The women I set free are obsessed with me

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Misunderstandings often stem from tiny misconceptions.

Whether big or small.

If caught early, they can be laughed off and mended. But what happens when that small gap widens into an unbridgable chasm?

For instance, what if an act you believed to be abandonment was actually meant to save your life?

What if the person you planned to inflict suffering on as life's ultimate revenge had already died after enduring horrific torture?

What if that person had bitten their lips and clung to consciousness to buy even a little more time?

And… what if that person was family?

By then, that small gap would have become an inescapable abyss.

And you would regret.

Wishing you had never known.

***

"Ah… Ah…"

Mirabelle's mouth opened and closed, incoherent words stumbling out.

Warm tears streamed down her cheeks.

"There's no time for this. Please, I beg you, leave Fracture with Mirabelle. I am begging you…"

Before her eyes, Harold knelt, pleading with Karami.

Despite having suffered a horrible death because of her.

Despite having just awakened from torture in his timeline.

Despite not having enough time to fully grasp reality.

Pushing all that aside as 'trivial', Harold begged for her safety. Witnessing this, Mirabelle couldn't utter a word.

This was far from the image of a heartless man abandoning his daughter.

It was the opposite.

Here was a father who loved his daughter desperately. This Harold matched the one in her memories, the one she had tried so hard to forget.

"Uweh."

Suddenly, Mirabelle's legs gave way. She collapsed, retching, disgusted with herself for choosing Harold as the target of her revenge when she had known nothing.

"Mi-Mirabelle! What's wrong? Are you sick?"

Harold rushed over to check on Mirabelle, but she couldn't bear to meet his eyes and lowered her head.

It was as Karami had said.

The slave girl's soul may have vanished, either due to the passage of time or because she had no lingering attachments to this world.

But Harold's soul, despite dying on the same day, remained intact. That meant he must have some lingering attachment. What could that attachment be?

…

Mirabelle wasn't so naive that she couldn't figure it out.

"Mr. Harold, there's no need to plead like that. I take the greatest care of my slaves, and Mirabelle is no longer the powerless girl she once was."

"What do you mean no longer powerless? What are you saying?"

"She's become a proper witch now. A great witch who could easily destroy an entire kingdom. Even if dozens of knights came at her, she wouldn't break a sweat."

Harold looked at Mirabelle with surprised eyes.

"Is that true?"

Mirabelle hesitated before slowly nodding.

"You weren't hurt or struggling?"

Nod, nod.

Harold let out a sigh of relief.

"I see, that's wonderful then. When Naredi awakened, it was absolute chaos with electricity flying everywhere."

At the mention of her mother, Mirabelle looked up.

"Mom… too…?"

"Yes. When witches first awaken, they can't control their abilities well. I couldn't even hold her hand, can you believe it? But Naredi kept trying to hold hands, and if I didn't, she'd get all sulky. It was a real handful, I tell you."

"Really?"

Harold nodded, smiling.

"That's right? Mirabelle, did nothing happen when you became a witch?"

"I had thunder and lightning…"

"Haha, thunder and lightning! That's amazing. Or maybe it was to be expected. I always knew Mirabelle would become an extraordinary witch."

"Really…? You're not lying?"

"Really. Mirabelle had a lot of mana even in your mother's womb. Sometimes it would leak out. An acquaintance witch said you would become a great witch someday, and that's when Dad told Mom…"

Harold continued, recalling fond memories.

"That this child would create a world where we wouldn't have to live in hiding. That she would bring miracles to our family. A miracle maker. Mirabelle, from Miracle. Don't you think Dad did a great job naming you, Mirabelle?"

Tears welled up in Mirabelle's eyes.

As her vision blurred with tears…

"…Yes."

She affirmed in a tiny voice.

Tears she couldn't hold back rolled down her cheeks.

After that, Harold continued to tell stories in a gentle voice, smiling, and Mirabelle listened intently, her ears perked up.

Like telling a bedtime story before putting a baby to sleep.

Under a softly glowing starry sky.

…But reunions between the living and the dead could not last forever, and Harold's spirit form began to fade. Even this had lasted longer than typical due to Mirabelle's exceptional magical skills.

"Darn, it's already time to part."

"W-What?"

"It's a shame we have to say goodbye, but seeing that Mirabelle is safe is enough for me. I can leave in peace now, knowing you'll be fine from here on out."

"I-I…"

Mirabelle felt she should say something, but not knowing what to say, her mouth just opened and closed.

Her mind was too chaotic to have a normal conversation.

Harold smiled gently and placed his hand on Mirabelle's head. Not quite touching, but as if he were. He made a gentle motion, as though stroking her hair.

"You must have been through a lot on your own, right? I'm sorry you had to go through such scary things."

"I-I…"

"Living as a witch means you'll face many hardships in the future. But I'm sure you'll overcome them all. After all, you're our daughter."

His tone was full of confidence.

As Harold spoke with such gentle eyes, Mirabelle overlapped the image with a memory she had buried in the back of her mind.

The look in Harold's eyes as she watched from the departing carriage that day—

There's an abyss where light cannot reach.

Once you fall in, you can't escape alone, and no one comes to save you. For in trying to help, they too might plunge into the depths.

Those who fall into the abyss abandon hope of escape.

What follows is an endless despair.

Yet sometimes, they appear. People who leap without fear into the very abyss others have given up climbing.

And they reach out their hand, pulling you from the darkness into the light.

"I love you, my daughter. No matter what anyone in the world says, Dad will always be by Mirabelle's side."

That very person's name is Harold.

Another name for him is Mirabelle's Dad.

We call that kind of relationship, family.

"Can you be strong, my daughter?"

"Mm-hmm."

A childlike response.

Harold smiled, satisfied.

He stood up and turned to Karami.

"Please take good care of my daughter."

"You really are a strange one, entrusting your child to a slave trader. Well, I suppose that's why you married a witch."

Karami shrugged his shoulders.

Harold's already fading spirit form now barely flickered. Mirabelle reached out desperately, but her hand passed through. His form dissolved into mist, scattering into the air.

—Dad will always be watching over Mirabelle.

With these parting words, Harold's soul vanished without a trace. Even when Mirabelle tried to cast the spell again, he did not return.

As if… he no longer had any lingering attachments.

***

In the square where Harold had disappeared.

Mirabelle sat crouched against a pillar, cradling her father's skull preciously in her arms. Her eyes, fixed on the ground, were unfocused.

She was not only confused by the current situation but also didn't know what to do.

Revenge had been her life's driving force.

Her father had been the target of that revenge.

But it turned out that father had loved her. He hadn't abandoned her but had chosen to sacrifice himself to save her.

He was never someone she should have sought revenge against.

So what should she do now?

…She didn't know.

"Why are you looking so gloomy? Your father just said he'd be watching over you."

"M-Master…"

Karami, who had been wandering around, approached her. In his hand was another skull, that of the slave girl.

"That's…"

"Are you feeling lost because you came for revenge, but things turned out differently than you expected?"

"Yes… I don't know what to do now…"

Mirabelle answered honestly, caught off guard. To which Karami asked as if he couldn't understand her attitude.

"Why not just take revenge?"

"B-But Dad is…"

"Does it have to be against your father?"

"…What?"

With a smile just like an incubus, Karami enticed her.

"You saw them in his memories, didn't you? The people who tormented Mr. Harold. The ones who made him like this."

She had seen them.

The people who took Harold to prison and subjected him to horrific torture.

The people who, despite him writhing in pain, callously smiled as they drove blades into his body.

"Don't you want to take revenge on them?"

She did.

She wanted to inflict the same pain on those who had tormented her father.

"Then do it. Miss Mirabelle, you have the right and the power to do so."

Karami's seductive words slithered their way into her fragile mind, eating away at what little resistance remained.

…

Mirabelle, who had been sitting motionlessly, slowly rose to her feet.

She gripped her staff, lost in thought.

Rumble.

The atmosphere grew heavy.

A skull floated into the air.

The world itself seemed to scream in terror.

Stars that had illuminated the dawn sky vanished behind gathering clouds.

Whoosh.

From nowhere, a black haze materialized, swirling above Mirabelle's hand. Floating there was Teacher Go's Pro Tips Grimoire, which should have been nothing but ashes.

When Mirabelle opened her eyes again, her eyes glowed with an otherworldly light. The same colored light burst from the skull's empty eye sockets, filling the square with radiance.

Thud.

As Mirabelle's staff struck the earth, indigo winds swirled forth and enveloped the skull. When the wind dissipated, a new figure emerged in its place. Floating in mid-air, cloaked in a robe of mana and an enormous scythe in hand, was a Grim Reaper.

Hand of the Death God.

Mirabelle, the Witch of Judgment.

"Those who hurt Dad. Those who don't know gratitude."

The witch passed judgment.

"Let's erase them all."