F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 210: Verena and Her Punishment

It’s been about two days since Esther and I did "that" in the treasure vault, and now while Esther prepares for the meeting we’re having tonight, I decided to talk to Eve.

"Evelyn-sama, I still don’t understand what’s going on! Suddenly our connection with you was cut off, and it took days to come back—and now that it’s back, it’s full of holes and gaps!" Eve speaks, confused, while I’m sitting in a chair eating a golden apple.

Esther made it clear—I can eat these fruits, but only one per day. I’ve developed some strange craving for these delicious fruits, but I’m obeying her and eating just one a day so I don’t suffer from Hikishin poisoning.

Crunch!

I bite into the fruit, chewing a piece while staring at Eve, thinking about what I should tell her.

"Eve, before I try to explain—did you receive any orders from someone other than me through our connection?" I want to know what’s happening too. I bet "Evelyn" did something—I’m almost sure—but what she could do is limited, so I think she gave orders to my puppets.

"No? Well, I felt like I did, but I deny any order that isn’t yours!" She says something that makes me smile. I like how Eve is super loyal to me.

"Where are Faye and Syl’Vyr?"

"...I don’t know. The two of them went off to train somewhere, which is weird because they both noticed the connection too, but didn’t come see you..."

"...Alright."

’Arial... did she know about this? Did Arial know about the existence of the "Evelyn" that no longer exists... or did she just sense that there was a second "Evelyn," or fragments of that second Evelyn?...’ I really have no idea.

"Evelyn-sama, you’re acting strange... kind of cold. I can tell through our connection..." she says worriedly. Of course she’d notice. I stretch in the chair, taking another bite of the apple.

"It’s not that I changed, Eve... I just remembered something... and I’d say my personality has returned to what it always should have been..." I didn’t change—I’ve always been like this before I forgot things.

When I remembered I was a reincarnator, my memories of this world were almost all "locked away," and what took over was my personality as a human. But now I remember everything, so my personality has partly returned to being the demon Evelyn’s—the way it always was.

This helps me deal better with my feelings—like guilt, pain, anger, and other bad emotions—but it also makes me less human, less empathetic, and less hopeful about life. So it has its pros and cons.

"Whatever the reason, Evelyn-sama, I will always be loyal to you..." Eve says, bowing to me with a smile. I smile back at her, taking another bite of the golden apple.

...

...

...

"H-huh?" Verena makes a confused sound as she looks around, until her eyes find me. When they do, she shudders completely, thrashing against the shackles and chains but unable to break free. In the low light of the place, my eyes seem to glow.

"Verena Kaltz... glad you’re awake," I say to her with a smile, while slowly lighting a four-hour candle.

"E-Esther-sama... w-what is this?" she says with obvious fear. One moment she was giving orders to some maids, and the next she woke up here in chains. Must be confusing.

"You’re the head maid of the castle, aren’t you? Normally, I wouldn’t care to know more about some random castle servant, especially someone so pitiful and insignificant..." I stare fixedly at her.

"But things have changed... I’m going to kill you."

"W-why!? E-Esther-sama—" Before she can finish speaking, I shove a cloth into her mouth and start tying it, preventing her from talking.

"Why? Of course it’s because my wife asked. This is a personal request from Evelyn. She told me to kill all the servants who bullied her in childhood."

"But she said she didn’t want to see or know what I would do, and left everything in my hands. So now I’m fulfilling my wife’s sweet wish." I step away from her, approaching the table with various torture tools.

"Hmmm!! HMMM!!!" She thrashes, crying in the chair. Unlike torturing someone for information, where I’d keep them alive, here I’m going to torture her to death—so I’ll inflict as much pain as possible.

"I thought a lot... and researched every servant in the castle. I paid good money for information on all of them, and of course, I looked into everything you all did to Evelyn... and I’m surprised..." Evelyn suffered more at the hands of the servants than I imagined.

Individually, each thing she suffered ranged from mild to moderate, but if you add it all up, Evelyn has already suffered more than many of the people I’ve tortured—and I’m a pretty violent torturer—so it’s shocking to learn how much she endured.

"Surprisingly, there was another person who made Evelyn suffer more than you did, but Evelyn specifically told me to make you suffer more. I guess for my cute, jealous princess, you’re the most memorable in her memories. Too bad for you."

"Not that I wasn’t already going to kill you brutally—her request just means I’ll torture you more painfully than what I already had planned." Verena cries, pure terror and panic in her eyes. She seems to be begging for her life.

"There are very few people who bullied Evelyn and will stay alive—our siblings, who are still in the competition for the throne, and that maid, Clarissa, because Evelyn keeps her around... other than that... all the rest is trash that will be killed." I pick up a glass jar and approach Verena.

"See this?" I shake the jar in front of her. What’s inside glows—it looks like a centipede, but its carapace is much more visually disturbing, colored in deep blood-red and pitch-black.

"This is a [Magma Hunter] from the dungeons—a monster of the insect type. It’s a parasite that lodges itself inside other beings. They are soooo hot." I open the jar and hold the insect.

My fingers immediately start burning from how hot this parasite’s body is, as the insect writhes, but I hold it firmly.

"They dig a hole, lodge themselves in some corner of the victim, and live there until the victim dies. They feed on small pieces of the body, and the worst part of this parasite is the heat—the feeling of flesh burning from the inside as it moves." I bring the insect close to her face.

"HMNMMMMHHMM!!!" She screams in fear as I slowly bring the insect closer. Soon, I release it onto her face, and she lets out a bestial scream of pain, burn marks appearing instantly as she cries.

The insect, quickly realizing its freedom, crawls into her nose, burning everything while emitting an orange glow. I can see the glow crawling inside her skull.

Going through her nose and down—I see it falling down her throat. The glow shows the location as the monster drops into her stomach. She thrashes violently in the chair, tears and snot streaming down her face, along with an instant burn scar running from her lips up into her nose.

"Interesting, right? The flesh burned so brutally it didn’t even bleed. You’re lucky—it could have tried to enter your ear and lodge inside your brain..." She doesn’t stop thrashing, being burned from the inside, but she won’t die. This insect is careful.

"Now, let’s see... you know why I used this specific monster to torture you?" I ask amusingly, with a huge smile.

"It’s because this is a ’reaction’ monster—a monster that hates other parasites and is extremely territorial. When it enters a body, that body is automatically defined as its [Territory], and it will defend that territory with all its might against other parasites." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Volcanic monsters deliberately let these parasites inside them because they’re heat-resistant, so the parasites defend them from other parasites." It’s a cooperative relationship.

"You know how this parasite defends itself? It’s simple—whenever it detects an ’invader,’ it hunts the invader... and you know how it knows there’s an invader? Through chemical signals." I pick up a knife from the table—a small, sharp blade.

And I grab another jar, pouring a viscous golden liquid onto the knife’s blade. The smell is unpleasantly strong.

"Now tell me, Verena—how long can you last with this thing wandering through your body?" I take the knife and lightly stab it into her thigh—a shallow wound that isn’t serious, but the chemical on the knife immediately penetrates her blood.

And the parasite in her stomach starts moving. Verena lets out a horrible, bone-chilling scream as the parasite opens a hole in her stomach, moving outside where the organs are, opening holes in the flesh to get there.

Since it’s a fire monster that lives in volcanic areas, its way of moving inside bodies is to open holes and seal them with heat, quickly suturing the wounds it causes.

Meaning every time I cause a wound with this knife, the parasite will frantically open holes to quickly reach where it thinks the invading "parasite" is, then immediately seal the wounds with heat, melting the flesh to close the holes it made.

In volcanic monsters with rocky skin and flesh, it melts the rock, which later cools and seals the wounds—which doesn’t cause pain and is acceptable damage for those monsters. But for a flesh body, it’s just hellishly painful.

"Great—see it crawling inside your thigh, looking for the supposed invader... now..." I raise the knife, pointing it at Verena’s arm—a position completely opposite where the parasite is.

"HMMM! HMMM!! HMMM!!!!" She thrashes, crying, begging me not to do it, but I stab her arm with the knife, and the parasite immediately races to quickly reach where the "enemy" is. I know exactly where the parasite is because its glow is blatantly visible under the skin.

"Understand our game, Verena? I have four hours. In four hours, I have a romantic date with Evelyn, so for four hours I’ll make this parasite fill you with holes until you die. If you survive the four hours, I’ll let you rest and come back another day to repeat this."

"But since we’re demons... you’ll probably survive these first four hours. And my curiosity is—how many days can you last, hihihihihi?" I laugh happily at that. I’d love to tell Evelyn what I’m doing for love, but she said she doesn’t want to know.

"Don’t take it personally, Verena Kaltz. This is all for love. I love Evelyn so much that I’m willing to waste time on trash like you." I watch the parasite wandering through her body. The longer it takes for the parasite to find the invader, the more frenzied and violent it will become inside her.

"If you’re well cared for, you could survive days, weeks, months—maybe even years. Not that I think I’ll have that much patience. When I get completely bored, I can just cut with the knife above your head, and the parasite will pierce your brain and kill you. But I like the uncertainty." Verena has a delicious look of terror.

"Not you, not me, not anyone will know when your death will be. Only the future will tell what happens, hahaha." I chuckle, knowing that now Evelyn is being avenged just as she wanted.