I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 386: The Empress: Now It's Time to Punish This Brat!
Shinji seemed to have made up his mind to retell this part of the story in segments.
Before the audience could recover from the shock of Jeanne d'Arc's mental collapse, the scene shifted to Mordred's side.
Under the effects of the Sikera Ušum, Mordred suddenly lost all strength in her legs and dropped to her knees on the floor of the castle's central hall.
"Hah… hah…"
Mordred gasped for air, her body trembling uncontrollably.
"Oh, Saber… you've made a fatal mistake."
The more miserable Mordred looked, the happier Semiramis became. With deliberate malice, she gently reached out and touched Mordred's hair, teasingly twirling a strand around her finger.
Mordred was a knight with fierce pride. She could accept death, but humiliation was absolutely intolerable.
Mordred immediately swung her sword back in fury, but there was no resistance at all. The crimson knight's blade merely sliced through empty air.
And just like that, she understood the Empress's little trick.
"The shield I shattered earlier… it wasn't to protect you, was it? It was to conceal your teleportation magecraft."
Having lived her entire life charging straight ahead—and charging a little too hard—Mordred had instinctively assumed that anyone wielding such massive magical energy and complex formulas on a shield intended to fight her head-on.
Without question, this had been her own misjudgment.
"I say, rebellious knight," the Empress murmured softly beside her, her voice dripping with delight.
"Why did you ever think I'd compete with you in a fair, honorable duel?"
"Could it be because every enemy you've faced so far has been that kind of idiot? As expected, barbarians will always be barbarians. No matter how much they 'evolve,' they never break the habit of not using their brains."
Mordred ground her teeth. "You coward who has no dignity as a Heroic Spirit… always running away…!!"
Semiramis laughed lightly. "Fool. I am the oldest poisoner in history. Why would I ever fight fair and square? I'm a strategist, you see."
She smugly tapped her own temple with a finger.
The gesture was unbearably mocking. Mordred's entire body shook with humiliation and rage.
The Empress sneered.
"Now then, Saber~ let me torture you to death, one-sidedly. It's punishment time for naughty children~"
With her declaration, chains burst forth in an instant, wrapping tightly around Mordred's body.
Before she could even react, Mordred was flung high into the air.
And it didn't stop there.
More chains coiled around her arms and legs. Under the pull of centrifugal force, her back was slammed viciously against a stone pillar.
"Guh—!!"
This is bad!
The Pendragon family's inherited skill—Instinct—was screaming warnings directly into Mordred's brain.
But her vision was now shrouded in thick fog; she couldn't see anything clearly at all.
It wasn't that she didn't want to fight back. Every sword swing simply struck nothing, while more and more chains wrapped themselves around her body.
Mordred understood all too well that the distance between herself and that venomous woman was growing wider and wider.
Unless she released her Noble Phantasm, there was no way she could hit her opponent.
But even that wasn't a good option. Mordred couldn't be sure she'd even fire it in the right direction.
The poison was dulling her senses more and more with every passing second.
"Well, well, well~ isn't this the rebellious Knight of the Round Table, Mordred?"
Semiramis mocked cheerfully as she watched Mordred—who had been hurling verbal abuse just moments ago—now bounce helplessly like a rubber ball under the chains. Her mood couldn't have been better.
"Ugh—uoooooaaaaah——!!"
Amid Mordred's screams, chain after chain was violently torn apart—but for every single one that snapped, two more… three more… immediately slithered back to bind her once again.
Mordred knew this couldn't go on, but with her brain, she simply couldn't think of any way to counter it.
A person who had gone her entire life without using her head—aside from pulling a single "mystery identity" trick about who she was—Mordred could now only rely on the most brainless tactic imaginable: charging straight ahead.
After all, other than smashing her head against the wall until one of them broke, she had no other options.
But now, even that has become harder and harder to do.
"Ugh…!?"
Her vision was gone.
What had started as a faint stinging sensation quickly transformed into a searing, burning agony. For an ordinary Heroic Spirit, pain like this would probably be enough to force a class change into Berserker.
Ironically, Mordred—whose usual fighting style was practically indistinguishable from a Berserker's—was still managing to retain her sanity.
Even so, no matter how far her endurance surpassed that of other Heroic Spirits, the pain had grown so intense that she could no longer even open her eyelids.
"Damn it…"
If it were merely the loss of sight, that wouldn't have been a big deal. Mordred had lived through countless battles; fighting with her vision blacked out was nothing new to her.
With instincts like a wild beast's, she could stab her sword straight into an enemy's chest based on feeling alone.
However—
"About time, don't you think?"
The Empress's cold laughter echoed beside her ear.
Found you!
Judging by the sound, Mordred realized the enemy was far closer than she had expected.
If this works… then maybe—
With the aid of Mana Burst, Mordred prepared to accelerate—
"Ah!"
At the very instant before she could act, her entire body collapsed onto the stone floor.
She couldn't summon any strength. She couldn't breathe. Even forming coherent thoughts became nearly impossible.
As a weapon forged by the witch Morgan to exact revenge upon Arturia, Mordred had been accustomed to pain since childhood.
From the agony of physical injuries—being slashed by blades, pierced by arrows—to magical damage such as burning flames, lightning strikes, and direct hits from magic bullets, she had experienced them all.
As a "weapon," Mordred had never feared pain. Enduring it was simply a matter of course.
And yet—here, at this very moment—everything she believed about pain was overturned.
"Guh—Aaaaaaah——————!!"
Mordred let out a shrill scream.
An unimaginably sharp sensation of pain surged through her entire body, tormenting Mordred to the brink of death.
She couldn't think at all. It felt as if her body had been filled with sulfuric acid from the inside, forcing out screams so miserable they tore at the air.
Even the pain she had felt during the Battle of Camlann—when her own father had pierced her body with a lance as she slowly awaited death—didn't amount to even one percent of what she was experiencing now.
"Hahahaha~"
The Empress giggled, genuinely delighted.
"This is my second Noble Phantasm—[Sikera Ušum]. As long as we're within this domain of kings, I am immune to all poisons, and I can generate any poison I wish directly within the atmosphere."
As she spoke, green flames flickered to life at her fingertips, their glow casting an alluring light across her face.
"Everything created here by my magecraft—why, even this tiny flame—is poisonous, you know~"
She gently blew on the flame, and the green fire transformed into a fluttering butterfly.
After circling the Empress once as if teasing her, the butterfly landed softly on Mordred's face, then vanished.
"AAAAAAAH!!!"
That disappearing butterfly wasn't the final straw that broke the camel's back, but it certainly made Mordred's screams even louder.
"What are you doing?"
Seeing Fujita suddenly close his eyes, Shibamatsu teased him.
"Can't handle this kind of torture scene? It's just poison, no blood or gore. Your tolerance is pretty weak."
Without opening his eyes, Fujita replied, "No, it's not that. I'm just closing my eyes to experience a new world."
Out of curiosity, Shibamatsu closed his eyes as well.
"Damn it, you freak!"
Shibamatsu hurriedly opened his eyes. He had no intention of being mistaken for a man with some kind of special kink.
Li Ri'ang was also a little curious about Shibamatsu's behavior. He quietly closed his eyes as well—then hurriedly opened them again.
Nope.
With your eyes closed, it was way too easy for your imagination to run wild.
In fact, most movies had this effect.
Once the visuals were gone, everything changed.
Without images, a man's screams only sounded deranged and grotesque.
But a woman's screams? They tended to make people feel… awkwardly embarrassed.
There was even a rumor that if you played only the audio of Gravity to someone who didn't understand English, the female lead's heavy breathing in space could very easily be mistaken for something a bit too R-rated.
Compared to that, Shinji had already restrained himself as much as possible with Mordred's scene.
Unfortunately, a chaste slut could never stop a whore who had already made up her mind. Shinji might have tried to tone it down, but he couldn't account for people like Fujita, whose tastes ran dangerously deep.
Thankfully, this kind of "advanced play" was far too niche. In the entire premiere hall, aside from Fujita, no one else dared to try it.
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"Hurts, doesn't it?"
On the big screen, the Empress bent down and whispered mockingly into Mordred's ear.
"I don't know whether you can still hear me, but I'll tell you anyway. This poison wasn't originally prepared for you. It was meant as a gift for the Black faction's Archer, Chiron."
"This is the legendary poison that caused Chiron such agony that he begged the gods to take back his immortality, seeking release through death instead."
"It is the divine poison of the nine-headed monster Hydra."
In Greek mythology, the Hydra was one of the most famous monsters, easily ranking among the top few in notoriety.
Aside from the tale of its heads multiplying when severed, the Hydra was most renowned for its extraordinarily lethal poison.
Although it exited the stage of myth early—thanks to Heracles—its poison remained a constant presence throughout Greek legends.
Not only Chiron, but even Heracles himself died from Hydra's poison in several versions of the myth.
Using the very poison that killed Chiron in myth to deal with Chiron himself—this had been the script Semiramis originally prepared for the Greek centaur Archer.
With such malicious taste, it was no wonder Mordred called her a venomous witch.
Mordred's agonized screams deeply shook the audience outside the screen.
Throughout the film, Mordred had mostly appeared as a positive, likable character. The audience's impression of her was fairly good.
If one ignored the "historical detail" of her killing Arturia, she was a lively, energetic tomboy that many people genuinely liked.
So when they saw Mordred reduced to rolling on the ground, screaming in torment under the poison, it was hard not to feel uncomfortable.
Perhaps this Empress named Semiramis was domineering, beautiful, and every bit a queen, but her cruelty toward Mordred left the audience with a growing sense of displeasure.
Even though their discussions were quiet, the Empress herself still caught them.
After listening in, the Empress couldn't help but feel a mix of laughter and tears.
"Master~"
Using magecraft, she directly placed a "private call" to Shinji.
"Didn't you say the audience would be completely obsessed with my love story with Amakusa? Why am I only hearing condemnation now?"
"Don't panic," Shinji replied calmly, soothing the queen's emotions.
"Your love with Amakusa doesn't conflict with you being a cruel villain."
"So you're saying I can be thoroughly evil while still having a love that makes people envious?"
The Empress frowned, conflicted.
"The only remaining scenes between Amakusa and me are in the finale, right? In the eyes of you modern people, is love only worth envying if one dies in their lover's arms? Your era's romances are really… expensive for couples."
"..."
Shinji blanked out for a moment.
He truly hadn't expected the Empress's perspective to be this sharp—and this strange.
As expected, he thought, people who play politics really do have terrifying imaginations.
While sighing inwardly, Shinji calmly replied:
"Semiramis… the story of Romeo and Juliet doesn't exactly count as modern."
Shinji hurriedly added an explanation:
"A great story will always contain two elements, death and love. As long as the narrative is handled properly, a love touched by death can elevate the entire story."
"Even if you die in the story, your love with Amakusa will be permanently recorded on the silver screen through this film."
"That may be so—"
Because their seats weren't very close, the Empress had to lean forward before shooting Shinji a glare.
"Master, you said that my 'venomous witch' image and my 'lovestruck woman' image can coexist. Which means… in your heart, I really am a venomous witch, aren't I?"
"..."
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"AAAAAAAH—!"
On screen, Mordred was still screaming nonstop, rolling back and forth on the floor. Judging by how utterly broken she looked, she probably wouldn't last even another minute before dying from it.
Mordred's misery greatly satisfied the Empress's sadistic urges.
The Empress's happiness was that simple and unadorned. She nodded in contentment and, with elegant steps, walked back toward her throne.
"So, Saber, how many minutes until you die… or beg for mercy?"
"I can wait patiently, you know~ I'll wait until the moment you kneel and plead. But unlike the gods, I'm not kind enough to relieve your suffering."
"After all, if you want to die, it's very easy. Just slit your own throat with that wonderful sword of yours. Oh-hohoho~"
Her words received no reply.
Within the vast chamber, only Mordred's hoarse, shredded screams echoed—her voice long since ruined from endless howling.
As the saying went, extremes reversed themselves.
Little by little, as Mordred began to adapt to the pain, her thoughts finally started to clear.
But with her shallow pool of knowledge, there was only one conclusion she could reach—
There was no solution at all.
"Damn it…"
The agony continued unabated, death creeping closer second by second.
For the Mordred of this moment, even organizing her thoughts was a grueling task, requiring all of her remaining strength.
What… am I supposed… to do…
Her consciousness began to blur. Countless fragmented words flashed through her mind like a spinning lantern.
The Sword of Selection—the sword she had seen countless times in her dreams—appeared before her eyes once more.
Almost instinctively, Mordred reached out toward the imagined Sword in the Stone.
But for some reason, a feeling told her that grasping that sword would be an act of evil.
At the very last moment before touching it, she hesitated—and pulled back.
"Oh my~ aren't you going to draw the sword?"
In her haze, a voice filled with malicious amusement echoed by her ear—a voice Mordred found both deeply familiar and utterly detestable.
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