Even More Insignificant Than the Witch
If I had defeated the Witch and freed Mister as promised, I had intended to live a quiet life afterward.
Just the two of us… a happy life together…
Yes, I admit it. Mister might hate me.
But erasing his crimes and setting him free… that alone would have been enough.
Even if he resented me… even if he hated me so much he couldn’t bear the sight of my face…
As long as Mister was free… I truly would have been fine with that.
Really… truly.
But… would I, really?
Even now… just thinking that Mister might still hate me makes the tears spill over.
Ah, why does my heart hurt so much?
It feels as if a corner of it is being torn apart and ruined.
You’re even more disgusting, Hero.
Falling in love with the man who cared for you like a father when you were little—there’s more than a ten-year gap between you, isn’t there?
Would that man even like you in the first place? He rotted in prison for over ten years trying to protect you.
The Queen’s words might have been right.
No—they probably were.
“There’s no way Mister Raon would like you. You stupid idiot…”
I muttered to myself.
That man, Han Raon… is already set to become my husband. We’ll hold a grand wedding in a week.
But Queen Aurelia… had crossed the line.
Yes… whether Mister hated me or not… if I could simply free him so he could live out the rest of his life happily… I never would have even considered a coup like this.
Why? Isn’t it a good thing? I’m filthy rich and the Queen—he’ll live in luxury for the rest of his life.
Pinned under me in bed, panting, getting hard down there. Right? Fufufufu…♡
The Queen… intended to make Mister Raon her personal plaything.
After cutting off his legs… after leaving him to rot in solitary for ten years…
There was no way Mister could ever like that Queen.
“The coup… I will… I will bring down that rotten Queen.”
I was no traitor without cause.
There were clear reasons the Queen had to fall.
First: the Queen had levied crushing taxes.
From the moment Aurelia took the throne, the amount of tax collected had skyrocketed, and the people starved without even knowing where their stolen coin was spent.
But that was not the end of it.
“It is necessary to hold back the Witch and the monsters.”
With that single phrase she had drastically increased the already heavy taxes, stripping the people of everything they owned.
Grain stores stood empty. Parents could not feed their children. The starved rolled as corpses in the streets.
And all the while, the palace banquets never ceased.
Pouring wine into golden goblets, draped in priceless jewels, the Queen demanded to be worshipped like a god.
Second: the decree to exterminate all red-eyed people.
Because of that law, countless children, parents, brothers and sisters had been slaughtered.
“A sacrifice to prevent calamity.”
Many had agreed with those words at the time…
But not anymore.
Red eyes had always been discriminated against, yet most had not been killed for it. Then, five years ago, the Queen proclaimed her decree… and more than a hundred red-eyed people were executed.
And those who tried to protect them were branded traitors to the realm and executed as well…
Including Uldgar’s son and wife.
Rage toward the Queen had already reached its peak.
The Witch’s eyes had not been red.
They had been black.
Uldgar, Lindel, Marian, and I—along with hundreds of the subjugation force—had seen it clearly with our own eyes.
Black eyes. The most common color of all.
It had been proven that the eye color of the Witch from a thousand years ago had been nothing more than coincidence.
And all those red-eyed children who had died until now?
They had died simply because of human folly and the stupid prejudice of a foolish Queen.
That rumor had already spread far and wide.
Knights of the palace, soldiers, mages, priests—every one of them had seen the Witch’s eyes for themselves.
The truth raced from mouth to mouth.
Parents who, like my own family, had rejected their own children simply for being born with red eyes collapsed under the weight of guilt.
Those who had stained their hands with blood at the Queen’s word, simply because of red eyes, trembled in terror.
“What did we kill people for?”
That guilt became a spark that flared into distrust of the Queen.
Third: the Queen had tried to dress herself as a hero using the Witch’s death.
But everyone knew. It was not the Queen who had slain the Witch.
It was me—the Hero, Seria Luciel—together with Uldgar, Lindel, Marian, and the burning will of hundreds of the subjugation force.
Without them and me, this kingdom would already have burned and vanished.
Yet the Queen had stolen the subjugation force’s achievements.
She boasted to the people that she herself had commanded the Witch’s defeat and led them to victory,
and the reward given to the members of the subjugation force who had fought themselves half to death to save the world was a mere three silver coins each.
Three silver coins as the price for saving the world.
There was no compensation whatsoever for those who had lost limbs or been left disabled in battle.
The people were no fools. They already knew the Queen’s blatant lies, and after starving under her excessive taxes they trusted her even less.
And the final, most important reason.
Mister Raon.
The Queen had promised me.
If I defeated the Witch, she would free him.
Yet the moment I returned, she had laughed and declared he was to become her husband.
He was being forced into a marriage he never wanted.
The Queen’s true nature—her greed to keep a man as a slave—had been laid bare.
My fury had already gone far beyond personal feeling.
The resentment of the starving people, the guilt of those who had massacred the red-eyed, the distrust of the soldiers who had learned the truth of the Witch,
and the Queen’s betrayal of me.
All of it had fused into a single voice.
Coup.
That alone was the path to set this kingdom right.
I told the people every one of these truths.
The wicked Queen’s true face and her ugliness.
Every member of the subjugation force joined the coup.
And… the citizens as well.
The people were especially enraged by the forced marriage between the Queen and Mister Raon.
“They cut off the legs of the Hero’s most precious person and left him to rot in solitary… and now they want to use him as a plaything because they don’t like the people he proposed to?!”
“Trying to destroy the Hero’s pure love… unforgivable!!”
“NTR must be stopped at all costs!!!”
“This story’s genre is pure love!!!”
When the citizens truly shared my rage and joined the coup, I was genuinely moved.
Of course, the insane tax collection and the decree to kill the red-eyed also made up a large part of their fury.
And then the day of the coup arrived.
“That rotten Queen squeezed the people dry with taxes and slaughtered innocents for no reason other than their red eyes!
And we all saw the truth with our own eyes—that the Witch’s eyes were black!
Yet even then she did not stop… she is trying to make my most precious person into her plaything!
And on top of that she claims every credit for defeating the Witch for herself…
I can endure it no longer! Let us topple the throne and set this nation right!!”
“Waaaaaaaaaah—!”
Nearly a thousand coup soldiers roared like monsters.
And all of us advanced on the palace.
The night before, Lindel had already secretly raided the Underground Prison so that Mister Raon could not be used as a hostage.
All that remained was to fight.
“Uwaaaaaaah—! Defeat the wicked Queen—!”
Near the palace we met the royal guard.
Light poured from my hand and the white sword was summoned.
I expected us to cross blades…
“Pass through.”
“Y… yes?”
“We too could no longer simply stand by and watch that wicked, selfish Queen.
They never even paid proper wages to the palace guards or the royal knights.”
“Th… then…”
“Pass through, red-eyed Hero. And please… sever Queen Aurelia’s head.”
The royal guards all knelt and laid down their weapons.
The coup force, bewildered, advanced into the palace and threw open the doors.
“What are you doing?! The coup force is advancing!! Stop them at once!!”
Queen Aurelia, seated on the throne, already had her makeup smeared and her hair in disarray.
The purple goblet in her hand trembled, wine spilling onto the floor.
“Royal guards!! Protect me!!”
She shrieked.
But there was no answer.
I looked to the side.
The royal knights and guards all stood silent, weapons lowered.
In their eyes there was neither loyalty nor fear.
Only contempt and cold scorn remained.
“Wh-what are you doing!! I am the Queen!! I am the kingdom!! How dare you—”
The Queen’s scream rang hollow.
No one moved.
In that moment I understood.
She was already alone.
Eyes rolling with rage and terror, the Queen flung out her hand.
Ice condensed in the air and shot forth like sharp spears.
“Die, you filthy Blood Eyes!!”
So even a Queen could use magic, it seemed.
The ice spears stabbed through empty air.
Extremely sharp ice magic that would have dealt a fatal wound to an ordinary person.
Clang—
I swept my sword once and shattered that flimsy magic into pieces.
Broken shards of ice scattered pitifully across the floor.
“No… no!!!”
The Queen shot ice again from her frail fingertips.
But it was like pebbles thrown by a child.
Not a single one flew properly; they all shattered in midair.
I took a step forward.
The sword shone pure white as it advanced toward the throne.
The Queen’s face twisted in terror.
She scrambled backward on the floor, crying out in a trembling voice.
“I am the Queen…! I will never die…! I… I am greater than the gods—”
Swish.
A single streak of light flashed, and her head was severed.
Those cold, ice-like eyes rolled emptily across the floor.
The Queen who had boasted of her greatness had become nothing more than a corpse collapsed on the ground, empty and absurd.
From the very beginning, no one had been on the Queen’s side.
The wicked Queen’s end was more insignificant and hollow than even the Witch’s.
Sword still in hand, I murmured in a trembling voice.
“Mister Raon… it’s… over now.”
Blood dripping from the throne soaked the stone floor.
I swallowed my tears and looked down at the white sword.
I ran desperately toward the Underground Prison.
At the thought of meeting Mister, my heart pounded so hard my fingertips and toes tingled… and tears welled up.
When I arrived at the Underground Prison,
“There was nothing to fight. Last night when I came and started to use magic, all the jailers surrendered at once. Then they all said the same thing to me. Please cut off the Queen’s head.
They hadn’t been paid proper wages either, and they’d been seething with discontent over the Queen’s rule for a long time.”
Lindel pointed to the jailers, all kneeling with their hands and feet neatly bound by magic, as she spoke.
Like this… so hollowly…
No one had taken the Queen’s side.
The explosive tax collection, the decree to kill the red-eyed that had become meaningless sacrifice once the new Witch’s eyes were revealed to be black,
the failure to pay proper wages even to those who worked in the palace, and the way she had sat idle on the throne yet claimed every credit for defeating the Witch while giving the subjugation force nothing of real value…
Yes—Queen Aurelia had simply been a worthless piece of trash.
Perhaps the success of the coup had been inevitable all along.
The Queen had been insignificant, and no one had helped her.
“Hero.”
Just then Lindel pointed with her finger toward a tightly shut door.
“Mister Raon’s solitary cell is that way, Hero Seria.”
My heart thundered.
At the fact that I could finally meet him.
I ran toward the place Lindel indicated.
For ten years.
The person I had wanted to meet more than anyone else in the world.
The person I had wanted to see so badly I could die…
I had to go meet him.