Nudiustertian.
160 kilometers away from the manor, across the valleys and the mountains, exists Fauler barony, a family that recently rose to the rank of baron.
However, that very barony was now reduced to rubble!
Corpses of both humans and livestock (mainly oxen) alike littered the humble land, piled in mounds.
All of it was the work of a single woman.
"Eden Hart…"
An old man muttered roughly, voice of resentment.
Eden stood at the center of the ruin, snowflakes around her sword. She then picked up the last survivor of this humble nobility by the hair, the old man… or the baron.
"I commend your persistence, Brandy Fauler. You see, all of this could have been avoided if only you had answered my inquiry without beating around the bush."
"Bah! You jest."
Brandy spat frothy red blood into the snow.
"This was the only outcome from the moment you stepped onto this humble land. Even if you kill me a thousand times and bring me back to life, you will get no information from me."
"Is that so? Then let's do just that."
Eden tilted her head, a small but terrifying smile playing on her lips before she released the baron, throwing his old body skidding across the debris of ruins.
Whirr—!
Eden slowly traced a circle in the air with her sword.
As the motion closed, her left hand followed, mirroring the arc and sealing the space.
Thereafter, a blinding flash of light erupted and submerged the world in white.
The light faded.
The ruins of the barony were no longer in sight, replaced by a paradise and a place where Adam and Eve were first created.
A domain.
[Domain: Garden of Eden]
Exclusive only to those individuals who had reached the realm of transcendent.
Brandy Fauler stood up, gasping as he looked around.
Above was a vibrant, eternal sunset; around him was a paradise of dazzling fruit trees and lush greenery.
Brandy was perplexed.
A domain is a reflection of one's soul. How could a merciless person like Eden Hart possess a place of such quiescent peace?
"To think such a place is your—"
Fwooooosh!
Brandy's vision flipped upside down, his head bounced off the soft grass. He smiled as his vision dimmed, thinking he had at least died in a beautiful place.
But.
"Blossom."
At Eden's word, a red spider lily sprouted from his corpse, specifically at his severed neck.
The flower then turned into the old man's head.
Brandy gasped, life surging back into his lungs. He checked his neck, his hands, and his chest. It wasn't an illusion. He was back, alive and breathing.
"What was—"
"That's one."
Eden said casually while sitting on the grass, biting into a crisp red apple, a sword on her other hand.
Fwoosh!
Again, Brandy's field of view spun upside down.
"Blossom."
It was then that Brandy realized his fatal mistake.
It wasn't just the fact that he had sheltered the assassins who tried to kill the youngest of the Hart. It was the words that had come out from his own mouth:
— "Even if you kill me a thousand times…"
Eden took those words seriously.
Fwoooosh!
The sequence repeated, over and over, again and again. Eden sat nearby, munching on her apple as she watched him die and bloom, die and bloom.
"Blossom."
"Blossom."
"Blossom."
By the hundredth death, Brandy's eyes were filled with raw terror like the eyes of a cornered animal. He tried to escape and run away a few times, but all resulted in vain.
"Blossom."
"Blossom."
By the five-hundredth, his expression was no longer human, looking like a man who had already rotted away and was kept alive only by a cruel miracle.
This was the peak of his learned helplessness.
He simply stood there while staring at a single dewdrop on a leaf. He had stopped trying to escape because his mind had finally accepted the impossible: that there was no "after."
To put it simply, the concept of "mercy" or "ending" had become a fairy tale for him.
"Blossom."
Time lost all meaning.
Finally, at the seven-hundredth sequence…
"T-Trinity... Axiom…"
Brandy's voice seemed to belong to someone who had already left the world of the living, his nickel-colored hair fell over his vacant eyes.
He told her everything to his knowledge, and that he was blinded by a large sum of money.
"That is all I know. Please... stop this. End this life of mine already. I beg you."
"Should I? Hmm. But you see, we're still three hundred away from a thousand."
"T-that's—"
Fwoosh!
Eden didn't stop.
Her mind flashed back to the moment she found her little brother at the camp. She had focused on her little brother then, letting the rats flee.
But she had tracked them.
And she had found the man who welcomed them back with open arms.
"Blossom."
Eden stood up.
Behind her, a mountain of nine hundred and ninety-nine apple cores piled like a monument to Brandy's suffering.
"The next one should sum to a thousand... but it seems he didn't even last until the end."
Eden bit into the final apple and threw it into the pile.
"Men rarely have the resolve to keep their word."
Whirr—!
Eden canceled the domain.
The paradise vanished and the rubble of the Fauler nobility returned! Brandy Fauler was back in reality, standing amidst the corpses and ruins of his land, his eyes completely devoid of light.
Eden could have ended him in the domain, but she chose to bring him back here for her own reasons.
"I'll do you a favor by letting you speak your last words. You see, you could plead for your life and I might change my mind."
"..."
Brandy had no response. He was nothing but a hollow shell, standing in the silence of his own making.
"Sigh. I guess so."
Fwooosh!
Brandy's head finally hit the snow.
Eden flicked the blood from her sword, sheathed it back, and stretched her body, her joints popping after the long hour of sitting. (a/n an hour had passed irl while she's in her domain)
"Foile."
"Yes, milady."
A figure appeared, stepping out of thin air.
The figure was a member of the Archduke's private force, similar to "Abaddon" of the youngest that wore a mask of a wolf.
This figure wore a squirrel-patterned half-mask.
Eden looked conflicted, her mind shifting from mass murder of the Fauler barony to a very important matter.
"What gift do you think a child would like for their 16th birthday?"
"You seem to be thinking the same way I am, milady. I dare say there is no greater present than the one you have already prepared."
"I see."
Eden walked forward.
"Inform the manor I shall arrive in two days of time."
"At once, milady."