Execution by Fire

This world had few forms of entertainment—or rather, commoners had few forms of entertainment. Once night fell, they obediently stayed home and slept.

Roya City normally enforced a curfew. Aside from special personnel such as Church clergy and defense forces, no one else was allowed outside after dark.

Of course, there were occasional exceptions, such as special festivals or executions by fire. Only then were ordinary citizens allowed out at night, and most people would celebrate in the nearby streets amid the aroma of roasting meat in every sense of the phrase.

When Adam returned after fetching water, he heard Maggie calling for him.

"We're not buying Pickle Pie today. Help me make more meat pies—we should make quite a bit tonight." The Boku Family wasn't wealthy. Their main income usually came from Pickle Pie and the wooden goods Yalis made. Occasionally, the two of them had to take on odd jobs to help support the household.

In an era when commoners had to exhaust every effort simply to stay alive, and any spare time at night was cause for celebration, no one cared who the person tied to the stake and about to be burned to death was.

For the even more industrious Maggie, the curfew being lifted tonight meant it would be easier to sell meat pies and other snacks. She didn't care about anything else.

Adam, however, was somewhat interested in the person on the stake. After all, they were one of the people the Church called "beasts."

He believed he wasn't the only Otherkind who wanted to cross the Roya Border Wall into the Loken Kingdom. Roya City had to be hiding quite a few Otherkind, and if he could get in touch with them, he might have more options. Though he hadn't yet figured out how to approach them.

He wondered whether they would come to watch the execution.

By the time they loaded the meat pies into woven baskets, the light outside had already dimmed. Yalis and Maggie were ready as well, each carrying a basket, while Lina followed them toward the intersection.

Quite a few people were already out on the streets, gathering in twos and threes as they chatted and laughed about neighborhood gossip. The atmosphere was quite harmonious.

As Adam carried his basket through the crowd, he noticed soldiers maintaining order among the people. Some of them were even scanning the crowd for something.

Seeing that, Adam felt the chances of encountering other Otherkind this time were very low.

After all, not every Otherkind could blend in with ordinary people as seamlessly as Adam did.

Under the Church's methods of inspection, most Otherkind found it difficult to hide their abnormalities.

For example, silver was a Werewolf's bane. Adam's regenerative ability in his transformed state was absurdly powerful. The moment blood spurted from a cut, the wound had already begun to heal.

But if the wound was inflicted by a silver weapon, not only would his regeneration be suppressed to its lowest point, it would also poison him.

For Werewolves turned later in life, even touching silver in human form would burn them. That was why many constables carried silver items on them, leaving many Werewolves with nowhere to hide.

"Looks like no Otherkind will show up." Adam wasn't too disappointed. He had barely interacted with other Otherkind, and all his information came from books.

Without sufficient strength, rashly approaching other Otherkind wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Soon, the sky darkened completely, and people began gathering at the street corner.

Under the crisscrossing blaze of countless torches, light and shadow shifted across Adam's face. Perhaps one day, he too would be tied to that stake and watched by such a crowd.

All kinds of scents mingled at the scene, but when the person wrapped in a burlap sack was brought out, Adam caught the smell of herbs.

"A witch doctor?" Adam frowned. Witch doctors were considered a gray profession. Most practitioners were human, able to use all manner of strange materials to brew miraculous potions.

Since the potions they produced were quite effective, Church clergy generally turned a blind eye to witch doctors.

Generally speaking, only those guilty of heinous crimes were executed by fire. A witch doctor shouldn't have been brought to the stake unless they had been stripped of their status as a person.

As soldiers tied the suspected witch doctor to the wooden frame, a white-bearded old man in clerical robes stepped before the pyre and began reading out the condemned man's crimes.

"Criminal Butis brewed magical drugs through evil means and committed heinous crimes. The South District Church sentences him to execution by fire!"

"Burn him! Burn him!" Once the verdict had been announced, the onlookers began roaring.

The person tied to the stake continued struggling, but clergy carrying torches had already approached the platform.

Blending into the crowd, Adam watched the flames dancing atop the torches. He suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and shouted along with everyone else.

As everyone's attention was drawn to the torches being thrown, Adam saw someone force their way out of the crowd.

The man's eyes glowed green. As he lunged forward, blackish-gray fur sprouted from his body, his muzzle lengthened, and he transformed into a giant humanoid wolf, tearing his shirt to shreds.

His huge palm swept aside the people blocking his path as the Werewolf howled and charged toward the platform.

Adam vaguely felt a certain impact, causing his bloodline to stir slightly. It felt as though he could transform at any moment and howl in response.

"Is my control over my transformation weakening as my bloodline nears maturity?"

The Werewolf's sudden attack filled the nearby spectators with terror. Adam was just about to scream along with them when the white-bearded cleric who had read the verdict shouted.

"Calm!"

The voice was like the sound of a water droplet falling in the silent night. It became the entirety of one's world, making them obey it instinctively. The crowd, which had panicked when the Werewolf appeared, fell silent in an instant.

As for the seemingly unstoppable Werewolf charging toward the platform, before he could reach the person tied to the stake, a young cleric rushed out from the side. The ceremonial sword in his hand left its sheath with a golden radiance, and Adam seemed to hear the faint chime of rules themselves.

The thrust came from an extremely tricky angle, driving straight through the Werewolf's throat.

Thick green smoke poured from the Werewolf's throat. His massive hand twitched twice, and as the young cleric pulled out his ceremonial sword, he collapsed onto the platform.

"Cleric Fula."

That young cleric was the very one who had thought highly of Adam and lent him Divine Word.

Adam truly hadn't expected Cleric Fula to possess such strength. His gaze flickered twice before shifting away from the young cleric and meeting the Werewolf corpse's wide-open eyes. Despair seemed to linger within them.

Thick black smoke drifted from the wound in the corpse's throat. The Werewolf's body rapidly shrank, reverting to a human man wearing only underwear, his upper body bare.

Seeing the man's face, Adam lowered his head as though he couldn't bear to look at the corpse. In truth, he was hiding the upward curl of his lips.

He had indeed felt sympathy for one of his kind before, but the other's despair had shown him even greater hope.

Just as Adam had known, most Otherkind couldn't conceal their abnormalities. Yet they hadn't gone extinct despite the Church's searches, so naturally, they had ways of escaping inspection.

"The so-called magical drug brewed by that witch doctor must have been a potion that suppressed abnormalities." Adam recognized that Werewolf. The man had even bought several Pickle Pies from him, and Adam had completely failed to notice that he was a Werewolf at the time.

Adam had gathered information on most people he could come into contact with. This Werewolf had lived in the South District for many years, and that was precisely why he hadn't chosen to flee after the witch doctor selling potions to conceal abnormalities was arrested.

He had grown accustomed to life in the South District and couldn't accept a future on the run. That was why he had charged the execution ground in such despair.

Perhaps there were other ways to conceal a Werewolf's abnormalities, but for a Werewolf whose life had been upended, they no longer held any meaning. This attack had merely been a bid for death.

Adam was delighted because this was an opportunity for him. He knew little about developing the power of his bloodline, but he was very familiar with hiding it, such as through certain secret rituals.

"Those Otherkind who have lost their means of concealing their abnormalities yet refuse to flee will inevitably need a new shelter."

"And I can become that shelter!"

The execution by fire proceeded as scheduled. The witch doctor, whose mouth had been covered, didn't disrupt this bonfire celebration, while the aftermath of the Werewolf's attack was erased by the clergy's divine arts.

Selling meat pies, Adam gradually moved farther away from the stake behind him.