Chapter 3
A Meeting of the Zero Day Attack Victims
Karle the executioner was the first to notice something was off.
Executioners were often detested and looked down upon as a lowlife’s occupation.
However Karle held pride in his work. That it was only a job, and someone had to do it.
Besides, when it came to public executions, the executioners were heralded as heroes. It was pleasant to work when surrounded by the unending cheers of the crowd.
Karle held no interest in politics. The Imperial Court’s just doing some stupid shit, were his exact thoughts on the matter.
Thus he felt nothing in particular when he heard the subjects of this time’s execution were former king’s queen and abandoned daughter. Surely, for someone, somewhere in the world, the death of this mother and daughter held paramount significance. But to Karle, it was simply another job, another request.
Drop the guillotine twice, and the matter was over. It was supposed to be over.
He almost missed it due to the cheers, but Karle quickly took notice of a strange noise coming from underneath him.
The iron shackles that bound the headless young girl’s corpse had burst open.
Did they break somehow?
……No, that’s not right.
The headless body slowly rose to its feet.
The shackles burst from the sheer force it used to get itself out of its restrains. As if it had inhuman strength.
Karle calmly stared down this abnormality, reaching for his executioner’s axe instead of panicking.
His usual job was to lob off criminal heads, people who were given the death penalty. The skills he was taught at an early age by his father had reached maturity within him in his 30s.
Due to the recent rise in popularity of the guillotine in Ciel-Terra, there were now far too few chances to practice his swings. Even so, he always kept his axe with him only to deal with the occasional Undead that sprung forth.
Death row criminals who died whilst still bearing their life’s regrets, quite rarely but not enough to be negligible, rose again as a low tier Undead, a Zombie.
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Dealing with them was within Karle’s job description.
――Damnit……! This is why I told them to keep a priest close!
At heart, Karle spat curses.
The official practice was to cleanse the execution place beforehand by a priest and hold a memorial for the death row prisoner. It also served to prevent Undeath.
However, the knights ignored this practice and rejected Karle’s opinion on it. That as they were traitors of the country, holding a memorial was out of the question, that it was blasphemous to even consider it.
I was completely expecting this to happen, Karle couldn’t hold back his bitterness for having to clean up others mess.
Even so, Karle was convinced the Undead would crumble from only a swing of his axe…. until the blade’s edge struck the Undead, that is.
The handle quivered, scratching his fingers as if he struck the earth.
――What……!?
The axe that was swung with all his might, a swing that had once lobbed off countless heads, left only a shallow wound on the small body.
And then he saw.
The girl who ought to be riddled with cuts, bruises and wounds, sparkling with a glaze.
The unkempt silver hair that went down the head cut off by the guillotine, shining with brilliant allure.
“Oi! Something’s wrong! Oi!!” Karle shouted to the knights who were spouting more nonsense like ‘Justice has been served!’ or ‘This is the birth of a new dawn!” to the cheering crowds.
Unfortunately, his voice was drowned by the cheers themselves and the knight’s even louder shouts to deliver his message. After several rounds of shouts, however, the knight turned to him, brows knit.
Only it was too late by that time.
Actually, only Karle thought that. In reality, it was too late from moment one.
A scarlet flash ran, ripping the guillotine apart.
The rails that held the blade split in half, and the blade itself shattered three pieces and fell.
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Someone screamed. The pieces had pinned a few people.
But it was not the time to be looking away. Many joined Karle’s stare with open mouths.
Watching the impossible abomination that floated above the scaffold…
――What the hell is that? What the hell is that!?
The girl who was put to death now floated through the air like a ball of cotton, then landed on what was left of the guillotine frame she cut down.
The headless body cradled it’s own head by it’s long, silver hair with one hand, a sword that ran blood-red from tip to handle in her other. The sword looked like it were chiselled from a giant ruby, or maybe the girl’s own blood had frozen stiff to give it shape.
Did she cut down the guillotine with that?
One of the signs wearing ‘Death to the traitor!’ hoisted by the crowds was swept away by a gentle wind and covered the girl’s bare body. She wrapped it around like a makeshift cloak to hide her shameful appearance.
An appearance that begged the title of that Headless Knight.
Karle had an inkling about that Undead.
――A Dullahan…!?
It was impossible for that high-level an Undead to be born from an event as plentiful as an execution.
On top of being an ‘Accursed Prophet’ of death capable of leading many to death, it was also a mighty warrior; a being only a veteran adventurer party could handle, and only one at a time at that.
Then again, I’ve never heard of a Dullahan that looks like a little girl…
However, that Dullahan (temp) exceeded even those expectations.
The girl thrust her sword outward to the crowds, and began muttering.
By the time Karle realized she was chanting a spell, she had already completed it.
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≪Death Cloud≫×≪Energy Drain≫
Assembled Spell…
≪Evil Sacrement≫
She spoke with the bored voice of a government official reading out a public announcement. It froze Karle’s feet and sent a shiver down his spine, that a child’s voice could be so cold and emotionless.
He had no knowledge of that spell, but realized it was indeed offensive magic.
Because, something shot out of her sword and landed in the middle of the crowds and spread like smog, leaving death in its wake.
“Eh…?”
Because so many died all of a sudden, Karle needed a good moment before he realized what was happening.
It plopped to the ground like a pile of dusty books, a dark-red smog which covered it’s immediate area and the people within simply dried up, leaving only husky corpses behind.
Eventually, the rows of skeletons wearing only the skin and cloth of man dropped to the cobblestone streets with the snow.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaah!!
“Uwaaaaaaaa!!”
Those remaining scattered, screaming for their lives. They flood the many exits of the plaza, kicking, trampling, crashing against the spectators in the back who had no idea what was happening. Any who fell down were run over, crushed under the many, left behind as nothing but a lump of bloody meat.
“Hmm… So this is magic…”
When he heard the girl mutter from above his head, Karle’s blood froze.
To her, this was nothing but simply ascertaining her own capabilities. Just like how Karle would swing his axe a few times to check his shoulders, before doing his actual job.
And it took just that for tens, maybe even hundreds of lives to be snuffed out.
“Well, let’s try out this sword next.”
The girl who floated in the air looked downward… More accurately, she turned the head held in her left hand downward.
And faced by her serene and delighted gaze, Karle could not move.
He had taken his first head on the night of his 14th year of living. Even if his execution target was a vile serial killer unworthy of even breathing, the pressure of taking a life crushed him. He had spent that night cycling between bouts of incessant crying and retching.
But what about this girl? She took so many lives, but she looks so livid. Is this what it means to be Undead?
――I can’t. I can’t do anything, not against this monster…!
The ones locked under her gaze were the group of knights who had brought her and her mother to the execution plaza, and Karle, the executioner.
The knight who was fervently shouting out his speech to the cheering crowds, now had finally managed to pull out his sword with his shaking hands. Karle stood ready with his axe with him.
Her figure fluttered, sailing through the air.
The blood-red sword flashed like lightning, and the girl’s technique was like feathers dancing in a spring breeze.
And right in front of Karle’s eyes, the knight was chopped and dissected, little chiblets of armor-plated meat splattered over the snow.
“Damn you…!” Karle jumped off the scaffold, thinking there’s nothing more to be done. However, the scarlet sword flashed over his vision.
By the time he realized what happened, his head was already spinning through the air like a ball kicked by a child at the playground.
――Ahh. So this is how it feels to have your head cut off….
As he stared down his own body prostrated in the snow, Karle’s eyes lost their light.
Translator: Fried Hedgehog
Eyy wassup. Hedge here, bringing you another chapter of Time For Meaty Chunks.
This chapter was really fun to do, and I feel the change in perspective really gives you a good feel of what René can do from the point of view of a 3rd party. My expectations for this story are always so constantly on the rise. I wonder what’s next.
Well, that’s it from me. Like always, if you enjoyed this video, feel free to subscribe- er, wait. Right. If you find any typos, mistakes, grammar/wording tweaks, etc, lemme know in the comments. Aight, see ya.