Chapter 84
To me, a few dozen meters was a short distance. If I could gain enough speed, I could cover it in just a few leaps.
But right now, the path was blocked by a crowd. As I pushed through the people, I never took my eyes off Barbara.
She had been watching Arachne, but then she suddenly turned around and bolted off somewhere. Her steps were strangely unsteady.
‘Damn it, they're in the way.’
My long skirt kept getting caught and stepped on by people. I wanted to rip this inconvenient piece of fabric apart and throw it away.
Barbara, with her small frame, slipped through the crowd and went straight into the rest area designated for visitors. Despite being called a rest area, the building had five floors and was quite large. It had everything—bathrooms, a dining hall, and lounges.
‘What is she up to?’
As soon as I broke free from the crowd, I quickened my pace.
Barbara entered the building first. Inside, it would be empty. Since it was still early in the test run, most people were too busy watching Arachne to go inside. Only a few passed through to use the restroom.
“Haha, miss, are you in a hurry for the restroom or… hey, you there!”
A middle-aged nobleman had just exited the entrance and called out to me. He was shaking off the water from his hands, likely having just finished his business.
I ignored him and tried to walk past, but seemingly offended, he grabbed my shoulder.
Whoosh!
I reacted instinctively. Seizing his wrist, I twisted it back and restrained him. Wasting time on something like this was annoying.
“If you want to keep your limbs intact, mind your own business and move along. If you understand, nod twice.”
As I applied more pressure, there was a cracking sound from his elbow joint.
“Ugh, al-alright! I get it!”
Only then did I release him and step into the building. As the door was closing, I heard his angry warning.
“I-I'll find out which house’s maid you belong to and teach you a lesson! H-how dare you!”
I shut out his words as if closing my ears.
‘Where did Barbara go?’
The hallway leading from the entrance was silent. There was no sign of where she had disappeared to.
‘Trust in my senses and intuition.’
I closed my eyes and placed my hand on the floor, listening carefully.
Drip, tap, clack.
Among the faint noises, I had to pick out the one I was looking for.
‘Good thing I’ve been keeping up with my auditory enhancement training.’
Auditory enhancement had been my personal training focus lately. I wanted to master echolocation—the ability to identify and perceive my environment by using sound reflection. Of course, it wasn’t a skill that could be learned overnight.
Tap, tak.
I opened my eyes. I had pinpointed the direction and immediately moved, following the traces of the sound.
There were distinct footsteps on the stairs between the second and third floors. I leaped between the stair railings, covering the floors in an instant.
“Haa, haa…”
In the middle of the hallway, Barbara was panting heavily. The moment she saw me, she squeezed out the last of her strength and started running again. But her movements looked dangerously unsteady, as if she was barely holding on.
‘Is this a trap?’
I had caught up to her far too easily. That alone put me on high alert, sharpening my senses.
The Barbara I knew was beyond strange—she was bizarre, even eerie. Her darkness ran so deep that even I found it unsettling.
Yet, there was no foreign sensation or unnatural presence in the surrounding environment. The only thing that felt off was Barbara herself.
“Haa… haa… ugh!”
Barbara tripped and fell hard. She turned her head toward me, her pupils shaking with fear.
Right now, I was nothing more than a mere maid. There was no reason for her to be afraid of me. Even if she had somehow seen through my disguise, she wasn’t the kind of person who would fear me.
“…Are you really that Barbara?”
I looked down at the fallen girl and studied her closely. Even when I analyzed the patterns in her irises, she appeared to be Barbara.
But my instincts were screaming—That girl is not Barbara.
“I… I-I am… B-Barbara.”
I didn’t have time to drag this out. I reached deep into the dark desires festering within me.
…I had wanted to half-kill Barbara for a long time.
Crack!
I grabbed her pinky and snapped it. I didn’t even bother breaking it cleanly—the fractured bone tore through her skin, protruding outward in a jagged mess.
“Aah! A-AAAHH!”
Yeah, if this girl was really Barbara, she wouldn’t be screaming so weakly. If anything, she’d be laughing at me for resorting to torture and violence.
“You’re not Barbara. Speak properly. Not that it matters—I already feel like smashing that face of yours flat.”
“Uu… ugh… uuuugh… p-please…”
She didn’t seem to have a particularly strong will. But still, she stubbornly kept her mouth shut.
Like I said before, I didn’t have time for this. If there was a trap, I needed to find out now.
Crunch, crack.
I twisted and snapped two more of her fingers. Flesh and muscle contorted and tangled together.
With the output of my prosthetic hand, a flesh-and-blood body could be crushed like a mere toy. A natural body was just this fragile.
Crunch!
I wrapped my fingers around her broken ones and squeezed. Thick, viscous blood dripped from my clenched grip.
She was about to let out a gut-wrenching scream—
Smack!
I scraped my palm across her cheek, striking her. Her skin peeled away, leaving it ragged and torn like a tattered cloth.
“Scream later. Answer me first. Who are you, and where is Barbara?”
“M-my name is Barba…”
That was enough.
Swish.
I lifted my skirt and drew my dagger, Graken Vuth. Without hesitation, I drove the blade under the girl’s eye and flicked it.
Pop!
Her eyeball caught on the edge of the blade and bounced up. Since it was organic, it felt soft and squishy.
I didn’t ask any more questions. I was going to destroy her body in silence with sheer, relentless violence. I would keep going until she decided to answer of her own will.
There was a limit to the pain an untrained civilian could endure. And it seemed this girl had realized just how serious I was.
“Ah, AAAAAH! I-I’ll talk—Aah, my eye! It hurts, it hurts so much…!”
“No, I don’t care whether you talk anymore. I’m going to start peeling off your skin, slowly. Until you beg me to kill you. Because you pissed me off.”
Her remaining eye widened in terror. Her trembling tongue finally forced out the truth.
“M-my name is Nedder, Nedder Along! Please! Stop, it hurts too much, I-I can’t take it… P-please, sob…”
“Nedder… Along?”
Even I was taken aback. What the hell kind of nonsense was this?
Nedder Along was currently assigned as Enrico Lagan’s bodyguard. His full-body prosthetic registration number matched, too. If the girl in front of me, wearing Barbara’s form, was actually Nedder Along—
Then who was the Nedder Along standing beside Enrico Lagan?
‘Could it be that Barbara…?’
…If my suspicion was correct, then Barbara was an even more unhinged lunatic than I had ever imagined.
Whoosh!
I grabbed the girl—no, Nedder Along—by the hair and yanked her head back. My horrifying suspicion was confirmed.
A faint surgical scar ran along the edge of her forehead, tracing a long line. The mark of a skull that had been opened and closed again.
“You crazy bitch…”
The curse slipped from my lips. I looked down at him—the man trapped inside a girl’s body. I felt both pity and disgust.
‘Barbara implanted her own brain into Nedder Along’s full-body prosthetic, while placing his brain into her original flesh. Just to use him as bait… She discarded her natural body!’
A natural body was like baby teeth—worn down or broken, it could simply be replaced. But no one treated their entire physical form as something so disposable. Even those who transitioned into full-body prosthetics often kept their original bodies in cold storage.
Barbara, however, had swapped her flesh for Nedder Along’s prosthetic. A full-body prosthetic that wasn’t custom-fitted to its user caused severe side effects—both physically and mentally.
Barbara had undergone a transformation so grotesque it made me want to vomit. Compared to that, my disguise was mere child’s play.
“So, the full-body prosthetic standing beside Enrico Lagan right now—that’s actually Barbara?”
“H-he said… if I just followed orders, I’d… I’d get my real body back…”
Nedder Along choked out his words between sobs. I threw him aside and steadied my breath.
‘Right now, Giselle, Ilay, Enrico, and Barbara are all on Arachne.’
Enrico would maneuver his Arachne closer to Giselle. And she wouldn’t find it strange—Enrico’s obsession and personality made such behavior expected.
‘Just as we carefully staged everything to lure Barbara in, she made her own revolting sacrifice to get close to Giselle.’
I raised a hand to my ear and attempted to communicate. Neither Ilay nor Giselle responded.
‘It’s already happening.’
By now, Enrico’s Arachne should have reached Giselle’s. There was no way to know what was unfolding out in the rocky terrain from here.
Yet, strangely, I didn’t feel overwhelming anxiety.
‘Because the one standing beside Giselle right now is Ilay.’
No matter what preparations Barbara had made, Ilay would surpass her expectations. Barbara could never truly measure Ilay’s skill. Right now, he was growing faster than anyone else.
“Barbara isn’t going to return your body. If you want to live, stay put and wait here.”
With those brief words, I left Nedder Along and descended the building.
Murmur, murmur.
Outside, the crowd was in an uproar. No one even paid attention to the commotion I had caused inside the rest area.
“D-did they crash? Wasn’t the young lady of the Custoria family on board?”
“A mechanical failure?”
“What’s going on?”
Thick, hazy smoke was rising from the rocky terrain.
Autonovus employees were moving frantically, their faces stricken with shock as they operated the drones. An accident had occurred in the middle of the exhibition. Worse, the young lady of the Custoria family might be injured or even dead.
Autonovus reconnaissance drones zipped swiftly across the rocky terrain. An aerial emergency vehicle, carrying paramedics, was preparing for takeoff.
Screeeech!
I grabbed the closing door of the emergency vehicle and held it in place. The motor responsible for opening and closing it roared as if about to explode.
“What the hell are you doing?! This is an emergency!”
The paramedics shouted at me.
“I am a Custoria employee. My lady was involved in the accident, so I have the right to board.”
I spoke calmly. At the mention of Custoria, the paramedics hesitated and made space for me.
“What kind of maid has that much strength…?”
They whispered among themselves, casting wary glances my way. The door had bent under my grip, bearing the imprint of my hand.
The vehicle soared over the rocky terrain. The paramedics monitored the accident site in advance through the reconnaissance drone’s feed.
Tension was thick in the air. If things had gone terribly wrong, the exhibition officials would face severe consequences.
-Luka, I’ve secured the situation. Giselle is safe.
Ilay’s message appeared on my retinal display.
Of course. I had expected as much.
I let out a shallow breath, feeling a wave of relief.