Chapter 35: Live or Die? (1/2)

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  "M-my mom... my fa-ather, w-what happened to them..."

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  A soft, tentative voice broke through Lucien's contemplations like a pebble disturbing still water.

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  The half-ogre woman, still pressed against the wall as though trying to melt into the stone, had finally found her voice.

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  Despite her clear terror, she had gathered whatever scraps of courage remained to her.

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  Her lips trembled visibly, shoulders slumped in a posture of instinctive submission, but there was determination in the way she bit her lower lip, drawing a small bead of blood that was darker and thicker than human blood.

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  She looked up at Lucien—not meeting his eyes directly, but focusing somewhere around his chest—as she pleaded, "P-please... ask h-him."

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  It was ridiculous—she didn't know if Lucien was an ally or an enemy.

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  Even though he had freed her from her bonds, who could say what would happen next?

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  Perhaps Lucien would treat her the same way as the others—just a different faction, a different master, interested in her blood or her body for some other terrible purpose.

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  Yet, despite everything, she was pleading to him, looking up with a mixture of terror and desperate hope, her pupils constricted to pinpoints against the sulfurous yellow of her irises.

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  Lucien's smile widened gradually, starting as a slight curve of his lips before stretching into something almost genuine.

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  "Bwhahaha!" sound bubbled up from his chest—low at first, then building until he laughed outright, the sound echoing off the stone walls of the chamber in overlapping waves.

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  The half-ogre flinched at the noise, pressing herself harder against the wall, her fingernails scraping against the rough stone as she tried to make herself smaller.

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  How ridiculous! That thought echoed in Lucien's mind, his shoulders still shaking with mirth.

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  The absurdity of it all—being mistaken for a vampire, discovering a torture chamber beneath a holy camp, and now this creature looking to him for salvation.

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  But to find such innocence in this brief adventure through a wicked world—after seeing characters like Branks and those two knights—her personality is refreshing, especially compared to the na?ve, stubborn Lyra or the ambitious Elara.

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  She just wants to survive, to know what happened to her parents...

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  Well then...

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  He finally composed himself, one gloved hand rising to adjust his top hat, which had remained impeccably in place despite the violence.

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  He looked at the half-ogre again, taking in her bruised body and terror-stricken face, before shifting his crimson gaze back to Branks.

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  The village head remained perfectly still where Lucien had left him, his beaten face a grotesque mask of swollen tissue and congealing blood.

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  Only his chest moved, rising and falling in the shallow, regular rhythm of the deeply entranced.

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  His eyes remained fixed and vacant, reflecting the strange light of the chamber without registering it.

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  As for the last holy knight, he had long since fallen unconscious from the pain of his dislocated jaw and continuous, untreated bleeding. His body lay crumpled against the far wall, the puddle of blood beneath him now dark and sticky at the edges.

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  "So, what happened to her parents?" Lucien asked.

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  "The mother was hanged two days ago in Sol Invictus," Branks replied without hesitation, his voice flat and mechanical. No emotion colored his words, despite their content—no pride, no regret, merely information delivered without filter. "The father was burned, unfortunately, due to his resistance during the experiment yesterday."

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  A small, choked sound escaped the half-ogre at these words, somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

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  Her knees buckled, and she slid down the wall until she sat huddled on the floor, arms wrapped around herself as though trying to hold something broken together. A single tear—darker and thicker than human tears—traced a path down her cheek.

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  "Sol Invictus?" Lucien prompted, his head tilting slightly to one side.

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  "Yes! The capital city of our church—the city blessed by the Goddess Seraphiel herself!" As Branks spoke, a strange transformation came over his face.

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  Despite the hypnotic trance, despite the swollen features and missing teeth, sudden animation lit his expression. His remaining visible eye widened with fervor, a zealot's passion breaking through even the supernatural compulsion. "How could le—"

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  For some reason, Branks began to boast about the city's glory, his voice rising in pitch and intensity, words tumbling out faster and faster like water through a breaking dam.

  Stolen novel; please report.

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  "Stop." Lucien interrupted him.

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  Immediately, Branks fell silent.

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  "When did you find her? Also, w—" One by one, Lucien began questioning Branks.

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  In short, they had discovered the half-ogre's parents living in hiding on the border between human and demon lands four days ago.

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  Branks described the raid —how they had surrounded the modest cottage at dawn, how the mother had begged for mercy while the father had fought with unexpected strength, injuring three knights before being subdued.

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  The mother was taken to the church's capital to be judged—a foregone conclusion, as Branks's tone implied—and the father was used for experiments because of his ability to disguise himself as human, a trait of particular interest to the church's researchers.

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  As Branks spoke, the half-ogre's quiet weeping provided a somber counterpoint to his monotone recitation. Her tears now flowed freely, darkening the already stained floor beneath her. Her horn seemed to lose its luster, the pearlescent surface turning dull as though responding to her grief.

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  Besides that, Lucien also asked about tiers, a term that had been mentioned repeatedly in the knights' earlier conversation.

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  "Starting from Tier 1 as the weakest, up to Tier 7 as the highest," Branks explained. "But Tier 7 is just a rumor—all the rulers of each race are currently at Tier 6."

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  Branks continued speaking, but something subtle shifted in his demeanor.

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  His mouth twitched at the corner, a barely perceptible spasm, and his eyebrows furrowed slightly beneath the swollen, discolored flesh.

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  The vacant glaze in his visible eye flickered momentarily, like a candle flame disturbed by an unseen draft, a flash of consciousness attempting to reassert itself beneath the supernatural compulsion.

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  Is he beginning to resist? Lucien wondered as he observed the change.

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  But the moment passed quickly—Branks's features soon smoothed back into that unsettling blankness, the momentary spark of will extinguished as if it had never existed.

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  His remaining eye regained that distant, unfocused quality, staring through rather than at Lucien.

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  Lucien sighed, the sound carrying a note of disappointment. With deliberate slowness, he raised his hand, the leather of his glove creaking softly with the motion.

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  "Agk!"

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  The sound that escaped Branks was barely human as Lucien struck the back of his neck.

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  The impact produced a dull thud rather than a crack, carefully calibrated to render unconscious rather than kill.

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  Branks's eyes rolled upward, showing only whites briefly before his lids fluttered closed, and his body crumpled to the floor in an ungainly heap.

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  So my hypnotism isn't permanent, huh? Lucien concluded aloud.

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  He flexed his fingers, watching how the light played across his claws, before retracting them with a soft, wet sound back into human-seeming fingertips.

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  His attention shifted to the half-ogre woman huddled against the far wall.

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  She sat curled into herself, knees drawn to her chest, making herself as small as possible despite her above-average height.

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  Her clothing was in tatters—a once-serviceable dress now torn beyond repair revealing patched and dirty petticoats beneath, her faded, bloodstained blouse missing its buttons and hanging open to reveal collarbone and shoulder.

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  The fabric, which might once have been blue or green, had faded to an indeterminate gray, stiff with old sweat and fresh blood. She looked like little more than a hollow shadow, the weird light of the chamber passing through her as though she were already half-ghost.

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  Barefoot, her toes curled against the filthy stone, instinctively trying to minimize contact with the cold floor.

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  Her eyes were what caught and held his attention—once bright yellow and defiant, now vacant and dull, shimmering with the residue of dried tears that had left salt tracks down her pale cheeks.

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  Lucien stared at her from across the chamber; she didn't even flinch as he approached.

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  There was no focus in her gaze, no fear, just a terrible emptiness that seemed to extend beyond her physical form.

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  It was the same expression Branks had worn when under hypnosis, but this was not supernatural compulsion—this was the look of someone who had retreated so far inward that perhaps no path remained back to the surface.

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  "What's your name?" Lucien asked, his voice deliberately softened, the unnatural harmonics subdued. The question hung in the air between them, unanswered.