Chapter 14: Spring Days (1)
Karen Myer, the witch of ‘Tears’, was the world’s first witch.
She utilized tears to create the Great Wall that pushed back the ‘Night’. Following that, the Great Wall became the frontline of humanity, and as the walled cities flourished and the population increased, no one knew
Why did the witch, Karen, build the Great Wall?
And it’s unknown.
Why did the warrior king of the Great Wall, wielding a pure white great sword, chase after Karen?
However.
Karen’s dying words, engraved at the gateway to the walled city, are being passed down.
When the ninety-ninth witch blossoms and fades, winter will come.
━ From the one thousand banned volumes in the Grand Library
There is one type of death that cannot be avoided on any continent.
Witches must die.
The Holy See’s inquisition judges, who are its swords, search the entire world with blood-red eyes.
If they discover a witch, they kill her.
If someone is likely to become a witch, they kill them.
They kill all the witch’s acquaintances.
The inquisition judges, who eradicated everything associated with witches, were an unstoppable force in the island kingdom of Airian.
In other words,.
“Even if you are a princess, if you are revealed to be a witch, you will die.”
Oleciren briefly explained to the others who were unable to understand her and Cain’s conversation.
“Your father, the king, will also die.”
Cain added casually, and Oleciren was taken aback.
“Do you know that that is a serious crime of lese-majesty?”
“I have also heard the ravings of a madman, but there is nothing I can do.”
“……”
Oleciren didn’t curse again.
However, everyone could tell she was swearing with her eyes.
“Then why is Glumiêm okay?”
Abel asked cautiously.
He had only recently learned how witches were treated, and he puzzled why Glumiêm, the Witch of the Forest who had long governed the forest, was not persecuted.
Arna and the others pondered how to convey the complicated situation to the fifteen-year-old youngster.
“Because she is strong.”
Cain summed it up in four words.
Abel looked up at Cain with bright eyes, filled with respect.
Cain casually rose up from his seat and opened his mouth.
“As the name implies, the Holy See’s inquisition judges rule on heresy. The difficulty is that the eight cardinals and the saintess choose what constitutes heresy.”
“So do non-believers decide whether or not someone is a heretic?”
“Yes. Because things do not act according to God’s plan but rather according to human will, it is unavoidably political.”
Oleciren’s eyes expanded slightly.
She had secretly viewed him as a simple-minded warrior who relied on strength.
However, his insight into the continental situation and his understanding of humanity made him seem different.
Swish━.
Cain motioned for everyone to get closer to the table. He tidied the chessboard on the table before continuing.
“The forest is far away. From the perspective of the Holy See, they must cross the sea and pass through the kingdom, making it considerably more difficult. Furthermore, they have no idea how many elves live in the northern elf forest, so they don’t know how many inquisitors to send.
“……I guess they are just watching and waiting, as you said.”
Oleciren responded with a slightly bitter tone.
As the first princess of the Airian Kingdom, she thought that international relations were founded on reason and compromise.
But the cold words that the Holy See was not idly ‘respecting’ the Airian kingdom, but was instead leaving them to fight their own based on ‘profit and loss’, left a bad taste in her mouth.
Cain nodded slightly as he observed her.
“The reason you are battling so much right now is that you are weak. The kingdom here is simpler than the forest over there. Look.”
“……”
Click, clack!
Cain positioned a black and white queen on either side of the chessboard.
And between them.
Crash━.
He poured out the last of the chess pieces.
“Currently, the Airian Kingdom is embroiled in a fierce battle over the throne, with two princesses vying for it.”
Thud.
And he lined up two knights behind the white queen.
“And the Second Princess has two marquises backing her.”
Oleciren took a minute to focus solely on the ebony queen.
“I have no one.”
“No.”
Cain shakes his head.
Clack and thud━.
And, regardless of whether they were black or white, he began to arrange all of the chess pieces he could find behind the black queen, which represented Oleciren.
There is such a thing as validity. You will win this duel as long as Her Highness lives, and there are no disqualifying reasons.”
Cain’s beautiful words.
However.
Crash━.
Oleciren swept the pieces behind the queen from the table with her hand.
“The problem is that I have found out about that disqualification factor in this place.”
No matter how legitimate she is, even if the current king supports her, if she’s a witch, everything becomes meaningless.
The moment it’s revealed, the Holy See’s heresy inquisitors will rush in and cut off her neck.
Cain admired Oleciren’s approach.
So he took a bishop from the chess pieces and positioned it between the two queens.
“It’s about the balance of power. For Airian, who is under the Holy See’s influence, there’s no way to avoid their opinion.”
Then Cain moved the two bishops toward the white queen symbolizing the Second Princess.
A total of five, including the queen, two knights, and two bishops.
And one queen.
There was a desperate contrast.
Cain picked up a black king and presented it to Oleciren.
“Of course, if you have Edmund, the kingdom’s greatest swordsman,”
Clack━.
The king’s piece appeared behind her.
It would be a 5-to-2 situation, but power would be distributed equally.
However, Cain used his finger to flick the black king away.
“It appears that things will work out, but they will not. Those two always fight, but when it comes to this, they work together.”
Oleciren looked up.
The atmosphere altered.
The untamed and unknown witch’s magic began to flow slowly.
Arna quickly grasped Abel’s wrist and stepped away.
Vanderbilt drew his sword in the gloomy atmosphere, but the knight Isoel held him back.
And slowly.
Oleciren raised her Gypsum Flower-like grayish eyes to meet Cain’s gaze.
“Who are you?”
Strong.
Clever.
And cold.
Oleciren, who had seen innumerable people in the royal palace since she was a youngster when her memories began, couldn’t help but be apprehensive of the mysterious Cain.
Someone who didn’t meet any of the descriptions.
If there was one thing, it would be the snowfield.
“How can you predict such a thing on this remote land?”
He is a lonely person, looking out at the snow on the horizon.
Oleciren, as a witch and a princess, couldn’t fathom Cain, so the unknown that was approaching her frightened and enraged her.
As her blade-like power whirled, Cain raised one corner of his mouth.
“Cain Ethelred.”
“Even Count Ethelred can’t think as well as you.”
“Whether my father is or not, does it matter?”
“What?”
Cain touched his head with his index finger.
He then pointed his index finger at Oleciren’s head.
“Think about it. We’re making a deal. I’m just using you as bait to negotiate with the 2nd witch.”
Oleciren’s eyes narrowed.
She didn’t trust Cain when he nonchalantly mentioned the ‘Witch of the Horizon’, who emerged for the second time in history.
However.
“You need a knight. You will be unable to confront Arthuan with only the two of you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then don’t. A Gypsum Flower with only one knight to accompany her couldn’t possibly do anything.”
“……”
Oleciren bit her lower lip.
As he said, it was impossible for them to overcome Arthuan in the darkest night with their own power alone.
Besides, Oleciren is a princess.
She had no intention of using the people of the land as sacrifices for the sake of her own self-interest as Arthuan began.
She needed someone stronger to accomplish this.
“Just think of what you want. Who I am doesn’t matter.”
Winter arrives.
The reception room was filled with the scent of snow, which can only be smelled in the never-ending cold and freezing winter.
Cain emanated an aura.
The strength of ‘Winter’ swallowed up the magic she had unleashed, just as it transformed the snow-covered world into white.
“As if it doesn’t matter to you whether I am a witch or a princess?”
“Yes.”
Swoosh━.
Oleciren’s magic dissipates.
Cain similarly dissolved his aura, and the reception area became calm, as if the two of them had never fought.
Vanderbilt and Isoel nodded slightly at each other, relaxing their posture.
Arna, who had reacted sensitively, smiled with a calm country girl’s expression.
Once everything had returned to normal,.
“Cain.”
Oleciren said his name as easily as a child breathes.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Isn’t it funny that we were growling at each other in informal language until just now, but now we are speaking respectfully again?”
Cain’s mouth turned up slightly.
‘Was the princess of Gypsum Flower originally this type of woman?’
She appeared to be a completely different person than he had seen or heard about before.
There was a lot he didn’t know in the past life he was living again.
“Yes.”
Cain nodded.
Vanderbilt was taken aback and looked down at the back of Cain’s head.
Cain had always been unusual, but he never imagined him doing this to a princess.
Gulp.
Cain and Oleciren.
They confronted each other as individuals, having removed all modifiers but their names, and drank tea.
Abel, who was watching them, had the impression that they were still fighting despite the fact that they did not have swords.
Abel’s question shattered the prolonged silence.
“Can you not refuse to become a witch?”
The problem started because Oleciren was going to become a witch, so what if that was eliminated?
Cain spoke kindly, unlike how he had spoken to Oleciren.
“Impossible. Once the witchcraft awakening begins, you cannot stop it, no matter how quickly or slowly it progresses.”
Oleciren also contributed bitterly.
“It’s like water flowing downwards, it’s natural to become a witch.”
She had tried everything to avoid becoming a witch, but she had failed.
That’s why Oleciren altered her plans.
“Do any of you know how the Inquisitors find witches?”
Abel and Vanderbilt shook their heads at her inquiry.
Arna, on the other hand, maintained silence.
Cain glanced at her, quietly encouraging her to answer.
She frowned slightly, and like a mercenary who had been through the mill, she brought up the witch hunt.
“They track the ‘Arthuan’ that appears when a witch is born, or they track the magic that spreads when a witch uses her power.”
“Oh, so you can be tracked even now with your power!”
Abel inquired, surprised, and Arna shook her head.
“They may be called power, but true witches each have their own ‘origin’. A ‘miracle’ befitting that name is the witch’s power. The Holy See pursues that miracle.”
Oleciren was quite astonished.
She realized Arna was more than just the concubine of a country noble.
At the same time, she understood that Cain had deliberately made Arna answer to let her know that she was a colleague, not a burden.
“A fox.”
She hurled a word at Cain.
He shrugged.
“People in this territory don’t like the word ‘fox’, so be careful.”
“Philip? Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him.”
Oleciren tilted her head.
Philip, the deputy knight commander of the Ross Marquis family, should have arrived by now, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“He has gone somewhere far away.”
Cain replied nonchalantly, but Oleciren could sense the Ethelred Count’s people’s eyes flickering slightly.
Of course, Arna feigned to know nothing and laughed.
“Where?”
“The afterlife.”
“……”
Oleciren gazed at Cain, who appeared ordinary.
She felt that the mental sparring she had just had with him was more dangerous than she had thought.