Chapter 55

“Can you save Anne…?”

“Yes. His name is Louis, right? I might need your help.”

“I’ll do it!”

055

The Spider’s Web (Part 1)

“Corruption waits cunningly for its moment.”

Louis spat out his last words and lowered his head, staying still for a long time.

It was unnatural. No matter how still a person is, they breathe, and if their heart beats, their body should move slightly. But his body didn’t budge at all. As if it were a lifeless corpse or a doll.

Soon, Louis raised his head again. Nothing had changed. The reflection in the mirror was the same.

For now.

“Ha.”

His mouth opened, and he let out a low breath.

Then, Louis bent over and began to laugh maniacally.

=Ahahahahahaha!=

His unbalanced body flailed on the floor. His limbs flailed wildly, colliding and bending in all directions. But as if he couldn’t feel the pain, or as if it wasn’t his own body, Louis kept laughing.

The madness continued until a servant entered, and until his genitals, which had avoided collision unlike his other limbs, slammed into the wall.

“Ugh.”

For the first time, Louis seemed to feel pain, groaning and grimacing. The servant who entered was horrified by the chaotic scene.

Was it madness? The servant was bewildered by the irrational reaction when Louis suddenly stood up.

“Isn’t this fun?”

“Y-yes?”

“Look at this!”

What Louis spread out to the servant was a calm yet embarrassing letter. The contents he had intended to send to Anne.

“Look at her struggling till the end. I almost feel sorry for her. Should I show this to Anne?”

The servant quickly sensed something was wrong. The sudden mania and bizarre behavior of the usually quiet and gloomy figure in the mansion. The way he referred to himself as if he were someone else.

But the servant’s only chance was the moment he first opened the door and entered. To run, scream, or fight back—none of it was possible for him anymore.

Louis hummed a tune as he circled the frozen servant. Of course, his severed leg didn’t regenerate, so hopping on one leg looked grotesque.

“No way.”

The shadows stretched and shrank repeatedly. Light and darkness crossed over the servant’s face as if stabbing with a spear.

Louis giggled and lowered his head. When he opened his mouth, teeth, like candy, fell out in a clatter. Then, traces of something crawled out from his throat, pushing through his lips and flying out.

“Servants should listen to their masters, right? There are too many naughty children forgetting their duties.”

The humming spread. Though his appearance was clearly male, the melody gradually shifted to a female’s, and finally soared into a frequency beyond human perception.

No sound was heard, yet an inaudible sound was heard. With a snap, something broke in the servant’s ear, and blood flowed down.

=The king dragged down the god, the people dragged down the king. The sleeping god will not return, but the awakened king will return again and again~=

Louis turned his head to look at the servant. His eyes were now empty.

Louis’s eyes met the servant’s. Eyes that had been ordinary human eyes just moments ago now split and multiplied into dozens of insect-like compound eyes. Louis grinned and lightly stabbed the servant’s eyeball with his sharp, blackened finger.

Squelch. The sound of something being crushed.

But as Louis pulled his finger out, the pierced eyeball swelled back up as if nothing had happened. The servant, now with compound eyes like Louis’s, stood up with an expressionless face.

=Bring your friends.=

The servant left without even a nod, walking awkwardly as if having only two legs was unfamiliar.

Louis didn’t reprimand the servant’s rudeness, just watched his retreating back with a spinning smile. Of course.

Who would scold their own limbs for not being polite?

*

Knock knock. The mansion remained silent even after knocking.

The messenger waited for a moment. He needed a breather too, having ridden here from the Inquisition Temple and run on his two legs.

The urgent message he carried was trivial compared to the sweat he had shed. It was just a note from Anne to Louis, saying she would be a few days late due to some business.

But even such a trivial message was important to the messenger, who had been taken in as an orphan by the Cardinal’s subordinate. He did his best.

Knock knock.

“Is anyone here?”

After a long wait, the door finally opened.

The atmosphere inside the mansion was eerie. Even in broad daylight, the shadows were deep, and flies buzzed everywhere. The messenger frowned as he looked around.

‘Where did the person who opened the door go?’

It was rude to wander around someone else’s mansion alone, especially for someone of his low status. To avoid causing any trouble for his superior, he had to be extra cautious.

But when no one appeared, the messenger had no choice but to proceed. He couldn’t wait forever.

He had a role to fulfill.

“By the way, what’s with all these bugs…? Ugh, I’ll have to report this to His Eminence later.”

Even as a lowly servant, he had his pride and consciousness. No one to greet or guide him, and bugs swarming inside the mansion? It could only be seen as the servants’ negligence.

Thinking he would report this later to discipline them, the servant cautiously walked further into the mansion, careful not to be rude.

“A letter has arrived from Lady Anne! Is anyone here?”

A sinister, uncomfortable feeling tickled the back of his neck. An inexplicable unease. Despite wanting to turn back immediately, he pressed on, driven more by not wanting to disappoint his benefactor than by professional duty.

But frustratingly, there was no one on the first floor. Someone might be holed up in a room, but he couldn’t just open doors. Reluctantly, the messenger swallowed his discomfort and went up to the second floor.

“Are you a guest?”

Fortunately, this time he found his destination quickly. A single open door among the closed ones. A thin voice came from within.

Though the androgynous voice made him tilt his head in confusion, the messenger approached. Inside the doorframe, the person he was to deliver the letter to was waiting.

“Welcome. I can’t get up, so I apologize for not being able to greet you properly.”

“Ah, no… Lord Louis.”

Even if the other was a heretic, the messenger maintained his manners.

At least outwardly, Louis looked unmistakably human. His severed leg still had the genitals attached, and he appeared pale and sickly, hardly resembling a demon. There was nothing strange about him.

Except that he wasn’t opening his eyes, even as his gaze followed.

“By the way, you said a letter arrived?”

The messenger had shouted at the mansion’s door, but could it really reach the farthest room on the second floor? The fleeting question was buried before it could take shape. As the messenger nodded awkwardly, Louis reached out his hand.

Taking the letter, Louis nodded as if reading it. But with his eyes closed, the action looked like a ridiculous performance.

Perhaps because his first impression of the other wasn’t good, even such a trivial action quickly soured the messenger’s mood. Or maybe it was something else.

-Perhaps he just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, under any pretext.

“Then, I’ll take my leave…”

“Leaving so soon? I feel bad sending you off like this. Have some tea.”

“…Alright.”

Though it seemed there were no servants in the mansion, how was tea prepared? Wondering, the messenger couldn’t refuse Louis’s offer and sat down.

Perhaps he was even a little touched by the noble treatment given to a mere messenger. Slurp. The messenger clumsily sipped the tea.

“Cup.”

Stagger.

His mind became a jumbled mess. What had been veiling his eyes was washed away, only to be replaced by something else.

The messenger swayed, blinking his eyes. Then, he saw the ‘correct’ scene.

“Ah.”

There had been no tea time. The messenger had unknowingly thrown the teacup he was holding—a hollowed-out skull with bone fragments floating in blood.

Louis, who should have been unable to stand without legs, stood like a scarecrow on one leg, grinning grotesquely down at him.

=You said you’re a messenger, right?=

He—no, it—had opened its eyes. Dozens of pitch-black compound eyes reflected the terrified faces without missing a single detail.

=Then deliver it. Everything you’ve seen and experienced.=

He was no warrior, no human blessed by the gods. To demand he stand against such a fully bloomed monstrosity was too cruel for the messenger.

Wetting himself, the messenger fled. Louis didn’t chase, just watched the retreating back with a torn smile. The letter the messenger left behind fluttered to the floor, soon devoured by a swarm of black bugs. As if there was no need to check its contents.

The messenger didn’t see his efforts vanish into nothingness, too busy running. The words the heretic had spat echoed in his mind.

‘You can live.’

He had said ‘Your Highness.’ And since corpses can’t deliver messages, he wouldn’t die.

He would survive and escape the heretic’s den. As the heretic said, he would return to the Inquisition Temple and report everything to His Eminence the Cardinal. He would declare the judgment that must come.

If only he could escape this place, if only he could survive…

He ran through the mansion’s corridors, as if struck by the direct force of time. With each step, the rotten wooden floor creaked, laughing like a spider mocking a trapped butterfly. He averted his eyes from the bloodstains and bits of flesh scattered everywhere.

Had he ever run this fast in his life? He leaped down the stairs to the first floor.

The door swung open as if beckoning him to leave. But seeing the open path, the messenger hesitated and stopped. The servants, who knew where they had been hiding.

Servants with the same compound eyes, lined up on either side of the red carpet, as if dozens of twins. An overly extravagant welcome. Too much to step through.

But he couldn’t stand there forever, so he gritted his teeth and ran again.

“Gasp, gasp…”

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of pairs of eyes chased after him like a tail. But unlike the expected horrific outcome, the servants just stood there as if seeing him off, none reaching out or trying to stop him.

The exit was in sight. Unlike the dark, eerie interior, the outside was warm and bright. The servants didn’t try to restrain him until the end.

Finally, as his foot stepped on the threshold.

Thud.

A loud echo. Though no one had touched it, the door slammed shut on its own, crushing the body caught in between into fragments.

In the brief moment before life completely faded, the last thing the messenger felt wasn’t extreme pain or the fleeting hope of being saved. Just.

=Ha.=

=Haha.=

=Hahahahaha.=

Laughter. Devoid of joy, hatred, ecstasy, or pleasure, utterly inorganic.

The overlapping, hollow bursts of laughter, though clearly from human vocal cords, were indistinguishable from the buzzing of a swarm of insects.