The Witch Hunters' Circumstances
“……”
I had not died.
I could tell. There was no guarantee that the afterlife I had experienced was the same one everyone else would face, but at the very least, it was not the one that being had dragged me into—the one that had twisted and mocked my fate.
The sun had vanished beyond the horizon, leaving only the faint afterglow of its light. An evening breeze brushed against my body through the forest. I wore nothing but a single robe, my knees and bare feet caked in dirt, exactly as they had been moments before. There was no way the afterlife could be identical to the last thing I had seen in life.
And above all else—
A human face was staring at me from right in front of my eyes, its expression a tangled mix of hatred and concern.
…He was dressed.
“Why……?”
I spat the words at him, sharp with reproach and fury.
“Why… didn’t you kill me? Why… why am I still alive?!”
“I……”
The man hesitated before answering. He was using formal speech. It seemed his head had cooled considerably.
“Because you’re just a shepherd. Not a witch……”
The same man who had snapped my neck with murderous intent, who had ravaged me with savage pleasure as I died, now offered that feeble excuse. I accepted his hollow confession without emotion.
“I see…… Yes.”
Because I was not a witch. Because I was not some vile witch like myself, he could not bring himself to kill so easily.
It was an obvious statement. There was no room to argue.
“…I satisfied you sexually. Now keep your promise.”
Even with my freshly returned consciousness, I understood the meaning behind that abbreviated request. I made my own demand first, securing one promise in return.
“Understood. In exchange, please defend me so the others don’t kill me when they wake. I know it sounds shameless to say this, but… I’ve remembered a reason I can’t afford to die right now.”
I rose to my feet, barely holding back my sobs. I had to bring back the people who had died by my hand.
“Wait.”
His voice stopped me as I reached out.
“That magic… the one that brings the dead back to life. Do you have to use it right away? Is there a time limit after which you can’t revive them anymore?”
“I don’t know……”
I looked at him with empty eyes and answered slowly.
“As far as I’m aware, there isn’t.”
“Convenient magic, that.”
After saying this, he took hold of my wrist.
“If there’s time, I’d like you to sit and listen for a moment. At the very least, you deserve to know why we came here. Whoever you are, you bear some responsibility for shooting arrows and swinging swords to kill us. …What should I call you?”
“For now……”
I couldn’t give my real name. Should I use one of the aliases from my days at the brothel? Or…
“…Let’s just go with ‘witch.’ You haven’t completely cleared your suspicions yet, have you?”
“Understood, Miss Witch. There are things I’d like to ask as well. Once the others wake up, it’ll take time to calm them down, and things will get noisy. I’d rather explain everything now, while it’s just the two of us and quiet.”
He leaned against a tree stump in one corner of the clearing in front of the cabin. In the fading evening light beyond the horizon, my trembling eyes met his steady gaze.
“By the way, now that I’m looking at you properly, you really don’t look like a witch at all.”
I snorted.
“Men are so easy to handle. One tumble and the witch label comes right off. I am a witch, you know. Just not the evil one you’re looking for……”
That was probably Master Viran. Even as I said it, I walked over and sat down beside him. The man gave a bitter smile at the rebuke but fired back without missing a beat.
“They do say men think with what’s below the belt.”
And so, as if by agreement, we both laughed for a moment. As if we had never tried to kill each other with blades. As if we had never gasped and clawed at each other’s bodies in lust.
For a long while, the gentle evening breeze filled the silence between us. Leaning against the tree stump that Master Viran must have cut down while building the cabin, I felt the damp sand against my restless bare feet.
“Well then… I’ll tell you about the witch we were hunting first.”
“Yes. I’m listening.”
“My name is Kurt. I’m the son of a family that raised sheep in the village. The others who came with me are just ordinary farmers and leatherworkers. The baron gave us swords and asked us to subjugate the witch, so we came.”
“He sent ordinary villagers into the forest? He could have hired mercenaries.”
“We don’t have that kind of money in our territory. I’ve heard the baron complain that mercenaries demand prices we can’t afford. He’s only hired small-scale adventurers once or twice.”
“I see……”
Master Viran… what exactly had she done? I quietly adjusted the hem of my robe and anxiously lifted and lowered my soles against the ground, waiting for him to continue.
“About two years ago, people passing near this forest started disappearing. Sightings of a witch living in the woods go back even further—maybe seven or eight years. But those were just stories of people getting lost or losing their memories. Until two years ago, there were no actual disappearances.”
‘Then it probably has nothing to do with Master Viran. She wasn’t that kind of evil person after all.’
“My older brother disappeared half a year ago while herding sheep along the path near the forest. Since people were vanishing from such a small village, the baron was at his wits’ end. He hired two pairs of adventurers and sent them in……”
I asked uneasily.
“What happened to the adventurers?”
“The first pair went mad and came back. Only one returned from the second group. They said something seemed to be luring them in, and when they came to their senses, they were at the witch’s cabin. Right here……”
‘Luring them in. That letter didn’t have that kind of effect……’
“We know what the witch looks like. She matches the description of someone who once worked as an advisor to a count. The baron said he saw her once himself. A tall beauty who smells of strange herbs and wears bandages all over her body, as if covered in wounds.”
“That sounds right……”
Kurt gave me a suspicious look at my absentminded reply.
“Do you know this witch?”
“There’s no point in lying now, is there? She’s my master. A grand mage named Viran. She’s an undead who developed magic to forcibly extend her lifespan and has lived for over two hundred years. But… they say she was once a hero who slew an evil dragon. She’s selfish, but not a bad person. This isn’t her doing.”
Kurt nodded.
“As you said, the adventurers claimed they never saw anyone matching that description. They only mentioned that the air near this cabin felt suffocatingly ominous, and that it was unsettling how no weeds grew here despite being left unattended. They said it would have been better to run into the witch herself.”
That made sense. The letter had poured an absurd amount of mana into the area, suppressing all life activity around it like poison. But even that alone couldn’t explain people disappearing.
Even if someone with a weak constitution had collapsed from the mana, their body should have remained here, unable to decay. Looking at the tree stump we were leaning against, not a single mushroom or patch of moss had sprouted.
“The survivor from the second group reported that while enduring the suffocating mana and investigating near the cabin, he looked away from his companion for a moment. When he turned back, the companion was gone.”
The cabin… now that I thought about it, even earlier, the house itself had seemed to lure me in. I had lost consciousness for a moment and woken up right in front of the door.
“Did that adventurer go inside the cabin?”
“No. He said it was so chillingly ominous that he couldn’t even think of searching for his companion and just ran.”
I glanced toward Master Viran’s cabin. The wooden window and door were closed, making it impossible to see inside.
Even so, I felt something pulling at me—an alluring darkness—and squeezed my eyes shut, turning my head away.
‘Ugh……’
“Haa……”
So this burden was mine after all. The magic on that letter hadn’t been solely for delivering it to me. It had also been meant to create a terrible sense of discomfort, to keep prey from being fed to the shadow-touched cabin.
But the moment I opened the letter, the seal was broken. Why had Master done such a thing? Had she been trying to entrust something to me?
While lost in these thoughts, I felt Kurt’s gaze. It held no hostility. It was as if he were studying my face……
“You really do look alike.”
Come to think of it, before Kurt had died with my blade in his chest, he had acted as if he recognized me.
“Like the first love you left behind in the village?”
Kurt spoke bluntly.
“No, she doesn’t look like that girl. …And she wasn’t my first love either.”
“What do you mean?”
“The witch who used to live here… or rather, the grand mage, as you called her. You said she was your master.”
“Yes.”
Kurt began speaking while staring blankly at the cabin, as if trying to avoid the topic.
“So, before that……”
I covered his eyes.
“No. Look somewhere else while you talk.”
“What?”
“Just do as I say. It’s better not to look at that house.”
“Understood. I’ll talk while looking at you, Miss Witch. So, before the grand mage who lived here arrived, there was someone else who served as the count’s magical advisor.”
‘…That was me……’
“She ran a magic tool shop in the lower town beneath the count’s castle. Whenever our baron had business in that village, he would always take a few children from our village along to show them the city. After all, aside from Poscotia, it was the largest city in the area. That was about seven or eight years ago. I went there once myself.”
It couldn’t be helped. This was a rural area, far from the capital, not particularly rich in resources, and not a militarily important border region.
“I stopped by that mage’s magic tool shop back then. She seemed quiet, thoughtful, and calm… truly like a mage, if that makes sense. When I asked her various questions, she answered kindly. And of course, she was beautiful. Well, not just beautiful—more like a small animal you wanted to protect.”
Kurt gave an embarrassed laugh.
“I was just a kid back then. It’s funny that I had those thoughts about someone much older than me. That’s when I fell for her. It was long before I showed any interest in Gretchen… Ah, my childhood friend. So she was my first love.”
I forced myself to stay calm and asked.
“So, does she look like me?”
“Yes. The red eyes, the way she looked like a wounded little animal. But that was nearly ten years ago, so she must be a bit older now. You’re young, Miss Witch. And……”
Kurt’s lips twitched slightly, as if deciding what he could and couldn’t say.
“She was a little more beautiful, after all. She had a certain dignified elegance……”
…This brat.
But I had nothing to say. There was no trace of that elegance left in me now.
“…It’s hard to imagine someone like that attacking me the way you did earlier.”
“Ahaha…… I suppose so.”
“So… honestly, I was angry that you killed the others who came with me, and furious that you mocked me while riding on top… and it felt so good inside that I lost my mind and was strangling you… but then, suddenly, I remembered the owner of that magic tool shop, and my strength just… left me.”
Ah……
So that was it.
I owed my life to myself.
Wondering whether the wanted poster for “the Witch of Sand, Kaira” had reached even a place like this, I asked casually.
“The mage who ran that magic tool shop… was she a good person? Since you said she looked like me, I suddenly wonder if she’s doing well.”
“We only exchanged a few words, but she was beautiful and gentle. I’m sure she’s accomplished something great somewhere.”
I gave a light laugh and met his eyes.
“I’m sure she has. …I’m sorry. I dirtied your childhood memories by doing something so filthy while wearing her face.”
Kurt’s eyes wavered. He was probably wondering what to say in response. I had to make sure he didn’t need to.
I stood up. The night breeze seeped through the gaps in my robe. It was time to… get dressed.
“Let’s go. We need to wake up the people who died because of me.”