The Man Who Laughed at the Gallows
Death approaches everyone with equal terror, regardless of who they are. That is why humans will do anything to distance themselves from it, even if it means tumbling into the abyss in the most grotesque of forms.
“Heh heh heh~”
Yet the man before them was smiling even in the moment of his execution, stepping lightly toward the noose that would end his life. The sight was so bizarre that the prison guard escorting him to the execution ground actually asked whether the man truly felt no fear of death.
“Are you not afraid of execution? Losing your life like this… wouldn’t that be unfair?”
At the guard’s question, the man burst into laughter loud enough to echo through the entire prison, as if he had heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“Puhahaha… That has to be the strangest thing I’ve heard during my entire stay in prison. I won’t die.”
“…You won’t die?”
“Exactly—!! Isn’t it strange for someone who isn’t going to die to be afraid of execution? That’s why I can laugh like this.”
The guard fell silent. The man’s claim that he would not die, delivered with a bright smile and absolute confidence, was so absurd that the guard decided it was better not to respond. He could only assume the prisoner had gone mad from the knowledge that his life was about to end.
After that brief exchange, the only sounds were the sharp click of the guard’s boots and the man’s humming as they arrived at the prepared execution site. The executioner began to read the charges aloud, but the man simply continued to hum, listening with mild interest.
“Ian. The charges are the distribution of explosives used in a coup against His Majesty the Emperor and the act of aiding the rebel army. You are hereby sentenced to death.”
“Yeees…”
The executioner, perhaps curious at the man’s nonchalant attitude, asked why he offered no objections.
“You’re not going to protest at all? Most men in your position scream that it’s a false charge or swear they never did any such thing.”
Unfortunately, the man accepted the verdict with the same consistent, almost cheerful demeanor.
“Why would I protest when I really did it?”
Well… from the executioner’s perspective, it was preferable to prisoners who thrashed and screamed, yet this man’s boldness was so unusual that he could not help thinking the prisoner was remarkably brazen.
“Hah… You are the boldest death-row inmate I’ve seen in all my years.”
“I hear that quite often, so it might simply be true.”
“Then… the sentence of hanging shall now be carried out upon death-row inmate Ian.”
The punishment was death by hanging: a rope knotted into a loop that would tighten around the neck, suspending the body in the air until breath ceased, after which the corpse would simply be discarded.
“Ehh… Hanging? That sounds like it’ll make my neck hurt.”
“What…? You accept the charges but complain that the method will hurt your neck? You’re the first I’ve ever seen do that.”
“I’m a man who really, really hates anything painful, you see.”
“Anyway… I will now place the rope around your neck.”
Ignoring the man’s nonsense about neck pain, the executioner slipped the noose over his head. The moment the chair was kicked away, the rope would tighten. After that, the death that had been scheduled for him would arrive.
It might have been a fitting end for a death-row inmate, but unfortunately the man seemed to have accumulated quite a few connections in his life.
“Ian…!!! Why… why must it be you who dies before me!”
The 3rd Princess—the lowest in the imperial line of succession and the leader of the rebel army the man had aided—despaired at the sight of him.
“W-why is Brother d-dying…? The gods will not accept Brother’s death… There is no one as devout as Brother—!!”
The Saintess, whose red hair was considered impure and who had been used and discarded as a political tool by the Holy Kingdom despite her unmatched talent, was thrown into confusion at the death of a truly faithful man.
“No… This has to be a hallucination caused by the alcohol. So please, let me wake up. Please let me wake up.”
The Assassin Leader, who wanted to forget the past in which she had been betrayed by her comrades, chose to believe this was nothing more than a drunken illusion.
“B-Brother…? No… We promised to celebrate my birthday together… With Sister Reita… and Sister Luna… and all the other sisters… This is a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare…”
The Duke’s Illegitimate Daughter, whose talents had never awakened because of the oppressive environment and who had been framed for her family’s crimes, desperately told herself it was only a bad dream and that she would soon wake up.
And the one who followed the man more than anyone, the one who would accept death if he ordered it, the one who would gladly offer her body if he desired it—
“…”
She simply watched the man hanging from the rope in silence.
In that suffocating moment, the man turned to the executioner beside him as if he had one last thing to say.
“Excuse me, Mr. Executioner? Would you be able to pass on a single message to the others?”
“…Speak quickly.”
“Well then… If anyone is saddened by my death, please tell them, ‘I’m not dead. And I’d love to have fun with all of you again someday.’”
The request was for the executioner to comfort those grieving his death. It was utterly irresponsible and selfish. How could a man about to have his neck snapped claim he would “have fun again someday”? To the people left behind, those words would feel like nothing short of an insult.
“How truly irresponsible. Have you considered that those words might stab the hearts of those you leave behind and cause them even greater pain?”
The executioner rebuked him, but the man simply answered with the same shameless attitude.
“We’ll be able to see each other again someday anyway.”
“Trash.”
Trash. He really was a piece of trash. A man who inflicted agonizing wounds on others, offered them empty hope that they would meet again, then fled into death. Even so, the executioner—
“Ouch… I may be trash, but it still hurts when you say it straight to my face like that.”
—could not ignore the request of the condemned man whose sentence he was carrying out. If he failed to deliver even these words to the wounded survivors, it would be a hell of its own.
“Then suffer the pain, you damned death-row inmate.”
By the time their conversation ended, the moment for execution had arrived. The executioner kicked the chair out from beneath the man’s feet.
Bang—!
The chair that had supported the man vanished in an instant. The rope snapped tight around his neck, cutting off his breath. As his breathing grew desperate—
“Ugh…!”
—he belatedly began to struggle against the pain in his throat and the terror of suffocation, clawing at the noose with all his strength. But the rope around his neck was far too sturdy to be torn by the fingernails of a man whose strength was rapidly fading.
“…”
His resistance grew weaker with every passing second until it vanished completely. He hung there like a wooden puppet whose strings had been cut, no longer able to move.
“This kind of work… I really can’t stand it anymore.”
It was his job to carry out the executions of worthless criminals, but today the taste in his mouth was particularly foul.
Imperial Calendar Year 569, November 27.
Death Row Inmate: Ian
Execution by Hanging — Completed
Death. The story ended with the man’s death.
And that day would later become the spark that set ablaze the five women who would earn dark renown for their descent into madness.
Meanwhile, at the Mountain of Corpses where the bodies of executed death-row inmates were abandoned.
This was a place where the corpses of the condemned were simply left to rot. No tombstones or graves were afforded to such people; they were discarded until nothing remained. It was an environment where no living person should ever be found, yet—
“Ugh…! Damn it. So that bastard Hans really suggested this disgusting plan? My neck is so stiff… How long did he leave me hanging up there?”
A man was standing alone among the piled corpses.
“By now my records should have been completely erased thanks to the execution… Maybe I should try my hand at running a business somewhere else.”
The man had not truly died, just as he had claimed.
And what he had truly wanted was—
“When I first heard the crazy idea of using execution for identity laundering, I thought it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard. I never imagined it would actually work this well…”
It was identity laundering, exploiting the Empire’s rule that a criminal’s entire existence was erased from official records the moment they were executed.
“The new name obviously can’t be Ian… Ain. Yeah… Ain sounds perfect for a fresh start.”
This is the story of a man who used execution to wash away his old identity.
And the story of the five women who had formed bonds with him, and how they would all go mad.
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