A suffocating silence descended upon the underground prison. Even Jeremy's expression cracked.
Jeremy took the whip I had handed her and stood frozen like a statue. Faint emotions bled through the connection. I don't want to do this, I want to refuse.... For an assassin who would carry out even a superior's order to take her own life, this was the closest thing to outright rebellion.
I fixed Jeremy with a stern glare.
"Guard Captain, execute the order immediately."
"I cannot harm Your Majesty's body—"
"You fool. Must I really have to give orders to a monster?!"
When I shouted, Jeremy squeezed her eyes shut. Though half of Jeremy's face was scarred by burns, right now her emotional turmoil was plain to see on the surface.
"It has not even been a fortnight since Your Majesty recovered from illness. I beg you not as Guard Captain, but as Your Majesty's physician. Sixty lashes of the cane is far too severe a punishment. This is not counsel born of loyalty but a purely medical judgment. Your Majesty, please show mercy..."
I sneered.
"One more word and I'll summon the monsters."
"..."
"If I lose consciousness, douse me with cold water and carry on without a shred of mercy. Execute it swiftly. Do to me exactly what you did to the prisoner, without the slightest deviation. This is an order!"
I issued a stern warning not just to Jeremy but to every one of my retainers.
"Every time the punishment is interrupted or interfered with, ten more lashes will be added. Until all sixty are complete, no one is to interfere with Jeremy or me."
Jeremy slowly bowed her head.
"I will comply."
I unclasped my cloak and let it crumple to the floor. I had been wearing unnecessarily formal attire to receive the Teuton envoy. I pulled off the red badge that Gamigin had personally gifted me—just like shedding a layer of skin.
Finally, I pulled open my upper garments until my bare torso was exposed. I quietly settled into a cross-legged position on the cave floor.
I could feel Jeremy approaching from behind.
"May I proceed as instructed?"
"Yes. Do not forget your duty for even a moment."
I bit down on the rubber ball in my mouth. Saliva trickled down my esophagus. As if sensing the imminent pain, my skin prickled with unease. I closed both eyes.
Laura had violated the law on personal grounds and deserved the death penalty. In other words, this punishment was nothing less than a substitute for execution. Jeremy had begged for mercy, but she was sorely mistaken. Replacing the death penalty with caning was itself an act of mercy.
First I would punish Lapis, who represented the retainers, then Laura, and finally myself. The prime minister and the king—both of higher rank than Laura—sharing the guilt side by side. That would bring us just barely to the threshold of avoiding execution.
Of course, whether my body could withstand the caning was questionable.
Even on a normal day my stamina was pathetic, and right now I had literally just come back from the brink of death. But none of that mattered. A punishment befitting the death penalty threatening one's life was, in a way, only natural.
What is natural must be carried out naturally. That was all.
And then—
—searing pain tore down my spine.
"Gkh...!"
My eyes flew open. An immense agony crashed down my spine. The crack of the whip carried with it the sensation of flesh being torn open. I clenched my teeth. If I hadn't bitten down on the rubber beforehand, my teeth would have been shattered by the fifth lash alone.
The second lash.
"Hghk...! Kkh...!"
It was maddeningly painful. More than when an arrow struck my thigh, more than when I cut off my own finger—just two lashes were overwhelmingly agonizing. Something bubbled on my back. It was probably blood.
The third lash.
The fourth lash.
The fifth—
I thought my eyeballs would burst from their sockets. My esophagus contracted and something refluxed. My breath was cut off. Between lashes, I gasped desperately for air. My teeth must have grazed the tip of my tongue, because I could taste blood inside my mouth too. It was metallic.
"...M...my lord?"
Had the sound of the whip roused her consciousness?
Laura, her arms suspended from chains on the ceiling, struggled to lift her eyelids. Over there, Laura gazed blankly at me. Our eyes didn't meet. My vision had already lost all focus. All I could make out was a pale, washed-out scene with Laura in it.
Laura still didn't seem to have fully regained her senses. Her face said she couldn't comprehend what the scene before her meant. It was no wonder—my punishment had been decided while she was unconscious.
It took less than ten seconds for Laura's face to be overtaken by shock.
Crack!
My body jerked. I was barely maintaining my cross-legged posture, but my arms were already trembling uncontrollably. This time I couldn't even scream. Something like dry heaving crawled up my throat with a choked retch.
"Ah, ah...? Ugh...?"
Laura's expression crumbled.
Regardless, the seventh lash came down mercilessly across my back. My innards screamed. This wasn't just the pain of flesh—my muscles, the very bone itself, ruptured with agony.
There could be no reward without sacrifice.
If half-hearted punishments were permitted, statecraft would silently rust away. If the people would not sacrifice, the state itself would be sacrificed. That was politics. Once my retainers cooled their heads, they would easily recognize that this was a necessary procedure.
"Ah, aah! Aaaah!"
Laura's green pupils dilated. Had she finally grasped the situation? She opened her mouth. Overwhelmed by shock, she couldn't form words—she merely wrung her lungs like a wounded animal.
And then—the eighth lash.
"Aaaah! What are you doing—to my lord, what are you doing?!"
Laura thrashed with her entire body. The chains fastened to the ceiling clattered violently. As if the thirty lashes that had left her half-dead were a lie, Laura glared wide-eyed and struggled with all her might.
"Stop! Stop it right now! Dame Jeremy! Stop, please stop...!"
The ninth lash.
"Aaaah! How dare you—to my lord! To my lord, what are you doing!? I'll kill you! If you don't stop right now, I'll kill you, Guard Captain! It's not too late! Even now—ah, ah, aaaah!"
The tenth lash.
The eleventh lash.
The twelfth lash.
For a moment, I lost consciousness to the pain.
It felt like my consciousness was being forcibly shut off. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? The agony of my back being torn open forced my awareness back to life. It was a completely different kind of pain from before. Cold water was searing into the wounds on my back.
I bowed my head. It seemed I had passed out while still sitting cross-legged. Something was dripping onto the floor—drip, drip. Something trickled from the corner of my mouth, and I thought it might be saliva, but what my hazy vision revealed was a vivid red liquid.
Jeremy called out the current count and swung the whip. Thanks to that, I learned I was on the thirteenth lash. Thirteen—how many more until sixty? I couldn't do the math. There were an excruciatingly large number left. Of that much, I was certain.
Drops of blood rolled along my jawline and fell to the cave floor. For some reason, I couldn't feel my teeth anymore. All there was, was pain.
"Please, my lord...I'll try harder...just stop..."
Laura was weeping.
When the fourteenth lash fell, her weeping instantly turned to screams.
She screamed something terrible, but I couldn't make out the words. My head was spinning. The smell of blood and nausea mingled into something indescribable that crushed my skull from all sides. I was suffocating.
"Ugh, haaah...aah..."
I had done Laura a terrible wrong.
I knew why she had tortured Daisy. I understood. She must have been worried sick—so much so that she couldn't control herself. Unable to endure the emotional torrent, her love had twisted into rage, and she had to pour it out on someone.
"I don't want this, my lord, I don't want this...stop...I'll never do it again, so..."
This was my fault.
Laura was never the kind of woman to be swayed by emotions. She was supposed to be the kind of person who, even in the final moment of leaping from the castle walls of her own accord, would hold her chin high with dignity and gaze down upon the Hero with haughty eyes.
Because she had been captured by someone like me.
Such a beautiful child.
I had ruined Laura.
"Ah, haaah, aah...don't...no...no, please...my lord, my lord..."
"..."
After that, the count continued intermittently.
When I reached about the thirtieth lash, an unusually long silence followed. At some point I had collapsed onto the floor. I barely lifted my upper body and looked back. Jeremy's pale face came into view.
My mouth was full of blood. I wanted to spit it out but lacked the strength. As a second best, I parted my lips slightly and just let it spill out. It freed enough space to move my tongue.
"...What lash is it?"
"Thir...ty-two, Your Majesty."
I fixed Jeremy with a quiet glare. Why haven't you finished the rest yet? That was the rebuke in my eyes. Jeremy hesitated.
"Your Majesty can endure no more..."
I felt no need to answer. I continued staring silently at Jeremy. Jeremy gritted her teeth and slowly raised the whip. Yes. That was it. Your role is exactly this.
I gave a single nod of approval. Then I lay my upper body back down on the floor. I wanted to sit cross-legged, but I simply didn't have the strength.
As the thirty-third lash struck, I let out a scream. The rubber must have fallen from my mouth while I was unconscious. It meant even the strength to bite down had left me. Putting it back in now would be useless.
"..., ..."
Laura had screamed and wailed until her body finally gave out, her mouth merely opening and closing soundlessly. It was only natural—her body, already battered from punishment, had thrashed with every ounce of strength she had left. Only the tears continued to stream ceaselessly from the corners of her eyes.
I passed out once every three lashes. Inevitably, the punishment dragged on over a long period. At one point Ivar, unable to bear watching, caused a commotion. Parsi tried to restrain him, but it was no use.
I simply added ten lashes to my punishment. At that, Ivar retreated with a look of despair. Jeremy vehemently refused the additional ten, but I did not retract an order once given. In the end, ten was added to the sixty, and I endured a full seventy lashes.
"...Seventy."
Jeremy spoke as if expelling her last breath. As I had ordered, she had not eased up on the whip from beginning to end. For that alone, Jeremy deserved praise. I wanted to tell her she had done well. If only I could have mustered a voice.
Everything was over.
With this, the discipline of my Demon Lord's army had been established. An incident like this would not recur.
It was agonizing enough to die from, but I did not die.
That was all that mattered.
By any measure, it was a fine conclusion.
I squeezed out my last ounce of strength and muttered:
"Exec...ution...complete..."
And before I could finish the sentence, I lost consciousness entirely.
From around the fortieth lash onward, I had been in some half-state between consciousness and unconsciousness—or more precisely, I had simply closed my eyes with no need to wake again. It was alright to keep them shut. Who would have thought this could be such an enormous blessing.
Around me, people cried out "Your Majesty!" all at once. Though they sounded right beside me, they felt impossibly distant. I was enveloped in a comfortable darkness, falling to the very end—to the very bottom of the abyss.
Wishing that I could remain sealed away like this forever.