then, everything changed.
A wave of cold enveloped the room. It wasn't winter's cold. It wasn't snow's cold. No. It was something older. Deeper. Something that made ice seem warm.
The walls creaked. Frost climbed up the floor. Even Petelgeuse's breathing seemed like a sigh of coldness every time he opened his mouth.
Crack.
The sound of a gem shattering resonated loudly in that noisy, silent room.
Emilia's necklace had shattered on the floor. Its fragments shone for an instant… and then went out.
Only then did a spirit make itself present over the girl's body. White. Eternal. Silent as death.
His cat-like form floated over Emilia. His light tinged the tunnel with a sickly silver. He didn't even dignify Petelgeuse with a glance.
"Love! Love! Love, love, love, love, l—!"
The echo of Petelgeuse Romanée-Conti's madness faded forever.
The beast of the end did not tolerate interruptions.
"Tsk. Are they already getting in here?"
Beatrice said with annoyance, starting to get truly frustrated when, minute after minute, more and more cultists arrived inside her library.
More than half an hour had passed since she started her defense. Perhaps more than a full hour. She didn't know. She was more focused on fighting than anything else.
All the doors of the mansion must have been destroyed or open, since it seemed that the dirty cultists had found a viable way to enter her library non-stop.
Now her precious library was slowly filling up with more and more corpses and blood. She hated seeing her library get dirty and fill up with so many undesirable people.
But at least she didn't think she was reaching her limit. She still had plenty of magic and mana to keep fighting, no matter how many cultists entered.
"They're already getting on my nerves, I suppose!"
She raised her arm and her voice at the same time. She launched forty different darkness crystals at her enemies.
"Minya!"
In a second, several bodies were attacked in the air before they had a chance to approach the little spirit. Their bodies were pierced by the crystals, fragmenting them and making them disappear in the air.
Any sane person seeing such strength and skill would not dare to continue facing a power they clearly could not surpass.
But everyone knew that the Witch Cultists were not known for being precisely sane.
"They really are problematic, I suppose" She sighed. While continuing to attack and make the bodies disappear into the air.
After that, the library door, the only door she had, opened forcefully again. And behind it, a new group of cultists approached to attack. Making her frustrated.
"Come as many as you want" She said, standing up. "Betty will not let you destroy this place."
She prepared to receive the cultists in a face-to-face confrontation…
However, the cultists stopped before they could reach her.
A few centimeters from her face, they were unable to do her any harm.
"Ah…?"
That word also left her lips. A simple syllable of surprise and confusion upon seeing the cultists in front of her… being decapitated by a current so cold it chilled her skin.
"Ngh…!"
The air current seemed to suddenly increase, very strongly. So much so that it made her fall backward as she tried to recover from the shock of the sight she was witnessing.
After all…
"Bubby?"
There was a certain being who should not be awake at that hour of the night.
Beatrice got up from the ground, brushing off the dust and the wound she had made from falling.
"What are you doing here?"
She didn't want to sound annoyed or ungrateful to her brother after he had lent her his help with the cultists.
But her rational side told her that him being there made no sense at all.
Didn't he have to be asleep in his daughter's necklace? Even if he woke up for some reason, wouldn't he be by her side in a situation like this?
The only reason he would dare to leave his daughter alone was because she would have…
"…"
"No" Her butterfly-shaped eyes opened wide. "It can't be."
When understanding suddenly came to her, she understood the situation that Bubby's daughter was in.
"Bubby… I-"
"Don't speak."
"Huh?"
Puck's voice sounded. Cold. Strong. Empty. And yet, with an internal frustration he could barely contain.
He wasn't there to talk. In fact, he should be next to his daughter's body fulfilling his duty.
If he had decided to leave her there, it was only because there was something he had to do in that library.
He took a few more seconds of silence before speaking again.
"You were the closest thing to something I appreciate besides Lia, Betty. You know that."
He declared, to which Beatrice responded.
"...I know, I suppose" Although she still sounded sad and confused.
"That's why. I'm sorry."
"Huh?"
I'm sorry? Sorry for what?
Beatrice didn't have time to ask.
A strong wind current —this time completely directed at her— hit her squarely.
In a second, her body, which had just gotten up from the ground, was thrown backwards with painful force. Crashing against the bookshelves behind her.
"Khk!"
The pain of being pushed suddenly made her groan. Her body fell again without understanding the reason for that attack.
"I'm sorry, Betty" Said Puck, and his voice sounded almost sincere for an instant. "But you will stay inside the library. There will be no world where you can live out there, after all."
When Betty opened her eyes with some force, she managed to see her spirit brother flying back through the same door he had entered.
And when he left the room, he didn't close the door.
Not completely. No.
He left it just a few scant centimeters from closing… before raising one of his paws.
"Eh?! Bubby!"
Beatrice felt what he was trying to do. She got up with effort and terror, running quickly towards the library door.
But when she arrived, it was too late.
The door was completely frozen. Both outside and inside.
Frost. Ice. Seal.
"Bubby! Bubby! Let me out!"
She struggled with the door. Desperate not to be trapped.
But it didn't work. The ice showed no sign of wanting to crack.
"Minya!" She shouted. Conjuring again and again and again and again and again. "Minya, Minya, Minya, Minya, Minya, Minya, Minya, Minya!"
With desperation increasing more and more, she conjured non-stop. Dozens. Dozens. Hundreds of darkness crystals, one after another. All hitting the door with force…
But none showed a clear sign of progress. Each and every one of them seemed useless.
It was normal. It wasn't ice generated by a human being or by someone who simply used ice magic.
It was the ice of the Beast of the End. The one that had condemned her sister to be locked in the library for eternity.
"Please…" Her voice broke. "Please! I… don't want to be here!"
She felt tears beginning to form in her eyes. She knelt down without the strength to continue shouting.
"Bubby! Mother! Subaru!" She said between tears. "Please… don't abandon Betty again!"
She begged to the people she loved and that, at the same time, she knew she would never see again.
She broke.
"El Fura!"
The wind cut through the air in invisible attacks. 10 more bodies were destroyed before touching the ground.
The Oni goddess had not stopped attacking left and right outside the mansion. Her arms moved by inertia automatically in this situation already.
She had lost count of the cultists who had died at her hands. More than two hundred? Without a doubt.
And the worst part? They didn't stop coming out.
Although they all died almost instantly upon taking a step, the next one was already there to take their place. Like ants. Like a damn plague.
No matter how powerful Ram was. Faced with an apparently infinite number of enemies, the only thing she could do was hold the defense. Hold them back and kill, and kill, and kill. Until one side stopped trying. And she would not be that side.
More than difficult, it was frustrating. And exhausting.
Not in terms of tiredness. She hadn't reached her limit yet. But being trapped there stressed her to a colossal level.
She couldn't move from her position. If she stepped back one step, they advanced ten. 10 died, 20 more came out to die. As if their lives meant nothing.
"It's almost dawn" She murmured, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Ram would like to finish this before Sissy and Barusu arrive at the mansion. If possible."
Twenty more cultists came running. They didn't run with fear. They ran with devotion. Like puppets wanting to embrace death.
"Tsk" She spat on the ground. "Stupids."
Another attack. Thirty more corpses. That didn't change anything. And yet, she didn't see the end.
And suddenly, Ram stopped.
"…Ah?"
It wasn't a decision. It was her body. Her demonic instincts went off like an alarm telling her to defend herself. Her skin crawled. Her horn shone.
Something was coming.
Something enormous.
Much bigger than any cultist she had faced that night. A power she didn't understand.
"Why… is it coming from inside the mansion?"
She didn't have time to answer.
Suddenly, it started to snow…
No. It wasn't "snowing."
Snowing was when she made snow sculptures with Rem a few weeks ago. Laughter. Intertwined hands. The cold as a game.
This?
"Ngh…!"
This was an avalanche. A white wall that swallowed everything in one blink.
Sight. Sound. The cultists. The ground beneath her feet.
Everything disappeared under a ton of Snow.
Ram was buried. The weight crushed her against the ground. The cold bit her skin like never before she had felt.
And yet…
"Arghhhh!"
She shouted. Not in pain. But in defiance.
She focused on her horn. Making perhaps the first real effort of the night. She concentrated magic in her hands and somehow her feet found a solid base. And then she lifted the tons of snow above her.
"Hah… hah…!" She breathed heavily in the air, spitting melted snow mixed with blood from her own bitten lips.
She recovered and regenerated quickly thanks to her power. Still, she was almost trembling. Her teeth were clenched to avoid chattering in the infernal cold that surrounded her.
The cultists were no longer there. Either they had fled, or the correct answer, they were all dead under the dense amount of snow on the ground.
Ram believed that if she hadn't released her horn from the beginning of the fight, if she didn't still have that power that increased her resistance to a gigantic level, she would have ended up like them too.
"Who was it that…" She asked the air. Stopping mid-sentence. No one answered her.
Even when she had many doubts about who had summoned the snow. About who had killed the cultists and almost her too, her mind tried to work on something else.
"I have to find Emilia-sama" She ordered herself. Ignoring the cold.
She ignored the cold. Ignored the tremor that ran through her legs. She just tried to run to the mansion.
"Ah?"
But she stopped. When her eyes looked at something in front of her. Something was falling a short distance from her face.
A book with a black cover. Yellowish pages. A seal on the front that she knew very well. After all… it was an object that he had shown her more than once.
Roswaal's Tome of Wisdom?
"Why…?" Her thoughts fired off completely in absolute shock and confusion. "Is he here? Why is this here? Did he leave it here? Why…?"
Her mind went blank at the image and what that book represented for a second.
It was only a second. The time it took for her body to freeze, and not from cold. It was just enough time for her eyes to fix on the book and forget everything else.
That second of carelessness… was the last second of power she felt.
"Ngh…!"
The air was cut.
She didn't see the attack, didn't have time. She only felt it. A cut. An invisible cut that went through her forehead, and split her in 2.
"Ah!"
Her horn flew through the air. Stained with blood that froze almost instantly. And with it, all her power vanished.
"Khk."
Ram's body fell to its knees first. Instantly, she fell without strength forcefully onto the frozen snow at her feet.
Ice climbed up her limbs. She felt like every cell of her skin was starting to become paralyzed and that they were starting to die.
"…Ah"
She opened her eyes with effort. Too much effort. More than she thought she could muster. In front of her, there was a book.
The book fell pointing upwards. Open wide. With nothing to hide its content. Only then did Ram look inside.
"It's blank…" She whispered.
There was nothing written. No words. No destiny. Just a decoy. A trap. Only then did Ram understand.
"I was deceived…" She sounded really frustrated despite her whispering voice. "I was careless. Just one second"
A second. Again.
She had been careless before. And that's why she lost her brother.
She had been careless again, and that's why she wouldn't see him again.
"Damn…" Her lips barely moved in frustration. "I'm losing consciousness."
She lied.
It wasn't true. She wasn't losing consciousness.
She was losing her life.
The cold bit her fingers, her feet, her nose. First it numbed. Then it burned. Then… silence.
"Rem… Barusu..."
A tear formed in her eyes when she thought of the two beings she loved most.
That tear didn't fall.
It froze halfway down her cheek.
"I couldn't even… repay them."
She didn't finish the sentence. She couldn't.
Ram's body remained motionless on the snow. Her broken horn lay a few meters away, already without shine. Being covered by the snow. The open book suffered the same fate until neither of them was visible.
And Ram's body froze until it disappeared into the air.
Until the last second of her life, the only thing left in the Oni goddess's memory were her two younger siblings.
Silence was the loudest sound that could be heard in the almost dawn. Only after the sound of the snow blizzard over the mansion.
Minutes after the battle ended… no one remained alive in that place.
Not a single heartbeat. Not a single sigh. Only the sound of frozen wood and the wind filtering through the broken windows.
Beatrice? Trapped.
Ram? Murdered.
Subaru and Rem? Not even present.
Emilia…
"…"
The half-elf's body still lay on the ground. Pale. Empty. Her white eyes looked at the ceiling without seeing it, without seeing anything ever again.
Her chest did not move. Her lips, parted, and cold… For the first time, Puck felt a touch of hatred when contemplating a sight of his daughter.
After there was finally no one to interfere, it was then that Puck decided to float back to where his daughter's body was.
Under the mansion. In the dark tunnel. In the cold that he himself had created.
"Lia…" He spoke, in a whisper.
The silence seemed to mock him in response.
Puck floated next to her. He circled her. His small tail coiled in the air, not daring to touch her cheek. He didn't want to feel his daughter's lifeless body.
"If you find yourself in a situation where you don't know how to deal with Ram… She is very vulnerable to a black book that Beatrice possesses inside her library."
He remembered.
"Everything went exactly as you planned. Didn't it, Roswaal?"
And he let out a small voice, cold and angry, at the dirty clown who had sought his presence a few days ago.
At that moment, Puck didn't know any reason why Roswaal was giving him certain information, he could only sense the intentions and serious words of that makeup-wearing man.
Puck still didn't understand it, really. He didn't know Ram. Nor was he interested in knowing her in the slightest. That she had some kind of reaction of weakness to such a book was nothing more than the information Roswaal had commented to him.
The two of them should have had a relationship that Puck was unaware of. Perhaps that book was something too important that even someone as powerful as her would show doubt for a moment.
But again, He didn't care.
"I thought her power would be enough to defend Lia" He spoke to himself, with a hint of bitterness. "But it seems she wasn't even capable of that, huh?"
His voice hardened.
Her presence, Ram's presence, could have made it very difficult to fulfill the purpose of his contract. She was a warrior he couldn't be sure to defeat if they faced each other completely in direct combat.
But now that she was dead, He could…
Even so, Puck wouldn't thank Roswaal for anything.
After all, Puck didn't care about anything or anyone other than his daughter.
Absolutely nothing. He affirmed to himself, convincing himself forcefully.
And if she wasn't alive… then there wouldn't be a world without her either.
Lia was his reason for Life. His reason for existing. He had no objective or desire to Live in a world where she wasn't. If it seemed that the world itself would force him to do so, He would destroy that world.
"…"
He floated in circles around Emilia's body. Once, twice, three times. Like an animal that doesn't accept the cage they have put it in.
He focused on his thoughts and emotions before she fell to the forces of that dirty Archbishop. On those who had given them the information to attack the mansion when he couldn't defend her. On those who had failed to defend her. On those who had made her doubt so much during the last few days.
And at the very end…
"…I would like to have someone else to blame besides myself."
The Beast of the End declared with sadness and frustration, as the world began to be destroyed.
Notes:
And with that, now we REALLY finish the week at the mansion.
The only part I hesitated about was in the battle between Emilia and Petelgeuse. I wanted to make it clear that if Emilia lost, it was because the seal was working against her and wouldn't let her concentrate. If only she had her memories, or hadn't remembered them at all, everything would have been so different
Btw. Writing Petelgeuse is hard.
Aside from that? Everything is exactly as I wanted to write it.
I don't know if it makes sense to you. It makes sense to me, and I'm satisfied.
Will this increase hatred towards some characters in the story? Maybe yes. Maybe not. I'm happy with what I've written. Although I don't particularly like writing suffering.
Anyway. What did you think?
I don't remember if I say it that often, but your comments on how to improve my writing of the characters and the translation from Spanish to English before uploading each chapter, I still take them very much into account. So don't stop commenting.
See you. Byeee!