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Chapter 57 Part 1 – One of the Seven Phantoms, Addis the Faceless in hot pursuit!! Oh no, you pervert!! As we are cornered by invisible attacks, that guy appears before us for the first time in a long time.

My life as a queen which had gone around on loops and repeated for 「108 times」 always ended with me being murdered.

The ones who did it were Bradd the Assassin, Seraphy the Wind Reader, Solomon the Great Scholar, Rudy the Noble of the Moonlight, and Arnold the Hunter of Darkness …… They were called the 「Five Heroes」 and were the protectors of the leader of the rebel army, the 「Maiden of Salvation」 Alisa. Well, Bradd loved solitude and hated being lumped in with the 「Five Heroes」, so he was in a bit of a delicate position. That guy always said that he was just a murderer.

…… Arnold was a monster-like archer, the arrows fired from his iron bow can penetrate armor and collapse stone walls with ease. I was truly shaken when he showed me how he could sink a medium sized ship by piercing an arrow through the side of it. Is his bow and arrow actually a stone thrower? His accuracy rate is unmatched, and until I got to know mother, he was the number one archer in the world, hands down, as far as I am aware of.

And when I was killed by him, I was thrashed by the bone-crushing power of his arrows.

It hurt like hell.
My whole body felt like it was electrocuted and I couldn’t breathe.
Just having an ordinary arrowhead hitting the bone is already extremely painful, but the impact of his arrow shook every bone in my body and ran through every inch of my nerves. It really can make people go crazy!! The pain goes from my brain to my fingertips!! It hurts so bad that I can’t even faint!! A zebra that has experienced being chewed up by a hyena while still alive would surely be able to empathize with me and ask for a handshake.

Well …… Arnold does have a motive.
I can understand why he would hate the past me who was a queen.
That’s why I can’t bring myself to hate him that much.
Arnold’s family was burned at the stake because of my decree.

…… I had no intention of killing them.
That decree was a sham in order to protect Arnold’s father, who was a wise and able retainer.
And yet …… it developed into the worst possible outcome ……

Arnold’s father was a politician with a strong sense of justice, but due to that, he had so many enemies.
He tried to expose the dishonesty of the higher-ranked nobles, but was then framed with espionage and was imprisoned.
His enemies were relentless in their pursuit.
Even the prison food was poisoned and his mouth was nearly sealed forever.
If things continued as they were, he would not be able to avoid getting murdered.

So, as a last resort, I ordered the execution of Arnold’s father.
I did that so that he could be transferred to a special prison for convicts on death row.
Even the higher-ranked nobles could not touch the prison, which was located on a precipitous cliff, and was in the process of becoming an independent prison.
As I was personally acquainted with the warden, I asked him for the best possible treatment.
With this, Arnold’s father would be safely isolated and no one would be able to touch him until his execution.

I left a considerable amount of time until the execution date.
In the meantime, I re-examined the case and tried to prove that he was falsely charged.

Ten days before his execution, we secured evidence of his innocence.
I also succeeded in overthrowing his political opponents.
I was relieved and issued a decree to revoke the death penalty.

…… But for some reason, that decree never made it to the execution site.

Not just that, Arnold’s mother and younger brother had pleaded for the lives of Arnold and his father, and that they would sacrifice their lives in substitute for theirs. In the end, Arnold’s mother, younger brother, and father were burned to death right in front of his eyes. Arnold, who had snuck in alone to save his father and was captured, is said to have stared at the scene with tears of blood.

It was so tragic that I have no words left to say.

Afterwards, when Arnold denounced me, he yelled at me and said that he had seen me laughing loudly at the execution site.
Arnold’s tragic screams broke my heart.
I still remember the smile of Arnold’s father, who supported me with a gentle smile and said, 「For Her Majesty the Queen」. I could see traces of him in Arnold.

…… How could that be ……!!
It can’t be possible.
If I had been there, I would have called off the execution even if I had to jump into the fire.
It was not until a few days later, after everything had turned to ashes, that I learned what had happened.

「I …… didn’t know ……」

I tried to defend myself.
But I was at a loss for words as Arnold wept and trembled.
It was true that Arnold’s family had been burned to death because of a death sentence issued in my name.
Who could blame Arnold for losing his mental state from the excessive despair and seeing an illusion of me, the main culprit, on the execution site?

While I stood there with tears in my eyes, the palace guards rushed in and Arnold fled, and since then he disappeared from the public eye. I forever lost the opportunity to clear up Arnold’s misunderstanding. With the same sense of justice as his father had, Arnold never forgave me until the end.

How did it come to this?

I met with Arnold’s father immediately after the death penalty was revoked to apologize.
I wanted to apologize.
In order to deceive his enemies, I even kept Arnold’s father in the dark about the fact that the death penalty is a sham.
How horrified he must have been.
Although he had been in poor health from living in prison, he still exchanged a few brief words with me.
He graciously accepted my apology.
I promised Arnold’s father that I would let him return to the political world, after that I left.
I was relieved that the situation was settled for the time being.

However, later on I found out that the person I met was someone else who looked like him.
Because Arnold’s father had long since died at that point in time.
Even though I was quite confident in my ability to memorize people’s faces ……

The mysterious series of events, including the disappearance of the decree to revoke the death penalty, was attributed to Arnold’s father’s political opponents who feared further revelations of their crimes.

The reason for it being ‘attributed to them’ is because they died of unknown causes before any further investigation could be conducted.
It was rumored that it was done by Arnold to take revenge, but in the end, the truth remains in the dark.
It was just a bad ending.

And Arnold, who would not listen to any of my words, hounded after me as the murderer of his family and I would end up being shot to death.

「…… Owaaaaaahhhhhhh!?」

I screamed in Bradd’s arms, the horror of being shot to death coming back to my mind again.
If I were to be hit by that extraordinarily strong arrow, my weak little girl body would definitely be split into two.

「…… Nuahahaha!! It’s so thrilling!! That girl’s scream is not an act, but a real scream. Once you become like me, you can tell the difference!! Let the song begin. The tears of despair and anguished voice!! I want you to be more and more scared of me!!」

The masked mysterious person wearing an all-white outfit, who called himself Addis the Faceless, one of the Seven Phantoms, was hanging upside down from a tree branch as his shoulders shook while he cackled.

I’m sorry to interrupt your excitement, but this scream is not directed at you.

「An excessively self-conscious person is disgraceful, you know.」

Let’s stick a nail in there.

「How impertinent!! Nuahahaha!! You’re so lively. I’m going to have to punish you for this.」

Addis clapped his hands in delight.
He was so excited that the back of his leg, which was hooked to a branch, came off and he fell headfirst.

Just like that he fell headfirst towards the ground like a scene from a comedy manga.