Whose youth romance story begins with a witch's trial?!

Chang Rong bit her lip so hard it would draw blood, using the pain to keep herself conscious.

“Miss Gaoyuan…may we see your long dress? I’ll apologize if there’s no damage, but if it’s ‘missing a flower’…”

This means you are the witch.

"—Commoner, you, you want to...want to accuse me!?"

Miss Qian Rujin's expression gradually turned ferocious, and her tone became increasingly obsessive.

"I...I'm not a witch! I'm definitely not a witch—"

boom! !

"Ughhhhhh!!!?"

Gao Yuanlihua turned to run away from the library, but the next moment, a bullet pierced her calf, causing her to lose her balance and fall to the ground in a sorry state.

“If you weren’t a witch, I would have Meruru help with the treatment. But right now, there’s a situation that can’t be explained by running away… Hmm! Her wounds—her wounds are healing…!?”

Nanoha Kurobe raised her spear to directly deprive the young lady of her ability to move, but just as she was about to control Reika Takahara with the spear, Nanoha Kurobe suddenly discovered that Reika Takahara's calf, which had been pierced by a bullet, was healing itself at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"—" "...!!" "Miss Gao, Gao Yuan...you really have become...waaaaah!"

Only witches possess such healing abilities. Gao Yuanlihua, this noblewoman, has become a being akin to a witch—a reality that everyone has come to understand.

"I...it wasn't me...I didn't, I didn't intend to kill that person!! I just, I just wanted to shut her up for a while!!!"

The young lady, having shed her last pretense, roared out in a near-hysterical, frenzied voice.

"I just wanted to read a book a little, but that guy kept nagging me to accept my fate, that no one would come to save us... My family will definitely come to save me! Yes, they will definitely come! Even if, even if, even if I... even if I have no right to inherit the family business, even if I am never recognized by the family, I am still the genuine daughter of the Gaoyuan family!!"

The girl screamed wildly. She was a noblewoman whom everyone envied, but she was not a 'scion of a prestigious family' in the broad sense. To be more precise, she was the offspring of a political marriage, but because her family got a more outstanding heir, she was immediately treated as a 'decorative vase'.

From the very first day she arrived on the prison island, she knew deep down that she, as an "abandoned child," could not be redeemed in any way. In fact, because of her awkward family status, perhaps the very fact that she was imprisoned here was caused by those within her family who found her troublesome.

Even so, Gao Yuanlihua still desperately maintained the composure befitting a young lady, striving to demonstrate the qualities of a qualified heir. This was because a commoner had once told her that as a noblewoman, she should naturally present a perfect image and lead these commoners to overcome their current predicament.

But... in the end, Gao Yuanlihua still failed. Her rationality, after being stretched to its limit, completely collapsed because of Gu Yuanyuan's words, "Anyway, you're just a guy who was abandoned."

"When I came to my senses, I had already smashed that guy to death with the book... Since I couldn't dispose of the body, I could only think of using my magic—that's right, I separated the guy and turned him into nutrients, allowing the cherry tree to convert all of his body into growth nutrients, but... but Alice suddenly appeared. And she just happened to witness me dismantling that guy's arm..."

“I… I had no other choice but to kill that child. Then I thought of Sato Yuki, who always played mother-daughter games with her. That bean sprout seemed easy to frame. No, she was my only option. So, I pretended to send a text message to get that guy to come to the library—”

It was just a commonplace case of manslaughter on a prison island, nothing worth talking about.

The cherry tree that blooms and blossoms nourished by corpses, the bones of a girl buried beneath the tree, Alice's eternal sleep leaning against the cherry tree—all of these became the original sin that Gao Yuanlihua could not escape.

For a moment, the library fell silent, save for the cherry tree that continued to quietly shed its petals, as if paving a path to the underworld for the departed.

"【Coo coo coo... That's fantastic, Mr. Chang Rong! You've even broken your own record from not long ago! This time, you didn't even have to go through the witch trial formalities and the case was closed directly—coo coo. So, Miss Gao Yuan Lihua, please come with me to receive your execution, and then be imprisoned and contained as a witch's remains forever.】"

The warden's words were incredibly harsh, and at the same time, several terrifying and twisted guards suddenly appeared, crowding around the young lady whose body was covered in black patterns and seemed to be on the verge of peeling off and collapsing.

"No, no—I don't want to be executed!! I'm so sorry! I didn't want to kill Alice either! She would gently comfort me when I had nightmares at night... Why did I kill her!? No, no, no, there must be some mistake—help me!! Commoner, no, Chang Rong... Chang Rong, help me!!!"

"——!!!"

The young lady's limbs were mercilessly pierced and torn apart by iron rose thorn vines. Just before being dragged away by the guards, she cried out and begged for mercy frantically, as if clinging to a spider's web, desperately calling for help from Chang Rong.

"me……"

I don't want to respond to her cries for help... She killed Alice, and her existence threatens Yuki's and everyone else's lives...

The moment Chang Rong looked away, the spider silk in Gao Yuanlihua's hand snapped completely.

Snap—click-click-click-click!

"I, I'm not... Guhhhhh... I'm not howling ...

The sound of shattering glass echoed continuously. The young lady, who had been maintaining a 'human form' just a moment ago, was instantly reduced to a twisted wreckage and even broke free from the guards' restraints.

"【Coo coo... Oh dear? It hasn't even been executed yet, and it's already reduced to wreckage due to the utter despair of being abandoned by someone it loves? This... this is really troublesome.】"

Rumble! Qi Shanling, Zizi, and Qi Sanshi!

The twisted wreckage swung its 'sunshade' to blast away all the guards beside it, and then the spikes that grew from its body burst out like hand grenades.

"careful……!!"

Chang Rong quickly tackled Xiao Xue to the ground to avoid the chaotic attack.

"Gaa ...

The wreckage roared as it burst through the library doors, plunging off the second-floor balcony and disappearing into the forest in the direction of the lake.

"[Gurgle... I guess I'll have to work overtime now...]"

The warden waved his tattered feathers, sighed, and flew away in the direction the wreckage had broken through.

"Is everyone... alright!?"

Chang Rong quickly got up to check on the other prospective witches. Fortunately, the attack from the wreckage hadn't caused too much damage.

"Ahem, uh... I guess I'm having some bad luck...?"

Futter's cough sounded particularly jarring in the library.

"Ughh ...

The first to notice the anomaly was Meluru on Ice, who immediately placed her hands on front of Futter. Green light enveloped the newsboy cap girl's abdomen, but it did nothing to stop her internal organs and crimson rust-colored liquid from flowing out of the fist-sized hole in her abdomen.

"Rongrong—!?"

Chang Rong rushed to the girl's side immediately, but after just one glance, her mind went almost blank upon witnessing her injuries.

"The photos, in the abandoned study next to the reception room... should be developed soon..."

The girl forced a smile and whispered to Chang Rong.

"I...I'm so happy that this time...I don't have to run away—"

The girl was a survivor of a kidnapping case; she managed to escape from the clutches of her kidnappers.

Faced with the police's questioning about clues, the girl chose to remain silent. Although she could use her 'telepathic' magic to write down the faces of the robbers and kidnapped victims, which would greatly speed up the investigation, she still concealed her ability.

She was afraid that if the magic was exposed, she would become the target of everyone's criticism; she was afraid that if the truth came out, she would be killed to silence her; she was afraid that if the images she read were wrong, she would have to take responsibility.

Ultimately, she survived, but the other 15 hostages were all pronounced dead four months later.

Why give me this ability? I'm just a coward.

Despite her thoughts, the girl couldn't escape the government's scrutiny. However, on this prison island filled with death and murder, facing the invitation from the white-haired boy, the girl realized for the first time that she could actually contribute her abilities to catch the 'real culprit'.

Her magic wasn't meaningless; at least she left behind memories for herself and others, and at least this time, she successfully found the real culprit—however, after the case was solved, the boy's face showed an even more confused and desperate expression.

"Don't look so sad... It's hard to take good pictures... Ah Rong, you're better suited to smiling like an idiot..."

The farce, which didn't even qualify as a trial, ended with an old camera falling to the ground and shattering completely.

The rainbow disappeared, the roses withered, the camera shattered, and only the cherry tree remained, standing silently.

------

After leaving the library, Yuki locked herself in her room, and Nanoha Kurobe also disappeared.

Chang Rong arrived at the 'temporary dark room' that Fu Te had mentioned—which was actually an abandoned study on the first floor with its windows roughly covered up.

"Ah, Chang Rong-san...!"

Melulu on Ice has arrived at the temporary darkroom, her long white silk gloves gently holding a photograph.

"I...I'm so happy, Miss Rong actually developed this photo...!"

“…Yes, that’s right.” Chang Rong responded instinctively, almost like muscle memory, to Meruru’s happy words.

"What a pity. I was hoping Miss Rong would use her convenient magic to help me read out 'Great Witch'... Hmm, actually, if I had tried harder back then, I might have been able to save Miss Rong. But wouldn't that have been a bad idea? After all, she's definitely not the Great Witch. Even if I had risked my life to save her, it wouldn't have made much difference besides exposing myself..."

"……what?"

Hidden within Melulu's gentle words on the ice were words that Chang Rong couldn't understand, yet cared about deeply.

"Um... but, but Chang Rong-san, please don't worry! You, you are different, you are a special being...! I, I will introduce you to the Great Witch, so, so Chang Rong-san, could you come with me, go with me to find the Great Witch...!!"

"—"

"So, um... Chang Rong-san, actually, I'm the 'mastermind' you've been looking for..."

"Meruru, what... are you saying?"

Looking at the nun in front of him, whose cheeks were flushed with shyness yet filled with happiness and excitement, Chang Rong's light gray eyes trembled wildly.

He realized something, something simple and easy to understand, but something he had always overlooked:

Witches are monsters, completely different from humans, monsters through and through.

Meanwhile, the great witch, who had sealed herself in her blankets in the prison cell, looked at the silver bell in her hand and realized something.

This is not humanity's 'original sin'—all the tragedies that have occurred on this island are due to 'witch factors'... all of them are 'original sins' that belong only to themselves and cannot be shirked.

She didn't want to let the innocent person make the choice; she had already made her own choice—she wanted to find Chang Rong. If it was Chang Rong, he… he would definitely hug her with a smile and forgive her.

She wanted to see Chang Rong, right now.

Volume 1: Chapter 119. The Purely Naive and Cruel Angel

When Chang Rong first observed the girl on the ice, he couldn't explain why, but whenever he saw the girl in a nun's habit, hiding her golden hair under a white veil, he would inexplicably think of Xiao Xue.

That's right, despite their completely different heights, hair colors, eye colors, temperaments, and most importantly, the thickness of their frontal armor, Chang Rong somehow hallucinated Xiao Xue on the body of Merulu on the ice.

I always felt that she was the kind of awkward character who couldn't be left unattended, but if you just let her grow wild, she would eventually die of her own making...

Given her extensive experience in raising snow leopards, Chang Rong, a professional breeder, quickly made this expert assessment of the ice-climbing Meruru.

Because of Xiaoxue's presence, Chang Rong, who prides himself on being a master of Gala Gemu, rarely takes the initiative to talk to other girls. At most, he will lend a hand when he sees someone needing help, and after that, he will ask the other person for their social media account, only to be interrupted by Xiaoxue suddenly arriving and kicking his shin.

But when Chang Rong saw the nun Meru on the ice, he surprisingly took the initiative to approach her and try to have more contact and communication with her.

What Chang Rong found strange was that Xiao Xue, who was usually extremely possessive of her food and would always frown and say things like "Humans are all hateful beings, Rong, stay away from them" with an eccentric and gravity-defying expression, was completely different after learning that she was going to find Ice Meluru. Instead of getting angry and hissing at her food, she showed a somewhat subtle expression. After imagining some scene, she even gave herself a thumbs up, indicating that it wasn't impossible.

Keep in mind that back then, Yuki hadn't inexplicably activated her 'Yamato Nadeshiko Yuki' mode. Instead of kicking her with a witch's flying kick, she encouraged and urged her to approach Meruru on Ice. Thinking about it now, it's quite strange.

Chang Rong didn't think too much about it at the time. After getting Xiao Xue's tacit approval, he was only struggling with how to approach Ice Meluru. He felt that she wasn't just the kind of small animal that would die if left to roam freely, but also a genuine jellyfish-type girl. One poke and she deflates, another poke and she breaks, then she frantically whimpers and drops her little pearls, and after all the water in her body has drained out, she just snaps dry like a dried-out meow.

I always felt that she was the type that would be extremely troublesome to get along with—so I decided to try being a little A first and see how it goes. I started with a very standard social approach that wouldn't cause too much awkwardness for either side even if I was rejected.

"Hey, Ice, considering we don't know how long this unusual situation of being imprisoned will last, since we're both in the same boat, for the sake of our future lives, how about we get to know each other a little and become friends?"