"No. There's really nothing to apologize for."
"Originally, selecting a proxy for the scenario must be conducted entirely through a contract. All matters must be explained to the contracting party in a clear and organized manner, consent must be obtained, and then consent must be confirmed a second time before anything can proceed."
This matched my expectations.
If they couldn't dispose of me at will, then it only stood to reason that they shouldn't be able to set things in motion at will either. The reason the young man before me bothered to voice that out loud was probably…
I subtly checked the woman's expression. She was looking this way with a somewhat dissatisfied gaze. Had she not caught on yet? Or was she subconsciously blocking out that possibility? Either way, it was a sorry sight.
"So you've entered into what amounts to an unfair contract with me."
"I'm afraid that is the case. The individual over there—while she happens to be my superior in a personal capacity—used every shortcut in the book to force the contract through. And the reason for it was nothing short of a childish contest of pride… Even with ten mouths, we couldn't begin to make excuses."
Only now did the woman sense that something was off. Her expression grew darker by the second. She tried to say something, but because of the command I had given her, her lips could only move soundlessly.
"Go on."
"I have reported the full circumstances to my superiors. Lord Dantalion—no, my apologies. Lord Giacomo Scruta has set an unprecedented record. My superiors judged that the person who deceived someone of that caliber through clever wordplay must be given proper punishment."
"You…!?"
The woman gasped and choked. Her face was twisted with rage. Without her even knowing, her fate had been decided somewhere else. She must have been feeling the full weight of that humiliation.
"The terms have been provisionally decided."
The young man ignored the woman.
"She will be exiled to an eternally isolated world and made to endure the bland torment of purgatory. However, an opinion was raised that it would be only proper to grant the decision-making authority to the aggrieved party."
"You're leaving the terms of punishment to me?"
"We are prepared to accept even a somewhat heavy-handed punishment."
Thud—the woman collapsed to the ground. Her face was drained of all color, consumed by despair. She had rejoiced, thinking the organization had finally come to rescue her, yet this was the result.
The woman trembled, going "Ah, ah" as if she couldn't believe it. Honestly, she was pitiful enough. Oh well. I was, after all, a person brimming with human compassion.
"It can manipulate personalities and distort bodies. Endless pain and despair can be accomplished with ease. Please note that this is a simple punishment, not a wish fulfillment. There is absolutely no need for concern."
"……."
I tapped the tabletop with my finger.
"I'm not particularly interested in a grand punishment. I'd rather have a result with more meaning."
"When you say a result with more meaning…?"
"Get rid of that woman's original body."
The woman suddenly looked up at my face. The expression on her face said, "What nonsense are you spouting?"
"You mean get rid of the original body… Are you pronouncing a death sentence?"
"No. I'm simply asking that even if she dies here, she should have no 'place to return to.' If her original body is gone, this life here will become everything she has."
"……I see. Understood."
The young man's eyes narrowed slightly.
The young man was about to continue speaking but paused for a moment. He swallowed twice or three times before opening his mouth.
"Understood. So you're saying that is sufficient."
"Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you could also stop observing me from outside right away. My tastes have gotten considerably more generous from spending time with Barbatos and Sitri, but no matter what, I just can't get used to exhibitionism."
"……You seemed to enjoy it quite a bit with Miss de Farnese, though."
"Oh my. There's a world of difference between exposing a partner and being exposed myself. Isn't that right?"
I chuckled softly.
"I'm terribly sorry about everything."
The young man smiled sheepishly. He was apologizing for peeping into my private life without permission. Our personalities happened to click quite well. Had we met under different circumstances, we might have become friends easily.
I saw the young man to the door. To put it another way, I didn't see him off at all. I didn't take kindly to uninvited guests continuously showing up in my world, and frankly, I wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
"I do not think my words will offer any comfort whatsoever, but……."
The blond young man turned back to me before leaving. I shrugged my shoulders.
"Don't worry. Whether it's your words or anyone else's, comfort is equally meaningless."
"Truly, what you have accomplished is astonishing. I'm not merely referring to your external achievements. The ethical equation you demonstrated……the aesthetics you maintained to the very end in how you treated others — these will remain in my memory forever."
The young man slowly bowed at the waist. As if trying to show the utmost respect.
"It has been the honor of a lifetime."
And then the young man left the mansion.
"Mmm."
I stretched luxuriously with the satisfying thought that the troublesome affair had been settled for now. I glanced at the woman, and she was staring blankly at the door, utterly dejected. The focus had drained from her eyes. Her expression was one that simply could not accept reality.
"You may speak now."
I lifted the golden command on her. The taboo had been lifted, but the woman couldn't muster a single word. I smiled gently.
"From now on, you are free to kill yourself whenever you wish."
"……."
"Perhaps you'll be able to think about it a little more seriously."
I also released the absolute command never to commit suicide. Whether she lived or died was now entirely up to the woman's own choice. To despair at life and take her own grit her teeth and carry on with the rest of her days — I was confident I could enjoy watching either outcome with equal pleasure.
From that day on, the woman was always by the door.
She sat slumped on the floor, gazing beyond the window with vacant eyes, pupils clouded and unfocused. Even when I occasionally posed a question, she never answered. She had become like a broken doll, and there was a certain charm in that, so I harbored no particular complaints. After all, pets aren't supposed to chatter away in human language, are they?
One day, the woman disappeared.
I woke in the morning and accepted it with a simple realization: she had run away. Apart from harming me, the woman was free to do as she pleased in most matters. She could wander the outside world for a few years, or even for decades, for centuries — it mattered not.
If she happened to be killed by some bizarre human along the way, that was fine too.
That too would count as one of life's coincidences.
And when I opened the door to breathe in the morning air and stepped outside, the woman was hanging from a willow tree, dead—as if she had been there all along.
"……."
I flinched.
Befitting a strangled corpse, the woman's appearance was quite ghastly. The rope had cinched tight around her throat, and her tongue lolled long out of her mouth. For the sake of her dignity, I probably shouldn't mention anything below the waist. An unsightly end dangled there.
"So that's how it turned out……."
My heart was surprisingly calm.
In truth, I knew this was the proper solution. I myself had thought about suicide more than once or twice. Hundreds, thousands of times. Perhaps tens of thousands of times I had painted suicide in my mind. That impulse was reflected directly in my hallucinations—even now the shadows gnawed at my limbs with their teeth.
I accepted the impulse, and the woman lost.
That was all.
"Rather than strangling, a clean slit of the throat would've been more convenient for whoever has to clean up."
I grumbled as I cut the rope caught on the tree branch. The corpse tumbled down with a clatter. I fetched a cart and loaded the body onto it. There was no reason to spend the time and effort to build a proper grave, so I simply dumped the remains on a wooded hillside.
"Maybe some wild beast or a monster will get some nutrients out of it—."
No matter how pretty one's face might be, if the mind's foundation was weak, this is what happened. It was rather pitiable. I sent the woman off with a crude funeral and returned home with a light step. Later, when spring came around, I passed by the same spot once and noticed that mountain cherry blossoms had bloomed with unusual abundance in that particular area—it was mildly interesting.
Time passed.
Perhaps because I no longer had anyone to talk to, the intervals between my bouts of self-directed monologue grew shorter and shorter. I'm not sure if it was related, but gradually I began to hear voices coming from the portraits I painted. Fundamentally, it was similar to an ordinary hallucination.
— You son of a bitch.
A muttering voice. It was Barbatos's portrait. The moment I so much as glanced away, the portraits would seize the opportunity to spew curses and idle chatter. As usual, I responded to this delusion with a suitable answer.
"An absolute bastard, yes."
— A shameless bastard with a thick skin.
"That's a fair point. But aren't we both a bit too old to be comforting ourselves with self-loathing? I'd appreciate it if you could bring something new to the table."
The surroundings went quiet. But it was only a temporary lull. Whenever I focused on the canvas and began to paint, countless voices would start murmtering before I knew it. Sometimes the voices would overlap and overlap again, becoming an enormous din that tormented me without mercy.
One year after taking up painting, I came to realize that this was not a particularly beneficial hobby. Painting portraits of the people you had killed was never going to be good for your mental health. Before, the hallucinations had been vivid but still somewhat hazy—now, though, as if they had taken root in the portraits themselves, they displayed their presence with far greater intensity than before.
But the noise had been nice.
But the noise was, without question, also what wounded me.
Time passed.
The Novgorod art shop owner's granddaughter started taking a serious interest in my paintings. When I first met her, she was clearly much younger, but before I knew it she'd grown to about middle school age. Her face was entirely different, but she reminded me of Daisy at that age, which left a faintly bitter taste.
"You can't just shove them into storage!" the art shop owner's granddaughter insisted vehemently. They had to be preserved for history, they were treasures of humanity—she marshaled every splendid word a teenage girl could muster. She came once a fortnight without fail and delivered her passionate speeches without ever tiring. Naturally, I ignored her.
Time passed.
The hallucinations were exceptionally loud that day. I even tried screaming back at the paintings. The voices would quiet down for a moment, only to regain their momentum and pour every imaginable curse down upon me. One day, I could endure it no longer and drove a knife through Paimon's portrait, ripping it apart.
At that moment, an ear-splitting scream rang out.
I clamped my hands over my ears and sank to my knees on the floor. The scream went on and on. It was a scream drenched in blood, a scream saturated with desperate curses. It took me a long while to realize what I had done.
"Ah—ahh—"
I clutched Paimon's portrait to my chest. The painting, torn viciously down its center, looked as though blood might gush from it at any second. My body shook beyond all control. One morning I woke to find Lapis's portrait, Laura's portrait, and Barbatos's portrait all torn to shreds.
I could not control when I fell asleep. That fact was now beyond doubt. So I resolved to never fall asleep again. It was fine. This body could endure it. My consciousness, too, could probably endure it.
Time passed.
Time passed.
…Time was, passing.
============================ Author's Afterword ============================
[Replies]
Rashnar// Yap-yap.
Fishman// He's a man beyond help.
NineBreaker// Yes, that's right.
Woolban// Ho ho ho.
Wind Prince// To use such a frightening word... I'm scared ;ㅅ;
heybro// Yap-yap.
no name// In the end, there's no need to draft a contract ever again.
asd Mage// Don't be deceived. It might be a trap...
Thousand Angels// Dantalion is the worst in any sense of the word.
Wind Prince// Capitalism, ho-!