The Tyrant’s Tranquilizer - Chapter 100

After locking the attic door, Lira returned to being human. Amelie yawned and asked Lira. 

“About praying. Do I have to do it?”

“Of course. A witch should start their day by praying to the demon!”

Lira began to explain to Amelie about the pose a witch should have while praying. 

On a daily basis, pray, memorize scripture, live a respectful life, and so on.

‘Are you supposed to keep it all memorized? Are you a monk?’

Amelie regretted that she had brought Lira for nothing. Lira was getting ready to pray while nagging Amelie. After she took out the altar and installed it as she had seen in advance, she took out a black cloak and handed it to Amelie.

“Wear this. You should wear black when you pray.”

“Come to think of it, Lira is also wearing black.”

“Witches wear black.”

“I see.”

Amelie received the black cloak and wore it, Lira put the hood on Amelie and arranged her hair.

“You’re reciting a prayer with your knees bent and your hands together. Do you know the prayer to start the morning?”

Amelia shook her head.

“I’ve read it, but I can’t memorize it.”

“Then follow me. I’ll take it slow.”

“Yes.”

After lighting the candle, Lira bent her knees and put her hands together.

The orange candle created a different atmosphere in the room, which was bluish in the light of dawn.

Lira recited the prayer. Her soft voice filled the room. The smoke from the incense candle enveloped them like a cloud. 

Amelie looked at Lira, copying her clumsily. Heat shadowed her serious face. There was an air of reverence and solemnity, but Amelie couldn’t be as serious as Lira. It was like a religious belief that she never had in her life. It was an amazing experience, but that was all it was, similar to when she went to church with her friend. 

‘Is it because I’m possessing Amelie technically?’

What would be different if she copied Lira? Amelie closed her eyes in doubt and concentrated on the prayer.

******

“How was your first prayer?”

The prayer was over and Lira asked. Lira was convinced that Amelie would have felt something. Such as respect for the demon or special feelings. However, Amelie, who felt nothing until the end of the prayer, smiled at her and asked Lira back. 

“Do you always pray this long? My legs are numb.”

Lira, who frowned at Amelie’s answer, was about to nag when she heard a knock.

“Amelie.”

It was Serwin’s voice.

“Can I open it?”

“Whatever.”

Lira folded her arms and turned around, acting as if she didn’t want to see him. 

“I’ll open it.”

Amelie opened the door, looking at Lira.

“I thought it’s almost over.”

Serwin, who was standing in front of the door timidly, added like an excuse.

“It’s over. Come in.”

Amelie let him into the attic. As his eyes turned to the altar, Lira magically moved it away. 

“I think the meal is ready. Let’s go down.”

“Yes!”

She was hungry because she had been moving since early morning. Amelie was excited to leave the attic when she thought of Lira.

“Oh, that’s right. I’ve been wondering about this for a while.”

“Wondering something? What is it?”

Serwin lowered his head avidly, paying attention to what Amelie was saying.

“Don’t you smell anything from Lira?”

“If it’s the smell, the smell of a stray cat?”

Lira looked irritably at Serwin. They’re going to fight again. Amelia added. 

“Something like the same scent you smell from me.”

When they first met, Serwin said he smelled something different from her. And he said that the smell makes him comfortable. Amelie wondered if it was because she was a witch or if she was special.

“Not at all.”

Serwin glanced at Lira and strongly denied it.

“Check it properly. It’s the first time the two of you have seen each other calmly.”

“Absolutely not.”

Even after Amelie turned into an animal, something like an echo remained and attracted Serwin. However, even when Lira stood face to face in a human form, he felt nothing. 

Serwin didn’t like it, but he held Amelie’s hand and stood quietly in front of Lira as she led him.

Lira looked at Serwin angrily. Serwin also didn’t like her, so he sharply hit Lira’s gaze with his own. 

‘Oh, here we go again.’

The second fight began. They will see each other more often in the future, but what if they keep doing this? Amelie imagined her own future of suffering from being caught between the two. She can’t, she has to do something. 

“You two should shake hands.”

Amelie grabbed Lira’s hand and made her meet Serwin’s hand. Serwin has no choice but to do it as Amelie tells him to. 

“I look forward to your kind cooperation.”

Amelie then looked at Lira. Lira said reluctantly at her sparkling gaze.

“I also look forward to your kind cooperation.”

Good, good. 

Amelie smiled. It was a method that seemed to work only for children in kindergarten, but what if she should try something like this? 

Lira and Serwin quickly raised their hands after confirming that Amelie was satisfied.

“How is it?”

“Not at all, I don’t feel anything.”

“I see.”

It was a pity for Amelia. If she could stabilize him because she was a witch, Lira could have taken over her role in the event of an emergency, and the scope of her activities would have been expanded to investigate the disaster to her heart’s content. 

Serwin sensed her thoughts. He couldn’t help but know because her feelings were shown on her face.

‘Is it okay if you have someone else do it for you?’

He didn’t like it unless it was Amelie. He had become fond of her at first because she had stabilized him, but now, he liked her very existence. Not only did she relieve his own pain, but she understood and comforted the side of him that even he thought was terrifying. To him, who had been fighting self-hatred all his life, she was a savior and a unique being. 

‘It’s terrible to think that someone else would do it for me.’

Meanwhile, the thought of Amelie spending time, sleeping, and cuddling with someone other than him made him jealous. But she didn’t seem to mind.

“Amelie.”

“Yes?”

Serwin supported Amelie’s head with one hand at the back of her neck and covered her cheek with the other. Amelie blinked her eyes in embarrassment. 

“Your Majesty?”

He looked into Amelie’s eyes. There was no negative emotion in her clear mint eyes. It was so different from him, who was full of jealousy and the desire to monopolize.

Serwin’s mood subsided in an instant.

“It has to be you. There is no one that can replace you.”

Amelie’s eyes shook slightly. It was too small a move to figure out what that meant. But at least he seemed to know that she had a different mindset from him. Up until now, Serwin had thought that she liked him too. Every time he approached her, she didn’t refuse, and she didn’t hide her excitement. Serwin later realized that he had misunderstood.

‘This isn’t going to work.’

It will be like this for the rest of his life. He felt a sense of crisis.

******

Amelie went down to the attic, had breakfast, and sent Serwin off to the Imperial Palace. When she returned, Lira took Amelie back to the attic. Because the attic was the best place for her to comfortably talk about witches and magic. 

“Sit down.”

Amelie sat down on the table chair, and Lira took her seat on the table, maintaining her cat’s appearance. 

“Are you going to do it like that?”

“Yeah. Unless it’s time to pray, I’ll continue to be a cat. I find it difficult to see some people’s faces.”

It was obvious who she was talking about.

“Is it because of Sir Chad?”

“Do you have to ask that?”

“If Lira is uncomfortable, I’ll ask someone to change it to another knight.”

She had a good relationship with Chad, but that didn’t mean he had to stick with her as an escort. If Lira felt burdened by him, Amelie was willing to consider him and replace him with another escort knight. 

“Never mind. Don’t do anything useless.”

Lira rolled her eyes. Amelie was slightly perplexed. 

‘No, you say it’s hard to see his face? But you don’t want it to be replaced?’

“Don’t think about anything else, focus. I’m going to start now.”

“…Yes.”

Amelie was very curious as to what was going on between Lira and Chad, but it was unlikely that Lira would tell her. 

“First of all, I’ve never taught anyone. So even if it’s a little sloppy, I’ll do it. There’s no order in teaching witches.”

“Yes.”

Amelie straightened her posture and focused on Lira. As Amelie’s passionate gaze was burdensome, Lira slowly turned her gaze away. 

“Then where should we start—”

When she tried to teach, she was at a loss where to start.

“I decided to explain why the temple disappeared by telling the history of witches.”

“Oh, that’s right. Then from there.”

Lira began a long story.

“Before the empire was formed, the faith in demons was recognized as a decent religion.”

Just like people now go to church, in the past, they worshiped demons and prayed for blessings in this life and in the future. 

The social position of witches was also very different from what it is today. They lived among the people and were respected as priests. It was even more special because only the daughters of a witch family could become witches. 

“It is said that when we pray, the demon grants us the power to perform miracles. It was important in the lives of ancient people.” 

It was a strong religion beyond the status of the church now. But one day, the demon disappeared. No matter how much the witches prayed and performed rituals, the demon didn’t answer. Since then, there have been no instances of demons descending into this world. In an instant, the witches lost their God. 

“Why did the demon disappear?”

Lira shook her head at Amelie’s question. Not knowing the reason, the witches had no choice but to wait for the return of the demon. 

The witches still had magic that was given to them by their demon. As long as there was that, they could believe in the existence of the Demon God and wait. But ordinary people were different. As a long time passed, the existence of the demon was gradually forgotten. People began to worship other Gods, and witch magic gradually became unfamiliar and terrifying.

“Naturally, the witches were kicked out of their original homes. When they tried to settle down, they were kicked out again, and they repeatedly hid into the forest and fled into the mountains.” 

As they left the temple, they promised to return, but as they wandered from generation to generation, they forgot its location. It wasn’t just one or two things that were lost in that way.

“After hearing your words, I searched for records about what happened a thousand years ago. But I couldn’t find any records of the disaster anywhere. There is no information about that time period at all.” 

Lira took the book from Brillai’s house, and quickly looked for any mention of the disaster. However, after the demon disappeared, about a hundred years passed, and the story began again when the empire was founded.

“But how?”

“The ancestors were reluctant to record, so most of their knowledge was handed down through spoken word. The remaining records have been documented for decades. They couldn’t record the knowledge that had been lost before that.”

Lira nodded her head. She lived in a human village and heard the story of the founding of the country. The witch society is closed, so most of the people who are witches don’t even know about it. She herself didn’t take the void in history seriously. It was not strange to sum it up in one sentence, that one hundred years was a chaotic period in a thousand-year-old history. But if the disaster was spreading and the world was on the verge of destruction, things would be different, or at least worth a footnote.

“I don’t understand that nobody knows about that period.”

“Me too.”

Considering that the chaos of the era was a perfect excuse to not have any records remaining, it was natural that the story of the later era wouldn’t be told at all. But there was a blank space as if it had been deleted on purpose. 

Was it simply forgotten in confusion, or was it not transmitted because of some other reason? If the latter, what happened to the witches during that period? 

The two put their heads together and pondered for a long time, but couldn’t find out the truth.