Association of Zero-Day Attack Victims

It was Karle, the executioner, who first noticed the anomaly.

 

Being an executioner is usually considered a lowly job and is usually frowned upon.

But Karle was proud of his work. It was a job that someone had to do.

And at public executions, the executioner is a hero. It was also pleasant to work in the midst of the thunderous cheers of the crowd.

 

Karle was not interested in politics. He thought that it was just the people above him doing stupid things.

So when he heard that the execution targets were the former king's queen and the former king's abandoned daughter, he didn't think anything of it. Surely it must mean something to someone somewhere to kill this mother and daughter. For Karle, it was the same as always, just a job assignment.

Drop two guillotines and that would be the end of it. That was supposed to be everything.

 

Karle almost missed it because of the cheers, but soon became aware of a strange sound coming from under his feet.

The body of the girl who had been decapitated. The shackles that had bound her to the executioner's platform had been shattered.

Had they been broken?

... No, no.

 

The body, which should have lost the connection to its head, slowly began to rise.

The shackles had been ripped off with sheer force. It was an extraordinary monstrous power.

 

Seeing this unusual situation, Karle did not panic and immediately put his hand on the execution axe he was carrying on his back.

 

Karle's main job is to cut the heads of executed prisoners with an execution axe. His father trained him since he was a child, and at over 30 years of age, he had already reached a level of maturity in his skill.

Recently, the guillotine had come to be used in Ciel-Terra, and he had fewer opportunities to wield his skills, but he still carried an axe with him in order to deal with the undead that occasionally appeared.

It is rare, but not negligible, that condemned prisoners who die with regret resurrect on the spot as zombie-like low-grade undead.

It was Karle's job to take care of them when that happens.

 

　--Jeez…! I told them to invite the priests!

 

In his mind, Karle poisoned himself.

It was the official protocol to cleanse the place and mourn the condemned prior to the execution by the priests. This was also to prevent the undead from arising.

However, the knights did not allow this and rejected Karle's request. They said that since they were killing traitors, it was out of the question to mourn them properly, and that even the utmost desecration would not be enough.

Sure enough, here he was. Karle was not happy to be left to clean up the mess.

Even so, Karle had no doubt that the undead would be destroyed by the blow of his axe.

Until the moment his axe struck the moving corpse.

 

It was a strange response, like an axe striking the ground.

 

--What……!?

 

It was a full swing with all his might, but the blow of the execution axe, which would have decapitated even a large man, only shallowly sliced the girl's body.

 

And then Karle saw it.

The girl's skin, which had been covered in scars and tattered, was glowing.

The ragged silver hair that sprouted from her guillotined neck was shining with a beautiful silver glow.

 

"Hey! Something's wrong! Oi!!"

 

Karle shouted. To the knight on the execution platform who were cheering and shouting "Justice has been done.", "A new dawn for the country." or something like that.

Karle's voice did not reach the knight who was yelling amidst the loud noise. After yelling again several times, the knight finally looked back at him annoyed.

By then, it was all too late.

No, Karle only thought so at the time, but everything was too late from the beginning.

 

There was a flash of scarlet, and the guillotine snapped.

The rail that held the blade was cut in two, broken into three pieces, and rained down around the executioner's platform.

Screams erupted. Several people seemed to be trapped underneath.

 

But they were not about to look down. Not only Karle, but most of the crowd was in such a state.

They were watching with open mouths.

They were looking at something floating above the execution platform that shouldn't have been there...

 

--What the hell is that? What is that thing!?

 

A girl executed on death row was floating softly in the air. She landed on the frame of a guillotine that had just been blown away.

Her headless body gripped her long silver hair and held her own head. In her other hand was a sword, bright red from tip to hilt. It looked as if it had been carved out of a huge gem, and its appearance was akin to that of blood. Was that the sword that cut through the guillotine?

The banner that the crowd was holding up, "Death to Traitors!" was softly blown up by the wind and covered the girl's body. She cloaked herself in it and hid her tattered underwear.

 

She looked like a headless knight.

Karle knew what to expect from the undead.

 

――A Dullahan……!?

 

It was a high-ranking undead who should never have been born from an execution site.

It possessed the power to make "Cursed Prophecies" that could bring death to a person, and it was also a powerful fighter. A party of veteran adventurers could barely take on one of these creatures.

Although he had never heard of Dullahan in the form of a young girl...

 

However, the Dullahan further exceeded Karle's expectations.

She pointed her sword at the crowd from the air and chanted something in a mumbling voice.

By the time Karle realized that it was a magic chant, she had concluded it.

 

"≪Death Cloud≫×≪Energy Drain≫

Assembled Spell…≪Evil Sacrement≫"

 

She said it in a flat tone, as if a government official was reading a document in a matter-of-fact way. Karle shuddered to think that a child's voice, devoid of any emotion, could be so horrifying.

 

Karle did not know what kind of magic it was, but he knew that it was offensive magic.

Something flew out of the sword and exploded in the middle of the crowd, leaving nothing but corpses in its wake.

 

"Eh……?"

 

Karle didn't know what had happened at first, because so many people died so easily.

With a thud ... and a powdery sound, a blood-red mist blew up over a fixed area, and the people who had been in it were turned into standing, dried-up corpses.

There were dozens of skeletons lined up in a line, with what appeared to be human skins pasted and dressed on them. They eventually collapsed, powerless, on the snow-covered pavement.

 

"Kyaaaaaahhhh!!!!"

“Aaahhhh!"

 

The surviving crowd screamed and fled en masse. They rushed to the exits of the plaza, kicking each other down, crushing each other, and bumping into onlookers in the back who were still unaware of what had happened. Those who fell at some point were crushed and turned into a bloody mass of flesh.

 

"Hmmm… So this is magic..."

 

Karle's blood ran cold as he heard the girl above him mutter something.

For the girl, this was just to see what she could do. It's the same as Karle taking a swing before work to check the condition of his shoulder.

Dozens, maybe even triple digits, of people died just for that.

 

"Well, let's try the sword next."

 

The girl standing in the air looked directly down. She looked down at her head, which she held in her left hand, ... to be precise.

Karle felt numb at the sight of that too calm and joyful expression.

 

On the night of his 14th year of living, the first time Karle had cut off someone's head, the other person had been a diabolical serial killer who deserved to die, but he had cried and vomited all night long under the weight of having killed someone.

But what about this girl? She didn't feel a thing even though she had caused so many deaths. On the contrary, she seemed to be enjoying it. Or is this what it meant to be undead?

 

--No. This is a monster. I can't do anything about it...!

 

The only people in the girl's line of sight were the knight and Karle who had led the two condemned to death.

The knight who had been speaking passionately from the execution platform was finally about to draw his sword with trembling hands.

 

Almost at the same time as Karle readied his execution axe. The girl danced in the air.

The blood-red sword was swung with blinding speed. The swordsmanship was as light as though it were a dance.

 

Before Karle's eyes, the knight was dismembered while still standing.

The body of the knight, cut into pieces with his armor, fell on the snow.

 

"Damn ...!"

 

Karle, thinking that there was nothing more he could do, turned his back to the girl and jumped down from the execution platform.

 

But then the tip of a red sword crossed Karle's field of vision.

 

When he realized that he had been decapitated from behind, Karle's head left his body and flew through the air like a ball kicked up by a child.

 

--Ah. Is this what it feels like to be decapitated...?

 

Looking down at his own body, plunged in the snow with only his head intact, Karle's consciousness plunged into darkness.