Reincarnated Into An Otome Game? Who Cares! I'm Too Busy Mastering Magic! Chapter 8

Black Magic

It's the Eve of the final battle. The sound of a conch, like the trumpets of war, reverberates inside my head.

Come on, Rouge! It's time to end this!

That's right. Tonight, we will exterminate that poisonous woman, once and for all.

The longer we put this off, it will only become more dangerous for me, so we are ending everything tonight.

Huh? Wouldn't it be fine to just dismiss Rouge from her position and banish her from the premises?

Nope. That's not good enough. Why? Because Father thinks that Rouge has probably been using black magic all this time and so just letting her go would be too dangerous.

Black magic is just one of the types of magic possible in this world. It is a more archaic form of magic and the shape it takes as well as the rules of how to use it vary from person to person so it can be difficult to identify. Nevertheless, it is extremely odd that neither Father nor Alphonse-san noticed anything amiss over these past few years, despite Rouge being so active in enacting her evil plans.

Additionally, it is weird that neither of my parents had even tried to confirm the truth of the situation with each other. Neither Father nor Mother are the shy type, so it seems unnatural for them to always avoid the problem and to have let it progress to the point that it had.

With all of these oddities taken into consideration, the likelihood that Rouge was using a type of mind controlling black magic is extremely high. Even though I should be excited that a new type of magic as just appeared in my fantasy world, I can't be happy about it under these circ.u.mstances.

According to Alphonse-san, who has been staying by my side on standby, when this type of magic is cast, there is some sort of oath that becomes visible in the caster's eyes. So the fact that neither Father nor Alphonse-san nor I can ever actually remember looking into her eyes is further evidence to support this theory. (Excluding that time when she had threatened me.)

While it isn't that unusual for people with hugely differing social statuses to have never looked directly into each other's eyes before, in Rouge's case, she seems to have been born into a former Baron's family. With the manners of the n.o.bility, and that fact that she has been working for us for at least the last five years, it is seems more weird than normal that none of us have seen her eyes before.

“But the most important evidence is that moment when she threatened you, Young Mistress. When you saw her eyes, you said that they looked wild and that you had sensed a black haze revolving in their depths that they made you feel terrified. These should also be signs of the black magic she had cast,” Alphonse-san said, regretting that he had not been able to sense any of these signs before.

And with so many signs, I could only agree with their theory. But, even if she had cast some sort of spell, so what? Wouldn't banishment be punishment enough? If she was expelled from the country, shouldn't that forced distance be sufficient? Even after the plan had been decided, I was still a bit worried the severity of it, so once Father had left the room to saying to leave everything to him, I asked Alphonse-san about it.

“Black magic, once cast, is linked to a person's life. So if Rouge was merely banished, such distance would do nothing but add to her resentment. In all likelihood, this would only strengthen the spell she cast on you. In the worst case, your life would likely be put in danger from it.”

“Oh,” was all I said in response. Somehow, that sounds kind of a like the curse of a vengeful spirit!

Seeing me become frightened, Alphonse-san tried to calm me down. Lowering his nicely-shaped eyebrows, he also gave me a rea.s.suring smile.

“Please don't worry. I will protect you, even if it costs me my life.”

“O- Okay……”

Hearing Alphonse-san say such a thing, I unintentionally faltered for a moment…. Even as a butler, he's just too handsome. Having a butler… is kind of amazing.

“Unfortunately, even though Young Mistress's willpower has overcome the effects of the curse, you still have not been able to recover your physical or mental strength enough yet so we don't know when its power might return. For Master and myself as well, the shock of seeing you recovered was enough to momentarily break her hold over our minds, but we have no idea when the spell's restraints might come back. We have yet to fully break her spell yet.”

Well, I guess that is true. Even though I really don't understand magic much yet, if I calm down my heart and focus my attention in on myself, I can just barely sense that ominous black haze resonating from inside of me. This is probably the traces of the spell that have been left behind even now. That can't be good.

Back on topic, the rough outline of our plan for tonight is as follows.

After dinner, Father will, as per his usual routine, retire to his library to lay out our first trap. At that time, it seems that Rouge is often the one who brings him his tea so once the two are alone together, Father will seduce her and then invite her back to his room later tonight.

On a side note, before he does this, Father said he would stop by Mother's room first, so I'm a bit worried. What is he planning to say to her?

But, that's beside the point. After he has reached his room, we will wait for a bit longer and then Alphonse-san and I, with me hiding in his shadow, will also head towards Father's room. And the once Father gives us the signal, I will leave Alphonse-san's shadow and appear before Rouge.

One reason we decided not to finish things off in the library but instead in Father's bedroom is so that we can catch Rouge off guard. She'll be too happy to maintain her vigilance and in this way shouldn't be able to bluff her way out of anything.

The second reason is so that we could lay some magic around the area in advance. Father says it is magic that will expose Rouge's spells, so I figured it's probably like those revealing charms that are often seen in fantasy stories.

After going over the details one more time with Alphonse-san, I ended up falling asleep for a bit. Even if my mind has changed, it seems like I still only possess the physical strength of a little girl, so after doing so much today I couldn't manage to stay awake any longer.

So I slept for a bit while Alphonse-san watched over me and when I woke, I had just a tiny bit of the mostly liquid meal that was prepared for me for dinner. It was after that, when I was starting to nod off again, when I heard a knock at my door.

“Alice, I'm coming in.”

“Father! Please do.”

He quietly opened door and came in. After looking me over, he gave me a leisurely smile.

“Ahh, being near you puts me at ease….. That was hard.”

After saying that, Father sat down heavily in a chair looking exhausted. It seems like the trap we laid for Rouge must have been a success.

“Without letting her notice, I tried using just a tiny bit of spell resistance magic and coincidentally that allowed me to sense the horrible corrupted feeling coming from her spell. I really can't believe such a foul thing has been polluting our home for so long and yet I didn't realize it.”

Yeah, she must be a formidable opponent to be able to fool us all like this.

“Both Master and I are have fairly strong resistance magic and yet somehow this spell was able to slip through our defenses. Her determination to break through while staying hidden must have been extremely strong,” Alphonse-san says, grimacing.

“Anyway, it's time. Come to my room one hour from now.”

Readying our resolve, Alphonse-san and I both give a nod of our heads.

T/N: Wow. This chapter was unexpectedly hard to translate. The reasoning just didn't seem to flow very well and the talk about Rouge's spell was not very clear. So, if anyone is confused about any of this, let me know! I will do my best to rewrite that section in a way that makes more sense. Don't worry about hurting my feelings haha. Feel free to be brutal, I will take it as a good learning experience.

Also, I wanted to get the chapter up, so I ended up editing it while I was pretty tired. Please let me know if you see any mistakes or typos, I'll make sure to fix those too!