Taming The Villainesses-Chapter 377: Survivor of the Old Castle (3)

“You’re talking about Isaiah Gospel when you say ‘your master,’ aren’t you?”

There was an imp hiding in Fortress Gargarta.

It had lived here, avoiding the horde of monsters occupying the fortress, moving through secret passageways from place to place.

Only someone like Demon King Solomon, or myself—or perhaps Isaiah Gospel, whose blood closely resembled ours—could become the master of a stubborn imp like this.

The imp, who was frantically devouring the dry barley crackers we had stored in a sack, suddenly wrinkled her face.

“Isaiah Gospel? Who’s that? My master is just my master! Anyway, give me more food. Ever since those invaders stormed the fortress, I haven’t eaten a single thing since morning....”

She didn’t know Isaiah Gospel?

The thought that my guess might have been wrong left me a bit unsettled. I might have to scrap all the deductions I had just been piecing together.

I handed over some more of the crackers I had tucked away for myself and asked,

“You don’t know your master’s name?”

“No idea!”

This imp seemed extremely clumsy at communicating with people—probably because she had lived hidden in this fortress all on her own for such a long time.

How troubling.

I started wondering if she might be lying, so I carefully watched her behavior. She looked just like a middle school girl.

Her imp tail had been torn off, and she didn’t have the horns on her forehead that were common among malicious imps. She really did seem like just a young girl.

How many years had she survived alone in this place?

I glanced around the small room that served as the imp’s dwelling. A room so low even crouching inside would have your head bumping the ceiling. The only source of light was a single flickering lantern.

Leonor, whom I met in Ayra’s dream, had also hidden himself away inside a fortress. That thought made me feel a little sorry for her.

That’s when Mirna, who had been silently watching this entire time, parted her lips.

“So, what’s your name?”

“I’m Imp.”

“That’s your race, not your personal name. Don’t you have a special name just for yourself?”

“Why does that matter? What I’m more curious about is this square, flat snack! What is it? It’s tiny and shaped like a star, and when I bite it, it melts right in my mouth!”

“......”

While munching /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ on crackers and sugar stars, the imp looked delighted. Watching her, Mirna gave her a strange look, then leaned in and whispered to me.

“She doesn’t seem malicious or dangerous.”

“Well, yeah. She doesn’t have horns.”

“Horns?”

Mirna asked, confused.

I gave a quick explanation. Imps who do bad things often grow horns on their heads. Sometimes, like Marmar, there are imps without horns, and those are usually the kind-hearted ones.

Mirna nodded in understanding.

“So that’s why Tartar and Purpur had horns. So horned imps are evil?”

“Well... it’s not that simple.”

Anyway.

It seemed like Mirna had greatly lowered her guard toward this imp.

“I thought she might be a spy or assassin planted by the monsters. That’s why I was trying to catch her before anything terrible happened.”

At Mirna’s comment, the imp suddenly puffed up her hair.

“Comparing me to those idiot monsters! How dare you!”

Alright, so she clearly wasn’t on the same side as the monsters infesting the north. Come to think of it, imps always hated the monsters beyond the barrier.

***

The imp’s name, apparently, was just “Imp.”

When I asked why, she said her master called her that.

“For some reason, I was badly wounded and dying... and Master saved me. After that, he just called me Imp. That’s all I know. I don’t remember anything before I got hurt. But that’s enough for me.”

To call an imp simply “Imp” as a name...

It wasn’t all that different from naming a dog “Dog” or a cat “Cat.” Maybe this so-called master of hers never intended to name her at all.

I asked,

“So, you really don’t know your master’s name?”

“......”

Instead of answering, she continued scarfing down the rest of the crackers. Seeing her working through her third small pouch of crackers, Mirna raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Are imps normally this gluttonous?”

“Hmm...”

That reminded me of something I once heard.

Feral cats in the wild, when they find large prey, will eat far more than usual. Since food is unpredictable in the wild, they stuff themselves, thinking they might not get another chance for a long time.

Maybe this imp was doing the same.

Right then, she reached around and stroked her lower back.

“...I hope my tail grows back properly. I want it to be star-shaped again.”

Ah, right.

This imp had her tail ripped off by Mirna earlier and escaped.

Imps store nutrients in their tails—like a kind of reserve pouch. That must be why she was stuffing herself—to regenerate a new tail.

“What if it doesn’t come back star-shaped...?”

She murmured quietly to herself. Mirna asked,

“You like the star shape?”

To that, the imp responded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course! How else will Master recognize me?”

“Recognize you?”

“One day, Master will finish whatever urgent thing he had to do and come back here to get me. If my tail looks different, he might not recognize me.”

Through this conversation, I was able to gather quite a bit of information. This imp’s master had left her behind and disappeared.

And suddenly, I became curious.

“How long have you been here?”

The imp replied,

“I haven’t counted exactly. But... about twenty winters have passed. It was cold. But soon, Master will come back and take me to the warm southern lands. There’ll be lots of snacks there, and...”

Twenty winters.

Roughly twenty years.

This imp had been hiding here in the fortress alone for two decades, waiting for her master to return.

I’d done my share of waiting for people, too.

But after about five years, I realized no one was coming for me. So I gave up.

Yet this little one still hadn’t given up, even after twenty years.

I found myself hoping that her master wasn’t the man I suspected. But I had to be sure.

Shhk.

I pulled out a drawing from the 《Squirrel Vault》 scroll. It was a portrait—a painting of the young Reinhardt, Alastair, Stella... and among them was the man I was searching for.

“Is your master in this picture?”

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The imp’s red eyes sparkled wide.

“Aaah—! Master!”

She snatched the picture from my hands and pressed her dusty, dirty cheek to the image.

“It smells like him...”

She rubbed her face against it like a puppy reunited with its mother after a long time. It was heartbreaking.

“You know Master? Did he ask you to come get me? Right?”

She said, her eyes never leaving the picture. Her gaze was fixed on the smiling man with red hair, laughing like the noonday sun.

But that man could never return.

He was no longer of this world.

Most likely.

It occurred to me, maybe he had known he wouldn’t come back.

Maybe that’s why he never told her his name. Why he never gave her one either—so she wouldn’t grow too attached.

But he didn’t know.

That even a single moment of warmth, a flicker of kindness, could be enough to make someone wait five, ten—twenty winters.

And with that realization came anger.

Maybe it was because I saw my own childhood self in her—staring out the window, waiting.

Without engaging 《Calm Thinking》, I opened my mouth.

“His name was Isaiah Gospel. And no matter how long you wait, he’s never coming back. That man is dead.”

“...Sir Teo.”

Startled, Mirna spoke beside me. The imp scowled fiercely.

“No! Why would you say something like that!? He said he’d come back! You’re mean! I hate you!”

Then she took the drawing and bolted away.

Left alone with Mirna, she touched my back gently and said,

“Why did you say that? That’s not like you. Even if you had to tell the truth, there were gentler ways to put it.”

“I don’t know. I just... couldn’t help it. I know what it’s like to wait for someone who won’t come. After twenty years, it’s better to face the truth than live on empty hope.”

“Perhaps you saw yourself in her.”

After that, Mirna didn’t press me further. She simply narrowed her eyes, staring down the corridor the imp had fled through.

“We still had so many questions to ask her. What if we never find her again? She might have known quite a bit.”

“She’ll come back. As long as she believes her master will return, she won’t be able to leave this fortress. She’ll be afraid of missing him. In the end, she’ll cross paths with us again.”

We left the secret passage.

The sounds of battle outside were starting to fade, much like the tension in the air. The horrific night raid was ending, and dawn was finally breaking.