Lawful Murder (4)
Natasha's temperament shifted.
'An incarnation art?'
A skeletal torso in a black hood shimmered above her head like a mirage.
It thrust ten fingers forward as if striking a keyboard, and dozens of steel cables hooked onto the joints ran down and connected to Natasha.
'I see.'
Whatever the ability was, it was some kind of control.
"Are you a puppet too?"
Natasha smiled a mad smile.
"Let go! Set me free!"
Natasha, Gustav's genius dancer, had been kidnapped by assailants one day.
"You bastards! Who ordered this? Daphne?"
Daphne—second in the dance world—wasn't even close enough in skill to be called a rival.
"Shut up! Even if we find out, nothing changes!"
Natasha's approach to art was flawless, and her mind was an eccentricity far outside the bounds of normal.
"Tie her up, quick! Before the guards burst in!"
The men forced Natasha face-down on a long table and bound her limbs with iron chains.
"What are you going to do? Make her drop her pants?"
One of them produced an iron club.
"Do it, now?"
When his comrade nodded, he screamed and brought the full weight of the club down onto Natasha's spine.
At that moment, Natasha's eyelids clamped shut and the sickening crunch traveled through bone.
"Hard-headed bitch. She doesn't even scream." Feeling the sensation leave her lower body, Natasha lifted her sweat-soaked face.
"How the hell am I supposed to scream when it hurts this much!"
"I told you to shut up!"
When the club struck her lower back again, sparks flashed in Natasha's eyes.
"Ughhhh!"
The thug's face was drenched in sweat.
"Damn it! Why isn't it breaking?" Natasha twisted her head as if it would snap and shouted.
"You stupid bastard! If you're going to do it, finish it in one blow! What are you doing?"
"Aaaaaaaaa! Die!" The thug struck her waist over and over, but his swings had already lost momentum and lacked force.
"Gah! This is infuriating!"
Tears streaming from the pain, Natasha tugged at the chains around her wrists.
"You can't even swing a club properly with a woman's ass in front of you! Are you a eunuch or something?"
Mocked, the thug gritted his teeth, focused, and brought his arm down vertically.
"Ugh!"
Finally came a sick crack—the sound of bone giving way.
Natasha's lower body was paralyzed.
But she never learned who had broken her spine, nor did she exact revenge.
'Ah, whatever. I'll live rough.' Because she harbored no hatred, she could dance again.
Crouch lowered his gaze demurely.
'The price I paid for abandoning life's subject was that I gained several extra lives.'
And Natasha...
"Dance with me."
Becoming Death's puppet, she could raise every stat of her body to a transcendent level.
'Here it comes!'
Sensing killer intent, Crouch took a few quick steps back.
"Interesting rhythm."
When her steps mixed patterns and accelerated to tremendous speed, it felt as if the chain of movement was being snapped apart.
"How long can she keep dancing?"
People who managed to dance more than a second with Natasha could be counted on one hand.
'Fast—'
As Death's white fingers wove a choreography, Natasha's figure scattered into afterimages.
'...This isn't just fast!'
A sharp, shattering noise rang in Crouch's ears and his vision spun.
'Damn it!'
Before he could even use an extra life to mount a counterattack, his head was severed and spun near the ceiling.
"What? That was anticlimactic."
Crouch's head tumbled and thudded against the wall.
'This is Gustav's Fourth Art...'
It was the kind of skill befitting Havitz's Fourfold Art—raising a specific technique to the level of art.
'Truly the pinnacle of movement.' Clang!
One of the two porcelain dolls on the shelf shattered with a sharp sound.
"Hmm."
A bitter sigh escaped Woorin, drinking alone late into the night.
"Wow, so that's what she looks like."
Natasha cut open Crouch's belly and examined the complex machinery inside.
Black oil flowed where blood should have been.
"Tastes awful."
She poked it with her finger and grimaced. A passing maid on patrol screamed in surprise.
"Eek! W-what is that?"
"Yeah, good. Clean this up. Throw it in the dump."
The maid looked up.
"Pardon? The dump?"
"It's broken. Tried to fix it, but it won't work."
Natasha turned to leave after leaving the maid in charge, then stopped as if remembering something.
"Oh right, they told me to find out who sent it."
She shrugged.
"What does it matter?" "Ugh, what's so heavy?" Strongmen grunted as they hauled a burlap sack.
"What a horrible puppet. I saw it earlier and it looked like it was really alive. What the hell is it?"
"Don't worry about it. If you want to keep your sanity, stay out of palace affairs. You'll go crazy if you get curious."
The strongmen swung the sack like a swing and, on cue, tossed it over the wall.
"Whew, let's go." As they dusted their hands and walked away, the sack lay still.
It wasn't until Havitz and Abella's wedding day that it began to writhe.
"Damn."
The sack split open with a rip, and Crouch hauled himself up by grabbing a handful of hair from the face that emerged.
'Strong. Even Wind Guard won't be easy.' His confidence as the best in the business—more reliant on brute force than a hitman's finesse—shattered.
'That can't be imitated.'
Learning the extent of Natasha's power had been worth the loss of a life.
'The important thing is to reset "Lawful Murder."'
Balkan would already be on guard, so using Catenia wasn't an option.
"I'll have to die, then."
To complete his final task, Crouch vaulted over the wall.
The most lavish wedding in the Gustav Empire was held in Marsac's gardens.
Ten thousand guests attended, and the royal warehouses were overflowing with gold, jewels, and famed treasures.
Gustav paid in gold.
"Hey, Natasha."
After the banquet, as they were leaving, Balkan personally came looking for Natasha.
"You're sure the assassin is finished, right?"
"Yeah. I cut off the head. I opened the belly and checked. There's no way she's alive. Why?"
"Just... it's an important day." Balkan rested his chin on his hand.
'If I left it to Natasha, there can't be a mistake. She's definitely dead. The problem is—it was a puppet.'
Rumor had it from the East there was a forbidden art that breathed a soul into dolls.
'From Jincheon? I heard the opponent was skilled, but why is there no other sign?'
Even the crowd-reading showed nothing unusual.
"Why so serious? You keep hiring assassins. If the military detectors can't catch them, then they're really not there."
"That's not right. The military's detection can't be certain about murderous intent; it can't guarantee whether a human presence exists."
Zettaro interjected.
"So if an assassin lingers in the palace with no murderous intent, the detectors won't catch them."
Smodo said.
"Either way, it's the same. An assassin without murderous intent isn't an assassin. The point is, nobody intends to kill His Majesty, right?"
Balkan pressed.
"That's strange. If nobody intends to kill His Majesty, why are they staying in the palace?"
Natasha raised a finger.
"The idea that an assassin is in the palace is still only a hypothesis. You're digging too deep."
This time Balkan had no retort.
"I don't know. The simple answer is clear, but it keeps feeling complicated. I feel like we're missing something."
Zettaro said.
"Because the opponent was a puppet. When an unexpected result appears, all kinds of doubts start to surface."
"A puppet."
Balkan stopped.
"Natasha, go to the dump and check again."
"Smodo goes every day. It's exactly as they tossed it."
Smodo, Minister of Internal Affairs.
His obsession with cleanliness essentially let him spot any difference from the identical—he could tell that grasshopper A and grasshopper B were entirely different creatures, or sort a thousand swords made from the same mold by subtle traits.
"Today is different. Come with me and check. I'll go to His Majesty and see if there's anything strange."
"Okay."
There was no harm in listening to Balkan, so the two set out for the dump.
"Hey, Natasha."
On the way, Smodo said, "Want to be with me tonight?"
Natasha looked back, surprised.
"You hate being with the same woman every time, don't you?"
"Just... afraid of being lonely."
If Smodo—male and unsettled by Havitz's marriage—felt strange, how could Natasha, a woman, be any different?
"Hehe, what? Are you trying to comfort me?"
"We're friends."
"Appreciate the thought, but I'm fine. Smodo won't enjoy it anyway, and I'm not in the mood tonight."
"Loving another woman doesn't mean Havitz will leave us." Natasha smiled brightly and nodded.
"Mm."
They chatted as they arrived, opened the dump gate, and crawled over the heap of refuse.
"She should be buried around here... huh?" Smodo's eyes widened at signs the heap had been dug up.
"Different! Definitely different!"
"...Smodo, I think I know what you mean."
Like an enormous-scale prank, the assassin puppet that had been there until yesterday had vanished.
On the way to Havitz and Abella's bridal apartment, Zettaro said, "I understand suspecting Abella. But if she had done it, the military detectors would have already read it."
Alpaphish loved Havitz.
"I know. The detectors are reliable. But if I'd hired an assassin, I'd have hidden that fact."
If the assassin withheld murderous intent to preserve singularity...
"I wish to see His Majesty. Please pass the request."
The head maid bowed with trembling courtesy.
"I'm sorry, officer. His Majesty ordered that no one be admitted tonight."
"This is urgent. Can't you at least pass a message?"
The head maid faced a grim choice—whether she'd be killed by bringing a message to Havitz or by refusing Balkan.
"Just cut me down on the way out," she said.
Because she spoke sincerely rather than as a threat, Balkan made a pained sound.
Zettaro laughed.
"Ha! You're all worked up. Well, it's understandable. It's been fourteen years since the day they longed for."
Knowing how strict Havitz was about controlling desire, Balkan dropped the subject.
"No choice. Let's just go drink."
"What if something happens?" Balkan licked his lips.
"What can you do? Everyone lives their own fate."
Laughter echoed through Havitz and Abella's apartment complex with its hundreds of rooms.
"Hahaha! Right! That used to be the case."
"You were so good at playing monsters back then. Is it because you really are a monster?"
"Maybe so. Puhahaha!"
Drunk, Havitz found everything hilarious. Taking Abella's hand, he was led into a room.
Each chamber was designed for spending the wedding night; the room she entered catered to perverse pleasures.
"Here?"
"Yes. I really wanted to try it."
From the ceremony to the banquet to the bridal suite, everything followed the script Abella had been trained in.
"So that's why they kept people out."
"Why? Don't you like it, sir?"
"No, I like this too. So what should we start with? How about this whip?"
"Hehe, sounds good. But before that, there's something to prepare."
"Prepare?"
Abella nestled in Havitz's arms and whispered, "I'll tie you up tight, sir."