Lydilia’s birth mother, the prostitute, had never wanted her. After selling off her daughter for a big sum, she had disappeared from Lydilia’s life for good. That made Lydilia fulfill her duties with the Evans family ever more diligently, for the sake of those people who needed her—the kingdom and her family—even if that meant sacrificing her own health. And yet what everyone wanted was her achievements, not Lydilia herself.
“No one has ever hugged me! Let alone read me a picture book...! Even as I lay dying...they were all too busy talking about how to hide my death!”
“That’s what I thought,” Allen said.
After her death, Lydilia’s body was cremated, despite the fact that the most common custom in the kingdom was to bury the dead. Likely, they didn’t want to leave any evidence of her death. It wasn’t hard to imagine how much this must have made the saint despair—the little girl whose only wish had been to be loved.
“I keep telling you... I’m sick and tired of this world... Why don’t you get it?!” As Lydilia howled, a gust of magic wind assaulted Allen. “Die, you fool!”
BOOM!!!
A thunderous rumble shook the mansion. Thick plumes of smoke rose in the living room, and there was a large hole in the wall facing the garden. Caressed by the chilly breeze blowing in from the hole, Lydilia breathed hard, her shoulders heaving. Allen grasped her shoulders from behind.
“Not a bad move. But in the end, it’s only a child’s trick,” he said.
“Wha—wh-when did you—?!” Lydilia widened her eyes in shock.
“Listen, Lydilia. The days of everyone fawning over you as the saint were no less than three hundred years ago. Of course, there’s been much progress in magic technology during all that time. Now, in the modern age...there’s no way an old-fashioned saint can hope to match up to this Dark Overlord!” Before Lydilia could move, Allen attacked.
“Eek?!” Lydilia flinched back. But eventually, she timidly raised her face when she realized that he hadn’t used any magic. “What the...oh, what is this?!” Her eyes went round at the large, thick collar that hung around her neck. The leather belt was held by an ostentatious lock. Despite its chunky aesthetic, it was much lighter than it looked.
“Hmph, that’s something that didn’t exist in your day. We can call it the gift of modern technological progress.” Allen scoffed and pointed a finger straight at Lydilia. “It’s a special enchanted object. Believe it or not, it’s a cursed item that can absorb ninety-nine percent of the wearer’s power...and make it impossible for them to use magic!”
“Th-That’s ridiculous...! There! There! Come on!!!” Lydilia waved her fingers desperately at Allen. Normally, bursts of wind, or fire, or ice would have shot out from them, but now, she could only generate a gentle breeze.
Such magic harnesses were usually used in prisons. Before the party began, Allen had whipped one up himself. For the Dark Overlord, this level of magic was easy as pie.
“Without your magic power, a saint is as good as a baby! See, try and hit me. You’re helpless against the Dark Overlord!”
“Grrr... It doesn’t matter. I can beat you up even without magic! There, there...!”
“Mwa ha ha ha ha! What’s this? Are you trying to tickle me? You think you can beat me with those flimsy punches?”
“Mrrrrrr...!” She pummeled Allen feverishly, but he was completely unaffected. As she grew more and more frustrated, tears again brimmed in the corners of her eyes, and her punches became even more feeble.
On the surface, she still looked like Charlotte, so it pained him to do this, but Allen steeled himself and kept on taunting Lydilia. It must have looked utterly unseemly to the others watching from the sidelines. The group was already eyeing him coldly.
“Ugh... Grow up, bro,” Eluka complained.
“I dunno, that just looks wrong to me,” Roo joined in.
“Well, I approve of his idea of making her powerless without harming my sister’s body...but I have to say his awful personality shows through,” Natalia commented.
“Even I am slightly mortified by this, and I’m a beast,” Gosetsu said.
“Shut up!” Allen snapped back at the four of them. “This is the way I teach!”
But Charlotte frowned from the mirror in Natalia’s arms. “It’s not nice to bully her so much, Allen. If that story is true...Lydilia is only a little girl, after all.”
“Oh! But, uh, this isn’t bullying; this is teaching her discipline...” Allen’s defense trailed off.
“It’s still not nice. Don’t be a meanie, Allen.”
“Okay...” Allen hung his head in shame.
“Y-You’re ridiculously tame...” Lydilia pierced him with a withering look even as she tried to fight back her tears.
He pulled himself together and cleared his throat. “Exactly. Charlotte has tamed me. But...I’m so much stronger than a little kid like you!” Pointing his thumb at himself, he declared, “Unlike those grown-ups around you three hundred years ago, I would never, ever use you. You know why? It’s far more efficient to do everything myself than rely on an ordinary child!”
“Me...an ordinary child?” Lydilia stared at Allen, dumbfounded. “Do you...really mean that?”
“Of course. As far as I’m concerned, most people are mediocre anyway.” He crouched down in front of Lydilia and peered into her miserable face with a grin. “I can treat you like a normal kid. And I can love you like a normal kid.”
“I... I...!” Lydilia choked up. Her face slowly crumpled, and the big teardrops returned. She couldn’t stop weeping now. “I’m sick of it all...! Even if I can bring myself to hope for something better, I know I’m going to be betrayed sooner or later! That’s why...that’s why I wanted to end it all... Why do you start spouting platitudes that make me hope again?!”
“Well...I can’t just watch you suffer, that’s all.” Allen gently stroked Lydilia’s head as she wailed. The way she cried was just like a child, abandoning herself to her emotions. These must be the true feelings that she had been hiding for so long. “If you’re afraid of betrayal...how about we do it like this?” Allen casually snapped his fingers. A pattern of symbols glowed around his own neck; the same pattern appeared on Lydilia’s index finger. “I just cast a death curse on myself,” he announced.
“Huh...?”
“Unlike the curse I used before, it’s a spell I can’t lift on my own!” he explained. “The moment you feel that you have been betrayed by me...my heart will stop beating!”
“Whaaat?!” Lydilia stopped crying and let out a high-pitched shriek. “A-Are you in your right mind...?! That’s such a vague trigger—what kind of wizard curses himself like that?!”
In contrast to Lydilia, who blanched in shock, Charlotte, Natalia, and the rest nodded to each other in agreement.
“Well, that’s the way he is, after all...”
“Wouldn’t put it past the Dark Overlord...”
“All I have to do is keep you satisfied, right? Easy.” Allen shrugged nonchalantly. He peered into Lydilia’s face and grinned mischievously. “First, I’ll teach you how to read. And I’ll read aloud all the picture books you want.”
“Really...?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll read them over and over again until you get bored.” Once the weather got a little warmer, they could go on trips too. They could bring a packed lunch to have picnics outside, go visit the zoo of magical beasts, or amble aimlessly around the city. “And ordinary, uneventful days can be fun too, you know. You wake up, eat, play, study...then take a bath and go to sleep. I promise to give you days like that that would make you yawn.”
Allen held out his hand to Lydilia—to save a girl in tears, just like the time he saved Charlotte when she was ensnared in a nightmare. “Let’s become a family, Lydilia! I’ll make sure you never feel lonely again. I promise!”
“Allen...” Lydilia held her breath, her eyes brimming with tears.
The icy, hardened wall around her heart was beginning to crack. It was palpable to Allen. Just then, he had a peculiar sense of déjà vu. Hm...?
He had a feeling that he’d heard that line before. Those words he had just uttered—someone, somewhere, had told him the same thing in the past. His memory of it was vague and elusive, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling. Was it Uncle...? Maybe, but it could’ve been someone else... Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The moment passed, and he turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand as Lydilia slowly shook her head.
“No...that’s one thing I can’t do,” she said.
“Don’t be stubborn, Lydilia. I must’ve swayed you a little, haven’t I?”
“Even if that was true...this body belongs to Charlotte.” Lydilia pressed a hand to her heart with a sigh. “If my consciousness stays in this body, I’ll be a nuisance to Charlotte. I don’t want to step over the rights of the living just so I can live again...”
“That’s nothing to worry about.” Allen patted her slumped shoulders with a smirk. Such concerns were trivial to him, of course. “When I set my mind on something, I see it through to the very end. Just leave it to me.”
♢
As the world outside the window slipped into darkness, Allen was wrapping up his work in the laboratory.
“All right. How do you feel? Does the body fit?” he asked.
“Mmm...” The figure in front of him gave a small nod, clenching and unclenching her hands. The little girl, about ten years old in appearance, had translucent silver hair and vivid, scarlet eyes. But aside from those features, she looked exactly like a younger version of Charlotte. Since he didn’t have any children’s clothes at hand, one of his shirts hung over her frame like a baggy dress. Though she looked like a dainty girl that anyone would want to protect with their life, there was a sharp gleam in her eyes as she gazed up at Allen. “This body is a homunculus, isn’t it...? Did you make it from scratch just so I can have another vessel?”
“O-Of course I did! Why else would I make a thing like this?!”
“Why did that question make you flustered...?” The girl—Lydilia—squinted at him with even more suspicion.
Allen had separated Lydilia’s consciousness from Charlotte’s soul and transferred it to the body of the homunculus. Though it sounded like a straightforward procedure, it did require advanced skills that could trip up even intermediate wizards. For Allen the Dark Overlord, however, the whole thing had been easy as pie.
Who would’ve guessed this unsettling gift I made for Charlotte’s birthday could come in handy like this...? It was a stroke of good luck that he had stored it away.