They had to move under the cover of darkness.
Naturally, moving as a group carried a high risk of being caught, so the strategy was to act individually.
The plan had already been set.
They had also determined the course of action for any unforeseen circumstances.
Most importantly, all the secret passageways they needed to use had been secured.
“There are a total of seven secret passageways in the royal castle. One long passage leading from the king’s residence to the outside of the castle. Two other passages leading to that passage. And four more secret passages connecting the inner and outer castles.”
Gester, who had been interested in exploration since childhood, enjoyed playing hide-and-seek using the castle’s secret passageways.
Strictly speaking, only direct royal family members like his father and mother knew of these passages, so he used them as hiding spots to attract the attention of his busy parents.
It was an embarrassing childhood memory, but thanks to that experience, Gester could visualize the castle’s secret passages as if they were drawn before his eyes.
And this was the result.
“Diego, you guard the passage leading outside the castle.”
“Shall I block it completely?”
“Yes.”
To prepare for any emergencies, Diego was placed in a position where he could access all the passages.
With his extraordinary sensory abilities, he would immediately notice if an ally was in trouble and provide support.
Additionally, the two passages connected to his were linked to the barracks of the castle guards.
If things went south, Diego was the only one capable of subduing them.
Halia continued speaking.
“The four of us will head to the inner castle and search for the annex. Conveniently, there are exactly four passages, so the numbers work out perfectly.”
Usher, Bersia, Gester, and Halia would each take a different passage leading to the inner castle.
Their target was the palace known as the ‘Garden of Flowers,’ where the king’s concubines resided.
Gester frowned.
“Building a separate palace just for concubines? No matter how I think about it, it’s absurd.”
At the earlier banquet, Halia had exchanged information with the mercenary captains.
By pretending to be naive, she had gathered several interesting pieces of information.
Among them, the one that caught their attention was about this palace.
“There are eleven concubines, and each has been given a separate annex. These annexes are called palaces, collectively forming the ‘Garden of Flowers.’ Their locations are spread out, so the search area is wide, but doesn’t this arrangement make things clearer?”
For a palace servant, attending an important event should be natural, yet there were no witches among the servants at the banquet.
Considering that fact along with the gathered information, a conclusion could be drawn.
A concubine’s residence was the perfect place to hide a witch.
It allowed them to move freely within the castle, meet the king at any time, and avoid unnecessary public appearances.
To hide a witch, one simply had to make her the king’s concubine.
“Leave it to me.”
Usher answered on behalf of the group.
With that, they split up and infiltrated their respective routes.
Left alone, Usher fiddled with the dagger inside his coat as he entered the northwestern secret passage.
The first thing he checked was whether there were any traces of recent passage.
‘None. This passage hasn’t been used in years.’
Only then did Usher allow himself a small sigh of relief.
Inside here, at least for now, there was no immediate threat of an ambush.
He had been tense the entire time leading up to entering the passage, expending a great deal of focus.
He slowed his pace to conserve stamina, keeping one hand on the dagger inside his coat and the other brushing his neck.
It was not a meaningless gesture.
At the end of the passage, Usher sensed movement beyond the wall.
He held his breath.
He measured the footsteps and breathing.
A woman—probably a passing maid.
A perfect target.
Swish!
“…!”
Usher leaped from behind the wall, instantly subduing the maid and pressing his dagger to her throat.
Lowering his voice, he spoke.
“Shhh, stay quiet, and nothing will happen to you.”
A dark, hoarse voice, different from his own, emerged.
It was a voice-mimicking technique he had learned from Windizer, a great thief among Therbion’s mercenaries.
The maid trembled violently.
Tears streamed down her face, soaking the hand Usher used to cover her mouth.
She gave a small, hesitant nod.
He felt guilty.
In truth, Usher only intended to put her to sleep after getting the answers he needed.
One might ask, why not just sneak past quietly?
But there was a reason Usher chose this method.
“Among the women who became the king’s concubines, who are the ones that arrived in the past two years?”
He needed to narrow the search range.
Even Gester didn’t know which concubine had arrived when—it was an internal royal matter.
Rumors from outside had their limitations, so he needed precise information from an insider.
Usher chose a time slightly before the first artificial witch was discovered.
The maid still trembled, feeling the blade against her throat.
In a shaky whisper, she answered.
“T-Three of them. Each of them…”
She answered faithfully.
Her fear turned into sobbing, but her survival instinct was strong, and her answers remained clear.
‘Three. Only one is suspicious.’
The other two had clear backgrounds—one was a favored maid of the king, and the other was a woman sent for political reasons.
The suspicious one was a woman the king had suddenly brought in one day.
Even the maid didn’t know much about her.
She estimated that the woman had arrived about ten months ago, coinciding with the first witch hunt.
‘Northwest side, a room decorated with blue gemstones on the door.’
He had confirmed the location.
“P-Please… spare me…”
The maid whimpered, trembling in desperation.
The floor beneath her was wet—she had lost control of herself.
A sharp pang of guilt stabbed at Usher’s conscience.
At that moment, he gently struck the back of the maid’s neck.
She slumped unconscious.
The maid collapsed, unconscious.
Usher carefully moved her to a spot where she wouldn’t be easily seen in the hallway, then muttered to himself.
“I’m sorry…!”
But there was no other choice!
Usher steeled his resolve and turned away.
Even in the midst of it all, he didn’t forget to walk quietly.
Finding the annex wasn’t difficult.
Among the many buildings in the inner castle, only one had an entrance adorned with blue gemstones arranged in the shape of a flower.
Of course, the door to the annex was firmly shut.
But that wasn’t a big problem for Usher.
It was the dead of night, when everyone except for a minimal number of guards was asleep.
The patrolling guards happened to be on the opposite side of the building.
‘I never thought I’d actually use this skill.’
Usher chuckled softly as he picked the lock.
This was another technique he had learned from Windizer, the master thief.
Click.
With a light sound, the door unlocked.
Moving like a shadow, Usher reached the building and slipped inside through a window.
There was only one presence inside.
Now was the time to be even more careful.
He concealed his divine energy.
He suppressed his breathing.
He erased the weight of his footsteps.
Moving toward the bedroom, Usher was like a ghost.
The bedroom he reached was lavish.
Silk curtains surrounded the bed, and the glow of a lantern cast a silhouette of the woman lying there.
‘She’s asleep.’
Her vital signs confirmed it.
Usher’s eyes grew cold.
There was no sound, no movement.
The room remained utterly silent as he approached the bed and pressed a dagger to the concubine’s throat.
He infused his divine power into her body.
Whether he would withdraw the blade or drive it in depended on the result that followed.
It took only a brief moment.
Just enough time for Usher to take two breaths.
Slash!
As she inhaled sharply, Usher swiftly slit the woman’s throat.
She was a witch.
If she could be killed now, there was no reason to hesitate.
Splurt!
Blood gushed like a fountain.
The witch’s eyes snapped open, locking onto Usher.
Her lips began to move, but Usher’s next action was even faster.
Thud! Thud!!
In almost an instant, he stabbed through her forehead, heart, and lungs.
Her body gave one last shudder before the life drained from her eyes.
Usher exhaled.
Cold sweat dripped down his forehead.
‘It’s done.’
The witch, who had been pure white from head to toe, was now drenched in crimson, lifeless.
It was over now.
It should have been, but Usher’s expression remained grim.
‘Too easy.’
An old piece of advice from Hwaran, who had once taught him about assassination, surfaced in his mind.
— If, at the moment you take a life, you think, ‘Was it really this easy?’ that’s when you need to be most careful.
She had been talking about vigilance.
— It could be a trap. The real danger often begins after you kill your target.
Why was that particular memory coming back now?
What was this strange sense of déjà vu?
The witch was certainly dead, yet he felt no relief.
Usher’s senses sharpened further.
The guards were still patrolling the area, unaware of anything.
There were no maids around. All of them were absent.
The moment he realized that—
‘…Wait. All of them?’
Usher finally understood the source of his unease.
‘No one is here.’
Except for the distant guards patrolling the annex, there wasn’t a single soul inside the building.
No one.
No one at all.
Even if she was just a concubine, she was still the king’s woman.
How could a place where such a person resided be completely empty?
A chill ran down his spine.
At the same time, the scent of blood seeped into his lungs.
That was when the anomaly began.
“Heh…!”
Usher staggered.
His head spun.
His eyes widened in shock.
‘Poison!’
He hastily covered his mouth, but it was too late.
The witch’s blood was toxic—not the kind that would kill instantly, but rather a type of anesthetic or sleeping agent.
He tried to expel it using divine power, but it wasn’t easy.
His vision blurred more and more.
‘Damn it…’
His body wobbled before finally collapsing with a dull thud.
He desperately tried to move his fingers, but it was a futile struggle.
His vision darkened, and his thoughts drifted.
And when Usher finally opened his eyes again, what he saw was—
“Oh? You’re awake. Poor thing.”
A witch with jet-black hair.
She greeted him with a relaxed smile.
Usher was bound.
Which meant—
…There wasn’t just one?
The witches of Baern weren’t limited to a single person.
A cold dread crept through Usher’s veins.