Chapter 26.2: A Painful Past (2)
Year XXXX: The Imperium
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**A/N: !!! WARNING !!!**
**CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains disturbing themes including abortion, rape, suicide, and graphic violence. This will be the final chapter of this villain's story arc.**
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The Devil's Seed
Several months later in the House of Count Raymond...
Elisa had become pregnant with Brutus's seed, a cruel reminder of the violence inflicted upon her body and soul. The family stood paralyzed when they learned of it, their minds churning with a terrible question: should they abort the child?
But could Elisa's fragile body even withstand such a procedure?
She was well into her second trimester, and the current medical practices offered only a grim 55% survival rate for women who took that route. In most cases they had heard of, the women perished alongside their unborn children. Given how far along she was, the chances of her survival would plummet further, and Elisa herself possessed no will to fight for her own life.
Her once vibrant eyes had dulled to vacant orbs, staring blankly at the ornate ceiling of her bedchamber, as if searching for an escape that could not be found in this world.
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Suicidal Thoughts
In the dead of night, she would sometimes awaken from pitiful slumber and attempt to take her own life. The first time she tried, fortune had placed her mother at her bedside. The poor woman could only scream for help, her voice shattering the midnight silence of the estate.
When the guards and servants burst through the door, they wrestled a jagged shard of broken glass from Elisa's trembling fingers. Crimson droplets had already begun to bloom on her wrists, her intent unmistakable.
After much deliberation, heavy with grief and moral weight, they decided to let the child be born. Elisa could no longer function or think rationally for herself, and they were forced to make this agonizing decision on her behalf.
If complications arose during childbirth, they would prioritize Elisa's life over the child's—this they swore to each other in hushed, solemn tones, their faces grave in the flickering candlelight of the count's study.
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The Seed of The Devil was Born
Months crawled by, marked by Elisa's vacant stares and her mother's silent tears. Eventually, a baby boy was born to her, squalling and red-faced, oblivious to the circumstances of his conception.
They named him Rommel, but they could not bring themselves to bestow upon him the family name. Disgust had taken root too deeply in their hearts, though they tried to conceal it behind masks of propriety.
When Elisa saw the child for the first time, a feral light ignited in her previously deadened eyes. Her hands stretched toward the infant, not with maternal tenderness but with murderous intent. The nurse quickly whisked him away, her experienced eyes having seen the danger in the new mother's gaze.
A new dilemma confronted the family. Should the boy be raised in the estate, a constant reminder of their shame and Elisa's trauma? Or should they send him to an orphanage, washing their hands of him entirely?
In the end, Count Raymond decided on a compromise: they would build the child a house on a distant property they owned, with servants to attend to his needs. They would provide enough for a bastard of noble blood to live comfortably, though not lavishly. The arrangement would keep him at arm's length—far enough to protect Elisa from his presence, but close enough to fulfill their sense of obligation.
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The Propensity to Commit Evil
As Rommel grew, the shadow of his father's temperament began to manifest itself. The servants whispered of how the boy's eyes would harden when he didn't get his way, how his small fists would clench with a rage beyond his years.
He bullied his peers relentlessly, using his nebulous connection to nobility as a shield against consequences. Though he was a bastard, he wielded the partial protection of his heritage like a weapon, having overheard the servants discussing his true parentage.
In his adolescence, his violent nature and arrogance intensified. He attracted a circle of friends with similarly unsavory characters—young nobles whose parents had spoiled them beyond redemption, whose eyes gleamed with the same cruel light as Rommel's when they tormented those they deemed beneath them.
Birds of a feather, indeed, flocked together, forming a small parliament of predators.
His behavior continued unchecked even when he was sent to a school for nobles, where his intelligence manifested alongside his cruelty. He grew increasingly shrewd, learning not only academic subjects but also the dark arts of manipulation and exploitation.
By adulthood, his depravity had reached new depths. Vices and criminal activities filled his leisure hours—gambling dens, brothels, and back-alley deals became his haunts. His name, though not officially that of the House Raymond, nonetheless began to cast a shadow over the family's reputation.
Finally, the family had endured enough. They cut him off entirely, expelling him from the estate they had provided and stripping him of any remaining connection to their house. They had done all they could for him, they reasoned—more than many would have done in their position. It was time he fended for himself, without their resources to cushion his fall.
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Unfortunate Desire
While Rommel carved his path of destruction, Elisa had been undergoing treatments that restored some semblance of sanity to her fractured mind. She rarely left her chambers, becoming almost a ghost in her family's home, her presence felt but seldom seen.
One day, a newly hired male servant, barely a week employed at the estate and ignorant of her history, succumbed to base curiosity, and man's eternal desire for the flesh. He discovered a small hole in the wall of her chambers and, to his eternal misfortune, peered through it as she was changing her attire.
As shameful desire overcame him, he began to pleasure himself while watching the secluded lady. To his horror, her head suddenly turned toward his hiding place, and a disturbing smile slowly spread across her face—not one of embarrassment or shock, but of something far more sinister.
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A Twisted Sense of Perverse Pleasure
You see, Elisa had developed an uncanny sense for detecting lustful gazes upon her skin. The trauma had heightened her awareness, twisted it into something predatory. As she changed her clothes that day, she felt the familiar sensation of being watched with lustful desire.
Her lips curved into a smile—she had found her first victim.
Day after day, she deliberately staged displays before the hidden hole, though she couldn't see her observer. She knew he was there, felt his presence like a spider and felt vibrations on its web. A perverse gratification grew within her; she developed a fetish for being watched, a twisted response to her past violation.
As her sanity partially returned, it brought with it a new form of madness. Her personality had split, fractured like glass under too much pressure. One part of her remained the traumatized granddaughter of Count Raymond; another had become something monstrous.
She continued her performance until she finally seduced the young man into her quarters, timing it perfectly during a guard shift change. She invited the wolf into what he thought was a lamb's den, only to discover too late that he had entered a lioness's lair.
How easily men were ruled by their carnal desires, she mused as she watched him approach her bed, his eyes clouded with lust.
After they consummated the act, she slowly retrieved a knife from her drawer. With practiced precision—born of countless fantasies of revenge—she slit his throat and severed his manhood, placing it grotesquely in his mouth.
She laughed then, a sound that held no mirth, only the broken echoes of a mind that had shattered and reformed into something beyond comprehension. The young man could only clutch at his throat, his lifeblood escaping between his fingers, his eyes wide with the terrible knowledge that he had been ensnared.
With her plan complete, she screamed, summoning the guards to witness her handiwork.
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A Wicked Act
They rushed in to find a lifeless body on the bed, blood soaking into the fine linens, the grisly trophy no longer in his mouth but discarded on the floor—his tongue cut out after death.
"Lady Elisa... what happened here?" the head guard asked, his face ashen.
"That man raped me!" she sobbed, her performance flawless, her facade impenetrable. "I managed to kill him afterward when his hold on me weakened. I felt him watching me always, but I couldn't speak out because he had threatened me!"
She wept convincingly, tears of both false disgust and genuine ecstasy streaming down her pale cheeks.
Her mother and aging grandparents arrived shortly thereafter, their expressions shifting from concern to horror as they beheld the bloody scene before them.
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Killing Spree
Weeks passed, and a similar murder occurred at one of the town's inns. The victim bore the same signature wounds, but no culprit was found.
The towns guard initially dismissed it as an isolated incident, but when the pattern repeated itself five times over, they could no longer deny the presence of a serial killer in their midst.
A thorough investigation revealed that all victims were young men. Notices were posted throughout the town, warning citizens of the danger lurking in their streets.
But Elisa was clever. She changed her tactics, targeting men old and young, wealthy and destitute, respectable and disreputable. Her victims multiplied, their silent bodies piled telling tales of a killer's calculated rage.
When the authorities finally uncovered their first concrete clue, it led them back to Count Raymond's estate. They realized that there was a first victim—the servant—had died in the same distinctive manner as the thirty others who had perished over the span of three years.
They questioned the lord's family, their eyes eventually falling upon the meek-looking lady sitting in the corner. As they spoke, her lips began to curl upward, her carefully constructed mask cracking to reveal the monster beneath. Her split personality, her hidden self, stood exposed before them.
Their faces blanched when they realized the identity of the culprit behind the town's reign of terror. She could only laugh at their shock, a sound that would haunt their nightmares for years to come.
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The Lords Resolve
The captain of the town guard steeled himself for resistance from the noble family. He had a duty to perform, regardless of rank or privilege.
But to his surprise, Count Raymond simply slumped in his ornate chair, the weight of years and sorrows bearing down upon his shoulders. With a defeated sigh, he gestured for them to take Elisa away.
Too many had died because of his granddaughter. The poor child had descended too far into the abyss of her madness, beyond any hope of rescue. She had deceived them all, making them believe that her healing sessions had worked, while her sickness festered and grew within her mind like a malignant shadow.
His wife and daughter could only weep as Elisa was led away, their tears flowing for both her victims and for the bright, innocent girl she had once been.
The decision had been made by the patriarch of the house, his resolve unwavering despite his breaking heart. Any resistance his wife or daughter might have mounted crumbled beneath the weight of his authority and the undeniable evidence of Elisa's crimes.
Count Raymond had been planning to retire, to pass his title to his eldest son, but he was determined to see this grim chapter through to its conclusion. He would face the grieving families as their lord, offering what comfort his position could provide. He personally compensated the victims' families at great cost to his house, refusing to shirk his responsibility or hide behind his privilege.
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Elisa's Trial
Elisa was brought to trial, where she calmly recounted her methods, her thought processes, and the pleasure she derived from her kills. The judge, an old friend of Count Raymond, was visibly repulsed by her testimony but recognized that she was not of sound mind.
He deemed her unfit for prison or execution, instead sentencing her to confinement in an asylum for treatment. But fate had other plans, for she soon escaped, vanishing like the morning mist, leaving only wanted posters to mark her passage.
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Destinies Twisted Sense of Humor
In a cruel twist of destiny, she encountered her father once again on the streets of a distant town. Sam was almost unrecognizable—legless, emaciated, and disheveled, surviving on alms and drowning his miseries in cheap liquor. But Elisa knew him instantly; his face was burned into her memory, the only visage she had seen clearly on that terrible day.
She herself had changed her appearance—her once-flowing locks cropped short and dyed a fiery red, her noble bearing disguised beneath common clothes. Behind this new mask, she watched him, a predator assessing its prey.
Soon after, she also located her wastrel son, Rommel. A plan began to form in her fractured mind, a scheme to reclaim the nobility they had lost. And the unfortunate, kind-hearted Baron Kirka became the unwitting victim of this family of deranged misfits.
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The Unfortunate Lord Kirka
Years Passed….
Kirka and Elisa were wed in a modest ceremony, his gentle nature a stark contrast to her hidden malevolence. It was only after their vows were exchanged that he discovered she already had a son. By then, it was too late—they had infiltrated his estate and begun to poison his thoughts with their toxic presence.
His greatest mistake had been failing to investigate the background of his bride and her supposedly crippled father thoroughly. Now he was ensnared in their web, their true natures concealed behind facades of respectability.
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A Shameful Past
Now, in the present, Baron Kirka could only reflect on that painful past as he returned to Gremory City to manage his business interests there. The wench had attempted to follow him, but he had abandoned her somewhere along the way. His stepson now ruled Kirka Village in his stead.
He vowed never to return there, never again to face their lunacy. The scars they had left on his soul were too deep, the memories too haunting. As he gazed out over the bustling streets of Gremory from his office window, he wondered if he would ever truly escape the shadow of his mistake.
Behind him, on his desk, lay a sealed letter bearing the crest of Count Raymond's house—a final warning, perhaps, or an apology too late to matter.