Medieval Knight System: Building the Strongest Empire Ever!

Since ancient times, the witch has been an object of unfathomable dread. The revulsion born of the unknown created the very concept of the witch, and people believed that wiping them out was the sublime duty of a good Christian.

Of course, none of that carried the slightest weight with me.

The Boeven migrants couldn’t hide their bewilderment.

"What kind of talk is that? A witch!"

"There is no witch among us migrants!"

"Where on earth did you hear such preposterous nonsense?"

I quickly scanned the faces around me, taking in their varied reactions. The Boeven representatives made no effort to hide their shock and anger at the claim that a witch walked among them, and it was clearly the first they had heard of any such thing.

The Feuzen representatives reacted much the same, demanding to know what this nonsense was about. But two men, and only two, showed an entirely different reaction. I took careful note of them.

"Wolf, do witches still exist in this day and age?"

"Who knows. Can’t say until I see one with my own eyes."

"That’s ridiculous. There’s no way such things still exist."

Hilda, a woman of the modern day, was skeptical about the existence of witches. That was because in the cities, the witch was nothing more than a story handed down as legend.

It was small communities like Feuzen that firmly believed in witches. It was true that accusations had increased with the social unrest after the Black Death, but few cases ever went to trial.

That was because this was not yet the era when witch hunts ran rampant. For the time being, the Church still maintained ordinary order and remained relatively tolerant, turning a blind eye to folk beliefs and herbalists.

If history followed a similar course, the period when witch hunts spread in earnest across all of Germany would likely begin with the next pope. And it would continue for a full century, all the way to the Thirty Years’ War.

"What do you make of those two being the only ones reacting differently?"

"It’s strange. Everyone else seems terribly flustered, but those men look frightened."

"Wouldn’t that mean there was some other scheme at work?"

"Don’t tell me they tried to frame her as a witch to stir up the villagers..."

And one of the most common tricks for removing an inconvenient rival in a small community was to brand that rival a witch. An accusation on its own wouldn’t bring about a trial, but the accusation on its own was enough to ruin a life.

Once someone was branded a witch, recovering their standing was all but impossible. That was the rot of village society. In this case, though, the charge was clearly being used to close ranks internally against an outside enemy.

The whole affair laid bare the insularity of village society, without question.

But was there really a woman among the Boeven migrants who fit the bill?

"The witch is a widowed seamstress. Not only has she fornicated with the Devil, they say, but she used potions to lure married men into her bed. That is why she is suspected of being a witch."

"Don’t spout nonsense! Frau Erika is not that kind of woman!"

"My lord! This is slander from men who tried to have their way with Frau Erika, were refused, and now bear a grudge!"

The furious Boeven representatives pushed back as one. Amid the finger-pointing and shouting, the Feuzen representative who had raised the matter didn’t so much as blink. His gaze was fixed solely on me.

"Quiet! Be quiet!"

Only after Hans intervened did they calm down. But the eyes they turned on the accuser were positively murderous. The charge was a vicious smear aimed at the Boeven migrants, so the migrants’ backlash was fierce.

Münegger the bricklayer, the first to compose himself, calmly put his questions to the other Feuzen representatives rather than to the accuser. The turn the negotiations had taken must have made no sense to him whatsoever.

"We concluded our talks on good terms just moments ago. Why slander us like this?"

"C-calm down, man. We don’t know what that fellow is talking about either."

"What does that mean? Are you saying his claims have nothing to do with you?"

"This is the first that any of us in this room have heard of a witch!"

The Feuzen representatives seemed just as dumbfounded. At that, the Boeven representatives grew confused as well about what on earth was going on. Hmm, a mess from top to bottom.

The middling farmer who claimed his ring had been stolen and the tavern keeper glared furiously at the accuser, all while quickly gauging the reactions around them. They were sweating bullets.

What was the truth behind the witch accusation, the truth that only those two men knew?

The woman accused of witchcraft was that seamstress, the very one I’d commissioned to make the Streit Gunners’ new uniforms. As if being sexually exploited by an enemy weren’t enough, now she was being branded a witch in Feuzen, the place she had migrated to with hope in her heart.

Can one person’s fate really be this wretched?

But I could sense that the accuser harbored a different intent.

Hadn’t he made the accusation deliberately, to expose the substance of a rumor that might otherwise have slipped by unnoticed? The accuser was a man named Norman, a person with a resolute (good) disposition.

A man of that disposition, accusing someone of witchcraft?

He was clearly hoping I would investigate the truth of the rumor.

That was why he paid no mind to the fierce backlash.

So I decided to play along with the script he had written.

"Do you have proof that this widowed seamstress is a witch?"

"A goat’s skull, love potions, and a pagan gathering site discovered in a forest clearing. And there are numerous witnesses who were nearly bewitched by this witch. I know who they are."

"If such circumstances truly exist, then a trial must be held."

"Wise lord! I beg you, judge the truth of this rumor!"

So the trial itself was the goal after all.

I could feel the fervor in his resolute gaze.

Normally these things end with a finding of no grounds. But if a trial was what he was after, then in the course of the investigation we ought to be able to uncover exactly what those two men, eyes bulging out of their skulls, had been up to.

"Oh, Lord! What in heaven’s name is this? A special trial!"

"Calm yourself, Father."

Priest Andreas, who had come running breathlessly at the news, couldn’t contain his shock at the petition for a special trial, a rarity even within the Duchy of Beren. His astonishment was hardly unreasonable.

It is commonly known as a witch trial, but the official name is a special trial.

"According to the records left by my predecessor, a special trial has been held in Feuzen twice in the past thirty years. This will be the third. I never imagined I would preside over a special trial in my lifetime."

"Are the procedures for a special trial very complicated?"

"Ordinarily a special trial is presided over by an inquisitor, but Church law has changed, so the local parish may now preside even without one."

"Hmm, I see. Then when might the trial be held?"

"I will need various texts and materials for reference, so it will take time. Personally, I am skeptical of the deeds this witch is said to have committed."

At Andreas’s request, the trial was set for two days later. Until then, there was no choice but to hold the accused in jail. And I forbade any torture or violence whatsoever against the poor woman.

The accusers numbered five in all, including Norman, and one of them was Dressel, the most extreme, violent, and xenophobic of the lot. That man really did have a hand in everything.

As Andreas had asked, a messenger was sent to the Bishopric of Lanseh, which oversaw all the local parishes of Rosenheim. The special trial would be conducted jointly by Andreas and a clergyman dispatched from Lanseh.

As word of the public trial spread, Feuzen grew restless.

It was a special trial, not an ordinary one, so of course people took an interest.

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