Confronting the Witch
Restoring order to the ruined central city came first.
The kingdom’s knights, mages, and priests joined forces to purge the monsters that had spilled out from the royal palace.
Among blood-soaked earth and burned-out buildings, we finally managed to catch our breath.
But that was only the beginning.
The monster hordes spread without end, and their source lay in the dark-violet cores embedded across the continent.
Until those cores were shattered, the monsters would keep being born, gnawing at the land itself.
I took the lead of a massive subjugation force—knights, mages, mercenary companies, even wandering adventurers—and drove them forward.
We crossed mountain ranges, raced to the edges of deserts and seas.
Wherever the shadow of monsters fell, the trail of steel and blood remained.
Each time a core shattered, the earth shuddered as if screaming, and the monsters shrieked as they crumbled to ash.
From that day on, people could set foot on those lands again, and faint laughter returned to every ruined village.
And so five more years passed. I turned twenty-one.
In those five years, my love for Uncle had grown larger—and changed.
No longer mere longing and affection for the man who had saved me, but romantic feeling… the love one feels for someone as a man.
Several times larger. Far deeper.
I crossed the continent with a white sword that blazed with ever more magnificent light, purging monsters, and the world slowly reclaimed its proper shape.
Yet the thirst inside my heart remained unquenched.
Because I still had not found Uncle… Uncle Raon.
Violet blood burst, and the surrounding monsters crumbled to dust.
“Hoo… finally smashed the last core.”
Wrinkles from age, hair streaked with gray—yet still the greatest berserker, dominating the battlefield with his iron mace: Uldgar.
“We must head to the Witch’s Fortress now, Lady Seria.”
Young, yet through innate genius and relentless training she had risen faster than anyone to the rank of archmage: the mage Lindel.
“Hero Seria, the time has come. The Lord watches over us and will surely grant us victory.”
Hands that drew divine miracles into the world, likewise risen at a young age to the highest rank of priestess: Marian.
“Yeah… this is really the final chapter now.”
And last of all, the red-eyed Hero: Seria.
The four of us formed the core of the force that would slay the Witch.
For five years we had always stood at the front, taking the monsters’ attacks first as we advanced.
Behind us, countless knights, archers, mages, and priests waited for our command.
All that remained was to go to the Witch’s Fortress a short distance from here and face her ourselves.
If I just kill the Witch… only the Witch…
I can see Uncle again…
The road we had walked was filled with blood and ash, yet it was not finished.
Only the final battle with the Witch remained.
“Straight ahead. That’s the Witch’s Fortress.”
Uldgar muttered low, the massive iron mace resting on his shoulder.
Before us rose a mountain range shrouded in black darkness. Between the peaks, violet fog billowed up to the sky, and beyond it a tower jutted high.
Centered on that tower, dark-violet lightning endlessly split the heavens.
Lindel whispered, eyes sharp.
“A formation of black magic flows across the entire continent. The closer we draw, the stronger the resistance that awaits us.”
The moment she finished speaking, the ground trembled.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“What the—?!”
The subjugation force behind us turned, armor clanking as they raised their shields.
From the fog, colossal shapes strode forth.
Bodies of tangled rock, as if the mountain range itself had awakened.
A legion of dark-violet golems.
“GROOOOOOAAAR!!”
With a monstrous roar a golem swung its arm. The earth split; boulders flew.
Behind them, from beyond the mountains, even greater shadows revealed themselves.
Easily four times the height of a man, their entire bodies covered in black runes—a host of dark-violet giants.
The swords, maces, and axes they carried all blazed with violet fire.
All of them… the Witch’s monsters?
But the scale was something I had never seen before.
Lindel stretched out her hand, and lightning poured down.
“Heavens! Purify this land!”
With an explosion that shook the earth, one golem shattered to pieces. Yet the moment it fell, smaller golems crawled out from the scattered stones.
“Kh… they divide.”
Lindel clenched her teeth.
“Leave the rear to the knights!”
Uldgar roared and charged forward.
Every swing of his mace crushed a giant’s ribcage or smashed a golem’s head to fragments.
Yet dozens of the colossal monsters kept surging in without end.
“Hero Seria!”
Marian chanted a hymn and spread a veil of light.
Just as the monsters’ weapons were about to crash down on the shield-bearers, a dazzling dome of light enveloped them and held firm.
“The Lord’s grace protects us! Advance!”
I drew a deep breath.
White light bloomed from my fingertips and became a sword.
“UAAAAAAAAAH!!”
With a battle cry I sprinted forward.
Wherever the blade passed, giants split in two and sprayed violet blood. Golems cracked and crumbled the instant the white light touched them.
“Clear the path for Hero Seria!”
At Uldgar’s shout the knights raised a war cry.
Countless warriors held the monster horde at bay and carved a road.
I raced straight along that path.
The dark-violet sky grew even more ominous as it blanketed the battlefield.
And at last I stood before the Witch’s Fortress.
The heavens twisted into a vortex, and the fortress gates creaked open of their own accord.
A voice drifted from within.
“I have waited long… Hero.”
A voice that seemed to tear the ears and freeze the blood in every vein.
From the darkness ahead, a silhouette slowly took form.
A woman’s figure draped in a violet mantle.
And her eyes…
“Heh…”
Black.
The most ordinary… black eyes.
“Black…?”
My voice cracked.
Words I had heard countless times echoed in my ears.
Blood Eyes.
Seed of calamity.
A child who should never have been born.
“Surprised, Hero?”
The Witch’s lips twisted upward.
“Impossible… the Witch’s eyes are always red… they have to be…!”
I staggered back, shaking my head.
The Witch burst into a chilling laugh.
“Kyahahaha! How stupid… I am a newly born Witch, different from that one. She was merely another Witch who awoke in the past and ‘happened’ to possess rare red eyes.”
“Happened…?”
“That’s all. Nothing more. But humans do so love to hang meaning on chance. Rare. Sacred. Cursed… those ugly little labels.”
The Witch’s voice burrowed into my ears.
Every word carved into my chest.
“Those fools killed and were killed over something as trivial as eye color, devouring one another. Idiots. Beasts who divide the world by a single shell.”
My pupils trembled.
My mind went white.
Everything I suffered until now… was all…
Mother’s and Father’s words rose in my memory.
Cursed Blood Eyes.
My brother’s kicks. My sister’s sneers.
And the endless stones and curses hurled at me.
All of it… for the single reason that my eyes were red.
I couldn’t breathe.
My chest felt hollowed out, empty.
“No… no… then why… why did I…?”
My voice rang out like a scream.
“Why did I have to live like that? Why, even from my own family…!!”
Hearing that cry, the Witch laughed even more grotesquely.
“Keh-keh-keh… pitiful Hero. Your suffering was nothing but the foolishness born of ‘chance.’ If black eyes had been rare in this world, they would have cast out every black-eyed person just the same. Humans are all alike.”
The words struck like a direct hit.
A blade driven straight through the heart.
I staggered and fell to my knees.
“Then I… all this time… for what… why did I have to live that way…!!”
Tears spilled down.
Rage, grief, and hollow despair tangled together.
The Witch looked down at me and pointed a mocking finger.
“Your pain meant nothing. Your life was nothing but a joke created by stupid humans.”
“Ugh… you… bastard…”
“Keh-keh-keh-keh-keh… yes, rage. That is your only power.”
As the Witch’s laughter rolled out, the entire fortress seemed to shudder.
The violet mantle climbed the walls and soared into the sky; monster shadows crawled forth from every direction.
“UAAAAAAAAAH!!”
I gripped the sword. Hot tears streamed from my eyes, but they were not tears of sorrow—they were rage.
“My pain… meant nothing?”
White light exploded from my hands.
“Then right now, I’ll give it meaning myself!!”
Beams of light poured from the blade and cut the monsters down in a single stroke. They screamed, spraying violet blood, and crumbled to ash.
Yet the Witch did not so much as flinch.
“What a cute little struggle.”
She stretched out her hand. The sky itself seemed to invert as a colossal violet magic circle rose.
In an instant black clouds gathered; lightning and flame tangled together and swallowed the entire fortress.
“Aagh…! What is this…!”
Knights and soldiers screamed as they fell.
In that moment—
“Seria!! Hold on!!”
Uldgar appeared, sweeping monster hordes aside with his mace. Every downward blow shattered a golem’s torso to pieces.
“The black-magic formation is dominating the battlefield! Hold on just a little longer!!”
Lindel flung both arms wide; dozens of magic circles floated into the air and poured explosive flame and lightning.
“Hero Seria, do not fear! The Lord is with us!!”
Marian’s hymn rang out, and a veil of light wrapped the knights, raising the fallen back to their feet.
The golems and giants all collapsed.
As the main force finished off the monsters they had been fighting, they joined me where I stood alone against the Witch.
And at last… every one of them beheld the Witch with their own eyes.
Those who saw her cried out in shock as one.
“Black eyes…? The Witch doesn’t have red eyes…?”
“Th-this can’t be… the Witch of a thousand years ago having red eyes was just… pure chance…!”
“Then everything we’ve rejected and killed as Blood Eyes until now was…?”
“Puhahahahahaha—! Foolish humans… only now do you understand.”
And beside me, Uldgar was weeping.
In five years of fighting together in the subjugation force, I had never once seen Uldgar cry.
He wiped his tears, then roared in a voice thick with fury.
“Today, on this very ground, we smash the Witch and reclaim the world trampled by our blood and suffering!!”
Uldgar drove his massive iron mace into the earth with a thunderous crash and shouted again.
“Fight with everything you’ve got!!!!!”
“WAAAAAAAH—!!!”
“Slay the Witch—!!!”
The voices of the kingdom’s knights, archers, mages, and priests—hundreds strong—merged into a thunderous war cry,
and we charged forward… straight at the Witch.