Chapter 92 – Sleeping With the Enemy (5)

When Artpe exited the barracks, the large number of legless knights weren’t present.  Instead, the captain stood waiting for him.  He was the one that had guided Artpe’s party to this place.

“W…what….  What happened?”

“Just go in.  I think he might promote you.”

“That means……!”

At Artpe’s reply, a healthy glow returned to the captain’s face.  He belted out his official rank and name before he entered the barracks.  Artpe shrugged his shoulders as he watched the captain’s back.  When he approached the carriage, his party members had remained in the same position as when he left the carriage.  They were on standby.

“Did everything go well, Artpe?”

“Of course.  Ah.  Also, Regina…”

“The distance between us cannot be lessened by calling out to me in a familiar manner.”

“······.”

Artpe thought about hitting her, but he firmly pressed down on that desire.  While they traveled to this place, she had revealed her name to him.  He had thought she had opened a little bit of her heart to him.  It seemed Artpe had been foolish for having such thoughts.

“You can have this.”

Artpe didn’t go out of his way to dispute her words.  He extended his hand towards her.  Regina was leery and suspicious.  She reluctantly raised one hand as if she had no choice in this matter, and she took the item given to her.

Her expression went through a rapid change.

“This is······ Why?”

It was the emergency escape Artifact he had stolen from the Duke of Tiata.  Of course, the destination picked by the Duke of Tiata was at the heart of the Dukedom of Tiata.

Artpe’s proficiency in using the Mana Strings was increasing daily.  He hadn’t needed to destroy the Artifact.  It had been possible for him to temporarily neutralize the Artifact, and it allowed him to recover the Artifact intact.

For some reason, he was giving the Artifact to Regina, who was his captive!  Regina was so taken aback that she stopped moving after she received the Artifact.  Artpe thought she looked pretty funny.  He continued to speak.

“I met the Duke, and I got it from him.  It was a fortuitous turn of events, and I’m giving this to you.”

“Duke······?”

She unconsciously blurted out her reply, and her expression stiffened.  Artpe was openly against Aedia.  If the Duke was inside the barracks, Artpe had probably met the Duke, and………

“Is the Duke dead?”

“Yes.”

“Discouraged. I couldn’t stop it.  The Duke is one of the people with authority over me.  My negligence led to my owner’s death.”

It was odd.  There was an expression of despair on Regina’s face.  She lowered her head.  The fact that she was obsessed with her orders did make her look like a golem……  Well, it seemed she was still mistaken about a key fact.  Artpe smirked as he spoke.

“There is no one except the Duke that can give you orders within the Dukedom, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“That means no one can order you in the short term if you use the Artifact to travel to the Dukedom.”

“When I’m freed from my master, I have to immediately return to Aedia.  I have no freedom.  It is a foolish belief.”

Regina looked truly taken aback by all of this.  Artpe put on a kind smile as he spoke to her.

“Your spells are all attack and control type magic.  Even if you use your stupidly large reservoir of Mana, it’ll take you a week to reach Aedia from Tiata.  I’ll have all of this wrapped up if you take over a week to get there.”

“······how do you know about my Skills?”

“I have an observation Skill.”

In truth, it was his Innate ability.  Regina had become surprised when he hit the nail on the head with his remarks.  She nodded her head as she readily accepted his explanation.

“Affirmative.  I cannot return to Aedia in the allotted time.  That is why you won’t suffer any tactical loss by giving me this item….  However, you also gain nothing from doing this.  Why?”

Why was he allowing her to go to Tiata?  If he wanted her to become his party member, he should be trying to keep her next to him.  Why did he bring her all the way here just to let her go?

It was an obvious question to ask, and Artpe answered her.

“It’s because I have a favor to ask of you.”

“······understood.  You are an idiot.  You are incapable of making rational decisions.”

Artpe ignored Regina’s insults as he continued to speak.

“I don’t care if you return to Aedia.  You’ll be starting your journey from Tiata.  Even at your fastest speed, you won’t be able to affect the situation in Aedia.  Isn’t it so?  Since you can’t change anything, I would like you to go to Aedia in a roundabout way.  I would like you to pass by the border of the Forest of Eternity.”

“A roundabout way…..?”

Regina had been about to ignore Artpe’s words.  She was about to activate the Artifact.  She tilted her head.  Artpe nodded his head as he spoke.

“There is something there that you have to see for yourself.  You’ll change after seeing it.”

His words finally made her realize that Artpe hadn’t given up trying to persuade her.  At that moment, a strange feeling bloomed within her heart.  She denied it by shaking her head from side to side.

“······golems do not change.  We only change in level.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Golems follow their owners.  Once a golem is separated from the owner, the golem finds and returns to its owner.”

Regina spoke as if this was an established fact.  However, she hesitated a little bit after speaking those words.  She nodded her head, and she made an additional remark.

“I’ll take the roundabout way to prove this fact.”

“In the end, you are accepting my request.”

“Detestable.”

A small amount of her will was infused in her glare as she gripped the Artifact given to her by Artpe.  For some reason, she turned to look at Sienna before the Artifact activated.

It was understandable.  Artpe had been the one to imprison her.  Maetel had stuck close to Artpe, and she had been vigilant against Regina.  The only one she had the opportunity to form an attachment was Sienna. As expected, Sienna didn’t’ fall short of Regina’s expectations.  Sienna had a bright smile on her face as she waved her hand.

“See you soon, Regina.”

“······I won’t be coming back.”

Even as Regina spoke those words, there was a sliver of a smile when she heard Sienna’s words.  Maetel snorted when she saw this.

“That’s right.  Don’t come back.  Never come back.”

“You are going to catch their stupidity.  You should escape before you are infected.”

Regina kept saying silly things until the end.  The emergency exit Artifact activated in an instant, and Regina left.  She was transported from the headquarters of Daitan to Tiata in an instant.

“Hoo.  This should wrap things up for the time being.”

Artpe let out a sigh as he looked at the empty seat.  Maetel was also looking at Regina’s empty seat.  She suddenly called out his name.

“······Artpe.”

“Huh?”

“Artpe usually acts on logic rather than feeling, right?”

“That’s right?”

“From the beginning to end, why are you trying to appeal to her emotions?”

Artpe stopped for a brief moment, but soon, he smirked as he turned to look at Maetel.

“In what way have I been appealing to her emotions?”

“Regina said she was a golem, yet you continue to treat her as a human with free will.”

“That’s because she possesses free will?”

“······yes, I see.”

Maetel didn’t show much surprise at his answer.  She nodded her head.  It was the same for Sienna.  It seemed they had roughly known what was going on from the start.  Her questions to Artpe were merely confirming her suspicions.

“Oppa.  Regina isn’t a golem, right?”

Sienna asked the question.  Artpe mulled it over for a brief moment.  He decided it would be best to tell them the truth in advance if they were going to bring Regina into their party.

He calmly gathered his thoughts, then he spoke.

“Yes.  If she is a golem, the magical engineering field will have to change their definition.”

It was true that the magicians had created a miracle.

The Demite could grow and use magic, but it possessed no vitality.  However, it possessed a firm will, and the magicians used this will as a background to give it a body that can be used.

However, they were mistaken about one thing.  It was the fact that they hadn’t created a golem with the Demite.  In the end, golems were tools that always followed the orders of their masters.

Regina possessed independent consciousness, so how could she be a golem?

It was a bad joke.  Currently, Regina was a Demite that had acquired a body.  She wasn’t someone more or someone less than that.  In fact, she was closer to being a human than a golem.  No, it was more apt to say she was of a humanoid race that was infinitely similar to a human.

“It probably took countless trials and errors.  They probably spend unbelievable amount of resources to create a body that can accept a Demite in its entirety.  I applaud them for succeeding.  However, that was all they were able to do.  They couldn’t control her.  They tried putting in control measures that would have worked on a golem, but it didn’t work.  That is why they used the magic of suggestion.”

“Suggestion······.”

“Yes, it was the power of suggestion.”

Suggestion.

Regina had shown off this skill before.  It was a type of magic that stimulated the opponent’s mind.  It made the subject naturally trust and follow the caster’s words.  Regina had nonchalantly hypnotized several thousand humans, yet she was hypnotized herself too.  It was an amusing situation.

“When her body and mind was immature, the magicians continuously placed restrictions on her.  They told her other golems acted in a certain way, so she had to act in the same way as the golems.  They planted the idea that she would be in big trouble if she went against them.  They told her she wasn’t capable of doing certain things, and she must follow only them.  Countless suggestions were layered on top of each other, and these suggestions became absolute restrictions in her mind.”

“She originally had free will, but the suggestions……”

They hadn’t been with Regina for a long time, but it was clear to them that she wasn’t living a free life.  She had to swallow her words, because she couldn’t speak certain words that were forbidden to her.  She had sporadically tried to escape, and he had also seen her repeatedly perform specific actions as if she was doing it out of obligation.

The only reason why she had conversed with Artpe’s party was the fact that his party was too powerful for her.  Normally, she never conversed with strangers.

She conducted missions given to her by her ‘master.’  After returning from her mission, she trained in magic, and she leveled up.  She lived her life by repeating this cycle.

How could she have time to converse with others?

Of course, this was why the way she spoke was weird.

“······they are really bad people.”

Maetel came to a decision as to what was right and what was wrong.  She no longer looked guarded when talking about Regina.  Again, Sienna had a different reaction from Maetel.  She became angry.

“They are really bad.  I want to punish all of them.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll be punishing all of them.”

Artpe had expected such a response, so he replied in an apathetic manner.  At that moment, Maetel asked him a question in an argumentative manner.  Of course, he had expected this question too.

“Why didn’t you tell her this, Artpe?  You had plenty of opportunities.”

“I had captured her as an enemy.  Do you think the suggestion spell will break just because I spoke to her?  It might have caused the spell to gain a firmer footing within her.”

“Then······.”

“That is why I sent her to Tiata.”

Originally, he had planned on wiping out the group of people that were called her ‘masters.’  Afterwards, he would have slowly unravelled the suggestions ingrained within her.  However, something unexpected had happened.  He had gained a ticket from the Duke.  The Artifact would allow him to send Regina to Tiata.  His task became easier.

“She might be hurt more in the short term, but this method will allow her to heal faster.   ······also this will allow us to lessen the damage caused to others.”

“You want her to come to the Forest of Eternity, right? What’s there, Artpe?”

A bitter smile formed on Artpe’s lips.

“It’s something we have always seen.  It doesn’t matter where one goes.  The outward appearance of human greed can be changed, but it just lurks beneath the surface.”

At that point, Maetel and Sienna accepted his words, and they backed off.  Artpe let out a sigh of relief when he saw this.  The two of them were focused on Regina, so he was able to give an evasive answer.

However, Maetel’s observation was correct.  For some reason, he had been empathetic towards Regina.

The fact that she wasn’t a golem didn’t fully explain his behavior.  When dealing with Regina, he relied on an unconvincing possibility.  He had been way too soft on her.  Of course, he acted this way even knowing that there was a possibility she wouldn’t become a member of his party.

Regina had been shackled for the past 200 years just because she was born through the hands of magicians.  In his past life, he had been bound by the Demon King.  He felt an unbelievable amount of anger when he saw Regina, who was bound without her knowledge.  She had done nothing wrong.  He couldn’t let it be.

He had plenty coercive measure he could have used to completely bring down the Demon King.  It would have allowed him to live a comfortable life into his old age.  However, he hadn’t done pursued these course of actions.

Maybe, he had tried to come find Regina as soon as possible, because of this following reason.

‘I’m the personification of irrationality.  I’m acting selfish by only being sympathetic towards beings that are in a similar plight as me.  Who did this?   Who the hell revived a lowlife demon into a hero?’

Still, there was nothing he could do about what had occurred.  This was his life now.  He let out a bitter laugh as he watched his party members firm their resolves to invade Aedia.  He stopped thinking about such thoughts as he took out the Demite’s Gemstone.  As if to say she understood his feeling, Roa let out a short meow.

Artpe snorted.

“I still won’t give you this, you dork.”

[Nyaa.]

On that night, Artpe was successful in refining the Demite.

The party departed with the king of Daitan, and the select elite soldiers chosen by him.  They headed towards the capital of Aedia.

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