Do Not Recklessly Rehabilitate Beasts - Chapter 3

“…Me?”

Melody stared at him, unable to grasp what he meant.

“You helped a wizard.”

“Gasp…!”

At those words that recalled her past, Melody’s eyes widened.

Only twice. No, three times. Or maybe more. It had been when she was very young. When she first started making magical tools and fancied herself some kind of fairy from a storybook. She had committed those acts without even knowing the strict laws of the temple.

She didn’t know how he had found out, but one thing was certain.

‘I’m screwed.’

Now that he knew that much, there was no room left to run.

“You know well what punishment awaits those who aid wizards.”

Flogging. Over thirty strokes of the cane. Since temple priests wouldn’t offer treatment after the punishment, many became crippled—or died.

Melody clenched her trembling fingertips into a fist. Crimson eyes bore into her as if measuring her worth.

She was nervous, but she calmed her breath and opened her mouth. “You’re not here to punish me, are you? If that were the case, you would’ve called in knights.”

“So you’re a magical tool developer. Sharp.”

“Not because I’m a magical tool developer. I was just born smart.”

“I like that.”

He smirked and continued, “Then you know what’ll happen if you refuse my request.”

Most likely, the temple’s flogging platform would be waiting for her.

“Come with me.”

Pretending to obey and then running later offered a better chance of survival than being beaten to death.

Melody followed Theonis. She had no other choice.

***

Theonis took her to a small house on the edge of the holy barrier. The pure white, transparent wall looked close enough to touch. Inside the empty room were a few chairs.

“Sit.”

“I’m fine.”

Though her legs trembled, Melody forced herself to stand firm. Having been dragged into the tiger’s den, she had to steel herself.

“Bring him in.”

At Theonis’s signal, soldiers dragged a gaunt, middle-aged man into the room. He had brown hair and a shaggy beard.

Unfortunately, Melody knew his face.

“N-no, it’s not her. It was someone taller.”

The man, Malone, shouted the moment he saw Melody.

A wizard, he couldn’t enter the holy barrier, but had begged to see his family one last time before dying. Melody hadn’t been able to ignore his plea and had helped him—that had been her mistake.

“Light green hair. Green eyes. About shoulder height. Pale and pretty face. Works inside the barrier.”

After saying far too much to deny, Malone violently shook his head, looking away from her.

“No. It’s not her. Punish me instead. Please.”

“Seeing her face suddenly makes you feel guilty?”

“……”

“Well, it doesn’t matter.”

Shing. With a chilling sound, Theonis drew a sharp sword. He pointed it at Malone.

“Stay still. It’ll be better that way.”

“Aaaagh!!”

As the sword came down, Malone let out a scream.

But there was no blood, no sliced flesh. Theonis had aimed elsewhere.

“Huff… Huff… I… I thought I was going to die. Th-thank you.”

Malone, collapsed on the floor, gasped as if he’d been cut. Melody, realizing what had been severed, shouted without thinking.

“No!!”

Even as she felt Theonis’s eyes on her, she didn’t hesitate. She rushed over, picked up the sandbag-shaped magical tool that had fallen, and shoved it into Malone’s hand. Regaining his senses, he finally exhaled in relief.

“Huh… Huff… I thought I was done for. Th-thank you.”

Melody shook her head as she looked at Malone, who was drenched in sweat and tears in just a short time. If she had been just a little faster, he wouldn’t have had to suffer this much.

“I’m sorry… I swore I’d never say anything. I didn’t mean to cause you trouble.”

“It’s okay.”

Knowing it had been unavoidable, her resentment turned toward Theonis.

“Do you know what that is?”

Theonis pointed to the magical tool in Malone’s hand and asked. There was an unreadable expression on his face.

“Tell me. What is it?”

His tone suggested he was sure she knew. Melody slowly opened her tightly shut eyes.

The holy barriers set up in every village to detect magical power. A magical tool designed to neutralize them, making it impossible to identify a wizard.

“Magic nullification device.”

Melody was the one who had created that tool.

***

Melody had made the magic nullification device during an especially harsh winter. Hunting yielded nothing, and Melody grew so thin that her stomach clung to her spine. Her father tried to send her into a village within the barrier.

“Darling, you have to listen carefully to what Daddy says now. Once you pass the barrier stone and enter the village, you’ll see a building marked with a white crescent moon.”

“Is it the temple?”

“Yes. Go there and tell the person in white robes that you don’t have a mother or a father. Tell them that, and they’ll take care of you. They’ll give you bread and soup. You can do that, right? Yes, my little angel.”

“But I have a daddy.”

“Let’s keep that just between us, okay?”

“Why? What about you? You’re not coming?”

“Daddy has to stay here.”

“I don’t like secrets. I just want to stay with you.”

But Melody didn’t want to go anywhere if it wasn’t with her father. That year, Melody created the magic nullification device, and the two of them were able to barely survive the winter inside the barrier.

The following year, her father declared he would never enter the barrier again.

“Melody, my little sprout, let’s not make any more magic nullification devices.”

“Why not? They have bread, meat, and chocolate snacks over there.”

“Sweetheart. Have you heard the saying, if the tail is too long, it’ll get caught?”

“Then I’ll just make a magical tool that hides the tail.”

“That’s impossible. Even the goddess leaves traces of her work.”

“What if there was a tool that could turn back time and erase it completely?”

“Even so, somewhere in the world, a trace will always remain.”

Her father had been right. Years later, when Melody fell ill with a high fever, her father used the magic nullification device to treat her—and some wandering wizards outside the barrier found out. Malone had been one of them.

‘I didn’t think I’d actually use this like this.’

Malone, secretly living inside the barrier, betrayed her to Theonis when he was caught and about to die.

Melody sighed and looked straight at Theonis.

There was now only one way she could survive.

“It’s true that I gave this man the magical tool, but I didn’t make it.”

Deny everything.

“Then who did?”

“…My late father. He made it when I was only nine years old. He never made another one after that.”

Her father wasn’t dead, but there was no need for Theonis to know that.

She expected him to be shocked if she denied it was her, but all Theonis did was twitch an eyebrow.

“Then you must not know about the fatal flaw in this magical tool.”

“I have… no idea.”

There was no way. She had checked it repeatedly because it was for her father’s use. Melody bit back the rebuttal that almost slipped out and asked, “There’s a problem… with the magical tool?”