Arc 16: Attack (6)

The chimera slid past Frondier and reached Philly, stopping right before her eyes.

Its feet had stopped moving long before its body did. Its momentum had merely carried it all the way to her.

“... No way.”

Philly shared the disbelief in Elysia’s murmur beside her.

Philly looked at the chimera’s left side. An unnervingly long gash ran along it. Its torso lay split open along the path of Frondier’s blade.

That simple fact chilled her to the core.

“Well, then.”

Frondier’s voice was dry. Elysia caught her breath, her eyes brimming with terror as she looked at him.

“Miss Elysia.”

The same insolent form of address as ever. But Elysia could not even think to correct him. She took a step back.

That indolent face of his looked different now.

“Have you finished talking with your mother?”

“I-I... Well, no...”

Elysia faltered, her lips moving involuntarily.

Her mind raced, but not a single coherent sentence would come out.

After all, Frondier must have been the one who brought Philly here. Nonsense would not work on him.

She had failed to persuade even Philly. How could she possibly fool this man?

“Miss Philly, what will happen to Miss Elysia?”

“... Execution.”

Philly spoke in a level tone.

Even if all her other crimes could somehow be overlooked, she had tried to kill the empress. There could be no alternative.

“It won’t be an easy death. She’ll suffer so much she’ll wish she were dead.”

Elysia trembled. Frondier glanced at her.

“Then why not show her one last mercy as her mother?”

“What do you mean?”

At Philly’s question, Frondier opened his hand. Black droplets gathered in his palm. When he closed his hand, they formed a dagger.

Philly and Elysia stared blankly at the bizarre phenomenon, something even magic could not accomplish.

Frondier handed the dagger to Philly.

“Use this. Be careful of the blade.”

“What is it?”

“A dagger containing a deadly poison. Even the slightest scratch is certain to kill.”

Philly swallowed, the dagger in her hand.

So that was the mercy Frondier meant.

Send her daughter off without pain.

Kill her with her own hands. Stab her with that dagger.

“I told you, didn’t I? That I wouldn’t tell you who the real culprit was. That you would find out for yourself.”

“... You did.”

“The same applies here. What you do with Elysia is up to you.”

Philly stood for a while with the dagger in her hand.

Her expression was blank, her thoughts unreadable. That made Elysia anxious.

“... Mom.”

At Elysia’s strained voice, Philly looked at her.

“Elysia, you understand, don’t you?”

“...”

“The empire is hell for you now.”

Elysia lowered her head.

It was true.

There was undeniable evidence against her, and two witnesses. One was her own mother, Empress Philly, who outranked her.

A life worse than death. That was all the empire had left for her.

Her ambition to stand at its pinnacle and look down upon its citizens had now vanished into nothing.

“... Tell me just one thing, Mom.”

As Elysia spoke softly, she looked a little younger. No, she looked her actual age.

“Did you love Aten more than me?”

“...”

“Is that why you put Aten in the spotlight and used her to improve our family’s image?”

Philly closed her eyes at Elysia’s words.

She thought back. As Elysia said, she had taken Aten with her for most of her public engagements.

She could not forget what Aten, still a little girl then, had said.

[“I don’t like it, Mom.”]

[“Being used as a figurehead.”]

[“What am I to you? Do you even think of me as your daughter?”]

[“If you don’t love me, then I...”]

... Politics, after all, was about dealing with people.

Philly had plunged into that world as a child and survived.

She had assumed everyone could do the same. That her daughters could, too.

Yet one daughter envied what Philly had done with the other, while that other daughter felt she was being treated as a tool.

She had put Aten in the spotlight because she believed it was the right decision.

In looks, ability, and character, Aten had seemed the perfect choice.

But just as surely, Elysia was the one who would inherit the throne.

Just as she had never hesitated to use Aten as the family’s public face, she had never hesitated to entrust the empire to Elysia.

“Elysia. I’ve always told you.”

Philly spoke with a sorrowful smile. It was not the face she showed other people.

She had always been this way with her daughters, trying to show them a side of herself apart from politics. Trying to be honest with them.

She had thought that alone would convey her true feelings.

“I love each of you in a different way.”

Elysia blinked at those words.

Each time she closed and opened her eyes, tears shimmered in them.

When they finally spilled, she squeezed her eyes shut. Tears forced their way between her lids and ran down her cheeks. Her shoulders trembling, sometimes heaving, Elysia raised her face.

... She had made her decision.

Philly slowly raised the hand holding the dagger. Even Frondier could see it shaking. He could not fathom what it felt like to kill one’s own daughter.

But if this was the least painful way to let Elysia go, then perhaps Philly was doing the right thing.

... There was a way for Elysia to avoid death.

If they concealed everything that had happened at this tower, she would not die.

She had committed several other grave crimes, but she was the empire’s First Imperial Princess.

Assuming, of course, that Constel had dealt with the monster attack successfully.

Philly knew that, and surely Elysia herself did, too.

Yet Elysia did not bring it up.

She did not look for a way out.

She had chosen death herself.

She had chosen to repent for her sins.

Philly set the dagger’s tip above Elysia’s collarbone. Then she pressed it in. The point barely broke her skin, drawing a dewdrop of blood.

... She could put no more strength into her hand.

“... Come on, Mom.”

Feeling where she had been stabbed, Elysia smiled with her eyes barely open.

“That doesn’t even hurt.”

And so, with a remark almost too mild to be her last words, Elysia collapsed.

“...!”

Philly stared blankly at her.

A dagger bearing a poison so deadly that even the slightest scratch could kill.

A human life was so terribly fleeting.

“Hah, haa...! Hah...!”

Philly’s breathing quickened. She blinked over and over. None of the masks she had hidden her face behind would stay in place.

She had killed Elysia. With these hands. By her own choice.

“Ah, aah...!”

She could not claim she had never harmed anyone in her life, but her own daughter was an entirely different matter. Only after killing her did it become real.

“Ely...sia...!”

With violently trembling hands, Philly touched Elysia where she lay, then gathered her into her arms.

The wound had barely shed a single drop of blood. And that alone had been enough.

As though she had swallowed the tears Elysia had been shedding moments before, Philly now wept in her place.

“I’m sorry. Mommy’s so sorry. Elysia, I’m sorry...!”

Philly had done anything and everything for her daughters.

But if it all ended in killing one of them, what had any of it been for?

Only after killing her did she feel the full weight of it all. This was not what she had wanted.

Philly simply could not accept this reality—

“Do you regret it?”

That dry voice reached her then.

Philly looked at Frondier. He was no different from usual. The same languid voice, the same languid face. It made her blood boil.

How could he be so calm even now? Could he act like this just because it wasn’t happening to him?

“... I regret it! Of course I do! She’s my daughter!”

“... In that case.”

Unfazed by Philly’s outburst, Frondier uttered something absurd.

“Let’s go to the hospital. To have the poison neutralized.”

“... Ah, huh? What?”

Philly started to say something else, carried along by her emotions, then stopped. She could not quite understand what Frondier was saying. Her tears abruptly ceased.

“What, no, what... What do you mean?”

“If you regret it, shouldn’t we save Elysia?”

Philly stared at him as though he were something utterly bizarre. She looked down at Elysia in her arms, then back at him.

Struggling to understand, she asked,

“But you said it was a deadly poison! That even the slightest scratch would definitely kill!”

Yes. That was why she had stabbed Elysia with that dagger. She had steeled herself to kill her.

Frondier nodded calmly. The sight was truly infuriating.

“Yes. It’s a paralytic poison that will certainly kill her if she isn’t treated within twenty-four hours.”

Paralytic?

Twenty-four hours?

Then Elysia, lying here in her arms, was merely paralyzed?

Hah. Philly let out an empty breath. That was all she could manage. She did not know whether to laugh or get angry, so she gave up on both.

Still, she wanted to say something. She glared at Frondier.

“... Do you happen to know what ‘insulting the imperial family’ means?”

“I’m afraid not. That sounds like a very difficult expression.”

Hah. Honestly.

That was all she could muster in response to his utterly shameless answer.

* * *

Slave’s Eerie Dagger.

That was the dagger I had given Philly.

A weapon that had terrified me in the dungeon. A wound from its blade was certain to kill, but it would not kill immediately.

Sometimes that delay before death could make all the difference. Like right now.

The choice Philly made mattered a great deal to me.

More precisely, I wanted her to experience for herself what it meant to kill her daughter with her own hands.

Philly was a profoundly morally gray character.

From a player’s perspective, Aten felt like the sum of Philly’s good parts, while Elysia was the sum of her dark ones.

In other words, Philly could become another Elysia if she set her mind to it. More capable, and more ruthless. And if things went wrong, her reach could extend even to Aten.

I needed to put a lock on her heart to keep that from ever happening, no matter how far in the future.

In Etius, Philly killing Aten was rare, but it did happen.

Yet every time, Philly regretted it afterward. So bitterly she could have wept tears of blood.

Now, however, she understood what it meant. She had felt exactly what it was like to kill her daughter. Even if Philly had a change of heart, Aten should at least be safe from harm at her hands.

Anyway.

The chimera was dead, and Elysia was unconscious.

Rafflesia, the magic circle laid across Constel, should now lose its effect.

Just then, the phone in my pocket buzzed.

I took it out. As expected, it was Malia.

I raised it to my ear.

[“Frondier, Frondier!”]

Malia’s voice. She was sharing my sight through Sensory Sharing.

That meant she had seen everything that had happened here through my eyes.

She must have confirmed that things on my end were settled.

“Yes, Mother. How are things there? Have the monsters retreated?”

I asked because the urgency in her voice bothered me.

At first, I had thought she sounded excited, calling to congratulate me, but that did not seem to be it.

Even then, I could hear Philly muttering things like, “Hah, honestly. Hah. Wow. Unbelievable.”

[“Yes, the magic circle seems to be gone. But that’s the problem!”]

... What?

As I frowned in confusion, Malia continued.

[“The monsters have been freed from the spell, and they’re fleeing Constel! But there’s a village in the direction they’re running—”]

“...!”

I froze at the utterly unexpected news.

I had not anticipated this. I had only thought about stopping them. I had never considered what would happen afterward.

I had been an absolute idiot.

[“Elodie and the other mages are killing as many as they can, but there are just too many... The others can’t keep up with them!”]

Malia explained the situation as best she could, and her words were certainly registering in my mind.

But my body remained frozen. I could not even think to move.