The Daughter of Evil - Volume 3 - Chapter 3.12

Chapter 3, Section 1-The King and the Girl; Scene 2
Praeludium of Red, page 152-160

✥ Kyle Marlon ~In the Lucifenian Palace, “Hall of Sounds”~

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The Hall of Sounds was adorned with numerous weapons. They were all from the time of Arth the First’s reign in Lucifenia. Including this Hall of Sounds, the interior decoration of the Lucifenian palace had hardly changed at all after its assimilation from how it was during the Lucifen dynasty.

There were quite a lot of valuable antiques inside the palace. There was no one to claim them, in any case. If I was going to have to deal with them they might as well stay hanging up as they were. That was what I decided.

A Marlon gentleman never treats anything crudely, after all.

I sat down at the throne painted with gold ornamentation set deepest in the hall, both elbows on the arm rests.

The door before me opened.

“The commander of the Special Maneuvers Task Force, Ney Phatipe. She has returned just now.”

A woman in a blue military uniform entered the room. Several lightweight soldiers wearing iron masks followed in after her, like an accompaniment.

The Special Maneuvers Task Force–it was a bizarre group where everyone aside from the commander, Ney, hid their faces with masks.

This unit was originally organized at the suggestion of the sorceress named Abyss I.R. in the main country of Marlon.

She was a mysterious old woman that my magic-loving mother Prim had picked up somewhere–Ever since I was little I had disliked her as being spooky, and kept my distance from her. However, my mother highly valued Abyss I.R.

Once, Abyss had suggested building a “training facility”, and my mother authorized it. The graduates of that training facility were put together into the “Special Maneuvers Task Force”.

The group was entirely composed of women, and they always wore iron masks, never once showing their true face. In cases of secret intelligence and strategy they always demonstrated superior abilities, and within Marlon they contributed to the solidification of my mother’s social status.

For various reasons, I was borrowing the unit for now.

I began, addressing the woman kneeling in front of me, “First let me say I’m glad you returned safely, Commander Ney. Seems events didn’t go very well.”

Though I had given her the position of Retasan Fortress commander against the objections of my retainers, in the blink of an eye she’d had that fortress stolen from her by Beelzenia.

I would have liked to shout at her in anger and condemn her failure, but I wanted to make my judgment after hearing her report.

Ney gave off not one jot of any sign that she was ashamed over her blunder. Rather, she was lightly smiling, without any nervousness.

“Yeah, well it sorta didn’t pan out as well as I thought.”

“Retasan getting stolen is alright. George is going to take it back.” It wasn’t alright. But judging by the look of her, even if I chastised her for that it wouldn’t have much effect on her. “What I don’t know is what you are all doing back here. You still haven’t achieved your mission, have you?”

The mission of the Special Maneuvers Task Force–to find and capture the witches who were targeted under the “Witch Hunt Order”.

I had dispatched them to Retasan after receiving word that one of the witches, Gumillia, was staying in Beelzenia.

“I haven’t received any notice that you’ve captured Gumillia.”

At my questioning Ney looked at me as though she was looking at something uninteresting, and replied, “That’s because both of the targets have escaped from Beelzenia.”

“Both of them?”

“Although I did catch sight of Germaine during the battle of Retasan.”

“Hold up just one second. Germaine was in Beelzenia too?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I mention?”

“I didn’t receive the report…Oh well. So you weren’t able to capture her back then?”

“The dead soldiers were not as useful as I’d thought.”

The dead soldiers–she must have meant that ability of the tool called the “Glass of Conchita”.

It was a peculiar spell that allowed one to revive and manipulate the bodies of those who died from the Gula disease.

I didn’t quite know how to respond, if some fault with that ability was the reason for her failure.

“That’s outside my expertise. You ought to be complaining to your superior…Abyss I.R.”

The one who had given her the “Glass of Conchita” was the sorceress Abyss I.R.

I spoke sarcastically on purpose, intending to provoke Ney into showing even the slightest bit of remorse,

“This time the capabilities of the Special Maneuvers Task Force were a miss too, huh?”

But her expression didn’t change at all.

“The power of my own unit can’t come through in a battlefield like that.”

That was something we’d known from the start. Wasn’t it her who ignored that and settled herself into the position of commander?

When my mother lent to me the Special Maneuvers Task Force, it came with two conditions.

The first one was that I was to let them hold absolute authority on the matter of the Witch Hunt order.

Thanks to that stipulation, even if Ney engaged in violent acts as long as it was made out to be for the just cause of the Witch Hunt, I couldn’t take a high hand with her.

“Anyway. What do you intend to do now? Are you going to continue and search for Germaine and Gumillia?” I asked Ney.

My borrowing the task force from my mother had been because I wanted to use their superior power to search for the witches that I hadn’t been able to find in the least despite putting out my order–Germaine, Gumillia, and Elluka of the Three Heroes.

So naturally, if they had gone missing again, I needed to work diligently on the witch investigation.

But Ney’s reply was unexpected.

“No, I’m going back to the Marlon mainland for now. I might have made a mistake in how to use the ‘Glass of Conchita’. I have to ask Abyss about it properly again.”

“Wha…? …No, you can’t just head back on your own. You need to finish your mission properly first.”

“It’s for the mission. If I can’t use the 'Glass of Conchita’ then that’ll be a hindrance to the success of the 'Witch Hunt’.”

Upon being told it was for the mission, I couldn’t crack down on her there, either.

Good grief, what burdensome conditions my mother has attached to this!

The other condition that my mother gave when lending me the Special Maneuvers Task Force was that I had to put in charge whoever Abyss chose to be their commander.

The one that Abyss selected was Ney, but I didn’t know what connection the two of them had. I couldn’t fathom a point of contact between a sorceress from Marlon and a maid from Lucifenia.

But I had thought that perhaps she was an unexpectedly suitable candidate, considering that Ney was the adopted daughter of Mariam of the Three Heroes.

Assuming Ney had inherited Mariam’s skill as a covert operative, there wasn’t anyone better for the job than her. Actually, it was her who had told me of Germaine’s “sin”.

–Yes. That sin of having killed the woman that I loved.

The problem with her though was her personality. She never listened to what I told her, and there was no consistency to her actions. In this case too, if her goal had only been to capture Germaine and Gumillia, there was no need for her to chase out Riliane Mouchet and make herself commander in her place.

Did Ney just like causing me trouble? She had a childishness about her that made it seem so.

Though I don’t recall having done anything that would cause her to bear a grudge.

I pondered how I should deal with this. Right now I was a little troubled by the Special Maneuvers Task Force returning to the mainland. I finally had a lead on the witches.

Who would have thought they were hiding in Beelzenia? I had been negligent, convinced that the Resistance was acting separately.

“I understand. You can go back to Marlon. But…leave the other task force members here.

"…? Why?”

“If you’re just going to ask how to use the 'Glass of Conchita’, then there’s no need for all of them to go, is there? Right now things are unstable. Frankly I’d welcome even the slightest bit of help.”

Rather, it would be much more convenient for me to handle the task force with the selfish commander gone.

But I didn’t say that.

“Is that so? Well, alright then,” Ney replied, clearly not interested one way or the other. “So, I will entrust them to you for a while. …Try not to get up to any mischief while I’m gone.”

After stating that with a smirk, Ney headed for the doorway, leaving behind the soldiers of the Special Maneuvers Task Force.

“Well then, adieu~”

And then she left the Hall of Sounds.

Mischief?

For a moment I didn’t understand what she was getting at, but as I was gazing upon the task force soldiers, standing at attention without lowering their posture even after their leader had left, it suddenly clicked.

All of the Special Maneuvers Task Force members were women.

Does she think I’m some kind of sex maniac!?

Under no circumstances would I ever lay a hand on such eerie masked women!

I slammed my fist hard on the armrest of the throne, and a loud bang resounded through the room.