The first person who noticed the incident was the executioner Kahle.
Executioners are usually disliked.
But Kahle was proud of his work. It’s a job that someone has to do.
Also, in public executions, executioners are heroes. It felt good to work in the midst of a loud and cracking cheer.
Kahle has no interest in politics. He thinks the people above the clouds are just doing stupid things.
Therefore, when he heard that the subjects of execution were the former king’s wife and the daughter abandoned by the former king, he didn’t think anything in particular. Surely killing this parent and child has meaning for someone somewhere. For Kahle, it’s the same as usual, just a job request.
Drop two guillotines and that’s it. It was supposed to be that way.
He almost missed it because of the cheers, but Kahle immediately noticed a strange sound coming from under his feet.
The body of a girl whose head was chopped off. The shackles that should have bound her to the execution table were popping up.
Has it been broken?
… no, it’s different.
The body, which should have lost its head, began to rise slowly.
I pulled off the restraint with all my might. It’s a ridiculous power.
Even when he saw this abnormal situation, Kahle did not panic, and immediately hung his hand on the execution ax he was carrying on his back.
Kahle’s main job is to decapitate death row prisoners with an execution ax. The skill trained by his father from an early age has already reached the level of maturity past thirty years.
Recently, guillotines have been used in Ciel-Terra, and the opportunities to wield their arms have decreased, but they still carry an axe to deal with the occasional undead.
The resurrection of death row inmates who died with regret as low-grade undead-like zombies on the spot is rare, but it’s an occurrence that cannot be ignored.
It’s also Kahle’s job to clean up at such times.
――For Pete’s sake…! That’s why I told you to call a priest!
Kahle is toxic in his heart.
It’s a formal manners to purify the place before execution by a priest and mourn for death row prisoners. It’s also to prevent the undead from occurring.
However, the knights did not allow it, and rejected Kahle’s opinion statement. They said that it was out of the question to properly mourn a bandit because she was going to be killed, and that no amount of blasphemy would be enough.
Sure enough, it’s in between. Kahle that can make you do a butt towel is not something that has accumulated.
Even so, Kahle did not doubt that the undead would perish with a single blow of his axe.
Until the moment when the axe swung down hits the corpse that started moving.
It was a strange response like hitting an ax to the ground.
――What…!?
Even though it was a full swing of full force, the blow of the execution axe that would have beheaded a large man only left a shallow cut on the girl’s body.
And then he saw it.
The girl’s skin, which should have been covered in scratches and tattered, glowed as he watched.
The unkempt silver hair that growing from her decapitated neck dropped by the guillotine grew a beautiful silver shine.
“Hey! Something’s wrong with her! “Hey!!”
Kahle shouted. Receiving cheers, “Justice has been done,” or “New Dawn,” he turned towards the knight on the execution table barking.
Kahle’s voice did not reach the knight who was shouting in the midst of the loud noise. After yelling a few times, the knight finally looked back.
By then, it was all too late.
No, Kahle thought at that time, everything was too late from the start.
A flash of scarlet ran, and the guillotine was cut off.
The rail containing the blade was cut off, divided into three, and rained down around the execution platform.
There was a scream. It seemed that a few people had been trapped underneath.
But there was no time to look down. Not only Kahle, but most of the crowd were in such a state.
I was watching it with my mouth open.
What should not have been, floated on the execution table…
――What is that? What the hell is that!?
A girl on death row was floating in the air. She descended on the frame of the guillotine she had cut off.
The headless body grabbed her long silver hair and held her own neck. In the other hand, a bright red sword from the tip to the handle. It seemed that it was carved out of a huge jewel, and that blood had formed its shape. Did she tear up the guillotine with that?
The crowd raised banner, “Death to the traitor!” was gently rolled up in the wind and covered the girl’s body. She wore it like a cloak to hide her tattered underwear.
A figure that can be called a headless knight.
Kahle had an idea about the undead.
――Dullahan…!?
It was a high-ranking undead that would have never been born from an execution ground.
It is also a mighty warrior with the power to make “cursed prophecies” that cause people to die. A level where a veteran adventurer party could barely take on one.
I’ve never heard of Dullahan in the form of a young girl, though…
However, that Dullahan (probably) further exceeded Kahle’s prediction.
Pointing her sword from the air to the crowd, she chants something with a flurry.
By the time Kahle realized that it was a magical chant, she had finished her chant.
“The Wind of Doom Death Cloud” x Cross “Animation Absorbing Energy Drain”.
Compound Forged Magic Assembled Spell… “Sacrament of Blasphemy”
Flatly, she said in a tone that officials read the documents aloud indifferently. Kahle was horrified wondering how the voice of a child could be devoid of any emotions.
It was a magic that Kahle didn’t know, but I knew it was offensive magic.
Something that jumped out of the sword exploded in the middle of the crowd, and only corpses remained.
“Eh…?”
At first, Kahle didn’t know what happened, because so many people died so easily.
With a powdery sound, a reddish-black mist like blood blew up to a certain range, and the people who were in it turned into dried up corpses still standing.
There were dozens of things that looked like human skins attached to skeletons and dressed in clothes. Eventually, they fell without strength, on the cobblestone covered with snow.
“Oh ah ah ah ah!!”
“Uwa ah ah ah ah!!”
The surviving crowd screamed and fled en masse. They rushed to the exits of several squares, kicked each other down, crush each other, and collided with onlookers in the back who still don’t know what had happened. Those who fell down were crushed as they were and turned into bloody lumps of flesh.
“Hmm. So this magic…”
When he heard the girl above his head murmur, Kahle’s blood drained from him.
For her, this was just trying to see what she could do. It’s the same as Kahle taking swings before work to check the condition of his shoulders.
It’s just that, dozens if not three digits of people died.
“Then, let’s try a sword next time.”
A girl standing in the air looked directly below. To be precise, she grabbed her neck with her left hand and turned it down.
Kahle was paralyzed in response to that too calm and joyful gaze of hers.
On the night of 14, Kahle decapitated a person’s for the first time, he cried and vomited all night because he couldn’t bear pressure of killing people, even though his victim was a nefarious serial killer who deserved to die.
But what about this girl? She didn’t even think that there were so many dead people. On the contrary, it seemed fun. Or is this unique to the undead?
――That’s no good. This is a monster. There’s nothing I can do about it…!
The only people in the girl’s line of sight were the knights who had led the two condemned prisoners and Kahle.
The knight who was making speeches from the top of the execution table was finally trying to pull out the sword with trembling hands.
Almost at the same time that Kahle set up the execution axe. The girl kicked in the air and danced.
The blood-red sword was wielded with dazzling speed. Her swordplay was as light as if she were dancing.
In front of Kahle, the knight was dismantled while standing still.
The body of the knight, whose armor was cut into pieces, fell on the snow.
“Damn it…!”
Kahle, thinking there’s nothing more he could do, turned his back on the girl and jumped off the execution table.
But the tip of the red sword crossed Kahle’s sight.
When he realized that his neck had been cut from behind, Kahle’s neck left his body and flew in the air like a ball kicked up by a child.
――I see. What does it feel like to be decapitated…
Kahle’s consciousness fell into darkness while looking down at his body plunged into the snow with only his neck.