[Episode 25] - Pandora’s Box (2)
“What...?”
What did this woman just say?
We? Edric Snow White?
I seized her by the collar and studied her face once more. Compared to the face I had seen in the portrait, there was no color in it, and her limp limbs were so pale that I could not sense even the faintest trace of life from her.
Her red eyes, now dulled to a murky hue, showed no telling where they were looking, and her black hair looked coarse and stiff as a broom, as though it had not been combed in ages.
But no matter how different she was from the portrait, I could tell. The woman whose collar I was holding was the First Queen I knew, “Aurora Snow White.”
‘Did she go mad because she loved her husband too much?’
Suddenly, that hypothesis surfaced in my mind. The idea that she loved him so much that love was not enough—that she wanted to become him herself. Was that why Aurora thought of herself as “Edric”?
...Right now, a hypothesis like that meant nothing.
Because that was not what mattered now.
I lifted Aurora by the collar and shouted.
“Talk, Aurora. Why are you here when you supposedly killed yourself? Why are you the only one in the room where the king was said to be secluded? Explain yourself properly!”
“Aurora...?”
When I shouted while shaking her by the collar, Aurora looked at me with her pale, upturned eyes. She muttered something, then dragged her bony fingers down her own face and screamed.
“Ah—! Aurora! Aurora!! Where are you! Ah—!! Ah!!!”
“Crazy...!”
“I can’t see you...! Ah...! Ah!!! Aurora!! Aaagh!!!”
Startled by the shriek that burst from her cracked voice, I threw Aurora onto the bed as if flinging her away. The moment I saw her floundering on the bed where she had been tossed, goosebumps rose all over me.
As though she could no longer stand on her own with those bony legs, Aurora crawled across the bed, desperately making her way toward the “canvas” where she had been sitting.
Climbing onto the chair with trembling hands, she stroked the “mirror” in front of the canvas, a mirror about the size of a person’s upper body. Then, something began to rise within the mirror.
Like an old television.
In the screen thick with static, Aurora was running through a flower field, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. And Aurora, entranced, gazed at the mirror reflecting that sight with an ecstatic expression.
‘Wait, Aurora. What will you do if you trip and fall?’
‘Hehe, then Your Majesty will carry me on your back.’
The mirror showed only that scene over and over again. Through someone’s gaze, it showed only Aurora running through the flower field, again, again, and again.
Watching that sight, Aurora lifted her brush. As if engraving the scene reflected in the mirror onto the canvas, she slowly, slowly moved the brush and began painting again.
No matter how I looked at it, the current Aurora was not in her right mind.
“What the hell is this...?”
The madness Aurora showed me sent chills across my entire body.
No matter how hard I tried to understand, I could not.
Why was “Aurora, who was supposed to be dead,” the only one in the room where the king should have been?
Why had Aurora “introduced herself as the king”?
“...This is driving me insane. Seriously.”
I turned my head and looked at the mirror reflecting Aurora’s image.
I could tell that this “mirror” reflecting Aurora was Ainsel’s “true body.” It was smaller than the mirror in my room, but otherwise, it looked exactly the same.
And yet, for some reason, Ainsel had shown no reaction even though I had entered the room. She had clearly said she would be waiting inside...? Could something have gone wrong because of the “contract”?
The moment I reached out, thinking I should at least take Ainsel’s true body with me, a chill ran down my spine at the feeling behind me, as if I were about to be devoured.
The instant I turned my head without thinking and looked back.
I was able to vaguely understand what the “situation” in this room was.
—You’d better take your hand off that mirror right now, Vivian. And get away from “my Majesty” this instant, you damned bitch.
“You...”
The “woman” who had called me had her feet off the ground.
The woman in a fluttering white dress descended through the air as though stepping down invisible stairs, then stopped right in front of me. Then, growling, she let out a rumble from her throat as if telling me to leave at once.
Dark black hair, like a night sky where nothing existed had been moved here intact. Between the tilt of her head, red eyes with vertically slit pupils glared at me as though they would kill me.
A woman who looked the same as the portrait.
And she had the same appearance as the woman painting in front of me.
I swallowed dryly and asked the Aurora floating in the air, wondering whether what I had understood was truly correct, whether this situation was truly the situation I was thinking of—surely not, surely it couldn’t be.
“You... ate your husband?”
*
Vertically slit pupils, a fluttering white dress.
The Aurora in front of me now had “that appearance.”
And “His Majesty,” who was painting a work of art beautiful enough for anyone to admire. It felt as though all the puzzle pieces in my mind were fitting together.
There were still many questions, but...
At least I was able to understand what sort of being the “Aurora” in front of me was. A fairy who bestowed artistic talent upon another and, in exchange, fed on their blood and vitality.
If “Aurora” was that fairy, then it explained why the king only painted in the corner of the room, and why her body had withered like an emptied paper carton.
But...
‘Why... How did Aurora, who had been human, become a fairy, a Leanan Sidhe...? And why is the king wearing Aurora’s body?’
It seemed I now had to admit that the Aurora painting behind me was “His Majesty.” Had the real Aurora become a fairy and was now floating around, while the king had possessed her empty shell?
—Ate him... That sounds unpleasant...
Aurora answered in a voice laced with cold.
—Won’t you say that His Majesty and I are being “assimilated”? Say that it’s the “process” of His Majesty and me becoming one body, so we can always be by each other’s side. Hm? Look, in the end, His Majesty became “me” too, didn’t he? Hm? Isn’t it romantic?
At Aurora’s expression as she giggled and spoke, I could only frown. After listening to the Queen Dowager, I had known Aurora was not in her right mind, but this was beyond the pale.
That aside, the rotten stench I was smelling for the first time in my life kept numbing my nose, making it impossible to focus on the conversation. My head felt like it might go mad, and I wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
When I did not focus on her story, Aurora once again looked at me with an icy expression and continued in a low voice.
—Hey, Vivian. Even though you’ve “become exactly the same as His Majesty,” you still haven’t fixed that habit of looking down on people, have you? As expected, memories of the body really do exist, don’t they? Will His Majesty become like me too, as time passes?
“What the hell are you saying, you crazy bitch...”
—Even that loose tongue is the same. It brings back memories, doesn’t it? What did you call me when we first met again? Ah~ That’s right. A she-dog, His Majesty’s leech, a beast in heat, was it?
That was completely different.
I pinched my nose shut and headed toward the window, thinking I should at least open it. If I stayed like this, I really felt as though I would suffocate to death from the stench of rot.
When I completely pulled aside the blackout curtains, sunlight entered the room, allowing me to properly see what state it was in. A room unbelievably filthy, a complete mess, and full of excrement. No wonder the stench of rot was so overwhelming.
As I looked around the room, I saw a bulging shape on the bed, as though something were under the blanket. On the same bed where the king had been floundering earlier, it looked as if something was covered by the blanket.
...I had a bad feeling.
When I approached the blanket, thinking, surely not, Aurora smiled brightly and warned me.
—Oh? You’re really going to look? If it were me, I wouldn’t.
That warning felt as if it gave me certainty that what I was thinking was correct. Even so, I slowly approached the bed. I approached it thinking, ‘No way, surely not. Please, let it not be.’
Then I grabbed the edge of the blanket and slowly lifted it.
“Urgh...!”
—Ahahahahaha!!
The corpse of a “man,” withered and dead like a mummy, lay on the bed. When I retched, Aurora clutched her stomach as if she found it amusing and busied herself giggling.
Aurora flew into the air and approached the “man’s” corpse, then spread both arms and showed it to me as if boasting. A radiant smile came as an extra.
—Ta-da! It’s His Majesty’s “shell”! I told you, didn’t I? If it were me, I wouldn’t have looked.
“What the hell did you do!”
—What did I do?
Aurora’s laughter cut off, and she spoke.
—If His Majesty is alive, he “can’t become me,” can he? So His Majesty needs to die once. And for His Majesty to become me, he also needs to “become me.” Do you think His Majesty is dead? Look closely.
Aurora slowly approached the body of the “woman” painting and stroked her face. But “she,” whether she could not see Aurora or was ignoring her, was simply busy painting.
—He’s alive and well inside my body, isn’t he? And now, there’s really not much time left.
Aurora ran her fingers along the face of the seated “woman,” then looked at her own body with an ecstatic expression. She licked her lips and looked at me with her vertically slit pupils.
—His Majesty will be with me. His Majesty wants that too. So won’t you please stop interfering? With the love between His Majesty and me. Now, truly... truly, there isn’t much time left. Just as “that person” said...
‘That person...?’
The moment Aurora made a truly desperate expression, nausea surged up inside me. No matter how I thought about it, I could not understand the “love” these two spoke of.
Killing the other person so they could be together?
And then becoming one? What insanity.
I let out a long sigh and decided I should retreat from here for now. In the first place, there was no communicating with her, so I had no idea what I should do.
“Fine. But I need to get Ainsel back. I take Ainsel back, and I won’t interfere with you being with His Majesty. How about it? I think that’s a good deal.”
—Sorry, but that won’t do. As you can see, His Majesty is quite fond of that mirror.
“Oh, really?”
I let out a small sigh.
Then I immediately kicked over the canvas of the “king” who was painting, lifted Ainsel from where she hung on the wall, and ran straight for the door I had come through.
One dried-up mummy-like person and one fairy. I had judged that, with only that much, I could easily escape on my own while carrying Ainsel’s true body.
I turned my back and ran, but the moment I did, I collapsed face-first onto the floor. Aurora, who had rushed at me in an instant, began strangling me.
“Ghk...!”
—I told you. Don’t take it. His Majesty likes it!
I tried to grab Aurora’s hands, but for some reason, my hands could not touch her. Until now, I had certainly been able to touch beings like Undine and Banshee.
Why was Aurora the only one I couldn’t touch?
I flailed my hands desperately, but it was useless. My flailing hands kept passing through Aurora’s arms, and the sensation of my throat being squeezed remained.
—If you don’t want to die again, put that mirror down. I don’t want to kill anyone who isn’t His Majesty either.
“Ghk, ggh...!”
As my breathing grew more and more ragged, I could not keep my wits about me. I wondered if I should put down the mirror just to survive, but if I did, would this crazy woman really not kill me?
But my throat was being squeezed more and more severely, and within my blurring vision, I could not help but feel the fear of death.
No matter how much I thought about what I could do now, nothing came to mind.
Ainsel, who had been helping me, was unconscious for some reason. I had learned witch’s magic from Ainsel, but it required concentration, so I could not use it in a situation like this.
Then what could I do now?
My throat was being crushed more and more tightly, suffocating me and adding to the pain, but I forced out the last of my remaining breath and called “her,” the one who had made a promise with me.
She had said, clearly, that she was the wind.
“Syl... phy...”
When I called her in a hoarse voice, a storm swept through the room.
The paintings stuck to the floor and ceiling began thrashing madly, and the sound of thin, dry paper crumbling rang throughout the room.
As Aurora’s arms, which had been strangling me, began to twist in the wind, only then did Aurora release my throat. Lying miserably on the floor, I clutched my aching neck and let out a dry cough.
—You called me so little that I thought you had forgotten the promise you made with me, but it seems you had not.
Sylphy, who had appeared before I knew it, looked at me and smiled benevolently. Sylphy turned her back to me, then looked at Aurora and warned her in a low voice, almost like a growl.
—Begone, rag doll wearing the corpse of a Leanan Sidhe. I know not who made you that way, but if you do not wish to have that revolting garment stitched from corpses stripped from you, you had best vanish from before me at once.
At those words, Aurora showed no expression at all and simply vanished with a blank face. The room had become a mess because of the wind, but I flopped down, felt that I was alive, and let out a sigh of relief.
Sylphy fluttered over to me, sat on my chest, propped up her chin, and smiled brightly.
With a puppy-like expression, as though saying she had done well, so I should hurry and praise her.