1. I Will Refrain From the Death Penalty

Episode 3

The cheerful response was strangely low and heavy. As soon as I was about to dig more into the subtle emotional change, I could feel another presence outside the bars.

“Giselle Roycevin.”

With a chilly call, an assassin’s shadow appeared.

He was then holding a longsword in his hand.

“No matter how much I think about it, I can’t let a witch like you die gracefully.”

“I’m sorry, but who are you..?”

(tl/n: so basically, in the past chapter and beginning of this chapter, Giselle was conversing with an ‘assassin’ who gave her the black poison bottle. She couldn’t see who she was talking to yet, but she was asking for help to escape if she didn’t die. While she was talking to the first assassin, another assassin appeared with a sword to kill her.)

“Ha, I’m the fiance of an innocent woman you killed!”

I didn’t know who the assassin was, but I could tell that he was a victim with a huge grudge against Giselle. In addition, he seems to be trying to bully and kill me very painfully with a sword, not poison. The eyes were really scary.

“Oh, I see..”

I can understand that resentment because I don’t know Giselle’s evil deeds, but I don’t want to suffer instead because I took this body.

Sadly, the prison was narrow and there was no place for me to run away. All I can do is to keep the distance as far as possible from the bars, so I kept my back close to the inner wall and looked at the man.

The man stared at me crouching in the corner of the prison and took out the key.

You stole the prison key from the soldiers so easily? What were the soldiers out there doing?

“Even a witch like you is scared to die, right?”

The man seemed very satisfied with my fear.

What should I do? I think I’ll die if I get stabbed. It’s not just dying, but the atmosphere is that he was about to torture me. The original setting was poison. How can I be threatened with a sword?

“Make sure to scream as much as you want. No one will come to save you anyway.”

Looking at the key in that man’s hand, the soldiers won’t save me.

I took a swig of the poison bottle I was holding without further consideration. The sour smell of liquid filled my mouth.

“What’s that? What are you doing..?!”

“I took poison. Now help me!”

The assassin paused at my desperate cry. He hurriedly looked around. However, the surrounding area was full of silence. The man, who was nervous for a while, soon turned his attention to me.

Crash!

I threw the black poison bottle at a man. Naturally, it could not hurt my opponent at all.

“You said you’d help me if I didn’t die, you jerk!”

He’s a bad guy. He doesn’t keep what he says.

“I heard rumors that the witch was crazy in prison, but I didn’t know it was true.”

The man laughed while looking at me fidgeting. The moment his sword went up.

“I said I’d think about it, I’ve never been sure.”

A black shadow fluttered behind the new assassin who had a grudge.

“But I admit it was interesting.”

“Huh, what?”

The shadow quickly inflated its size and swallowed the assassin.

The assassin, who had been eaten by the shadow, struggled with an astonishing look, but the shadow quickly dyed the man’s body black.

And finally, as soon black covered his neck and face, the man’s skin dried up as if he were being squeezed.

“Ugh!”

It was so gross that I closed my eyes tightly and covered my mouth with my hands.

The sword fell on the floor and made a loud noise. Subsequently, there was a sound of someone falling down.

Considering the man’s physique, it should be dull and heavy, but it sounded light as if a straw doll had fallen.

“You’re good at drinking poison, but you’re not very good at this.”

A pleasant voice was heard close up. As I opened my eyes carefully, I saw someone else bending over the dead body of the assassin who had tried to kill me with his sword.

Looking at it, he was picking up the poison bottle I threw. It seemed like he was checking to see if it was empty.

(tl/n: So now, the first assassin just killed the sword assassin. Hope this makes sense lmao.)

“Mr. Assassin?”

“Yes, an assassin.”

Replying in a light tone, he rolled the bottle around over his palm. Black hair was seen scattered along the slightly tilted head. Unlike other assassins, he had made no effort to cover his face. Thanks to this, his white and pale face and red eyes were revealed.

While looking at the bottle, he looked down at me. Even though it was dark, those red eyes were very clear. I was glad rather than afraid of those blood-like colors, because it was the first time I entered this body and someone looked at me without any hostility.

“Aren’t you going to check if you brought something wrong?”

There must still be a drop in the bottle. He smiled with his eyes at my question.

“I didn’t bring anything wrong.”

Finally, an assassin who does not take the poison himself has appeared. In the midst of daze, I admired and closed my lips. There seemed to be still a remnant of the poison that resembles the taste of green grapes on my tongue.

I realized it again.

All the poison in this world must taste like fruit.

~*~

Escape was too easy.

It was so easy that it was ridiculous. This is because the man snapped his finger a couple of times, creating a huge magic circle, and the place changed as it was. Of course, I had a little dizziness and nausea as a side effect, but that was all.

For me, who was determined to face the soldiers, run hard, or crawl through a narrow passage, it was a bit disappointing

“Do you want me to send you back?”

“No, it’s not like that. I wonder why the prison was so lax.. I wonder if there was a reason why so many assassins have been hiding..”

“You don’t have to be sad. Since I used magic openly, it will be officially recorded that you escaped the prison with black magic. Now it’s not just being stoned on the street, but an execution if caught. You’ll have a pretty big reward on your neck.”

Are you really saying that with a refreshing smile?

While staring at him, I looked around for now.

It was a narrow alley. The buildings seem to be mainly made of stone, but there was dirt on them and moss-like things covered the gaps. The road was not properly maintained, so it was bumpy, and muddy water was also accumulated in several places.

“Oh, is it a tough sight for a precious young girl to see?”

It’s not because I’m a precious young girl, but because I’m not from this world, I can’t adapt. The reason why I realized that this was reality even though it was like a movie set was because of the vivid smell of various odors.

No, in the first place, I had already confirmed it from the black magic a while ago. In the world of 『Poison Apple』 , black magic is the most evil power and the main means of villains.

Giselle Roycevin, who I possessed, decorated the hideout with the help of Wayne Eyeore, the final villain and the last person surviving in the novel, who is also a black wizard himself. In Wayne’s case, dreaming of a revival of black magic, he attracted black magicians under his command and confronted the male protagonist.

Thinking that far, I suddenly looked at the man standing next to me.

From a brighter point of view, he was tall and handsome. The flaw may be that his skin was so pale that he looked weak at first glance, but being handsome seemed to replace that flaw.

I don’t think such a gracious appearance would be given to a passing extra..

However, no one came to mind when I looked back on whether there were characters with black hair and red eyes.

Of course, he was not the main character, nor was he the person around the main character. The villain was described as having silver hair at first glance.

Oh, come to think of it..

“What?”

“I’m grateful to your parents for giving birth to you handsomely.. No, it’s not this. Are you a black wizard?”

The man replaced the answer with a shrug.

“Are you a member of ‘Dark Cloud’?”

Dark Cloud was a term referring to the organization of the Black Wizard led by Wayne. A group of all kinds of talented people based on black magic, to be precise.

In the beginning, only a vague code of “dark clouds are coming” came out, but in the novel, the reality is revealed little by little only after the mid-to-late part, but maybe now is that time.

Having been contemplating, I asked again.

“Then, Wayne’s servant?”

Looking at the assassin who looked at me strangely without answering, I remembered the conversation I had in prison earlier.

Didn’t I yell that I would go under Wayne?

“What’s your name?”

“Leniel.”

As expected, nothing came to mind when I heard the name. Is he just an extra that passed by?

There was no supporting role around Wayne whom I could remember his name, so it was highly likely that he was just passing by.

It’s a relief. I haven’t even made a proper plan for my future yet, but it’s difficult to get caught up with the central characters.

Black wizards belong to an organization called Dark Cloud, but they were all self-centered people. Giselle also joined hands with a black wizard who was engaged in individual activities, so it was most reasonable to assume that Leniel was personally hired by someone and came to assassinate me.

“Good, Leniel. What I said earlier was a problem that wasn’t agreed upon with you, so your boss..”

“I told you I know.”

He shook his hand as if he was bothered and blocked me. Seeing that attitude, it seemed that he would not go to his boss and say, “Don’t hire her because she is crazy”.

Maybe they don’t work close enough for him to say that.

“But are you going to stay here the whole time?”

“What?”

“This is near the tower where you were locked up. The search team will be released soon.”

Near the tower? I quickly checked the surroundings again. At first, I didn’t know because I was so impressed by the unfamiliar style of the building or the smell stabbing my nose, but I could see a stone pagoda standing very close to me.

I could tell just by looking at the exterior of the tower. It’s not a romantic tower where the princess lives, but a hideous prison where the worst prisoners can enter.

‘Would it be a little better to go further using magic?’