The torture implements hung all around the room only made one’s heart grow numb.
What was unusual was the wall filled entirely with whips. There, whips of every shape and color
hung proudly on display. Long ones, short ones, thick ones, thin ones, ones studded with thorns—
it would not have been an exaggeration to say that every kind of whip in all of Arcadia
was hanging there.
Danglas let out a strange laugh as he looked over the whips.
“At any rate, your fate is a wretched one. To have been caught by the baron’s vile tastes.”
He turned his head toward the soldiers with a grin.
“Anyone want to make a bet with me? On how many days it takes this bastard to go mad.”
One soldier stepped forward.
“I’ll do it. I think this one won’t last a month.”
Danglas shook his head.
“No. Judging by his attitude, I don’t think he’ll last even a fortnight. I’ll wager ten silver that he
goes mad within fifteen days.”
“I’ll bet on fifteen days too.”
“I say a month.”
The soldiers eagerly joined the wager, holding out silver coins. After collecting the money, Danglas
urged the soldiers toward the door.
“Let’s get out of here. We don’t want to get in the way of the baron’s hobby.”
“Understood.”
The soldiers rushed out in a swarm, leaving Damon alone in the room. An ordinary person might
have shown anxiety over an uncertain future, but Damon was different. He merely looked around
with bored eyes. His expression could even be called relaxed.
Baron Romain appeared after just the right amount of time had passed—long enough for a prisoner
to have grown sufficiently anxious.
“Have you waited long?”
Baron Romain entered calmly. Yet his appearance was quite bizarre. On his nearly naked body, he
wore something like a leather vest and shorts, studded here and there with metal rivets, making for
a rather unpleasant sight.
The shorts were so short that his hairy legs were fully exposed, though he did possess a fairly
well-balanced, muscular build. When Damon, bound tightly to the bed and unable to move, came
into view, Baron Romain’s face gradually began to flush.
“This is driving me mad. Such beauty is hard to find these days.”
At those words, Damon’s lips, which had been firmly shut, opened.
“Why do you touch men? I saw plenty of women in the prison.”
“That?”
Baron Romain grinned.
“I suppose I’ve grown tired of them. In truth, quite a few wenches have died in this room.
But even that lost its charm quickly. Now, dealing with men is far more to my taste.”
The baron approached with a lecherous smile. Picking up a knife with a cold, gleaming edge from
the table beside him, he carefully stroked the blade. It nicked him lightly and blood appeared, but
he paid it no mind.
“Now then, I should take a look at what lies beneath your skin. That fellow Danglas is rather quick
on the uptake. He tied you up so nicely, just so I could undress you myself……”
The baron walked toward Damon with complete leisure. But before he could reach him,
Damon’s anger exploded.
“Unlock.”
As the brief incantation followed, the iron shackles binding Damon’s limbs came off at once.
Clank.
When Baron Romain saw Damon half rising from the bed, he could only be scared out of his wits.
“H-how can this be……”
“Shall I start cooking now?”
As Damon lightly raised his hand, Baron Romain’s body froze in place. The Magic Missiles fired in
an instant had sealed every blood point throughout the baron’s body. In the blink of an eye, Baron
Romain became unable to move. Since his mute point had not been sealed, he kept shouting.
“You bastard! Release me. If you don’t, I’ll call the soldiers and have you cut into a thousand pieces
this instant.”
“How noisy.”
Damon frowned and waved his hand once more, and now Baron Romain was placed in a state where
he could not even properly shout. Even his mute point had been sealed. Damon approached with a
faint sinister smile. The smile on his face was no different whatsoever from the one Baron Romain
had worn moments earlier.
“Shall I give you the Muscle-Severing Bone-Wrenching as a little taste first?”
The moment his words fell, three or four Magic Missiles shot out and struck Baron Romain’s major
acupoints. The baron’s body immediately began trembling like an aspen leaf. At the agony of tens
of thousands of ants simultaneously gnawing at every inch of his body and limbs, he was already
pouring cold sweat. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but no sound could escape his
throat.
“Uuugh.”
Baron Romain twisted his body, letting out only a threadlike groan. Damon glanced at him, then
turned and headed toward the door. Standing by the doorway, he shouted loudly.
“Guards.”
Amazingly, his voice was exactly the same as Baron Romain’s. His manner of speech and tone were
identical down to the last detail. But Baron Romain, suffering under the Muscle-Severing
Bone-Wrenching, had no leisure to be surprised. The pain it inflicted was that intense. The guard’s
response soon followed.
“Did you call, sir?”
“Go to the prison at once and bring Zengart here. When you enter, Danglas alone is to bring him in.”
“Understood.”
After giving the order, Damon leisurely sat down in a chair and watched Baron Romain twist his
body. To Baron Romain, who was experiencing it firsthand, it was torment enough to make him want
to die, but to Damon, who was observing, it was quite an interesting scene.
“Hey. Is that the best you can dance? Try dancing properly.”
“Uuugh.”
Romain desperately wanted to hurl curses at him, but not a single word came out of his mouth.
Baron Romain, suffering a pain he had never experienced before, was already half out of his mind.
“You fool. When I was young, I received the punishment of Muscle-Severing Bone-Wrenching with
a smile. Do you have so little endurance?”
Damon, who had even been gulping down the wine on the table as he watched, quickly rose when
he heard a knock.
“Who is it?”
“It is Danglas. As you ordered, I have brought Zengart.”
“Come in.”
Click.
The door opened and two people entered. Naturally, both of them could only stare wide-eyed at the
sight inside the room. Immediately afterward, Damon’s incantation followed.
“Lock.”
The door was sealed so firmly that it would only open if battered with a siege ram.
“You, you dare……”
Danglas glared at Damon. But when Damon gestured, he too could only end up in the same state as
Baron Romain.
“Aaaaargh!”
Perhaps because they were master and servant, there was no difference in the way they twisted their
bodies under the Muscle-Severing Bone-Wrenching. Since he was at it, Damon even sealed his mute
point as well.
After finishing the work, Damon approached Zengart. Perhaps to prevent him from escaping, he was
bound tightly with a thick rope. He looked at Damon with a vacant gaze.
“W-what is going on here?”
“Surprised, old man?”
Damon reached out and untied the rope. Though he was free, Zengart seemed unable to understand
the situation at all, and only looked back and forth at the two men who were dancing.
“It would take too long to explain, old man. You remember what I said earlier, don’t you?”
“W-what?”
Damon grew irritated.
“Look at this old man. What a memory…… Hey, didn’t you say that if you got the chance, you’d try
living earnestly again?”
“I-I did.”
Without realizing it, Zengart was speaking respectfully. For some reason, he felt that he ought to.
“Good. Then is Romain the person you hate most?”
“P-probably.”
As though seeking confirmation, Damon asked again.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then prepare yourself well……”
Soon, with Damon’s body as its axis, a terrifying vortex of mana began to swirl. It was such a vast
flow of mana that even Zengart, who knew nothing about mana, could sense it. In that state, Damon
began casting a spell.
Judging by the fact that even the mana of darkness was gathering, it was a type of black magic, and
seeing that even Damon, a master of the Ninth Circle, was taking this long to cast it, it was by no
means an ordinary spell.
Once enough mana had gathered, Damon rearranged it without delay.
“By the authority of darkness, I bring forth a curse. May your appearance change into that which
you hate most. Curse!”
As soon as the casting ended, a dazzling cluster of light wrapped around Zengart. It was so intense
that one could not look at it with open eyes.
“Gah. W-what is this?”
Zengart, not understanding what was happening, flailed his arms in shock, but Damon continued
rearranging the mana without being shaken. At last, the cluster of light flared brilliantly and then
vanished.
Flash.
After the light disappeared, an entirely different person stood there. A man identical in every detail
to the one twisting madly beside him.
As though he could not grasp the change that had come upon him, Zengart merely looked around
with a bewildered expression. Of course, to anyone else, he looked exactly like Baron Romain.
Damon stretched out a hand and pointed to a full-length mirror on one side.
“So it was true that you hated the baron most. Go see whether you like your new appearance……”
“Yes? Yes.”
With a dazed expression, Zengart approached the mirror. The instant he looked into it, his eyes
opened so wide they nearly tore. His familiar appearance was nowhere to be found, and the face of
the man he hated most was staring back at him. It was none other than Baron Romain’s appearance.
Since his instincts honed through business had not gone anywhere, Zengart soon realized Damon’s
intention.
“Th-then you mean I am to live as Romain from now on……”
“It is a fairly high-level curse, so ordinary fellows won’t even dare try to undo it. Of course, it will
not disappear naturally either. Well? Do you like it?”
“I-I am satisfied. Of course I am satisfied.”
Zengart nodded frantically. In truth, though he had hated Baron Romain, he had not hated the man’s
background. No, the background of the baron who possessed the greatest wealth in Lorbein could be
considered so attractive that no one would refuse it. Because of that, Zengart’s face filled with joy
in an instant.
“H-heavens, how could such a thing happen to me……”
Looking at the delighted Zengart, Damon warned him sternly.
“Be careful how you behave so you are not discovered.”
“Do not worry. I already know the great and small affairs of the Romain family inside and out.”
Seeing Zengart full of confidence, Damon nodded and this time approached Romain and Danglas.
Romain’s face was smeared with tears and snot, making him a truly unsightly spectacle. Damon cast
Magic Missile and released him from the punishment of Muscle-Severing Bone-Wrenching. Along
with that, he also released both his blood points and his mute point.
“Krrgh.”
With a heavy groan, Baron Romain collapsed limply on the spot.