The man confined in the castle’s special underground chamber was muttering to himself.
“I know. I know. I’ve gone through this before. They did the same thing in that prison…”
He recalled everything until Amy cut his right arm off.
The man was blindfolded and left in the darkness. The silence of waiting, never knowing when someone might come for him, threatened to drive him insane.
Soft footsteps clacked on the floor. He sensed the faintest light through the blindfold and wished to cling to it. It was time for his hunger to be sated, at least for a little while. A soft scent wafted on the air—the smell of a woman.
He heard something like the groan of a grate opening.
The footfalls and scent grew stronger.
Ordinarily, the man wouldn’t have thought much of the smell, but isolated in this special prison as he was, it felt far sharper to his senses.
“It’s water. Drink it.”
He could tell who had come based on her voice. She didn’t remove his blindfold, presumably because she didn’t want him to see her face. This woman knew the original all too well.
He opened his mouth and was fed a spoonful of water drop by drop. His mouth felt slightly less dry.
“Is that you, Elvie?”
“…”
“You don’t have to hide it. I can tell by your voice.”
“Your execution date has been decided. It’s tomorrow. You’ll die without a name, just as you should.”
“I see.”
“Listen, you only have a day, but if you answer my questions, I promise to get you food and water.”
The man hesitated. Words nearly escaped his mouth, but he shoved them into his throat.
“I’m an offshoot of Roland. I know what you two did and the sort of relationship you had.”
“You didn’t experience it, though. Those are merely facts you happen to know.”
“Hmph. You may be right.”
“If you don’t intend to tell me anything, then that’ll be all.”
A hard heel hitting the prison floor.
“There is one thing I can tell you.”
The clacks slowed to a stop.
“And that is?”
“We… No—the party of heroes, Roland included, defeated the demon lord, yes?”
“What of it?”
“The demon lord isn’t dead. She’s still alive.”
“Of all the things you could have said… What nonsense. We saw her corpse.”
“But you didn’t fight her. I did—Roland did. He used the magical collar from Serafin to ‘kill’ the demon lord. He… Roland allowed the demon lord to escape. She’s still alive.”
The woman didn’t say anything. He assumed her silence was due to the surprise.
Her one-track mind was exactly as he remembered. He could guess what this foolishly earnest girl would do now that she had learned the truth.
The next day, the man was executed in secrecy.
It wasn’t an unusual way for an assassin to spend his final moments.
His death couldn’t chase his words from Elvie’s mind, however. They stained her thoughts as surely as blood.
When Elvie had turned to leave the prison, knowing the man would never surrender the information Roland wanted, he’d delivered the final blow.
“She’s a beautiful demon with red hair and eyes. Sound like anyone? That’s the demon lord.”