194.

Johannes’ long fingernails pierce through the dead young man’s back.

He pressed firmly on both sides of the spine line visible through the thin pajamas, then extended his index finger and stabbed it in.

He deliberately aimed for the bone.

It was a consideration for the blind Inette. You can just listen quietly. Crack. Crack. The moment the sound of bones crumbling rang out gently, Inette’s resistance suddenly ceased. Perhaps the shock was too great. We haven’t even started yet.

Johannes tried to feel Inette’s first impression on his own skin. Without realizing it, he gently ruffled his sister’s hair with sensitized lips. Indeed, even a single strand of hair that brushed against him felt like sparks. It bounces and burns. As he exhaled his naturally heated breath, it felt too precious to waste, so he pressed his lips firmly on Inette’s crown and swallowed it abruptly. Inette. He almost whispered. Only when he could no longer hold back did he manage to breathe out carefully. Hoo… Hooo… He was so captivated by his sister’s reaction.

Like a beast.

The surroundings where even Johannes remained motionless were filled with a horrific silence. It was a stillness that could shatter at the sound of a collar being crumpled. Only Inette’s heartbeat, which had seemed to recede like an ebb tide far beyond the bed, gradually surged into Johannes’ sensitive hearing.

Thump… Thump… Thump thump… Thump thump!

No…? It can’t be…? Did I hear wrong? Right?

With her head tilted up and body stiffly frozen, Inette seemed to ask thus with her pulse in place of her blocked mouth. Answer!

Like someone trying to gauge the identity of an ominous noise. No, like someone trying to deny a certain disaster, the fine hairs on her frozen nape stood on end as if they alone were alive. It was as if they were screaming neurotic screams strand by strand. Ah, how could this be…! My husband has suffered some terrible fate…! I can’t believe it…. Please tell me it’s not so…!

Squelch.

However, Johannes’ hand dug even deeper into the corpse’s back. The insides of the young man who had just hours ago been clumsily devouring his newly acquired wife still hadn’t lost their warmth. It was like a very hot lump of blood, like the sensation of plunging one’s hand into a steaming bathroom.

Johannes, who had been circling the top of Inette’s head, lowered his forehead all the way to her shoulder. Gently pushing his nose against the trembling line of his sister’s neck below her ear, he whispered quietly.

“What are you doing.”

“……”

“Not waking your husband to drive me away.”

“……”

“You said you got a sword.”

“……”

“Didn’t you say ‘this’ was finally the sword hilt you wrung out?”

“……”

“Inette.”

There was no answer.

A sword, he says. Johannes pressed his cheek against his sister’s nape and exhaled a hoarse breath mixed with a hollow laugh. Meanwhile, his hand that was thrust deep into the corpse, crushing ribs and rummaging around, was as leisurely as if stirring water.

“Pl… ease. Stop. It.”

Inette seemed to moan thus as the grip of her hand covering her mouth loosened. It wasn’t clearly audible.

Johannes felt breathless as if experiencing something for the first time in his life. Even though this wasn’t his first killing of the night. Even though it was merely a reenactment performed ostentatiously on a dead body, he felt this way. It wasn’t that any particular sentiment surged up from the act of killing itself.

It was just that Inette’s reaction was breathtaking. The girl from a knight’s family, who should have been well accustomed to the smell of human blood during her six years of free movement outside, was nonetheless pale blue and trembling all over. Not knowing what to do with herself.

Unlike the honorable sight of beheading by a noble knight’s sword, as easily seen in open fields during important events, this was truly a bestial slaughter in the literal sense, which she was witnessing for the first time.

Soon, what truly intoxicated him was the premonition. His sister, who seemed about to collapse from just this much shock, would soon stiffen from head to toe at even a single glance from him.

“I… I was wrong.”

“……”

“Johan.”

“……”

“So… please. Stop….”

Inette, enveloped in his arms, was like an aspen tree in the wind. She barely raised her hands like dry branches, then twitchily covered her ears. As if she had no way to endure the moment when the sound of slaughtering a person continued like an eerie music. Her head shook sporadically, and Johannes could hardly distinguish whether it was a shudder or a shake of the head.

“Ah.”

Inette, who let out a short, colorless exclamation, finally curled up tightly as if about to crumble under pressure. Oh my. Johannes fixed Inette’s collapsing chin with the tip of his nail. Don’t think of running away. The breath whispering thus into his sister’s ear was hot even on his own palate.

I feel like I’m going crazy.

His reason and insides were already a muddy mess, worse than filth, from the tremors lasting several minutes. His sister prostrate at his feet. His sister who would cling to his waist to survive. His beautiful girl who would crawl if told to crawl and lie down if told to lie down vividly appeared before his eyes. It made him tremble unbearably. He couldn’t stand it. His nerves exploring every inch of Inette’s reactions were numb to the point of aching.

“When I kill a knight, I look at the crest on his breastplate, and when I kill a serf, I look at his eyes.”

One of the older knights who had been in charge of his training had said this once. He was notorious for being particularly cruel in post-battle cleanup. What’s the difference? Why the eyes specifically? At the time, it didn’t immediately resonate with Johannes.

But now he understands well. The saying that killers enjoy a sense of omnipotence, or enjoy the moment when the soul leaves the body, is too shallow and frivolous.

The old man who had swept through the Valdemar training grounds must have surely seen his own life in the eyes of a serf on the brink of death. Yes, it’s life. The countless possibilities that he himself gains in the moment of driving a helpless creature to its death. The ecstasy that blooms red and is immediately abandoned, stemming from the fear in the victim’s eyes alone. Because it was an incomplete scene that he could have enacted but “deliberately” chose not to, he was the lord of fear and the master of his own life.

Was it this feeling? Is this the taste of life? Even Idris, who lived nearly twice as long as Johannes before dying as a half-demon, didn’t know this taste. An indescribable excitement rose from deep within his organs, but Johannes felt through every bit of his flesh that it was a strangely chilling heat. He was dizzy with intoxication from the supreme violence he could inflict upon Inette. Inette. What shall I do with this? It seems I, an empty shell, am pretending to be alive by ruling over you.

Mmm… His slow exhalation of laughter sounded like a moan feverish with heat.

In fact, even if she were to crawl for him now, it wouldn’t be enough. To somehow soothe this boiling abdomen, he felt like he should order her to strip naked in a place with many watching eyes and lick his shame like a dog, just as Idris had suffered long ago.

You would surely tremble and crouch down unsteadily. What kind of miserable expression would you have then as you looked at me? No. Would you even dare to look up at me? That part worried him so much he could hardly contain his laughter.

Inette’s face would surely be filthy from rolling naked in the mud of the training grounds after rain.

The pupils wide open amidst her cobweb-like blonde hair are the blue of a terrified loser. The shame rising red on her forehead adds what little vitality there is to see in her haggard face. Unable to hide her shrunken soul, she would occasionally glance at the jeers from all around or check her brother’s expression, then crawl hesitantly to his thighs. She would timidly rub her dry cheek against his knee. Sometimes she would glance at his eyes. Ah.

Doing things without being told.

He just sighed at her ridiculous and unsightly appearance. Something like anger boiled up in his chest, slowly but surely losing patience. He was about to kick her flat stomach but stopped. In the end, unable to hold back, he pounced on her. Picking up his thin and filthy lover’s naked body like a bundle, he headed mindlessly towards the inner chamber. He threw her in.

My sister. My womb. My king. My girl, painfully dear to the point of madness. My person. Ah, my woman. As he locks the door from the inside, he frankly admits. That even this current fantasy was in fact possible to realize at any time.

He knew.

He was not unaware.

“You should have grasped me.”

He whispered into the ear of his sister, who made a sobbing sound.

“Do you understand.”

He clawed at the essence of human flesh with his fingernails that had dug into the corpse’s insides.

“If you couldn’t become a sword…”

He swallowed dry saliva, too excited.

“Yes.”

“……”

“You should have grasped me… not this worm-like fellow.”

“Ah.”

“Look.”

And he tried to show the part of someone he had torn out with his own hands right under Inette’s nose. She should see it. This time, Inette’s eyes should clearly see it. She would no longer be able to unsee the devastation brought about by her own choice. Inette backed away, gasping severely. It was his chest anyway. With a thud, she fell into his arms, hitting the back of her head. She was trapped.

“Here.”

“N-”

“Touch it.”

“No.”

“Why? It’s still hot.”

“No. No… No….”

Inette shook her head several times, trying to avoid the bloody chunk of flesh. She seemed about to burrow into Johannes’ stomach, pushing her whole body in with her toes.

This wouldn’t do. It wasn’t enough yet. Johannes felt an aching thirst. The back of his throat was dry to the point of being parched. Unable to hold back any longer, he shoved the piece of flesh he was holding down between Inette’s feet. He grabbed both of her struggling hands and awkwardly overlapped them as if playing house together, pressing them against the still-hot thing.

No. Johan. No. Sadly, Inette seemed just on the verge of fainting. But the voice she should be gasping out between her lips should not be refusals like “no,” but Johannes’ own name. Johan. Johannes. Ah, my terrifying brother.

“How can you be…! So cruel…!”

Inette, whose hands were held like a puppet’s, raised her head and widened her eyes. It was then that her head, placed much lower than his chin, began to turn back with a jerk. Breathing shallowly and spasmodically at the same rate as her terrified molars clashing together, she finally.

Gazed at Johannes’ face diagonally, but straight on.

“You.”

“……”

“You’re a monster.”

“……”

“You were… a monster.”

“……”

“Ah.”

“……”

“I see.”

Yes. It was a gaze like the tip of an arrowhead splitting as it met another arrowhead head-on. What is this. Johannes felt as if he had even heard the sound of her eyes bursting. Her eyes were so strange. His entire reason was enveloped in an indescribable sensation. His focus remained fixed on her eyes, but he had no sense at all. Even as she began to move her lips, it appeared as if that minute movement was divided into eons of time. Something is coming. Something is coming to him.

“Now. I understand you.”

“……”

“You, being a monster, didn’t know the limits of life. You.”

“……”

“That’s why you’re an even more… terrible monster.”

“……”

“Die.”

“……”

“Just die.”

“……”

“I’ll be fine in a place without you… so you.”

“……”

“Go die alone in some desolate wasteland where I’m not.”