Episode 126- Situation… reverse?

Last chapter: Eugene was willing to perish along with Commander Kal but learns that it was impossible because he was not from the United West Liasel, which means Promissum did not bind him. Unable to do anything, she injured herself while protecting Aernest. Slipping off of Duke Marleigh’s grasp with her tricks, she started to wake the dukes up frantically!

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Eugene’s eyes traveled low. It was one of the rudest and vulgar moves a noblewoman in this century could do, but did she care? No!

‘Down there right?’

Aernest shivered in fear, he instinctively felt that something very precious to Duke Rodriguez was about to wither and die off forever. Aernest reached out to Eugene, “SIS-”

SLAM!!!!

Before he could stop it, the deed was done, and a frightening, and one of the most painful soul shivering screams he had ever heard erupted from the victim.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

The place Eugene chose as her target was the right place as the effects were immediate. Maybe it worked too well because Duke Rodriguez's eyes immediately shot up on his butt. His eyes, bloodshot.

The duke didn’t get a chance to vent or to scream another time because Eugene quickly cut in, “Duke! DUKE!!! KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM!!!!” her fingers pointed to Commander Kal as she shouted.

Because she pointed to Commander Kal, she had to turn to him but what she saw stunned her into silence. She had thought Commander Kal was overreacting when she threw blood at him because why on earth would such a thing be so painful, but seeing is believing. Not just his voice, his body was shaking in a frenzy. Did she also mention that for some reason smoke was rising out of his hands that were covering his face?

‘Am I hallucinating due to all the adrenaline rush?’ Eugene rubbed her eyes and looked again.

‘..... No, there genuinely is smoke rising from under his hands!’

Without question why there was smoke there in the first place, she quickly pushed Duke Rodriguez to Commander Kal!

‘Go! Go! GO! My powerful duke!’

With a weak and pale face, Duke Rodriguez nodded, grabbed his sword, and walked over to the man who was kneeling and screaming in agony.

There was a sense of uneasiness Eugene felt towards whatever was happening to Commander Kal but she mostly felt relieved. She had nearly killed Aernest by stupidly provoking Commander Kal. There were two murder-suicide plans she had in mind and that was for Commander Kal to murder her and to be killed by Promissum, or for her to somehow murder him and for her to be killed by Promissum. Of course, she was leaning towards the former which was why she was provoking him!

But what happened at the end? He was not bound to Promissum because he wasn’t from this continent! She had put so much faith in Promissum that all of her decisions were based solely on that safe label.

Never again! She will never trust in something so blindly ever again!

Ignoring Aernest’s teary eyes that were filled with relief, she turned to her next target and lifted her legs to Duke Marleigh’s ‘down’ there. Without hesitation, she put in all her weight and slammed it down there but before her legs could even touch a millimeter of Duke Marleigh’s body, her foot was grabbed firmly!

“......”

It was silent, the air between the culprit and the barely-able-to-escape victim was icy. Duke Marleigh’s closed lids opened in slow motion and found their way to Eugene’s eyes.

Eugene blinked, tilted her head, and hesitantly laughed, “...... ehe?” … She laughed using Euria’s cute tone.

Duke Marleigh's face was blank, “......” After 5 silent seconds, he sighed and sat up. He got up quickly and observed the odd situation. The situation before he was last awake had one major change and that was Kal no longer being the one with the advantage. He was no longer looking down on them but was in a miserable state. By Kal’s side was a knight who was protecting him from Duke Rodriguez.

‘But how did the situation... reverse?’

Eugene reached over and grabbed Duke Marleigh’s sleeves “Duke! Commander Kal is not from this continent but the knight by his side is most likely is!” seeing Duke Rodriguez threatening to hurt the knife with the sword he was holding, she hurriedly grabbed Duke Marleigh’s attention.

Duke Marleigh, contrary to her expectations, caught her arms strongly, “What. Happened.?” his voice was cold and low, slightly stunning Eugene frozen.

When Eugene had reached over for his sleeves, the waft of iron had caught his attention. And when he glanced towards the direction of the smell, anger erupted from deep within him. One of Eugene’s hands was dyed completely red.

Eugene gulped from the chill exuding from Duke Marleigh’s body. Without saying anything she moved her gaze from Duke Marleigh to Commander Kal and he understood her meaning immediately.

Without a single glance to the miserable Kal, Duke Marleigh ordered Duke Rodriguez in a cold authoritative tone, “Kill him.”

Eugene turned to Duke Marleigh quickly, “Huh?”

Without giving Eugene any explanation, he reached out to his ears. What he took out of his ears startled and puzzled Eugene greatly. They were small earbuds.

“... But” Didn’t you faint anyway? What’s the point?

Duke Marleigh sighed, threw the earbuds to the ground, and crushed it, “It had somewhat worked until the second melody.” When Eugene had brought up the topic of hypnotism, he had taken it very seriously and came up with different solutions to counter this problem.

It was then that he took note of Aernest’s noise-canceller military headphones. But even though this was one of the best solutions to counter Kal’s hypnotism, it was impossible to get good quality hidden earbuds and an adequate amount in quantity.

In other words, they had gotten some of the earbuds and they did some-what work, but it was inadequate.

Eugene’s mouth gaped from speechlessness, ‘How… useless.’ But what’s amazing was that Duke Marleigh even found some in the first place. The earbuds were so small that she never even noticed them! It would have been a good stratagem if there had been time to make it as good as Aernest’s headphones.

“Earnest… there’s something wrong.” a voice filled with confusion, irritation, and unease spoke up. It was Duke Rodriguez.

Before Duke Marleigh could reply, a loud, excruciating scream pierced their ears,

“ARGHHH!! MY EYES! MY EYES ARE BURNING!!!”

Eugene, Aernest, and Duke Marleigh head over to Duke Rodriguez’s side in alarm.

Eugene blinked, “Ah.” Her eyes widened in confusion and surprise, ‘It’s really… burning?’ From this close, she could see an even denser smoke arising off his hands that were plastered to his face. With the two Duke's attention on Commander Kal, she quickly locked eyes with Aernest who looked at her with confusion.

‘Why is he burning?’ the two furrowed their brows as they turned their attention back to Commander Kal.

Duke Rodriguez squinted his eyes and with a confused voice, he asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

The knight by Commander Kal’s sidestepped back when the two dukes stood together. He was under immense invisible pressure that his body instinctively made him step away.

Eugene and Aernest couldn’t help their curiosity and walk closer to Commander Kal. Like the two Dukes, they weren’t sure what exactly happened to Commander Kal. They only know that Commander Kal didn’t pursue them when they escaped from his grasp.

Unable to see anything even though she had gotten closer, Eugene glanced briefly at Duke Rodriguez before bending down and picking up the sword Commander Kal dropped.

Before she could straighten up, a weight pressed down on her shoulders, “What are you going to do?”

She glanced back and blinked at Duke Rodriguez, “I want to look.”

Duke Rodriguez frowned, ‘Then why pick up that sword.’ He was suspicious of Eugene’s intention but pulled his hand back. ‘Maybe she wants his beautiful sword?’ he thought and exhaled in relief.

But oh, was he wrong.

Not even a second after he breathed out in relief, Eugene shifted to a standard stance, unhesitantly swung the sword, and sliced through two of Commander Kal’s hands.

“AHHH!! SISTER!!!” Aernest jumped from his position and turned around very quickly!

“EUGENEIA!” Duke Rodriguez shouted out in alarm! With widened eyes, he stepped forward, grabbed the sword from Eugene’s hand, and flung it far.

“COMMANDER!!” The knight that had stepped back wanted to pounce forward but was immediately stopped by Duke Marleigh’s glare. ‘One-Step-Closer-And-He’s-Gone.’

Duke Rodriguez didn’t want to believe what he just saw. There was no hesitation when she swung the sword down. She had sliced through the hands cleanly, and he was surprised by that but still! This wasn’t the time to play around!

Yet before Duke Rodriguez could reprimand or say anything else, a voice filled with alarm spoke out from behind him.

“Amos.” The voice belonged to Duke Marleigh.

“What?!”

“Look.”

“!!!”

Before his eyes, Commander Kal was still covering his face with his cut-off hands. It was as though he had never realized that his hands were cut off. Or as though he had felt no pain from his hands being sliced off because he was under an even greater pain!

Through the gaps of his incomplete arm…

Duke Rodriguez grabbed Eugene’s shoulder and took a step back, “Wha… What’s happening.” he muttered with heavy breathing.

Eugene’s eyebrows scrunched to the point that her forehead was filled with wrinkles. Her eyes widened in astonishment as her nose was attacked with the smell of acid, skin burning, and a combination of gross chemicals.

“Commander…” the sudden silence gave the knight the chance to step forward and look at what’s making everyone speechless. Immediately, he started to barf and regret his decision.

Commander Kal’s face could no longer be called a face.

Underneath the smoke, Commander Kal’s face was covered in gaping holes of different sizes. One of his eye sockets had completely sunken in as if they were burnt through. His nose was in the midst of being eaten and was gradually disappearing. It was as if someone had poured a highly corrosive chemical on his face to burn ‘dissolve’ him alive.

And towards this highly corrosive chemical, Eugene’s eyes couldn’t help but darken. It was truly gruesome.

Aernest’s uneasy voice spoke out, “Sister! Can I look now?”

“No,” she replied in a bland voice.

“Huh? Why!”

“Aernest.” she suddenly called out his name as she watched Commander Kal’s mouth screaming in agony.

“Wha, what??”

In a deep voice, she warned, “Don’t turn back. No matter what, don’t turn back.” she warned, repeatedly. The sight of Commander Kal’s slowly but surely dissolving was one he wouldn’t want to see.

“But.. But!!”

“If you look, he will appear in your dreams every night. Ponder upon your decision carefully.”

Duke Rodriguez blinked at the children’s discussion. In the first place, wasn’t this the wrong discussion to have? And what do you mean by ‘Ponder upon your decision carefully’, Eugeneia! Don’t give him the option! And btw! You should stop looking now!

Aernest hesitated from Eugene’s words. Wouldn’t he already will never be able to forget about Commander Kal for the rest of his life? Maybe he would even enter his dreams every night as nightmares!

But just before he mustered up his determination and courage to turn around, a sliced-off hand suddenly slid in between his two legs.

“AHHHHH!” Shocked senseless, he kicked away the arm to the barfing knight and ran away with the speed of light!

“SISTERR!!!” How can she bully him like this!! How can she just kick the limb to him!!

“Did you see it?”

Duke Rodriguez blinked, “....”

The knight who was barfing in the background vomited for real…

With grief, he shouted! “WHY COULDN’T I SEE IT? I SAW EVERYTHING!!” What do you mean ‘Did you see it?’! I’m not blind!!!

“So stop being curious and don’t turn around,” she said in a calm voice. She knew that the hand part might be too harsh, but the sight in front of her was much worse. Her homeroom teacher had his head cut off and seeing that used to give her nightmares. Similarly, she did not want to give Aernest the experience of dreaming about a man whose face was burning through.

‘Dream about the hand. Not the face.’ was her logic.

“....”, Aernest gritted his teeth in anger, ‘SO MEAN!’

Duke Marleigh shook his head and sighed, “Amos, tie the man up. Eugeneia. You, stop looking and take Aernest to wake everyone up.”

‘...oh.’ Eugene’s mouth widened into an ‘O’.

Before Eugene went to pick up the pouty Aernest, she took one last look at Commander Kal and threw her jacket on top of Commander Kal’s face.

Facing Duke Marleigh’s questioning gaze, she answered,

“I don’t think you should touch it…”

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A few seconds later…

“WAKE UP! WAKE UPP!!”

Insisting on exacting her previous method, she ran around and kicked everyone’s down there. This ‘harsh’ method was not used on Aeselak and Aedelak as she woke them up pretty gently.

Aernest watching on the side, “....”

Duke Marleigh and Duke Rodriguez who was stunned silly by Eugene’s enthusiasm, “...”

“AHHHHHH!!!”

“ARGHHHH!!!”

“MY BROTHER!!!!”

Screams erupted everywhere as almost everyone woke up in pain! Those who were woken up rolled around on the floor in an attempt to ease their pain.

Everyone but Louis who hissed at Eugene with a murderous look. ‘You-Actually-Dared?’

Once everyone’s pain died down, they too, turned to glare at the culprit. The ‘cute’ culprit laughed awkwardly as she fumbled around with her index fingers.

“... Ehehe?” She scratched her head cutely.

Louis’s eyebrows twitched with frustration as he held himself back from strangling his blood-related sister. No one knows how much he was holding himself back from Eugene’s awful smile.

Eugene quickly and quietly squatted beside Louis and straight-up stared at his face.

“...”

“...What. Is. It. Now?” He hissed. Nothing good ever comes out of her when she is behaving oddly.

She leaned her head and with her brows raised, she inquired, “You good?” He had the worst reaction to Kal’s hypnotism out of everybody in this room. To this moment, she could still imagine him convulsing, and she disliked that image a lot.

Louis stared blankly for 10 seconds before frowning, “Did you hit your head somewhere?” He did not want another Euria situation where she started imitating Eugene out of nowhere. What was wrong with his sisters these days? Why do they keep hitting their head?

Eugene’s lips formed a straight line and with a robotic voice, she replied blandly, “I. see. you’re. Good.”

Not a second after, she brought her bum down, sat beside Louis, and sighed. Eugene glanced at Aernest who was walking around apologizing to everyone and stared down at her palm.

Before she could sigh a second time, a hand grabbed her wrist harshly! “What happened?” the voice filled with indescribable emotions startled Eugene.

“ELDEST MISS!!!” Two other voices yelled in horror and caught her attention before she could notice Louis's darkened expression.

Feeling a little awkward from being surrounded so suddenly, she tried to play it off coolly, “Urr… it was a little… sacrifice.”

Her attempt at explaining her wounds was denied by Louis who glared at her, “Do you think you’re funny? Do you not want to use your hands ever again?” his voice was filled with annoyance as he reprimanded her.

Eugene shook her head and confessed, “To wake Duke Rodriguez up, I pounded on him using all my strength. My hands can still be used.” she did not get Louis’s point whatsoever.

Louis’s eyebrows twitched before sarcastically saying, “You did hit your head as well did you not? What did you eat to be so courageous as to hit your teacher? Did you not think to hit your enemies instead, or did you mistake your enemy for your teacher?”

Louis's sarcastic comments did not sit well with Eugene and she rebuked him, “What? Are you my mother?”

Louis knocked Eugene on her forehead and said with disgust, “Your brother. You should get your head checked out.” Who’s your mother? He was adamant that she hit her head.

Eugene pulled her wrist back and turned away, “Tsk..”

Seeing Aedelak approach her from the corner of her eyes, Eugene suddenly shouted, “STOP!”

“!!” Aedelak jolted back as her eyes widened, “...Miss?”

Eugene didn’t look at Aedelak, instead, she stared at her palms with deep thoughts. Commander Kal’s face was being gruesomely eaten by some corrosive chemical. And as to what chemical that was, Eugene could somewhat guess from the timing. However, she did not throw acid on his face. Rather, she threw blood in his face to distract him, and if she was right, the areas on Commander Kal's face where the majority of her blood had landed were where it disintegrated the most.

But was her blood truly the corrosive chemicals? It was… unbelievable. Eugene took a deep breath and scraped her index finger over her dripping blood. She then reached for her arm with her index finger and was about to touch it when Aernest’s shout stopped her,

“SISTER!” He ran over and shook his head frantically! Whilst he did not see Commander Kal’s face rotting, he had seen the hand that Eugene kicked over, and it was… disintegrating. He could somewhat guess that Commander Kal’s face was of the same situation and only now did he understand why Commander Kal was screaming in pain.

“Don’t do it sister!” he shook his head at her terrible idea.

Eugene’s eyebrows furrowed in contemplation.

Louis shook his head at Eugene’s weird action and sighed, “Your head..”

Offended, she quickly turned to Louis and glared! ‘Head! Head! Head! Everything head!’ Before she realized it herself, her blood strained finger jabbed on his forehead!

‘Who cares about you!!’

“AH!!! BROTHER!!” Aernest screamed in horror as he witnessed his sister murdering their brother! ‘What should I do? What should we do? Brother is going to die!!’

Eugene’s mouth formed an ‘O’ as she stared at her index finger on Louis’s forehead. Her body had reacted instinctively due to danger. No, it had reacted impulsively because of annoyance. With widened eyes, she stared at her small index finger and blamed the murder of Louis on it.

“....” Louis stared at Eugene blankly before swatting her finger away like it was a fly. “Ha…” he sighed, ‘Or is her IQ the problem? Whatever it was, she needs to get it checked out as soon as possible.’

Eugene gasped as she watched Louis cleaning his dirtied forehead with disgust, “What the! He’s still alive?!?!” she was slightly offended that he was still alive.

Aernest had the same reaction but was happy that he was still alive.

Aedelak paid no head to Eugene’s crumbling expression as she wrapped Eugene’s wound with a clean cloth, “Please be careful Miss… Please don’t hurt yourself.”

Just then, a scream erupted from nearby!

“AHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The scream belonged to the Nameless Musician, Musician Hal.