The room was quiet. Too quiet for a noble estate.
Dust gathered in the corners. Curtains were drawn to suffocate the sunlight. Only a draft crept through the cracks of the wooden shutters.
Aron sat in Amelia's skin, her memories still crawling beneath his own. He pressed a hand to his temple, but the images did not leave.
The door opening. Perfume mixed with wine. Laughter. And her body trembling as she shrank into the corner of the bed. The feeling of being cornered, of being stripped of dignity, and used by different men day after another.
Her nails dug into her palm. The threads of Bellum's power sparked faintly beneath Amelia's skin.
This place was a prison disguised as a pleasure house.
Iluvia von Blutracher-- Amelia's stepmother-- came not to console but to use her as profit. Once every week, she arrived with her ledgers, tallying her "business" with nobles who slipped into the estate under the guise of hunting parties and political meetings.
And Amelia, with her unmatched beauty, had been made the centerpiece of this abomination.
Aron rose to his feet, his breath sharp. He turned to the mirror, examining the body that was now his. Elegant. Delicate. Perfect in the cruelest way.
But beneath the softness, faint scars traced across the skin. Some old, some fresh, angry welts where a whip and bite marks had kissed her.
Her memories whispered again. Two nights ago. She tried to beg, that they would listen to her and give her a break. They see it as disobedience. The stepmother, delivered her punishment it all to well.
Aron's jaw clenched so tightly it ached.
His-- Her hand went to the door. The knob rattled under his grip. Locked.
It lasted only a heartbeat.
The metal crunched as it snapped beneath his strength. The door swung open, the hall stretching into shadows. The corridor stretched ahead, lit only by the dim flicker of oil lamps nailed to the walls.
Aron-- Amelia paused. She hears something. Heavy boots.
Guards.
She waited until one passed close to her room.
The guard noticed a slight opening of the door in her room which prompted him to investigate. As he drew closer, he barely had time to register the sudden movement. Both her hands clamped around his jaw.
A twist. The crack broke out like splintering ice. His body slumped silently at her feet.
"They won't offer mercy just like what they did to the others," she muttered, lowering the corpse. "So I won't waste mine."
Another set of footsteps came after.
A second guard rounded the corner, his eyes narrowing when he saw her outside her chamber.
"You," he barked.
"Back to your room, wench! Unless you're--"
His words froze as his gaze dropped to the crumpled body sprawled across the floor. His face paled, then hardened. The sword left the sheath in his hip, and he lunged forward with a shout.
Aron did not retreat.
He dodged the guard's strike efficiently which surprised him. The she countered with her fist shot out in a single, clean strike to the temple. It tore through the steel of his helmet as if it were paper.
The man crumpled instantly, his skull nothing but ruin.
But then she felt sharp pain spiked through her arm, racing up to her shoulder. The skin of her knuckles split, blood dripping from the flesh inside her fingers. Her bones broke out beneath the strain, fractured from the force of the punch.
"Tch… so this body can't keep up with my powers. One punch, and I nearly destroyed myself."
Her lips twisted into a wry smile.
"If I'd tried the strike that killed the Demon Lord, this body would've disintegrated on the spot."
"Pathetic. But convenient enough. I have healing, after all."
She pressed her hand to the mangled flesh, and a crimson light flared. The bones knit. Skin sealed. Within moments, the hand was whole again, as pristine as it had been before.
"Good enough," she whispered. Her eyes lifted to the door down the corridor, where the faint rattle of chains still echoed.
She pushed the latch and opened.
The foul stench of iron and sweat hit her. And what she saw were chains stretched from the walls
And in the center, kneeling on a stained mattress, was a girl-- no older than her. Her skin was covered in bruises, wrists shackled high. Torn fabric barely clung to her frame.
A nobleman's coat lay crumpled on the floor beside her, its owner having fled in haste or finished his business too recently to care.
The girl's head lifted weakly at the sound of the door.
Amelia's stomach turned. Aron had seen soldiers gutted alive, comrades turned to ash, demons feasting on corpses. But this was different. He was experiencing these emotions in the lens of Amelia's body.
The girl flinched back, mistaking her for another tormentor.
"P-please… I'll behave this time…"
He could almost hear Amelia's own despair bleeding through.
"No," Aron said softly, stepping forward. She reached out, breaking the girl's chains with a single tug. The iron links snapped like brittle twigs. "You won't have to behave for anyone ever again."
The girl blinked at her, disbelief and fear tangled in her eyes.
Then,
"—The girl's escaped! Lady Iluvia's wench!"
A guard's voice, cracking with panic, thundered through the hall. The clamor of boots followed, shouts overlapping as the warning spread.
Amelia froze for an instant, then turned back to the girl she had freed. Her trembling form crouched at the side of the ruined mattress, eyes wide with terror.
"Listen," Amelia whispered, crouching low.
"Crawl beneath the bed. Don't move. Don't make a sound. Whatever you hear next… forget it."
The girl's lips parted as though to protest, but one look into Amelia's eyes stole the words from her throat. She nodded, slipping under the mattress's shadow just as Amelia rose.
Amelia pulled the door shut behind her. A flick of her hand bent the latch inward, locking it from the outside. No one would find the girl unless they tore the wood apart.
Then she stepped into the corridor once more.
The estate trembled with the rushing of the remaining guards through its halls.
"Surround her!"
"She's just a girl!"
"Then why aren't you stopping her?!"
The corridor swelled with armored men, a tide of steel closing in. Amelia stepped into their path, calmly, knowing that they won't be able to do anything to her. Blood stained her white dress, her bare feet slipping through blood splashes across the floor.
The first guard lunged, sword raised high.
Her hand shot forward. A clean strike to the chest. His ribs caved like glass, his body collapsing backward into the men behind him.
Another rushed her flank. She turns around, twisting his arm until bone tore through flesh, then drove his own blade into his neck.
Fearful screams erupted again.
"Monster! We need reinforcements!"
"Spawn of Maledictus! The rumors were true!"
"Funny," she whispered, advancing.
"You sold your honor for scraps of gold, chained us to walls. No matter how much we begged, did you listen to our cries of pain? You even laughed when I bled, bowed when nobles paid. So tell me, which of us reeks more of monsters?"
Her hand shot out, wrapping around a guard's throat. Bone cracked beneath her grip as she lifted him from the floor, his boots kicking helplessly.
"But worst of all... it seems..." she said softly, eyes narrowing, "...that you have forgotten who you are talking to."
She squeezed. The guard's neck gave way with a sickening snap. She tossed his body aside like refuse. Her gaze swept the corridor, pinning the men who still clutched their weapons but dared not step forward.
"Tell me, what is my name."
No one dared answer. None could. The men's knees wobbled. Their weapons shook in their hands.
A silence stretched, until one, foolish enough, finally spoke.
"She… she's just a girl…" he stammered, voice cracking.
"Wrong."
Before he could react further, she advanced. One strike to his neck, and the guard crumpled, twitching once before stillness claimed him. Blood sprayed across the floorboards.
Panic rippled through the ranks.
"Say. My. Name." she hissed.
The first guard's voice was barely a whisper: "L-Lady... A…Amelia.."
"L...LADY.. A…AMELIA…!" the guard screamed, voice breaking, knees scraping against the floor.
One by one, voices cracked, trembling, desperate, compelled by fear:
"Lady A…Amelia!"
"Lady A…Amelia!"
"Lady A…Amelia!"
"Good, Now… you remember. But…" Her lips curved into a faint, sweet smile. She paused, tilting her head innocently.
"But… I'm just a 'little girl', after all. And little girls, you know..."
"We don't play nice..."
The guards' eyes widened, hope flickering before it died, and that moment was all she needed.
Her hand shot out like lightning, catching the closest man by the throat. His bones snapped beneath her grip, his legs flailing uselessly as she lifted him effortlessly. With a flick, she snapped his neck, dropping him silently to the floor.
The others screamed, raising swords in a panic, but they were all too late now.
Amelia moved among them. Their swords shattered, and skulls cracked. Her bare feet slipped over the blood-soaked boards as if she's walking through a garden, calm, almost bored.
For a moment, something shifted within her. Amelia's rage that had built over months of abuse, torment, and despair began to recede.
The tightness in her chest loosened, her body relaxing despite the blood covering her dress and skin. A soft, almost imperceptible voice whispered in her mind. Amelia's own, fragile and timid.
"If… this is it… is what she wanted…"
Aron, feeling the echo of the girl's long-suppressed desire, allowed himself a small, quiet smile. The release of the anger that had been bottled for so long. It felt… nice.
At the corner of one fallen guard's hand, a rune glimmered faintly, carved in haste but still active. A messenger rune, Aron noticed. Designed to call for reinforcements.
It was very useful during one of his early days when they raid dungeons. He had probably missed it during the chaos.
"Ah… someone tried to be clever."
She was too late to notice it, and reinforcements might already be on their way. All that remained now was to gather the last of the women, those still trapped in their rooms, and escape before anyone else arrived.
From beneath the bed, the girl had pressed herself as far back as possible. Every unexpected sound made her flinch.
And then she heard it. A faint creak, closer now. Her stomach turned.
"It's safe now," Amelia's voice echoed outside.
Then, the door splintered. A section of it fell inward.
"Come out," Amelia continued, "It's safe."
The girl's knees shook violently. Trembling, she pushed herself from under the bed, eyes wide at the figure standing in the doorway.
"Y-you…" she whispered, voice quivering. "It's no use escaping... Lady Iluvia... she... she will find us... then.. and then--"
"Shussh... it's okay..." Amelia's lips curved into a faint, almost playful smile.
The girl's trembling began to ease as she rose fully, finally seeing her. She was awestruck on how beautiful Amelia was as she was seeing an angel.
Amelia extended a hand, and the girl took it, gripping tightly.
"I will protect you. Just like heroes would do."
END OF CHAPTER TWO