Side Story: A Witch's Story (3)
She could endure what had been done to her.
But she could not endure that her parents had been killed.
And so she longed for revenge.
But against whom, exactly?
Even if she sought vengeance, those who ought to have been its targets had long since died. Her thirst for revenge, with nowhere left to go, simply circled and circled, swelling larger and larger inside her.
In the end, she made a choice she never should have made. And at the end of that path, she hoped for death—because she lacked the courage to take her own life.
If, by some chance, an afterlife truly existed… if she could only be held once more in the arms of the parents she missed so dearly… then nothing else would matter. That was all she wished for.
And yet.
"My name is Kevin. To fulfill the duty of a Hero, I will eliminate you now."
And yet—why?
"Why… why…"
Why did it have to be a Hero, of all people?
Heroes always save people who are suffering and in pain, you know.
That was what Mother had told her. That Heroes rescued those who were hurting.
But she was still hurting so badly. Just looking at this place tore her heart to shreds with thoughts of the parents she could never see again. And the one who had never so much as shown his face when she was suffering and in pain—
"If you have something to say, I'll hear it."
Clutching her shoulders as if wracked with agony, Frederica unleashed a barrage of magic at the Hero's party before her.
BOOM—!!
"Kh… Are you all right, Kevin?!"
"Damn it, this isn't what we were told!"
"If you've got energy to chatter, use it to dodge properly!"
Dodging the sharp threads that came surging in alongside the red orbs of light that painted the sky, Kevin closed the distance to Frederica in a single breath.
Thrust!
Without hesitation, the holy sword drove straight through Frederica's heart.
"I would have preferred to hear your circumstances, if possible. A pity."
And so he drew the blade free from her chest. The moment Kevin knelt to close the eyes of the fallen Frederica—
Seize!
Frederica clamped down on the hand that had reached to shut her eyes and rose once more to her feet.
"What—?!"
Startled, Kevin tried to wrench his hand free. But faster still, the threads that had ridden up along Frederica's arm coiled around his entire right arm.
Crunch!
"GAAAAH!"
Before his companions could even react, his right arm was wrenched free as if it had been crushed and torn away.
"Kevin!"
"Marika! I'll buy us time—hurry and heal—kh!"
Perhaps it was because they had let their guard down, certain it was over. Toward the two of them, already thrown into complete disarray—
"D-Die already—!!"
Frederica's voice tore out in a scream, and threads poured in from every direction in a volume that made everything before seem like nothing at all.
A short while later—
CRASH—!!
Having finished off every monster outside the castle, the man named Osmon arrived on a savage blade of wind—and what greeted him was this:
"Kevin! Marika! Gunter!"
His companions, collapsed and soaked in blood. And—
"Hah… hah…"
—Frederica, gasping for breath as if utterly spent.
"How dare you…!"
Osmon took in the situation at a glance. To save his critically wounded companions even a moment sooner, he called on the greatest technique he could still use.
"Storm, come forth!"
But—
Shhk.
"Wha…?"
Before the gathering winds could even take shape, a sickening sound rang out, and Osmon's vision flooded red.
"…GAAAAAH!!"
A scream tore from him as pain surged up from his eyes. An instant later, Osmon felt the connection to the spirit he had manifested sever completely.
"Ah… haha…"
And as consciousness slipped away, the last thing Osmon heard was—
"Ahahahaha—!"
—the voice of a witch, clutching her blood-soaked hands over her face, collapsing to her knees as thick tears rolled down her cheeks, laughing like a madwoman.
Not long after word of the Hero party's annihilation spread—
"…Hey, old man. Are we even going the right way?"
"Shut it, brat. What kind of idiot can't even read a map?"
Two men arrived at a place that had once been the capital of a kingdom—now nothing but ruins.
"Acting all high and mighty just because you can read a map."
"Kyah!"
"Shut up, old man."
One of them—a short man with a perpetually irritable face—ran a hand through his reddish-brown hair as he idly touched the twin swords at his hip. Then he glared at the man who had been snapping at him.
"How is it that three years have gone by and there's still this little work?"
"Whoa, what's with that look, you ungrateful little brat?"
And meeting the gaze of that short man—Ren—the tall one, Violet, bounced the spear resting on his shoulder once and shot back in disbelief.
"Wondering if old man Wilhelm's eyes are going bad. 'Good at the job,' my ass."
"Hey, let's be honest here. The reason nobody hires us is because you keep threatening the clients."
"Isn't the real problem that they try to order me around over nothing?"
At Ren's completely unapologetic reply, Violet grabbed the back of his own neck as if his blood pressure were spiking and shook his head.
"Aagh, I should just stop talking. How did I end up stuck with a brat this rotten?"
"If it bothers you so much, try me like you did three years ago."
"Forget it. I'd rather die than fight you again."
Bickering all the while, the two of them walked on—until the ruins ahead made them stop for a moment.
"Well, anyway. That's why we came here, isn't it?"
"You said if we just take that thing down, nobody'll care even if I kill a client after this."
"Yeah, yeah. Once this job pays off big, I'll take the heat for whatever you do. Happy?"
"Very."
At the ominous aura pouring out from up ahead, Ren and Violet each set a hand on their weapons and started moving again. When they reached the heart of the ruins—
"That's it."
"…Oh."
—they found a woman curled up on a massive throne: Frederica.
"One, two, three… Didn't they say four?"
"Yeah. Maybe one of them got away alive. Let's at least recover the bodies that are here."
They looked down at the three cold corpses scattered around a holy sword that still shone white on the ground—almost certainly the Hero's party.
"…I'll buy us time. You collect the bodies, brat."
"Huh? What the hell? Fighting's my job—ugh. What's so great about a pile of fat like that anyway."
Violet spoke without taking his eyes off something in the distance, his face grave. He ignored Ren's look of pure contempt and grinned.
"That's exactly why you're still a brat."
"Tch."
"And you—the second a fight starts, you'd blow those corpses to pieces without even noticing."
Recovering just the Hero party's remains would still fetch a solid reward. The argument was surprisingly sound, so Ren gave a quiet nod. He watched Violet charge toward Frederica for a moment—then, as the ground shook with a thunderous crash, Ren gathered the three corpses and the holy sword and flung them clear.
"Gueh!"
"Pathetic."
Not long after, Violet came flying toward him with a pitiful noise, and Ren clicked his tongue.
"Keh!"
"You're in the way. Get lost."
Thud!
"Gah! You damn brat—!"
Ren kicked the bloodied Violet aside as he rolled to his feet, then—with a face far calmer than before—drew the twin swords from the scabbards at his hip.
"How is that supposed to be a puppeteer?"
Frederica stood there with a face that had lost all reason, binding and controlling her own body with threads. Less a puppeteer than a berserker, Ren thought.
"Fine. Come at me."
The moment Ren spoke, a cold killing edge rose from the twin blades in his hands. Frederica blinked once at the sight—and in that instant Ren closed the distance as if vanishing and swung both swords.
Slash.
By the time Frederica registered it, both arms and both legs had already been severed from her body.
But—
Whoosh!
"Oh?"
The severed arms lunged as if to seize Ren. And—
BOOM—!!
—a swarm of red light orbs poured down from above his head. Ren threw himself back in a hurry, but one orb he couldn't fully dodge struck true. He licked the blood running down from his scalp and grinned, savage.
"First time I've seen something keep moving with its limbs cut off. Interesting."
Frederica's arms and legs had already reattached in an instant. Ren charged her again, this time aiming for neck and heart at once.
Clang!
The blades were stopped by the thick coils of thread wrapping both of her arms.
"What kind of strength—!"
He had meant to shear straight through the arms that blocked him. Instead his swords were forced back. Cold sweat beaded on Ren's brow.
They say a first-rate puppeteer is most terrifying up close. So this is what they meant.
Power that no human-shaped body should possess. A body that moved as if she regarded herself as a doll and felt no pain. Regeneration that restored whatever he cut in an instant.
…Looks like she regenerates even with her heart pierced.
Seeing the familiar scar on Frederica's chest, Ren understood how Violet had been taken down a moment ago.
"If I kill her until she dies, she'll die eventually."
He poured mana into the blades that Frederica had been forcing back.
Slash.
A red haze began to rise from the steel—and the arms that had been wound in threads hard as iron dropped free. An instant later—
BOOOOM!!
—the blood spraying from those arms detonated with a roar. Ren righted his body mid-flight from the blast that had erupted right in front of him, spat a clot of blood, and settled back into stance.
It's still unfinished, but… shall I try it?
A high, keening whine. The haze coiling from his blades shuddered—and the moment Ren stepped forward—
Shhhraaak—!
Sharp threads poured down as if to shred him to pieces. Ren watched it all with perfect calm and swung both swords at once.
The name of the still-incomplete technique was Blade Wind: Tempest.
A red gale began to howl outward from in front of Ren.
SKREEEEE—!!
The rough sound of walls, ceiling, and floor being gouged filled the air as the crimson sword-wind spread. The threads that had been raining toward Ren were annihilated—and—
Thud!
—Frederica herself toppled, her waist cleanly severed. Everything had happened in a single instant.
"Tch. Still not a technique worth using."
Even with that result, Ren only clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.
"She regenerates even when her body is cut in half? Gross. Seriously."
Watching the separated upper and lower halves begin to twitch and rejoin, Ren grimaced, walked slowly toward Frederica, and swung again.
Slash.
The sword in his left hand took her head. The one in his right, reversed in his grip, drove down and pierced her heart.
But the body kept moving even with its head cut off and its heart split open.
Thrust.
Unfazed, Ren raised his blade and stabbed her heart again.
Thrust.
How many times did he repeat it? By the time the sun that had hung high in the sky had set and darkness swallowed the ruins—
"Tch."
—Frederica hung limp, as if she had given up even resistance, offering her heart. Ren clicked his tongue and stopped his sword.
"What? Why'd you stop all of a sudden? A little more and you'd have run out of mana."
Violet, sitting on a nearby pile of rubble treating his wounds, asked in puzzlement. Ren looked for a moment at Frederica, who was staring at the halted blade with empty eyes. Then he flicked the blood from his swords and sheathed them.
"I changed my mind."
"We're taking this one with us."
"You've finally lost it. No—wait, you were already crazy."
Ren even stripped off his outer coat and tossed it toward Frederica. Violet muttered in disbelief—and then—
"…Why?"
As if she could not accept it, Frederica spoke in a voice thick with resentment.
"I'm a bad woman… Why… why won't you kill me…?"
Just a little more and she could have died. Just a little more and she could have returned to her parents' arms. The end of life she had longed for so desperately had been right there—so why would the man in front of her not kill her?
Unable to understand, Frederica asked through falling tears. Ren looked at her for a moment, then answered with his face twisted in a full scowl.
"I don't have a hobby of playing along with suicide."
"You're too scared to die by your own hand, so you want to borrow someone else's? Unbelievable. Seriously."
Watching him, Violet let out a hollow laugh and a bitter smile.
"…Well, if that's what you're doing, then that's what you're doing."
Then he turned to Frederica with a gentle smile.
"Sorry, miss. Tough luck."
"That guy—looks like he's got a disease where he can't help picking up every loner he sees."
The only way out was to get strong enough to beat Ren. Violet snorted and glanced at him.
"And we just so happen to be short-handed, and nothing's caught my eye."
"That's because your standards are too high, you damn brat. You barely do any work and you're still this picky. Seriously."
Ren held out a hand to the person whose heart he had been mercilessly stabbing moments before. Violet grumbled at him.
"Come with us."
"…Is that… really all right…?"
"Yeah."
"But I've… only ever done terrible things…"
Frederica hesitated, staring at the outstretched hand. Ren told her not to worry about it.
"None of my business. That old man over there isn't exactly spotless either."
"Why does that sound like you're saying you are?"
"What about me?"
"…I'm not even going to argue."
While Violet shook his head in exasperation, Frederica clutched Ren's coat over her body with one hand and kept hesitating, her other hand only half-extended.
"Ah… for real, this is so frustrating!"
"W-Wha—?!"
"I said come, so just come!"
Unable to take it any longer, Ren barked roughly, seized her hand, and hauled her to her feet. He leaned in close to the startled Frederica.
"If you've got a complaint, say it anytime! Then I'll actually kill you!"
"Answer!"
"Y-Yes!"
"Good!"
He shouted, then turned on his heel and strode off.
"Hey, brat. So how are you planning to clean this up?"
"Don't know! Anyone who comes at us gets wrecked first!"
"Ugh, I figured. Now what do we do, seriously."
Violet grumbled as he fell in behind Ren. And Frederica, gripping Ren's coat tightly in both hands, stared blankly at his back—until his voice rang out again.
"What are you doing! Hurry up!"
Only then did she start after them with quick little steps.
Our Rika will meet her fated person someday too, you know.
Tears welled in her sparkling pink eyes. A bright smile touched her lips.
"…Yes!"
It was the first smile she had worn in eighty years.