Chapter 98 – 98. Duke’s Seventh Sabotage (1)
– One –
Tick, drop, drop.
Blood drips down onto the pool of blood on the floor.
The man who was hung upside down on a crossbeam, naked, was bleeding all over his body to the point where he couldn’t be identified.
The blood flowing down his body spreads evenly across the floor.
Tick, drop, drop.
No matter how long the blood had been shed, the edge of the man-made blood puddle was already close to blood, not blood.
A small gap appears on the face of a man who was hung upside down.
A purple stain, presumably from the lips, wriggled on the blackened face.
“Sir, it’s true… I only know that they went north…”
The man might have injured his vocal cords, or his voice completely hoarse from screaming, his voice reminiscent of metal scraping against each other.
Was it because his voice was harsh?
A woman in black leather who was listening to him digs into her ear and frowns.
She opened her mouth as she spat on her floor.
“If you look at this level, you don’t open your mouth, and I think it’s one of the two.
Another woman takes her word for it.
“There’s no room for consideration, Eins. He always gave orders to assume the worst.”
“Even if you always assume the worst and conduct your operations, I never commanded you not to consider what the truth might be, Drei. His order was not to be pessimistic. Considering the worst, it is our responsibility to report as truthfully as possible. That is the only way to repay his favor.”
“So, let’s exclude the possibility that this bastard is a member of the rebel’s bone marrow organization and report it, you mean, now?”
The voices of the two women rise.
A calm man intervenes.
“In the current situation, it would be correct to accurately report that we have not confirmed the possibility that this person is a rebel. Reporting the possibility that this person is the rebel’s sidekick is just a side note. What is certain is that those who killed the master’s agents are heading north. Only the fact that it was headed was confirmed by this person himself.”
“Zwei. So you think there is no need to verify whether this bastard is a rebel or not?”
A man named Zwei shook his head at Dry’s questioning, which became very sharp.
“Didn’t I tell you. In the current situation, I clearly put the condition of the clue.”
“Hmm? What do you mean? I’m interested?”
Ains, who had been listening to the conversation between the two of them, listened to Zwei’s words and nodded his head.
The two faced each other so close that their noses touched.
“It’s about changing a little more, a little more.”
“How? How are you going to change?”
Eins flicked his tongue as he questioned Zwei.
Her lips, red as her blood, glisten with her saliva.
“Let’s gnaw until only the head remains.”
“Huh? Can I peck it?”
Eins licked her lips as he let out a ghastly sound, and her lips began to shine even more.
Zwei’s expression, which had been indifferent, gradually turned into ferocity.
“I eat them whole, bone by bone.”
Dry, which has been quiet, also intervenes in their conversation, following the two and licking their lips, as if the meeting is moving.
“Of course. Until his limbs disappear into our stomachs, if he doesn’t spit out any clues, we’ll only solidify our belief that he’s really a bone marrow member loyal to the rebels. But until only his head remains, his torso will be all over us.” If you don’t admit anything until the end even though everything has disappeared into your stomach,”
“Then will this bastard be proven innocent?”
“I guess so.”
“Then shall we eat right now? Huh? Huh?”
Dry licks his lips and urges Zwei.
She rubbed her stomach and trembled her legs as if she couldn’t stand her hunger.
However, even while swallowing saliva, Eins did not lose her prudent attitude until the end.
“No. You don’t have to devour this bastard right away. You don’t have to devour just one.”
“Huh? Oh, does this bastard’s wife and daughter also exist?”
“That’s right. They weren’t completely cleared of the charges of cooperating with the rebels.”
“Let’s eat next to this bastard. If I want to save my wife and daughter, I’ll spit out something useful.”
“Good idea.”
Joy spreads across the faces of the three men and women.
The shadows of the predators, exulted by the abundance of prey, seemed to overlap their figures.
“Let’s bring it.”
“I will.”
They made up their mind
A man hanging upside down in the air struggles in fear.
“Me, sir! Save me! Please save me! My wife and daughter did nothing wrong! Please, please, kill me if you want to kill me! No!”
Parrrr!
Hey hey.
Chulbeok, Chulbeok!
The man shakes his body and urinates.
Bloody urine splatters in all directions as he struggles.
The three men and women panic and walk away from him.
“Oh, fuck!”
“It’s pee splattered! Oh, I can’t just kill this…”
“It’s dirty. I’d better bring the girls and finish the interrogation soon.”
“Yes. Aaaaagh! The conquests he bestowed upon you are all tainted by that bastard! This bastard is the real deal.”
They grumble and disappear.
In the hall of a cheap inn, the mournful wails of a man left alone hanging upside down from a crossbeam echo.
But no one listened to his mournful song.
– 2 –
Beep.
Regal’s face appeared on the screen of the portable communication magic tool.
When his face appears, Eins and Drey’s faces blush with smiles.
Even Zwei’s calm face has a faint red vibe.
– He said he had something to report… What is that? No, why are you like that?
Their mouths were stained with blood and flesh.
Before reporting to Regal, they desperately wiped their faces.
However, their hands, the handkerchiefs they had, and even the towels in the inn were all covered with blood, flesh, and filth.
That made it impossible for them to dress up any more neatly.
“It has come to this because we conducted the witness examination strictly, Your Highness.”
Eins replies on behalf of them.
Regal seems to be in trouble for her, and puts her left hand on her forehead and sweeps her face roughly.
– Even so, you didn’t kill them all before hearing the testimony, did you?
“Yes. I will report the results of the interrogation in detail, Your Highness. First of all, I tracked down the whereabouts of Subject No. 16, which you ordered, and found the one who remembers their whereabouts most clearly. Over there…”
Eins pointed at the man’s frozen face, screaming.
He had his tongue pulled out, and only his neck remained, pouring out his resentment toward his world.
Only the hardened blood that flowed like tears around his eyes proved his injustice.
Other than that, no one noticed his injustice.
“That head is the innkeeper of the northernmost frontier village on the continent, who witnessed their last journey. He clearly remembered that a man and woman who matched their appearance exactly, were accompanied by two other men and women. Subjects #16 The other man and woman accompanying him are believed to be 2, 3, or 7, based on all information.”
– Is it. If you’ve heard that much information, why don’t you… You don’t even have to dispose of it messy, do you?
Judging from the subtle change in Regal’s expression and his tone of voice, you can feel that Regal doesn’t really appreciate what they did.
Sweat broke out on Eins’ forehead.
The others were just as stiff.
“That is…”
– Have you lost your appetite again?
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Haona,”
– Unless there is another clear and reasonable reason, you will be scrapped immediately. Even considering the instability of being a prototype, you should be aware that your actions have crossed the line too much.
The necks of the three men and women tighten.
Zwei jumped past Eins.
“Your Highness. I suspected that they were the gangsters related to the rebels, so I took a rather drastic method to thoroughly interrogate the matter.”
– …
Regal lets out a silent sigh from the other side of the screen.
– I clearly conveyed that the cause of the rebellion is nothing more than an excuse to attract the imperial faction.
“Didn’t Your Highness say the other day that they were forming a coalition and that they dared to oppose You in groups?”
– It was. But that’s the suspicion that the test subjects seemed to have formed an alliance, but there was no circumstance that they would have formed an alliance with such scum.
The necks of the trio of prototypes shrank even more.
– I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have doubts about your intelligence, judgment, and ability to conduct operations. Any other objections?
“No…”
Regal focused his attention on the video displayed on the screen of the magic tool for communication.
For a while, Regal just stared at the scenery they had created in silence.
The bodies of two women, young and old, are left in the solidifying blood.
They had a hole in their belly skin, and the inside was empty.
All of the ribs that were supposed to cover their organs were wide open to the outside.
In the place where all the organs that should have been pulled out, each other’s heads are inserted.
The head of a middle-aged woman was in the stomach of a young woman, and the head of a young woman was in the stomach of a middle-aged woman.
The organs that were in their stomachs must have been cut into pieces and put into the stomachs of the people who made them that way.
Their anus and genitals were stuffed with long fleshy bones.
Perhaps the identity of the bones embedded beneath them were the bones in the limbs that the prototype trio pulled out of them.
Of course, the bones of a man with only the head remaining would be mixed in it.
The reason the flesh remained filthy all over the bone was probably because the prototype trio gobbled up the flesh attached to it and left it behind.
By the prototype trio, their dead bodies have become food waste.
Were not the tears of blood that her innkeeper had dried up in her eyes, bursting with mad agony as she watched in real time how her own wife and her daughter were reduced to food waste?
– First of all, it’s because of excessive loyalty… Now that this has happened, finish cleaning up and return so that there is no debris left. Quickly and thoroughly, leaving no witnesses. As it is not yet the time for you to be exposed externally, please be careful with your behavior.
“Okay. If anyone sees it, I’ll kill them all and cover them up before returning.”
– … I might have to reprimand the researchers first.
The shoulders of the prototype trio become narrower.
Then carefully dry.
“Your Highness. Still, in the process of interrogating them, I found out a new fact.”
– What did you find out? Wouldn’t that be trivial?
Regal’s voice was full of thorns.
However, Dry was convinced that the information would be useful to Regal, so he answered without shrinking at all.
“First of all, we confirmed that those believed to be Subject 28 headed north.”
– Explain in detail.
Regal’s expression relaxed a little.
When it is confirmed through Regal’s reaction that it is meaningful information, the expressions of the others are also relaxed.
“It is said that a peddler wandering around the frontiers stayed at this inn and told the innkeeper what he had witnessed while passing by Guandu. A very luxurious two-seater carriage, which is hard to find on the outskirts, headed north. I couldn’t confirm it when I met him, but the characteristics of the wagon I heard from the innkeeper were exactly the same as the wagon the No. 28 test subjects purchased in the island.”
– Right. Since the fact that the wagon was disposed of has not been confirmed, it is clear that all the test subjects went there.
“Yes. Also, it is said that the fact that the peddler saw a person similar to the saintess in the village where she stopped by while staying at an inn while drinking alcohol made a loud noise in the hall.”
– Go ahead.
Drey has completely regained his confidence.
“The peddler said that the person presumed to be a saintess had a shabby appearance, and although she did not confirm the saintess’ distinctive light blue hair, she testified that she had exactly witnessed that the eyes of the person presumed to be a saintess were bluish-gray. Judging from the saintess’s unique atmosphere, I heard that she said that she was very similar to the saintess she saw while attending the goddess’s birthday ceremony held in Jedo Island several years ago.”
-Is she secluded in a nearby unexplored land, stopping by the village once in a while to buy her daily necessities? It is certain that most of the test subjects were gathered in the forest near the unexplored area with the saintess.
“Our opinion is the same. Information and goods are distributed in villages near the unexplored areas through peddlers. Although they are closed off from the outside world, the information from the inside is relatively accurate. Because it is related to survival, there is a strong atmosphere of mutual crackdown on spreading rumors as much as possible.”
As Dry seemed to dominate Bogo’s credit, Eins could not stand it and intervened.
Their loyalty competition was always overheated to the point that they could not easily yield to each other even in these trivial matters.
“Because we are currently located at the far end of the northern unexplored land, we passed through about 10 small settlements on our way here. Rumors have been heard from time to time.”
Sparks flew in Dry’s eyes.
She quickly took over her next words.
No, it was more like cutting off Eins and interjecting.
“At the time, there were no clear testimonies, so I just looked at it. However, now that I’ve heard meaningful eyewitness accounts, I think we’ll be able to produce results even if we continue to pursue the saintess.”
And she subtly appealed to Regal for an extra shot.
Regal listened to her and sneered at her inwardly.
– No, it’s done. You guys come back As you said, we have obtained meaningful information and confirmed the whereabouts of the test subjects and the saintess. If that’s the case, we’ll just have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get out until the day of the operation. That’s going to be done with my enlisted men or Imperial troops stationed there, so there’s nothing more for you to do there. Can you understand
“Yes, Your Highness.”
All three of the prototypes answered simultaneously.
With those words, Regal cut off her communication.
The three prototypes look back at each other and sigh.
It was then.
Profit.
“Look, there’s room left, hee,hee hee!”
Someone unlucky opened the door of the inn and stepped out.
And he saw the mistress and his daughter in a mess.
The trio of prototypes quickly exchange glances.
Shashak.
Click.
Zwei quickly blocked his retreat and locked the door.
The uninvited guest looks back in horror.
“Muh, muh, muh, what’s going on, is it better? I saw ah, ah, ah, ah, nothing, nothing.”
Grunt.
Before he knew it, Dry, who had come behind him, let out a low growl ringing at his neck.
The uninvited man’s body swayed dangerously with the growling emitted by the dryer.
Hey hey hey.
Shiver.
The predator’s low voice made the body tremble, and the man stopped incontinence.
Pudadadadadak.
That’s right.
Eins, who fluttered his collar, approached him and wrapped himself around him.
A man surrounded on three sides by a trio of prototypes closes his eyes tightly.
A smile spread across the three faces.
The time for a feast for predators has arrived again.
The meat this time is very fresh, with no blood soaked into the muscle.
It’s probably tastier than the previous three garbage.
– 3 –
“The butler.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Did you know about the fact that the minds of the prototypes are very precarious and lacking in intelligence?”
“I didn’t know at all… But is there something going on?”
“Haa… They’re on a mission…”
Regal confides to the head butler about what happened during the regular briefing of the prototype trio just before.
The butler’s face went white.
He jumps up from his seat.
“Oh, my God! This is a deception by the research team! You can’t stand by!”
“Wait, calmly. It’s very easy for us to reprimand them. But if they didn’t openly plan their betrayal, wouldn’t there be a reason why these side effects have only now been revealed? After making some inferences about it, it’s hard to investigate the facts.” I think it’s necessary.”
“… Your Highness is right.”
The butler sits down on the sofa.
He was terrified that Regal had made no accusations of cannibalism.
Regal was only accusing them of doing stupid things that would expose their tracks without thinking.
He accepted the cannibalism committed by the prototype trio casually.
Maybe he thinks of commoners as just fodder for prototypes?
With such doubts, it was difficult for the butler to concentrate on the conversation with Regal at all.
“…I mean standing there. Hmm?
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. I did it because I was frightened by the fact that they committed cannibalism.”
At some point, the butler, Jang, began to tell Regal how he felt.
Because he realized that hiding it wouldn’t do much good.
By confiding everything to Regal frankly, he always kept on his stomach, lest Regal get the misunderstanding that he was plotting a betrayal.
Regal laughed at the butler’s words.
“Won, man, oh. Is that something to be so afraid of?”
“I think it’s just because it’s unfamiliar. Isn’t fear stemming from the unfamiliar and the unknown?”
The head of the house defends himself, and at the same time humbles himself in a way that does not criticize or provoke Regal as much as possible.
He was getting used to the way he lived for survival.
Regal laughs again and continues his words.
“Well, you should get used to it now. Anyway, from what I’ve seen, there seems to be a problem with their brainwashing method.”
“You mean brainwashing?”
“That’s right. I think the balance between the loyalty imprinted on them and the ability to think comprehensively for operational capabilities has been broken.”
“I don’t think the researchers would have overlooked that fact beforehand.”
“The results of the verification conducted in a closed laboratory and the verification conducted in the field based on comprehensive thinking ability cannot be the same.”
“Do you think additional adjustments are necessary several times?”
Regal nodded.
“Actually, it’s a bit less like this, but as an extremely loyal subordinate, it wouldn’t matter if I consumed them. However, I also think that their superpowers are a waste for that.”
“Certainly, unlike normal magic or swordsmanship, isn’t the great strength of this ability that it does not consume resources?
“That’s right. I guess we need to increase the frequency of operations. Increase the difficulty level of operations. Every time an operation is launched, thoroughly manage the monitoring and reporting system for the operation situation and results. That way, the data needed to strike an appropriate balance will be provided to the researchers. Wouldn’t it be easier to collect?”
“I will, Your Highness. Do you think we should schedule a meeting with the researchers?”
“Hmm…”
Regal looks at her wristwatch and calendar.
He immediately shakes his head.
“Summarize my reasoning, pass it on to the research team, and ask them to report only the progress. Time is running out to set up a grandiose meeting.”
“All right.”
“I’ll just wake up.”
Regal leaves her office first.
He hurriedly left the office today to spend a pleasant time with Chiba, fulfilling each other’s desires, reaffirming mutual belonging, bondage, and ownership.
His steps as he left the office were infinitely light.
