“Ah... D-Don’t kill me...”
“I just said I’m not going to.” This was just going to be an appetizer. I wasn’t going to ruin the main dish. “Though I might hurt you a little. Got that?!”
With that, I drew the dagger at my waist and plunged it into Jula’s thigh. I’d deliberately brought a cheap weapon with a notched blade. It passed straight through her leg, nailing her to the chair.
“Aaaaghhhh!” Jula screamed. She curled up in pain, both hands holding the wound where the dagger had entered.
“Now, why are you sitting over here? You ought to be at the table.”
I grabbed the back of the chair and lifted it up, Jula still affixed to it, and put it back where it had originally been.
“Aah! Ngh... It hurts!”
“Tillet, get this one tied up and gagged, would you?”
As ordered, Tillet stopped tying up witches in sequence and skipped to Jula.
Tears were flowing from Jula’s eyes, like she considered herself the most unfortunate person in this world.
I returned to my seat and sat down.
“That’s the minor matters out of the way... Now, let’s move on to the main topic. I’ll warn you in advance that I’m feeling irritable. Anyone who interrupts me will end up like her.”
After this brief warning, I began my speech.
“I’ve been thinking about how the government will work from now on. I’m ashamed to admit that I never imagined you’d go to such extreme lengths, even after knowing you all so long, but I learned something from it. Your strength is in personal connections; they’re your roots here in the royal capital.”
I looked at each of the witches. None of them spoke as they listened to my odd speech.
“Witches are like stubborn weeds: you can cut them down, but as long as the roots remain, they’ll always grow back. They’re festering growths, living off this kingdom like parasites. I learned the hard way just how foul you all are. I know that if I let you go free, you’ll return to those roots. I can’t afford to give you freedom the way Queen Shimoné did.”
Queen Shimoné hadn’t failed to control the witches as a result of incompetence—their roots extended into our customs, formalities, and government offices. They went so deep that pulling them up would be too disruptive.
It wasn’t that successive queens had considered the witches essential to manage the kingdom. Most likely, Queen Shimoné knew the kingdom could operate without them, and that they did more harm than good. But while they weren’t essential, they were necessary. Their eradication would bring the kingdom to a standstill, such that any queen was forced to rely on them as a temporary measure at the very least. Reliance on witches had become a bad habit that each queen had found hard to kick.
Once a custom was established, it would gradually be normalized, and the practices of witches had been so long before Queen Shimoné had been born. She’d questioned the wisdom of the current system and tried to change it, but whenever she’d found a way to improve things, obstacles had sprung up. The old ways were like an addiction, and she hadn’t been able to free us. Looking back, I realized how difficult Queen Shimoné’s position had been.
I continued my speech. “The kingdom has fractured, exposing your roots to the surface. If you’re going to be eradicated, it has to be now. If I wait for the conclusion of lengthy trials, you’ll ingrain yourselves even deeper. That’s why I have to kill you all on this day.
“Sadly, I can’t give you a chance to see your family one last time. You have to die here in this little room—be ready for that. Though even if you’re not, I’ll be killing you regardless.
“But I’m sure you’re all wondering, ‘Why’s he giving us this long speech if he’s going to kill us anyway?’ You might suppose that I felt the need to explain why I’m going to kill you. But that’s not it. If I didn’t have a good reason, I’d treat you all to a torturous death without a word. Then, having taken my revenge on those who killed my parents and left my wife bedridden, I’d return home satisfied. I wouldn’t bother with speeches.”
I looked at them all again before continuing.
“I’m here to talk about what’s going to happen after I kill you. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about what to do with the other witches. Once I’ve killed the witches in this room, the others will try to lay down new roots. Even if I strip them of the offices they hold at the royal castle, I worry that the kingdom will be in the same situation again two or three generations down the line.
“That’s why I’m prepared to capture and kill every last witch to eradicate your kind completely—even if it means being remembered as a tyrant. Do you understand me? Picture it. I’m going to kill every last one. I’ll dig a hole on the outskirts of the royal capital—or maybe I’ll make witches dig it themselves—then kill every last one of you, both the good and the bad, and fill in the hole with your corpses.
“This isn’t an idle fantasy. Once I give the order tomorrow morning, it’ll become a reality. I’ll have my forces thoroughly cleanse the royal capital while they’re hunting down the last few holdouts from the second order. What’s left of the second order will be sent to Ho Province while the witches are sent to a mass grave. We have to round up what’s left of the second order no matter what we do. We might as well look for witches while we’re at it.
“I’m sure you feel as though I forced you all into a drastic attack on me because I grew too bold. Well, now it’s your bold actions that have forced me into an act of barbarism. I have to admire the level of skill you displayed by successfully carrying out your plot without Myalo or the royal swords finding out. But that’s exactly why I can’t take any chances. Unless I receive the answers I want, then I promise you, this slaughter will take place. I’m telling you beforehand because you have a chance to stop me.”
I’d finally gotten to the point.
“I’m fairly certain that you’ve made contact with the crusaders and sold out our kingdom. What I don’t know are the terms of the deal.”