“Luken”

A muffled groan could be heard a distance away from the voice.

“Luken” it was obvious the owner of the voice was smiling.

Groan.

“Luken~” the voice sing-sang, “Ugh, is he asleep? Wake him up”

The sound of water hitting a body was heard. The room was very dark and the tiny light there couldn’t be used to see much.

A female figure could be seen sitting on a chair with numerous male figures around her. On a table some meters away from her seat was a figure who sat lifelessly, strapped to a chair.

One of the male figures moved picked up a bucket and the sound of water hitting flesh could be heard again.

She clapped her hands twice and the rooms brightened at all corners. The bloodied figure’s head hung from the chair and the water that dripped from his body were all dyed red. It looked like he’d been in this state for days judging from the dark brown blood on his person and patches on the floor.

“Luken? Sweetie? Can you hear me?” the female questioned mockingly.

The bloodied figure tried to lift his head but failed. Another painful groan escaped from his throat.

“Look, you’re making this hard for yourself” she continued with a sickening sweet voice, “And for me! Can’t you see that?”

“Fuck you” he inhaled deeply, “Mirabelle” his voice cracked, obviously in pain.

Mirabelle shook her head, “Tsk tsk, why doesn’t her highness simply make you talk? You’re just a puppet”

That made the figure twitch.

Mirabelle sighed and moved her short green hair from her face. She had one regular eye that was brown and the other one looked like it was ripped out from a serpent and transplanted onto her face. Her blood red diamond was so large it reached the top of her nose. She had no gray strand on her hair signifying her blood purity.

“Really so frustrating!” she screamed suddenly and swung her hand. The unlucky figure standing next to her flew a few feet away and a clang was heard, suggesting he landed on something metal.

“Luken! Luken dear, we’re the same! Why are you making this hard for a fellow servant?” her voice once again sounded sickening sweet, the anger completely vanished from her voice.

Only a tired groan was the response to her words.

She took a deep breath and moved so fast from her seat it was as though she vanished. Her arm glowed a thick red color and her hand went through his stomach prompting him to release a blood curling scream.

She withdrew her hand and it was covered in red meaty substances.

“Oh, shut up. We both know you’re fine” She flung her hand waving blood everywhere, “That is disgusting”

There was not a single drop of blood or flesh on her. Or maybe one couldn’t see it due to the intensity of the black outfit she wore.

Luken wheezed in pain as in a speed visible to the naked eyes his stomach began to reform and soon it was fine again. Oddly enough, only that injury healed. Every other one on his body stayed the same.

“Anyways like I said, you’re wasting both of our time. Just tell me what I need to know and you’ll be out of here” she gestured extravagantly, reseating herself.

“You…”Luken began but began coughing unable to speak.

The sound of metal doors opening was heard and a short female blood elf walked in soon after. She wore a fox mask that hid her face and her head was bald. Not sparing Luken a glance, she walked up to Mirabelle and whispered into her ear then walked out as quickly as she came in.

Mirabelle was silent after the girl left and only Luken’s deep breathing could be heard.

“We already know. That she’s a demon” She said softly, breaking the silence.

Luken head shot up, his bloodied face full of surprise, ignoring whatsoever pain racked his body due to that movement.

“The Crown Prince was curious” Mirabelle began to explain with a face that said she was doing the other a favor,

“A puppet that feels it’s free … how would he act when faced with something he want to protect?”

Luken’s face dawned with understanding and then distorted into one of absolute rage.

“Absolute loyalty” Mirabelle sneered.

He let out a roar of anger, engaging in a futile struggle against the chains which bound him. His mana was sealed and he wasn’t a Ki user so wanting to break his bounds was only a dream.

The man couldn’t actually believe he’d been tortured for nothing. He was angry but there was nothing he could do about it. Perhaps he was destined to die like this since the day he was captured from his hometown. 

Mirabelle’s sour mood soared with his anger. She had been saddled with this boring job of torturing Luken. Torture was only interesting when the person you tortured broke and Luken didn’t crack the whole time. If anything he was still lively enough to throw curses when he found the slightest energy.

Although Luken was a puppet, he was a flesh puppet so he was alive and kicking, just his brain was a bit tweaked and under the control of someone else. Flesh puppets always had awareness making them not battle efficient as they wouldn’t mindlessly follow instructions to the letter but for spying and responsibilities they were the best.

They could never betray their owner even if they tried. The only thing that sucked about flesh puppets was that they became like dolls after they gained control mechanisms. To train them to express realistic expressions for infiltration was years of work so Luken himself was truly a breakthrough into advanced puppeteering.

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He could express emotions easily from the get go even if an expert person could easily tell it was fake. As time went on, his expressions became more realistic but their control over him also weakened. If they could fix that problem, the art of flesh puppeteering would be invisible in infiltration.

Mirabelle was in charge of torturing him for information about his savage partner and he had been completely silent about her. It was a truly remarkable as flesh puppets instinctively betrayed everything but their owner.

So, honestly I didn’t torture you for nothing but I’m not telling you that, Mirabelle laughed inwardly.

Luken’s current rage right now made her feel satisfaction.

It completely over wrote the boredom she felt the past few days.

She cracked the hands and smiled viciously. She wasn’t done yet. 

***

Abigail slowly brushed her hair. She stared blankly at herself in the mirror, going through the motions just for the sake of it.

This particular action went for a few minutes before she spoke, “How’s Mirabelle?”

“She seems to be having fun”, a coarse voice spoke and a figure dropped from the ceiling behind Abigail and stood, her hands behind her back.

It was the bald elven girl with the mask.

“Fun?” Abigail asked lazily.

“Yes” the girl replied sharply.

Abigail continued brushing her hair, not speaking anymore.

The girl nodded and jumped up again, vanishing into the ceiling.

Soon after, the door to the room slid barely open but nothing came in.

“I’m here, Your Highness” Mirabelle’s voice could be heard as soon as the door was closed. She cancelled her invisibility spell and knelt to Abigail’s side.

“So?”

“He was very uncooperative, Your Highness”, Mirabelle replied softly.

Abigail’s hand paused for a second, “Really?”

“Yes, Your Highness”

“Not even one word?”

“Yes, Your Highness”

Abigail stopped brushing her hair and dropped the hair brush, sitting still in silence.

Maids numbering five strolled in almost immediately, their heads lowered and began to change Abigail’s outfit. She was changed into a white fleece cuffed sleeve and black thigh pants. Her hair was removed of the single ornament it had and carefully pulled into a pony tail.

After placing her feet in a black pair of boots, they all bowed and left the room.

“Spear” she ordered.

Mirabelle lowered her head as she offered a silver spear that had appeared in her hand.

Abigail twisted her neck from left to right, feeling satisfied, she asked, “Where is mother?”

“In the training room” the masked girl’s coarse voice was heard-apparently she’d never left causing Mirabelle flinched, startled.

“Oh?” Abigail raised a brow, “Why?”

“I don’t know” came the curt reply.

Abigail just smiled thoughtfully at that, “Well, it doesn’t matter much. And Mirabelle?”

“Yes, Your Highness?” Mirabelle asked, her voice a bit choked.

“Calm down” Abigail chuckled heartily.

“Yes...” Mirabelle answered, then added in a smaller voice, “Your Highness”

Abigail sashayed towards the door, her ponytail swaying with her every step. The doors opened before she reached them but she stopped before stepping out.

“You didn’t kill him, right?” Abigail asked without turning around.

“No, Your Highness” Mirabelle shook her head.

“Good. I still have use of him” Abigail nodded pleased and briskly walked out of the room.

The room after Abigail left went completely void of sound and despite there being two beings in the room not a soul could be seen.

A loud clang shattered the silence and the masked girl and Mirabelle could be seen away from each other as their invisibility spells were destroyed from the impact.

Mirabelle twirled a black dagger in between her fingers and her face held a huge scowl, “Crazy bitch, if you’re there, say something”. Her once brown eye had become half yellow, closely resembling her serpent eye.

“Why should I?” the masked bald girl sneered. Her hands were covered in red gloves but she held no weapon.

Mirabelle’s scowl deepened and she stopped twirling her dagger obviously about to attack again.

“Oh my, are you seriously attacking me in Abigail’s room?” the bald girl chuckled but looked as relaxed as ever.

“You! How dare you call her Highness by her name!” Mirabelle was visibly enraged, and she flickered appearing before the bald girl.

“Wow, how uptight. Abigail doesn’t care, why should I?” she effortlessly moved away before the dagger reached her, grabbing Mirabelle’s arm, tapping it. A crack could be heard as the arm shattered including the bones, becoming mangled mess.

Mirabelle’s expression barely changed and she stabbed towards the masked girl with her working arm but before she could do anything she was held in a choking hold and pinned to the ground. She struggled for a while and slowly began to cough violently.

The masked girl didn’t release her, watching her struggle. Slowly but surely Mirabelle slowly lost her ability to breath and just before she was gone, the masked girl released her. Mirabelle immediately took deep breaths hacking and holding her chest. Both of her eyes had gone back to their usual color of brown.

The bald girl squatted till her masked face was in front of Mirabelle, “You didn’t take your meds?”

Mirabelle’s previous attitude was completely gone and she resembled a little child being scolded, “Sorry, I was stuck with the puppet”

“I know. Why didn’t you take it before meeting Abigail?” The bald girl’s voice actually had a hint of care to it.

“That… I wanted to hurry and report…” she said guiltily. It was as though what took place seconds ago never happened.

“That’s bad! Imagine if you had attacked Abigail instead of me!” The masked girl warned.

Mirabelle shook her head ferociously, “I would never…attack her royal highness!”

The masked girl chuckled and ruffled Mirabelle’s hair, “I know… it was just an example. You would never do that”

Mirabelle nodded to that and gave a toothy smile.

“But you would attack everybody else unreasonably, like now” the girl finished

Mirabelle looked elsewhere, giving a fake whistle. The masked girl just laughed at that.

“But...” the masked girl wondered aloud, “If you were in that state while you dealt with the puppet, are you sure he’s not dead?”

Mirabelle froze.

***

Agnes dried her hair as she just came out of the shower. She had just finished a very rigorous Ki session and had been sweating all over.

She quickly changed her clothing and sat on her bed. She took a deep breath and began to chant a spell, “Guide the essence of lightning into a form of piercing measure, Lightning Sword”

Her small orb of lightning formed first them began to expand slowly, revealing its form as a lightning spear…

“Shit, wrong spell” she cursed but waited for it to fully form before she willed it to dissipate. Cancelling a spell before it was done was asking for backlash.

She sighed and waited for her mana pool to refill before chanting again. It was a 3rd circle spell and as Agnes hadn’t become an advanced mage yet, using a third circle spell used up almost all her mana. The remnants were only enough for a rank 1 spell.

From what she knew, that meant her mana well was huge because most people on average cannot cast a rank 3 spell before their major breakthrough and if they could, it would finish up their mana pool.

Minutes later, her mana pool was filled up and she cast correctly this time, “Guide the essence of lightning into a form of slaying measure, Lightning Sword”

The orb of lightning formed then next the hilt of the lightning sword formed confirming that the spell was the correct one.

Sometimes she wondered how mages who had hundreds of spells remembered how to cast them correctly.

Looking at the formed sword in her hand, she couldn’t help but sigh. The spell took the default form of a long sword but she had a scimitar for a weapon. She tried to manipulate the form but came up with a distorted looking sword as she ran out of mana before making any reasonable changes.

She willed it to dissipate, frustrated. She was 3 ranks away from the breakthrough point thankfully so her mana would definitely expand a bit but she didn’t really have anyone to teach her finesse with mana and even Aileen didn’t know.

She was probably stuck with the default sword sadly. She lay on her bed idly again waiting for her mana to recover.

Her thoughts wandered over to Luken. He had been a no show for the past few days making her a bit worried.

It wasn’t the first time she wouldn’t see him for a few days but these past few days, she’d been feeling a bit restless.

She couldn’t shrug the feeling that something bad was going to happen and judging by her experiences the past few years, her instincts were on point majority of the time.

Her mana recovered and she once again began her routine of casting spells and testing her limit and hoping to rank up at least once.

If her instincts were right this time, she would need more power than ever and thinking about Luken wasn't going to make her rank up.