Chapter 156: The Ludwig Clan is Twisted
In a room where a human man’s body lay dead, a demon woman hung from the wall.
Her body was riddled with nails that prevented her from struggling, and one of the black horns that had sprouted from her forehead had shattered, leaving a trail of magical energy scattered across the room.
Looking further down, a golden spear emblazoned with sigils was embedded in her abdomen.
Holding the spear in front of her, the platinum-haired girl once again channeled her mana into the spear.
A strong gurgling current flowed through the spear and into her abdomen, spreading through her entire body.
-Aaahhhh!!!!!
A piercing scream echoes through the room.
The girl frowned at the disgusting smell of burnt organs, one that she had been exposed to for quite some time and hadn’t gotten used to, still stinging her nose.
As the girl didn’t stop sending out tirades the screaming continued, and continued but only for a moment.
“Off… Heh… Hehehe… Heh…”
It’s not long before the screams turn to laughter.
“This is my first time with electric torture…Took me a while to get used to it.”
The hoarse, exhausted voice of a woman was heard.
The platinum-haired girl, Aizel, clicked her tongue and thought to herself that there was no point in further torture.
The demon hanging on the wall, Echis, was even more insane than Aizel had expected.
After a battle with Echis, Aizel was able to subdue her completely but despite this, Echis was a black-horned demon.
With Aizel’s power, she should have been left tattered, but as a regressor, she had already fought Echis a few times and was used to her moves, so she was able to take her down without much damage.
It wasn’t exactly torture for information, but that didn’t make it any less meaningful.
A torture that would be carried out after he had left her barely clinging to life so that she could maintain her resilience.
“It’s a shame… I was just getting used to it, and now I can enjoy it… Ugh…”
Echis grunts and spews blood from her mouth.
The end was in sight.
This was Echis way, torture to the point of death, then death.
It was like the death of that nameless man in the other room.
Aizel had thought it would be humiliating to die in her own unique way, but against her wishes, it was not.
“Hmph…”
Echis seemed to be enjoying herself.
“…Crazy bitch.”
“Don’t look at me like that, it’s your work, be confident.”
“…”
“Look at me now. Charred skin, wounds all over my body and I’m almost out of breath……in a few minutes, I’ll be dead, and your ‘work’ will be complete. I didn’t realize you had such great artistic ability…”
True to her word, in a few minutes, Echis breath would be taken away from her and that’s when Aizel will get what she wants: Echis death.
There should have been a sense of accomplishment, a sense of revenge, a sense of relief that her chances of survival had improved but Aizel was in a bad mood.
This was not what she truly wanted. Echis needed to suffer far more than this, to be poured over with regret and remorse for her life.
That would be the best revenge but things had long since gone the way she didn’t want them to so Aizel was in a bad mood, feeling like she had been played by Echis all along.
Anyway, there was no point in torturing her anymore.
Thinking that Echis’ death would be a good thing, Aizel drew her spear and pointed it at Echis’ neck.
“…Chet, I knew it. Not a good finish. Maybe it’s because it’s your first work.”
“Shut up.”
“There’s no point in shutting up when I’m already dead. I can talk all I want.”
“…”
“Listen, Aizel. I have a question…”
Echis trailed off and her question was a last-ditch effort.
“…Why are you so angry?”
Her anger was so out of place.
“I suppose it’s because of the torture you were subjected to during the experiment, but I don’t think that’s the only reason…There’s a lot of anger inside of you. Anyway, the experiment failed, and…and you survived. And now you’re strong enough to take me down, and as a bonus, you’re healthy…”
How could she be so angry?
Aizel pondered Echis’ question.
Was it because she was a demon?
The experiments and torture she’d mentioned were enough to drive her to rage and seek revenge.
Well, that wasn’t the only answer.
In fact, it was a very simple question to answer.
If you don’t kill me now, I will die, because you’ve been killing me.
That’s the simple answer.
But Echis hadn’t yet been told the details of Aizel’s plan so she was able to ask the question.
Ever since Echis learned of Aizel’s survival, she’d had a vague idea that she’d have to kill her at some point.
Aizel had realized this but she didn’t think it was necessary to let her know she was a regressor.
She had plenty of reasons to be angry with Echis anyway.
Torture is torture, but most of all… It was not so strange to seek revenge on those who had slaughtered her family.
“…Because you are the enemies who slaughtered my clan. That’s a ridiculous question. I wonder if the torture really drove you insane.”
She was about to thrust her spear into her throat when she realized that Aizel’s sharp reply would not be necessary to continue the dialogue.
“Puhhh…! Aizel, what does that mean?”
Echis, who had been laughing, said something meaningful, and Aizel stopped her spear.
“We slaughtered your family? We did?”
Echis tilted her head and Aizel frowned.
“You think I didn’t know that…”
Echis interrupted her before she could finish.
“…No pun intended, you really think that? Hmph… Funny, funny, you’ve forgotten your memories… No, it’s more likely that you’ve been traumatized and erased your memories. After all, your state of mind wasn’t exactly normal to begin with.”
“…Tell me more.”
“Don’t you remember when we found you?”
Echis asked, smiling faintly, simply because she enjoyed Aizel’s confusion.
“When you found me…?”
Echis’ voice sounded breathless, and Aizel had to fumble through what was probably the oldest memory she had.
“…On the floor…… Blood on the floor…”
Slowly, Aizel recalled the fading memory, which was quite a long time ago for her now.
“I remember. There was blood on the floor, and the bodies of the Ludwig clan.”
“It was all your doing…”
It was the carnage of the demons.
Aizel tried to recall, but for some reason the memory was disconnected and she couldn’t recall the details.
She couldn’t remember the demons slaughtering her clan, killing them and a question flashed through Aizel’s mind.
‘But how did I survive…?’
Was it to be a guinea pig?
Aizel couldn’t remember how she, a tiny child at the time, could have survived the massacre.
“Khhhh…”
Echis smirked at the thought of delivering a good blow before she died.
“…Aizel, do you want to know something funny? I’m pretty sure we were ordered to eliminate the Ludwig clan, but to find out where they’re hiding on a whim? I thought it was ridiculous, impossible, but we found them. We really did find them.”
“……”
“And what we found was a little girl, a tiny little girl, and yeah, you know, you were the only one left alive, and I guess that made things easier for us.”
“You guys… You guys did that…?”
In the midst of the disintegrating truth, Aizel denied it.
“You can deny it. No, I think you’ve been doing it all along, if that’s what makes it easier for you. I won’t stop you.
“Then… then… Who in our clan…”
“Try to remember. Over the bodies of your clan… who stood in their center?”
“Ugh…”
Aizel grabs her head with a sudden headache.
Still, Echis continued to speak, unperturbed since she didn’t have much time left.
Breathing heavily at the thought of getting a good look before she died, Echis spoke up.
“You were there, Aizel.”
“I…?”
Aizel stammered, looking down at her hands.
Echis’ words were the trigger, and Aizel’s mind began to flicker back to a scene she’d forgotten, a scene she’d forced herself to remember in order to survive.
In a place that looked like a pure white ‘altar’ all around her people with platinum hair the same color as hers lay on it.
Their names were unknown, but she was certain they had the surname Ludwig.
Red blood oozed from their bodies, converging in a pool that traced a pattern on the altar floor and at the center of the pool of blood was a girl.
The girl, named Aizel Ludwig, stood there for a long moment, taking in the sight.
“Hah… Hah…”
Aizel rubbed her forehead and breathed heavily.
Why do I remember this…?’
She had forgotten.
“Albed said they sacrificed themselves. I don’t know what they did to deserve the lives of the entire clan, but… But you were at the center of it, and perhaps you know more about the ‘why’.”
Something everyone in the clan would die for.
“Lies, all lies……Yes, you tampered with my memory during the experiment…”
Still, not wanting to cause a further meltdown, Aizel once again denied it.
However, her denial is quickly followed by Echis nonchalant retort.
“Memory manipulation… That’s easy for you to say. That’s why we had to experiment on you in the first place. The experiment was unplanned. If we had to experiment on the Ludwig clan, why would we kill everyone except you? If you think about it, the more samples the better, right?”
“……”
Aizel was too stunned by Echis’ logic to continue.
Echis laughs out loud, like a maniac.
After filling the room with her laughter, Echis suddenly spits up blood, and then shakes her head in dismay.
“Alas, Aizel, I can feel your despair and pain all the way here. It’s a good look. If only I could cut off your breath now, it would be a perfect piece… I wonder what the name of the piece would be…”
“Shut up…”
“The name of the work is……So, how about ‘The Crooked Clan’?”
Echis flashed a wicked smile but a the end of that smile,
-Boom!
Echis throat is cut.
-Thud.
Just like that, as Echis head fell, Aizel also fell to the ground.
Her legs felt weak and she could no longer hear Echis voice tormenting her, but she still ached.
The truth as she knew it had collapsed, and in its place was a new, undeniably uncomfortable truth.
The Ludwig clan had not been slaughtered by demons, they had chosen to sacrifice themselves for the sake of a girl.
Aizel had been led to believe that her regression was the result of experiments on her by the demons, but that was not the case.
Her regression came at the cost of the lives of her entire clan.
“Why would they do such a terrible thing for…?”
Even now, Aizel could not understand their choice.
Echis was right.
Her family…The Ludwig clan was not normal.
They were terribly twisted.