The Tin Knight-Chapter 3: The Witch and The Tin Knight ()

The royal capital.

In a mansion befitting the status of a noble, a nobleman exuding aristocratic elegance resided.

The nobleman asked his subordinate with an anxious expression, “Is there still no news?”

“Not yet, Sir. But you needn’t worry so. We sent thirty men skilled in various rough tasks. They should have no trouble handling one witch who’s barely come of age.”

Reassured by his subordinate’s words, the nobleman nodded.

“Yes, that must be so. It has to be. Tsk, that foolish girl. If only she had obediently accepted our offer.”

He was a noble of the kingdom.

The nobleman’s father, grandfather, and even his grandfather’s father were all nobles of the kingdom.

To the nobleman, the kingdom was his home, his fortune, and his very life.

He never knew nor imagined a life outside of being a noble of the kingdom.

That was why, when the king issued his decree that day, the nobleman was genuinely bewildered.

— I shall recover all eight sacred treasures lost by the royal family and lead the kingdom back to its former glory.

It was true that such treasures had once existed in the kingdom.

It was also true that the kingdom had greatly prospered when it possessed these treasures.

But that was in the distant past.

The kingdom had long since declined from its peak, and the treasures it once possessed had scattered across the world, finding new owners.

Attempting to recover them now was nothing short of futile—there was no way the current owners of the treasures would willingly return them.

However, the king was stubborn.

No matter how much the nobles, including himself, and other subjects tried to dissuade him, he wouldn’t give up his goal of recovering the treasures.

All the subjects could do was prevent the king from carrying out his reckless plan of leading an army to recover the treasures.

— Fine, then how about this? If moving our soldiers directly would cause diplomatic issues, why not borrow the power of an outsider? If we get that renowned ‘Wicked Witch of the East’ to recover the treasures, there shouldn’t be any problems.

The nobleman believed it solved nothing—only creating more problems. It seemed other subjects thought similarly.

But the king insisted on carrying out his plan, and an envoy was dispatched to the renowned, or rather infamous, Wicked Witch of the East.

The nobleman’s only relief was that the one who responded to the king’s summons wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the East, but her apprentice.

The witch’s apprentice was young. No, she was just a child.

The subjects assumed that dealing with one inexperienced girl would be no trouble at all.

Under the pretext of acting as her escort, the nobleman constantly whispered to her.

— There’s no need to search seriously. You can just travel around until the king loses interest. We’ll cover all expenses, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded once everything is over.

It was a generous offer.

So generous, in fact, that even his colleagues were shocked, saying it was too much for one mere commoner girl.

Some argued that it would be enough to just give her a little money or intimidate her.

The nobleman also found it a tad bit wasteful but wrote it off as a necessary expense.

While the legends about the “Wicked Witch of the East” couldn’t all be true, even if only a tenth of them were, she would still be a monster capable of destroying a territory or two with utter ease.

Considering the risk of angering such a monster by mistreating her apprentice, this level of expense was bearable.

The real problem was that the witch’s apprentice didn’t seem to understand their hints.

No matter how much the nobleman persuaded, tempted, or threatened, the apprentice wouldn’t budge, saying, “I’m just completing the king’s errand.”

It was behavior the nobleman couldn’t understand.

While it was natural for ignorant commoners to have blind loyalty and reverence for nobles, at this moment, the girl’s ignorance was unbearably frustrating and hateful.

Eventually, as the nobleman, unable to withstand the pressure from his colleagues, was preparing drastic measures, the witch’s apprentice vanished.

From the apprentice’s perspective, she left because she thought she couldn’t pass her master’s test if she stayed with the nobles, but to the nervous nobleman, it looked like she had caught wind of their plot and fled.

The nobleman grew uneasy.

If the witch’s apprentice reported what she had experienced to her teacher, it wouldn’t be the foolish king who would face the brunt of the witch’s wrath, but them, the nobles who had acted out of concern for the country.

The witch’s apprentice needed to quietly disappear in an “accident”, unrelated to them.

The nobleman made a decision.

The nobleman made a choice.

The nobleman gave an order.

All that was left for the nobleman, who had done his part, was to anxiously await the results.

“Damn it, still nothing? How long does it take to catch one little witch—“

The nobleman’s words were cut short.

A commotion that seemed to be coming from outside the mansion caught his attention.

“What’s going on? Is it over?”

Despite his words, the nobleman’s expression wasn’t very bright.

No, the emotion visible on his face was closer to anger.

He had clearly instructed for the job to be handled “quietly”.

If the commotion outside was caused by his subordinates, it meant his instructions had been ignored, and if it was due to something else, it meant unwelcome guests had arrived at his mansion.

Either way, he couldn’t possibly feel good about it.

“I’ll go check and report back.”

The trusted subordinate, sensing his displeasure, headed outside the room himself instead of sending his underlings.

Only the nobleman, silently suppressing his anger, and a few guards remained in the room.

About five minutes passed like this.

The trusted subordinate didn’t return, and the commotion, far from subsiding, was only growing louder.

It was just when the nobleman, finally reaching the limit of his patience, was about to step out himself in disgust.

BOOM!

A heavy noise, as if something large had been thrown, rattled the air.

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The nobleman wore a bewildered expression.

That vibration just now wasn’t felt from outside—it came from beneath his very feet.

THUD! THUD!

Thump-thump-thump!

Something unknown was rushing from the first floor to the second floor where the nobleman stood.

“Stop it!”

“Aagh!”

“S-save me!”

Screams and shouts could be heard.

“My lord! Please step away from the door!”

The guard knights drew their swords, shielding the space between the nobleman and the door.

They braced themselves to respond to whatever might come through it, but the intruder was more violent than they had anticipated.

CRASH!

The door flew through the air.

Incidentally, one guard knight who was in its path also flew along with it.

The other guard knight swung his sword, but the intruder effortlessly blocked the strike and stomped on the knight’s foot.

CRUNCH.

The guard knight’s body reflexively curled from the excruciating pain of his crushed instep.

The intruder struck the knight’s earlobe with the hilt of his sword before landing a back kick straight to his chest.

Blood and vomit splattered as the guard knight collapsed.

The other guard knight, who had been sent flying with the door, struggled to rise, but when the intruder stomped on the door and his body underneath, his struggle was replaced with a cruuuuunch followed by silence.

The terrified nobleman, unable to make a sound, stared at the intruder.

A dull, metallic body that emanated an air of antique.

A shield in the left hand and a blunt edge sword in the right.

No breath escaped from between the helmet that completely covered the face, and where the eyes should have been, only an eerie, ghostly light like a will-o’-the-wisp quietly flickered in its sockets.

Monster.

That single word flashed through the nobleman’s mind.

Cliché as it was, no other expression seemed more fitting for the knight before him.

“...”

The knight was silent.

Without threat, warning, or mockery, he simply stared at the nobleman.

Faced with that silence, the nobleman could only shrink back further.

Only after the girl from his memory emerged from behind the knight could the nobleman finally manage to take a breath.

The nobleman asked in a trembling voice, “W-why?”

The girl silently raised her left hand.

There was a birdcage. However, what was inside the cage was not a parrot or the like, but a human skull.

That which should have been liftless rattled and spoke.

《It’s him! He’s the one who ordered me to kill the witch! The noble of the kingdom. Marquis William Heming is the culprit! I’ve told the truth! Witch, please have mercy! Have mercy on me who told the truth! Witch! Mercy!》

Mercy.

Mercy.

Mercy!

The skull repeated those words several times. Rattling its bones, making sounds with a head that had no vocal cords, it begged for mercy from the black-haired girl.

Seeing this, the nobleman vaguely realized.

She was not the witch’s apprentice.

The girl before his eyes was already a full-fledged witch.

As she swung the birdcage in her hand clockwise in a circle twice, the skull turned to dust and scattered, and the cage became a small ring that slipped onto the witch’s finger.

The witch looked at the nobleman with a blank expression and spoke bluntly, “Need I say more?”

She retaliated because the nobleman tried to kill her first.

That was how the witch was explaining it.

It was an extremely simple and easy-to-understand explanation.

Yet for the nobleman, it was also an unreasonable answer.

He was a nobleman.

The witch before him was a commoner.

While he, being a nobleman, could strike down a commoner, the reverse should never happen.

That was the law of the world as he knew it.

But that law had crumbled, and the knight beside the witch was too frightening for him to rebuke the witch’s insolence.

The witch, who casually manipulated the dead at will, was unsettling.

Thus, instead of intimidating the girl with his authority, the nobleman swallowed his pride and tried to reason with her.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I sincerely apologize for trying to harm you. But please, think about this carefully. The king is not in his right mind. He’s intoxicated with some past glory or whatever, and can’t see reality!”

The nobleman was a native of the kingdom.

Therefore, the nobleman knew the kingdom’s limitations all too well.

A small country situated in the eastern part of the continent

Rich in history, but with no other outstanding features.

A place just strong enough to protect itself, but woefully inadequate when compared to the real monsters out there.

“You must have received a magic tool from the king that reveals the locations of the eight treasures. That wasn’t made in our kingdom. It was given by the Kingdom of Heaven that roams the heavens. The foolish king rejoiced, believing the Kingdom of Heaven wanted to return the treasures to their rightful owners, but that’s surely impossible. They must have given the same thing to other countries as well. The Kingdom of Heaven is scheming to have all the countries on the ground dance in the palm of their hand. This is such a grand conspiracy. We mustn’t get involved!”

The nobleman was desperate.

The nobleman was pleading.

He was even more so because the witch before him, far from being shocked, wore an indifferent expression.

“Don’t you get it yet!? If we get caught up in that conspiracy, our kingdom will be in danger, but the first one to be in danger is you, who’s collecting the treasures! So—“

“When you tried to kill me, you didn’t seem so concerned. Only now do you pretend to be concerned. Do you think saying sorry once makes your crimes disappear?”

“Ugh.”

The nobleman was at a loss for words.

Looking down at the nobleman, the witch unilaterally declared, “Firstly. Do not attempt to harm me or interfere with my journey from now on.

“Secondly. Inform me immediately if you see any signs of the king or other nobles trying to backstab me.

“Lastly. I don’t need any escort or whatever, I’ll recover the treasures myself, so properly explain that to those around you.

“If you violate any of these rules, you’ll be turned into a frog while you’re still alive. Now, say you agree.”

“What? There’s no way I’d agree to such nonsense!”

“Then just die. I don’t care either way. I only subdued the others because they weren’t directly after my life, unlike the assassins, but don’t think you, the mastermind, will receive such mercy.”

As the knight beside the witch silently raised his sword, the nobleman cried out in terror, “I agree! I agree! Agh!”

The nobleman let out a short yelp at the stinging sensation he felt at his fingertips.

The blood that seeped from his fingers formed letters in the air, then transformed into light and seeped back into the nobleman’s body.

Even after the witch and the knight had left, the nobleman remained slumped on the floor for a long time, like a person who had lost his soul.