The marriage between me and the Prince Rain was broken, and everything after that turned into a big mess.
Honored guests from other countries felt somehow amused by the spectacle but the people from Mistria fell in a state of panic.
Being unable to do anything when something so important happened. Not knowing what will happen from now on.
Bureaucrats and maids are running around with blue faces, crying, trembling. How pitiful.
Prince Rain and Miss Emerald who became the origin of the turmoil, seemed to have been taken away by the King’s aide.
They looked like they’d turn to ashes and disappear with a touch.
I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen to those two from now on.
Prince will probably be put under house arrest for a while. Despite everything, he seems to have the popularity so it won’t come down to exiling from the kingdom, but depending on his attitude from now on, it’s possible for him to be stripped of his right to succession to the throne.
In any case, he made such a grand blunder that it will be talked about for generations. Serves him right.
一As for Miss Emerald on the other hand…..I wonder if she’ll be able to leave the royal capital alive?
I don’t mean her being executed for this case. The problem lies in her declaration of possessing the power of the foretelling.
Most likely nobody who was at that place believed her but they can’t leave it without verifying either.
Prophets hold the power to move the history.
If Miss Emerald’s power is real, the kingdom will not let her go. Even if the prediction success rate is only about half, as long it’s half-accurate, it can still be advantageous. Knowing the information about disaster, famine or rebel forces against the nation in advance is irreplaceable.
For a while Miss Emerald will probably lead the life of being experimentated on.
If her power is fake, her situation will gradually worsen but if it’s real, that will really be the worst. Surely she won’t be able to leave the castle till her death.
Oh, but if she shows any signs of trying to escape, she might even get killed.
There would probably be a person who’d think “Before she gets to other country, I’d rather-”
Rather, being inside the castle seems safer. If such thing as a power of prophecy exists, obviously anyone would want it. Even if you go outside, you’ll only be targeted,
……Personally, I’m quite troubled.
If Miss Emerald’s power is proven to be real, suspicions will rise again.
Ahh, I really want to kill her now without a delay……
I won’t do it though. I’ll be suspected right away.
Besides, there are other things to worry about.
I glanced at the seat where His Majesty the King was sitting and secretly sighed.
Yup, let’s stop worrying about what’s to come.
For the time being, I don’t have to worry about being condemned as an evil witch.
I did my best, after all. Gotta reward myself.
Under Prime Minister’s arrangement, I hastily arrived at the mansion that’s located at the outskirts of the royal capital. As expected from the place under the control of the kingdom, it’s a well-maintained gorgeous mansion. Being hidden in the depth of the forest, there is no human presence around. Quite perfect for confidential talks.
After becoming the central person of such uproar, I can’t intrude on the castle. I slightly wanted to see the room prepared for the just-married couple, but when I thought about the people who prepared it, I couldn’t bring myself to stay. There have to be people taking prince’s side too, so staying in the castle would only make me feel ashamed.
Truth be told, I’d love to return to Cucurouge right away, but there are some procedures to be done for canceling an engagement.
Unlike that of the ordinary people, this is a promise that the kingdom and the witch exchanged. The contract magic, related to the engagement, has been applied to my and Prince Rain’s bodies. Seems like it takes more than a day to dispel it.
Tonight I’ll stay in this mansion.
I changed from my wedding dress into a plain one-piece dress and applied lighter make-up than the heavy one I had on. Then asked the servants to fill the tub with hot water and deliver it to my room. I’m totally exhausted after having to stand the whole time while wearing the shoes I’m not used to. I might’ve been putting up a tough front more than I thought.
As I was sitting on a bed, relaxing in footbath, a reserved sound of knock resounded.
“Go ahead.”
Will, who came in silently, blatantly turned his face away. “Immodest” – is what he looks like he’s thinking.
The Prime Minister himself said, “Please relax like it’s your own house”, you know~
I unblinkingly stare at the young man standing before the door.
Tall height and manly body. His shoulder-length black hair has been casually bound. His sharp, long eyes are mysterious golden color, making one feel strangely uneasy.
He pursed his lips, with wrinkles appearing between his eyebrows. He seems to be slightly nervous.
This is a man who should’ve strongly opposed me in original “Anime”.
The one, who I killed and the one who caused me to die.
It’s very amusing for such two to be meeting face-to-face once again as master and servant. I can’t stop myself from smiling.
“Please introduce yourself again.”
“Will Obsidia. Head Knight of the imperial guards serving under Mistria kindom’s first Prince.”
“Former Head Knight. From now on, you are Crimson Witch’s daughter’s, Sonia Carnelian’s servant.”
Will distorted his face, as if to say that he was humiliated. What an honest person.
“I am indeed a daughter of a famous witch, but as you can see, I am not of a noble birth. If it’s not at a formal place you can call me as you want, no need for respectful speech either. You also don’t need to use your body to shield me. The only thing you have to do is to never disobey my orders.”
After staring at me as if trying to guess my real intention, Will murmured.
“Depends on the content of the order.”
“For example?”
“…… Even if I let go of the emblem, I am still a knight of Mistria. I do not plan to lend hand in criminal acts.”
“Fufu, I’m not trusted at all. I am a good witch, you know?”
Will only frowned.
But … as long it doesn’t go against your chivalry spirit, you’ll listen to everything I’ll say, right?
“Will, wipe it.”
As I held out my wet foot, he stiffened up.
“What are you doing?! I’ll catch cold. Isn’t towel right there?”
There was no reply but Will slowly started to move. He kneeled before me and started wiping my feet. I can see that he’s trying his best not to look at my face or accidentally touch my bare skin.
“Do it more gently please. My skin will get damaged. Don’t forget the space between the toes either.”
It must be humiliating, right? To be made to do something like this by me, the witch.
His irritation welling up is visible even to an eye.
After having the tub taken away, I again started asking qustions. I think that I know pretty much everything about Will, but there might be some differences from the original and unexpectly blurting out something that I couldn’t possibly know and raising suspicious wouldn’t be good either.
20 years old.
He met Prince Rain at the age of 10 and at the age of 16 started serving him as the knight.
After following the Prince who left the castle to investigate the mysterious incidents, he seems to have traveled to various places this past year.
“So, when and how did you met that person called Emerald or whatever?”
“…………”
He’s been talking straightforwardly before now, but as soon her name came up he became quiet.
“Will, answer me. This is an order.”
“…..What do you plan to do after hearing it?”
“I won’t do anything. But isn’t it okay to be curious? about a person who seems to be honestly convinced that I’m an evil witch, I mean.”
“If Emerald is saying so, it must be the truth. She’s not the kind of a woman who’d lie.”
“I didn’t necessarily say that she lied. But yes, the possibility that she’s been driven insane by her power of prophecy that’s unsuitable for her stature is not zero.”
Will’s eyes get tinged with murderous intent. While enjoying the room temperature going down, I continued my cheap provocations.
“After all, for her I’m an obstacle in love. Didn’t she try to make me out to be an evil witch because she unconsciously wanted to get rid of me? Thinking that if she didn’t do at least this much, she wouldn’t be able to break off the engagement that made the whole country rise in celebration. She must like the Prince very much.”
In the original, at this point Prince Rain and Emerald already had mutual love, while Will was trying his best to forget his feelings. Judging from his reaction right now, everything seems to be like the original. It looks very painful.
To be fascinated by other girls while I’m in front of you. Seems worth bullying.
“However, both Prince and that girl are stupid, right? Their assumptions are too extreme.”
“…… Do not insult those two any more than this.”
“Eh? why? I mean, they could’ve just told be beforehands. I’m a good witch so I wouldn’t get in the way of a loving couple. If they wished to cancel the engagement, I would happily cooperate.”
Actually I was waiting, but they never showed up.
“What were you guys doing up until now? For the time being, come and see me. Isn’t first having a discussion a basic for a peaceful solution?!”
It’s not like I was in a hiding.
Don’t tell me it’s because Cucurouge is a countryside that you felt lazy to come?
I would even serve my special-made herb tea, if you came for a visit,
……Just joking. Let’s keep jesting to this.
“If they followed the steps properly, they wouldn’t have to experience that kind of shame and everything would be set with the『minimum necessary sacrifice』.”
“…..Stop fooling around!”
Will’s eyes were wide open, filled with rage. Just because I stepped on a landmine on purpose, he’s seriously angry.
“You were saying it before too, right?….that Alonia Carnelian planned her attacks so they’d only end with the minimum necessary sacrifice.”
“Yes.”
“How many, do you think, have died under that minimum?! What kind of fate my parents met…..!”
Going with the momentum, Will revealed his own personal history.
Will’s father, Cross Obsidia, served as the head of the Chivalric Order of the Kingdom when he was quite young. He was a genius at using sword and there were many voices saying that he was the strongest in the Kingdom.
However, during the witches’ attack 20 years ago, he was killed abruptly. It was because his beloved wife was taken as a hostage.
The murdered Knight was drained of his blood, then hung on the castle gate upside down with his guts spilling out, to be exposed for three days and three nights
The humiliation of the Kingdom’s strongest Knight became a lesson showing the terrible power of the witches.
“After seeing my father’s completely changed form, mother went crazy and cut open her last-month pregnant stomach. Then I was born and my mother died on the spot!”
Golden eyes are glaring with hatred.
Beautiful.
Like full moon that’s driving people mad.
“Talk it out, you say? Stop kidding around! As if I’d let the Prince or Emerald get close to the lair of the cruel and cunning witches, who don’t even think of people as humans! There’s no way of knowing what kind of cowardly trap will be set up! So I waited for you to come to the royal capital! We were supposed to uncover your and Alonia’s true colors and show it to the idiots who still believed in coexisting with the witches!”
…….Oh~ I see.
You had it thought out pretty well.
For the sake of security, there were elite members of the Chivalric Order staying low at the back of the Cathedral and the guests from the other countries were also accompanied by their bodyguards. In fact, there was enough fighting power gathered to hold down one witch.
Now that I think about it, Prince was using quite provocative words to talk too. It was most likely for the sake of angering me.
Certainly, in “Anime” the witches who caused the mystery incidents were easy to snap. Particularly, as soon their crimes were exposed and they were told「You are the culprit!」….
I thought it was that kind of agreement but don’t tell me, witches really don’t have a patience? Is that how they’re recognized?
I don’t think that I and the witches in the countryside are like that though.
That reminds me, even in the original work, before the wedding ceremony Emerald and the folks were made to stand in adversity.
In the country where Alonia is idolised as a savior, convicting her daughter is not an easy feat. Even despite knowing that the ones behind the mystery incidents were the witches, surprisingly enough, people still couldn’t feel the threat.
This day, the Prince and the others came prepared for death.
Even without the definitive evidence, they had to denounce me by all means.
That’s how much they were cornered and that’s how much they believed in Miss Emerald’s prophecy. The only people invited to the wedding ceremony were the people, who held favorable feelings towards the Crimson Witch. People who held goodwill towards me would be invited and those who hated my mother would refuse to attend on their own.
Everything that could overturn the situation was probably taken into the account.
……..I’m really glad that I saw the “Anime”.
Otherwise, like Will, I might’ve been manipulated according to the enemies’ thought, leaving myself to anger.
“I despise witches – I want to kill every last one of them and drag their intestines out. That includes you too, Sonia Carnelian.”
Will was trembling, while putting his hand on the witch-killing sword hanging at his waist. He seems to be fighting the urge to slice me.
Either way, there is only one thing I should say.
“I’m sorry. I made a careless remark. I take it back. If you wish, as one of the witches, I will also apologise for the matter of your parents.”
“Don’t take me for a fool …..is that supposed to be a plea for life? If you think that you’ll be forgiven like that —-”
“No. If it was a grudge that would be easily satisfied with one apology, you wouldn’t carry out witch killings like that. I can understand that much. Don’t get me wrong.”
I looked up at Will as if to challenge him.
“You don’t have to forgive me. If you want to kill me, I’ll let you have a chance at it. But even so, I’ll still leave you by my side.”
“Why…..you understand what I’m trying to do, right?”
The reason why Will obediently became my servant?
Obviously it’s to get a hold of the evidence that I’m an evil witch and save the Prince and Miss Emerald who have fallen into the predicament. And also to give a lawful judgement.
If he kills me right now, the blame will fall on Prince Rain, becoming the dealing blow for him.
Isn’t that why you aren’t unsheathing your sword?
“I understand it. But without the evidence, you can’t condemn me no matter how much hatred you hold. There’s no way you would kill people just by acting on personal feelings. Because, even if you let go of the emblem, you are still the Knight of Mistria.”
Will, who was struggling to breath, suddenly took his hand off the sword.
“You seem to be pretty confident……”
“Yes. I am both a good witch and a good lord, after all.”
“How exactly!” – is what Will spitted out while running out of the room.
This is okay.
— Once you let the anger explode all at once, next ignition won’t come so easily.
For a while, I won’t have to worry about being cut from the back.
Besides, I wanted to apologize beforehands.
No matter how biased you are towards the witch side, Will’s life is still pitiful. From now on, it won’t be fun if I can’t bully him because I’m feeling obliged. Getting hated for something that happened before my birth just because I’m a witch isn’t very amusing either.
“But Will….actually you know, right?”
That your father was commanding a witch hunting unit.
And the humiliation that he received after death is the same as what our brethren once received when they fell victims to witch hunting.
If you do something, someday it’ll come back to you.
Both you and me need to prepare ourselves, right?
—–
Notes:
dun dun duuuun
Gotta be honest, I didn’t expect that. So Will’s father was actually involved in the witch hunting and Will himself most likely knows about it too. Then what’s with the grudge against the witches? why did this chapter go so gore-y so sudden? and why was my heart racing when Sonia gave an order to wipe her feet?!!!
Anyway, this was a pretty long chapter. Even twice the length of the previous chapters so I got tired as hell when the chapter just wasn’t ending. This time I didn’t wait for Asdick to proofread so this is what he has to deal with all the time! Bad wordings, weird nouns and misused/misplaced/missing articles!
Tell me any mistake you catch. I’m kind of more satisfied with this chapter than the previous one in terms of sentence flow, but there were some sentences where I had to go with my intuition because one word can mean something different depending on the context and I can’t really grasp that with google and dictionaries, yuno.
Oh right,
Kreygasmer, my dude, fam
You don’t have to translate anything below “notes”, those are unrelated to the author. It’s just my dumb jokes and ranting, meng
P.S do you guys care about chapter titles or should I fuck them off as usual