Chapter 356: Crime and Punishment (3)
Even the most notorious prison in the imperial capital seemed unable to handle the notoriety of Night Hound.
Ahead of his transfer to Nouvelle Vague, the most remote and worst prison on the continent, Vikir was temporarily housed in a holding facility on the Imperial Capital.
"Tomorrow at dawn."
Vikir closed his eyes, remembering his journey to Nouvelle Vague.
3,021 life sentences and imprisonment in Nouvelle Vague.
A sentence that would be executed just six hours after the verdict.
" ...I'm glad I escaped the death penalty, but Hugo's plea was a surprise."
After analyzing numerous precedents, he was confident that a summary execution would not be granted.
However, even if an unusual result occurred and he was summarily executed, there were several secret plans in place.
"It's going well."
Vikir accepted the verdict without complaint.
This verdict, too, was part of the original plan.
There were some variables, but it was well within the margin of error he'd anticipated.
Then.
-Execute the criminal! Execute the criminal!
-Execute him!
-Burn him!
-Apologize! Apologize!
Small noises came from beyond the bars and walls.
Apparently, the protesters had gathered and were causing a ruckus.
The anger and grief of those who had lost family, friends, and lovers to Night Hound was immense.
They had been protesting outside nonstop since the verdict was handed down.
[...Isn't that sad?]
Decarabia asked suddenly.
Decarabia had shrunk in size to a tiny dot, wedged between Vikir's collarbones.
That's why it was impossible to detect it during the pre-incarceration search of his belongings.
[Everything you did was for the good of humanity, and if it weren't for you, the gates would have been opened and countless people would have died, and those who died were unforgivable when they made their pact with the demon in the first place, so they should be thanking you instead].
Decarabia rolls its one eye, wondering if it's more embarrassing.
Vikir, however, has not lost his dignified demeanor.
"There is no way for them to know that the dead are all beings who have made a contract with the demon and will commit great sins against all mankind in the future. Even if I tell them, they won't believe me."
Humans are animals that don't believe in anything unless they see it with their own eyes.
Even if Vikir explained it, it wouldn't work, and he wasn't sure he could convince all those people in the first place.
"So it would be easier for me to be the one to kill."
[Human. Do you dream of being a hero or a saint?]
"No. I just want to save as many people as I can."
He's not interested in concepts like absolutes.
There is no desire to make a noble sacrifice for the sake of humanity as a whole.
He just wants to hold on to the few warmths that made his previous life bearable, and the precious connections he's made in this one.
So Vikir spent some time in silent meditation with his eyes closed.
Feeling the cold sensation of the restraints around his wrists and ankles.
'... and these restraints?'
Vikir ran his fingers over the cuffs on his wrists, the shackles on his ankles, and the chains that connected them.
Cold metal, but unusually heavy and solid.
Not only were they more frightening and harder than any other metal of the same volume and mass, but they even had the ability to drain and neutralize the restraints' mana.
Vikir was suddenly intrigued by this restraint.
'Let's study it a bit, maybe it'll give me some interesting variables.'
Just as Vikir was fiddling with the restraints.
kkiig-
The door to the dungeon opened and a guard's voice came through.
"Visitation."
Prisoners on death row, or those being transferred to Nouvelle Vague, are only allowed three visits.
But Vikir had already turned down one request from the Baskervilles and two from students at the Colosseo Academy.
The guards thought that Vikir would deny them another visit and tried to close the door.
But.
"Let them in."
Vikir accepted the third visitation request.
The guard looked a little surprised and turned around.
Soon, the visitors began to descend toward the dungeon's grate.
Four men in black hoods and robes.
They walked up to Vikir and removed their hoods to reveal their bare faces.
"Hello, it's been a while."
The first to speak was Cindy Wendy.
She was followed by a worried-looking Chihuahua, Minipin, and finally Ahul.
"Young Master, what's going on, oh my God!"
"Boss, Your face has become half-faced!"
"...Hunting leader."
They were all currently using Baskerville's last name.
That was because Vikir had appointed them as his aides upon his promotion to Senator within the family.
"Unexpected."
Vikir stared at Cindywendy's face in front of him.
"I thought you wouldn't take the surname Baskerville."
She shrugged.
"Well, I'm getting older, and I think I need to lean on something, because sometimes I get too tired."
"You don't lean on a sword when you're tired. Alliances are only temporary. Wasn't your ultimate goal to get revenge on the Baskervilles?"
"Yes, but I've decided to think a little differently."
Cindy Wendy smiled and raised her left hand.
Sparkle-.
Surprisingly, a small ring was shining on the ring finger of her left hand.
It was obviously a wedding ring, a token of love, or a pledge of love between lovers.
"If I become the mistress of the Baskervilles, wouldn't that also be revenge in some sense? It's like swallowing up the Baskervilles from the inside."
"...?"
For a moment, Vikir's eyes, which had never wavered, twitched slightly.
Suddenly, a line from Hugo that he'd heard many years ago popped into his head.
'I think Osiris has a girlfriend, but she's never stepped on his tail, and when I ask, he never answers.'
Hugo had said this to Vikir when he visited Baskerville for the second round of the University League.
Vikir was surprised.
Before his regression, Osiris had been an emotionless killer doll, and now he was dating a woman.
Vikir had thought that Hugo and Osiris' demeanor had changed a bit since the arrival of Pomeranian.
But he never thought it would have this kind of butterfly effect.
'I don't know if this is good or bad.'
It was a difficult phenomenon to discern, even for the ever-understanding Vikir.
"...Since when?"
"Since I was brokering and supporting Baskerville's trade with the natives on the Western Front. I met him a few times on bodyguard duty. Well, we knew each other as children."
As it turned out, it was Osiris who had gotten to the bottom of everything that had happened to Andromalius after the death of his host, Set, and had cleaned up his mess.
After Vikir left for the Academy, Osiris cleared the name of the Messinadnaro family, which had been unfairly exterminated, and acknowledged the Baskerville family's responsibility for this.
'There were procedures for compensation for damage and appointment of personnel to oust old elders. Did you get hit in the eye during that time?'
Moreover, she was a childhood friend of his, so it's not surprising.
The encounter between Cindy Wendy and Osiris was big news, enough to make even the usually dull Vikir pick his butt up off the floor.
Meanwhile, Cindy Wendy said that her feelings were renewed.
" ...I'm the opposite of what I was then."
When they first met and talked to Cindy Wendy, she was in jail and Vikir was out of jail.
But now, Vikir is in prison and Cindy Wendy is out of prison.
Vikir's response to this is short.
"I expected it."
Vikir turned his head.
Chihuahua, Minipin, and Ahul were looking at him with concern.
But instead, Vikir was worried about those outside the cage.
"There are things you need to do."
Vikir took Chihuahua, Minipin, and Ahul aside and whispered something to them.
" ...to stock up on food, ...to fortify the highlands, ...to move the human race, ...to the last fortress, ...tochka."
Each one had a slightly different keyword, but there were several common ones.
Finally, when it was Cindy Wendy's turn, Vikir rose from his seat and approached the grate.
Swoosh.
And then. The leather of Vikir's face suddenly peeled away.
A picaresque mask.
The strange mask, which merged with the user's flesh the moment it was overwritten, fell into Cindy Wendy's hands.
"Oh my God, why are you giving this to me?"
"It's not yours. Give it to Camus."
An artifact left behind by Dantalian upon his death. Imbued with demonic power.
A mask that Vikir has worn on countless hunts of demons and their followers, a symbol of Night Hound.
"I'm sure she'll understand what I mean."
Camus is accompanied by Seere. So surely she will understand what it means to be handed this mask.
After being handed the picaresque mask, Cindy Wendy shook her head in disgust.
"I wonder how much that tomboy will turn the world upside down again... The entire Morg family was turned upside down during the Wraith Tree."
"The world will turn upside down naturally."
"...?"
Vikir's face fell at Cindy Wendy's rhetorical comment.
Cindy Wendy, Chihuahua, Minipin, and Ahul all looked at Vikir with wide eyes.
Vikir then addressed them all.
"There will be a great flood soon."
It was the first code of conduct for survival in the age of destruction.
The only way to save humanity.
"Prepare the ark."
Those were Vikir's last words to his henchmen.
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