Chapter 56 - The Ruler III

4

So, if you ask what Her Excellency the Great Witch Dang Seorin did with the grand spell she had spent so much time and effort creating—nothing much, really.

“Undertaker, do you have a high pain tolerance?”

“I think it’s fairly high. Why do you ask?”

“And even if I were to hurt you, you’d have the generosity to forgive me and let it slide, wouldn’t you?”

“...”

I had a bad feeling about this.

“What are you planning?”

“Answer me first. Would you or wouldn’t you?”

“... I can’t exactly say I wouldn’t.”

“Great. Undertaker, let me show you something amazing.”

Immediately after saying that, Dang Seorin took out a fountain pen and stabbed it hard into my right hand!

I shrieked like Tom from Tom and Jerry. Had she lost her mind?

“Wait! Stop your aura! Hold on! I’m doing it too!”

“What?”

She drove the pen hard into her own left palm. Blood streamed down its sharply honed nib. Had she actually lost her mind?

As I watched in bewilderment, Dang Seorin proceeded to do something even crazier. With both of us still bleeding, she suddenly began to sing.

Then something astonishing happened.

“Ah-♪”

A vivid blue set of “scales” softly materialized in midair, faint as a hologram.

At the same time, the wound on my right hand healed. In an actual instant. But then a new wound appeared on my left hand!

The exact same thing happened to Dang Seorin, only in reverse. In other words, the wound on her left hand packed its bags and moved to her right.

Immediately afterward, drops of blood settled onto either side of the scales. Then the scales slipped out of sight.

I was dumbfounded.

“What is this...?”

“Ah, this is what we call Equivalent Exchange.”

Dang Seorin gave me an otaku grin.

It was a little obnoxious.

“I exchanged your wound for mine. My pain for yours.”

“Incredible!”

I was genuinely impressed.

The wounds had merely changed locations, and our hands were still serving as faucets gushing blood, but it was an impressive spell all the same.

“How does it work?”

“I told you. Equivalent Exchange. I used magic to bring about an exchange that I consider fair.”

“Good lord. Then could I take a whole bunch of wounds and transfer them to Tenlegs?”

If so, this might be a truly revolutionary turning point in how we fought anomalies.

But with that uniquely infuriating expression of hers, Dang Seorin clicked her tongue and wagged her index finger.

“Non, non. Unfortunately, using it that way is all but impossible. This spell absolutely requires the other party’s consent to activate.”

“Oh...”

I couldn’t hide my disappointment. So that was why she’d asked me those strange questions earlier.

“... Wait, then what on earth can you use it for? Whether you exchange pain for pain or pleasure for pleasure, the total amount stays the same, doesn’t it? Could you use it to convert one form of energy into another?”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea, but it’s impossible too. As I said, you need the other party’s consent, and you can’t ask energy or matter to consent, can you? They don’t have brains. Oh, and of course it won’t work on plants or animals either. They can’t understand human language...”

“Then it really is a useless spell!”

“Magic isn’t useless!”

I had pushed Dang Seorin’s berserk button. And Dang Seorin was the sort of lunatic who immediately unleashed attack spells whenever that button was pushed.

Naturally, our fight ended in my victory. For Dang Seorin to have even the slightest chance of beating me, she would have had to start setting up her Spell-Song Chanting a full thirty minutes in advance. Such was the matchup between an honorable warrior and an utterly underhanded mage.

How much time passed after that little spat?

Of course, since I was equipped with [Perfect Recall], I could specify that exactly 398 days had passed rather than glossing over it with “how much.” It was merely a literary expression. Nobody would particularly care if I counted every moment like someone with savant syndrome, would they?

And so, 398 days, sixteen hours, and thirty-eight minutes later, I visited Three Thousand Worlds’ headquarters for the first time in a while. But Dang Seorin wasn’t on the train.

“Ah, do you mean Her Excellency the Great Witch? She stepped out briefly, since today is trial day.”

A guild member who recognized my face filled me in. Silver hair swayed prettily.

This was Yu Jiwon, a talented recruit I had picked out starting in my fifth run, who served as an officer in Three Thousand Worlds. Jiwon’s ability was quite useful, but personality-wise, this was a psychopath with some serious defects.

As one further aside, Jiwon had also majored in Latin.

“Trial day? What’s that? And why is someone as high up as the head of operations manning the counter? Where are your lackeys?”

“Nearly all the other guild members have gone out to the square. There’s not much for me to do there, so I’m holding down the fort.”

“Hmm. So what’s trial day?”

“Recently, we designated the last day of every month as trial day here in Busan.”

The silver-haired psychopath briskly pushed up a pair of glasses.

“Her Excellency the Great Witch personally passes judgment on criminals who have killed or seriously injured people. It’s been very well received by the citizens.”

Oh, for reference, “Great Witch” was Dang Seorin’s official title. Members of Three Thousand Worlds, in particular, were required to address her that way.

It was much like having to call the old Sword Marquis “Sword Marquis.”

Only I, back when I served as Deputy Guild Leader around my fifth run, had special permission to address Dang Seorin as “Guild Leader.” That had been one of the conditions I’d set for joining her guild when she recruited me.

“She’s probably almost at the final trial by now. It should still take about an hour, though... Would you like to wait in the reception room until then? I’ll issue you a train ticket.”

“No, I’m fine. Hanging around with you lot would only mean eating up your expensive snacks for nothing. Where did you say the trial was being held?”

“In the square just outside, Your Excellency.”

I walked to the place I had been directed to.

It wasn’t hard to find. It was the very square where Dang Seorin put on her customary “monster dismemberment shows”—the so-called execution square.

The trial was already well underway in the square, which was relatively well maintained despite the apocalypse. It was a grand affair. Even a quick look revealed nearly six hundred citizens sitting at stalls set up here and there, watching the proceedings.

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

“Quiet! Order, please!”

A Three Thousand Worlds guild member’s voice boomed across the square.

It was probably under an “Amplification” spell. Since I couldn’t hear any singing, there must have been a “Silence” spell woven in as well.

‘Considering that Repetition Magic for playback would be included as a matter of course, does that mean at least three chants are active? Hmm. She’s put quite a lot of effort into this, by Dang Seorin’s standards.’

I turned my gaze.

In the center of the square stood a man who appeared to be the defendant, his head bowed low. Dang Seorin, acting as judge, sat at a table with her chin resting languidly on her hand.

‘Now this is a first.’

In all my life as a regressor, this was the first time Dang Seorin had held a public trial before the citizens and passed judgment.

Intrigued, I watched from a distance. Once the square had quieted a little, the guild member raised their voice.

“Order, please! I will repeat the charges! The accused is a witch who joined Three Thousand Worlds six months ago and was assigned to a combat team. During last week’s expedition, however, when battle broke out against anomalies, the accused fled before the others instead of standing and fighting alongside his comrades, causing the battle line to collapse. Although there were no fatalities, two people were injured, and the entire combat team narrowly escaped being placed in grave danger.”

“Boooo!”

“You cowardly bastard!”

A few citizens threw stones and the like. But a barrier must already have been erected, because the stones bounced off before reaching the judge’s bench.

“Order! Ooorderrr! The Great Witch Dang Seorin will now deliver her judgment!”

Silence fell all around.

The hundreds of citizens who had been making a festival-like racket only moments before, throwing stones or swigging from bottles, shut their mouths.

If an artist’s talent is measured by how many people they can stir into a clamor, then a ruler’s measure must be how many they can silence. It was a telling demonstration of the standing the guild leader named Dang Seorin enjoyed in Busan, on the Korean Peninsula.

“This offender is a deserter.”

Dang Seorin’s voice flowed into the Amplification spell. A beautiful voice that made the very roots of your hair tingle.

It felt soft and unhurried, yet when you listened, the words came surprisingly fast, a rhythm that drove even complicated words and sentences into the listener’s ears one by one.

Her voice drifted through the square’s air, something that seemed more like breathing than speech.

The eyes of the Three Thousand Worlds guild members gazing at her held a somewhat hazy reverence.

Well, it was a little cringeworthy, but as someone who had once been Dang Seorin’s right-hand man, I could understand how they felt. That voice of hers really was kind of fucking broken.

“The usual rule is to deal with deserters by summary execution. But in this case, we must consider the fact that no one died, and that the deserter himself turned himself in the morning after he fled the battlefield.”

“...”

“You guilty deserter. Your comrades nearly lost their lives because you ran away. Do you repent of what you did?”

“Y-yes. I’m sorry...”

“Can you promise me that you will never make that mistake again?”

“Of course, Great Witch. Of course...”

It happened at that moment.

Blue “scales” appeared above Dang Seorin’s head.

Their color felt different from the vulgar blue of a neon sign. A bluish glow like sparse starlight in the night sky shimmered along their outline.

“Then you can be forgiven. I, the witches of Three Thousand Worlds, and the members of your combat team who had to plug the gap you left in the battle line will, from now on, [never hold your desertion last week against you].”

From Dang Seorin’s chest and those of the guild members, and from far away in the direction of the train station that housed Three Thousand Worlds’ headquarters, pitch-black clouds of smoke came creeping—shadows as thin as threads, writhing like snakes.

The clusters of black threads settled on the left side of the scales.

CLATTER

The balance broke, and the scales tipped sharply to one side.

“In exchange...”

Dang Seorin waved her index finger.

“From now on, [you cannot be the first to retreat from any battlefield, and even if retreat becomes unavoidable, you may withdraw only after all your comrades have fallen back].”

“Ah...”

“And not only your comrades. Your battlefield includes the citizens too. You cannot withdraw until you have ensured the safety of ordinary people. In other words, [you will always, without exception, be the last person to retreat].”

“...”

“Do you consent?”

The defendant’s face was pale.

Of course, fighting anomalies was anything but safe. Your odds of survival were far better jumping off a cliff in a wingsuit.

But why was that?

Along with his pallor, the defendant’s face held a trace of relief. As though he were relieved that he would finally be able to find peace of mind.

“... Yes, Great Witch. I... consent.”

“Good.”

A wavering white thread-snake slipped softly out of the defendant’s torso. It resembled breath in winter air. Only this was breath exhaled not through his mouth, but through his whole body.

The defendant stared blankly up at the breath leaving his body. The white snake’s tail wriggled upward into the sky—then coiled on the right side of the scales.

CLATTER

The two sides of the scales came level.

“With this, balance has been achieved.”

“Thank you... Thank you...”

“Yes. From now on, fight at the very forefront for your comrades, and above all, for the citizens.”

An “Ooh” rose from some of the spectators. As though in response, hundreds of citizens showered her with applause.

“...”

The scene came as a considerable shock to me. Equivalent Exchange, the grand spell I had thought would be utterly useless, was now functioning as Busan’s court of law.

This was why, even in runs far in the future, Busan alone had refused AI judges, unlike the other cities.

These were Dang Seorin’s “witch trials.”