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—A woman. There was a lone woman.
A woman still young enough that one would hesitate to call her a woman.
A thin body with plain clothes, dark, tanned skin, and green hair.
She was a woman who looked young enough that she might be described as a young maiden, but her heart was overwhelmed by unending worries.
It was an issue that could not be resolved, one that she had borne since birth.
“ ”
A supreme problem that she had pondered without end.
It was the natural order that existed in the world—black and white, good and evil.
Deeds that were just and deeds that were wrong.
There might be an infinite multitude of possibilities in the world, but every action could be judged to lie in one or the other of those two categories.
And this still-young maiden had a reason, a necessity to be struggling with that natural order.
It was her father who divided her world into black and white, righteousness and evil, good karma and bad.
“ ”
Her father’s occupation was beheading criminals, delivering a fitting punishment for wrongdoing.
It was his job to grant them a punishment befitting their crimes in the last moments of their life.
“—Executioner.”
At a young age, she had seen how her father conducted himself at the execution grounds.
The horrifically cruel actions, the dying throes of sinners losing their lives, the blood and death that filled the execution grounds.
—And the reason she was shown so much death was because none other than her father willed it.
To show that crimes are punished, that evil was fittingly rewarded.
Her father had tried to convey the faith in good and evil that he as an executioner believed in.
Her father’s intent was surely a noble one. His ideals were lofty.
However, considering the woman’s age, it was also self-righteous, and it was too soon to demand such ideals of her.
Having watched many people go to their deaths, she’d had the stench of blood and the sight of criminals being punished etched into her mind.
As a result, she learned the appropriate punishment for sin before she ever learned the sanctity of life or the natural order of life and death.
Good deeds begot good karma while evil deeds begot evil karma, corrupting the souls of sinners until they were fit to be punished.
With a firm understanding of her father’s teachings, she sought punishments to fit crimes. And so she desired a compass to guide herself, a scale of righteousness by which she could judge evil deeds as evil.
“ ”
However, the scale she sought did not exist anywhere that she looked.
There was no simple way to judge things good or evil. Right and wrong, crime and punishment were influenced by many different factors.
“ ”
She was still young and knew neither compromise nor resignation.
She needed to reach an answer. She needed to imbue within her heart a worthy scale with which to judge good and evil.
She needed to reach an answer to the question in her breast that refused to fade.
“ ”
Her days of anguish continued until suddenly, as if blessed from above, she received the answer.
After breaking her father’s wine cup, she cowered terribly at the crime she had committed.
Resolving herself to be beheaded, she confessed her sin to her father.
“Confessing your mistakes and apologizing is the right thing to do.”
Her father forgave her indiscretion, even smiling as he said that to her.
Seeing his smile and feeling his hand patting her head, the young woman understood.
—The measure of wrongdoing lay in none other than the heart of the criminal themselves.
Even if no one witnessed it, a criminal’s heart still knew their sin.
For good, she still did not know. Good was more difficult. There was no compass for good. She could not find a sure guide.
But guilt lay within one’s own mind.
There was no standard for what punishment befit what crime. But the consciousness of a crime befitting punishment did exist within one’s self.
The woman understood that and was satisfied, having finally found her scale.
The young woman, still unaware of the sanctity of life or the nature of life and death, had finally uncovered crimes worthy of punishment.
“ ”
Following the model of her executioner father, she set out into the world so that she might deliver fitting punishments to crimes.
To lay bare the hearts of sinners who merited punishment.
“ ”
The division of good and evil, right and wrong, sincerity and insincerity would be the culmination of her life’s work.
Faced with her question, some laughed, some looked concerned, and some were confused. But the result of all their answers was the same.
—There was sin worthy of punishment in all their hearts.
Look around. There is no one. There is no one here other than criminals who have been punished.
Stepping over the broken fragments of people, including her father, who was the last, the woman set off to fulfill the task she had set for herself. She left in search of crimes worthy of punishment.
—The Witch of Pride queried sins, delivered punishments, and continued to judge criminals.
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