MAE 08

Chapter 8…. Witch Hunter

The Emperor came to Vintera with gifts of all kinds as a consolation.

Her eyes were red, as if she had cried again.

“Oh, Vintera.”

He tossed all the gifts in his hands aside and immediately ran to embrace her.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. Maybe I held too many parties…”

The Emperor smiled. He felt both pity at her trembling voice and amusement at the reason she gave.

“It’s alright, it’s alright. It’s just a cruel prank played by those envious of you. Tell me what you want again. The more they try to harm you, the more I must show everyone how much I cherish you.”

“No… I don’t want anything more. I’ve received so much already…”

“Don’t cry. I’ve locked the Empress in the Western Tower. The culprit will be caught soon as well.”

“…!”

Vintera abruptly stopped crying.

“Why… lock the Empress?”

“Why? Because she’s the prime suspect. Since I favor you, she must have harbored ill intentions.”

The Emperor, carefully observing Vintera’s emotions, immediately noticed the flash of anger in her eyes.

Of course. How could she not be angry? She had been tormented by the Empress.

“Don’t worry. I will make sure the Empress never lays a hand on you again.”

“The Western Tower… what kind of place is it?”

“It’s where high-ranking nobles are imprisoned for their crimes. There are no windows, so you lose track of time. No sunlight reaches it, the floor is stone, and in weather like today, it’s cold enough to freeze your whole body. In three days, a person might lose their mind…”

At that moment, a flash of white light streaked across the Emperor’s head as he fainted, standing right there.

Vintera clenched her fists with a crack.

“This madman… why punish the innocent Empress…”

She couldn’t follow the Emperor’s logic. Perhaps the easiest, weakest person was always blamed.

“I just wanted to bring the ‘witch’ back to the surface… damn this bastard.”

Vintera cursed and trapped the Emperor in her dream, just like last time, beating him senseless.

Still, if the Western Tower was only cold… that would be fine. The witches could handle cold with room-wide magic easily.

‘It should be okay… right?’

Crackle—!

“Ugh!”

A spark from the bracelet made Euribe curl up, groaning.

The bracelet attacked its wearer according to the magical power it detected, a restraining device developed exclusively for witches after hundreds of years of witch hunts.

The Emperor, having witnessed King Elhart’s curse firsthand, viewed Euribe as a ticking time bomb, unsure when it might explode.

He had never seen Euribe use magic, but just in case…

He personally fastened this bracelet onto her. And it wasn’t enough—he had spent the past three years gaslighting her consistently.

“Compared to your mother, your magical power is truly weak and insignificant.”
“They said the Estum royal family’s magic was beyond imagination, but yours is far weaker than imagined.”
“Are you really the daughter of the king? So weak? Did all the power go to your runaway sister, your cowardly sister?”
“The curse carried out in exchange for life… it’s laughable. Nothing changed, did it?”
“Your mother cast a curse? It was just an illusion. You’ve ended up in this miserable state because you were ultimately offered to me, haven’t you?”

The Emperor’s brainwashing over three years confused Euribe herself.

Had the curse really never existed?

Her memories grew hazy with time.

She remembered her mother kneeling.
She remembered being stepped on by the Emperor’s foot.
She remembered screaming as if torn apart.

Euribe slowly collapsed, resting her head on the cold stone floor.

Sister.
Runaway sister.
Cowardly runaway sister.
The sister who was always on my side.

Without warning, tears streamed down, wetting the floor.

“Your Majesty, Count Ducal requests an audience.”

“Who?”

An old retainer appeared in the Emperor’s office, where he was reluctantly dealing with state affairs because of the poster incident.

“Eh, let him in.”

The Emperor, already in a foul mood, tossed aside his quill and leaned back in his chair, wishing he could rush back to Vintera’s bedroom immediately.

“Please enter.”

A man entered, guided by the chief steward.

His appearance suited an assassin or mercenary more than a count: dark skin, short silver hair, gray eyes gleaming even in darkness, and a vertical scar at the corner of his mouth.

He exuded a presence closer to a “male wolf” than a man.

The Emperor’s face revealed recognition and exasperation.

It was the head of the witch hunters, Count Bustoff Ducal.

Witch Hunters.

They originally moved in groups of six, paired with two witch judges, serving as torturers, executioners, and corpse disposal men instead of priests.

To priests, they were servants; to nobles, unpleasant scoundrels; to soldiers, fake soldiers; to commoners, feared beings to avoid.

The Crown Prince—the current Emperor—noticed them. To avoid the nobles’ scrutiny, he brought the witch hunters under his command to build military power.

The plan succeeded, and by the time the nobles noticed, the hunters had grown into a small army.

Their official duty was hunting witches, but they were more often used to eliminate the Emperor’s political enemies.

In other words, the Emperor secured absolute power through them.

“Lord Ducal, it’s been a long time since the Empire last saw the sun,” he said, with a hint of sarcasm.

The Emperor’s right-hand organization had faltered because of King Elhart’s curse. Initially, he had planned to kill all witches in vengeance for his deceased son, but after regaining his composure, the plan changed.

His son was already dead. Killing witches wouldn’t bring him back.

If the curse became known, it would disgrace the Emperor, tarnishing his lifetime achievement of absolute power. There were too many witnesses; no matter how he silenced them, the truth would leak.

So he had only one choice: make the curse seem absurd, like a fairy tale.

To do that, ‘witches,’ ‘magic,’ and ‘magical power’ had to be buried, erased, dismissed as illusions. Naturally, the witch hunters were abandoned as well.

“Hm, yes. It’s been a while,” the Emperor said, trying to hide his discomfort.

Ducal had been a poor orphan boy before, elevated drastically for his talent in witch hunting. He had become the Emperor’s loyal dog, proud even of that nickname.

Now, after a lifetime of loyalty and finally inheriting the position of head of the witch hunters and the title of Count, he was abandoned.

“What brings you here?”

The Emperor could not guess why the abandoned hunter sought him.

“Lady Vintera is to be investigated following accusations of witchcraft.”

“What?”

Even a slap from Ducal wouldn’t have caused such a reaction as this.

“By command, leave no clue unexamined…”

“Are you sane?!”

Flames sparked in the Emperor’s eyes.

“Do you not distinguish between insults and accusations? The term ‘witch’ was used to humiliate Vintera!”

Ducal shrank before the enraged Emperor but did not retract his claim.

“Forgive me, but if there’s even a small possibility…”

The Emperor leapt up, grabbing Ducal by the collar. Though old, his presence was overwhelming, and Ducal, a young man in his prime, was still just a puppy before him.

“Do not lay a finger on Vintera. That is my command!”

The wolf had no choice but to bow before the lion.

“Captain.”

As Ducal exited the Emperor’s office, two subordinates immediately approached.

“We did not receive the Emperor’s approval.”
“Then…”
“Begin the investigation. Secretly.”
“Sir? But the Emperor’s order…”
“This is our last chance.”

It was a chance for the witch hunters to rise again.

For some reason, the Emperor had abandoned witch hunting, but if they delivered a big catch, he might resume the hunt.

And for that, it was imperative:

“Lady Vintera is a witch.”