Chapter 13: Regulus Gets Fooled (Patreon)

"Nonsense!"

Just as Regulus was about to strike, Pandora shoved him bodily into the one tree trunk still standing nearby.

"Look at that — even this forest can't stand to watch your wicked deeds any longer!"

It was her first time actually laying hands on someone like that, but... it had felt kind of satisfying? Oh no, oh no — he'd always seemed like such a proper, bookish sort...

"Shut your mouth!" Regulus wrenched himself free of the tree trunk, shouting in fury.

"So... are you giving me an order?" was the only reply she gave him.

"Huff... huff..." Regulus panted heavily.

This was the first time in a hundred years he'd been driven this furious! This girl was practically his natural-born nemesis!

Not only did his Authority — which had never once failed him — do nothing against her, but she'd even managed to lead him around by the nose in conversation...

"Actually..." Just then, Pandora spoke up. "I understand."

"Huh?!" Regulus couldn't process that.

"I understand just how hard your childhood was." Ignoring his bewildered look, Pandora went on, "Your parents never treated you kindly. Your siblings bullied you. All of it..."

"Are you pitying me?!"

Regulus's face, already twisted with anger, knitted further as his brows drew tight.

Unlike all the others before her, this insufferable woman was simply impossible to deal with. If only he could kill her...

"No, I'm affirming you." Pandora just spread her hands. "Growing up in an environment like that, and still winning the Witch Factor's recognition, proving your own worth to everyone else — isn't that something worth praising?"

Pandora didn't believe a word of it, but she said it anyway.

"I'm affirming your existence. Affirming your meaning."

"You mean..." Hearing that, Regulus's eyes went wide, then he let out a scornful laugh and looked at her. "You think I'd need your approval?"

It was, in fact, the first time anyone had ever said such a thing to him. Neither the people who'd died at his hands nor his "beloved" wives had ever affirmed him — they'd all treated him as something to fear. But he wasn't about to give ground now.

"Just admit it — no one can survive cut off from everyone else." Pandora shook her head. "Just like you can't live without your wives."

"You... what do you know?!"

Why did it feel like Pandora somehow already knew the conditions of his Authority...

"Oh, right!" Paying no mind to his flustered state, Pandora mimed cradling a book in her hands. "That Gospel Echidna gave you — where is it?"

This was step two.

"What are you trying to do..." Seeing that Pandora had finally dropped the last subject, Regulus breathed a little easier.

"Tear it up." Two short words — but they carried enormous weight.

"T-tear it up?" Regulus wondered for a moment if his ears were playing tricks on him. "That woman's no good sort either, but... isn't that going a bit far?"

Even though he'd never met Echidna, he'd certainly heard of her.

And apparently, the Gospel was something Echidna had handed out to the Witch Cult's most accomplished members, before the falling-out.

"Besides, we're still acting according to that thing, aren't we."

Without quite realizing it, Regulus had calmed down and fallen into conversation with Pandora.

If not for the devastated, battle-scarred scenery around them, one might have mistaken the two for old friends chatting.

"That's exactly your problem." Pandora's response made Regulus's eyes — just a moment ago relaxed — narrow again.

"Archbishop Regulus..." Watching him strain to hold back his temper, Pandora fought to keep from laughing herself. "Think about it — that's just an object, and you're a person..."

She trailed off there.

"And then what?" By now Regulus had stopped caring about anything else — he'd caught the hidden implication in her words.

"And yet you're the one acting according to that book. Doesn't that strike you as strange? Doesn't it go against your own principles?"

"Uh..."

"A mere object gets to dictate your actions? Aren't you giving it far too much credit?"

"That's... true..."

"Which is exactly why that book is infringing on your right to freedom!"

"That's right!"

At that, realization dawned on Regulus (having been thoroughly conned...).

"That damned book!" Just thinking of that small, thick tome made Regulus's blood boil. "Choosing my own wives is my right — who does it think it is, deciding for me?!"

"That's the book's true purpose — which is to say, Echidna's true purpose..." Watching Regulus stamp his feet in agitation, Pandora nodded. "It — or rather, she — wants to control your actions. Or better said, the actions of the whole Witch Cult!"

[Nicely done! I didn't know I had it in me to talk like this!]

Pandora couldn't help giving herself a mental thumbs-up.

"That bastard! That bastard Echidna!" Regulus was furious beyond words. "Where's her grave?! Tell me... I'll go flatten it into a plain!"

Here he was, the mighty Sin Archbishop of Greed, and he'd been ordered around for a hundred years by some bastard's relic — a dead bastard's relic, no less!

"That's not a good idea." Pandora's words landed like a bucket of cold water over his head.

"Why not?" By now Regulus was genuinely treating Pandora as a superior. "I have to make that bastard pay!"

"No, no, no..." Pandora patted the air to signal calm, then smiled. "You know Echidna's schemes are second to none."

The moment she said that, Regulus settled down.

"That's right!" Thinking of how Echidna had controlled them all with a single book, he nodded in agreement. "So... so what do we do?"

"She might well have set a trap near her grave." Seeing this, Pandora leaned back against the stump.

"Tch, traps? Not even worth worrying about — after all, I'm the most perfect being alive, wanting for nothing!" Regulus spread his hands with an air of exasperation. "There's no way I'd be killed by some trap set by a coward who can only hide and run, too afraid to face an ordinary life!"

Who was he, after all? Who could match him head-on?

"That's where you're wrong." Pandora shook her head. "They can't kill you — but they can seal you away with magic."

Of course, that too was a bluff...