Chapter 45
“Be honest. Weren’t we actually not getting along that well? The way you snap words at me feels like shooting arrows, it’s not something you’d do just once or twice.”
‘I mean, I swore like a sailor while playing the game, so…’
Cynthia didn’t respond. He continued speaking as if he were in a very good mood.
“Anyway, just keep doing exactly that. I’m not joking, I mean it. Watching you do that is pretty entertaining. Damn it, there really wasn’t much to laugh about all that time.”
Cynthia thought, What nonsense is this now? In the game, he used to laugh maniacally every time he killed someone, and a while ago, he’d laughed horrifically as he slaughtered the Harvesters, so even his lies should have limits. She suspected he was lying again, convinced she knew nothing.
But the tone of his next words was surprisingly melancholy.
“Even if something funny happened, it only lasted a moment. Most of the time was spent in boredom, so much so that I felt nothing at all.”
Segleninde’s voice was quiet as he began to tell his story.
In fact, there was a surprisingly detailed past for the ‘Duke of Wincastle’. He’d ruled his vast domain for a long time. Having no blood relatives, he’d been alone for many years, repeating the same tasks as if fulfilling a prescribed role. He’d grown bored and exhausted, and for a long stretch he’d done nothing but sleep.
Then, when he finally woke, usurpers had come and stolen all he had built. Upon learning this, Segleninde was deeply grieved. He had organized a banquet with the aim of reclaiming what he had lost.
He sighed as he explained that, though he wanted to lock the mansion’s doors and fall into a deep sleep again, he felt a sense of responsibility to at least take minimal measures, since his retainers would suffer in his absence.
Hearing that, Cynthia read the unspoken emotion in his words.
‘He himself may not realize it… but he was lonely.’
Putting aside the fact that whatever he had ‘lost’ was likely the life force of the humans he’d consumed, if one considered that Segleninde had been alone all along, without blood relatives, one could sense his loneliness in the gaps between his words.
Perhaps that was why he had fallen into that long sleep. Creatures were mere creations of his design, and even if he could converse with humans, he treated them as prey. Living alone, an inhuman being among no peers, must have been quite lonely. She understood him, at least a little.
“Well, that’s all I can remember. Nothing else comes to mind, including the memories of when we became engaged, or who introduced us.”
“I… don’t really know the details either. We were very young when we got engaged. I suppose, like ordinary nobles, our parents must have arranged it. In your case, it might have been another guardian instead of your parents.”
In any event, the fact that this terrible murderer—who used to hack people to pieces for no reason—now had a detailed backstory meant that he had truly become an ally of the protagonist character. At last, Cynthia felt certain.
‘So, they really did add him as a proper ally in the update. That’s a relief. If we’d already done… that kind of thing together and he’d suddenly turned on me, it would have hurt.’
She was sure she no longer needed to worry about that. Segleninde had graciously listened to her story and then said,
“Since I’ve said all of mine, why don’t you tell me yours?”
Cynthia had to muster the memories inhabiting her borrowed body as best she could. When she thought carefully, things came to her one after another.
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