Prologue
A young girl who had been mistaken for a descendant of the witch who would bring about the cataclysm.
All I had done was take in that little red-eyed girl whom everyone had shunned and trampled, leaving her covered in wounds.
...That was all.
Yet I was branded a traitor to the nation. One of my legs was severed, and I was sentenced to life imprisonment.
In a solitary cell where not a single ray of light entered, no less.
Thin soup with rotten vegetables and bones floating in it.
Twice a day.
And so, having lost all hope, I remained trapped in the darkness.
For ten years.
For ten years I had lived with nothing but breath clinging to me, unable even to die.
Bang—!
Then one day...
Bang! Bang! Crunch—!
The prison door shattered, and pure white light flooded in.
Clinging to my hazy consciousness, I came to my senses...
...to find myself held in someone's arms.
"I've waited for this day for ten years. I love you, uncle."
And in a very warm embrace, at that.