Slow Prison Life - Chapter 43

Chapter 43 Newlyweds Hold a Conversation

This was a short time before the King and Queen decided to return to the city.
Four days before Martina ‘asked’ Prince Elliott a few questions in a way some people might describe as torture, there was a previous small quarrel between a loving couple at the frontier fortress……….

♠

In preparation for any possible attacks on the border fort, it is quite common for soldiers to live in bunks inside the fort.
Although tensions don’t run very deep on the eastern border, it’s not a place where you would want to simply build a house with it being so far from any other cities and the surrounding area being nothing but wastelands.
That’s why, it was the perfect place for the just married Abigail couple to live inside their brand new home.

Martina Abigail set down some food on the table in a wonderful mood, as her new husband Sykes Abigail stared ahead dazzled.
There was most definitely not a drop of fear in his gaze………..was what he kept thinking to himself.

“What, you’re in such a good mood. Did something good happen?”

Hearing Sykes’s question, Martina bashfully glanced over to her beloved husband with upturned eyes.

“Hm? There wasn’t anything in particular………I just wanted to treat Sykes to a feast.”

“Is that so?”

Even though he answered with a bright smile, Sykes still felt a little uncomfortable with Martina’s behavior.
A feast………is what she says, but they can’t cook any food in their private home forcing them to rely on distributed meals from the fort’s cooking team. What was being served was most assuredly not Martina’s home cooking.
Bacon, potatoes, and leafy vegetable stew was often on the menu………it wasn’t any more extravagant than usual.

Suspicious.

Sykes’s Martina Sense was sounding off like an alarm in his head.
But he didn’t remember doing anything recently.
If he were to even look at another woman he would be beaten on the spot, and the other fort soldiers would just dismiss it as, “Martina’s bad habit.” He hadn’t turned down any particular request from her, and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary when they went to bed last night.

For now, he would just eat the meal in front of him and then mix in with the long distance patrol unit in the fort. He would ask some of his friends who were good at reading Martina’s mood to check her out while he was gone……..and just as Sykes was forming his future plan of action in his mind, Martina suddenly asked him something with a large grin still spread across her face.

“So? Is it delicious?”

“Huh? Oh, it’s really tasty. Is there something special about today?”

“Mhm.”

Setting down an empty pot, Martina walked behind Sykes with a natural movement…….and then gently placed her hands on his shoulders and began to give him a massage.

“Because…….depending on your response, this will be your last meal.”

Sykes kicked his feet off the floor, trying to make a dash for the door, but Martina’s hands on his shoulders had him completely pinned down in his seat.

“What’s the matter………..Sykes?”

“How should I react to something like that!? I can’t help but try to run away when somebody suddenly tells me I’m going to be killed!”

From behind his head, the trembling Sykes started to feel an icy atmosphere at the top of his spine.
………No, the temperature was actually getting rather hot. Then it cooled down……….Sykes’s instincts were telling him he was getting closer and closer to getting murdered here.

“S, Something……..I, I haven’t done anything recently that should have bothered you though!?”

“Right, I was overjoyed that Sykes was being such a good boy recently……..but in the past”

“What could I have done so long ago!?”

Sykes’s cheek was lightly slapped with some kind of book.

“This morning, I was doing a little cleaning……..when I found this.”

With trembling hands Sykes received the book in question from over his shoulder……..His Highness is Aiming for Me!

“What!? I should have thrown this book away when I was packing!”

He unintentionally yelled out what he was thinking. Bad move.
The cold feeling on his back suddenly got worse.

“After all, you recognize it…….”

“M, Martina………”

While giving off an oppressive force that prevented Sykes from turning around, the beloved bride addressed him with an overly sweet voice.

“I was careless too………..I always took care with any filthy sows who would dare call out to Sykes, but I never paid men any mind……….”

“No, wrong! I don’t have any romantic feeling towards men!”

“But, if it had been forced on you the first time…….then His Highness would be to blame, such a thing I could accept……….I • could • be • calm.”

Sykes gathered up all his courage and strength in order to turn around and face Martina.

“Wait Martina! Really, I truly have no interest in other men! This, it’s just something that somebody wrote………nothing like this has ever happened between me and His Highness Elliott.”

“Hoh?”

Martina made a refreshing smile.

“So, that’s really how it is?”

“Really! It’s just a story that somebody selfishly created on their own! His Highness Elliott is deeply in love with Margaret you know? His Highness would never be interested in me to begin with!”

“………..Margaret?”

“Ah………….”

Martina’s frozen smile was truly horrifying.

“Hey Sykes. I, should I be jealous of Margaret as well?”

“Eh? No, there was really nothing going on between me and Margaret………..”

“Ohhhhh? But there is something I should be jealous of though?”

Martina’s grip around Sykes’s hands began to tighten like a vice and would soon crush them at this rate.

“Such a pig woman is taking up Sykes’s limited memory space with her filthy name, isn’t she?”

“Isn’t that unreasonable!? Ow! Stop, it hurts!”

“Hey Sykes……..if there is that kind of space in there, isn’t it fine for my name to take up that space instead?”

“I got it, I got it! Do my best! I, I will do my best!”

“Yes, please do.”

Martina let out a small laugh and smiled…….however, the strength in her grip didn’t disappear.

“……..Martina?”

“Well, the main subject is still about His Highness. Hey, is His Highness fierce?”

Martina hadn’t wavered.

“So, that book is a lie! None of it is real! Believe me!?”

“Of course! Of course I believe in Sykes! But, what’s the real story?”

“You don’t believe in me at all!?”

“Sykes is my everything……..even if my opponent is His Highness, I will never give up.”

“But, there’s never been anything between me and His Highness!”

“But then why, does Sykes have such a book with him?”

Martina removed her grip off of Sykes only to take the hard cover book back and tear it in half with a crazed smile.

“Hey Sykes……..do you love His Highness so deeply that you wanted to keep your memories of love close at hand at all times?”

The two equal sized halves of the books were set on top of each other………….and with double the thickness and the “His and Me” portions of the title touching, Martina tore the book into fourths. For the first time that mysterious power of hers had gone beyond the realm of human strength, and all of Sykes’s blood ran ice cold.

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“It’s different! I just happened to buy it by chance; I didn’t know what it was about!”

“Heh……….you love each other so passionately?”

“That’s, it’s fiction………..please believe me…………..”

Martina silently stared at Sykes for a while as he knelt on the floor, trembling and begging for forgiveness.
A little while later, Martina knelt down herself, resting her hands over top of Sykes’s.

“Right, I understand.”

“Martina……….”

“Until I’ve achieved complete confirmation, I’ll just ask your body.”

“BELIEVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

♠

At the headquarters located at the fort’s center, the staff came in one after another all with a cramped expression.
There had been reports of calamity coming one after another from the room in the government office block closest to the Abigail home.

“Why? What’s happened this time!?”

“I don’t understand! Until the person himself reports in……….”

“What do you think?”

For the time being, the men decided to evacuate people from the nearby area, at least until things with the people involved and the man they were all waiting for managed to show his face.
Later on, a cheerfully smiling Martina would bring her husband over to the medical ward.

The medical officer fearfully asked Martina a question.

“Wha, What happened today? Since morning………”

The black haired young girl laughed.

“Ehehe, Sykes slept in a bad position……….”

It was easy to understand even without a medical examination. The injuries belonging to the tattered Sykes that Martina had brought in weren’t from some fall.
However, the doctor wouldn’t dive too deeply into that.

“I see………well, can you just place him over there then?”

“Yes~”

Life is precious, so you shouldn’t ask things you don’t want the answers to. Martina was still in her evil god mode. The evidence for that,

“All right then………Sykes, can you be a good boy and stay in the doctor’s office?”

Martina carried Sykes over and set him down on a nearby bed.
……….Sykes had a much larger physique, and yet Martina was still easily able to princess carry him all the way over to the medical ward.
The diagnosis results could be described as blunt force trauma caused by some kind of assault, but Martina would prefer to call it ‘persuasion’………the fearful blue-faced doctor never gave a reason for why he ordered one month of absolute bed rest for Sykes, nor did he say anything as he put up a ‘No Visitors’ sign up on Sykes’s bed.

♠

“Now then”

Martina cracked her knuckles and turned towards her commanding officer.

“I’m sorry general, but I’m going to the capitol for a small vacation. Would you please look after Sykes for me?”

The commander of the eastern troops unintentionally frowned. There definitely wasn’t a good reason to suddenly request for leave behind this.

“………what is it for? Didn’t you just come back with Abigail last week?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Martina was smiling sweetly, all while she squeezed the scrap paper remains of a book into a tightly packed dumpling.

“It’s just for a bit, there’s just something I need to confirm with a certain someone.”

♠

Later on, the general deeply regretted not properly asking any more questions after hearing about what would happen in the capitol.

…………still

At the same time he was painfully aware that even if he had known everything in advance he couldn’t have stopped her, so he decided not to worry about it too much.