Chapter 5: Please save me.

If you wait in the same place for days, someone I have to target will appear.

When the crosshairs beyond the flawed convex lens intersected with the tumbler-shaped figure, I held my breath and put force on my finger.

With a sharp noise, the piece of metal with a mass of 147 grains flew, and the tumbler fell.

Even if I quietly looked at the image formed through the small glass window, I didn’t feel anything. There was an excellent mental buffer between us called distance.

A chest heaving from catching my breath, eyes hating someone, and a body with a sunken spot somewhere.

I couldn’t hear any screams. There was only a nasty gunpowder smell, a numb recoil, and a tumbler falling alone.

Early morning.

While listening to the restaurant owner’s morning greetings, Kitty stirred the warm soup with sluggish hands while maintaining a deadpan expression.

“You don’t look good. I think your dark circles have gotten a little longer?”
“I had a dog-like nightmare.”
“That’s too bad. Have another loaf of bread.”

Kitty received the bread thrown by the restaurant owner in one hand, immediately soaked it in the soup, and put it in her mouth.

She seemed to regain her vitality, and her focus returned with a pleasant burp.

“Burp. As expected, carbohydrates when you’re not feeling well… Who are you?”
“Are you Kitty Oppenheimer?”

Kitty looked at the high-handed soldier who had come in and was looking back and forth between the paper and herself.

“That’s me.”

Kitty, half nervous and half fearful, readily revealed her identity.

“Is that so? Kitty Oppenheimer. I’m arresting you on charges of witchcraft.”
“I knew my dream was going to be dog-like, f*ck…”

Prison.

The word “prison” itself seems to have a magic that makes people avoid it. Especially when the word “underground” is attached to it.

The air was very stuffy and humid, and the only light source was a torch attached to a pillar somewhere, so just being here seemed to be enough punishment.

Unlike modern times, where human rights were given to dogs, the body odor of inmates who hadn’t washed for days and the smell of rust clinging to the iron bars mixed in, making it feel like I was a victim of guilt-by-association.

“So! I didn’t make it!”
“Isn’t this handwriting yours?”

The soldier who arrested Kitty shook the paper in front of Kitty’s nose.

On the paper was drawn a unique bullet structure with a conical shape, which is called a Nessler bullet used in smoothbore muskets in the original history.

Kitty didn’t understand at all. I made the gun, which was otherwise just a primitive iron ball that couldn’t hit anything unless it was right in front of it, so that it could at least do a person’s job.

Why would they arrest me and kill me like this instead of inviting me to the military and begging me to tell them?

Something was wrong. So Kitty decided to look at the situation a little more objectively.

“This accuracy is impossible without the sorcery of a witch!”
“Are you a humanities major? Don’t you know fluid mechanics?”
“Fluid… what? You’ve finally revealed your true colors! Witch! You must have lured the townspeople with that kind of spell!”
“I lured the townspeople?”

Kitty was dumbfounded. More than when she saw a cartoon where people are split in half and die.

“Yes! Ever since you gathered the people, they suddenly started doing something called voting, and they started refusing to raise taxes with something called an agreement!”
“Ah…”

Kitty slammed her knee with her handcuffed arm.

She seemed to be involved in a very troublesome problem.

These political problems are like ticking time bombs. If you don’t perfectly understand the circuit where several lines are intertwined, it will explode immediately.

And Kitty had definitely touched the wrong line.

That was probably the displeasure of the higher-ups or the lifeline. Or both.

Kitty used her furiously spinning brain to check her status!

Orphan, no connections, no property, commoner, super cute.

The only thing she had was two balls. 

Kitty, who had perfectly checked everything, threw a divine move.

“Please save me. I’ll just leave quietly.”

She begged like a dog.

Governor’s office.

The governor is in a good mood.

Is it because he picked up 5 coppers on the way to work?

Or is it because the taste of black tea is deeper today?

Or is it because the accuracy of his unit members has recently increased magically?

“I feel like I’m going to meet a noble person.”
“I don’t know about a noble person, but a witch was just caught.”
“Witch?”
“Oh, that’s right.”

The governor put down the black tea he was drinking and looked at the adjutant sorting out the documents.

Then the adjutant realized that he had made a mistake and feigned ignorance, but that appearance looked even more suspicious, and when the governor used his rank to persistently ask, the adjutant eventually had no choice but to spit out the truth.

“That’s…”

The adjutant’s words were quite shocking.

Recently, the commander of the military police, angry that people were not readily accepting the tax increase because of a child who was agitating the people in the frontier village, was plotting a terrible plan to quietly deal with the child by branding him as a witch.

“People were shaken by listening to such a young child?”
“That’s right! In fact, there’s a rumor that she’s just a child on the outside and actually a spy for the elven bastards…”
“I see… That’s a possibility. But you know, when did I tell you to raise taxes?”
“Huh?”
“It seems like I have a lot to talk about with you, so stay comfortably with the commander of the military police in the basement.”

As soon as the governor snapped his fingers, men with ropes appeared as if they had been waiting and tightly wrapped the body of the adjutant, who was wailing, and took him somewhere.

Looking at the adjutant being dragged away, the governor felt more pain than relief at the fact that the unit was so corrupt, even though it was a frontier village.

He thought that it was better that he got caught, whether he got filtered out or not. Seeing him secretly carry it out and mess it up with a stupid slip of the tongue, he thought it was a good thing.

“By the way, a witch… To try to put the empty concept that was created to suppress female magicians during the era of the new king on her. The commander of the military police is really nasty.”

In the room that had become quiet in an instant, the governor took his coat and the key to the underground prison and went outside.

Back to prison.

Is this possible? It seemed that Kim Chun-sik had taken this world too easily.

“Then it’s a unanimous death sentence.”
“Wait a minute, f*ck. What about the trial?”

When Kitty, who was startled, asked for something that was really obvious, everyone in the underground prison tilted their heads.

“Trial? Are you a Nobilla or something?”
“Huh?”

Kitty couldn’t understand at all. Even if you commit fraud for 500,000 mesos, the trial is something you get to have, but why are they suddenly talking about Nobilla?

It was strange. It looked too sloppy and urgent. Even if I angered the higher-ups, how could the military impose such a private sanction?

It seemed that it was an act committed voluntarily because the lower-class people didn’t get any benefits. Most of these things are quickly revealed within a few days. That’s how reckless the action is, and in other words, there’s no way for me to live here.

“You sons of b*tches. Even when Joseon was annexed, they still had trials, you barbarians!”
“Judging by the nonsense, she’s definitely a witch. No reversals.”

The Nobilla they were talking about was the traditional ruling class of this country.

They were the so-called blue-blooded people, and they had a talent for magic, and they were the ones who had naturally ruled over people since ancient times.

I regretted it. Damn it, if I had known this was going to happen, I should have put in a little more effort to sell my feet and wear frilly clothes instead of a suit.

But that was a vain thought. Clothes that the Nobilla class would wear started at a minimum of 150 gold. 50 silver was not enough.

The men who had hastily decided Kitty’s disposition, as if they were so urgent, took out pistols from their pockets and put them on Kitty’s forehead.

Kitty froze. An object that was always close and that she wanted to keep far away. The muzzle looked like the woman in the basement staring intently from deep within the bottom of a well.

The trigger was pulled halfway, and Kitty closed her eyes tightly.

“Then let’s go quickly.”
“Ugh…!”

What? It didn’t hurt. I could breathe, and there was no hot flash that should have been felt on my head.

Kitty opened her eyes cautiously, wondering if it was real.

Then she saw the soldier who had pointed the gun trembling and taking a salute.

“What are you doing now?”
“Gove…Governor…!”

A man with a white admiral’s hat on his head was scolding the soldier who couldn’t control his body.

“I asked you what you’re doing now.”
“That… That’s…”

The soldier, who then realized that he was holding a pistol in his left hand, hurriedly hid it behind his back, but it was too late.

The man with the admiral’s hat, who roughly grasped the situation, narrowed his eyes and snapped his fingers once again.

Then the burly men he had seen earlier appeared, arrested everyone except Kitty and the man, and took them somewhere again.