Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Lucia, the Third Sword of the Holy Kingdom.
Unlike other Sword Masters who manifested pale blue aura, Lucia wielded a platinum-colored aura and was called the Messenger of God.
She was the head of the Inquisitors, a blade devoted to God, for God, and only God, proving her faith by fulfilling her mission.
The merciless path of the Inquisitors was feared even by foreign nations. Rumors spread quickly of entire groups being wiped out after being branded heretics. Even those who had committed no crimes greeted their arrival with nothing but silence and fear.
Unlike the priests who spread the word of the Nameless God under the name of mercy, the Inquisitors followed a far harsher path. Their witch trials were no different from divine judgment to powerless people.
A witch trial.
The villagers of Gariril trembled in the center of the village under the rough commands of the heavily armed Inquisitors.
Men and women were separated regardless of age.
The men were forced face-down onto the ground.
The women were tied to chairs, blindfolded, and left in panic.
Not everyone had accepted it quietly when the Inquisitors first arrived.
Some fathers had grabbed farming tools and axes to protect their families.
They were executed on the spot for the crime of being bewitched by a witch.
“……”
Silence hung over the village square, broken only by muffled sobs.
“Everyone in the village has been gathered except for the seven already executed for being influenced by the witch.”
“Good.”
One of the Inquisitors gave his report and stepped back.
There were only around forty people gathered in total, children included.
For a rural village, it was not a small number.
“P-Please... I’ll speak. The villagers are innocent, so please…”
“Oh?”
The village chief, hanging from a hook with his life slipping away, forced out the words.
His voice was weak, but it was enough to draw the attention of the Inquisitors.
And not only theirs.
The villagers needed someone to blame.
They wanted to say it had been the chief’s decision.
That they never wanted to make a contract with a witch.
That they were innocent.
That it was all his fault.
“Please spare us! We only did what the chief told us!”
“Old man, hurry and speak!”
Lucia had been taught that humans were inherently good.
But looking at this scene, she felt as if it were one of the witch’s tricks.
Because if it wasn’t...
then humans were naturally evil.
It made her sick.
“The witch... the witch is…”
The chief coughed up black blood and collapsed before finishing.
“Lady Lucia! That—!”
“There is no need to be alarmed. A witch’s trick.”
At Lucia’s signal, two Inquisitors approached the chief.
They checked his body with the sheath of a sword, then shook their heads.
The village chief was dead.
That meant one less way to find the witch’s hideout.
But Lucia did not care.
“Your chief is dead.”
“If there were no witch here, he would not have died while trying to confess the truth.”
“I will find the witch among you.”
It was no different from a death sentence.
Most of the men shouted in panic.
“There’s no witch among us! The witch is— guh!”
“Silence, heretic.”
“The witch lives in the forest! Pink hair! She gave us prosperity when we were poor!”
There was no witch among them.
The witch existed elsewhere.
“Do not attempt to deceive us with words.”
The Inquisitors approached one of the women.
Bound to a chair and blindfolded, she could not see.
With her hearing sharpened by fear, she sensed what was coming and struggled wildly.
“Mmph! Mmph!!”
“Prove your faith through belief alone.”
The Inquisitors lifted her chair and walked without hesitation.
They arrived at the lake in the center of the village.
Its water was so clear the bottom could be seen.
“Mmmph!! Mmph!!”
“We are the guardians of divine order.”
Without the slightest hesitation, they threw her into the lake.
Splash.
The water rippled violently.
The Inquisitors watched as she struggled and sank.
Lucia recited a prayer.
The men watching and the women listening realized the truth.
“If she is truly innocent, she shall return to the embrace of the Mother.”
“If she is guilty, she shall leave Her embrace.”
The woman struggled desperately beneath the water until her movements stopped.
An Inquisitor confirmed her death and signaled Lucia.
“The innocence of the woman has been proven.”
“Murderers! You drowned her! How does that prove she wasn’t a witch?!”
“A foolish question.”
Lucia answered without hesitation.
“If she were a witch, she would have floated to save herself.”
“……”
Her answer was absolute.
And everyone understood.
These people had no intention of sparing anyone.
“Next. Begin the trial.”
Screams.
Begging.
Desperate cries for mercy.
A village that had felt like a festival just yesterday turned into hell in a single day.
Joshua hid in the storage space beneath the floorboards, squeezing her eyes shut as she listened to the sounds outside.
Her mother had hidden her from the Inquisitors.
But she could not hide from the screams.
“My beloved daughter, Joshua. Don’t come out until I return. Understand?”
Joshua covered her mouth with both hands to stop herself from crying.
“Please spare me! I’ll do anything! Aaaahhh!”
Mom.
Dad.
I miss you.
She wanted to hear their voices.
But she was also terrified of hearing them.
Because every scream outside belonged to someone else.
Joshua instinctively understood.
Those screams were their final ones.
Whenever she heard the voices of neighbors, she felt relief.
At least it wasn’t her mother.
No matter how long she waited—
her mother’s scream never came.
Even the cries of children she had played with yesterday reached her ears.
But not her mother’s.
Mom survived.
That thought stopped her tears.
Eventually, the screaming stopped.
The sounds of unfamiliar armor disappeared too.
Her trembling body calmed.
A small smile formed on her lips.
The tension faded.
Sleep overtook her.
As Joshua drifted off, she believed without doubt—
that her mother would come for her soon.
Night fell.
Every woman had been drowned in the lake to prove her innocence.
Every man who interfered with the witch trial had been impaled.
No one survived.
“The witch trial is complete. There are no witches in this village.”
An Inquisitor reported after confirming the death of the last child in the lake.
If there was no witch here, there was nothing left to do.
The villagers’ desperate testimonies had confirmed that the witch lived somewhere in the forest nearby.
Now they would search there.
“However, there was one suspicious woman.”
“Suspicious?”
“She never screamed once during the trial. But we confirmed she was not a witch.”
Every woman in the village had drowned.
Eventually, their bodies would float when the ropes rotted away.
But that silent woman had proven she was no witch.
“I see.”
Lucia had seen such people before.
Women who stood at death’s door without screaming, biting their lips until they bled.
There was always a reason.
“Is there anyone left alive in the village?”
Lucia’s emotionless gaze fell on the Inquisitor.
“We searched every corner. Everyone was brought in!”
His answer came immediately.
Lucia looked away.
“The witch is somewhere in this forest. Find her traces. But before that…”
Lucia raised her hand.
The Inquisitors holding torches spread out and set the village on fire.
When Joshua woke up, she had no idea how much time had passed.
One side of her body felt hot.
And cold.
Sunlight slipped through the charred cracks in the floorboards.
“…!”
Mom told me not to come out.
She hurriedly tried to cover the gaps with her hands.
But the burnt wood crumbled into ash and fell over her.
“Cough... cough…”
After coughing out the ash, Joshua carefully pushed away the debris.
More than obeying her mother’s words—
she wanted to find her parents.
She wanted to tell them she was hurt.
She wanted them to tell her not to cry.
That everything was okay.
That after a few nights, the pain would disappear.
The village had become ruins.
The chief’s house, the largest in the village, had burned down to its foundation.
The other houses were the same.
“Mom... Dad... where...?”
Every word hurt her throat.
Her once beautiful voice now sounded rough like scraping metal.
In the center of the village were strange poles.
Pieces of rotting meat hung from them.
Joshua wondered who had left such huge chunks of meat there—
until she realized they looked like people.
She couldn’t look anymore.
Wiping away tears with her tiny hands, Joshua searched.
And in the end—
she found her mother and father.
Women’s bodies floated near the edge of the lake.
Fish swarmed around them, biting at their flesh.
“Mom. Wake up. Please?”
Joshua recognized her mother immediately.
She shook her.
But her mother didn’t move.
Furious at the fish eating her mother, Joshua threw stones to chase them away.
She grabbed her mother’s hand and tried to drag her out.
But her body wouldn’t move.
Her hands slipped.
After several attempts, she finally managed to pull her onto land.
Joshua cried in her mother’s arms.
Slept.
Woke.
Cried again.
Then suddenly—
Dad.
She had to find Dad.
Dad would know what to do.
Dad could fix everything.
Finding her father was harder.
There were no men anywhere.
Only the poles with the rotting flesh remained.
Forcing herself to overcome her revulsion, Joshua approached.
Maybe Dad was here.
She grabbed one of the bodies and shook it.
Her father was missing his left pinky finger.
He had cut it off by accident as a child while learning to use an axe.
The villagers used to tease him about it.
And there was only one man in the village missing that finger.
At that moment—
Joshua accepted reality.
Her father, who had protected her—
and her mother, who had watched over her sleep—
were gone.
She remembered how to meet them again.
She had to make graves.
Like Rebecca and Tony.
She wanted to say goodbye.
Joshua wasn’t strong enough to move their bodies.
So she cut off one hand from each of them.
She chose their home as the burial place—
the place where their family had been happiest.
Inside the little storage space beneath the floorboards where she had hidden—
she placed their hands together.
Then she covered them with ash.
She was too small and weak to build a proper grave of dirt and stone.
Thinking of the fish at the lake, Joshua picked up a charred wooden stick nearby.
She feared animals might come and dig up the grave.
Days passed.
Then rain came.
Joshua woke beneath a small roof where she had barely escaped the rain.
And she saw flowers blooming over her parents’ grave.
“Mom... Dad... I love you.”
Looking at the fully bloomed flowers, Joshua held back her tears.
If her parents saw her crying—
they would be sad.
So she forced herself to smile.
A smile she would never make again.
Even if she couldn’t hear them—
she knew.
Her parents were saying their final goodbye.
Flowers had also bloomed from Joshua’s own body, wrapping around her.
Her body was half-burned.
Flowers grew from her wounds.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Step.
Step.
The sound of footsteps in the wet ground.
Joshua grabbed the charred stick she had left nearby.
Someone had come to the village.
Step.
Step.
Closer.
She had to protect the graves.
“Oh my.”
Between strands of pale pink hair—
red eyes found Joshua.
A witch.
Joshua’s eyes filled with tears as she gripped the stick tightly.
There was so much she wanted to ask.
Why did the villagers have to die because of you?
Why did Mom and Dad have to die?
Please bring them back.
Her body trembled.
The witch stepped closer and knelt to meet her eyes.
But Joshua couldn’t speak.
“Will you give me that flower?”
The witch gently stroked her head and carefully picked the flower growing from her body.
This flower was her final goodbye.
She couldn’t give away the flowers on the graves.
So she wanted the witch to take hers instead.
The witch held Joshua’s cold hand tightly.
A story her mother used to tell her before bed came to mind.
Witches were selfish.
Witches never listened.
Joshua hated the witch.
And as she was led away by her hand—
she swore to herself—
that for the rest of her life,
she would never come to like her.