Chapter 12 – Greed (2)
“Your Majesty, it seems impossible to find a black-haired young man in his late teens named Ren in the Empire right now.”
“Is it because the name Ren is too common?”
“Indeed. Without exaggeration, one out of every hundred men you meet on the street will bear the name Ren.”
Ever since her transmigration, Elena had secretly ordered the Black Shadow Corps to investigate the original protagonist, Ren.
Of course, she had no intention of interfering with him whatsoever.
He needed to grow up well, just as in the original story, to become the problem-solver who could resolve issues ‘she herself could not.’
“Then abandon the search. It was not that crucial anyway.”
“Understood.”
Saruel questioned why the Empress sought a man named Ren, but he did not object to her command to cease the search.
After all, this was not the first time he had presented a sacrifice to the Empress, who practiced black magic.
He merely assumed Ren was meant to be another such offering.
****
“Congratulations, Master. No, I suppose I should address you as His Excellency, the President, now.”
“There’s no need for such formality in private. Even I find it a bit awkward still.”
And so, when the Equitas Revolution succeeded,
the very Ren Elena had sought appeared boldly at the Imperial Palace, now the provisional residence of the President, to meet with Kyle.
Kyle greeted him with a smile.
Ren was his disciple, whom he had raised since childhood, and before the revolutionary attempt, which was tantamount to a suicide mission, Kyle had even bestowed upon him the surname Knaiz, exchanging a poignant farewell that brought tears to the eyes.
Now, seeing him again after their success, the memory of that moment felt a little awkward, but it was certainly far better than failing and dying.
“With your skill, you’ll undoubtedly rise through the ranks in the Special Task Force.”
Kyle recommended his disciple, Ren, for the Special Task Force.
The world’s turning point had shifted due to Elena’s voluntary withdrawal.
Originally, Ren should have been a fugitive, having lost everything at this moment, forced to sharpen his blade for revenge against Elena; instead, he proudly joined the Special Task Force, his skills earning him a place in a lavish initiation ceremony celebrated by all.
“Before you start work in earnest, why not take an extended leave to visit your parents?”
Kyle advised Ren to visit his parents, who had moved from their current hiding place to Nerusis.
As allies of Equitas and Kyle’s childhood friends, his parents, who were supposed to have been hunted down and killed by Elena’s subordinates, were alive and well.
They might have been able to greet their successful son under a new sky and live out their remaining years in happiness.
That is, if Elena’s extracted magic had not arrived at the Nerusis regional laboratory.
‘If only I hadn’t told them to wait here…!’
Ending his recollection, Ren gritted his teeth at the horrific scene and the demon before him.
He donned the gas mask he had prepared and raised his sword, imbued with magic and glowing faintly.
This was no time for emotional outbursts.
He needed to eliminate the enemy before him and locate his parents.
“—!”
The demon let out a grotesque shriek and lunged at him.
Its entire upper body was already stained a murky purple, its eyes were pure black, and the black claws extending from its hands had sharpened like an animal’s.
“Keuk.”
However, with a single step and two swift slashes of his sword, Ren cleaved the demon’s body apart in an instant.
The demon, now severed into arms, torso, and a bisected upper and lower body, was nothing more than a low-grade fiend, born from a powerless civilian exposed to a minuscule amount of demonic energy.
No amount of demonic energy could empower a defenseless civilian beyond their natural limits.
‘I have to find them quickly.’
Catching his breath, Ren decided to head toward the lodging where his parents were staying.
It was not far from here.
Given his speed, several times that of an ordinary person, he would reach it after only a short sprint.
“Ah…”
“We…are….”
However, he hadn’t run far when…
Ren’s face contorted in despair at the sight of the monster that appeared before him.
A creature, as if several people had been fused into one body, writhed before the collapsed hotel.
Human limbs and faces were embedded throughout its form, each emitting grotesque sounds.
It was a result of a knight-grade or higher demon, contaminated by demonic energy, having murdered and devoured nearby people, triggering a chain of mutations.
“Father!”
Amidst the grotesque mass, Ren spotted a familiar face and screamed.
“R…”
“Stop!”
The moment the monster, bearing his father’s face, opened its mouth, Ren, already pushed past his breaking point, could no longer endure.
Driven by the sole desire to rescue his father from that abomination, he charged forward, sword in hand.
However, his opponent was a being that had originated from the body of a high-ranking knight, possessing even greater magical power than Ren.
Furthermore, it was an advanced demon, its strength amplified by devouring numerous people.
As a hand shot out from the mass of flesh, wielding a sword, Ren, unable to withstand the immense force, lost his grip on his own blade and tumbled across the ground.
‘I can’t win.’
He instinctively knew that the monster before him was an anomaly, a being so formidable that even a Special Task Force commander-level individual could not guarantee victory against it.
If demonic energy, which already had no weaknesses other than divine power, also boasted a greater output than his own,
it was, by all logical accounts, an opponent he could never defeat alone.
“Father…”
As the monster raised its sword to kill him, Ren gazed upon his father’s grinning face and despaired.
“Rescued him!”
Simultaneously, a chain of magic, flying in from behind, wrapped around Ren’s body and pulled him backward.
Someone else, also clad in a Special Task Force uniform and wearing a gas mask, had used magic to rescue him.
“Run! Quickly!”
The pair, working as a team, rescued the dangling Ren, who was suspended by the chain, and sprinted away without a backward glance.
****
“Oh, why won’t you tell me! I’m curious!”
“Enough! You are a prisoner! Do not forget your status!”
It was the day for Elena’s bath.
Since cleansing magic had clear limitations, the original regulations dictated that Elena should be forcibly put to sleep daily, and in that interval, her straitjacket and restraints removed so her entire body could be thoroughly cleaned.
However, there was no way Elena would ever fall asleep forcibly.
Moreover, contrary to expectations, Elena, having already transcended humanity, neither engaged in any excretory activities nor did her sweat contain even a trace of waste.
Nevertheless, Lunara insisted on bathing Elena.
While the straitjacket was removed, the black bodysuit-shaped restraints remained, with Lunara intending to clean whatever parts were accessible.
“Rub gently! It hurts!”
“Your skin, which even blades can’t penetrate, hurts from a mere brush?”
Naturally, Lunara had volunteered to bathe Elena herself.
Elena, despite passively enduring the bath with her hands raised as instructed, made Lunara’s task difficult by incessantly complaining, screaming about being ticklish or in pain.
“…What kind of torment is this?”
Having finally finished Elena’s bath, Lunara emerged from the bathing chamber, her face pale and drawn like an owner who had just bathed a large dog, then dried her soaked hair and changed her clothes.
Elena, meanwhile, her body perfectly dry, donned her restraints once more and let out a chuckle at Lunara’s appearance.
“Why go looking for trouble? Did you think bathing someone else would be easy?”
“Silence. If you hadn’t squirmed and twisted so much… next time, I’ll tie you to a torture rack before cleaning you.”
Lunara glared at Elena.
No matter how she thought about it, it was clear Elena had intentionally made things difficult for her.
The intention was obvious: ‘negotiation.’
Elena was currently extremely curious about the situation outside Tartara, particularly the incident concerning the leakage of her extracted magic.
It was clear she was trying to seize an opportunity to extract information under the guise of ‘negotiation.’
‘Hmm, she’s not giving in easily.’
Indeed, that intention was correct.
While it wasn’t impossible to overpower her by force, Elena chose not to.
Unlike her days as the Empress, when she was the sole unparalleled ruler of heaven and earth, Elena was now finding intense enjoyment in achieving her desires one by one through ‘negotiation,’ and was simply biding her time for the right opportunity.
“Let’s see how long you can last.”
“Keuk…”
Elena donned her mask and let out a snort of derision.
It was an incredibly insolent attitude, yet Lunara couldn’t bring herself to retort.
Who knew what might happen next?
If Elena truly set her mind to it, the entire internal schedule of Tartara would undoubtedly grind to a halt.
Anticipating the humiliations Elena would inflict upon her under the guise of ‘negotiation’ each time, Lunara clenched her fists.
‘I will not be easily swayed by that arrogant Empress, who, even after being cast into the worst prison, shows no remorse.’
It was a resolute vow.
It was the noble oath of a warden determined to protect her pride and honor, even if the circumstances were dire.
“Warden Lunara Elke. You are to immediately transfer the Abyss-class prisoner, Elena Dren Barbatos, by order of the Central Council.”
“…Pardon?”
However, Lunara’s resolute vow shattered within a single day.
This was because a special envoy, dispatched directly from the central government, had arrived, demanding Elena’s immediate release from prison.
“Do you not understand the current situation?! It’s a nationwide emergency! Before all of Nerusis is contaminated and thousands of demons spread everywhere! We must reverse all of it immediately!”
The envoy stamped their foot, crying out desperately.
The catastrophe that had erupted was beyond containment, and so, for its resolution, they had finally come to Elena, the original owner of the extracted magic.
“The Republican Government and the Central Council have assigned you a new labor. That power you obtained through wicked means, exploiting and murdering citizens. From now on, it shall be used as their tool forever…”
“I-Is this the Empress…?”
Lunara, who had descended to the 100th floor with the envoy, relayed the higher-ups’ orders to Elena, who was always sealed in the same unmoving posture.
The envoy, seeing Elena for the first time, kneeling stiffly on the cold altar, was so flustered that they froze.
The peculiar aura emanating from her undeniable, fatal beauty, juxtaposed with the various restraints and sealing methods, made it difficult for anyone unfamiliar with the Administration Bureau’s routine to react easily.
Especially since she was once the Empress who ruled this nation, a person everyone was compelled to look up to.
[Hee-hee, so it came to this after all. You should have known your place and acted less rashly.]
“Hieeek!?”
Elena’s voice, resonating in their head, had the same effect.
As the startled envoy stumbled and fell onto their backside, Lunara sighed and shook her head.
“You must obey the command.”
[Why should I?]
Elena, unlike her usual self, did not comply easily.
Part of it was because the transparent intention behind this ‘new labor’—to mobilize her as a combat weapon whenever the Republic faced trouble—was too obvious; but the biggest reason was simply that leaving the prison was too much of a bother.
That was the primary factor.
“How dare you! You are a lifelong prisoner… Urgh.”
The envoy, rubbing their backside and standing up, instantly met Elena’s gaze and flared up.
And just as swiftly, they rolled their eyes back and fainted.
No one caught them. They merely frowned at the sight of the envoy beginning to soil themselves.
Instead, Lunara, meeting Elena’s gaze after breaking the sealing spell over her eyelids, finally spoke.
Lunara no longer averted her eyes when meeting Elena’s gaze, even though Elena was clearly looking at her with the same demonic eyes that had just knocked out the envoy.
“I will negotiate.”
[Good.]
Then, with surprising ease, Elena released her demonic eyes and smiled with her eyes, showing her assent.
