Gilach curved his eyes like a dork and spoke.
“Why do I do this? Because it’s fun, of course. Just as you experience joy when you’re researching, I love torturing guys with Elentals. So much so that I can do it all day and not get sick of it. Uhahaha!”
Aether sighed disapprovingly.
“You’ve lived over a thousand years and still act like a pubescent.”
“Thank you for the complint. Huhuhu!”
According to the Demon King, Gilach didn’t used to be this insane.
There was only one reason that Gilach ca to abhor Elentals.
It was because he had been given gold eyes even though he was born as a High Elf.
“In fact, I would often feel rejuvenated every ti I devour an Elental. Kind of like getting revenge little by little?”
High Elves were a race that could hear the voice of Elentals easier than any other race. In so parts, they were called the chosen race.
But Gilach, who was born as both an elf and a Golden-Eyed, couldn’t hear the words of any Elental until he beca an adult.
It was such a terrible curse that he was disowned by his family. Scarred by that ti, Gilach was persuaded by the Demon King and beca the person he was today.
“Until the day that the King returns and wipes out the Elental Realm, I will make the best use of my abilities here. Ah, it doesn’t even take much energy so perhaps I should call it warming up?”
His words were botherso, but they had the sa goal.
Aether had cursed a few tis herself because of those damned Elentals.
Yes, indeed, however.
“Doing that to an already incapacitated prisoner won’t change anything. If you want to do it, go do it on the battlefield.”
It was all about efficiency, and Aether wasn’t fond of Gilach who acted spontaneously without strictly managing his ti.
Why would he torture an Elental Mage that was already caught when racking their brains and coming up with the next plan wasn’t even enough.
“So, enough of that. Why did you co here?”
“Huh? Nothing, really.”
“Nothing?”
“Yup, I just wanted to show off my new slave. Huhahaha!”
For a mont, her brain stopped like she’d gotten a stroke.
So he just ca to disrupt her research, was that it?
Eyes changing, Aether glowered at Gilach. She could kill him right now if she had a nuclear detonator in her hand.
“If you don’t have anything to say, get lost.”
Although she said it coldly while suppressing her emotions, her insides were already bubbling like carbonated water.
Even a minute, a second sooner.
She wanted to set this damn world on fire.
But you dare interrupt my precious ti? The likes of you?
If there had been a nuclear detonator in her hand, she would’ve dropped an orbital bombardnt on Gilach and more.
“Y-you.......”
While Aether was running a simulation of Dark Day, the collapsed woman pulled herself up unsteadily and spoke.
“You have two souls....”
Her words just ca out of nowhere.
Aether’s expression stiffened like a burnt-out candle wick.
“What did you just....”
“I told you not to talk to anyone without my permission!”
Before she could even ask anything, Gilach marched over with his hook swung high.
An ‘ah’ wreaking of fear fell from the woman’s lips.
“This is punishnt. You know what’ll happen if you avoid it, right?”
Clenching his teeth, Gilach brought down his right hook. The woman exhaled sharply and curled in on herself, trying to at least protect her vital organs since she couldn’t get out of the way.
Shhhhk! In the mont the hook cut through the air downwards, the woman recalled the pain from earlier.
It hurt.
It was hot.
Please, no more.
“Ugh...!”
The woman clenched her eyes shut.
In the next mont–
Claaang!
A clear, high-pitched clang like knocking a tal bucket struck her ears painfully.
Unexpectedly, there was no pain of her arms or legs being ripped up.
“Ah....”
The woman exclaid as soon as she opened her eyes.
Fragrant black hair fluttered up and down.
“What are you doing all of a sudden?”
The one who stopped the hook was none other than Aether.
With no ti to take out her staff, Aether quickly flung her arm up and blocked the crescent’s form about to fall onto the woman.
Screek! Screeek!
“Y-you must be mad.......”
Gilach ground his teeth and put weight onto his arm, but Aether smoothly changed the direction of the force like water and pushed it to another side.
It was the martial arts used by the Golden-Eyed and beastkin.
“There is sothing I need to check with your slave.”
Aether simultaneously pushed aside the hook and broke the chain, removing the risk of Gilach pulling on the leash and choking her.
“Sothing to check?”
“Yes, I’d like you to give so ti.”
“Oho, isn’t this interesting.”
It was then that Gilach withdrew his hook and relaxed his expression.
It might be fun to play around with an Elental Mage, but he was more curious as to why another Heaven was interested in his slave.
“Do you pity her all of a sudden?”
“As if.”
If she had been sympathetic to the cries of soone she never t before, then she wouldn’t have even started the grand plan of destroying the world.
Aether marched up to the woman.
“Are you an Elental Mage?”
“... I am. But more importantly, are you alright?”
“With what?”
“The hook ca in contact with your arm.......”
Aether snorted.
She herself had been stabbed by the hook several tis, yet she was worrying over a simple clash between teammates. A re prisoner, at that.
She didn’t know if she was innocent or stupid.
Anyway, that wasn’t what she was curious about. Aether didn’t say anything unnecessary and asked her straight.
“What did you an just now?”
“Which?”
“That this one has two souls.”
It was widely known that an Elental Mage could read a Beast’s malicious intent.
But she had never heard that they could distinguish souls.
“It’s, just as I said. I saw two souls, intuitively-speaking.”
Aether nodded, picking up on the implication of what the woman said.
From the use of ‘intuition’, it was certain.
Because Elental Mages would present whatever the Eletal told them as ‘intuition’ and act as experienced fortune-tellers.
“However, it is a little blurry. Like one has tight hold on the control? But the other soul isn’t trying to take over this current one, either, as if the two had always been one. Or it’s waiting for the right ti....”
There was certainty in the woman’s carnelian eyes.
“You’re good at saying abstract things. Don’t you think that this could get you beaten by your master or sothing?”
“I know, but I thought it my duty to tell you.”
“Hah?”
“You’re different from the other ones here, your soul hasn’t decayed.”
As soon as she finished saying that, Gilach brought down the hook. The woman again curled up with a scream.
Clang!
“We’re talking; do not touch her.”
“Haaa, I was going to teach that thing so proper manners. It isn’t going so well.”
Gilach grumbled, but she already stopped caring.
If it was as this woman said, then that ant she could lose control over the body she had regained after a long ti if she wasn’t careful.
The one condition for handing over her body again:
When there was a society that would accept her as she was even while knowing she was a monster.
Logically-speaking, a society like that didn’t exist. Ideal? Utopia? So bullshit would make more sense.
Still, one never knew.
It was the first ti in a while that she had her body back, and she didn’t want to give over control to the other personality.
“Aren’t you an interesting one. Gilach, how about selling this slave?”
Aether asked Gilach after finishing with her thoughts.
She figured that if she kept this woman at her side and coaxed her, then she would make a good training material until they entered Iliad Academy.
However.
“What’s this all of a sudden? No, no. Absolutely not. It’s the first toy I’ve liked in ages! Huhu!”
“I plan to use her to cover any weak points until the infiltration.”
“Then that’s for you to figure out. You’re a Heaven and you trying to take another’s toy?”
Gilach refused to negotiate, let alone sell.
Gilach’s stubbornness and obstinacy were as tough as a freshly built mud castle.
In cases like this, it was better to wait for him to grow bored and throw the slave away than start an argunt.
“So all you ca to do was show off uselessly.”
Otherwise she’d end up not gaining anything and just wasting ti.
“Ahh, look at this. You broke it real good. When will I get it fixed?”
She couldn’t let this end without gaining anything. Aether threw a lightning-bolt gaze at the woman and asked.
“You, your na?”
“...Klara, Klara Hasfeldt.”
With a smirk, Aether headed towards the superconductivity research lab.
**Klais stopped etching scrolls and grumbled.
“I cannot concentrate in this kind of environnt....”
She preferred to work in a quiet environnt, but with it being so noisy outside the door, she couldn’t give her full attention to the scroll.
- Haaargh!
At first, it was nothing more than a choked scream. All she thought at this ti was that sothing terrible was happening outside.
But after she heard the scream a few tis, she found the sound becoming more and more familiar.
- Stop, it......! Please...!
When finally she heard scread words–
Klais threw down her etching pen and stood up.
The broken voice of a woman like a kitten who lost its mother.
Klais rembered hearing this voice sowhere, and very frequently at that.
“Klara?”
Before she knew it, the na of her deceased family burst out.
Klara Hasfeldt.
Her older sister who, several years ago, was last pronounced dead by the family.
The voice with which her sister read her stories and those wails sounded so, so similar.
The tone, pitch, intonation, words used, and even the speech tempo.
“Sister...? Is that you?”
Forgetting her situation and what she was supposed to be doing, Klais went over to the door.
One step, two steps.
Her feet gained traction and accelerated. Her body shot forth like an arrow, unable to hear the jangling of the chain.
Then–
Clatter!
“Hurgh, kuhgh......!”
The chain with the lock on it jerked Klais backwards.
“Ah, huck...! Hurgh... Ah, ahh, argh......!”
The leash connected to the desk pulled her head towards the sky, causing her to fall forward as her waist bent like a bow.
“Argh, aughh, ahaghh.......”
Drip, drip. Saliva droplets fell onto the carpet. At the sudden shock, her stomach threw up acid and spasd.
Her breathing beca choppy, and unable to refine her language, she just moaned. The world was turning white, and there was a high-pitched ring in her ears.
For a while, Klais shed so tears as she rolled on the floor.
“Haa, haa.......”
A few minutes of writhing in pain on the carpet.
After regaining her regular heart rate, Klais got up hopelessly while thinking she wanted to die.
“Indeed, I must be crazy.”
It seed she was hearing things now from being overworked by Aether these last few days.
Surely this auditory hallucination had to be similar to the kind of end her sister t.
She would have passed away honorably after maintaining her loyalty and integrity until the end even while being horribly tortured here at the Demon Castle.
Klais dabbed at the tears with her sleeve and sat back on the chair.
She was in a daze.
The thought of her family who passed away ahead of her made her feel pathetic.
They were all killed by Beasts, and so she had also vowed to kill them all.
And for that purpose she had poured everything into Fire Magic, into Flare.
“.......”
The thing she was feeling right now had to be anguish.
Hatred of Beasts, regret about the girl she used as a slave, bewildernt that she was actually a Beast, question about why the girl had let herself be enslaved, anger at herself, struggle with what she was supposed to do with the present.
All those complicated emotions twisted together like strings.
Even if she thought about it, nothing would change.
Flick.
After shaking off the sweat on her palms, Klais picked up the etching pen.
The dead were the dead, and the living had to live on.
Her sisters who had all left her alone.
She wished she could see even just one of them again.
Klais sculpted the rest of the scroll while briefly reminiscing the mories she shared with her sisters.
Plop, plop.
Salty saliva leaked onto the scroll. Was it because she still had pain in her neck?
It was as she was going digging through the magic paper to forget the pain.
“Hey, your sister’s alive.”
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