The Main Character is the Villain

"Please... kill... me..."

Gape, gape. The hole that was presumably a mouth was moving. I needed to know if this guy understood my words. A parrot that only said 'kill me' had no value.

"You want to die? If you want to die, try nodding your head."

"You devil bastard..."

I heard Eve insulting me from behind, but I ignored her and focused on the aphrodisiac criminal in front of me. The criminal slowly nodded his head. It seemed his hearing and judgment were normal. To think he was really just flayed alive. Was that bitch Karin a butcher in a past life?

"Please... I want... to die..."

"Where are you selling the aphrodisiacs? Your base?"

The original plan was to rough up the aphrodisiac sellers and come to a win-win, but if they all ended up dead like this, there was no room for a win-win. Unfortunately, it seemed there was no other way but to execute justice and establish discipline.

Eve, bound in iron chains, rolled her body to get closer to me. When I glanced at her, she held out her bound hands as if it were no big deal, appealing that she was safe. The aphrodisiac criminal showed a sign of thought for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

"Peta Territory... the mansion... back... mountain... cave..." Is this what they mean by it’s darkest under the lamp? To think the aphrodisiac sellers had made a hideout on the mountain behind the mansion. I asked about other things, like an organizational chart and a few miscellaneous details, and the aphrodisiac seller easily spilled everything. The torture expert from the kingdom was certainly on another level. Even without her here, the criminal trembled as if being tortured, confessing the price of his sins.

If I had done it, he would have died during the torture. The criminal, having finished his testimony, was pathetically repeating his pleas to be killed. Since there was nothing more to find out, I was planning to kill this criminal.

I'm different from a psychopath like Karin, after all.

But I belatedly realized I hadn't brought my mace. So I touched my waist and then looked at Eve. Eve, suddenly meeting my eyes, flinched in surprise and subtly backed away.

"Do you have a gun?"

"A gun? Ah, yeah. It should be at my waist."

As Eve nodded, I entered the iron cage where she was. I felt her waist and saw a single gun stuck there. When I touched her waist, Eve looked at me with a very unpleasant face.

"Don't fucking grope me in weird places, you crazy murderer religious fanatic bastard."

"You seem to have a repugnance for religion. You shouldn't."

"The fuck are you on about?! It's not religion I hate, it's you, you fucking bitch with a ruined personality! And you were using informal speech just fine before, so why the fuck are you using formal speech now!"

Why else? It's to piss you off. I pulled the pistol from her waistband and looked it over. It was just a pistol. The kind of pistol you'd see in a pirate movie set in the Caribbean, loaded with powder and ready to fire with just a pull of the trigger. Eve said.

"It's loaded, so..."

Bang!

I immediately aimed the gun at the aphrodisiac merchant's head and pulled the trigger. A small hole appeared in his head, and the faintly twitching merchant stopped moving. Looking around, the place was full of traces of torture. I had wanted to make this underground prison a more comfortable place. It seemed that was a lost cause now.

I confiscated the gun from Eve and called for Robin. Eve screamed at me to give back her gun, but I completely ignored her.

"Robin."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Leave only Eve in the basement and clean everything else up. The bloodstains, the corpse, and all that."

"Yes, I understand."

"And could you bring me a map? Bring it to the bathhouse."

As Robin disappeared to carry out my orders, I headed for the bathhouse. Not to wash myself, but to meet Cellu. Cellu was limply splashing around in a bathtub installed separately in the bathhouse. As she caressed the bathroom floor, she saw me and grinned. For a murderer mermaid who went around killing humans, Cellu was quite sociable.

"You're here? What are you curious about? Me? My body? My preferences?"

"Tell me more about Evangeline."

"Evangeline?"

"Yes. You mentioned it before. That Evangeline proposed wiping out the city to you. But you said you refused."

"Eung. Eung. That's right."

"What did Evangeline look like?"

The name Evangeline had never appeared in the game. It was a game where the ending came after you caught the demon king. Come to think of it, the demon king in the game never called out a name like Evangeline either. He just died screaming 'How regrettable' as his dying words.

Something was definitely a little different. I saw this being, Evangeline, at the center of all these changes. I didn't know her identity, but to solve all the mysterious incidents happening in this world, I had to eliminate this existence called Evangeline.

"I don't know."

Cellu shook her head and replied that she didn't know. Expecting to find a clue, I couldn't help but get annoyed.

"You don't know?"

"Eung. She wore a mask. I only know she's a woman. But I don't know what race or what kind of woman she is. She wore a mask and covered her whole body with cloth."

"Her body type?"

"Just a normal human woman's body type. Her size was about that, too."

"What was her voice like? If you knew she was a woman, you must have heard her voice."

"It was just a human voice. Should I imitate it for you?"

"You're going to imitate it?"

"Heh... I'm a mermaid. Voice imitation is easy."

Cellu grinned, cleared her throat, and closed her eyes. And at the moment she opened her mouth to imitate the voice, Cellu scrunched up her face and closed her mouth again. Tilting her head, she opened her mouth once more to imitate the voice, but nothing changed.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't do it."

"What did you say?"

"What did you say?"

Cellu suddenly imitated me. She repeated what I had just said without a single syllable's difference and tilted her head again.

"That's strange. I can do yours."

"You mean you can't imitate only Evangeline's voice?"

"Eung. How should I put it? It feels like I can't explain anything more specific than this."

"You can't explain specifically? Did Evangeline have any particular habits or ways of speaking?"

"Uhm... I can't say?"

"Pardon?"

Cellu, also looking flustered, was touching her own mouth. She opened her mouth again to try and explain something. Cellu's mouth gaped like she was speaking underwater. Pushing out her lips to a somewhat obscene degree, Cellu struggled to speak.

"So, Evangeline is... I can't say. I can't talk about Evangeline? I can't speak. What? Evangeline is a woman, has a normal body type, and I can't say?"

Cellu was repeating "I can't say" like a parrot. It didn't seem like she was messing with me. In front of me, Cellu tried for a long time to explain Evangeline's other features. But the attempt was futile every time. She tried to draw pictures or write letters in the air, and she even tried to explain it vaguely with other words.

But every possibility Cellu and I tried ended in failure. Her hand, trying to draw, would tremble and move in a random direction, or whenever she seemed to get close to describing Evangeline, the words "I can't say" would pop out. Cellu scratched her head and frowned.

"That's strange. I was trying to be cooperative. Why can't I speak?"

"Does Eve know Evangeline too?"

Come to think of it, the reason I wanted to see Eve earlier was to ask about this Evangeline. I was momentarily flustered by the lump of meat prisoner and didn't think of it, but that was the original purpose. Cellu nodded.

"Eung. Eung. Eve was there when Evangeline and I talked. But Eve hated Evangeline."

That was enough. I left Cellu in the bathroom again and went outside. With good timing, Robin was waiting in the hallway with a map. He asked me.

"Um, have you finished your bath?"

Since I told him to bring it to the bathhouse, he must have thought it meant he should wait until I was finished bathing. No wonder he didn't come. I nodded and took the map. The map showed the area of the lord's mansion back mountain in detail. I estimated the hideout's location as the prisoner had described and pointed to the area with my finger.

"I'll ask you to lead the guard corps and the knight order to investigate centered on this area here."

"Yes, I understand."

Robin nodded and went outside again. Now, I had to head back to the cleaned underground prison. If Karin hadn't made such a mess, this would have been over in one go, but thanks to her, I was uselessly going back and forth.

Eve was lying in the underground prison with a more comfortable expression than before. The prison that had reeked of blood was now cleaner than expected on the inside, becoming a prison with just a faint smell of blood. Eve was rolling around on a bed in an iron cage in the middle of the underground prison, her body bound with iron chains.

"Why are you here again?"

"I have something to ask you."

"Something to ask?"

"Do you know about Evangeline?"

"Evangeline? Aah..."

At the name Evangeline, Eve frowned for a moment, then nodded as if she remembered something. I asked Eve.

"Who is Evangeline?"

"I don't know. She suddenly appeared on the island and said she was Evangeline. She talked with my mom for quite a while, but it seems the conversation didn't go well."

"What did Evangeline look like?"

"Uhm... She wore a mask and had her whole body covered in cloth, but she said it was hot and took off her hat for a moment. I saw it then... I can't say?"

Eve frowned. Only then could I be sure. Unless Cellu and Eve had conspired to talk about Evangeline, this was someone hiding their existence through magic or some kind of prohibition.

Eve opened her mouth and tried to say something several times, but the shape of her mouth couldn't form the words.

"You mean you saw her hair color?"

"I don't know?"

"Just try nodding your head."

"K... Kkgh...!"

At that moment, Eve's head shot up, and she slammed it right into the wall of the underground prison.

Thud!Thud!Thud!

Surprised by her repeatedly smashing her head, I pulled Eve away from the wall. She stared at the wall with an expression of not understanding what had just happened. Eve's forehead was split open, and blood trickled down.

"What the fuck..."

Eve muttered with a bewildered face. I scratched my head. This way, there was no way to find out about Evangeline from Cellu and Eve.