You’re not very stupid.”
I hoped not. Marina, who answered in the affirmative, smiled a little, the corners of her mouth twitching upward.
Her face mirrored Franz’s as he gleefully recounted his misdeeds. Maybe they were so alike, mother and son.
People who don’t mind harming others to get what they want. They seemed to be the devil incarnate, thinking it was a privilege for them to trample on others and even revel in it.
“Well, you’ll be dead and gone soon enough, so there’s nothing to hide.”
Marina began to recount her evil deeds.
She said that since she was holding Celeste’s soul, she should just tell me everything and kill her. She told me all of their sordid pasts and secrets that I hadn’t expected to hear.
“The life of one sacrifice can take the life of one target.”
One sacrifice, one target. It’s like…….
“The law of equivalent exchange. God, you have no idea how much I’ve suffered because of this damn law.”
At this point, Marina was talking without me asking questions. She choked out her words under her breath, seemingly thrilled to be able to get them out.
“Can you believe that even in this world such a strict law exists, Louisaette? Black magic, indeed……. marvelous and hateful.”
Marina lifted my hand and held it up to the light. Her gaze was calm as she turned my hand back and forth, examining it carefully, as if she were admiring the skin that had been rejuvenated by the spell.
I recognized the emotion of regret and lament that flickered across her eyes.
Yes, Marina must have had moments of regret at her changed appearance.
No matter how much a mother sacrifices herself for her children, there had to be some sort of loss in the loss of her appearance, her most powerful weapon, her only point of pride.
“But I haven’t found a way to do it that’s more certain of results.”
As much as she hates the black magic that has made her this way, she has no other choice but to repeat the same mistakes. That’s how Marina would live for decades.
The vicious circle would never be broken, and she would crumble under her own weight as her misdeeds piled up. Eventually, she must have come to the point where she had to resort to black magic just to stay alive.
“In the beginning, it wasn’t so tricky to find a sacrifice, the blood of the beast was enough.”
“Beast blood…….”
Well, first of all, it wasn’t a human sacrifice. How on earth did black magic, which was practiced with the blood of animals, come to demand the life of an innocent little girl in exchange?
“But here’s the thing: as you repeat the spell……, you can’t accomplish what you want with the same sacrifice as before. If the previous spell required a finger, then you had to sacrifice a palm, then a forearm, and then a forearm, until you got to the point where nothing worked with animals.”
I don’t even want to think about how many spells I’ve used to stop someone and take what I want.
“Then I thought of humans, for they are far more valuable than common beasts.”
“You would sacrifice a human…… to black magic, knowing they were valuable?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t it be an honor to save their lives and sacrifice them to the next emperor?”
It was horrible logic. She couldn’t think of anything to say in response to his thought circuitry, so utterly selfish and so cruel.
“I started with a small child, because it’s hard to move a large human being, but this is nothing compared to the effect of sacrificing a beast! Oh, my God, how I regretted that I hadn’t found a child to sacrifice before.”
“Your only regret is that you didn’t sacrifice them sooner, you really do.”
“Why are you so indignant? Isn’t this child irrelevant to you, you fool?”
“You’re so horrible and foolish to think that you don’t care if they’re gone.”
“Your hypocrisy is disgusting, and I can’t stand it. You, a nobleman by birth, always pretend to be so noble at first, but I know the stench of your noble pretense when I see it. I’ve seen it countless times. Do you know what I do whenever some fool thinks they’re noble because their parents, grandparents, and even further back in the lineage, think they’re noble because they’re of noble blood?”
“…….”
“I stripped them of their ugly shells. It’s only a shell, but they all do the same thing: beg for their lives, pledge allegiance, or die foolishly and get worse.”
Pledge allegiance. That probably includes Celeste’s father.
“So I knew I had made the right choice. To have such ugly lumps of hypocrisy at the helm and in control of the empire, to have to step on them and make my Franz the sun of this country. That realization, that faith, that conviction, made me stronger.”
“Life for life. If this law of equivalent exchange is what you say it is, does it mean that for every child sacrificed, there is an imperial man?”
“Why not?”
I chuckled. Marina laughed again. It was such a hearty laugh that Marina wondered how she’d held it together all these years, eager to spill her saccharine secrets and brag about her evil deeds.
Of course, it wasn’t easy to kill the royal family. I told you, the next spell must be bigger and more noble than the last. After killing all those fools who opposed my will and tried to stop me and Franz, I realized that I couldn’t just take children and cast a spell on any of the royal family, so…….”
Just children didn’t work. At his meaningful words, Mrs. Pulcheria flashed into my mind. Mrs. Pulcheria, who had lost her daughter to a mysterious cause and was grieving so hard.
She is royalty, and her child is royalty.
And, coincidentally, not long after Pulcheria lost her daughter, Karl’s count and former crown prince, Bavaria, also lost his life. This was no coincidence.
“No, no, no.”
“The law of equivalent exchange. An imperial family to an imperial family. We just happened to have the child of a woman who looked like a nuisance, and we were lucky enough to snatch him up. It was a close call. Would Franz have made it this far if we hadn’t sacrificed him? I don’t think so.”
“You crazy devil…….”
My hands were shaking. I didn’t understand how anyone could do this.
“Then you took our Valerie.”
If Marina’s confession was true, then the reason they wanted to sacrifice Valerie was to harm another member of the royal family.
I didn’t have to ask who they most wanted to harm right now.
“Karl…….”
To get rid of Karl. If they really can sacrifice a person to get rid of another, they’re using Valerie to kill him.
A chill ran down my spine like nothing I’d felt before.
“How can anyone say that God is not helping us when we have the opportunity to eliminate Franz’s eternal enemy at this very moment, right now?”
Judging by her nonsensical ramblings about how the necessary sacrifices would appear at just the right moment, Marina truly believed that this was a divine opportunity.
“You look surprised to learn the truth.”
As if anyone could be surprised to hear this, Marina mocked my shock.
“I don’t really believe you didn’t know this, but you say you lost your memory, so I’ll believe you. Of course, before you lost your memory, you must have known some of the truth. You couldn’t not know. Your father found out and turned against me.”
“My father knew about this……?”
He dares to raise his head and bark at a subject who has sworn allegiance to me. What shall I do with a dog that is out of his mind, but put him to death?”
Their cruelty was like an all-pervading fog. A fog that spreads without sound and can reach anyone.
“Have you really lost your memory, did I not execute your father before your very eyes?”
The words that followed were now creepy and sent shivers down my spine. I had executed Celeste’s father in front of her…….
“Mark it well, that’s what happens to a dog that forgets its master and bites.”
Marina began to twirl in her seat. As if she were reciting a beautifully melodious verse and dancing. Then, as if she had remembered something, she stopped and looked back at me with a smile on her face.
“I see. You, too, must be punished in front of your child.”
