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Chapter 51 Part 1 – Erica flowers and …… the Witch of Doom.

As soon as she woke up, the pain struck.

「…… Sstt ……!?」

Erica, a maid at the Countess Rosenthal’s mansion, grimaced and groaned.
It was too dark to see what was going on, but she had abrasions all over her body. In addition to the stinging pain, she was also experiencing throbbing pain. It was as if her body had been hit in various places.
From her current position, she raised her upper body by using her elbows for support.
Judging from the cold and hard sensation of the floor, it should be a stone floor …… She wondered if she was in the basement …… It smelled moldy, dusty, and there was also an animal smell. Why was she lying down in such a place?

「…… Could this …… be a remote storage ……?」

Even though it seemed like a storage, there was almost no food in it. It was a basement that functions as a junkyard.
She felt a sharp pain in her mouth. Her inner cheek was slightly cut.
But the pain was proof that she was still alive.

「…… I should have died …… why am I ……?」

The horrifying memory of slitting her own throat earlier came back to Erica and she shuddered. She doesn’t know why she did that and why she is still alive.

Her whole body began to tremble and Erica pulled her knees together and hugged herself.

At first she desperately tried to resist the unreasonable order to slit her own throat. But as soon as she saw the mysterious glint in the countess’s eyes, her mind went blank as if shrouded in fog, and she did as she was told, killing herself with a knife.

Even now, she can still feel the unpleasant sensation of her own flesh being cut open by her own hands. It was definitely not a dream. She remembered the feeling of the carpet and the spilled wine against her cheeks when she fell to the ground.

She also remembered a tall young man in a jet-black academic gown, his pince-nez glasses glinting coldly, looking down at her as she lay dying. His silver hair and well-featured face seemed inhuman because of his glasses.

「…… I hope you’ll be born again and learn of the wonders of love. Have a good night. Sweet dreams.」

His joking words and gestures were pompous, but the atmosphere around him was icy and dangerous. The smile that hung around his mouth was eerie and unpredictable, and there is no telling what he might suddenly do. All the people that have seen him would have felt apprehensive and rated him as a dangerous person. Erica must have felt the same way.

If only he hadn’t bent down, extended his long fingers, and closed Erica’s eyelids. Strange as it may seem, she felt a kind of human kindness from the fingertips that gently touched her. The young man no longer seemed like such a bad person to Erica. Rather, she felt like she had met him a long time ago ……

She wanted to see what kind of eyes were hidden behind the lenses of his pince-nez glasses.
The coldness in the basement eased a little.
In the midst of the dark, Erica noticed that her cheeks were getting hot and smiled bitterly.

This was not the time to be lost in imagination. Although she doesn’t fully understand the situation, her life was saved. She needs to get out of here before the countess notices.

If this is the remote storage room, she has been here several times before. Running her hands along the wall, Erica tried to reach the ladder where it should be.

…… She couldn’t find it. It seemed that the ladder had been pulled up.
The only way in or out of this room was to push aside a certain part of the ceiling. Without the ladder, there was nothing she could do.

Erica was at a loss. The ceiling was about two meters high. Even though the stone walls around her were bumpy, it is not something that a woman can climb with her arm strength. She was at her wit’s end.

「There’s no other way. I’ll just stack up desks and chairs ……」

That way she can reach the ceiling.

The top panel here is movable. Even if it is closed, it can be opened by pushing hard from the inside. The basement must have been filled with furniture that was on the verge of being discarded. In the blind darkness, Erica bent her body and groped around looking for the legs of a desk. The moment she felt relieved, a sharp pain shot through the back of her hand.

「…… Ouch ……!?」

A myriad of squeaky, high-pitched voices erupted. Something was running around on top of the desk and small clawing noises echoed here and there. Also, there was something rustling around her feet.

「…… Noooo ……!!」

Erica screamed and almost jumped.
Her hair stood on end at the horror of the rough hairs she had touched in the darkness.
It was a rat. The thick, long, snake-like sensation that passed her by was a testament to the most vicious type of rats. Worse yet, there was more than one.

Erica’s knees almost gave out from fear.
She realized that she was surrounded by a pack of rats.
This was the cause of the animal smell that she had mentioned earlier

She tried to escape, but it was too late. To make things worse, Erica’s screams triggered the attack.
The provoked rats all turned to attack her at once. The rats pounced on Erica’s fleeing body or climbed up with their claws. The small fangs of the rodents pierced through her clothes and dug into her skin one after the other.

「It hurts!! Stop it!! Don’t come!!」

Erica cried out and swung her arms and legs to shake off the sharp pain, which felt as if she had been hit with fire tongs, but a new group of rats kept coming at her.

Erica’s pleas had no effect on the ferocious pack of small animals. Excited by the smell of blood, they continued to attack relentlessly. Erica’s entire body was drenched in sweat caused by her fear. She felt as if she was about to be incontinent. She realized with her instinct that what the rats were directing at her was not a desire to kill, but an appetite for prey.

The rats squealed in triumph and rushed toward Erica, a large, miserable prey that had no claws or fangs.

There was no way the rats would miss such a treat. It’s impossible to keep dodging the innumerable small, nimble troops in a small, low-visibility basement. Erica knew she was cornered against the wall when she felt a hopeless sensation slamming against her back. There was nothing else that she could do.

Erica cried out crazily, remembering an incident in her neighborhood a long time ago when a baby was devoured by rats. The baby had been gnawed off at the tips of his fingers, nose, and other parts of his body, and the skin had peeled off from his entire body, leaving him as a bloody mass of flesh. She couldn’t get the mother’s voice out of her ears when the mother came home from her outing and cried sorrowfully.

Erica felt deep sympathy for the poor mother and child, but she also strongly felt that she would never want to die like that. Then she realized how heartless she was and felt a little depressed.

At the time, she had no idea that the same way of death as that baby was waiting for her ……

There was no way for her to escape. Like that baby, she will be devoured bit by bit and will meet the worst way to die, being eaten alive. She would probably not die that fast. While her whole body experiences intense pain, she will continue to hear the sound of the rats gnawing as her skin and flesh are chewed off and swallowed into their stomachs. The constant pain will not allow her to go crazy.

Even after her body was only left with bits of flesh clinging to her bones, tomorrow morning the rats will be digging their way through her body as though they owned it. Not even her parents will be able to recognize the corpse as Erica.

「…… It’s so terrible …… so cruel …… Why do I have to go through this ……」

Erica sobbed. The despair constricted her heart.