3 - The Duke's Bride is a Warrior from Hell
“……Haa, haa, haa. You son of a bitches.”
Alisha, wearing a dress with the skirt torn off below the knees, gasped for breath and spat out blood-tinged saliva.
The Stone Beasts’ dwelling had become a murder scene.
Between the wide cracks in the rocks, four pups and one adult lay dead.
Alisha had killed them all.
The fact that the original nine pups had been reduced to four was thanks to Alisha’s prior work.
When Alisha had been captured, the pups, no bigger than puppies, had grown rapidly and become much larger.
For the past twenty-odd days, Alisha had been torn apart during the day and recovered slightly from her wounds in the evening.
For the first two days, she couldn’t believe the situation.
It wasn’t until the third day, when the torn flesh healed, that she attempted to escape, only to be dragged back in vain.
After repeated failed escape attempts, Alisha changed her approach.
Instead of escaping, she would eliminate the pups when the adult was away.
First, she tore off all the frilly lace of her dress.
She also shortened the ankle-length skirt.
As a result, the area being torn apart increased, but since it recovered no matter how much was torn, she stopped feeling pain from the tenth day onward.
At first, she charged recklessly without any skill or technique, with the torn areas not fully healed, so killing even one pup was difficult.
Even though they looked like living piles of stones, harming the small, innocent creatures wasn’t easy.
Thinking about it and putting it into action were too different.
She dragged one of the pups out of the cave, hit it once, and then trembled with fear, not wanting to do it.
When the one she hit growled and barked, she apologized.
It was also difficult to find a suitable weapon, so she sometimes tied the pups she dragged out with the torn dress and left them far away.
The adult didn’t notice until three pups had disappeared.
When four had disappeared, it went looking for them, but after repeatedly having its flesh torn off every day, Alisha felt no guilt.
Alisha learned the Stone Beasts’ weaknesses and attack methods by killing five pups.
Even after gaining some skill and preparing to have half the flesh on her body torn off, killing the adult wasn’t easy.
She was tempted to run away countless times.
But knowing that if she ran, she would be dragged back and the situation of having her flesh torn off would repeat, she charged like a madwoman.
Maybe she wasn’t just acting like a madwoman; maybe she already was one.
Alisha still couldn’t believe that the situation before her was real.
“All dead, you son of a bitches.”
Alisha muttered harsh words that she would never have said twenty days ago.
She gathered the Stone Beasts’ corpses, which were lying scattered among the wide cracks in the rocks, and threw them to one side, then lay down for the first time in a long while.
She rested with a refreshing feeling after finishing a difficult fight, rather than fainting from fear or the pain of being torn apart.
It was a new feeling.
The fear and revulsion towards violence remained, but she didn’t dislike the feeling of doing her part.
She had done it entirely alone, without anyone’s help.
What should she do now?
She hoped that she would return to where she had been, as she had when she first fell here, but the surroundings hadn’t changed.
One thing was clear.
She had to survive here somehow.
[Benedict Era 358, April 1st]
Even Hell had night and day.
During the day, scorching heat poured down from the red sky.
Each breath filled the body with intense heat.
The night was slightly better than the day in terms of heat, but it couldn’t be called good.
At night, a slight darkness settled over the intense red sky.
The shadows in the cracks of the rocks, valleys, and dunes of the desert made it possible to see only what was nearby at night.
It was not a good environment for moving around in unfamiliar places.
Although less than during the day, the heat continued subtly because the sun didn’t disappear.
A wanderer with a large spear on their back walked through the deep crimson landscape.
The figure, with their head and face wrapped tightly in a long cloth, crossed the dry, hot land and entered a narrow path filled with humid heat.
Not only the head and face but also the exposed parts of the arms were wrapped in cloth.
Unlike the upper body and legs, which were tightly wrapped in dark cloth, the skirt was short, about a hand’s breadth above the knees.
Over the tattered clothes, a leather guard fixed at the waist was added like a leather skirt.
The sound of clanking echoed each time the wanderer, walking alone on the empty land, moved.
It seemed they had more equipment besides the spear on their back.
Perhaps because of the large spear, the wanderer’s body looked thin and small.
Alisha, walking through the crimson landscape, stopped.
She lowered the mouth area of the hood covering her face and took out a large candy-like object from the pocket of her leather guard, pushing it between her lips.
The Magic Stone, shaped like candy, emitted a bright blue light, showing off its specialness, but Alisha didn’t care.
She diligently moved her jaw, chewing the refreshing candy in her mouth.
Each time Alisha’s jaw moved, a crunching sound echoed.
At the end of the long, narrow path stood a dark, gloomy castle.
Around the castle were beautiful fences and gates about twice the height of a person.
The vine patterns on the gate were elegant and refined, unlike what one would expect from Hell.
Alisha pulled out her spear and ran towards the castle.
With a crash! The elegant gate shattered.
Alisha continued to run without stopping.
The entrance to the castle opened slowly, making a gloomy sound.
Alisha kept running.
Befitting the scale seen from the outside, the castle’s hall was enormous.
A large chandelier in the center of the ceiling spread a soft light.
On the platform facing the castle’s entrance, beautiful chandeliers were decorated along the stairs.
A man with narrow eyes sitting on the throne on the platform smiled.
The man with strangely long eyes was not human, so calling him a man might be wrong.
As a creature of Hell, he had skin as dark as the people of the Southern Continent, well-baked by the scorching Hellfire.
When his deep brown eyes spread a smile again and he opened his mouth, jagged teeth were revealed, indicating that he was not human.
“Welcome, visitor……!”
Alisha threw her spear at the man’s forehead as he spoke.
An unreadable black character was engraved on his forehead.
The spear accurately shattered the black character and pierced his head.
Thud!
Before the man impaled by the spear could even fall, Alisha climbed the stairs to the platform.
By the time she reached the platform, the corpse pierced by the spear was sprawled out.
“Goodbye, you son of a bitch.”
Alisha retrieved her spear and glanced at him.
The administrator of the western hall of Hell and the owner of West Alik Castle scattered like dust from his shattered forehead.
Alisha watched the slowly dustifying lord of the castle and searched through the pile of dust, finding a fist-sized mineral.
She didn’t miss any of the minerals that were about one or two finger joints in size.
“Not bad.”
Alisha brushed off the dust and put the smaller ones in the pocket of her leather guard.
Tossing the large Magic Stone ore up and down, Alisha nodded repeatedly.
Alisha roughly swept away the traces of the man who had looked similar to a human until just now with her spear.
She took out a tattered leather map from a flat leather bag and checked the place name.
“As expected, you have to hit the head. Should I go to East Castle next? What was the name of the eastern castle again, East… Noah… Castle?”
Since the lord of West Castle left behind this much Magic Stone, the lord of East Castle would also give up this much Magic Stone.
She satisfactorily checked her spoils once more and tossed the largest spoil into the air and caught it.
She had poured all her strength into it for a while, so she felt like she needed to rest a bit.
Alisha, who was about to lie down next to her spear, changed her mind and decided to take care of the annoying thing before lying down.
Alisha, holding the spear she had laid down, threw the ore she had just acquired into the air.
Then, she broke the ore with her spear.
Crack!
The thick, dull shell surrounding the Magic Stone broke, and a brilliant light burst out.
Alisha reached out towards the Magic Stone, which emitted a strong red light.
The Magic Stone, which was strongly emitting light, pleased to be out in the world again, soon had to hide its light and become subdued.
It was supposed to settle in her hand, but her hand felt empty.
The light didn’t disappear either.
“Huh? Wait a minute…….”
Alisha faced the illusion of her vision darkening.
Soon, she was engulfed in a sensation where her spatial sense was messed up, and she felt like she was falling or being thrown into the air.
It was a return.
At least, it seemed like it.
“Wai, wait a minute……. Aaaaaah!”
Those were the last words that Alicia Lane left in Hell.
Alisha opened her eyes in deep blue velvet.
The velvet with the Gold thread pattern was warm and soft.
And heavy.
The girl’s purple eyes trembled uneasily.
Beyond the large room, the sound of footsteps climbing the stone stairs at the far end of the hallway could be heard faintly.
Alisha immediately closed her eyes.
She pretended to be asleep, then opened her eyes wide again.
She roughly threw off the antique blanket and sat up.
Alisha looked around the room and muttered.
“I’m back……?”
The face that slipped off the bed slowly looked around.
The luxurious, beautiful, and elegant space, which she had never been aware of in the past, was clearly imprinted in her vision.
In the past, she had only been intimidated by the high status of her family while living here.
Now that she saw it, she was living with great reverence, befitting a lady of the great northern Reine family.
“The fact that I’m here means…….”
The footsteps that had been walking down the hallway stopped, and soon the door rang.
Knock, knock, knock.
Alisha turned her head towards the sound.
The people who had only existed in her memories were living and breathing here.
She would be able to see their faces and talk to them.
“Young Lady.”
A calm voice came from beyond the door.
Alisha forgot to even breathe for a moment at the sound of Daisy’s voice, which had always felt scary and stern to her as a child.
It was the real Daisy’s voice.
“…….”
It was a very strange feeling.
For some reason, the memory of being left alone in an unfamiliar place and being torn apart alive confused her mind.
She was glad to hear the voice after a long time, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to laugh and run out.
But unlike her heart, Alisha couldn’t do anything.
She was just hesitating whether to open her lips or not.
She only wanted to slap her cheek to confirm that this wasn’t a dream.
“Lady Alisha?”
Daisy’s voice was lowered in response to the silence in the quiet room.
“Daisy……?”
Alisha whispered towards the tightly closed door.
“Are you awake? I will come in.”
Daisy, who had expressed a strange feeling at the silence in the room, quickly returned to her original stern attitude after hearing Alisha’s voice.
Soon the door opened.
The time it took for the door to open felt like an eternity.
