Preserving and Accepting

In a small town called Border Town, a prince was recently appointed to become the ruler of the place. The pretense was that the royal children would undergo some evaluation from ruling over their territory and thus, the person with the best result would later become the next king of the country.

But Border Town was neither prosperous nor a secure place. It was more suitable to be called both a barren and backwater nowhere.

Thinking about it, this made sense if the prince were to go through the trial. The result would be accounted as his merit after all, and with the worse a place he could start with, the more points theoretically he could gather. It just, prince Roland was somewhat different.

Saying he was a peculiar and an unique case wasn't wrong.

As a good for nothing and the black sheep in the royal family, Border town was one of the few worst places in the country for him.

Even worse, he had no qualm of accepting or rejecting all. He simply rolled around the place so much even the lowest of nobles couldn't be bothered to hide their scorns when meeting him just after merely a few interactions.

He was a petty prince, but relatively harmless. Even when doing bad things, it would be a minor nuisance at best. While trying to look dignified, all he would be able to be was competing with clowns for laughter.

And even to such person, some people deemed that he was not just a nuisance, but rather an obstacle.

An obstacle that needed to be removed.

The incident was planned for long and in the end, Prince Roland died in a morning just as he was about to watch the hanging of a witch.

Or so it should be.

'Prince Roland' stared at the scene in a daze.

In the reminiscent of medieval setting he occasionally watched, a gallow was placed in front of him at a distance. The wooden stage decorated by small yet sturdy pillars with ominous yellowish hemp ropes tied from above and hanging in a way one reminded a method to suffocate the living. Thinking about it, his angle of vision seemed a bit strange. Looking down, he found out it because of the elevated platform.

Blinking his eyes, he glanced around. He was surrounded by a crowd of people wearing somewhat traditional western folk clothing, watching and probably waiting for the execution to come in public square with rows of small brick houses as their background. Next to his side was a beardy old man, tall guys wearing armors, and young women who looked like attendants or maids from old era description.

He gradually came to realize, that now he was a prince.

But the center of attention that caught the town people interest was not him, the prince, but rather the one standing on gallow alone and was currently waiting to be hanged was a hooded felon with her hands tied behind her back. The rope was already circling the felon's neck, and her end of fate was only a word away.

His word.

He somehow knew this absurd situation, but at the same time, it was presented as a new experience. He shouldn't know what it was all about, but his brain worked well in self-introducing the situation.

This was minutes before a public execution of a witch.

Witches were women who had been degenerated and became bad apples in society. Their power was said granted in exchange for working with devils.

The church had portrayed and made them so terrible of a force that most people following their teaching simply wanted to cull them, whether from their piety or money offered.

Just like what led to this situation.

'Roland' shook his head from the rubbish information his head held and changed his focus. Now he put his attention elsewhere; there was a particularly loud voice in the midst of the sea of murmurs around him. He looked at the source, his side, and what he found was the beardy old man was hurrying him up.

Dazzled was just a start, he also felt a swelling headache.

'What in the world...'

Roland Wimbledon. Execution. Witch.

And when the realization dawned at him, he nearly jolted, and goosebumps appeared mercilessly on both of his arms.

The reason he wasn't in his familiar environment was simple; it was because he was not in one anymore. What replaced the warm room he used to was a chilly public square where in his hands lied the decision to execute a felon.

'Th-this is ridiculous... But apparently, it's what happened.'

'Roland' took five long and deep breaths, pushing out the last smears of discomfort and sluggishness away from his body.

Even so, bizarre was not enough to describe what he felt right now. Gathering his guts, he waved his hand to the side to stop the urging that was slowly turning into a rant of an old man.

"Your Highness, please announce your verdict soon." The beardy old man grumbled, he looked as if he was about to pull his some strands of his beard off from impatience.

'Roland' understood what happened, and as much as he felt it was like a dream, it was undoubtedly real. Being able to take things to stride was one of his strength, so after gathering his thought during the same time he was calming his restless mind with that breathing exercise, he already knew what should be done.

He looked at the old man, Barov, and lightly said his verdict while crumbling the formal written order he had in hand: "It's noon. We're going to take a break temporarily. Took that witch somewhere where Barov you, Carter, and me, us three are going to interrogate the witch personally."

"Don't be unreasonable! What good we do by delaying this? What interrogation, what do we do if other witches attempt to save her!?" A tall man wearing a suit of armor stood up and argued, nearly pounced the prince out of anger.

Ignoring the puzzled, confused, and angry face from his retainers and the town's nobles, 'Roland' only smiled as if he just remembered something.

"Right, give all the spectators half a bread as compensation. Also, tell them it's not going to get canceled, we're just going to do this parade after two hours break."

The persecuted Anna was in a daze as she obediently followed someone known in the town as the lord of the place.

Her head was still covered, so she didn't have the clear image of what's happening, but the reason her death was being postponed was easy to guess just from hearing the argument happening in front of her.

Ultimately, it came down to the supposedly important personage was mercilessly being heavily criticized for letting a witch such as her alive. Even temporarily.

Though covered by darkness, she was steady. Her time was near, yet death suddenly pulled out of reach. To be honest, she was also puzzled by the action of the town lord. Even as a witch. No, precisely by being one she could understand more of their worry much more clearly.

The conversation filled with harsh and direct words went on as they walked, but the lord, with the combination of rational reasoning and taunts, had managed to suppress the people beside him slowly.

While the critics died down, complains still pouring out, however. But she can't hear much before her footsteps sound changed slightly.

She had entered some building.

"Careful, the ground is uneven." Someone whispered to her ear. It was so soft and gentle, and for some reason, she could only imagine it was the weird lord to say such things to her at the moment.

After several steps, the door was closed by someone. With a thud and grumble, it was locked. Barring outside people and wind uninvited.

"Now then, let's discuss some things."

She heard the young prince voice. It was calm, yet somehow she felt there was hidden uneasiness. That feeling should be normal since she was a witch, an existence many loathed, yet feared. But what's strange that the anxiety seemed was not directed to her.

Perhaps it was her misconception. Since she grew a witch power, her perception towards the world had shifted ever so slightly from her original outlook after all.

The way the world worked was seriously unfair, so many people had grown used to look only at what favorable to them and ignored what may cause discomfort. She had learned it the hard way.

Anna had learned some things, including their names. For some reason, when answering their inquiry, Roland used their names and their job, including himself. Was this introducing her? For that reason, she had more or less understood who the people that were currently with her was.

For example.

"Your Highness, this whim of yours are truly something I can't understand. Do you understand what risk you're taking?"

A frustrated, elderly voice chimed in directly after the prince finished talking.

The old man name was Barov, the country's minister of finance assistant. Now a former one. He had been brought to help Roland managing the town and can be considered his right hand.

Another example.

"Your Highness, this is too dangerous. At least call for more people to stand guard!"

A mature man bellowed grudgingly. She could felt piercing gaze came from this person. His hostility was shown bare, unfiltered even though her fate was not at all changed, only prolonged.

This seemingly rough person was a knight that also came here to help Roland. Carter Lannis was his name, and though he was good at being a knight and noble, he didn't hide the fact he was scared of witch years younger than him, or at least he indeed shuttered when the prince taunted him so.

Just what does this Lord want with her? If he indeed introduced them to her, why should he do that to someone who only got postponed from being hanged?

She even suspected that Roland simply wanted her body. After all, this lord wasn't known as being remarkable so much that he was infamous for being a pervert with weird antics. But her body was now so thin, and she doubted her looks could hold candles with the specifically picked young maids that worked in the castle. Perhaps it was some strange preference of wanting to dominate witches as a show of strength?

She had heard that he reasoned with Barov and Carter that he wanted more information regarding witch. Even if that was his real agenda, to be honest, she was as clueless as them.

She didn't know about other witches, but at least for her, being a witch wasn't a choice. There was simply no choice for her to choose, as it just came down suddenly one day, clouding her days to come.

If her ability was indeed a gift from the devil, those troublemakers might be very whimsical.

Just like the lord who postponed the execution for no reason.

But she didn't meet the devil nor formed any contract to her knowledge. If she wasn't a devil worker, then the lord was surely a reasonable person.

Just what does he want?