[Side Story] A Certain Witch's Tale (2)
Leaving Frederica—who seemed so shattered she had not moved from the grave for hours—in Stella's care, Ray set out for a nearby village to learn what he could.
"Ah, the graveyard on that hill? Of course I know it. My late mother told me the story more times than I can count."
After asking around, he found a middle-aged tavern keeper who knew the tale of the hilltop grave.
"Everyone pretends not to talk about it, but every soul in this village knows the story."
"What... kind of story?"
"Years ago a couple settled here with a little child. Word was the mother had once been a Gold-rank adventurer, the father a mercenary."
The story that followed far outstripped anything Ray had imagined.
"Seems the child possessed some strange power. The king of the time took a keen interest."
Coveting that power, the king hired mercenaries to hunt the couple down. The pair fought to the last to protect their child from him, yet in the end they fell, and the child was taken.
"No one knows what became of the little one after that. It's already fifty years gone."
They recovered the parents' bodies and raised the gravestone on that hill so that if the kidnapped child ever returned alive, they would know it for what it was.
"I still remember Mother praying right up to the end that the child might at least one day see their parents' grave."
"That's..."
At the tavern keeper's bitter closing words, Ray could only sigh, his face bleak.
With heavy steps he returned to where Frederica waited.
"She cried herself to sleep."
To Stella, who was gently stroking the sleeping girl with a look of pity, Ray relayed everything he had heard in the village.
"Then the way she acted like a child, even though she looks like that... could it be..."
"...She's been a captive ever since they took her as a little girl."
Hearing it, Stella seemed to see again the childlike manner that had never matched Frederica's appearance.
"How could anyone...!"
Stella covered her mouth with both hands as thick tears spilled down. Ray stepped close, quietly patted her shoulder, and together they kept watch over Frederica.
The next morning.
"...Thank you for helping me come this far."
"Frederica...?"
"You..."
Ray and Stella stared in open surprise at the girl who had changed so completely overnight.
"There's one last place I want to go."
The pink eyes that had sparkled with curiosity at every new thing throughout their journey were gone. In their place lay eyes that had lost all light—dead, filled with an abyss that seemed to have no bottom.
"Mother always said if anything ever happened, I should go to the city of witches."
As though the night of endless weeping had never been, Frederica spoke in a calm, empty voice.
"...All right."
Ray and Stella slowly nodded.
And so they left the village where Frederica had once lived and set out for the city of witches.
"Thank you for protecting our sister until now."
Somehow the two witches had known. They were already waiting on the road ahead.
"This is a token of gratitude from our Queen. Please do not refuse it."
They pressed into Ray's hands a luxurious pouch that clearly held no small sum.
"Come. Let us go together."
"The Queen is waiting."
The witches held out their hands to Frederica.
"......"
Looking at those outstretched hands, Frederica turned back toward Ray and Stella.
"Thank you. Because of you, I got to meet Mom."
Like a child who had forgotten how to smile, she forced a smile that was plainly not real and bowed.
"Well then... goodbye, Ray. Stella."
With that she took the witches' hands and vanished.
"...Frederica."
"Ray..."
Watching her disappear, Ray and Stella could only blame themselves for never managing to say, until the very end, that they would go with her. They flung the pouch aside and stood staring emptily for a long time in the direction she had gone.
Eighty years had passed since Frederica entered the city of witches.
"Are you truly set on going?"
"...Yes."
Erzsebet—Apostle of the goddess Capella, first of her children, and Queen of the Witches—sighed as she looked upon Frederica kneeling before her, now a full-fledged witch in her own right.
"Even you, who bear the mark of immortality, have limits."
"I know."
Frederica bowed her head in apology.
"Huu. Blame me the way you used to."
She still looked a young and beautiful queen, yet her power had waned until merely shielding the city was all she could manage—and Frederica knew it.
"...I was immature then."
Unlike the days when she had screamed why the Queen had not protected her and her parents, Frederica rose now with quiet thanks for all the years of care.
Watching her, Erzsebet tried once more to turn aside the young witch who seemed determined to become a moth flying into flame.
"Just who do you mean to take revenge upon? Those who killed your parents and stole you away have been dead for ages."
At the Queen's voice Frederica halted on the threshold.
"...Every last one of their bloodline."
The words were cold enough to chill the air around them.
"Frederica!"
"May you fare well."
Paying no heed to the call, she left the city.
A few months later.
"Kyaaaaak!"
"What in the world is this?!"
"Why—why are magical beasts here?!"
An anomaly struck the capital of a small kingdom.
A horde of magical beasts appeared from nowhere anyone could guess. From goblins to minotaurs, every species charged without distinction—yet they shared one trait.
"Damn it! What's wrong with these things!"
"How are we supposed to stop beasts that keep moving after you cut their heads off?!"
Even with hearts crushed and necks severed they still moved as though alive, surging only toward the castle.
Realizing this, the king and his retainers abandoned any thought of holding the walls and began searching desperately for a way to flee. A nameless little kingdom could never hope to stop an army of beasts that did not fear death.
Yet a single doll barred their escape.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Pink hair streaming, expression blank, Frederica stood in the path of the fleeing nobles.
"Today, no one leaves this castle."
The moment she spoke in that icy voice and flicked her hand—
—Slash!
"Aaaaaaah—!!"
A sharp cutting sound rang out, and the legs of everyone trying to flee the castle were sliced into fine pieces.
"S-stop! Just—just why are you doing this! What crime have we committed!"
The king, the only one whose legs remained whole, asked in a shaking voice.
"Hmm... that's a difficult question. Because none of you have done anything wrong."
Frederica merely tilted her head.
"Then why...!"
The instant the king cried out in outrage—
—Slash.
"Well. Ask your ancestors about that."
The vision of the king and everyone before her shattered into dozens of fragments. In those splintered last moments they all, as if by prior agreement, beheld the same final sight:
"—If an afterlife truly exists, that is."
The sorrowful face of a witch weeping quietly.
Afterward she used threads drawn thinner than sight to command the beasts and slaughter every human inside the castle.
"...It's empty."
Curled upon the empty throne, Frederica murmured in a hollow voice.
Time enough for a human life to run from cradle to grave had already passed, yet still—
"I miss Mom..."
Remembering the embrace she could never forget, she closed her eyes and waited in silence for someone to come and kill her.
How long she sat with her eyes shut, she could not say.
Then she felt the beasts bound to her threads wither away one after another, and a cool wind swept through the castle. Quietly she opened her eyes.
"Ah... at last you've come."
Who had come to end her? Her heart quickened with the hope of soon finding rest. She prepared to greet the intruders—
"...Ah?"
—and her eyes went wide at the figures who finally appeared.
"So it's you. The witch who attacked the castle."
"Be careful, Kevin. I sense unusual mana."
"Where's Osmon?"
"He said he'll clear the beasts around the castle first, then join us."
Two men and one woman. By her senses there was one more outside, but that hardly mattered now.
What mattered was the pure white greatsword in the hand of the man who seemed to lead them—faintly glowing, leveled straight at her. She had seen that blade somewhere before.
"My name is Kevin. To fulfill the duty of a Hero, I will now eliminate you."