The Daughter of Evil - Volume 4 - Chapter 3.25

chapter 3, section 2-a heartbeat in the rain; scene 5
Praefacio of Blue, page 178-182

✥ Kyle Marlon ~The Country of Marlon, “Heartbeat Clocktower”~

.

The interior of the tower was largely a single path. I ascended the spiral staircase while checking that there was no trace of anyone in any of the rooms on the way. Each time I went up, the sound of the large clock hands grew louder and louder.

The iron bars affixed to the windows lent credence to the rumors that this tower was used as a place of torture. But when this castle came into the ownership of the Marlon family there were no instruments of torture anywhere inside, and no traces of such a thing left.

Rumors were just rumors. I was able to think optimistically about it, but there was the possibility that the Lioness family had disposed of everything beforehand to hide their dark side.

Well, that would have been centuries ago anyway. I wasn’t likely to ever learn the truth.

But there’s no need to pay any mind to those rumors. My mother has said that there isn’t a nicer place to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

I had no basis for it, but I had a certain conviction.

That Ney and my mother were surely at the top of the tower.

Because that was the best place to enjoy the scenery of Bloodpool.

.

The highest room in the Heartbeat Clocktower.

As I thought, Ney and my mother were there.

Strangely, the moment I entered the room, I suddenly became unable to hear the headachingly loud sound of the clock hand.

"It’s very interesting. I don’t know how it’s constructed, but the sound of the clock doesn’t enter this room. Despite it not being an enclosed space.”

My mother’s voice–Empress Dowager Prim’s voice–resounded around the room from where she calmly sat in a large, emerald colored armchair. It seemed this place had some special means of canceling out sound.

On top of her knees sat a Gine Doll. I was shocked to see that it was made to look like someone that I knew.

Is that Michaela!? …No, wait, my mother would have never met Michaela.

In that case, the only other person I could think of was Mrs. Margaret–meaning it was a doll imitating my tutor when I was a child.

But why does she have something like that?

Ney stood to her left. She lightly waved a wineglass in her right hand.

“Is this what you’re after, King Kyle?~♪”

–The “Glass of Conchita”. If I could steal that from Ney, then the dead soldiers would stop moving…or so Elluka told me.

Once that happened, the soldiers fighting in the banquet hall would surge into the courtyard. The Special Maneuvers Task Force would have to retreat at that.

“Hee hee, you’re it, try and catch me~♪”

Ney swiftly ran forward and dashed out of the room from a door opposite to the one we entered from. I immediately called to the two soldiers I had brought with me. “After her! Get that glass! …Try not to kill her!”

“Yes sir!”

“Roger!”

The soldiers left the room after Ney, which left only me and the Empress Dowager.

“You’re not going after her, Kyle?”

“…I have a lot of things I want to ask you.”

The Empress Dowager smiled, patting the doll’s head.

“Haha, I see. Come to think of it I don’t think we’ve ever faced each other directly like this before now.”

Thinking on it again, she was much more youthful than one would expect of a woman past forty. Clear skin, and glossy black hair. I almost thought that she looked even younger than when I had been a child. Could this as well have been some influence of Abyss’ magic or something?

I had some things I needed to ask her. I steadied my resolve, and opened my mouth.

“First, I need to make sure. Aren’t you–aren’t you here now because you’ve been captured by Ney, Mother?”

The Empress Dowager closed her eyes, and shook her head.

“No. I am here of my own volition. And I am the one who ordered Ney to let loose the dead soldiers on this country.”

My last hope, my hope that had wavered like a candle flame, was just snuffed out.

I quietly accepted that in my heart. Right now was not the time to grow flustered or start lamenting.

“Please tell me the reason why you’ve schemed up and carried out such a thing.”

“…Alright, I will tell you. Why I wanted to make this country prosper even if it meant using a demon.”

.

–And so I came to know half the life of the woman called Prim Marlon, and the sentiments that she’d carried therein.