Chapter 59
Perhaps because of the shock she had suffered, Frederica had remained motionless before the grave for hours.
Leaving her in Stella's care, Ray headed to a nearby village to find out what had happened.
“Ah, you mean the cemetery on that hill? Of course I know it. My late mother told me about it time and again.”
After asking around, Ray eventually found a middle-aged tavern owner, who told him about the grave on the hill.
“People keep quiet about it, but everyone in this village knows the story.”
“What kind of story?”
“Apparently, there was once a couple who settled in the village with a young child. I hear the mother was a former Gold-rank adventurer, while the father was a mercenary.”
The story that began that way went far beyond anything Ray could have imagined.
“I suppose the child must have had some extraordinary ability. It seems the king at the time took an interest in her.”
The king, coveting the child's ability, hired mercenaries to hunt down the couple,
and although the couple fought to protect their child from that king until the very end,
they were ultimately defeated and killed, while the child was kidnapped.
“No one knows what happened after that. It was fifty years ago, after all.”
The gravestone on that hill was apparently erected over the parents' recovered remains, so that the kidnapped child could recognize it if she ever returned alive.
“I remember my mother praying until the very end that the child would at least get to see her parents' grave.”
“That's….”
As the tavern owner finished the story with a bitter expression,
Ray sighed with a devastated look.
And so.
Ray returned to where Frederica was, his steps heavy.
“She cried herself to sleep.”
To Stella, who was stroking the sleeping Frederica with a pitying expression,
he relayed the story he had heard in the village.
“Then, could it be that her acting like a child despite her appearance….”
“…She must have been held captive ever since she was kidnapped as a child.”
As they listened to the story,
it seemed to bring back the image of Frederica acting like a child despite her appearance,
“How could anyone do such a thing…!”
Stella covered her mouth with both hands as large tears rolled down her cheeks,
while Ray moved beside her, quietly patting her shoulder as they watched Frederica together.
And the next morning.
“…Thank you for helping me come this far.”
“Frederica…?”
“You….”
Ray and Stella were stunned to see how drastically Frederica had changed from the previous day.
“There is one last place I want to go.”
The pink eyes that had sparkled with curiosity whenever they encountered anything throughout their journey were nowhere to be seen.
In their place were eyes that had lost their light, filled with an abyss of unknowable depth.
“Mother told me that if anything happened, I should go to the city of witches.”
As if the sobbing that had continued until the previous night had all been a lie,
Frederica's voice was calm and utterly emotionless.
“…Yeah.”
Ray and Stella slowly nodded.
And so.
They were on their way to the city of witches, having left the village where Frederica had lived.
“Thank you for protecting our sister until now.”
How had they known?
Two witches had already come to meet them along their route,
“This is a token of appreciation from our queen, so please do not refuse it.”
They handed Ray an elegant pouch that clearly held a considerable sum.
“Come along.”
“Her Majesty is waiting for you.”
The two witches extended their hands toward Frederica.
“…….”
Then, looking at the hands of those two witches,
Frederica turned to face Ray and Stella behind her,
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I was able to meet my mother.”
Like a child who had forgotten how to smile,
she bowed at the waist with a smile that was clearly forced.
“Then, goodbye… Ray. Stella.”
Frederica bowed, took the hands of the witches who had come to meet her, and disappeared.
“…Frederica.”
“Ray….”
Ray and Stella watched Frederica disappear like that.
Blaming themselves for failing to say they would accompany her to the very end,
they could only fling aside the pouch they held and stare blankly for a long while in the direction Frederica had vanished.
* *
Eighty years had passed since Frederica entered the city of witches.
“Do you truly intend to go?”
“…Yes.”
Erbezeth, the queen of witches known as the apostle and first descendant of the deity Capella,
sighed as she looked at Frederica kneeling before her, now a full-fledged witch.
“Even you, with the Immortal Imprint, have your limits.”
“I know.”
Frederica bowed to Erbezeth, conveying her apology.
“Hoo. You would do better to blame me as you did before.”
Though she appeared to be a young and beautiful queen,
Frederica now knew that the queen's power had withered to the point that merely protecting the area around the city was already her limit.
“…I was immature then.”
Unlike before, when she had shouted, asking why Erbezeth had not protected her and her parents,
Frederica rose to her feet after thanking her for taking care of her all this time.
Watching her,
“Whom exactly do you intend to take revenge on?”
Erbezeth spoke once more, trying to persuade the young witch who intended to throw herself into destruction like a moth to a flame.
“The people who killed your parents and kidnapped you have been dead for a long time.”
At Erbezeth's words,
Frederica stopped in her tracks as she headed outside,
“…Their entire bloodline.”
She uttered the words in a voice cold enough to chill the air around them,
“Frederica!”
“Please stay well.”
Ignoring the queen calling her name, Frederica left the city.
A few months later.
“Aaaah!”
“What in the world is this?”
“Why—why are monsters all the way here!?”
An anomaly occurred in the capital of a small kingdom.
An army of monsters attacked, with no clue where they had appeared from.
From goblins at the smallest to minotaurs at the largest,
the monster army that invaded regardless of species had one thing in common:
“Damn it! What the hell is wrong with these things?”
“How are we supposed to stop monsters that keep moving even after you cut off their heads?”
Even after their hearts were crushed and their heads severed, they moved as if alive and charged straight for the castle.
Once the king and his retainers realized this,
they began searching for some way to escape the castle rather than remain and fight.
There was no way a small kingdom whose name was barely known could have any means of stopping an army of monsters that did not fear death.
However.
A single doll stood in the way of those trying to flee.
“Where do you think you're going?”
Frederica, her pink hair streaming, stood in the path of those fleeing, her face expressionless.
“No one will be able to leave this castle today.”
-Slice!
“Aaaaaah―!!”
A sharp slicing sound rang out,
and the legs of those fleeing the castle were chopped into small pieces.
“S-stop! Why, why are you doing this!? What have we done wrong!?”
The king, the only one whose legs remained attached, asked Frederica in a trembling voice,
but
“Hmm… It's difficult to answer. Because you haven't done anything wrong.”
Frederica merely tilted her head.
“Then why…!”
Just as the king cried out indignantly at her answer,
-Slice.
“Who knows? Ask your ancestors.”
The vision of the king and everyone standing before Frederica fractured into dozens of pieces,
and within those fragmented views, they all saw the same scene for the last time, as though by prior agreement.
“―If there really is such a thing as an afterlife.”
The face of a witch weeping with a sorrowful expression.
Afterward.
After controlling the monsters with threads so fine they were invisible and killing every human inside the castle,
Frederica curled up on the now-ownerless king's throne,
“…How empty.”
and murmured in an empty voice.
Enough time had passed for a human lifetime to run from cradle to grave and then some,
“I miss my mother….”
Still remembering the embrace of her parents, which she could never forget,
Frederica decided to quietly close her eyes until someone came to kill her.
And so.
How long had she sat with her eyes closed?
As she felt the monsters connected to her threads rapidly withering away,
Frederica quietly opened her eyes as she felt a cool breeze blowing through the castle.
“Ah, so you've finally come.”
Who had come to kill her?
With her heart pounding at the thought that she would soon be able to find peace,
Frederica prepared to welcome the intruders entering the castle,
“…Ah?”
At last, she widened her eyes at the sight of those who appeared.
“So you're the witch who attacked the castle.”
“Be careful, Kevin. I sense mana that's anything but ordinary.”
“Where's Osmund?”
“He said he'll deal with the monsters surrounding the castle first.”
The group consisted of two men and one woman.
Her senses told her there seemed to be one more person outside,
but that was of no importance to Frederica now.
And for good reason.
In the hand of the apparent leader was
a pure-white greatsword, glowing faintly as it was pointed at her.
It was a weapon she remembered seeing once, long ago.”?