Chapter 116
There were various reasons why divine sorcerers stepped up.
It was due to the damage caused by accidents created by witches, because of people's perceptions, and it could have been due to resentment towards witches who hoarded wealth while everyone else was struggling.
One scholar said that in the difficult society of the time, witches were the most suitable beings to serve as an outlet for discontent.
At that time, witches frequently caused serious accidents, and despite not having 'blue blood' like nobles, they accumulated money and lived luxurious lives as if they had privileges, did things that would seem suspicious to people of the time for the sake of becoming younger, and even engaged in behaviors that were utterly unacceptable by the social standards of the time.
They enjoyed hallucinations caused by ergot.
They engaged in orgies, claiming to fully enjoy youth.
They enjoyed homosexuality with other witches or pretty women.
They ate luxurious food that Roman nobles might have eaten, and repeatedly made packs by crushing ingredients that serfs could barely afford to eat once, applied them to their skin, and then discarded them.
Even up to this point, it wouldn't be strange for people to foam at the mouth and for church people to flip out and pounce, but some witches with powerful abilities even went around openly making statements that disregarded the nobility and the church.
In a way, witch hunts were perhaps inevitable.
The accumulated discontent and the deviance of some witches.
All of these became gunpowder and fuses.
And divine sorcerers became the fire.
『 Regarding the first question of why witches, who have received God's grace, commit wicked sins, we have repeatedly researched and found out the reason. 』
『 Recently, the ugliness of witches has been going too far. Through an accurate diagnosis of the cause, we can say that 'witches are beings likely to commit unintended evil, and can be variable beings that can become either sin or good depending on how they are dealt with'. However, as wicked temptations sweetly enter the ears and sit in the heart, it can be said that it is inevitable for witches to turn evil. 』
『 Witches who have turned evil inevitably resort to wicked means. This means that their spirituality has been tainted by sin and has fallen infinitely, which ultimately means that they will become beings who suffer until the final judgment, falling to the point of no return. We define such fallen witches as 'evil witches', and these evil witches are significantly inferior to all humans in all areas of soul, body, and mind, so only death will defeat them and be a way to prevent other pure ones from being tainted by evil. 』
Divine sorcerers began to write books.
Books to oppress witches and to kill witches.
They defined witches as beings prone to lean towards sin.
『 Evil witches do not hesitate to spread sin of their own free will, and eventually corrupt those around them just by breathing. Therefore, we summarize here the methods by which evil witches commit evil deeds. 』
『 Methods of blaspheming the divine.
Methods of driving one to lust.
Methods of causing evil spirits and demons to run rampant.
Methods of falling into illusions.
Methods of causing diseases.
Methods of turning people into animals.
Methods of ruining crops.
Methods of harming animals.
Methods of cutting off human offspring.
Methods of kidnapping children and sucking out their vitality.
...
...
... 』
They wrote how evil witches harm people, making them the root of all evil.
『 Those suspected of being evil witches must stand trial. 』
『 Clear evidence, witnesses, and testimonies are not necessary to prosecute an evil witch. As the evil deeds of witches are secretive and hidden, they will not easily reveal evidence, so only those who have witnessed their wickedness through circumstances and God's protection can prove the witch's evil. 』
『 The trial is sacred and must go through procedures. The accused witch must be guided through proper procedures and transferred to prison, and the trial must be conducted while the witch is in prison. The witch has the right to appeal and hire a defender. 』
『 The defender should be chosen from those who volunteer to defend the witch, but they too must be without blemish. It must be carefully examined whether they are related to the evil witch before the trial and whether they have fallen victim to evil tricks. 』
『 Evil witches will certainly appeal when their trial begins. Moreover, some judges may show weakness in performing this sacred duty, all of which will harm faith and harm the church. Therefore, judges should be proud of performing their sacred duty and wisely deal with their attempts to harm and confuse the mind through appeals. 』
『 A clergy member or heresy inquisitor must be present during the interrogation of a witch. If the witch is innocent, there's no problem, but an evil witch will try to seduce them using all sorts of tricks. Only those armed with faith will be able to avoid falling for these evil methods and observe the true nature of the evil witch. 』
『 Any method can be used to obtain a confession from an evil witch. Also, it's okay to lie that their life will be spared if they confess in order to obtain a confession. This is because the very existence of evil witches is made up of deception and lies, so if we try to unmask them with only truth, we can never defeat them. 』
They wrote about the procedures for 'legally' killing evil witches.
And they named this terrible book.
To shape iron by hammering it with a hammer to benefit everyone.
To grasp a spear, thrust it, and set it up as an example.
They called it 『 The Hammer that Judges All Witches and Heretics Like a Spear 』.
And the divine sorcerers imbued each of these terrible books with sorcery to make them cursed objects.
They contained powerful barriers to prevent evil witches from escaping and their allies from helping them, and power that prevented them from properly manifesting their power by contaminating the will necessary for witchcraft to activate with the will of the divine sorcerer.
* * *
"Why isn't witchcraft...?"
Odilia tried to exert her power several times in disbelief.
But none of the abilities she used activated properly.
The table that should have bared sharp teeth and torn the man apart was quiet, and the chair that should have swung its legs like a spear to pierce the man's neck was intact. The insects that densely filled the ceiling sat quietly in place as if nothing had happened, and there was no movement, let alone sprouts emerging, from the defensive seeds she carried around.
"Why! Why is my witchcraft blocked by such an old-fashioned sorcery---!!"
Odilia screamed, unable to contain her anger, pulling at her hair.
Her neat and beautiful hair turned into an ugly mess like that of a homeless person, and blood trickled down from her lips, which she had bitten in uncontrollable anger, staining her chin and neck red.
"Fine. You've blocked my witchcraft, is that it? Then I just need to break the sorcery!"
But soon, as if she had calmed down, she took out a small gun from her handbag.
A gun small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.
At most, it might hold two or three bullets.
Odilia put it to her neck and said to the man.
"You, I'll give you a chance. Break the sorcery right now."
"Hmm."
"This old-fashioned sorcery, I can break it right now if I consume vitality. Break it right now while I'm giving you a chance and bow your head and beg."
Odilia spoke to the man, suppressing her erupting anger.
The man looked at her curiously.
"It's truly strange. Your temperament is like a honey badger that can't control its anger and rushes at a beast, or a bird that dies by ramming its head into a tree. How do you manage to suppress that anger so many times?"
"What?"
"At this rate, there might be hope. So sit down."
The Grand Witch couldn't hide her anger at the sight of someone with such a young, almost childlike appearance speaking to her as if giving orders.
"Who are you to talk about hope or whatever!"
"Witch, witch called by the excessive name of Grand Witch. I know what you're holding in your hand. The trial by ordeal states that if one remains unharmed after undergoing the ordeal of poison, they are innocent. The bullet in that gun must be made of poison. A poison that you can't detoxify without consuming a lot of vitality."
The man calmly said to the witch.
"But no matter how much vitality you consume, you can't escape from me."
He pointed at the nitro coffee and said.
"There's a drug I personally mixed in there. Even if you break the sorcery, the drug will interfere with gathering the will to use witchcraft, so it's meaningless. If it's useless anyway, it would be better for you too to maintain it as a barrier so we can have a thorough conversation, so put that gun down."
"Drug? What kind of drug could possibly block witchcraft...?"
The Grand Witch looked at the man with a face of utter disbelief.
Her expression suggested that in all her long years, she had never heard of a drug that could block witchcraft.
But this was a normal reaction.
At least until this point in time, there was no drug that could block witchcraft.
So it was natural not to know that mixing placenta extract, Chlordiazepoxide, Barbiturate-class drugs, Lorazepam, a trace amount of psilocybin, and beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists in a specific combination could create a drug that interfered with the combination of vitality and will.
It was also natural not to know that about a dozen years from now, a mad magician would discover this combination in the process of capturing a witch for human experimentation, and that witches, fearing the drug that could subdue them, would actively get involved in World War III.
"So sit down. Didn't I say I have no intention of harming you right now?"
Jinseong smiled.
Because Odilia's gaze towards Jinseong was filled with fear of the unknown.
She ended up thinking that his smile seemed like a bizarre being trying to seduce her.