Chapter 728: Grimm’s Past Final Part

"Is this it?" Grimm and I appear somewhere underground. I touch Grimm, but she just stays silent with a really blank expression. She moves forward, and I follow her, seeing that she’s clearly... off.

’This is the first time I’ve seen that expression on Grimm... it looks like a mix of sadness, contempt, and some kind of self-loathing...’ We arrive at a place with several humans and Grimm’s own past self. I stay silent, trying to listen to the conversation.

"Uh... so... what is this? It looks kind of dangerous," Grimm says, touching an immense magic circle on the floor and rubbing the ink with her finger. But someone comes over, grabs her hand, and pulls it away a little.

"There’s nothing dangerous about it, Miss Grimm. Please avoid touching the magic circle — if it has any errors, then it could become dangerous." The man pulling her away from the magic circle is wearing a strange mask, and I see that everyone is wearing the same mask.

"What do I need to do? Sorry, I didn’t quite understand what you explained. I don’t get how this magic could help me with my goal of world peace. It’s not something to force people, right?" she asks innocently.

’Now I get it... what a stupid woman...’ I slap my hand against my forehead. She just asked a suspicious person if there’s anything forceful about what they’re going to do. Can you be any more stupid? If she’s suspicious, she shouldn’t ask.

"Of course not, Miss Grimm. You don’t need to understand everything — just be the core of the magic and feed it a little while the rest of us do the rest. You’ll understand that peace will come once we complete this goal."

"Ah... I think I can help if that will help. Thank you for accepting this important initiative!" she says excitedly, as if this were a great help to the world as a whole.

’It’s so strange to see a gentle Grimm...’

"And sorry for not understanding. The explanation was a little confusing and vague, but I trust I’ll understand better with time—"

"Alright, Miss Grimm, please step into the center of the magic circle and wait while we connect the relics." The man, with a fake polite tone, leads Grimm to the center of the magic circle.

Some people come up to her with chains connected to enormous machines and restrain Grimm, who looks around somewhat confused but just accepts it, not understanding what she’s getting into.

I keep watching as the machines are turned on, energizing everything while Grimm helps them by giving magic to the chains. The whole process takes hours, while Grimm at most asks a question here and there.

You can tell she’s nervous. She didn’t even get a proper explanation and didn’t understand everything they told her. All she "knows" is that this is supposedly going to achieve world peace.

And when the magic is finally ready, a kind of white beam shoots out of the magic circle, covering Grimm. You can sort of hear her screams from inside as they try to control her.

’...So desperate...’ I feel uncomfortable watching Grimm’s desperation. After all, she’s still my wife.

"What does this magic do? I can’t analyze it just by seeing the memory," I ask the Grimm, who stares at me coldly.

"It’s a mind-control spell. It was made to try to wipe my mind of any prior moral traces, while leaving room for them to shove their ideologies into that empty space."

"But you know the ironic thing about it? They taught me what war is, and they gave me pleasure in destroying lives. They taught me what it means to use magic to hurt, and I, who no longer had the barrier I had before, simply grew to like it."

"Wiping my mind only removed prior limits, but by adding their own ideologies, they taught me things that my new personality decided what to do with."

"And the greatest irony of all is that they wanted to use me to decimate other countries and races to gain absolute control of the world, but to do that, they had to teach me that the strongest controls everything."

"But if the strongest controls everything, why should I be controlled if I’m the strongest? That very paradox of who controls whom was what caused that." When she points, I look toward the light that begins to fade.

At the center of the light is Grimm with completely white hair. She’s covered in blood and wounds, her gaze somewhat dead. Some people approach her, celebrating that it worked.

And then they start testing, giving orders to Grimm, who regains consciousness. But when Grimm gets her consciousness back, her gaze changes from that innocent one to that of someone watching filthy insects squirming before her.

She places a hand on her head, murmuring things as she analyzes the situation, realizing she was deceived. The innocent Grimm would probably forgive everyone and walk away hurt.

But the current Grimm controls all her blood on the floor, restraining every human around her. Her blood enters people’s bodies and begins destroying them from the inside, slowly consuming them cell by cell. Agonized screams ring out around her as a furious Grimm begins attacking the people surrounding her.

"You seem kind of wild."

"My memories were confused that day. It took a few months for me to adjust to my new way of thinking, and above all to realize the freedom I had."

"Once I realized my freedom, I started doing all sorts of things I’d never done before... for now, ’I’ am just going to destroy this entire country, killing every living being in it, because of all the hatred I feel from being deceived." I look at Grimm’s emotions in this moment.

"You’re sad. It’s the first time I’ve seen you wanting to cry out of sadness." When I say that, her face twists in anger to try to hide the pain.

"I’m not sad."

"No? But you always seemed desperate to summon the primordial goddess for a conversation..." Grimm spent several months sulking and irritated when she found out that Pandora Onipotente — the version she might never see again — talks every day with the primordial goddess.

"Your past matters, no matter how much you try to deny it. After all, I don’t like my past either. I understand you. My past was bad too."

"...Go away..."

"What?"

"..." She just throws me out of her memories, and I wake up in the bedroom, seeing Grimm collapsed on the floor.

"Ahh... I wanted to see more..." There was so much I wanted to see, but I guess I’ve already seen enough, and I doubt she’d let me in again. But it was interesting, especially seeing Grimm’s reaction.

"It seems even you still have emotions beyond lust and sadism." I touch her face, eventually giving her a small hug and leaving the room to run from her for the next few days so she doesn’t carry out her previous threat.