72 - A Certain Elf’s Soliloquy 2

The decision on Lady Kirishia’s punishment was made, and the brief grace period passed in the blink of an eye.

When she was brought into the ritual chamber, her face looked somewhat haggard, but a clear will could be read in her eyes.

Her attitude might have been submissive, but she was aiming for something.

As the Ritual of Binding solemnly proceeded, Lady Kirishia suddenly raised her voice and began to struggle violently.

Taking advantage of the loosened restraints from her prior compliance, she shook off the soldier gripping her arm, toppled a desk, and moved cleverly to avoid being surrounded while obstructing the soldiers’ movements.

“You fools! Did you really think I wouldn’t have made duplicates of the magic tool used for giving orders!?”

At her words, I ordered the nearby soldier to restrain her, but it was already too late.

“Come, Argos!”

At her shout, Argos burst through the ceiling.

What we had feared came to pass; Argos blocked our way, sealing off our movements.

Even when the waiting soldiers rushed in, the situation hardly improved. Lady Kirishia wore a triumphant grin and spewed her lofty rhetoric.

And then, for some incomprehensible reason, she gave the worst possible command:

“Argos, violate that woman.”

Yet Argos showed no sign of moving.

At that point, Zesato’s eldest son muttered one line:

“…Isn’t that one not female?”

Looking closely, there was no sign of any genitalia between its legs. It turned out Argos was not a “he.”

But without reproductive organs, it was neither male nor female—was it what you’d call “asexual”?

If so, perhaps Argos was some kind of mutated variant.

I never imagined I would encounter such a variant alive, but Lady Kirishia, undeterred, then ordered our deaths.

Everyone tensed at her words—and then Kirishia was slammed to the floor.

“What are you doing!? It’s them! Move this hand away, now!”

She struggled even while pinned down, but Argos ignored her. Instead, he searched through the scattered items on the floor for a pen. Finding one, he began writing on the overturned desk.

“You are no longer needed.”

I didn’t immediately understand the meaning.

But the next words he wrote made everyone present comprehend:

“Language and magic learning completed. Thank you for never doubting your magic’s success.”

Argos had merely been using her.

(No, the shocking part isn’t that! Less than forty days and he’s mastered the elven language to this level!?)

If Argos’s words were to be believed, he had completed his study of language and magic.

A monster that devoured even the “Nightmare,” possessing intelligence that could only be called abnormal—what were we supposed to call such a being?

Argos then effortlessly killed Lady Kirishia.

We all knew this wasn’t the end of the matter.

And we all knew who had to step forward.

I took a step and faced Argos.

“Why did you kill Kirishia—kill her?”

I already had a guess, but I needed to confirm it.

“Research subject and experimental animal. Life threat. Reason to kill.”

The phrasing was a bit clumsy compared to earlier, but that was how I interpreted it.

Zesato’s eldest son seemed to interpret it similarly and asked Argos why he waited until now to kill her.

“Resistance to domination’s effect required time. Life threat came before resistance possible.”

With that answer, we understood.

The domination magic Kirishia had revived had been incomplete—otherwise it should have been impossible to escape the control of a forbidden spell that powerful.

(Still, there’s also the possibility that domination magic simply didn’t work on Argos. But we could never make that public. If word spread that such a monster lived nearby, panic would be inevitable.)

Apparently, the same conclusion had occurred to others; I heard a voice behind me say,

“So it wasn’t failure but incompletion…”

To immediately take control of the situation by framing it as “the revived domination magic was incomplete”—I couldn’t help but silently praise the Zesato clan.

But my role wasn’t over yet, nor could it end here.

“I understand your reason for taking her life. Then let me ask another. Why did you do all of this?”

Depending on how he answered, we could measure the threat level posed by Argos.

More than that, I wanted to know for myself, but if he possessed intelligence beyond our expectations, it wasn’t hard to imagine how certain members of the Committee would react.

We needed to know for that reason as well.

But the answer that came back was: “Don’t understand intent of question.”

In other words, he was saying:

“Is that really something I need to answer?”

This was quite a bad sign.

I heard a small tongue click from behind; apparently others understood as well.

As things stood, Argos didn’t have any good impression of elves.

That was only natural, but we had hoped that with his level of intelligence, hostilities could be avoided.

From his wording, that hope now seemed slim.

So I changed my question, assuming the worst-case scenario.

“Why did you learn our language, our magic?”

Argos said nothing.

He showed signs of thinking, so he was likely searching for the right words.

I waited.

But the answer that came back was the worst one possible:

“Amusement.”

In other words, while resisting Kirishia’s domination magic, he learned the elven language just for fun.

If it had been out of interest toward us, that would have been one thing. But if he could learn language and magic just as a game, then there was no room for elves to intervene in his affairs.

Silence hung in the chamber with the gaping hole in its ceiling.

Any thought of possible exchange had to be wiped clean; now our priority had to be how to handle the threat named Argos.

I shifted my thinking and tried to speak again, but Argos leapt out through the hole in the ceiling.

If he left just like that, everything would end unresolved.

Driven by a nightmare-like dread, I ran out without attendants.

I chased him, but there was distance.

After running for a while, Argos stopped, and I seized the chance to leap and close the gap at once with wind magic.

“Where are you going? If I’m with you, I can take you most places within the village. If you’d like, shall we go together?”

Landing before Argos, I rattled the words off quickly.

If he left now with nothing achieved, everything would become irreparable.

Shoved forward by that fear, I stepped up.

Argos reached his hand toward me.

I couldn’t resist—no, I mustn’t.

He silently lifted me and set me on his shoulder.

The worst-case scenario could still be avoided.

Believing that, I let him silently carry me to wherever he was headed.

The place he took me was Lady Kirishia’s laboratory—when I asked what he intended to do there, the answer was an unwelcome one: “complete destruction.”

I had been prepared to accommodate his demands as much as possible to prevent hostility with the elves, but I hadn’t expected him to ask me to help burn it, even if it was outside the village.

He resorted to force when I hesitated, and I had no choice but to take the role of setting the fire.

Though it was in this form, I was nonetheless shocked that I ended up breaking the law.

As I reeled from that, Argos showed me the words he wrote on the ground:

“No reason to come here anymore.”

He was probably trying to erase information about himself as an intelligent being.

Was there something he didn’t want known?

Or, just as we were wary of him, was he also wary of us?

Thinking that lit a faint hope of understanding his behavior so far.

“What is your goal?”

If so, then he had taken risks to protect himself from the elven race.

“What do you intend to do with us?”

With such high intelligence, perhaps he couldn’t endure being ignorant.

“…What do you want from the elves?”

If that were true, how would Argos—a being with no others of his kind—find peace of mind?

(If he even has the concept of “loneliness”…)

As that thought crossed my mind, I lowered my gaze and saw new words he had written:

“Desire more fruit.”

Those words made me feel I understood a little about what kind of being he was.

Next time we met, we would talk longer.

There was no need to fight.

No need to forcibly close the distance either.

A relationship as neighbors living side by side would be just right.

I was sure that was the meaning behind those words.

The fire blazed higher, rising into the sky.

“Ah, how will I even begin to explain this…”

My small soliloquy didn’t reach the one beside me.