Fremd Torturchen - Volume 1 - Chapter 3

3

Treasury Hunt

The wild deer liver sauté with raisin marinade went flying across the room.

Kaito held up a silver tray to protect himself from the rain of food. He then skillfully blocked the knife that followed after it. It made a clang as it bounced off the tray.

“I. Keep. Telling you. Stop throwing the food!”

This manner of exchange had been going on for about two weeks now. He was more than used to it.

It alarmed him how acclimated he was.

At any rate, he finished blocking the attacks and fastened his gaze on the culprit. Elisabeth.

She had planted one foot on the table, and she was pressing down on her trembling brow with her index finger. The wineglass beside her that he’d so faithfully prepared was on its side. Magnificent tears welled up in her eyes as she shouted.

“It’s vile! The sweetness and sourness of the raisin marinade… The liver that manages to fill the mouth with the taste of blood despite being dry as a bone… Both flavors combine so poorly, I’m convinced you have a gift for vile cuisine!”

“It is with great honor that I accept your compliment.”

“That was no compliment!”

She threw her fork at him. In an impressive show of aim, the fork flew just a few inches above the tray and buried itself in Kaito’s forehead. He yanked it out. Blood spurted from the wound.

“Miss Elisabeth, O Miss Elisabeth. I appear to be bleeding.”

“Why should I care?! A servant of mine should be able to plug a hole of that severity with willpower alone.”

“Not sure how far willpower’s gonna get me.”

Kaito pressed down on his wound and sighed. In truth, wounds of this caliber no longer fazed him. He’d been used to pain from the get-go, after all, and after having his lost hand replaced and reattached, he didn’t sweat the little things anymore.

People really could get used to anything.

Yet even so, his cooking refused to improve.

When it came to food, Kaito’s specialties were borderline nonexistent. Because of this, he simply couldn’t come to terms with Elisabeth’s incessant anger in the slightest.

At this point, he had more or less given up on trying to improve. Yet for some reason, Elisabeth still had expectations of him, and her disappointment seemed to grow by the day.

“I no longer harbor hope for your cooking. As such, you need not make dinner tonight.”

It was after she’d sampled his second attempt at a salted, grilled heart that she’d moved to the throne room and finally given up on him. The clear blue sky peered through the crudely fashioned hole behind her.

The Knight’s beast had smashed one of the walls, and she’d seen fit to simply leave it that way. Yet, she seemed to favor the room nonetheless, continuing to use it despite the damage.

She had repositioned the throne, though, and she rested her cheeks in her hands as she sat upon it. Her expression looked like she was harboring a headache as she turned to the waiting Kaito. She pointed to a door he was unfamiliar with.

“In exchange, I order you to spend today hunting through the Treasury.”

“The Treasury?”

As Kaito parroted her words, Elisabeth stomped on the stone floor. In the middle of the room, a spiral of darkness and crimson flower petals flared up like a bonfire. It converged on a single point, engraving a blazing rectangle in the stone as it disappeared. It left behind a black door.

The door swung open from inside like clockwork.

Beyond the door lay a spiral staircase. Considering the layout of the castle, it seemed odd for a spiral staircase to be below the throne room, but given that he’d just seen a door appear out of thin air, he realized that voicing that particular thought would be rather foolish. He decided to be impressed.

“Huh, I didn’t know the castle had a place like this.”

“Indeed it does. A thought crossed my mind after the affair with the Earl the other day. Your cooking is worse than pig feed, but your purin is rather tasty, and your ability to stay rational under pressure and the fearlessness you regard me with are not without value. And when you air the sheets, your face flushes with amusing displeasure. In following, I have decided to grant you a weapon to use in the event you find yourself facing off against a demon on your own. You may select one item from the Treasury—whatever you deem useful. No matter what it may be, I shall grant it to you.”

“Er… I guess I should say that I’m happy and grateful?”

“As an aside, the place I call the Treasury is, in truth, a magical space. I took everything that once resided in the castle in my hometown, moved it all here, and tossed it in. The objects down there have been steeped in hatred and bitter memories, so mind what you touch. Some of them will kill you.”

“Wait, this is just another form of harassment!”

“Silence! Cease your whining and be off already!”

The kick that followed was both precise and accurate, and Kaito went flying like a toy ball. He was, once again, the very image of a cartoon character as he rolled through the door. With exquisite timing, the door slammed shut behind him. He tried pulling and pushing on it, but as he suspected, it didn’t budge.

His path of retreat had been cut off. Surely even cruelty had to have its limits.

At the moment, the spiral staircase in front of him seemed to be commanding him to advance.

The rectangular steps hung floating at fixed intervals, gently curving their way below through the dim light. He looked down, but all he could see were steps going on seemingly forever. A tepid wind blew up from the depths. He couldn’t even tell whether or not there was a floor beyond all those stairs.

“…You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Kaito reflexively grumbled as he peered down the series of stairs that had no railing to speak of. Despair began creeping into his heart. But he shook his head and reevaluated his situation.

Well, it’s true that Elisabeth usually has a point to the things she says.

He would need a weapon if he was going to fight more demons. If he’d had one before, he might have been able to manage a better fight against the crows and the spider. And there was no guarantee he wouldn’t end up in a similar situation again. He didn’t want to make the same mistake a second time around.

Never again.

And if that meant hunting through this magical space, then so be it.

“I guess I don’t have a choice.”

Kaito faced the stairs, which could very well lead to the depths of Hell, and steeled himself. He spread his arms wide for balance. The clack, clack of his footsteps echoed against the darkness below as he began his descent.

He’d expected the darkness surrounding him to continue on forever and was surprised to find that not to be the case.

As he walked, rubbish gradually began appearing beside the stairs. A massive birdcage and iron maiden appeared in the gloom, followed by a hanging rack and a wooden horse with no sense of rhyme or reason to their order. As the torture devices glowed faintly in the dark, it became apparent that each bore grisly traces of use. The iron maiden’s chest was caked with dried blood, and the spikes sticking out of the birdcage were discolored with chunks of meat and fat.

Kaito realized something as he looked at the rusty tools. Unlike their magical counterparts that Elisabeth summoned, these were real. The ones Elisabeth conjured up were always unused. No doubt she had the ability to summon them without limit, each free of rust or fat.

So why is this place full of their mundane counterparts?

“Beats me.”

Tilting his head in confusion, Kaito continued on.

He suddenly found that the stairs had disappeared and his path was flat again. As this space was throwing off his sense of balance, he had no idea when the change had occurred. The stone floor just looked like a larger step, and he continued down its seemingly endless span. The items around him became even more disorganized.

There was a gem the size of his fist, a round pot covered in three-dimensional bee ornaments, and a barrel of vintage rum. There was a tiger’s pelt. There was ivory. A broken chandelier. Some kind of small mummy. There was a bronze ax, an iron sword, and a silver spear.

He pulled out the splendid-looking sword from the vase it rested in, then found himself stumbling backward.

“This one’s no good; it’s too heavy… And it looks like the ax and the spear are, too.”

It seemed that the weapons the Earl had prepared were chosen such that children could easily wield them. However, the weapons in the Treasury were designed for hardened soldiers and knights. They didn’t seem to offer any sort of magical assistance, either. As Kaito had never undergone any manner of training, he doubted he’d be able to use them to any degree of effectiveness.

He heaved the sword aside. It landed with a clang, then sunk into a pile of gold coins that resembled an ant-lion pit. Turning his eyes from the riches, he continued walking forward. But the farther he walked, the less weapon-like the objects around him became.

A comfortable-looking rocking chair. A sewed piece of embroidery. A painting of a deep forest.

“…Huh?”

Suddenly, Kaito’s shoe hit something soft. He looked down and saw a teddy bear with cotton protruding from its chest. As he examined the space, he realized he was surrounded by children’s toys.

Apparently, he’d reached the stratum containing items Elisabeth had owned in her early childhood.

As evidence that they’d been hers, the stuffed animals’ chests were ripped open, and the dolls were all beheaded. The cross sections of wood, porcelain, and cotton were pitiful to look at.

“I guess she’s been into that kinda thing for a while, huh.”

Kaito muttered dejectedly. They say that people never change, but this wasn’t adorable in the slightest. He almost flung the teddy bear away in his annoyance but, feeling sorry for it, gently set it back on its table.

As he was about to resume walking, a hollow voice rang out from far away.

“Elisa……beth… Eli…sa…beth…… Sa……beth…”

“Who’s there?”

Kaito froze in his tracks. The next moment, a man’s deep voice coiled around him like a serpent.

“Elisabeth… Elisabeth… My darling daughter… Elisabeth… My—”

The voice was incredibly creepy. It had the hollow quality of wind blowing through trees yet at the same time seemed almost hot as it coiled around his skin. Kaito felt that if he listened for too long, his eardrums—and eventually his brain—would dissolve.

“What…is that?”

Driven by an intense, visceral disgust, Kaito took a step back. The voice grew louder, as though it were pursuing him. Kaito broke into a run, instinctively trying to shake off the voice. But as if refusing to let him escape, the voice pursued him with strange tenacity.

“Elisabeth… Elisabeth… My darling daughter… Elisabeth… My—”

“Hey, what the hell is going on?”

No matter how far he got, the voice kept coming. He looked around for a way to escape, then spotted something. Behind the pile of broken toys, reminiscent of a mountain of corpses, was a door. It looked almost as though the toys were soldiers, protecting it. Willing to try anything, Kaito grabbed the knob and turned.

The door swung open, but behind it was not light but an even deeper darkness. After he passed through the door, Kaito felt his eyes widen.

He was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar room.

“…Huh?”

Dumbfounded, Kaito surveyed his surroundings. This was clearly a child’s room.

The rectangular walls were covered with wallpaper adorned with a dull yellow floral design, and beside the window were cute confectionary-like plaster sculptures. The furniture was all white, and atop a beautiful chest of drawers with metal handles sat a group of dolls and stuffed animals. There was a four-poster bed, too, with pearl-gray sheets and a heavy mattress no doubt stuffed with down.

Sitting on the bed was a young girl wearing a negligee atop a pile of blankets.

Her chest was stained in the sticky red shade of blood.

She struck a gaunt figure, her wispy veins visible beneath her pale skin. Her long hair was no doubt once beautiful, but at the moment it was devoid of luster and the tips were all tangled together. While her round eyes and shapely nose seemed almost sculpted, those hollow eyes lacked anything resembling vitality. And her thin lips were stained with the ghastly remains of what appeared to be bloody vomit.

Upon seeing that familiar face darkened by the specter of death, Kaito gulped.

There was no mistaking it. This girl was Elisabeth’s younger self.

Oh man… I definitely wasn’t supposed to see this.

Realizing that, Kaito began backing away slowly. He continued doing so until he crossed the threshold of the door he had entered. Once he’d passed through completely, the scene in front of him shimmered like a bowl of still water that had been disturbed, and then it vanished. All that remained were the mountain of broken toys and the door in their midst.

It seemed that he had managed to escape the Nursery. Kaito looked around and breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the Treasury. But the haunting voice returned to assault his ears again. No time to process what he’d just seen, Kaito spun around and made a run for it. He ran with no rhyme or reason, desperately trying to flee from the phantom Elisabeth and the male voice incessantly calling for her.

Cut it out; cut it out… I didn’t want to know about any of this!

Kaito had no desire to learn about that playful yet proud woman’s past. And these were memories she’d likely rather not share, giving him all the more reason not to go peeking. He held little affection for her, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was committing an act of betrayal.

Elisabeth Le Fanu was both a proud wolf and a lowly sow.

The unflinching woman who’d introduced herself as such seemed completely different from that frail little girl.

Seeing her like that was not something for Kaito, as her servant, to do unbidden.

After running with that sole thought in mind, Kaito found himself in a new location, one with an entirely different ambiance.

“Huff…huff, huff… Where am I?”

Blocking Kaito’s path was a tall stone wall. As he inspected it, he discovered that it was constructed rather oddly—out of tightly packed stone cubes. The wall stretched out in both directions. It seemed endless, as though he’d reached the edge of the world. Then Kaito noticed something.

“Wh-what’s that?”

For some reason, a circular section of the wall was illuminated. Kaito approached it warily.

Iron shackles stuck out of the wall at the lit-up section.

Bound by them, like merchandise in a shop display, was a naked woman.

“What the hell?”

Kaito stood, stupefied. He had to look a few times to be certain of it. But sure enough, there was a beautiful silver-haired girl bound to the wall by her wrists. Her chest was ample, and her proportions were well balanced. Yet, she had been heartlessly cast aside.

For some reason, when Kaito looked at her, he felt like something was out of place. But in any case, he couldn’t exactly keep staring at a naked woman. He would just as soon avoid being taken for a lecher.

Ignoring his conflicting feelings, Kaito looked away. He resorted to timid sidelong glances to confirm her condition. The silver-haired girl just sat there, unmoving, her head cast down.

“Hey, are you okay? Hello? Hey, you.”

He tried talking to her, but she didn’t reply. He had no way of knowing why she was imprisoned, and as such was at an impasse as to what to do. But given Elisabeth’s personality, it seemed unlikely for her to take a demon prisoner. Kaito found it unlikely that this girl was an enemy.

And even if she was an enemy, at least he’d be the only one to fall victim.

Also, if he left, there was no guarantee he would ever be able to find his way back here. He would rather regret having saved her than regret not being able to.

With all that in mind, Kaito decided to undo her restraints. He checked nearby, but he didn’t see anything that looked handy for that purpose. He did, however, notice a small leather bag tied around her ankle.

Her arms were bound, so she herself was unable to reach it. What a cruel placement.

Kaito took the bag and looked inside. He flipped it over, and out fell a key and a piece of parchment. Taking the key, he undid her handcuffs. Her arms slumped feebly to her sides. Even with her freedom restored, she didn’t seem to have any intention of moving. As Kaito looked around for something to cover her with, his eyes chanced on the parchment still lying on the floor. Large red letters were written on its front.

INSTRUCTION MANUAL: WARNINGS FOR START-UP

As his golem functionalities deciphered the script, Kaito tilted his head. Suddenly considering a possibility, Kaito looked more closely at the girl’s body.

As he did, he finally realized where his conflicting feelings had been coming from.

Upon closer inspection, he’d realized that the silver-haired girl’s slender limbs were connected by spherical joints. And her straight silver hair wasn’t, strictly speaking, hair but was made out of glittering silver thread.

She was a doll. She was probably just one more object being stored in the Treasury.

The next moment, the girl’s head went clack, clack, clack as it began bobbing up and down. Her head swung to look at Kaito. Her eyes were made of emeralds, and they glinted ominously. Kaito was struck by fear as he returned her gaze.

Her face was as beautiful as a painting, but it bore no expression. And its surface was as rigid as a mask.

The girl’s—or, rather, the automaton’s—limbs began turning, each ball joint rotating in a different direction. Alarmed by the abnormality, Kaito ran his gaze over the parchment.

After reading the words in red, his eyes widened, and he started running.

Be careful, as it may attack humans during start-up.

Kaito fled with all his might.

From behind him, the sound of the doll rapidly crawling across the ground pursued him.

Kaito ran, the Treasury acting as an obstacle course. He leaped over a chair, slipped between two chests of drawers, and slid down a mountain of gold coins. Finally, he reached his target.

The doll didn’t appear to understand how to dodge, simply barreling in a straight line. As such, it took time for it to destroy things when it needed to clear its path. Taking advantage of this, Kaito created distance between the two of them as he fled. But he knew that if he so much as stumbled, he, too, would join the destroyed objects’ ranks.

Hold up! C’mon! You can’t be serious!

His leg muscles stretched near the point of snapping, he dashed up the final set of stairs. He ignored the pain, driving his body with sheer willpower. If he turned around, he was done for. He was out of objects to defend himself with.

Swallowing his fear, he somehow managed to reach the black door. But it was still sealed shut. He banged on the door, screaming in desperation.

“Elisabeth, open up! Open the door!”

“What now, Kaito? Have you finally learned your lesson? Henceforth, I hope you’ll properly sample your cooking first.”

“I knew you were trying to punish me! Forget that—just hurry!”

Suddenly, Kaito felt a chill, as though his heart had been pierced by a needle.

Trusting his instincts, he threw himself to the ground. The doll’s leg pierced the air above his head. She struck like a serpent, attacking from a bizarre angle, and the tips of her toes demolished the thick door. Elisabeth’s voice rang out in confusion.

“Wh-what now? What is that infernal racket?”

As he listened, Kaito dashed headfirst through the torrent of splinters. He was covered in wounds as he rolled into the throne room, but he was able to distance himself from the entrance to the Treasury. The doll staggered forth. Her gait and pale skin made her the very image of a revenant.

It seemed Elisabeth had gotten herself some wine, as she did a spit take. She wore a rare expression as her voice was alight with flustered fury.

“You worm! Just how far down did you slither?! That thing is an automaton, made in poor taste by my foster father! In the absence of orders, it simply destroys everything in its path! Why would you activate such a thing?!”

“I mean, I’m sorry for just turning it on, but how was I supposed to know?! I only took off its shackles, and it turned on by itself!”

“Taking off its shackles is how you turn it on, you imbecile!”

Elisabeth tossed aside her wineglass, as well as the round side table she’d taken out to pair with it. It seemed she’d been treating herself to a little rest and relaxation, but that tranquility had long been shattered.

“Ah, how vexing! To think that I should have to busy myself over a mere doll!”

She rose from her throne, irritated, and rapped her heel twice on the floor.

Darkness and crimson petals billowed across the floor like mist. A mass of thorns shot up from within it. But the doll’s reflexes were superb, and her jumping power was like that of a beast. She leaped over the thorns, cleanly evading them. By clasping a thorn between her palms and the soles of her feet, she managed a landing that avoided injury entirely.

“My… To think you would dodge that.”

Murmuring in admiration, Elisabeth held her hands behind her, then swung them forward. An iron ax made specially for decapitations launched from the darkness, flying over the thorns and aimed for the doll’s neck. The doll’s head, however, swung down, almost as though it had been dislocated, and just barely managed to evade the ax’s blade. Elisabeth’s eyes widened in surprise.

The doll’s legs clicked as they bent, and she leaped again, this time landing directly before the throne. She closed in on Elisabeth. Elisabeth seemed to be timing her movements, though, and she snapped her fingers.

“Ducking Stool!”

A chair sprouted from the floor and cleanly scooped up the doll’s behind. Leather belts strapped her into place. The Ducking Stool resembled the Iron Chair Kaito had once been made to sit in. However, its seat had no spike holes. In their place, long chains were affixed to the chair’s back.

Suddenly, a rectangular section of floor around the doll disappeared. The space beneath her was filled to the brim with water, crimson flower petals floating on its surface.

With a grand splash, the doll was plunged underwater.

Perhaps the doll was struggling, because the water’s surface bubbled and frothed. But after a period, she stopped moving. The chains rattled as they dragged the chair out of the water. The doll was still.

Water dripped from her silver hair. Elisabeth breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good heavens, at last it’s quiet again. However, this thing can pump water off its body. No doubt it will resume function shortly. Perhaps it would be best to destroy it before it gets its gears turning again.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Do you really have to destroy it?”

“I thought this was obvious, but failing to destroy it would be incredibly dangerous! Unless it was your intent that I spend the rest of my days evading a homicidal doll, that is. In that case, would you like to serve as my shield? Hmm?”

“No, I mean, it was my fault in the first place that it got turned on, after all… I would feel really bad if you had to destroy something so well made… Can’t you just turn it off, like it was before?”

Kaito attempted to pacify Elisabeth. As terrifying as the automaton had been, he was to blame for turning her on in the first place. And he was reluctant to destroy something that had been so elaborately crafted to appear human. Not to mention how expensive the doll looked. He doubted his ability to make financial reparations.

“Hmm? One moment. As you say, it would be something of a waste. Perhaps we can make use of it after all.”

As Elisabeth pondered, the doll began trembling before her. An unpleasant squeaking noise rang out as the doll’s head shook at an impossible angle.

Ominous light returned to her emerald eyes. Elisabeth then spoke quietly, almost in song.

“Halt, O gears, for thou art eternally fair.”

The doll suddenly froze. The next moment, her entire body visibly relaxed. Seeing the doll transform at a few words, when Elisabeth had had so much trouble restraining her, startled Kaito quite a bit.

“Wh-what’d you just do?”

“An incantation to make it register a new master. Heh. For it to have worked means the doll’s old settings have all been overwritten. I should be able to set a new master for it now. In doing so, the new master’s orders will take top priority. That should make it stop attacking people haphazardly. Now, then…”

Elisabeth made to open her mouth again. Before she could, the doll clicked her head into motion.

Clack, clack, clack. Distorting her neck, the doll looked at Kaito. He gave a small hop in surprise. However, the doll did nothing more but silently train her emerald-green eyes on him. Kaito looked back in bewilderment. Her gaze seemed almost entreating. Elisabeth gave a short whistle in admiration.

“Well, well, well… It seems to have made the choice for me. Count yourself fortunate. Apparently, after being saved by you twice over, it has taken a liking to you. Very well, then. You shall be its master. One problem remains, however.”

“Me, its master? Wait, and there’s a problem, too?”

“Upon becoming this thing’s master, a ‘relationship’ must be established. Its creator had an unfortunate fondness for putting people on the spot, you see. Of the four relationships, namely: ‘parent and child,’ ‘siblings,’ ‘master and servant,’ and ‘lovers’—only one is correct. Should one select incorrectly, the automaton will turn on its master and try to kill them. A trivial matter for me, but you would most certainly perish.”

“One in four is pretty harsh odds. What should I do?”

“Oh heavens, I haven’t the faintest idea. ’Twould be quickest simply to destroy it, but you seem to find that option distasteful. Ah, well, here… Among ‘parent and child,’ ‘siblings,’ ‘master and servant,’ and ‘lovers,’ select the one least likely to betray you.”

Elisabeth smiled a devious smile, then resumed her position on the throne as if her work here was done. Picking up her wineglass and side table, she leisurely turned around. Apparently, she planned on observing this as a detached spectator.

Elisabeth seemed to be set on simply enjoying herself. Kaito frantically racked his brain. After all, his life was on the line. He knew he would rather die than pick “parent.” He didn’t know much about siblings, but his memories of the one time he’d met a guy he was related to were thoroughly unpleasant. And after looking at Elisabeth and considering his relationship with her, “master and servant” was definitely out. Only one option remained.

“I guess I’ll pick ‘lovers.’”

“Well, there’s a virgin for you.”

A rude assertion. But before Kaito could protest Elisabeth’s verbal abuse, the doll began shaking more violently than ever. Unable to withstand the convulsions, the belts restraining her popped off. Hot steam burst out of the openings in her ball joints.

Her response had been so severe that Kaito, despite himself, was more worried for the doll than for himself.

“Hey, uh, are you sure it’s not broken?”

As he peered tentatively at the doll, her eyes snapped open. She tore off the Ducking Stool’s leather belts, then leaped over the water tank and landed in front of Kaito.

Kaito braced himself for death, and the doll acted.

The doll knelt in front of Kaito, sinking to one knee.

“Huh?”

“I apologize for keeping you waiting. O my dearest, my darling, my destined one, my master! My one true love! O my eternal companion!”

The doll shouted, overcome with emotion. It was the first time he’d heard her voice, but it was oddly pleasant. She clasped his hand in hers and looked up at him.

Her face was surrounded by silken silver hair, and it wore the first expression Kaito had seen out of her.

Her emerald-green eyes drooped, becoming soft and viscous, and her white skin grew flush with blood. Her features were clean yet somehow amorous, and the expression on her sweet face was nothing short of enraptured.

She stroked Kaito’s palm with her cheek in a deeply human display of affection. Her smooth skin was as warm and as soft as a human’s. With an expression of absolute bliss, she whispered ecstatically.

“Henceforth, until the moment these limbs are plucked from me, and my head is removed, and my steel heart stops beating, I shall be your companion and your lover. I shall live only for your sake, and I shall break only for your sake. For whether you wish to love me or destroy me, both privileges are now yours and yours alone.”

She looked up into Kaito’s eyes, then gave a small, bashful smile.

“By your own will, would you please cherish me until the end of time?”

Her words piled up like roaring waves, and Kaito and Elisabeth were as stiff as boards. Unconcerned with their reactions, the doll continued stroking Kaito’s palm with her cheek. Her adorable actions were like those of a fawning puppy.

Eventually, Elisabeth whispered quietly.

“Um… Well, you seem to have pulled it off successfully. Are you…pleased?”

“…I dunno. This is a little…”

He felt that this was somewhat troublesome in its own way.

But after looking at the doll’s blissful smile, he swallowed his words.