F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 179: Hidden Sadness

I continued the angel’s torture for three days. I didn’t stop to eat, rest, or sleep—not because I didn’t want to, but because I became so immersed in the act of torturing and the guilt I felt that I didn’t notice time passing until the angel girl gave in.

By the second day, she was already screaming desperately everything she knew, but I didn’t stop the torture. She was still in tremendous pain, though I never actually prevented her from speaking, even if her voice became hoarse and mangled after a certain point.

And I obtained some success. First, the reason these angels had come around here. It turns out the angels had marked 19 locations on the continent where they could attempt to build secret operational bases to transmit information.

One of those places was near here, and they had sent a relatively small group just to verify if the location was suitable or not. So the angels weren’t prepared to be easily suppressed; they were arrogant.

And I got the locations for 10 of the sites. The rest, the angel girl didn’t know. I also found out where they planned to go next, and a rough schedule of their movements for the next month.

Useful things. Nothing that would drastically change the course of the war, but it would undoubtedly help prevent them from succeeding in securing some of those locations. So after that, I left the torture room and ordered Faye to tend to the wounded angel girl so she wouldn’t die, since she had lost a lot of blood.

Maybe by luck, or because I was excessively cruel, almost all the angels in the prison told me everything they knew just from me walking past. I got a few more bits of useful information. I think hearing their leader being tortured for three days without pause made them terrified of me.

Though their fearful looks left me uncomfortably sick, because they showed just how monstrous I had been. It’s a real blow to my mind.

When I left the prison, leaving Faye to care for the angel girl, I went to write the report. Even covered in blood and with the smell ingrained in me, I wanted to get it all over with quickly.

So I spent an hour organizing the information and writing everything down neatly, before summoning Leyhey Tyrk to send the message to the demon king. I also sent a letter to Esther, saying what I had done without going into too much detail and stating what I had "gained." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The feeling of sending both letters was very mixed. It was a feeling of self-disgust for what I had done to obtain the information, and a second feeling of anticipation—the sense that I might receive a reward from Esther for what I did.

After that, I still didn’t go take a bath. I really wanted to get rid of the smell of blood, but I preferred to take advantage of the cold feeling inside me to dismantle the corpses of the angels and demons that had arrived at the mansion before they rotted.

I spent two more days taking apart bodies and creating simple puppets—specifically, [Standard Model Puppets].

[Standard Model Puppet]: A puppet with the appearance of a white mannequin. It has no hair, eyes, mouth, or even a face, being completely smooth. They are excellent for following orders and possess power equivalent to the materials used.

Thanks to the abundant amount of materials, I managed to make 60 quality puppets. Of the 60, I had 20 of them dress in maid outfits and start tending to the mansion alongside Clarissa.

As for the other 40, I sent them to the camp with orders to cut wood and help build the houses we’re making for my soldiers, since the tents aren’t that good.

They’ll be small, simple houses, just to truly protect us from the effects of weather and climate. Of course, the feeling of dismantling so many bodies was as bad as torturing someone.

I feel so... filthy... repulsive and profane. The total disrespect for the bodies of the dead makes me realize how my ability isn’t good. It’s such an evil ability in a way, since I take advantage of corpses to gain power.

I think... I’ve involuntarily always ignored my powers. I have several powers, but until now I’ve barely used any of them. And I realize I might have always known. I always knew my abilities were cruel and terrible, and that’s why I avoided them.

But now I can’t avoid it anymore. I need to use the abilities in my status, whether I like them or not.

"..." I look at a mirror in the bathroom. I’m in the bathtub, washing off all the dried blood on my body. The reflection in the mirror startles me—an empty face with no expression, covered in blood.

It’s so... beautiful. The filth is incapable of hiding this body’s beauty. Regardless of the situation, Evelyn is beautiful, and I am her. The acts I committed make me feel like a monster, but I am not ugly like a monster should be.

"I wish I could disappear..." I murmur, sinking into the water. Knowing the water won’t drown me, I stay submerged for a long time, watching as the bathwater loses its crystal clear tone because of the blood staining everything.

I can’t get rid of the smell. Five days without bathing, with only blood staining my body, have made that smell deeply rooted in me.

"..." By some sort of sick irony, this smell reminds me of Esther. As I bathe, the blood lost its strong scent, leaving only a faint metallic smell. And Esther always has that smell. But I never realized she smelled like blood until now, when I have the same smell.

"...Time to go to sleep..." I rise from the water to finish bathing. I need to go rest. My mind isn’t doing too well from having exerted so much effort without any breaks.

...

...

...

"Eve, shouldn’t we go talk to Evelyn-chan?!" Syl’Vyr speaks to me, irritated that I’m preventing her and Faye from going to see Evelyn-sama.

"No, we shouldn’t. She wants to be alone, and she needs to be alone..." I say, seeing how Faye looks disgusted. She must have seen the state of that angel girl up close since she had to heal her.

"Tsk! You’ve been stopping us for hours! We need to see her too!" Syl’Vyr tries to get past me, but I step in front of her.

"No. No one is going to see her..." I feel it—the connection with Evelyn-sama. She doesn’t want anyone near. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened, and she doesn’t want to remember what she did. Talking to her now would be throwing in her face that she did that.

"...Move." She grabs my hand to pull me out of the way, but I don’t move.

"What is your problem, Syl’Vyr?! Evelyn-sama doesn’t want to see anyone. Don’t make me have to hit you again." I respect Evelyn-sama’s wishes, even if I want to enter her room right now to comfort her. I know it would only make everything worse.

"..." She lets go of my hand angrily.

"...You’re a bitch who’s way too possessive, don’t you think? You’re clearly obsessed with Evelyn-chan."

"...H-hey... calm down..." I point my sword at Syl’Vyr’s throat. My function acts before any respect or camaraderie can enter my mind.

"I am the sword, the shield, and the body of Evelyn-sama. I was born to protect her, and I will kill anyone who tries to hurt her." An immense desire to kill surfaces. Syl’Vyr is going against what I represent.

Evelyn-sama’s unstable emotions are affecting me negatively and scrambling my ability to discern between what is my function and what is crossing the line.

"..." Syl’Vyr realizes this is no joke. If she tries to pass, I will attack to kill. Because my connection with Evelyn-sama is the strongest connection among all of us created by her, and my function to protect her overrides reason.

"...Let’s go, Faye... leave this unstable bitch here..." She spits on the floor in my direction while looking at me furiously before leaving with Faye, who also realizes something is wrong.

"Urgh." I feel a horrible headache. My function overriding reason is something that’s never happened before.

"..." I sit on the floor, tired and confused, leaning my back against the door to Evelyn-sama’s room. I can hear her. She’s crying. A low cry, as if she’s afraid of bothering someone.

"..." My body also sheds tears. Our strong connection makes me understand her better than anyone else. Through our connection, I feel all her disgust, her repulsion, her fear, and her sadness. It’s like a dam of bad emotions.

Even though her cry is low, it’s so... desperate. It’s heart-wrenching. It’s not an exaggerated cry with screams and emotions displayed from the start. It’s actually a quiet cry that comes from deep within the heart—a true feeling of pure sadness that she hides from everyone.

"..." It’s nighttime, and soon it will have been six days since Evelyn-sama woke up and tortured someone. You can tell she’s not well. My tears are a perfect reflection of her.

Evelyn-sama doesn’t just have a control connection with her puppets. All her puppets feel when she is sad, happy, shaken, or afraid. It comes through our connection.

But it reaches me more strongly than the others, because I am a "unique" puppet. I am the puppet closest to Evelyn-sama, the one with the strongest connection. And that makes me feel her emotion with such force that it destabilizes me.

I feel as if part of this sadness were my own, and that’s why my body cries just as Evelyn-sama’s body is crying inside that room. And because I understand she doesn’t want anyone to see her so fragile, I stay in front of the door to prevent anyone from seeing this.