Prologue

 The day my lover was executed

　Question: Is it easy to cleave through a human neck? YES or NO?

　Imagine this. A big sword or an ax, one of these the weapon you wield. The body you imagine is medium height, medium weight. An adult male.

　……Did you get the answer?

　The correct answer is NO.

　It is not easy to cleave through the human neck.

　For that matter, it is not easy to cut through human bones.

　Human bones sometimes may be as hard as iron. Besides the bones, the neck has skin, flesh, and blood. It certainly isn’t easy to slice through them all at once.

　There is a notorious executioner named Jack Trotch.

　Jack’s problem was that he failed to decapitate many times, causing prisoners to fear execution even more because of the pain of the halfway chop. However, Jack cannot be blamed. As explained earlier, decapitation is not so easy. Jack couldn’t cut through his own head either, when he tried to off himself in embarrassment. Someone really should’ve taught Jack!

　What I want to say is that technology and proper tools are necessary to cleanly cut off a person’s head. Not only technology, but of course, physical and mental fortification is also required.

Just swinging isn’t enough.

　Identify the key points and conditions of the target.

　And nothing will disturb your spirit. Even if the other person is a loved one, the spirit the of cowardice can be killed without hesitation. When it’s just you and the blade, if you are a true practitioner of the killing arts nothing besides the death matters,

　I have ascended that plane of existence.

　◆

“

　My name is Charles.

　At the age of 14, I cleaved through as many as 1000 necks.

“…this is wrong”

　I mutter when I see the gallows in the near distance.

　I hear crackling and applause.

　Applause to praise the death of the sinner. For me now, the sound of applause was less audible than the sound of flies.

-It’s natural to die!

–Evil people!

-Well done, Executioner!

　The voice of the people sandwiched between applause.

　The screaming voice, the voice praising me, and everything else was just noisy.

　The name of the woman I have just executed is Henri Sanson.

　Her smile was dazzling.

　Beautiful, even.

　Just because she laughed, the world seemed to be fun.

They had been executed by my very hands.

“Charles. I love you”

　Before she was executed, she said so.

“I also loved you… Henri”

　In the  hot summer

　Under the bright red sky,

　I killed my loved one.

　Why did she have to die?

　I’ve been looking for the answer.