My Beloved Princess ~The Boy Called Incompetent Rises with Only a Sword and the Princess's Devotion~ - Chapter 070: Soul Prison

Elesia stood upon a vast, seemingly endless white floor.

She looked around. A white sky and a white floor stretched 360 degrees to the horizon’s edge. Both were so white that she couldn’t even discern the boundary between them. Only white continued infinitely.

“Where is this? I was… pushed down by that male student…”

Though Elesia tried to recall memories beyond that point, she couldn’t remember anything.

Where was this place, to begin with? It bore no resemblance to the dim interior of the clock tower. The entire expanse of white was dazzlingly bright, stinging her eyes.

“Good work. My wish came true. Your role also ends here.”

A voice called from behind her, where no one had been just seconds ago.

Turning around, she saw a black-haired, beautiful girl. Dressed in a Lower School uniform, she wore a dragon robe of red and white, and smiled, her previously expressionless face changing richly enough to make her seem like a completely different person.

Elesia gasped, then lowered her gaze to her own body. A dress with red frills came into view. It was a dress she recognized, closely resembling the one she had favored wearing long ago when she was still a marquis’s daughter. She scooped up a lock of hair falling on her shoulder with one hand. Glossy blonde hair slipped smoothly through her fingers.

“Why is a body I discarded long ago…”

“Because that’s the form of your soul—your original appearance.”

“Soul, you say? Meaning, this place is—”

Elesia looked around once more. The expanse of white remained unchanged.

“The land where souls sleep. A mental world, you mean.”

“Exactly. You seemed to think you had buried my soul. Unfortunately, my soul is safe, as you see.”

“Then I’ll dispose of you right here and now. If this is a mental world, it is the territory of the Soul Transfer formula. Though coming here so carelessly, even for a sheltered princess, being fearless has its limits.”

In the white space, two girls stood.

A girl with hair blacker than the darkest night and a girl with golden-shining blonde hair faced each other, their confrontational posture intensifying. The black-haired girl opened her mouth.

“Do you know? When frogs are thrown into boiling water, they are surprised and escape, but if you gradually raise the water temperature, they can’t escape and die.”

“Oh? People are the same. When death approaches imminently, they flee desperately, but with gradual death, not so much. For example, they’d flee frantically before a killer, but just hearing rumors that a killer lurks doesn’t translate into action. That’s the same even after victims actually appear. In the end, they want to think they’re safe, right? Those foolish people.”

The black-haired girl giggled.

“You are the same now.”

“What?”

“If I had tried forcibly exposing that identity, you would have rampaged frantically trying to escape. Then, accompanied by that, many deaths would surely have occurred. But if this side proceeded moderately, you also acted moderately to avoid stirring things up. Not reporting your existence to the academy was surely very convenient for you. But actually, it was a convenient development precisely for me. Complacent you, without noticing my intent, failed to escape from the gradually boiling water.”

“Ha! Intent? What intent existed? If this desperate situation is the intent you envisioned, then dance madly on the board and die!”

When Elesia raised one hand, gigantic iron blades spinning at high speed grew from the ground. With Gyuiin sounds, three-blade sets roared threateningly. One, two, three… growing one after another like bamboo shoots, vicious soul dismantling devices lined up behind Elesia, smashing drive parts against each other, scattering intense sparks, and beginning their intimidation.

“You are showing considerable composure, but you… don’t you understand this situation? In this place where magic cannot be used, the only thing that can interfere with our souls is the Soul Transfer formula spread beforehand. Meaning, you are in a position to be unilaterally trampled.”

Against that threat, however, the black-haired girl smiled alluringly, not losing her composed expression.

“Soul Transfer formula, huh. Certainly, that was troublesome. Even destroying your flesh, if the soul transfers to different flesh, it returns to square one. And though wanting to destroy spare flesh first, I didn’t know where or how many spares were prepared. Then what should be done?”

Amid the subtly misaligned conversation, when the black-haired girl snapped her long, slender fingertips, the high-speed rotating iron blades stopped precisely. And when the girl snapped her fingers once more, the vicious dismantling devices vanished fleetingly like mirages.

A chill ran down Elesia’s spine. The girl continued.

“Even without taking Kōran hostage, either way I intended to make some mistake and offer this body. Because the purpose was luring you to this place. The Soul Contract also became a good smokescreen, diverting your consciousness.”

An impossible thing was happening.

Elesia’s ears barely registered the girl’s voice.

“Going roundabout and offering this body was also a strategy to avoid arousing suspicion in distrustful you. If you had seen through that my purpose was letting the body be hijacked, all preparations would have ended in bubbles.”

The black-haired girl smiled thinly.

“Incidentally, telling everything to Seiran-dono was also a bluff. To restrict your movements and prevent unnecessary actions. I only told Kishō to wait at the clock tower at six.”

Her knees trembled. Elesia’s squeezed-out voice shook with fear.

“Lies… that can’t be… are you saying you hacked the Soul Transfer formula?”

“I said, didn’t I? That if formulas are truly understood, applications also work.”

“Impossible!” Elesia spat.

Soul Transfer was ultra-advanced magic completed over a lifetime by Elesia Ignoosis, who had her talent recognized by Great Mage Alkis Faust and became his final disciple. That formula was complex and bizarre, and to compare, composed of more magic formulas than all the characters in the Lower School library’s entire collection combined. Reading, understanding, then turning the formulas back on themselves in that short time was physically impossible.

“Of course, I couldn’t analyze everything in that short time. Therefore, I will acknowledge countermeasures were also imperfect. But you carved it directly on my body, didn’t you? The Soul Transfer formula. Then wouldn’t you think analyzing it was natural?”

Natural was impossible. But the girl before her had realized that impossibility.

“Mon… monster…”

A different class. Realizing only now that this was an out-of-spec monster she shouldn’t have made an enemy, Elesia’s instinct screamed to flee with full power.

—Access Soul Transfer formula.

Elesia swiftly activated the formula for transferring souls to other vessels.

“Too bad! Soul Transfer formula also incorporates formulas for transferring souls to other vessels. In the end, though you could lure me, you couldn’t catch me. Fleeing with my tail between my legs doesn’t suit my nature, but it can’t be helped. Well then, farewell!”

Elesia’s parting shot echoed in the white space. But Elesia’s soul still remained there, and instant transfer to other vessels wasn’t granted. With the composed expression of having outwitted her, Elesia froze in place.

“Why? Why is this? Even if we can both use the Soul Transfer formula, formula activation shouldn’t be blocked. Then why, why isn’t anything happening!?”

“So I said, didn’t I? That luring you to this place was the purpose. Meaning, I set traps.”

“Traps? Just what kind of traps can be set in a mental world…”

Those things like energy meridians spread through the white earth continuing endlessly were Soul Transfer formulas capable of dominating and moving the mental world. But looking around, no other formula-like things were visible. In the first place, intervening other magic in this space filled with the Soul Transfer formula was impossible.

—Then, Elesia noticed a distortion occurring in the formula. That was erosion by an anti-Soul Transfer formula. Unbelievably, two formulas were fusing.

“Don’t tell me you rewrote the Soul Transfer formula!?”

The black-haired girl slowly shook her head and answered.

“Even I can’t go that far.”

“Then what did you—”

“The Soul Transfer formula activated properly. But my soul is safe, as you see. Then, what did your technique process and make into a vessel?”

“Eh…”

Instantly, Elesia’s surroundings darkly sank.

The sensation of her foot soles stepping on the ground vanished, and her body began being swallowed like a bottomless swamp.

“What you made into a vessel was the pseudo-soul I prepared. Though saying ‘pseudo’ is also strange, since this is an aggregate of real souls. Well, essentially, understand it as something made by gathering extremely vicious vengeful spirit souls. You processed such evil things and made them into a vessel bearing your own soul.”

What she’d thought was a swamp was a large mouth. Elesia, submerged to her waist, desperately struggled to escape, but her body sank deeper and deeper.

“In the mental world, the power of vengeful spirits is tremendous. You put your own soul and vengeful spirits’ souls in one box and fixed them. And that strongly cursed connection couldn’t be severed even by the Soul Transfer formula.”

The same principle as being unable to stand on water. Though trying to brace herself, the ground didn’t repel her even a hair’s worth. The mouth gradually closed to swallow Elesia. Ominous, demon-suggesting triangular teeth slowly approached from the left and right.

“Look closely. To embrace you, vengeful spirits are crawling out from the bottom of the earth.”

Something grasped Elesia’s ankle. Because her lower body was submerged in black, muddy, swamp-like darkness, Elesia couldn’t see what was grasping her foot. But intuitively, she sensed they were countless hands. Goosebumps rose on her spine.

She imagined it. The abyss’s bottom beyond the wide-open mouth’s bottom. Her own figure being dragged into true darkness where light didn’t reach. Elesia screamed from fear.

“Wait! What about the Soul Contract? You’re not keeping the condition to accept my Soul Transfer formula! Contract breach!!!”

“If judged as a breach, the demon’s final judgment is performed in this mental world. While you rejoiced and trembled with joy obtaining my body, the final judgment was performed and finished. The demon acknowledged my claim.”

“Claim, you say? You deliberately prevented part of the Soul Transfer formula. If not calling this a breach, what do you call it?”

Giggling, the girl laughed with an annoyingly beautiful face. Looking down pitifully on Elesia, who was deeply submerged to her shoulders:

“I accepted the Soul Transfer formula, and all formulas activated smoothly. Mistaking the target setting is your responsibility, not my responsibility. In fact, I’m safe like this now, so the contract was judged fulfilled.”

“With such quibble-like reasoning, you think you deceived the demon!?”

“Precisely because it’s ambiguous with loopholes, it can be exploited. You should have considered why it was designated forbidden curse magic.”

However much lamenting unfairness, the verdict was already passed.

Elesia was defeated. That fact wouldn’t overturn no matter how much objection she raised.

“Lies… to think… such a trap was set… that I, this rare sorceress Elesia Ignoosis, was outwitted by a mere girl who’s only lived fifteen years!? Impossible, it’s impossible.”

The mouth closed. Slowly closed.

The white space gradually narrowed and closed from Elesia’s vision, submerged to her neck.

Elesia continued struggling, continuing screaming in frenzy.

Severed from the white space, the world completely closed. That instant:

“Vengeful spirits who couldn’t attain Buddhahood and wandered the world. Perhaps some you killed are also mixed in.”

The girl’s inorganic, cold voice reached her, and then the world completely closed.