DAMSC | Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3

The isolation room of the Imperial Judiciary.

This was where noble criminals were confined.

Unlike ordinary prisons, there were no bars here, and at a glance, it even looked like a quiet reception room.

In the middle of the isolation room, Vivian sat upright on a red sofa.

Her unruffled appearance proved that she was a proper noble young lady through and through.

Across from her sat Count Angus, neatly dressed and wearing a worried expression.

“Vivian, tell me the truth, will you?”

“…….”

When Vivian kept her lips tightly sealed and said nothing, the count coaxed her.

“You have to confess with your own mouth if you want to avoid the harshest punishment. If this goes on, the trial will turn against you, and it will not be good for the standing of our family. Please, open your mouth, child.”

“……I can’t say.”

“Vivian, I need to know what happened if I am to help you.”

Even in the face of the count’s plea, Vivian lowered her head with her lips pressed tightly shut.

Just then, the isolation room door opened and a guard walked in.

“Visitation time is over.”

The count stood and tried to persuade the guard.

“Please allow me a little more time with my daughter. We do not have enough time.”

“If you do not leave immediately, I will carry out my duty in accordance with imperial law.”

The reluctant count left the isolation room. Vivian, left alone, only sat there like a wooden statue.

By the time the surroundings had darkened, Vivian lifted her head at the sound of someone approaching.

“Eek……!”

A stranger with a hood pulled low stood before her.

Vivian’s face turned not just pale, but blue. Her whole body began to tremble like a leaf.

“I, I did n, not say a, anything……”

Vivian’s teeth chattered. Tears welled up in an instant, and she knelt on the marble floor.

“P, p, please s, spare me……!”

Tears like chicken droppings fell one by one to the floor.

The stranger reached out a hand toward Vivian. Then he murmured in a low voice.

“Ave silentium aeternum. Claudatur vox, obvolvatur anima.”

“A, ah……!”

Vivian tried to speak, but only a muffled groan slipped out, as if something had blocked her. It felt as if an invisible force were strangling her throat.

“Cough……!”

After coughing up bright red blood, she collapsed onto the marble. Vivian, who had been twitching convulsively, soon showed no movement at all.

Only perfect silence announced her death.

* * *

Like a dog chasing a chicken and staring at the roof, I stared blankly at the back of Jerome as he walked away.

What?

Why was my charm not working?

Why was Jerome suddenly putting up such a wall?

“Don’t tell me……!”

I immediately pulled out a mirror.

Through the mirror, I saw a face with pale skin and dark circles under the eyes. No matter how I looked at it, it was not a face that could inspire affection.

Could he have lost interest because of my face?

Had my pity-inducing strategy backfired?

Still, Jerome was a male lead candidate. There was no way his character was so rotten that he would throw away the female lead just because she looked ugly.

I took a deep breath and opened the system window as calmly as I could.

When I checked the system window, I saw new content.

[Ability activation failed.]

[If you wish to activate the ability, special conditions must be met.]

Special conditions must be met?

What was that? How was I supposed to meet them? Wasn’t I just supposed to get rid of Vivian?

I had thought the day I could return home was not far off. The system’s fickleness, throwing ashes on a meal that was almost ready, left me feeling blocked.

Of course. It had been going too easily.

There was no way a game that boasted hellish difficulty would become easy just because one villainess had been removed.

As I stared blankly at the place Jerome had left, Lowell suddenly leaned his head out.

“Where did the Duke of Winston go?”

“Ack!”

What elf appeared without making a single sound like that?

I patted my startled chest and answered.

“He went because he had something urgent to do.”

“Already? I did not even get to greet him. What a pity.”

Lowell smiled brightly.

For someone who was supposedly disappointed, he looked quite pleased.

What was that, did something good happen?

Maybe it was my twisted personality. I was depressed because I had failed to make progress, and seeing someone look that excited made me grind my teeth.

Then Lowell, wearing the freshest smile I had seen from him yet, continued.

“I have a message for the lady. His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince has ordered that an investigative team be dispatched to determine the cause of the increase in monsters.”

Oh, so it was already that time.

Around this time, the imperial palace always dispatched the imperial knights to investigate the rising number of monsters. Lowell, as an imperial mage, was no exception.

“The lady is also scheduled to go on this expedition, so it is sudden, but you should pack your things.”

“When do we leave?”

“At dawn tomorrow. Will you help me pack?”

I nodded, then followed Lowell to the laboratory. Even while gathering magical books and tools, Lowell hummed a tune.

Was leaving on an expedition that much fun?

When I played the game, Lowell had shown signs of annoyance, saying he still had plenty of research to do and was being sent out on top of it.

So it was not excitement over the expedition. What was making him so happy?

Just as I was wondering, a servant approached and held out a letter.

“Lord Chiaprian, it is urgent.”

Still humming, Lowell took the letter.

As he read through its contents, his humming stopped.

With a darkened expression, he said.

“The Count’s young lady has died.”

“What?”

Who died?

I was dumbfounded by the unexpected news.

“They searched the isolation room, but they said no signs of murder were found. They said she took her own life.”

“Oh my……”

The news was so sudden that I just stood there with my mouth open.

I had wanted Vivian to be punished, but I had not wanted her to die.

She took her own life.

Did she choose death rather than losing her honor?

In movies and novels, nobles who valued honor would often protect it by taking their own lives.

If she had been a noble who valued honor, she probably would not have used dark magic in the first place.

There were some things that did not sit right, and the fact that someone had died left me feeling uneasy.

But Vivian was only a character in a game. There was no need to feel sympathy for a fictional person.

I had enough problems of my own, so why should I worry about someone else?

Right now, I had to focus all my attention on breaking the game’s ending and going home.

* * *

The imperial knight order on horseback, carts loaded with baggage, and carriages crossed a dense forest.

The silver armor of the knights shimmered in the sunlight, and rays of sunshine that pierced through the leaves left net-like shadows on the ground.

I rode in a carriage with Lowell.

In the midst of the peaceful situation, my mind was busy making plans for what was ahead.

[If you wish to activate the ability, special conditions must be met.]

What were the special conditions?

It seemed like some kind of mission……

No, honestly, shouldn’t it at least tell me what those conditions were? If it just told me to meet them out of nowhere, what was I supposed to do?

I could not even guess what was blocking Jerome’s affection. Should I just go after another character instead?

I looked at Lowell, who sat across from me. He was reading, turning the pages of a magic book with his slender hands.

……Be patient. No matter how desperate I was, I was not some taxidermist.

When I shook my head, one name came to mind.

Theodore Blair.

Theodore, with his intense red hair, was a cheerful, outgoing man.

But his ending, being burned alive, was shocking. If it had not been an illustration, seeing a real person burning might have left me traumatized.

In the first place, trying to win over a holy knight who treated romance as taboo made no sense.

I thought of another targetable character.

Harkin of the imperial knight order.

Dark brown hair, skin tanned as if by sunlight. Even the sly upward tilt of his eyes. Personally, he was the one most to my taste.

Harkin had not originally been in the imperial knight order. Somewhere around the middle of the game, Lowell had brought him to the magic tower, and because his movements were as quick as a wild animal’s, he was good at anything physical.

The imperial knight commander, who had carefully observed Harkin’s abilities, had scouted him and made him part of the imperial knight order.

Setting aside the fact that he killed innocent people because of possessiveness, he was exactly my ideal type, a lover who only looked at his beloved.

But his appearance was too late, and I did not have the confidence to reform a killer.

Lastly, the Crown Prince, Caliton.

His arrogant personality made him obnoxious, but did they say the face made the logic? Looking at Caliton’s handsome face, even his nasty behavior could be understood.

Among the three, Caliton was the least dangerous.

But could I uncover the political force that poisoned Caliton? What if I got poisoned too while doing it?

The old is better than the new.

In the end, was Jerome the only one?

Just as I was thinking I should at least try to go after Jerome as far as I could, the carriage came to a stop.

One of the knight members approached and knocked on the carriage window.

“Lord Chiaprian, you need to come out for a moment.”

Lowell leaned his head out the window. The sunlight slipping in from outside made him slightly furrow his brow.

“What is it?”

“We found traces of a monster.”

“A monster?”

At the words monster, Lowell got out of the carriage.

When I followed him out, I saw a devastated forest.

Trees had been uprooted or split in two and fallen over. The depressed dirt ground was marked with sharp claw scratches, and dark red blood was splattered here and there.

Wild animals were frozen in place like stone in various spots, and they looked as if they were frightened.

Lowell’s expression turned serious. As he muttered lowly and recited a spell, the knights around him also began to prepare for battle.

“Do not stray from my side.”

Lowell pulled me toward him.

The moment he finished speaking.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The ground trembled slightly. The small vibration grew stronger and stronger, and from between the bushes, a monster about three meters tall emerged.

“Keurrrrrr.”

The monster’s head and legs were shaped like a chicken’s, its body like a snake’s, and its wings like a dragon’s.

The pressure from its massive size felt as if it were bearing down on my body.

I knew this one.

I had only ever seen it in the game’s illustrations. A basilisk.

And it had been a stepping stone in my love story.

At the appearance of the huge basilisk, Lowell quietly recited a spell.

“Vincula narratu, serpentes ligate.”

The ground split open, and thick vines rose up. The vines began to wrap around not only the basilisk’s snout but also its body and tail.

“Grrr!”

Caught in the sudden attack, the basilisk thrashed. The knights began pouring attacks onto it.

Lowell and the imperial knights attacked the basilisk. The battle with the basilisk felt like a demonstration of the perfect coordination between imperial knights and mages, as well as proof that they were not ordinary experts.

“Kiiik! Kiik!”