“Ahh, ahhh… Ahhhhh…!”
The more Vicius rushed her, the more panicked the girl became.
“Oh, Your Majesty! How awful it is to see you like this…! To see the king of a nation rolling about on the carpet! Ah, come now! Girl! Hold it properly! Curses, what are you doing?! Calm down! Get a firm grip! You can do this! Get serious! Try your utmost now! Ahah hah hah hah hah!♪ Come now, what’s the matter?! Are you quite well?! Are you?! Are you?! Ahah hah hah hah hah hah hah!”
Still unsteady on her feet, the serving girl left the throne room and Vicius sat back down on her chair.
“Haah, that was ever so enjoyable. ♪ This is all it amounts to—the history and dignity of the human race! ♪ What a shame. ♪ It all fades so easily, and is ever so easily lost! ♪”
“…”
“Oh? Is something wrong, Worm?”
“No? Nothin’ really.”
“You’re sure? You can of course speak your mind if you have something to say.”
Wormgandr’s mouth was always open, like he was constantly wearing a thin half smile. His golden eyes twinkled in the dark, cave-like recesses of his face like two tiny full moons.
He is of my element, but I do not know what he is truly thinking. The same goes for Ars and Yomibito. They are separate beings—a consequence of imparting to them my own ego during their creation.
Wormgandr tilted the large plate in his hands, allowing the exquisite spread of carefully prepared food to slide into his mouth all at once.
“You were ’bout to say somethin’, weren’t you? Before you had the head brought in—somethin’ about them blasted humans,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm.
“Ah, that’s right—I was talking about playwriting.”
“Playwritin’?”
“You know what a play is, don’t you? They’re supposed to have an introduction, a development, a twist, and a conclusion—turns in the story that please the audience. They always follow a pattern is what I’m saying, and the popular ones always take the path most trodden! That’s right! I’ve seen lots of plays, and there are ever so many that really start building up once the story begins racing to its conclusion.”
Wormgandr rubbed his belly and burped, letting out a coarse sigh—Vicius frowned at him, but elected not to scold him for it.
“A certain play I used to go and see was ever so popular, and always being performed somewhere… It was a great success the day I saw it too! The performers were all very popular actors in their own rights.”
Vicius flicked her silver cup with the back of her nail, making a dull ringing sound.
“The audience…they were ever so excited, you know? Everything was heating up, running full tilt toward the climax, the happy ending that everybody was waiting for…but there was no happy ending that day.”
Wormgandr listened in silence.
“It happened at the culmination of the performance. The lead actor was stabbed to death by a member of the crowd who charged onto the stage.”
“…That’s messed up.”
“Well, I was the one who planned it, I suppose.”
“You put ’em up to it, eh?”
Vicius trembled as the memory came rushing back to her.
“You see… At that point I had watched that same play so many times, and whenever it came to the city, it always made me think… How might the audience react were I to completely crush the resolution that they were all hoping for? Hoh hoh. Perhaps in my repeat viewings, I came to sympathize with the mighty noble who was always overthrown at the climax.”
It grated upon me too, perhaps… The role of the lead actor, and those companions that flocked to his side.
“To give you a brief overview… The play features a powerful and evil noble who tortures their subjects and is finally brought down by a humble country blacksmith and his friends… That is about the shape of it, though in the end it’s revealed that the blacksmith is in fact the son of an exiled noble who was once the swordplay instructor of the royal house. But well, hmm…how should I put this…” Vicius pushed her thumb hard into one of the pieces of cold meat on her plate, pressing it almost flat. “The way in which all the blacksmith’s companions rally to his side—the whole ‘we can defeat that noble if we just work together!’ tripe—personally, I just don’t like it. Things just don’t work out like that in the real world, you know? Let’s all keep our eyes on reality, shall we? But every time the play was on, the audience would get swept up in that ‘you can do it!’ fervor. Terrifying, don’t you think? They know the way the story ends, yet still they grow so emotional.”
Vicius licked the fat from the thick piece of meat on her finger. A thin strand of it remained on her lips as she continued.
“It was just perfect. The way the audience looked when it happened… I think that’s what humans are really useful for. From the bottom of my heart, truly, deeply, I do.”
Wormgandr tossed a clean handkerchief to Vicius.
“So you’re sayin’ the anti-Vicius crowd are like the audience of that old play, huh?” he asked.
Vicius caught the handkerchief, wiped off her fingers, and looked at him with a troubled expression on her face.
“Yes, quite so. Everyone’s joining hands, making friends… They operate under the illusion that they’re on top of the world now, I think. A misunderstanding. Those brats have gotten it wrong. I’m sure that, buoyed by their solidarity and sense of morale, they now believe that they can win this war… But reality is not so kind as to allow this hopeful nonsense to go unchecked. They are not children anymore…don’t you agree? So, well…”
Vicius tossed away her handkerchief.