The Execution

The Execution

The Execution

“Those rejected by the door harbor malice toward us. They shall be executed here and now,” Ferdinand announced.

“As you wish. These men are all firmly in the mayor’s faction. I have no defense for them. Rather, I am grateful that the Door of Judgment has proved the innocence of everyone else,” Richt responded.

Ferdinand knelt in front of me. My heart was pounding hard. The blood drained from my face as the realization hit me that these people were about to be executed. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise, since Ferdinand had said that the mayor would be executed from the very start, but now that it was happening before me, my heart thumped painfully and a cold sweat ran down my back.

“Rozemyne, do not avert your gaze.”

“...Okay.”

Neither Richt nor anyone else in the plaza seemed to feel any sympathy for those who had dragged them into this mess. Or, well, maybe that wasn’t the right way to put it. They didn’t seem to feel any disgust or hesitation toward them, either. Everyone was simply acting like it was completely natural for those deemed to be traitors or harmful to the community to be executed; they were wrongdoers for putting the entire city at risk, and this was a just punishment.

“Justus.”

“At once, Lord Ferdinand.”

Justus headed to the large box that had been brought onto the stage and opened the lock with a loud clink. The front side of the box opened flat, revealing its contents—five shallow drawers stacked on top of each other like a makeshift filing cabinet. But from where I was standing, I couldn’t see what was inside them.

“Ferdinand, what is in those drawers?”

“Hasse’s identification medals.”

He was apparently referring to the citizenship medals that we stamped our blood onto during our baptism ceremonies. In the city of Ehrenfest, the temple took care of registrations, marriages, and cancellations due to deaths. But elsewhere, the registrations were all done during the Harvest Festival, with the mayor sending word upon the death of a citizen. Scholars in the castle managed the medals themselves, following reports from priests and tax officials to keep them all properly organized.

“We brought them all here since we did not know how many executions there would be, but in general, they are not to be taken outside the castle,” Ferdinand explained. I could guess that it was like taking a box of confidential papers outside of a government office, in which case it made sense that the scholar in charge of them would need to stay close and keep a close eye out.

Justus took out a piece of parchment and called out to Eckhart. “Make sure nobody gets close.”

Eckhart brought out his schtappe and transformed it into a sword, before taking up position beside the box. He held his blade at the ready, prepared to cut down anyone who got close, which was enough to show just how valuable the box was.

“Justus. Begin.”

“As you wish, Lord Ferdinand.”

Justus gripped his schtappe and chanted “ messer ,” turning it into a knife. With the sheet of parchment still in hand, he walked up to the light-bound traitors sprawled out on the stage, their faces twisting in fear as they watched his feet approach. A couple choked out hoarse cries for help, but nobody answered their calls as Justus knelt down to stamp the closest man’s blood.

The traitor’s thumb was slightly pushed out between the bands binding him, at which point Justus pricked it with his knife. As the blood started seeping through, Justus pushed the fresh cut against the parchment, producing a slowly expanding red stain.

Ow, ow!

Even though it wasn’t happening to me personally, I could almost feel the pain as I watched the knife pierce the skin and draw blood. I wrapped my hand around my thumb in shared discomfort and shifted my focus so as to see as little of what was happening as possible.

Once Justus had confirmed that the blood was firmly stamped against the parchment, he smoothly whipped his knife through the air. The slight amount of red that had been streaking down the blade seemed to disappear into thin air.

Huh...? The knife is clean again?

Justus held up the blood-marked parchment to the crowd, proving that it had been stamped, which elicited cheers from the citizens and an approving nod from Ferdinand. He then headed to the next prone man, pressed his blood against the parchment, and showed the crowd again. This process repeated.

“Ferdinand, what in the world is Justus doing?”

“Selecting the identification medals. It is the work of priests and scholars to handle them.”

For nobles, the identification stamping that was done during every baptism ceremony registered their mana. For commoners, however, it only registered their blood. That was why, during my first baptism, I had simply needed to press my blood against a white, flat-looking stone. I naturally hadn’t written anything on it, nor had I even been asked my name.

These medals were stored according to what year they had been registered, but beyond that, there was no quick way to identify whose was whose. They were instead usually tracked using blood; during funerals, they would place the medal on the body to ensure that it belonged to the person in question. To this end, Ferdinand had taken some of my blood to find my medal during Myne’s funeral.

I hadn’t noticed, though, because I was unconscious.

For funerals held outside Ehrenfest, some of the deceased’s blood was smeared on a wooden board, which was then given to the scholar who visited the city during the Harvest Festival. They then sent the boards to the castle along with the collected taxes. These boards would be returned with the medals attached, which would then serve as grave markers.

As Ferdinand explained the system to me, Justus walked over to the final person.

“You won’t get away with this...!” she cried, the only woman among the six traitors. She was the mayor’s wife, glaring at us with hate in her eyes and tears streaming down her cheeks as the bands of light kept her bound.

That’s terrifying...

As I continued to endure her intense glower, my throat bobbed, goosebumps rose on my arms, and my hands started to tremble a little. I wanted to step back and hide in Ferdinand’s shadow, or at least look away, but I had been told that I needed to watch the entire execution. I had no choice but to keep looking at her, so I clenched my teeth and tightly clasped my hands, trying to at least stop them from shaking so visibly.

As the wife and I continued staring at one another, Justus finished the blood stamp. He, at least, seemed entirely unfazed. With the last one complete, he wove his knife through the air while saying something and returned it to schtappe form. He then waved the schtappe around again, this time saying “ auswahl ,” which made the blood-stamped parchment ignite in golden flames like a magic contract. It flew over the box being guarded by Eckhart, trailing fire behind it, then burned away into golden light that sprinkled down onto the drawers.

Instantly, the drawers started to rumble without anyone touching them. The topmost and second topmost ones both launched themselves open and shut, acting strangely until six medals suddenly shot out from within.

“Oooh!”

Awed cries could be heard from the crowd as the ivory medals used to register the people as citizens flew into the air before settling into Justus’s hands. He looked over them carefully, then smoothly walked in front of Ferdinand and kneeled.

“Here are the medals, Lord Ferdinand.”

Justus held up the medals gracefully and, once Ferdinand had accepted them with a nod of gratitude, stood up and briskly returned to the box. He firmly clasped the lock back on, then stood in front of it protectively.

“Rozemyne, step back and stand by Justus,” Ferdinand said, before waving his free hand to make his schtappe appear within it. I could guess he was about to use some magic, so I did as requested, leaving only Ferdinand standing in the center of the stage.

He scanned the area as if making sure there was nobody near, then held his schtappe high in the air. Mana poured from its tip, forming letters and complex designs in the air.

“Aah, it’s my first time seeing this!” Justus exclaimed, his brown eyes wider than usual and gleaming with joy. He was leaning forward slightly, absorbing as much as he could of the magic circle that Ferdinand was drawing in the air.

“Justus, what’s about to happen?”

“The execution of the traitors, milady. This is a spell taught only to archduke candidates, so nobody is allowed near when it’s being cast. That way, they can’t hear the chant he’s saying, or see the details of the complex magic circle,” Justus explained. “I knew there existed a spell specifically for executing traitors, but I’d never gotten the opportunity to see it. This kinda thing is really rare, since usually nobody even thinks about acting against the archduke. Aah, I’m so glad I wormed my way into coming along!”

Seeing Justus clench his fists and shake with excitement at the upcoming execution, I deeply understood why Ferdinand had given such a terrible grimace when he arrived to accompany us. I took a full step back.

“You’ll be learning this spell yourself one day, milady. Please send word to me if you ever get the opportunity to use it.”

“I will pray to the gods that such a day never comes.” Nor shall I tell you if one does , I added silently, before looking back to the execution.

Ferdinand swung his schtappe as he stood in the center of the stage. He must have completed forming the magic circle with his mana by that point, as a black mist wavering like fire spewed out from within. Perhaps it was a spell connected to the God of Darkness. It looked a lot like the mana-sucking black mist that I had seen during the ambush at last year’s Spring Prayer, so the dots weren’t hard to connect.

Keeping his eyes locked on the ominous black magic circle, Ferdinand’s lips moved in a chant. He then tossed the medals into it. They stopped in midair, as if sticking to the magic circle, before getting completely enveloped by the black mist.