His heart is like poison

"Now the contract is fulfilled."

In a room vaguely illuminated only by the fiery light emitted by a heating magical artifact that resembled a fireplace.

René was facing a translucent man.

The client. The ghost of Yuin, a knight serving under Marquis Edfeldt.

Like his son, he was a bit of a villain, a man with a sharp, sharp look in his eyes.

Ralph had been crushed by the stone statue so many times that he had turned into a piece of meat in a pool of blood, and Yuin snarled at him.

"I didn't think you'd really do it."

"It was easy."

"It wasn't, I was skeptical. I know I said we have a contract, but will you do exactly what I asked you to do? Because..."

Yuin looked like he was about to say something, but was searching for the right words.

"Is it because I'm undead? Or is it because I'm a 'dirty spy of the Federation'?"

When René said that sarcastically, his expression was taken aback, and then Yuin broke down on his knees in front of her.

"I am sorry. I considered you an enemy of the state and an evil that should be eliminated. But perhaps justice lies with you."

For a knight of the first generation appointed by the lords, the princess was above the clouds.

Yuin hung his head deeply to pay his respects to such an existence above the clouds.

René almost laughed at Yuin's serious attitude.

"I don't deny that I am an enemy of the country, but I am an enemy of the country now."

"Even so, you saved my wife and child and punished injustice."

"Because you asked for it."

Well, Marquis Edfeldt was a Hilbertist, and this case was in favor of Noacurio, so René was willing to go along with it.

But essentially, it didn't matter to René, it was just labor as the price of obtaining Yuin's soul.

It was not an act of justice. Never.

"I don't want to frame what I do as 'justice' or 'righteousness'. If I did that, I wouldn't be able to do evil for revenge, would I?"

'Well, then let me just say ... thank you. Thank you for saving my family."

"That's okay. I will take your soul in return."

A wind was beginning to roll in around René and Yuin.

It was not a real wind. It was a current of attraction felt only by the soul.

It was whirling toward René.

"If you are a magician, you know how terrible it is to 'eat souls'. Your soul will be decomposed and disappear from reincarnation forever and become my construct."

"I don't mind. However, if there is anything left to think about, please ... Please allow my family to live a peaceful life, free from your clutches."

"If they get in my way, I'll kill them. Pray it doesn't come to that."

"…Yes."

Yuin's mouth tightened as he realized that he couldn't ask for more.

If the world were to be destroyed, of course Yuin's family would die, but ... René had not explained her ultimate goal to Yuin. Well, if its fulfillment was 100 years later or something, Yuin's family would have lived out their natural lives.

In any case, they would be able to live peacefully for the time being as long as there was nothing that stood in the way of René's future.

"Then, I'll have it."

The soul chain that gushed from René's chest caught Yuin.

Yuin jumped into the chain, not resisting the thin golden chain that had entangled him.

Fearful, but satisfied that he had done all he could and had nothing else to do but to devote himself to the cause.

The pale man's soul was swallowed into René's body. A warmth seeped into her soul.

The existence of Yuin was gone.

"Thank you for the ... meal. It's a little bit unfulfilling to be completely unopposed."

Her existence as a self was permanently annihilated from this world...

And yet, despite the fact that it was probably the worst possible ending, being decomposed by a touch of the Evil God's power and eaten by the worst kind of undead, Yuin was relatively at peace with it.

She was expecting him to rant and rave, regretting it at the last minute like Miriam did last time...

Family. He wondered if he turned down all the grief because he thought his family had been saved.

Half of Yuin's resentment in the first place was resentment that his family had been wronged. That's why 'saving Yuin's family' was included in the contract with René.

It was a love that he was willing to give up his soul for.

"I wonder what my father was like..."

René had no memory of her father, which is not surprising since she had no recollection of the royal palace either.

If she had been able to meet her father before he died, what would he have done with her?

Would he have held her in his lap and patted her head?

"Princess..."

"Ah."

After saying that, René remembered that Tracy was there.

Without thinking, René covered her mouth.

"You didn't hear anything. Did you? Tracy."

"…Yes."

Tracy's sympathy stabbed at René.

René said in a tone that seemed to hit back.

Since that moment when she learned the pain of fighting for revenge, even kindness had become poison to her.

She didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. If someone somewhere was feeling sorry for her without her knowledge, that would be fine, but she would not want to be pitied by someone who was, after all, her comrade in arms.

If such pity were to be accepted, she would surely never be able to stand up again.

＊ ＊ ＊

The two escaped from the quiet inn.

The staff had been knocked unconscious by Tracy's spy action. The rest of the knights had been decapitated. Well, there was a chance that one or two of them might be revived, but there was nothing to be done. It would have been good material to bring back, but if they tried to deploy storage magic here, it would have broken the presence barrier.

She could have taken some of them with her, but she left that slot open for her main mission.

There were no guards or holy beasts in the area, and no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual yet.

"I guess all we have to do now is escape."

“Wait. I'll take the corpse of this holy beast with me. Maybe Everis can help us analyze it."

The holy beast that René killed in the garden.

If it was incarnated, it naturally meant that the corpse was still there, and if she brought it back, she might be able to find out the enemy's secret.

Tracy took out a flat bag with a wide opening.

When she put it on the corpse of the holy beast, the corpse fit into the bag, which should not have been very big, like a magic trick.

"I wonder if it will fit... Ah, it will fit. No matter how many times I see a bag with storage magic, it's strange."

It was a magic item bag that she had packed with various items necessary for espionage activities.

The remaining contents of the bag would be contaminated if mixed with the corpse of the holy beast, but that can't be helped. All that was left was to escape.

"Can you carry it? Storage items don't really reduce weight, do they?"

She gave up the loot ... i.e. the dead bodies of the knights because this was the real deal.

"Well, this much is ... more important, are you sure about the enemy's movements?""

"I'll search. Wait a minute..."

René sharpened her senses and searched for signs of the surrounding area, and to assist with this, she expanded the range of her emotional perception to the maximum extent possible.

The emotional reactions of the people in the city were captured in René's perception, as if it were a photograph of the night view from outer space.

--This artificial intelligence-like mechanical thinking are the Holy Beasts, right? I wonder if some of the alarmed responses are ... night guards checking around. And ...

The castle was also caught in the sphere of emotional detection.

A few of the catatonic people may have been the Marquis Edfeldt or a great knight.

And one bizarre emotional reaction, like a coat of white paint. Morgana.

--Still a strange reaction ...What is this?

She was curious, but, well, that wasn't the point right now. It was not so much her mentality that was the problem, but her abilities.

If they were to capture Terra Kaine and successfully bring her in alive, they could then investigate.

That's what René thought.

But then. As if to answer René's question, Morgana's heart moved.

Morgana's heart, which had been painted white, opened.

Because she was an Abyss Spirit that could read people's emotions, René saw it.

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