Looking at David slumped on his chair, Josef’s face slowly became cold. While thinking of his own past, the proud warrior slowly stood up.

The captain next to him had a slightly confused look on his face. He felt as if a great danger was slowly emerging from a shadow, like a shackled beast escaping.

Trusting his experience as an old veteran, he slowly put his hand on his weapon as he tried to get rid of the alcohol induced drowsiness by shaking his head.

David on the other hand was oblivious to his surroundings. He was once again drowning his sorrows, wallowing in self-pity.

Firm steps sounded in the quiet room. It took David a few seconds to realize that Josef suddenly stood before him.

Although the old smith was a big and burly man, he now felt insignificant as he looked into the lord’s eyes.

He let out a feeble voice:

“My lord?”

Josef calmly breathed in and out. His pure presence seemed to fill the whole room. Right now, he certainly wasn’t a frail scribe.

“Let me tell you something about justice.

Justice belongs to the strong!

You are a fool. You’re a loser.

You couldn’t even gather the strength to win against your own pride.

If you were strong enough you could have gotten rid of the Rottals right at the beginning.

However, you are not. You are simply blaming everything else and never took a look at yourself.

And now…

Now you try to get justice by being clever.

But you aren’t clever.

If you were clever, you would be more patient. You would scout the situation. You would wait for the right moment.

Intelligence is also a kind of strength. A kind of strength you don’t possess either.”

As Josef began to speak, the old smith looked baffled. However, his face soon turned pale as a frightened expression formed.

Suddenly the urge to run overcame him, but it was already too late.

Josef’s hand shot forth, gripping David by his throat, slowly pulling him up.

The captain stared in disbelief, as the frail scribe easily subjugated a robust man.

“Did you really think you could make use of me without consequences?

You are surely well informed. Our lord hates witches more than anything.

You told us your story and now we have no choice but to investigate.

But did you ever consider the price you would pay?!”

As Josef’s grip slowly strengthened, you would suspect David to struggle and plead. However, the old man suddenly broke out in laughter:

“Consequences? What do I have left to fear?! Why should I fear any consequences? You are no witch. The worst you can do is kill me.

I, David Lern, will get my revenge one way or the other!”

Looking at David’s suddenly crazed look, Josef kept a straight face. What kind of reaction hadn’t he already seen?

No. I am no witch. I am worse than a witch. I could let him live a life worse than death.

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However…

He is a broken man. A weakling.

He never had a chance to control his fate.

He waited for someone like me to come because he couldn’t even personally take revenge. Pathetic!

Since his information might still be useful for me, I will at least grant him a fast death.

With those thoughts in his mind Josef turned his wrist all of a sudden. A loud crack echoed through the silent room.

The captain looked at the young man in horror as the latter opened his hand. His eyes followed the now lifeless body of David before it slumped back into the chair.

Eerily the old smith sat in almost the same position as before.

Just now his eyes portrayed his sadness as he told the story of his life. Now his eyes were dead as the story had ended.

Only a slight smile of relief expressed his last feelings before death.

The old veteran’s body began to tremble as he timidly observed Josef’s expressionless face. Even as a soldier he seldom saw such cold-blooded murder.

“How dare this peasant make use of me? Captain, you can bury him next to his wife outside. I’m going to bed. Tomorrow, we have to take a look at the Rottal family.”

Josef’s slowly vanishing steps were the only noise left in the room. Even after everything was quiet it took the captain a while to come back to his senses.

He slowly glanced towards the staircase where Josef had just left. Who knew if the murderer would come back to silence the witness?

As he took a deep breath to calm his nerves, the captain looked in pity at David’s body.

This hardworking man just wanted to live happily with his wife. Everything seemed to go his way until the Rottal family appeared. From then on, he had been continuously suppressed until he died such an undeserving death.

The captain sighed softly. He emptied his tasteless beer, slowly walked towards David and closed the old smith’s eyes for a final time.

A quiet “forgive me” escaped his mouth, before he carried the corpse out the backdoor.

From his room upstairs Josef observed as the captain buried a hole, spoke a prayer and laid David down for his final rest.

Even as the sun rose the next day nobody noticed that the village had one less inhabitant.

Stepping out of the inn Josef was in a great mood. Although the captain tried to keep a distance from him all morning, this couldn’t dampen his spirits one bit.

Today he would investigate the healer, Lilly.

When Josef first arrived in the Holy Roman Empire, he was surprised that people in this backwater place knew about magic.

However, as he investigated more about those so called ‘witches’, Josef could only laugh about humanities’ stupidity.

Really, if ‘he’ didn’t exist, how could humans ever become the mighty force they are now.

The situation in this Holy Roman Empire perfectly showcased why the Malohcras, his own mighty race, held humans in such contempt.

Earth, the planet he was on, was an insignificant planet somewhere at the edge of the universe. Since the mana density here was basically neglectable, no naturally born warriors existed here.

This planet was mostly forgotten by the rest of humanity. Humans on earth weren’t even thought the most basic knowledge about the universe.

Yet still, the humans here suspected innocent women of using magic and even burned them alive. If they really believed these women used magic, at least witches should be celebrated as heroes.

One can imagine Josef’s expression when he learned the ridiculous reasons these women were executed for.

But worse comes to worse, the lord Josef began to work for turned out to be one of the biggest prosecutors of witches. Therefore, it became part of Josef’s job to investigate rumors about all kinds of potion brewers or herb smokers.

The young man could only shake his head while doing as he was told. He quickly understood why his clan sent him here as a punishment.

Officially the Zrathras Clan would send spies even to the most remote places to seek enemy refugees. Their clan, as a sharp sword of their race, knew no mercy and would chase their enemies until even the last one was finally eradicated.

This ‘pulling up enemies by their roots’ tactic stemmed from bitter experiences from past wars.

By now this mindset was already engraved in their bones. Their race had paid a bitter price for being too lenient before.

Normally these simple spying jobs would be left to lowly clan members. However, since Josef tended to show pity to their enemies once in a while, his elders sent him to Earth as a punishment.

The first time the proud warrior watched a with being burned alive, he also understood the elders’ deeper thoughts.

Since those humans didn’t have any pity for each other, why should he pity them.

Still, until today he wasn’t able to fully let go of this flaw in his character.

Ever since he learned about the persecution of witches, Josef would also investigate those cases from time to time.

But this way Josef noticed something peculiar. While those women marked for execution were mostly scapegoats, rivals or just strange in general, there seemed to be irregularities among some reports.

Weirdly enough in some cases witnesses would assert that they had seen a woman use magic. However, in all those cases these women were never executed.

Either they vanished, they somehow managed to break free or the witnesses would have some kind of accident.

Those reports were so few in number that nobody would waste a second thinking about them.

However, this was different for Josef. As he continued to follow some clues, he became certain that the people these witnesses saw were refugees. They were really able to use magic.

Ironic how these real ‘witches’ never ended up executed. But for someone who fought in their war it was naturally easy to handle normal humans.

With this knowledge, Josef of course reacted strongly to clues about magic users on Earth. After all his clan sent him here to find those exact refugees. Therefore, David’s information had some worth to him.