Chapter 1
Snowflakes drifted over a secluded mountain village where villagers groaned and writhed on the ground. The village chief, pushing through the field of bodies, grabbed the hem of Cheshion’s cloak and begged.
“F-Forgive us, Your Grace! We’ve committed a mortal sin!”
“Release him! How dare you lay hands on him!”
Hans, Cheshion’s adjutant, struck the old chief away with his sword. The wounded chief wailed.
“We were only holding a real witch captive! Because of her, we’ve suffered failed harvests every year, elders go mad seeing ghosts, and young men vanish!”
“You merely needed someone to blame for your misfortune. A witch? Don’t make me laugh.”
Cheshion scoffed and turned away. As the clanking of his steel armor faded, screams erupted from the villagers.
The decade-long witch hunts had ended. The absurd law offering rewards for witch sightings had been abolished by Cheshion. Predictably, once the bounties dried up, so did the accusations.
Now, witch hunts were outright illegal. Even accusing someone of witchcraft was punishable by death. Tragically, news hadn’t reached this remote village, where an innocent woman had been sacrificed as a witch.
Cheshion approached the small shack where she was imprisoned. The windowless hut was chained shut—six locks for one woman, a detail that left an impression.
The rusted locks, weathered by snow and rain, were flimsier than expected. As Cheshion raised his sword to strike them, a wounded woman crawled over and grabbed his ankle.
“B-Be careful! Don’t look into her eyes! The curse—!”
“Let go.”
“I know you won’t believe me, but you can still be cautious! Anyone who accidentally met her gaze while feeding her went mad!”
“One question. If you knew looking at her would drive you insane, why feed her at all?”
“That witch… She was an outsider our men raped and killed. We dismembered and buried her, but one day, she just… came back! We feared worse curses if we killed her again, so we locked her up and fed her just in case… Gah!”
Cheshion’s sword silenced her. A dead woman returning as a witch? More likely, they’d mistaken a lookalike and spiraled into hysteria.
Clank. The heavily padlocked chain fell. Inside the rotting wooden door, a woman curled up on a straw pile. With no windows, the shack was pitch-black even at noon.
Her waist-length black hair—once a witch’s hallmark—was matted, obscuring her face. Despite the cold, she wore only a thin, filthy nightgown. Her legs beneath the tattered hem… were clearly unusable. The shackle marks on her left ankle suggested a failed escape attempt had crippled her.
As Cheshion approached, she flinched. He set his sword down and crouched to her level.
“It’s alright. I’m here to save you.”
“……”
“Show me your face.”
No response. She didn’t seem to understand.
Cheshion had seen this before—women so broken by abuse they lost speech, or branded witches from birth and never taught to speak.
“We need to leave. I’m going to come closer.”
Even with those who couldn’t speak, Cheshion always explained his actions to avoid startling them.
This woman, however, seemed wholly unfamiliar with language. She shrank into the corner.
“……It’s alright. Those who hurt you are gone. You can come out now.”
He gently touched her shoulder. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist. Cheshion carried her from the filthy darkness.
Outside, her condition was worse. Filthy, bloodied.
“Your Grace, you’ve brought her out… Ugh, the stench. Is her face intact? They usually mutilate those.”
Hans pinched his nose and gingerly pushed aside her hair.
“Her eyes are… God. They said meeting her gaze cursed people, but did they just gouge them out? There are sharp cuts around the sockets.”
“Not gouged. Infected wounds. The right one’s intact.”
“……Her mouth’s torn too. Did they cut her tongue? Hey, can you say ‘ah’?”
“She doesn’t understand. Clean her, feed her, let her rest. We’ll check later.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The woman was moved to a spacious carriage. With their task complete, Cheshion Edel’s knights descended the mountain. Nuns aboard efficiently washed her. Her hopelessly tangled hair was trimmed short.
The knights’ mood remained grim, their silence thick with tension—Cheshion Edel’s aura was icy. Having lost his sister to witch hunts, he darkened each time they found women in such states. Staying quiet until his mood lifted was wisest.
The black-haired woman was taken to Edel’s estate.
After his duties, Cheshion visited her late that night. Cleaned and treated, she was marginally presentable but still a wreck. Bandages swathed her head, left eye, and ankle. Bruises and cuts littered her body. The lingering stench of unwashed wounds remained, though fainter.
“Your Grace, about the lady…” A young maid bowed.
“Yes?”
“She endures washing and treatment but refuses all food. Perhaps because… half her tongue is gone.”
“……Damn it.”
Cheshion gritted his teeth. She likely associated having anything in her mouth with trauma. Like his sister Iris, she’d resist eating until starvation drove her to ravenous desperation.
“Leave her. I’ll feed her myself.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Despite his efforts, she ate nothing. Even sugar water was vomited up.
The Witch, Gremory, was losing her mind.
She’d been living comfortably in her cozy, gloomy mountain nest, eating well—until some duke stormed in, wrecked everything, and kidnapped her, insisting she was an innocent woman falsely accused.
Damn it. I’m an actual witch! A high-ranking one, summoned by a dismembered woman who offered her soul!
She’d mangled her eyes and leg and half-severed her tongue on purpose—to look sufficiently witchy and terrifying. It didn’t hurt, and one spell could fix it.
But the maids kept shoving human food at Gremory, who fed on suffering and flesh. Disgusted, she spat it out—only for them to pity her “trauma.”
Even Cheshion Edel, that damned duke.
“Here. This is a straw. You use it to drink liquids.”
He demonstrated with a cup of sugar water, then drank directly from it.
“See? No poison. Safe. Now you try.”
He offered the cup—with the straw he’d just used.
Gremory flung it. The cup hit his forehead, drenching him in sugar water.
Good. Now get angry and kick me out before I turn this place into a plague-ridden hell. I’ll forgive this kidnapping as a simple mistake.
But Cheshion, annoyingly good-natured, just smiled.
“You’ve got spirit. Good.”
“?”
“Strong for someone so thin. Fighting this hard against a stranger means you want to live.”
“……”
Gremory stared at him with a what the hell is wrong with you expression.
What is this guy?
