Because It Hurts

Ferda set the bottle in front of Chancellor Bernard.

"What is this?"

"I thought you might need it."

"The whole bottle…?"

"It's been a hard day, hasn't it?"

It truly had. Aside from the times he had downed dozens of cups of coffee, his heart had never once hammered so violently against his ribs. He could not calm down.

Bernard seized the neck of the bottle with trembling hands and drank straight from it.

Glug, glug, glug.

Whiskey over sixty proof. The burn seared his throat raw, yet he only pulled the bottle away after half of it was gone.

"Thank you for saving me."

"No need for thanks."

"May I ask one thing? I simply cannot get it out of my head—I have to know."

"Go ahead."

"How… how did you know I would be in danger?"

How had he known? It was the very technique Tessalos Wolcher—now dead—had sung about so obsessively. Yet when Bernard had suddenly declared the technique flawed, no one had been angrier than Tessalos. That carefully measured rage had sharpened everything, and Tessalos had finally understood:

Bernard was no longer the Bernard of that time.

But by then it had already been too late. There was nothing left to prove. The technique vanished, and Bernard ended his life as the worst chancellor in the city's history.

Ferda recalled that memory and considered the moment when the chancellor had been most vulnerable. The most dangerous point was always the return to the city.

I got lucky.

The surveillance that might have dragged on had resolved itself with surprising speed.

Ferda answered the question.

"I have ears of my own."

Bernard gave a hollow laugh at the familiar phrase.

"Damn it… everyone else seems to hear things. Why am I the only one who never does…?"

"It wasn't only that. A man of your station rode out without so much as an escort. Danger was inevitable."

"Because it's inefficient."

"To the nobility, efficiency is foolishness."

"So it is. I feel that truth in my bones today. Anyone who thought attacking the Chancellor of Escoleia would be a good idea will taste hell starting now."

Bernard's face flushed deep red. Rage and liquor were fraying the last threads of his reason.

"To think… that a demon would be after me. The same demons people mock me for even mentioning—calling me a paranoid madman—and one of them stood right in front of me…"

His eyes suddenly glistened as if he might cry.

"Don't cry."

"Hic… s-sorry."

Ferda watched with open distaste as Bernard wiped his tears.

"At any rate, you understand now. Demons are constantly trying to lead this continent down the path of ruin."

"Yes…"

"This continent must belong entirely to us. Even if it is not ours, it must never fall into demon hands."

"You are absolutely right."

"So I have a proposal."

He extended his hand toward the drunken, emotional chancellor.

"Lend me that demon-appearance prediction device of yours."

Bernard's foggy mind cleared in an instant.

"Lend it to you…?"

"Exactly that. The blueprints and the mechanism that allow the monster-appearance prediction equipment to be built."

Polite as the words were, they amounted to a demand that Bernard hand over everything. The chancellor understood at once.

"Is that… what this was all about?"

Bernard's voice shook.

"What was?"

"Putting watchers on me, waiting until I was in danger, and then—"

He tapped the half-empty bottle with a finger.

"—handing me this poison by the bottle. All of it was so you could get your hands on my technology, wasn't it?"

A cheap trick to shake him loose, to make him emotional. Waiting for him to drop the last fraying thread of reason dangling from his little finger.

Any other noble would have denied it, hidden his true intent, and argued. Ferda was already selecting counter-arguments—then realized he had no need.

"You're right."

He admitted it without hesitation.

Bernard, emotions already at a boil, shot to his feet and raised his voice in fury.

"To prey on a man in distress, to manipulate his feelings just to take what you want…! You should be ashamed of yourself, Regent of Baldrova!"

While Bernard raged, Ferda remained calm.

"Why should I be ashamed?"

"How can you even ask that?! Did you think you could use a man's life that way and still earn his goodwill?!"

"If I had wanted your goodwill, I would have sweet-talked you. I would have dazzled you with empty flattery. But your goodwill means nothing to me."

Ferda's gaze settled on Bernard's head.

"The only reason I want you alive is because that technology lives inside you."

"So I survived because I was useful?"

"You nearly died because you possessed the technique, and you lived because of that same technique. Is that really so surprising?"

There was no rebuttal. He had nearly died because he was useful, and he had survived because he was useful. Strip that away and he was nothing at all. Bernard could not bear being treated as that kind of man.

"You…! You are no human!"

He jabbed a wavering, liquor-soaked finger at Ferda and staggered toward the door, boot soles stamping the floor.

"If you leave this place, you die."

Bernard's steps froze. The words, laced with quiet menace, seemed to coil around his ankles like a snare.

"Are you threatening me?"

"No. I am stating a fact. Wander around this late at night and you will be eaten by monsters long before any demon finds you."

"I would rather be eaten than stay here another second!"

Ferda set down his teacup and rose.

"If that happens, everything you have built will collapse into nothing."

Bernard flinched. The words were not born of Ferda's selfishness; they were Bernard's own secret fear.

"I heard the one who attacked you imitated you perfectly. What could someone wearing the chancellor's face accomplish?"

"…"

"He would quietly destroy everything only the chancellor knows. Blueprints and records reduced to a handful of ash scattered on the wind—as if nothing had ever existed."

"…"

"And after that? What would an incompetent man wearing the chancellor's face do? He would sit at your desk without permission, lie in your bed. He would scribble with your pen and stamp approvals with your seal. He would squander the budget and tear down both you and the city."

"Ugh…"

Bernard sank to the floor. To him, Escoleia and his research were wife and son. The thought of them being destroyed without his knowledge was unbearable.

"Kh-huck… hhhuh…"

At last the tears came. He curled in on himself, trembling. He was isolated and alone.

"I am the man who declared he would conquer the Land of Evil. Demons are my enemies—cockroaches that must be exterminated."

Ferda held out his hand.

"To make that dream real, I need the technology you hold."

Bernard looked down at the offered hand. The Ferda Valdrova he knew was a third-circle mage. Yet the palm before him was not the soft hand of a magic-house noble; it was rough with calluses. He had once been a knight's son. He had once dreamed of knighthood. That dream had been shattered, and he had become a grand duke's fiancé instead.

Ironically, Bernard felt honor and trust in that palm.

"I will share the blueprints and mechanisms of everything currently in production. In return…"

Bernard jabbed a reeling finger at his own chest.

"This knowledge is mine alone. Make that absolutely clear."

What Bernard demanded was his copyright. Do not dare take credit. Copyright was a scholar's pride; it was everything. To Ferda, it was nothing at all.

"Your name will remain in history. I guarantee it."

Ferda traveled with Chancellor Bernard to the territory of Consiler. When the chancellor eventually returned to Escoleia, Arwen would first lavish hospitality upon him, then provide an escort.

"How is the chancellor?"

Ferda asked Count Consiler, who sat opposite him.

"The priests say the shock was severe; he needs at least another day of rest. A man who has never come close to dying of high blood pressure or heart failure nearly died at someone else's hands, after all."

"Is that so?"

"More than that, he ruined himself by drinking far too much far too quickly. Almost as if he had gone on a binge somewhere…"

"I gave it to him. The bottle you presented me as a gift."

"You handed him the entire bottle?"

"He emptied half of it on the spot."

"Why such a barbaric act…?"

"Because it hurts."

Ferda sipped his tea.

"He was suffering enough to die, so I gave it to him."

"It's a miracle he didn't die."

"Rest is fine, but send him back to Escoleia as quickly as possible. There is something I need to receive from him."

"I will inform Arwen."

Count Consiler wore a dazed expression. Only a few hours earlier, when Ferda's carriage had entered his castle, he had witnessed something astonishing.

"In all my years I must have seen thousands of monsters, yet a demon… this was the first."

"No need for surprise. I had never seen one either."

"More than that—this is the first time I have heard of a demon that can perfectly imitate a human."

Demons were marked by three traits: pointed teeth, red eyes, and black skin.

"I suspect it may have been a doppelgänger that was mistaken for a demon."

"A doppelgänger, you say."

"If something has no form of its own and simply copies appearance and voice, it can only be a doppelgänger. Chancellor Bernard was confused and rattled; he may easily have been wrong."

"So he might have been mistaken."

"Yes."

The reasoning was sound. Ferda considered it carefully.

"Do you know the difference between a doppelgänger and the original human?"

"Because it only copies the outer form, it cannot replicate what is under the clothes. That is why we strip them to check."

"Correct. Yet this one matched everything beneath the clothes as well—down to the genitals."

"They even checked the genitals…?"

"Half-measures get you killed."

"True enough. If even that matched, then it was less imitation than perfect replication."

"It was more than that. The creature carried the exact same mana signature as Chancellor Bernard. It had not merely copied him—it had become him."

"Become him… then distinguishing them would have been nearly impossible. Sir Jed's eye must be exceptional."

"We were lucky."

He was grateful the man was bald, and even more grateful that he kept that bald head polished to a shine.

"So the doppelgänger demon is being held securely?"

"Yes. The restraints are solid, and I ordered the executioner to begin the interrogation."

"Still at it?"

"Yes."

"How many hours?"

"He started the moment we arrived, so roughly four hours."

Ferda rested an index finger against his chin.

"How long until useful information is extracted?"

"He is a skilled professional. Given two days…"

"Even one day is far too long for my temperament."

"I will tell him to do his utmost."

"No."

Ferda rose from his seat.

"I am impatient, true—but throwing a tantrum when a solution already exists is inefficient."

"You mean you intend to handle the torture yourself?"

"I happen to have a modest talent in that area as well."

A noble claiming expertise in torture should have been shocking. It was not. This was the same man who had killed Tessalos Wolcher without so much as blinking.

"May I use the alchemy workshop?"

"Of course. Though our stores of poison ingredients are limited—will that be a problem?"

"No. I am not making poison."

"Ah. In that case, please make free use of it…"

Ferda walked toward the workshop. Count Consiler watched his retreating back.

If not poison, then what sort of concoction… hmm?

The thought was swallowed by doubt. What his eyes saw was Ferda's departing figure. Something seemed to writhe and shift across the black-clad back.

"I must be getting old—seeing things that aren't there."

Count Consiler rubbed his eyes and rose from his chair as if it were nothing.

Deep in the dungeons beneath Count Consiler's castle, the executioner in his black hood was fulfilling his duty.

The man wearing Chancellor Bernard's face hung in a wretched state. Bound to a steel frame with every tendon severed, even a knight's strength would not free him easily.

Into this place—visited by no one save the executioner and the condemned—an unexpected guest stepped.

"I present myself before the Regent of Baldrova."

"May I examine your handiwork?"

"Of course, my lord."

The executioner stepped back. Ferda approached. The prisoner's condition was truly pitiful—face swollen, body mottled with bruises.

"Magnificent."

Ferda murmured.

"The skill to inflict agony without letting him die is remarkable."

"…You flatter me."

The executioner flushed at the first genuine praise he had ever received. This entire wing was a place of pure hellish unpleasantness. For someone to walk in without hesitation and call the work magnificent…

"Your part ends here."

"I have not yet obtained information, my lord…"

"I will handle it myself. Consider this your fee."

Ferda pressed three gold coins into the executioner's hand. The sudden fortune left the man stunned, yet he knew exactly what to do. Once the executioner had gone, Ferda dragged a chair over and looked up at the bound figure. The man's head hung low, eyes closed.

"I know you are still conscious. Now that you are a demon, you should stop pretending to be a frail human, don't you think?"

The drooping head lifted. Despite the swollen face, the eyes were still very much alive.

A spark of interest kindled in Ferda's gaze.