Ch. 4 The Witch and Her Apprentice (5)
by Afuhfuihgs
Chapter 4 – The Witch and Her Apprentice (5)
The Third Sword of the Divine Kingdom, Lucia.
Unlike other Sword Masters who manifest a sky-blue aura upon reaching the pinnacle of their craft, Lucia emits a platinum-colored aura and is referred to as the “Messenger of God.”
As the head of the Heresy Inquisitors, she proves her faith by fulfilling her mission as a sword for God, by God, and only for God.
The relentless actions of the Heresy Inquisitors have made them one of the most feared entities among other nations. Rumors spread quickly that even the innocent could be labeled as Heresys and massacred. Thus, wherever the Heresy Inquisitors passed, silence and fear were the only things that greeted them.
Their methods differed greatly from those who preached the name of a nameless god in the name of mercy. Their witch trials, far more brutal than ordinary interrogations, were no different from divine judgment for the powerless.
Witch Trial.
The villagers of Gariril trembled as they were herded to the center of the village by the rough gestures of the heavily armed Heresy Inquisitors.
Men and women were separated indiscriminately by age. The men were forced to lie face down, while the women were tied to chairs, blindfolded, and driven into panic.
When the Heresy Inquisitors stormed in, there were those who resisted. Fathers who tried to protect their families with farming tools or axes were immediately executed for the crime of being seduced by witches.
“……”
An eerie silence filled the village center, broken only by stifled sobs as people tried to hold back their tears.
“We’ve captured everyone in the village except for the seven seduced by the witch.”
“Good.”
One of the inquisitors finished his report and returned to his position. The gathered population, including children, numbered around 40—a relatively large number for a rural area.
“P-please, listen. The villagers are innocent, I beg you…”
“Oh?”
The village chief, hanging on a skewer and barely alive, managed to utter those words. Though weak, his voice was enough to draw the attention of the Heresy Inquisitors.
But it wasn’t just the inquisitors who were listening.
The villagers needed someone to blame. They wanted to say it wasn’t their fault, that they hadn’t wanted to make a pact with the witch, that it was all the chief’s doing. They were innocent. It was all the chief’s fault.
“Please spare us…! We just did as the chief told us!”
“Old man, speak up…!”
For Lucia, who had been taught that humans are inherently good, this situation felt like a witch’s trick.
If it wasn’t a witch’s trick, then humans must be inherently evil.
She felt nauseated.
“The witch… the witch…!”
The chief couldn’t continue. He vomited black blood and collapsed.
“Lady Lucia! What is this?!”
“Nothing surprising. It’s the witch’s doing.”
At Lucia’s gesture, two inquisitors approached the chief. After checking his condition with their scabbards, they shook their heads.
Though the chief’s death meant one less way to uncover the witch’s hideout, Lucia felt no regret.
“Your chief is dead.”
“Unless there is a witch here, no one can die while telling the truth about the witch.”
“I will find the witch among you.”
Lucia’s words, no different from a death sentence, caused most of the men to rise up.
“There is no witch among us! The witch is… ugh!”
“Silence, heretic.”
“The witch lives in the forest. She has pink hair and brings prosperity to us poor folk!”
How could there be a witch among us?
What nonsense. The witch is elsewhere.
“Do not deceive people with words.”
The Heresy Inquisitors approached one of the women.
Tied to a chair and blindfolded, the woman’s heightened hearing picked up the sound of armor approaching. Sensing what was about to happen, she began to struggle.
“Ugh!! Ugh!!!!”
“Prove your faith through belief alone.”
The inquisitors lifted the chair with the woman and carried her silently. The lake at the center of the village was so clear you could see the bottom.
“Ugh… Ugh!!!”
“We are the guardians of divine providence.”
Resistance was futile. The inquisitors reached the lake and, without hesitation, threw the woman into the water.
“……!!”
Ripples spread across the surface.
The inquisitors watched as the woman struggled and sank, while Lucia recited a prayer.
The men and women watching realized an important truth.
“If you are truly innocent, you will return to the mother’s embrace.”
“Those who have sinned will leave the mother’s embrace.”
An inquisitor signaled to Lucia after confirming the woman’s death.
“The innocence of the woman has been proven.”
“Murderers!! How can you tell if someone is a witch by drowning them?!”
“A reasonable question. If she were a witch, she would have floated to save herself.”
“……”
Lucia’s answer was firm.
These people have no intention of sparing us.
“Next. Let the trial begin.”
Screams. Desperate pleas for mercy.
In just one day, the village that had been bustling like a festival turned into hell.
Josie hid in the cellar beneath the floor, swallowing her tears as she listened to the sounds outside.
Thanks to her mother’s help, she had managed to hide from the Heresy Inquisitors, but she couldn’t hide from the screams outside.
‘My beloved daughter, Josie. Don’t come out until I return. Understand?’
She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle her sobs.
“Please spare me! I’ll do anything, just spare me! Aaaah~!!!”
I want to see Mom and Dad.
She missed her parents, but she didn’t want to hear their voices.
Every time a scream echoed outside, she prayed it wasn’t theirs.
Instinctively, Josie knew those screams were final.
When she heard the voices of her sister or aunt, she sighed in relief.
No matter how long she waited, her mother’s voice never came.
Even the cries of the children she had played with just yesterday reached her ears, but her mother’s screams never did.
Her mother was alive.
Thinking that, her tears stopped.
No more screams. No more sounds of unfamiliar armor.
Her trembling body calmed. A smile formed on Josie’s lips.
Exhausted, Josie fell asleep, still believing her mother would come for her.
Night fell.
All the women had drowned in the lake, proving their innocence. The men who had interfered with the witch trial were all impaled. No one survived.
“The witch trial has concluded. There is no witch in the village.”
An inquisitor reported to Lucia after confirming the death of the last child drowned in the lake.
If there was no witch, there was no more business here. The villagers’ desperate testimonies had confirmed that the witch’s coven was somewhere in the forest. Now it was time to search the forest.
“But there was one suspicious woman.”
“Suspicious?”
“There was a woman who didn’t scream once during the witch trial. Of course, we confirmed she wasn’t a witch.”
Every woman in the village had drowned in the lake. Over time, the ropes would wear out, and their bodies might float, but at least the silent woman had proven her innocence.
“Is that so?”
Having conducted numerous witch trials in her hunt for witches, Lucia had seen such people before.
Women who, even with death looming, didn’t scream, biting their lips until they bled.
There was always a reason.
“Didn’t you say no one was left in the village?”
Lucia’s emotionless eyes bore into the inquisitor.
“We searched the entire village and brought everyone!”
The inquisitor answered sharply, and Lucia withdrew her gaze.
“The witch must be somewhere nearby in the forest. Find her traces. But first…”
At Lucia’s gesture, the inquisitors with torches set the village ablaze.
When Josie woke up, she couldn’t tell how much time had passed.
One side of her body felt hot, the other cold.
Sunlight streamed through the cracks in the charred floor.
“…!”
Mom said not to come out until she returned.
She tried to block the cracks with her hands, but the floor, now reduced to ashes, crumbled and fell on her.
“Cough… cough…”
After several coughs, Josie spat out the ashes and carefully cleared the debris.
She wanted to find her parents and tell them she was hurt, more than she wanted to obey her mother’s command not to come out.
Don’t cry.
It’s okay.
The wounds will fly far away after a few nights’ sleep.
The village was in ruins.
The chief’s house, the largest in the village, was burned to the ground. The other houses were no different.
“Mom… Dad… Where are you?”
The more she spoke, the more her throat burned. Her voice, once praised by her friends, now sounded rough.
In the center of the village, there was a pole she had never seen before, with chunks of foul-smelling meat skewered on it. Josie wondered who had placed such large pieces of meat there, but when she realized they resembled human bodies, she couldn’t bear to look.
Wiping her tears with her small hands, Josie eventually found her parents.
Women’s bodies floated at the edge of the village lake, fish swarming around them, nibbling away.
“Mom. Wake up. Please?”
Josie immediately recognized her mother and tried to shake her awake, but she showed no signs of stirring.
Angered by the fish eating her mother, she threw stones to drive them away and tried to pull her out of the water. After several attempts, she managed to drag her ashore.
She cried in her mother’s arms, alternating between sobbing and sleeping, until she remembered she needed to find her father.
She had to tell her father that Mom wouldn’t wake up. Dad could fix anything.
Finding her father was harder than finding her mother. No men were left in the village.
The only place left was the pole in the center of the village with the foul-smelling meat.
Overcoming her revulsion, Josie shook the meat, hoping her father might be there.
Her father was missing the pinky finger on his left hand.
He had lost it while learning to chop wood from his grandfather.
In the village, only her father was missing a pinky finger, and his friends often joked about it.
If that was the case, then the corpse in front of her, missing a little finger, must be her father.
Josie accepted the truth.
The father who had protected her,
The mother who had watched over her sleep,
Were now gone.
She thought of a way to see her parents again.
She needed to build a grave. Like Rebecca and Tony had done. She wanted to say goodbye.
Unable to carry her parents’ bodies, Josie cut off one hand from each.
She chose the happiest place for her family as the gravesite.
She placed their hands together in the small cellar where she had hidden and covered them with ashes. Her small, pitiful frame was too weak to decorate the grave with soil or stones.
She picked up a charred stick from the lake, where the fish had been eating people, to mark the grave. She feared animals might dig up the grave and eat her parents.
Days and nights passed.
One day, it rained.
Waking under the eaves where she had taken shelter, Josie saw flowers blooming on her parents’ grave.
“Mom, Dad… I love you.”
Looking at the blooming flowers, she resolved not to cry. If her parents saw her crying, they would be sad. She forced a bright smile, though there was no one to see it.
Though she couldn’t hear them, she was sure her parents were saying their final goodbyes.
Flowers bloomed from Josie’s body, covering her. Half of her body was burned, and flowers grew from her wounds, but none of it mattered anymore.
Thud. Thud.
Hearing footsteps on the wet ground, Josie picked up the stick she had left nearby.
Someone had come to the village.
Thud. Thud.
The footsteps grew closer.
She had to protect the grave.
“Oh my.”
A pair of red eyes peered through pink hair, spotting Josie.
It was the witch.
Tears welled up in Josie’s eyes as she gripped the stick tightly.
She had so much to say.
Why did the villagers have to die because of you?
Why did Mom and Dad have to die?
Please bring them back.
Her body trembled.
The witch approached, crouching to her eye level, but she couldn’t speak.
“Will you give me that flower?”
As she gently stroked her head and carefully plucked the flowers growing from her body,
This flower was her final goodbye.
She couldn’t give it to the witch.
She wanted her to take the flowers growing on her body instead of the ones on the grave.
The witch held Josie’s cold hand tightly.
She remembered the fairy tales her mother used to tell her before bed.
Witches are selfish and don’t listen to people.
Josie hated the witch.
As she was led away by her hand, she vowed never to forgive the witch for the rest of her life.
Lucent
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