LRAB Chapter 97: Respecting Preferences and the Prophet’s Suffering (1)
Chapter 97: Respecting Preferences and the Prophet’s Suffering (1)
Chapter 97: Respecting Preferences and the Prophet’s Suffering (1)
Chapter 97: Respecting Preferences and the Prophet’s Suffering (1)
I left the room where that scumbag Balzac had been, feeling uneasy. Waves of regret and emptiness from what I’d just done came crashing over me.
Of course, I wasn’t a complete idiot.
It’s not like I was about to spew nonsense about how revenge is hollow or how forgiving your enemies is the way to break the cycle of hatred.
If someone wrongs you, you pay them back.
Especially if they dared to touch someone I care about.
So, revenge itself wasn’t the problem.
That part was perfect—up until then.
“Unghhooooot!!!”
“Oh-gok, oh-gohk♡”
The sounds.
The groaning of a man in his mid-40s, begging me not to put anything more into him because he couldn’t take it anymore.
Those sounds polluted my mind.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what it felt like to face Cthulhu.
“...Urgh.”
I gagged reflexively.
Why was this happening?
Revenge was supposed to be satisfying. Yet, I felt as if I had been the one tortured.
Miss Rubia had been injected with the equivalent of two syringes’ worth, so I’d happily whipped up some torture concoctions to return the favor a hundredfold.
And yet, I still had fifty doses left over.
It seemed I had overestimated my own tolerance.
I thought I’d grown desensitized to corpses.
But faced with the violent scene of a middle-aged man oozing fluids from every pore and clinging to me, begging for mercy, I was utterly powerless.
“This is driving me crazy,” I muttered.
They call it the white bear effect, right?
The more you try not to think about something, the more it consumes your thoughts. It was maddening.
With a twisted expression, I dragged my feet forward—until I ran into a familiar face.
“Are you feeling better? Is there any discomfort?” I asked.
Miss Rubia nodded at my words.
After treating her with stigmata, I’d let her rest to recover. It seemed she’d just woken up.
As I looked at Miss Rubia, I suddenly spoke.
“Oh, right. Do you want to go check on that scumbag Balzac?”
Now that I thought about it, Miss Rubia was the one who suffered the most at his hands. Wouldn’t it be odd for me to exact revenge without her?
‘Balzac should be with those three right now,’ I thought.
Siel, Lucy, and Lien.
Unusually, those three had come to me first, insisting they also needed to punish him.
As someone who still clung to some semblance of modern decency, I thought it was a bit much to further torment someone already in that state and tried to stop them...
“He tried to take something precious from us. He deserves an appropriate punishment,” Siel declared firmly.
“If the Empire’s Swordmaster suddenly disappears, it will cause quite a commotion. We need to stage a cover-up. How about I place another soul into his body?” Lucy suggested, offering a somewhat reasonable plan.
After all, there are plenty of wandering souls eager for a living body.
We could select someone suitable for the role and have them mimic Balzac. But for that to happen, we’d first have to utterly destroy the original owner’s mind.
The two were brimming with enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, Lien, caught between them, seemed reluctant but too self-conscious to sit it out, awkwardly tagging along.
Anyway, the three were probably in the middle of the possession preparation by now.
Miss Rubia, who must have been brimming with resentment after being tortured by him, deserved to vent her anger and get closure.
With that thought, I turned around and opened the door to Balzac’s room again...
And shut it immediately.
But I hadn’t sent any message.
Out of curiosity, I asked the other three, Siel, Lucy, and Lien, if they’d contacted her. They hadn’t.
“That’s strange. Informants usually have a set time for sending messages. Was it just some random ad?” Miss Rubia murmured.
I pondered for a moment before starting to gather the shattered remains of the communication device.
‘It’s not like this is a particularly important matter.’
Still, it wasn’t a bad opportunity to assess whether I could manage the repair of the Holy Sword myself or if I should leave it entirely to the dwarves.
It felt like a mini-game from my previous life.
Recalling the memory, I carefully fit the shattered fragments together. No special tools were necessary.
I still wasn’t entirely used to it, but this body had far surpassed the limits of normalcy.
Hammering could be replaced with my fists, and fire could be conjured with simple magic.
In less than 30 minutes, the communication device was fully restored to its original form. Even the engraved spells were repaired, so it should function properly now.
I decided to test it by playing back any missed messages.
[Hello, customer Rubia! We’re contacting you regarding an issue with the product you ordered.]
Ordered product?
Did she buy something like materials for repairing the training hall?
As I pondered the question in confusion...
“......!”
Miss Rubia’s face turned pale with panic.
Her complexion drained of color as she broke into a cold sweat and suddenly lunged toward me.
It was so abrupt that I couldn’t avoid her without risking hurting her, so I braced myself...
And something soft pressed against my face.
Something that completely obstructed my vision and made it hard to breathe.
I couldn’t see what it was, but the texture alone was enough to tell me.
My face flushed with embarrassment.
“W-where’s the stop button for this thing?!”
Miss Rubia shouted, holding the communication device she had snatched from me. She seemed completely oblivious to my predicament.
I tried to ask her what was going on...
...But before I could even form the question, the answer came. From an entirely unexpected source.
[The set of 50 adult women’s diapers in white that customer Rubia ordered is out of stock. You’ll need to choose between blue and pink....]
The device shattered with a loud crash...
But it was far too late.
Miss Rubia, who had been pinning me down, stood up.
Our eyes met, an unbearably awkward silence stretching between us.
I didn’t say anything, but Miss Rubia immediately started speaking as if to defend herself.
“What a strange prank... The Empire’s trends are impossible to keep up with, aren’t they? Hahaha...”
She was smiling, but tears were welling up in her eyes.
I tried my best to act as though I believed her excuse, forcing what I hoped was a convincing expression.
But it seemed I had failed miserably.
Miss Rubia standing before me was gone, replaced by a tearful, blushing carrot.
The carrot couldn’t even meet my eyes before attempting a hasty escape...
Thud, crash!
...only to fall spectacularly.
Her desperate attempt to flee ended with a bang, and the injured carrot had no choice but to return to me for treatment.
...What could I say?
She was, in every sense of the word, a noona who utterly failed to act her age.
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