Chapter 60: Volume 2 - CH 6.2

Chapter 6: The Golden Butterfly

Kazuya removed his mask and hid behind Victorique, turning red with embarrassment. The villagers gathered in the square, holding barrels of wine and colored textiles, watched him with puzzled looks.

Dancing and acting is too embarrassing.

Kazuya was reluctant to move, so Ambrose approached him. “About the unfamiliar words you muttered…”

“It’s the language of my country,” Kazuya said. “I have no idea what the language of the afterlife is like, so I used my own language instead. I thought that if people don’t recognize it, it should provide the same effect.”

“How many vowels does it have? Do you write from the right? What, you write vertically?! What about—”

Kazuya eventually managed to interrupt him and called Victorique. “Can you please explain what Harminia did?”

Victorique nodded. There was an odd look on her face as she looked down at Harminia.

“Pigeons flew,” she said.

“…Pigeons?”

“While I was in the study where the incident took place twenty years ago, thinking, Harminia walked in. We had a conversation. After a while, she left, and I continued racking my brain. Then, white pigeons took off outside the window.”

“Okay…”

“When I saw them, the Wellspring of Wisdom spoke to me.” Victorique looked at Kazuya with a strange smile. “This chaos shares the same structure as the Dresden plate theft at the bazaar. Mildred released a pigeon from under her skirt, drawing everyone’s attention away, and stole the plate. Something that moved was necessary to restrict the people’s line of sight.”

“That sounds about right… So what about it?”

“The pigeon became gold coins. That’s all. Very simple, really.”

They entered the gray manor and gathered in the study where the tragedy took place twenty years ago.

“At the time of the incident,” Victorique began, “Harminia was only a six-year-old child. One of the things she told me about the incident was: it would have been difficult for Cordelia, a girl in her mid-teens, to stab a grown man in the upper back. Why did she say that? Because she wanted to imply that it would’ve been practically impossible for a child to commit the crime.”

“But Harmina was, in fact, a mere child back then,” Sergius said.

“With the right method, it’s possible for her to have committed the crime.”

“No, it’s impossible,” the old man insisted, then turned to leave the study.

“Elder Sergius,” Ambrose said. “Please, just listen to what she has to say.”

Sergius shot him a glare. “Foolish young man. You dare reprove me?”

“He’s right,” Victorique said. “Stay. You only have to listen. Nothing else.”

Sergius whirled back around furiously. But he did not leave.

An ominous silence drifted into the study. Polished medieval weapons gleamed on the wall shelves. The desk and bookshelf were white with dust.

“There are several curious points to this incident,” Victorique continued. “First: Theodore was found dead in his locked study. Second: the gold coins scattered on the floor. Third: the murder weapon, a dagger, had pierced all the way through his body from the upper back. Lastly: the time.”

Victorique looked into Sergius’ grim face. “Sergius, you said you glanced at your pocket watch, and it was exactly twelve o’clock. Cordelia was also always right on time.”

“That is correct.”

“But the people you were with offered varied testimonies about the time.”

“Indeed. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Why did the people in the manor that night have mixed perceptions about the time?”

Victorique eyed everyone present. Restrained by the young villagers, Harminia quirked her lips up a little.

Victorique pointed to the wall. “Because the grandfather clock did not chime that night.”

A large grandfather clock stood there. The numbers on the old, ornate dial had faded, but the pendulum still moved rhythmically.

Click. Click. Click.

“That’s right!” Sergius exclaimed.

“The grandfather clock did not sound that night. So only Sergius, who checked the time on his pocket watch, thought it was exactly twelve o’clock when the incident happened, while the rest had varied statements. Now why didn’t grandfather clock chime?”

All eyes were on Victorique’s small face.

“Because Harminia was hiding inside it.”

“What?” Sergius scoffed.

Victorique ignored him and went on. “Harminia snuck into the study before Theodore entered. She then climbed up onto the grandfather clock and hid inside the pendulum compartment, which isn’t impossible for a small child. There she waited quietly for Theodore to come. The clock did not chime while she was inside. When Theodore entered the study later, she used the gold coins next.”

“What do you mean?” Sergius’ face gradually became blank, his cheeks turning pale.

“She was hiding in the clock, yes, but how would she kill Theodore? Do you think a mere child could stab a grown man to death? Impossible. But there is a way. You don’t rely on your strength, but instead on your full body weight and gravity. The young Harminia did not stab Theodore while standing. She jumped down from up the grandfather clock where she was hiding, weapon and all.”

The room was wrapped in an eerie silence. Everyone swallowed. No one spoke.

Victorique watched Harminia as she glanced up at the grandfather clock and fell silent. The maid chuckled.

“The gold coins were not on the floor initially. Harminia had them. And she scattered them on the floor. The glittering coins fell from the grandfather clock, tracing golden threads in the air, like a golden meteor shower. When they reached Theodore’s upper field of vision, he would have immediately followed them with his eyes. Even if he failed to notice them then, the noise as they hit the floor would have drawn his attention. Theodore walked toward the coins and stopped right in front of the grandfather clock, the perfect spot for Harminia to jump to. She used moving objects to restrict the victim’s line of sight, limiting his movements. Harminia then jumped off the clock onto Theodore while he was looking down at the floor. Her weight pushed the dagger deep into its hilt. Theodore collapsed to the floor with the gold coins, and passed away silently. That explains two of the curious points: the scattered gold coins and the dagger lodged in the victim’s upper back. After killing Theodore, Harminia locked the door and hid inside the grandfather clock once more. She then waited patiently until someone discovered the body. That’s why the study appeared to be empty.”

Victorique’s voice began to tremble. “And then Cordelia came in. She noticed the body and ran away screaming. Harminia then escaped through the open door. A wild guess afterwards led to the conclusion that Cordelia was the culprit. Now then, Sergius.”

Sergius jerked. His face looked as if he had aged years in just a day, perhaps from fatigue. But his eyes were filled with the sharp light of a stubborn old man who would never admit fault.

“This is your responsibility, Sergius. How will you apologize to Cordelia for banishing her for a crime she did not commit?”

There was a long silence.

Sergius pointed at Harminia, glaring at her with a mixture of fury and contempt. “I will use all my power as head of this village to punish this woman,” he said in a strained voice.

“No!” Harminia cried. “I don’t want to get banished! I don’t want to go outside the village!”

“Cordelia made it safely down the mountain,” Ambrose said, restraining the maid. “Brian Roscoe’s out there, too. If you look for him and ask for help, I’m sure—”

“I hate Cordelia! I hate Brian Roscoe! I want to stay!”

“But it’s great out there,” Ambrose mumbled, then quickly shut his mouth.

Victorique approached the wailing maid. “Why did you do it? What would drive a six-year-old child to kill a well-respected village chief?”

“Take a guess,” Harminia said in a low voice.

“Because of the future?”

Harminia’s eyes bulged. “How do you know that?!”

“The only connection I can think of between a child and the village chief is the divination during the Midsummer Festival. Some children may resent the village chief for telling them an unfavorable future.”

Kazuya thought back to when Victorique looked dejected. She said she was told she would never grow taller. Back then, he ran into Harminia at the cathedral’s exit, and she mumbled some cryptic words.

“Your future cannot be changed.”

“There was, however, a time in the past when the future was changed.”

What did she mean by that? Kazuya wondered.

“It’s just fortune-telling,” Victorique said. “You didn’t have to take it seriously. But you had strong faith in the laws of the village and the words of the village chief. You could not doubt the divination.”

“That’s right… I had to believe in it. But that doesn’t mean I would accept it!” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I asked a question I shouldn’t have asked. A terrifying one, out of childish curiosity.”

“What was it?”

“My death.”

“…I see.”

Harminia regarded everyone with tearful eyes. “I was told that twenty years later, when I turned twenty-six years old, I would die. Twenty-six years old? I wanted to live longer. Way longer than that. To change the future, I had to kill Elder Theodore.”

“That’s it?!” Sergius snapped. “You killed our great leader for such a reason?! You wretched child!”

“You would never understand what I felt! The hopelessness, the anger, the sadness!”

They glared at each other. Harminia’s eyes were bulging; it looked like they would pop out of her head at any moment. Sergius’ eyes, on the other hand, were bloodshot, and his fists were shaking with fury.

Sergius’ face took on a zealous fanatic’s expression. Eyes crossed, he pointed at Harminia with a quivering finger.

“Ambrose, cut this woman’s head off!” he roared in a voice that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.

“…What?” Ambrose’s mouth dropped open.

“It’s village custom to behead criminals. It has become obsolete since there are no more villagers who commit grave crimes, but when I was your age, I used to be in charge of beheading criminals.”

Inspector Blois, who had been listening in the back, stepped forward. “Mr. Sergius. As I said before, I’ll be taking Derek with me to the station. And the statute of limitations has run out on this girl’s murder case. If you behead her, this young man will be charged with murder by the Sauville Police. And if the villagers give their tacit approval, they will be charged with aiding and abetting.”

“This is not Sauville!”

“You can’t just make up a country name and expect me to believe you.”

“Get out!”

Following Sergius’ order, the young men carried Inspector Blois into the hallway. His screams faded in the distance.

“Kujou, do something!” he yelled.

“Cordelia was only banished because her crime was never fully proven,” Sergius said in a voice that seemed to make the walls vibrate. “Harminia, you will be beheaded, your head and body buried separately. You will not return on the eve of the Midsummer Festival. No criminal will appear before their descendants. That’s the law. Ambrose!”

“E-Elder Sergius…”

Ambrose was trembling. His beautiful, feminine face was pale as wax.

Sergius took a large axe from the display shelf and threw it at him. Ambrose caught it absently, then tossed it to the side with a shriek. Fine, white dust rose as the axe fell on the floor.

Sergius’ glowered at his young assistant with red, bulging eyes. “Do it. If you’re going to be the future village chief, you must never overlook criminals!”

“But she committed the crime when she was only a child. That was twenty years ago. And…”

“Ambrose!”

“Sh-She used to play with me a lot when I was a kid. She was difficult to approach, but she was kind. She killed Elder Theodore, but she was nice to me. I won’t do it.”

“We have laws. Harminia will die at twenty-six, just as Elder Theodore foretold.”

Ambrose couldn’t oppose the old man. Slowly he grabbed the axe, his arms shaking. His teeth clattered from terror. Tears welled up in his large, clear eyes and rolled down his pale cheeks like petals. His shoulders shook violently.

He turned to Kazuya with a pleading look. Kazuya himself was trembling.

“Dear guest,” Ambrose said. “In the outside world, what do you do in this situation?”

“The police will arrest the culprit,” Kazuya replied in a shaky voice. “They will conduct an investigation, and… Victorique.”

“A trial will be held,” Victorique said.

“A tri…al?”

“Yes. There will be two parties, the prosecution and the defendant Harminia, with each side making their argument. A verdict will then be handed down. Depending on the crime, the defendant may be sentenced to death, incarcerated, or released. There is no death penalty for crimes committed by children.”

Ambrose lowered the axe. He looked heartbroken. But Kazuya saw strong determination in the young man. Lips pursed, he lifted his head forlornly.

The young assistant regarded the enraged village chief. “I have always respected you, Elder Sergius,” he said, his voice quivering. “And I love this village. It’s the village where I was born. You acknowledged me, a young man with no name. But this village is not the whole world. So, um… Harminia, run!”

Ambrose suddenly pushed the youths restraining Harminia. Amid cries of surprise and protests, Harminia moved as if she were a different creature. She leapt and grabbed the spear from the display shelf.

Harminia turned around, eyes bulging. Her pale lips parted, and she mumbled something.

She then spun and took off at full speed.