The Daughter of Evil - Volume 4 - Chapter Ep

epilogue-prelude of things to come
Praefacio of Blue, page 282-291

473 years later.

USE Dark Star Courthouse Director Gallerian Marlon ~In the Union State of Evillious, “Director’s Private Residence/Study”~

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“Phew…”

I set the book that I had just finished reading on my desk, and stretched heavily against my chair.

Orange light shined in from the window in front of me on my right. It was already evening. A little bit of regret had sprouted in my mind at spending my precious day off reading, but I hadn’t had any other plans to begin with. I was alright with having days off like this every once in a while.

Tomorrow my wife and daughter would be returning from their trip. Once that happened I would likely become quite busy with various things, so I wouldn’t be able to take time to quietly read a book like this.

If it had been my own book, taking a long time to finish reading it wouldn’t be an issue. But I was borrowing it. The owner wasn’t liable to be pleased if I went a while without returning it. Interpersonal relationships were the sort of thing that could begin to break over such trivial matters.

Once more my eyes dropped to the book on my desk. On the cover was written the title “The Daughter of Evil”, and written a little smaller below that was the author’s name, in what appeared to be her own handwriting. It was evidence that this book was none other than a genuine novel written by the famous author of five hundred years ago, “Yukina Freezis”.

Knock-knock—there was the sound of someone knocking twice on my door. That would be my servant, Rennert. Out of my servants, Larisa would knock three times, and Katerina would knock much more loudly–so they didn’t sound as pleasing as this knock.

I gave permission to enter and the door opened, a face with a small mustache on it peeking his head in from the gap. As I thought, Rennert.

“Pardon me, sir. The scriptwriter, Lady ‘Ma’, has arrived.”

Perfect timing.

“Send her in.”

Rennert answered in the affirmative and then vanished from the room.

Shortly thereafter a single woman entered.

She had long black hair that reached to around her waist, and she wore both a round monocle and a garment of Eastern make called a “kimono”. She was beautiful, but of course my eyes were first drawn to her eccentric style of dress.

It seemed that she had noticed the “Daughter of Evil” book was there on top of my desk. “I see you’ve started reading.”

“I’ve just finished, actually.”

“Oh, really?…Then, how was it? What are your thoughts?“

“It’s very different from the version of the “Daughter of Evil” that I know.”

The Freezis Fairytale that this same author had written was a work that even now was well known to people all over the world. In it, the princess was normally executed; it wasn’t written that she switched places with a twin brother.

In spite of the fact that it was written by the same person, the contents of this one were different.

“So, which one is correct?”

Ma pointed to the book in front of me. “This one, of course.”

"You can’t just declare that. It’s not like you actually saw it yourself.”

“Hohoho…I suppose so. But without a doubt, this one is the truth. It is the true story, hidden on the other side of history.“

"Hmph. Are you trying to say that sorceresses and demons exist? …Well, whatever. It was a very interesting read. I was able to learn a little bit more about my roots–my ancestry.”

I’d known from the start that I was from the royal Marlon family line.

Kyle Marlon was my ancestor. After he restored Lucifenia to independence as a republic, he had abdicated the throne to his younger half-brother and left Marlon.

If he had stayed as king, there was a possibility that I would be a member of the royal family as well. Still, it would be unreasonable of me to hold a grudge against him for that–I couldn’t deny that being in the social status that I was now was ultimately owed to my lineage, after all.

I stood from my chair and handed the book over to Ma.

“Then do you intend to make this into a movie, after all?”

When I asked my question, Ma looked at me with flirtatious eyes and put her hand on my arm.

“If I can find a good sponsor….maybe.”

I lightly waved my arm and brushed off Ma’s hand.

“You’ll have to pardon me. I like movies but I have no inclination to use money on such an extravagance.”

The moment she heard those words, all the affection dropped off Ma’s face. Looking displeased, she took out a long-stemmed tobacco pipe from her sleeve. Ignoring my remark that this room was non-smoking she lit up the bowl and leisurely started to smoke.

“You’re such a skinflint. You have enough hoarded up as it is.“

Ma began to wander around the room. Then she stopped in front of my dresser, picking up a picture frame that was left on top of it.

In that picture, my wife, daughter and I had been photographed smiling together.

While looking at the picture, Ma said suggestively, “Your wife is coming back home tomorrow, isn’t she?…”

I scowled at her.

"Are you threatening me? If you reveal our relationship to my wife–”

Ma suddenly started to laugh loudly. “Hahaha, I have no intention of doing that. That wouldn’t be very refined of me, would it!“

She returned the picture to where it was.

After that a long silence stretched on between us.

Eventually, unable to stand the awkward atmosphere any longer, I posed Ma a question to clear the air.

“Come to think of it, does that book have a continuation?”

“A continuation?”

"I’m curious as to whether those characters show up again.”

“Ah. There is that, yes. But it’s a simple thing, like a memorandum. Shall I bring it next time?“

“…No, that’s alright. You can just tell me the most of it here and now.”

I had decided to ask for an explanation regarding what happened to the characters afterwards, to continue the conversation. I knew that Ma liked talking about such things.

The first thing that I was interested in related to those two sorceresses.

“Their names, Gumillia and Elluka, show up again in another book that takes place over a hundred years after this one, don’t they?”

“In ‘Lemy the Ripper’, yes.”

Lemy the Ripper was the name of the culprit behind a series of bizarre murders that occurred in the Republic of Lucifenia, around four hundred years ago. The case was closed as a result of Lemy having been murdered himself, and written in the book as the names of the duo of women who killed him were, if I was not mistaken, “Gumillia and Elluka”. If these sorceresses were able to live forever, then I couldn’t deny there was a chance that they were the same women.

According to Ma, all that was written in Yukina Freezis’ work was that they traveled east. They might have returned to the Evillious region after their journey, but as Yukina was already dead by the time of “Lemy the Ripper” there was no real proof on whether or not it was really them.

Speaking of “Lemy the Ripper”, there was another interesting anecdote with that.

There was a woman named “Julia Abelard”, who was known as the leader of “Pere Noel”, the criminal organization that he was a member of. There were a lot of mysteries surrounding her origins, and many legends being passed around about it in the modern era.

One of those was the preposterous theory that Julia Abelard was the reincarnation of the hero of the Lucifenian Revolution, Germaine Avadonia, or else Germaine herself, having become immortal through being taken in by some cursed power.

Apparently Yukina Freezis wrote that Germaine went out on another trip with Chartette after everything, but she never touched on the prime of her life or her death.

Even in publicly known history, despite her achievements Germaine’s latter years weren’t entirely clear. It was for that reason that the earlier theories started sprouting up.

If objects like the “Vessels of Deadly Sin” really existed, then perhaps the idea that Julia Abelard’s true identity was Germaine Avadonia had a ring of truth to it after all.

…Assuming it’s all true, anyway.

“Why was Abyss IR gathering the ‘Vessels of Deadly Sin’?”

I wasn’t directing the question at Ma, rather just musing to myself aloud, but she didn’t seem to grasp that.

“Because it’s said that if you gather all seven together, any wish you make will be granted,” Ma replied.

Any wish, huh? What a romanticized outcome, considering these were vessels of demons.

“Have you taken an interest in that? If you like, we could go search for them together. Actually, I do have some good informa—“

“No thank you.” I cut off Ma’s excited proposal to search for the “Vessels of Deadly Sin”. “I would need money for that, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes, of course,” Ma replied, as though it was just natural.

“I don’t need any ‘Vessel of Deadly Sin’.”

Upon my flat refusal, Ma gave off a somehow bold smile.

“Yes…Is that so?”

After she carried her put-out pipe to the fireplace and dropped its ashes inside, she returned it to her sleeve.

“I’ll be heading home, then.”

I called out to stop her as she was walking towards the exit. “Just to be clear, I must insist that you not tell my wife about any of th–“

“I know. You don’t want to cause any grief for Michelle, right?” Immediately after opening the door, Ma suggested with her back to me, “If you change your mind about the movie and the ‘Vessels of Deadly Sin’…Let me know.”

After watching her leave, I once more sat in my chair.

I had social status and prestige. I had a daughter I loved.

I didn’t need any ‘Vessel of Deadly Sin’—

At least, that is what I thought at the time, from the bottom of my heart.

Before I knew it, it seemed I’d fallen asleep sitting in my chair.

Rennert was shaking me awake.

“Sir, sir! It’s simply awful!”

I opened my eyes preparing to chide him, 'what is it, I thought I told you to knock when entering my room’, but Rennert continued speaking faster than I could cut in.

“Your wife and young miss Michelle have met with an accident.”

Everything before me became pitch black. Even though I had just opened my eyes, I was no longer able to see anything.

“It seems the ship they were on sank! Just as it entered the harbor it was attacked by an enormous octopus the likes of which I’ve never seen—“

“The Vessels of Deadly Sin”, “Demons”.

That story had nothing to do with me.

I had thought it just a fairytale.

But—

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This karma of “evil” will not end.