F-Rank Puppeteer!! But I'll be Queen, and I'm not a narcissist!!!!!-Chapter 230: Pathetically Painful

I fly to the kingdom at an extreme speed, cutting through the hazy, overcast sky until I reach the castle gates. I don’t bother trying to open them normally or call out. I grip the handle so hard the door shatters, my Hikishin seeping into the material.

Cracks spider across the door, spreading to the frame and splitting it, then racing along the walls and demolishing the entire entryway. I never taught Evelyn just how dangerous Hikishin is when used as a weapon.

Almost everything has Hikishin within it. If your Hikishin is powerful enough, you can break anything inferior by simply forcing your Hikishin inside it. It’s inefficient and drains too much energy, which is why no one even bothers.

But I have this knowledge, even if I never use it. I step through the hole I made as a few guards rush over, drawn by the commotion. They freeze when they see me.

"M-Miss Esther, why are you here..." Before he can finish, I touch his face. His entire body is overtaken by red and black cracks, and he shatters like glass, collapsing into a pool of blood and flesh on the floor. The other guards, terrified, scramble out of my way as I follow the path toward the prison.

"Are you going to try and stop me too?" I say to the hidden ’shadows’ watching me. They do nothing. Not wanting to waste time, I stop in one of the rooms and look down. The prison is located beneath this room, underground.

I stomp on the floor, flooding it with my Hikishin. The ground caves in beneath me, splitting through meters of earth until it reaches an open space below. I jump down into it. I don’t care about the destruction I’m causing.

If the Demon King is dead, the castle now belongs to his strongest children. Which means this castle is mine. Lucien’s. And Marie’s, who’s likely in third place in the race for the throne.

"..." As soon as I land in the prison, I glance around. Prisoners shrink back from the bars of their cells when they see me, covered in blood and wreckage. I search, looking for which cell holds Evelyn.

’Her magic...’ I sense it. I look toward one of the cells and wrench the bars open. The prisoner inside cowers in the corner, trembling, as I touch the wall. Black and red cracks glow as the solid barrier—designed to suppress the prisoners’ magic—splits like it’s nothing.

The very structure of the rock crumbles to dust, unable to withstand the immense amount of magic I possess. A level of magic none of the prisoners here could ever replicate.

"..." I step into another corridor through the hole I made and see a different cell. I hear the crack of a whip. Out of patience, I punch the door, tearing it off its hinges.

"Who dares—E-Esther-sama?!" A guard inside was about to say something arrogant, until he realizes I’m standing in the room.

I see Evelyn. She’s covered in deep wounds and massive gashes. One of her arms is missing. Her gaze is utterly vacant.

Her body has small cracks in several places, like a broken doll. Unlike a body of flesh and bone, her puppet body is beginning to show—the joints and limbs look like those of a marionette.

She must be too exhausted to maintain the appearance of something normal. But seeing her so wounded makes my vision burn red. An immense hatred surges. The room trembles as the air itself seems to vibrate with my rage.

"E-Esther-sama, I—" The guard tries to speak, but I snatch the whip from his hand. In one swift motion, I wrap it around his neck, twisting it tight as I brace my leg against him and pull.

"!!!" He tries to scream in agony, but I pull the whip so hard his neck compresses. His eyes bulge like a fish being brutally squeezed.

"E-Esther-sama, p-please—" He doesn’t get to finish. His head is severed as my grip snaps the whip. His body crumples to the floor, blood spraying, staining my shoes.

"..." I release that trash and walk to Evelyn. I grab the chain binding her to the ceiling, unleashing my Hikishin to shatter the chains and the shackle holding her. She falls forward, and I catch her in a tight embrace.

"Evelyn... I-I’m here." I kneel on the floor with her in my lap, quickly assessing the damage. She’s badly hurt, but I know she can rebuild herself. Nothing is permanent. But that doesn’t calm me.

"..." She’s silent. Her breathing is shallow, almost static. Her heart isn’t beating. She barely seems alive. She looks so fragile—she must have abandoned every ’realistic’ bodily function just to endure the pain.

Thankfully, I know she’s a puppet. If her heart had stopped, I would have collapsed in tears.

"W-Why..." She murmurs something so faintly. I lift her face, meeting her gaze. I wait, filled with a horrible, suffocating anxiety for her next words.

"..."

"Why... d-did you let this happen... Esther... t-this is your fault..." When she says it, everything seems to stop. Her words drift through my mind, making no sense. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

My heart aches, wounded by her accusation. Until I realize—it has always been this way, and it always will be. I will always be the one to blame for everything that happens to her. Even though I came as fast as I could to save her.

"Yes... it was my fault." My voice turns cold as I agree with her. Because this is how Evelyn protects herself. Because she is a coward. And she chose to make me the one at fault, so she wouldn’t have to bear the blame for anything. Even though neither of us is to blame for this situation.

And it hurts. It hurts so much. I never thought taking the blame for her could hurt this badly. It feels like my heart is being torn apart. My breathing grows ragged.

"I’m sorry... I should have come faster." I hold her tighter, my trembling fingers gripping her body. A mix of relief that she isn’t in an even worse state—and above all, a crushing pain at being blamed for something I had no control over.

"..." I look at Evelyn’s back. She’s grown large, purple wings. A deep, dark violet. It means Evelyn has ’matured’ as a dragon. The horrible experience of being tortured for over a month forced a growth I had no direct part in.

I didn’t even get a thank you. She spoke to me like she was demanding something. As if I should have been here much sooner. This way she treats my time, my effort, my emotions—as if it’s something I owe her—is infuriating. Frustrating. Degrading.

"I’ll... take care of you..." Her blaming me the moment she saw me cooled my feelings. The rage, the hatred, the sickening feeling—none of it disappeared. My immense hunger didn’t vanish either. It was merely overshadowed by the pain of being treated so poorly.

I didn’t want praise. I didn’t want thanks. I just wanted her to be okay. If she had just stayed quiet, I would have felt so much better.

"Just hold on a little longer..." I lift her from the floor. She’s so light. Her tail is limp, like a broken toy. Her wings are drawn in tight, as if she’s in pain while I carry her.

Evelyn isn’t crying like I expected her to be. She seems so... cold. Her skin is so frigid. I never realized before just how cold Evelyn’s body can be. Just like her emotions.

I always saw Evelyn as someone who would cry over everything. So seeing her so apathetic, shutting herself off from the pain, is strange.

"..." She doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t even look at me. Her gaze is vacant, as if she isn’t really focused on anything around her. I know people who’ve been tortured often retreat into their minds to protect themselves.

But Evelyn isn’t really protecting herself. She’s just shutting everything out. As if she’s punishing me for not saving her sooner. And I know this, because she refuses to look at me.

"Do you really hate being saved by me that much? I could have let them break you more before I came in as your savior." I say something cruel in this moment of frustration.

"..." Evelyn raises her one remaining arm and touches her throat. She uses magic to reconstruct her vocal cords—they must have been damaged from the screaming during her torture.

"If you had done that, it wouldn’t matter... Either way, you failed to protect me... Saving me sooner or later doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t fix your mistake, and it doesn’t erase your guilt..."

"..." When she says that, I bite my lips so hard blood spills. It drips down my chin and falls onto her face, trailing down her cheek and onto the floor, already soaked with her blood.

"Could you at least show a little gratitude?! I SAVED YOU, GODDAMNIT!" I scream at her. I know I shouldn’t yell at her. I know why she’s being cruel to me. I understand. But understanding doesn’t mean I’m not frustrated.

"..." She stares into my eyes in silence, as if she’s judging my very soul. Her gaze is so sorrowful. But she isn’t sad for me. She’s sad for herself, for the situation she’s in. She’s so selfish it makes me furious.

I reach my room in the castle and throw her onto the bed without any care—because I can’t be gentle when she treats me like my saving her was an inconvenience. She whimpers in pain, curling in on herself as her blood stains the white sheets.

"Tch." I click my tongue, rifling through the drawers in my room. I grab some medicine to help with the pain she must be feeling from all these wounds. I walk over to her, taking a deep breath.

"Evelyn, drink this. It’ll help you feel a little better." I try to hand it to her, but she closes her mouth and turns her face away. Sulking like a damned child.

"Evelyn, just take the medicine." I climb onto the bed, trying to put it in her mouth, but she turns her head and tries to pull away. It’s so frustrating. I put the medicine in my own mouth and grab her face, forcing a kiss on her. She bites my lip until it bleeds as I push my tongue into her mouth with effort, forcing the medicine—and my blood—past her lips.

She’s forced to swallow it along with my blood. When I see she’s taken it, I break the kiss. I touch my wounded lip, realizing she bit down hard just to push me away.

"..." I look at my hand. It’s smeared with my blood and the blood of the enemies I killed. My clothes are soaked with the blood of my enemies and Evelyn’s blood. I look filthy.

"Acting like a child, throwing a tantrum. You’re so damn irritating, Evelyn..." I spit on the floor and turn back to the drawer, searching for more things to rub on her wounds, to help with her pain. Even though the emotional pain I’m feeling is just as great as her physical pain.

"..." I look at the mirror on the dresser and realize I’m crying. I hadn’t noticed before, but from the trail of tears on my face, it seems I’ve been crying for a while. Seeing myself in the mirror, I look so pathetic.

CRACK

I punch the mirror, shattering that ugly image of myself. I can’t face how stupid I look, fighting so hard for someone like Evelyn. Even though I’ve always accepted being the one she blames.

"Haa... Haa..." I pant, wiping the tears with my filthy hands. Who would have thought? I expected to find Evelyn crying. And in the end, I’m the one crying. I don’t think I’ve cried like this since I was a child, terrified of the truth only I knew.