Fremd Torturchen - Volume 8 - Chapter 10

10

The Fathers’ Battle

Inside the red room, there was…

Well, that doesn’t matter.

More importantly…

…let’s take a look through the window.

“Vlad Le Fanu… You—”

“Be quiet. I’m taking a moment to bask in the afterglow.”

Lewis’s voice had a rare hint of loathing to it. However, Vlad cut him off.

Explosions echoed off in the distance. A hard hoof had come down, trampling the piled-up cannonballs before they could even be loaded. But Vlad paid that no heed. He stood amid the din and the clamor, closing his eyes in rapt ecstasy.

Lewis gave him a puzzled look.

“The…afterglow?”

“Of having parted with my dearest daughter and of having had my quote land rather well, yes. Surely you understand.”

Actually, nobody ever understood what Vlad was on about.

Realizing how fruitless trying to converse would be, Lewis went silent.

Several nonsensical seconds passed them by.

Then, after supping his fill, Vlad opened his eyes, and in the same motion, spread his arms out wide and did a pointless little spin to milk the moment for all it was worth. When he spoke, his voice was full and resonant.

“All right, that’s about enough of that! Sorry about the wait. Now then, let’s talk about possibilities!”

“…Possibilities? Possibilities of what? As far as I can tell, you and I have nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, but we do! So, so many things! And if you’re dissatisfied, why, we can even talk about loathing. For no matter what we say, all this is but a tale played out atop a farcical stage. It’s as the Kaiser said; eventually, everything will be lost. And that’s a problem well worth worrying over…but right now, I actually have a different question I’d like to ask you.”

All of a sudden, Vlad steered the conversation in a whole new direction. It was impossible to tell if he even wanted Lewis to follow along or not. He snapped his heels together with great irreverence, then abruptly thrust one finger straight forward.

And with the greatest of ease, he laid the man’s secret bare.

“You don’t have a heart, do you?”

Lewis went pale. For the first time, he seemed visibly shaken.

Vlad spun his finger as though gouging an open wound.

“That thing beating in your chest is no true organ. Am I wrong?”

“No true organ? …Father?”

Alice tilted her head and looked up at Lewis with concern. Vlad’s malicious smile remained steadfast on his face. Lewis squeezed his chest as though trying to hide it from Vlad’s eyes, and Vlad went on with great amusement.

“‘Summoning from another world a soul that’s accustomed to pain, placing it in an immortal body, making it form a contract with a demon, and giving it the heart of an individual who’s ingested demon flesh and accumulated a massive amount of pain.’ A wonderful idea and a perfect method to create someone capable of revolutionizing the world. But it does raise an interesting question, doesn’t it—whose heart did you use?”

Vlad had a point. After all, you couldn’t use just any old heart for something like that. Even just gathering the pain required a resolve of steel, and the whole process would be enough to kill most people.

And what’s more, the person also needed to be an exceptionally skilled mage.

For example, one powerful enough to summon someone from another world.

“Of course, your otherworldly summons were anything but precise. No, you just gambled on the possibility of dredging up a soul that resembled yours, and this here is the fruit of your reliance on fortune! In any case, though, what you offered your new princess was your very own heart. All you have in that chest of yours now is a magically cultivated replacement, no? But it won’t last long. And yet here you are, spinning tall tales about becoming a ‘proper shepherd.’”

“…I was wondering what you were getting at, but that was no lie. Even after I’m gone, Alice and my comrades will still—”

“Oh please, it’s a lie of the highest order! Come now, be honest. There’s no need for you to try to keep up appearances with me.”

Lewis was clearly flustered, and Vlad’s malicious smile grew broader. It was an expression well worthy of the man who stood at the side of the fourteen demons’ apex. He often came across as flippant, but he was still the man who had roused the fourteen demons and led them on their crusade. Exposing people’s secret selves and hidden desires was his specialty.

Vlad went on in a lilting tone.

“…About this idealized utopia of yours. I see it a little differently than my dear daughter does. I mean, you talk a good game about proper shepherds, but is that really what you aim to become?”

“…Father, what is the man talking about?”

Alice was perplexed. However, Lewis offered her no answer. For once, he was the one whose composure was broken. Vlad’s words were cutting him deeper than any knife could.

With each verbal stab, he gouged deeper into Lewis’s wound.

“Once you sober up from your stupor of blood and pretext, all that awaits you are your own broken souls. Such is the nature of your act. But if you abandon even your lofty ideals, then…then it would reduce it to being nothing more than common slaughter. And if that happened, you wouldn’t just be letting down your allies—no, you’d even be letting down your fallen brethren.”

If Elisabeth had been there, she would have no doubt agreed with him.

Lewis’s actions were all far too wasteful.

Even when his goal was just to make a friend, his process had still involved leaving a trail of corpses in his wake.

It was true: When an avenger played the role of judge, their verdict would always be the same.

Yet not even that was enough to account for the callous way Lewis racked up his body count.

It was almost like he was seeking revenge for revenge’s sake.

“That was why you needed a friend, wasn’t it? You know, I had my eye on him, too. But for all his power and fortitude and tenacity, he was simply too righteous. It’s rare, finding a person who believes in God so completely and yet doesn’t blame him for a thing. He’s different from you, that’s for sure. Too different. Honestly, what did you even think you had in common? Did you seriously delude yourself into thinking that you and he were the same? That you and that saint were—”

“Shut up, Vlad Le Fanu!”

“You wanted someone righteous by your side, didn’t you? Someone to make sure you didn’t stray too far down an errant path. A linchpin, as it were. But then he ended up dying. Ha-ha.”

Vlad shrugged as he tossed in a quick laugh at the saint’s death. Lewis offered him no reply.

As Vlad faced him, his smile grew broader still, and he whispered in the most enticing of tones.

“Admit it. All you want is a weapon capable of killing as many as possible.”

“Would you mind not saying any more? I have no interest in listening to any more of your drivel.”

Lewis tried to be evasive, knowing full well how dangerous it was to give even a scrap of information to that man. However, the look in Alice’s innocent eyes was the only answer Vlad needed. He let out a chuckle.

“Ah, forgive me. I suppose I was being a bad influence. Goodness, how fraught fatherhood is. You always have to be thinking about the future, always have to be feigning concern. I can sympathize, you know, being a father myself and all.”

Vlad’s expression of sympathy was utterly shameless, but surprisingly, he held true to his word and went silent.

Then, after falling back a few steps, he laid out his terms.

“If you don’t want to hear any more of what I have to say, then tell the girl to stand down. In turn, I won’t use the Kaiser.”

Lewis raised an eyebrow, not sure what Vlad was getting at.

Vlad shrugged, disappointed at how slow Lewis was on the uptake. Then he extended his right arm as though inviting him to dance.

“You can fight, too, can’t you?”

And with that, Vlad’s proposal was made. He turned around once more and took one step, then another. After the second, he whirled back around and spread his arms wide. Then, with the red glow at the wall’s top to his back, he spoke with brazen dignity.

“Come now—let’s see whose paternal love is stronger!”

No words of consent rose up to meet him.

Instead, their battle began in silence.

First off, Lewis gave Alice’s shoulder a soft, wordless push to gently signal her to fall back. Vlad nodded in satisfaction. Splendid. Then, the next moment, Lewis vanished.

With his arms still spread wide, Vlad cocked his head in confusion.

An ax came barreling straight down at his cervical vertebrae.

Without turning around, Vlad reached out and blocked the massive blade with his palm. It cleaved through his flesh, but halfway in, the ax came to an abrupt stop, as though it had been caught between someone’s teeth.

Lewis spoke, his voice far deeper than it had been up until then.

“What trickery is this?”

“Hmm? I just reinforced my bones with magic, that’s all. The flesh I left as is, though. I wanted to see how your attack would feel. And power aside, that was quite interesting! I never would have expected it to come in such a form!”

Lewis went silent again and forcibly wrenched his ax free. It left a deep horizontal wound on Vlad’s hand.

Blood violently gushed forth, staining the courtyard flowers a grisly red. A single pinkie toppled comically to the ground.

Vlad took a lick of his own blood. His lips curled into a beguiling grin.

“You carry yourself like a scholar, but I can see you’re not afraid to get rough when it’s your turn to fight! Of course, it’s not so easy labeling one or the other as your ‘true nature.’ Dark magic can easily be influenced by how aggressive its wielder is, after all. A side effect, perhaps, of how instinctively it’s learned.”

“When I joined the rebel organization, the first things I picked up were assassination techniques. Fitting work for a petty grunt, no?”

“Ah, I see. Given how unhesitatingly you aimed for my vitals, I should have guessed you— Whoa there!”

This time, Vlad fell back a step.

At some point, Lewis had closed in on him. Three crescent-shaped knives peeked out from within Lewis’s black outfit, each one a different length. Lewis threw them in circles one after another.

Vlad dodged two of them, then shattered the third with his finger. Darkness and azure petals scattered through the air.

Left empty-handed, Lewis let out a displeased murmur.

“So what, you took the first blow on purpose?”

“I said as much, didn’t I? Still, what a letdown. I mean, I never thought you’d be on the level I was in my prime, but I also didn’t think you’d be this bor—”

“Your head.”

A low murmur slipped from Lewis’s lips.

For a second, Vlad looked confused. Soon, though, a look of pure joy spread across his entire face.

The one eye Lewis had visible beneath his mask practically dripped with loathing. Still as impassive as ever, he slowly raised a hand to point at Vlad’s head. His voice was dry and hoarse.

“You probably don’t even realize it, but you’re protecting your head. And the rate at which mana flows through you is unusual, too. That body of yours isn’t human—so I take it that whatever houses your soul is stored in your head?”

“Bravo! Bravissimo, using that keen eye of yours to make up for your lack of strength. How right you are! …Wait, I probably shouldn’t have told you that, hmm. Bad habit of mine.”

“Ah, I see now. You’re an idiot.”

Vlad gave Lewis’s biting remark a nonchalant shrug.

As he did, a massive pair of blades made for the nape of his neck.

The strange weapon had extended from Lewis’s long sleeve as though in place of his arm. It was like a pair of garden shears, and Vlad’s head was the unwanted plant they were trying to prune. However, Vlad dropped his torso forward as spontaneously as if he’d tripped. The two blades snapped together, just barely missing the top of his head.

Vlad then swung his long leg up and leveled a kick at Lewis’s jaw. Lewis tilted his body to avoid the blow, then suddenly twisted to the side and hurled his shears at seemingly nothing. Sure enough, though, Vlad appeared at their destination not a moment after they left Lewis’s hand.

The shears pierced Vlad clean through. However, his figure merely crumbled away.

A torrent of azure petals and black darkness luxuriously exploded in all directions. When the air cleared, Vlad was standing there as though nothing had happened. And almost as an afterthought, his severed pinkie was back in its original spot as well.

It had been like watching a magic trick.

Lewis clicked his tongue in unreserved annoyance.

“…Well, that’s irritating. It’s like your very existence is all one big joke.”

“You know, my dear daughter tells me the same thing all the time! For how long her rebellious phase has lasted, you’d think she’d at least have mellowed out a bit by now, no?”

“My Alice would never say something like that. Have you considered that she might just not like you?”

A cheer of encouragement rose up from behind Lewis. “That’s right—I’m Father’s good little girl! Go, Father! You can do it!”

The mood about them was disconcertingly relaxed. However, Vlad didn’t seem to mind. “Well that can’t be it,” he muttered in genuine displeasure. Meanwhile, Lewis slid a new blade out of his sleeve.

This time, it was his turn to mutter.

“I know why you picked this fight with me.”

“Oh-ho, what’s this? Not to steal your thunder or anything, but I was just hoping to amuse myself.”

“…I can tell that’s no lie. But it isn’t the whole truth, is it? Holding Alice in check and going up against me alone allowed Elisabeth to escape…but I don’t understand why. Why would you go to such lengths?”

As he posed the question, Lewis leveled a series of rapid thrusts at Vlad. Dodging them all would have been nigh impossible.

However, the majority of the blows were mere feints.

Vlad could see that plain as day, so he snapped his fingers as he danced his way around the important ones.

One blow came at a sharp diagonal straight for his head, and that was the sole strike Vlad took the effort to actively repel. When he did, though, other blades found their marks and ran his arm and shoulder through. Despite all the blood gushing forth, though, Vlad was still able to put some distance between himself and Lewis.

His body was in a grim state, but he let out a composed laugh all the same.

Lewis continued his line of questioning, as though the previous exchange of blows hadn’t even happened.

“You’re the Kaiser’s old contractor, so the Torture Princess had every reason to hate you. She probably holds you in great contempt. So then, why? Do you even know? My wanting a friend was one thing, but this makes even less sense. What exactly is Elisabeth Le Fanu to you?”

Lewis was clearly puzzled. Vlad stopped moving, and his glib expression vanished.

Then, serious as could be, he gave his answer as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He was like a man boasting of his greatest treasure.

“My dear daughter is simply that. She’s my daughter, and she’s dear to me.”

For a few seconds, Lewis stood motionless. It was unusual, seeing him so utterly at a loss for words.

He shook his head in exasperation and disbelief. At that point, he was forgetting to even attack.

“That can’t be… You seriously only think of her as a beloved child?”

“Of…course? If not for that, I don’t know how you think I could forgive being burned alive.”

Vlad placed his hand atop his chest and spoke with great aplomb.

Lewis found himself struck speechless for the third time. However, the claim had a certain logic to it.

Based on what had been listed in the records, Elisabeth had been the one to sentence Vlad Le Fanu to death by burning. Not even a crumb of ash had remained of him. Yet Vlad’s replica didn’t seem to resent her for that.

In fact, he was even working alongside her.

Nobody who thought like a normal person would ever be able to do that.

“Now then, while you’re reeling in shock, I hope you don’t mind if I wax eloquent for a moment. You see, I thought of Kaito Sena as an outstanding son as well. He was also my lord, but even so— At first, I was just amusing myself by seeing how far I could make him sink, but not even I could have imagined how clear his twisted mind would remain, right till the bitter end! Thanks to him, I enjoyed every one of my days.”

Suddenly, Vlad’s voice became rich with emotion, catching Lewis completely off guard. Vlad’s expression was that of a man reminiscing on events that had taken place a century—perhaps even a millennium—prior, and he continued in a forlorn tone.

“But then he went and sealed himself in that crystal. It was sad, of course, but still it was a decision my dear son made of his own volition. A symbol of his growth from an unfledged vessel to a full, twisted man. And I have every intention of respecting his choice. But even so, what kind of a parent wouldn’t grieve over something like that?”

Vlad shook his head as the emotions ran through him all over again.

Lewis went pale. For Vlad Le Fanu of all people to say something like that was shameless beyond belief. Given all the lives he’d personally extinguished, it was an act that almost bordered on blasphemy.

And yet Vlad went on, utterly carefree.

“But ever since this whole mess began, a whole new worry began plaguing me. And the bad feeling in my gut only grew stronger when your rebel army started butchering those villages. At that rate, I feared, I was going to lose my precious daughter as well. Such was the gravity of the dangerous change Kaito Sena’s death sparked in her. I lamented that change at first, but now I forgive her. For everything. There was a time when I would have welcomed her death, but that changed when I lost my son. Now, I just don’t want her to die.”

“…What.”

“I said, I don’t want her to die.”

It took Lewis a moment to parse what he’d just heard. Once he did, though, it wasn’t shock that crossed his face. It was rage.

He drew yet another blade, a shark-toothed sword designed to cause massive blood loss, and swung it with feral speed. Vlad dodged it several times, occasionally parrying it as it spun.

As their duel to the death grew ever fiercer, Lewis shouted.

“Enough of your bullshit, Vlad Le Fanu! You’ve killed thousands—tens of thousands! And plenty of my people number among your victims’ ranks! You slaughter people randomly and impartially, and you take joy in the act! And yet you, you say that you don’t want someone to die?! I might not be in any position to talk, but you have to be kidding me!”

“Oh, I assure you I’m not, but you’re right on all the other fronts! Sure, I killed tens of thousands! But what’s wrong with that? The vast majority of people, be they humans or beastfolk or demi-humans or mixed race, aren’t worth the air they breathe! They’re garbage, one and all! And that’s precisely why I hold such affection for my children and none others. What is it you find so contradictory about that?”

Vlad finished on a proud, brazen note. Lewis could tell that there was nothing to be gained from talking to him. Vlad lived by a value system that was his and his alone. The scales he measured the world by were simply calibrated differently from all the others.

In all likelihood, nobody would ever truly understand him.

Not even his beloved son and daughter.

However, Vlad himself didn’t mind that fact in the least. And that was all there was to it.

“Love is nothing more than an illusion, and it certainly isn’t something worth risking your life for. Or at least, that’s what I thought. But as it turns out, making the ultimate sacrifice for paternal love’s sake isn’t half-bad! I guess you learn something new every day!”

Vlad enjoyed a moment of personal delight. In fact, he got so immersed in his own monologue that Lewis’s sword strikes began landing true and gouging deep cuts in his body. But even with his skin and flesh shorn away and his blood pouring out from all over, Vlad’s smile remained unbroken, and his stance remained the same as before.

Lewis wasn’t about to let that opening slip him by. He snapped his fingers, and a hefty handle plopped down into his pale palms.

It belonged to a massive executioner’s ax.

Lewis then struck with it so quickly and brutally it would have been challenging even to block. And that was when it happened.

Lewis’s neck split open.

“Ah… Gack…”

Unable to even scream, Lewis let out an agonized gasp. It took everything he had just to stay upright.

Vlad looked down at him with an icy glare. He dismissed the steel wire he was holding and shook his head.

“You talked a good game about being a practiced assassin, but at the end of the day, you’re nothing but a rank amateur. All it takes to down a man is a tiny cut to a single artery, so what do you need a weapon that large for? Come now, don’t get caught dancing to my tune over some dramatic flair and a little monologue or two.”

“Father!”

“Stay back, Alice!”

Alice cried out and made to rush over, but Lewis quickly stopped her. He staggered back a bit and summoned a swarm of azure petals and black miasma to converge on his wound. Realizing how difficult it would be to efficiently heal it, he elected instead just to cauterize it. After forcibly stopping the bleeding, he spoke.

“I’m…fine. There’s no need for you…to be concerned. The blow was…a far cry…from fatal.”

“Well, that’s certainly true enough. It was never meant to kill you, after all. My son and my daughter both had rebellious streaks, and they never listened to what I had to say. Why deprive myself of the perfect audience?”

“And one…other thing…”

“Oh?”

Vlad obediently cupped his ear, and Lewis raised his head.

His mask and skin were both stained with his blood, and the visible half of his face was violently grimacing. Now his eye burned with clear, unbridled malice.

Vlad observed the change with great pleasure.

Lewis let out a triumphant laugh in reply.

“It’s over.”

“What is?”

And with that, the right half of Vlad’s grinning face

vanished into nothing.

What had just happened?

Vlad blinked his one remaining eye in puzzlement. The next moment, though, his body crumpled to the ground, toppling unceremoniously forward like a marionette with its strings cut.

Alice looked down at his unseemly state. When she spoke, her voice was cold.

“I didn’t move, you know. Just like Father told me.”

Sure enough, she was telling the truth. She had her hands clasped behind her back like a good little girl.

No, the change had taken place in the courtyard itself.

An attack whose pitch lay beyond audible perception had burned the temple half to the ground. Its courtyard, a precious patch of green amid the vast arid desert, was gone. Searing temperatures had burned away the ground and transfigured it into some sort of smooth material.

Vlad scrunched his face up a little. Not even he grasped the reason behind the change.

Seriously, what had just happened?

Alice, who had seen the whole thing, glared at him. Her white rabbit ribbons bobbed from side to side, yet it was the Red Queen she resembled most as she gazed down at the broken man. Taking mercy on him, she deigned to answer his unspoken question.

“But despair did.”

Her voice rang with ridicule

as though mocking him for expecting anything more of the world.

Off in the distance, a new roar rose up.

Countless voices screamed, yet they were all one and the same.

Die. Die. Die. The time has come. I have found you with my eyes.

The heavens and earth shall be moved, and thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

This day, day of wrath

calamity and misery

day of great and exceeding bitterness.

This day our master is resurrected.

“…The Sand Queen.”

Vlad didn’t look at the figure shifting in the flames, but he reached his conclusion all the same.

The one being who could stand on equal footing with the Three Kings was on the move.

To be more precise, she hadn’t actually been resurrected. Her corpse was simply moving. However, there was no shortage of legends about the Sand Queen going to battle, and now even her skin had become crystallized. No blade or magic could pierce it.

Lifeless as she was, she posed just as much of a threat as she had when she was alive.

As he listened to the excited hubbub coming from outside, Vlad let out a low laugh.

“Heh… I see… So you weren’t tricking the demi-humans after all.”

“That’s right. They, too, had a victory they sought. With the help of our magical resources and expertise, the demi-humans came to a realization—that there was a massive store of mana preserved within the Sand Queen’s body. From there, all they had to do was apply the same method to it one did when animating a stone golem. They awakened the reactor and turned her perfectly preserved corpse into a weapon.”

Lewis gave his answer matter-of-factly. To the demi-humans, the Sand Queen was no doubt their final trump card, one they had wanted to avoid playing unless absolutely necessary. In all likelihood, having the teleportation circle on her tongue analyzed was probably the trigger that activated her.

Then, once the demi-humans learned of the Three Kings’ march, they must have sent her to the settlement in much the same way the beastfolk sent the Three Kings.

From the sound of it, her appearance had caught the Three Kings off guard, and they had suffered injuries.

That fact was evidenced by the sounds of beastfolk shrieking and screaming. However, before their wails had a chance to turn to angry shouts, the grief-stricken voices went silent one after another. They must have been burned away or perhaps simply crushed.

Vlad glanced around, his eyeball practically hanging out of its socket.

The world was burning red and crimson and scarlet.

Everything was dying.

It was ironic really. Out of rage, the beastfolk had spurred the Three Kings of the Forest into action, and to oppose them, the demi-humans had summoned the Sand Queen. One act of revenge was being piled atop another.

Everyone was screaming that their enemies were the sinful ones.

Vlad let out a small chuckle. All anyone wanted was a reason to seek revenge.

They needed to scream from the rooftops that justice was on their side. Because if they didn’t, all that would await them would be their own broken souls.

All this, everything that was happening, was simply a means to that end.

“See, this is why I can’t stand ordinary people. They’re such headaches.”

As the words dribbled from Vlad’s mouth, he shut his one remaining eyelid, as though unable to bear the weight of his exhaustion.

An executioner’s sword fell out of the air into Lewis’s hand. Much like Elisabeth’s, it was a weapon designed for beheadings. One final act of compassion. With the merciful blade in hand, Lewis approached his fool of an opponent.

“It’s over, Vlad Le Fanu. You were a wicked man, vulgar through and through. But I do respect that love of yours, egotistical as it was… You were right—it’s a father’s duty to protect his children.”

“So…it is… But, you know…you’re the last…person…I want telling…me that…”

Vlad curled his nearly shredded lips into a smile. He opened his eye once more, casting a gaze Lewis’s way that seemed to be laying some secret of his bare. Lewis offered him silence in return. He raised the executioner’s sword aloft.

This would mark the farce’s end.

Vlad vomited an ugly mess of blood, flesh, and teeth. As an organ-laden mass fell out the side of his throat, he let out a faint murmur.

“Ah…it’s over… It’s over…isn’t it?”

“It is. It’s over. Now, go to your rest.”

“It is, O He Who Rears Hell Within His Mind. And be thankful for that. I was just getting bored of watching the performance.

“Geh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, fu-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, geh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

The laugh that boomed out sounded almost human.

Lewis, caught off guard, stared in blank shock.

For there was something he had never realized.

There wasn’t a person alive who truly understood Vlad Le Fanu. Few and far between were the people who would even think of sympathizing with a villain such as he. And there was no way that a man like that would ever see his promise through to the end.

Then, with an absurd spurting noise

a certain chest clad in a black, doctorly outfit

got torn apart like tissue paper.

“See, this is why I called you an amateur. What possessed you to think I would keep my word?”

It defied explanation, but Vlad’s voice rang with a brazen pride. As the words left his mouth, Alice let out a stupefied cry.

“…Huh? Hmm? What?! …F-Father? Father… Father, Father!”

She screamed and ran over to Lewis. Utterly indifferent to the state her foe was in, she reached out her young arms as far as they would go. Thanks to her efforts, she was able to catch Lewis’s body right before it toppled over.

She propped him up, trying desperately to keep his guts from spilling out.

“Oh, thank goodness—I made it in time. Please, Father, you have to pull yourself…together…”

Suddenly, something toppled to the ground between them. It was small. Something she’d never seen before.

It was a small lump of flesh that resembled a small ashen sack—

—and it was in the exact same shape as a heart.

“…F-Father? No… No, no, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening, is it?”

The words spilled from Alice’s mouth as a shocked whisper. Lewis tried to answer her, but all he got for his trouble was a mouthful of blood. He was still alive, but his wounds were far too serious to be healed. He didn’t have much time.

Vlad gazed over at them and let out a cruel laugh. Beside him, the supreme hound slapped the ground with his tail.

“Now then, O contractor of mine, what to do? I could seize the opportunity to flee with you in my mouth, but not only would your brains fall out, your self-destruct device is going to go off. I feel we’re out of options. I imagine you’d taste vile, but nonetheless, how would you feel about me eating you?”

“No, better not. Didn’t you get tired of eating human flesh? And besides, I have a favor to ask of you.”

Vlad’s voice rang with an unusual degree of sincerity. The Kaiser turned his snout up with unconcealed disgust.

Hellfire burned in the black dog’s eyes as he let out a low groan.

“Your tone sickens me, O He Who Rears Hell Within His Mind. Yet at the same time, I’m curious as to what sort of legacy you aim to leave. Speak your piece.”

“I need you to give my dear daughter a message—‘I really did love you from the bottom of my heart.’”

“Is that truly the sort of thing a villain ought to be saying?”

The Kaiser sounded utterly exasperated. Meanwhile, Alice sat as motionless as if her soul had left her body.

The man and the dog, on the other hand, were sharing a conversation like they didn’t have a care in the world. Vlad spat out a chunk of his tongue, then explained himself with great amusement.

“Oh, but that’th prethithely why… Hmm, my words aren’t coming out quite right. I said, that’s precisely why! This way, I can leave her with a wound that’ll never heal. And the best part is it’s completely true! Because at the end of the day, isn’t wanting to be remembered the most human desire there is?”

“Oh, please. Don’t go talking yourself up now. Besides, I’m sure she is already well aware.”

The Kaiser snorted. Vlad gave his one remaining hand a little wave to no one in particular, and the blue ring on his middle finger gleamed. The black dog shook his tail from side to side as though to mock Vlad’s foolishness. However, he then cocked his head.

“Wait a minute. You’re my contractor. If you die, won’t I vanish with you?”

“Ha-ha… I guess that is a problem… Hey now, don’t go biting me!”

“How dare you. HOW DARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

Suddenly, a scream split the air.

Still holding Lewis, Alice was looking Vlad’s way. The rage and bloodlust burning in her eyes were so intense they seemed liable to spill out from within. They almost resembled the supreme hound’s hellfire.

Vlad replied by flashing a smile. Alice raised her arm aloft.

This time, the farce was truly, truly over.

And oh, what a long, flippant, cruel, delightfully bothersome performance it had been.

Then Vlad’s eye shifted…and he let out a peaceful murmur.

“Oh… It’s you.”

A single, incomprehensible tear fell.

Then a cloud of azure petals and black darkness swallowed even that up

as Vlad Le Fanu made his final exit from the world.