“I’m a kn-knight until I officially give up my title.”
“Stop blabbering, kid.”
“It’s your blabbering that needs to stop!”
With a sigh, Vilan let go of Minuet and walked over to Thoma.
“Wh-What are you...” Thoma stammered.
“I...said...silence!”
“Ugh!” Thoma went tumbling from his chair as Vilan’s fist hit his face.
“Ahhhhh!” Aures’s shrill cry filled the room.
“How dare you?!” Bolafra yelled as he rose from his chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Bolafra looked down at his son sprawled on the floor. It looked as though he’d hit his head when he fell.
“Lord Bolafra... I’ll be the one asking the questions. You think you can flee like a coward, carrying a purse full of coins? I don’t think so. What’ll happen to the rest of us?”
“Th-That’s...”
“Why not talk Yuri Ho into a deal? Tell him you wanna keep things the way they’ve always been. Did you even try?”
“Guards! Where are you all?!” Bolafra called loudly, hoping a guard would appear.
“They’re not coming. The biggest, strongest man in my service is holding them back. Your weaklings won’t get past him.”
“Grr...”
“Pass the title of lord-supreme on to me, Bolafra, and I’ll spare your life.”
“Outrageous! That title was given to me by the queen and can’t be handed to another!”
The recipient of the title was actually decided by a council overseen by the chieftain family, rather than the queen. The queen would officially confer the title during a ceremony afterward, but her approval was only sought after the matter was already decided. It was Bolafra’s reluctance to give the title away that made him claim otherwise.
“No one cares about that. Just step down and let me take over for you. Then you can make an announcement to let everyone know.”
“Even if I agreed, who would follow your orders?! Everyone’s going to surrender to the Ho family either way!”
“Ah, you’re right.” Vilan scratched his head, then grabbed the hatchet he was wearing on his back and casually swung it.
“Uhgah!” Thoma, who’d been unconscious on the floor a moment ago, let out a strange cry. The hatchet had split open his skull.
“I’ll have to win them over with a show of force. This is the quickest way.”
A moment later, the screams of Thoma’s mother rang out through the dining room. “Aaaaahhh! Thoma! Thoma!”
Aures ran to her son’s body, knelt down beside him, and after hesitating briefly, pulled at the hatchet that was buried deep within his skull.
“Shut up!” Vilan stomped down with all his might on Aures’s neck as she knelt down near his feet.
“Ugh.” Vilan’s foot broke Aures’s neck, leaving her head at an unnatural angle. She slumped on top of Thoma and became perfectly still.
Vilan put his hand against the bodies of mother and son as he yanked the hatchet free from Thoma’s skull and returned it to its place at his waist.
“Hah! It serves you right, brother! A fitting punishment for the way you’ve always looked down on me!” Minuet cried.
Minuet was wearing an expression Bolafra had never seen before as she regarded the bodies of her own family members. Bolafra couldn’t keep up with everything that was happening. As his precious daughter looked at Vilan with longing eyes, it was like she’d become a different person entirely.
“And you too, father. Why couldn’t you just make Lord Vilan head of our family? Then he would’ve let him live.”
With that declaration, she pressed her body against her fiancé.
Vilan pushed her away. “Get off me, pig.”
“What...?”
“You’re so fat. All that soft flab makes me sick. You think I would’ve slept with you if you weren’t the Noza family’s daughter? Now that your family’s finished, you’re no better than any other pig.”
“What a cruel joke! Tell me you don’t mean it, Lord Vilan.”
“Oh, I mean it.” Vilan put his foot to Minuet’s stomach and pushed her away. “I’m done putting up with you! I’m sick of hearing those disgusting noises you make when you’re pressing that bloated stomach against me!”
“How can you say that?! I thought you liked larger women! If you don’t, I can lose weight for you!”
“Everything about you disgusts me. Just die already.” Vilan picked up a cleaver that was resting on the table and threw it toward Minuet. It bounced along the wooden floor and stopped by her feet. “All you have to do is cut your throat with that. Now go on. If you love me like you say, then you’ll die for me, pig.”
“You can’t be—”
“I’m serious. If you’d die for me, then hurry up and do it!”
As Vilan stared down at Minuet, his eyes were no longer those of a man with his wife-to-be. He looked at her like someone might look at a rotten hunk of meat swarming with maggots.
“No, no, no, no! This can’t be! Tell me you don’t mean it!”
“Haaaah,” Vilan sighed. “You’re so irritating.” Brutality filled his eyes as he approached Minuet.
“Stop!” Bolafra had finally regained his senses and managed to raise his voice.
Vilan turned to look at him for a moment.
“Uraaaaaah!” Minuet cried out as she grabbed a knife from the table and lunged forward, thrusting it at Vilan.
Rather than dodge, Vilan let the blade sink into his stomach. “You idiot. You’re trying to stab me with a blunt table knife.” Vilan grabbed Minuet’s arm and forced her elbow to bend the wrong way.
“Nngh!” She braced herself for intense pain as the joint was stretched to its limit, but then she felt the tendon tear followed by pain worse than she could have imagined. “Aaaaargh! It hurts!”
After breaking Minuet’s elbow with brute force, Vilan grabbed her by the collar of her thick clothing. “I’m not done hurting you yet.”
He swung his arm, punching her with all his might.
“Ahguh!”
Rather than stop after the first punch, he began showering her with blows.
“Ah, ngh! St— Sto— Stop!”
“This is how much pain I felt mentally, letting a pig touch me. Now die!”
Vilan beat her for what seemed like five minutes. Eventually, his arm grew too tired for him to continue, by which point it was hard to find any remaining traces of skin tone on Minuet’s face. The left side—where Vilan’s right arm had been able to reach most easily—had received the worst of it, and it had swollen up due to a fracture that extended from her cheekbone to her nose.
“Ugh... Ah...”
Vilan turned to Bolafra and stared at him in disbelief. “Just look at you. You just stood there while I killed your son and wife, and now I’ve beat your daughter to a pulp. Have you even got a cock?”
He looked down on his former fiancée with disgust, then grabbed her by the hair while still gripping her collar. With a burst of force, he brought his clenched fists together.
“Kngh.” Minuet’s head turned to face behind her as her neck twisted to an impossible degree.
After Minuet had gone limp, Vilan cast her aside and released her collar so that her body slumped down to the floor near his feet.
Bolafra had been unable to move as he’d watched it all. In the face of Vilan’s brutality, his body had refused to obey him. Now that Vilan had finished his work, Bolafra had lost everything. All he could do in his despondency was sit back down in his chair. This is how it ends?
“I still can’t believe it. You’re the head of a chieftain family?” Vilan scoffed. “I won’t stand for it.”
Bolafra lacked the willpower to respond. He couldn’t even summon up the strength to reach for the dagger in his pocket.
“Time to die, old man.”
Vilan swung his hatchet, and Bolafra lost consciousness.