Violence had been, since ancient times, a magnificent tool for establishing justice.
But what if you used violence and justice still wasn’t properly established?
Did that mean violence wasn’t the answer?
Then what was?
Sirin knew the answer.
Sirin said:
“Violence times a thousand!”
—*Crack!*
“AAAAAAGH!”
If violence isn’t the answer, the answer is more violence — violence × 1,000, to be precise.
Because quantity, in and of itself, becomes quality.
This is not the wisdom of a shepherd.
These are the words of the Red Heavenly Demon King, Iosif Stalin.
Sirin was truly without prejudice.
She possessed the genuine disposition of a civilized intellectual — one who could learn from even a communist, if there was something worth learning.
And so Sirin also had the makings of an outlaw who could paint the world red.
Fire, after all, is red.
Sirin decided to make the back of the man walking ahead of her a little redder.
—*Crack!*
The whip in Sirin’s hand cut through the air with a crisp, cheerful sound.
“GAAAARGH!”
“Move faster, you snake bastards.”
“We get it, we get it! Please stop hitting us! We’re carrying a stretcher, aren’t we!”
“Shut up! Unless you want your skull rattled. I never said you could talk.”
“Ngh…!”
A thoroughly bizarre spectacle was unfolding on the road.
Two burly men, ragged and wrecked, were hauling a stretcher.
The whip marks Sirin had personally bestowed upon their backs were vivid and fresh.
On the stretcher lay another man — the crotch of his trousers soaked through with blood, dried white foam crusted at the corners of his mouth, unconscious.
What a terrifying and ghastly sight.
To summarize: Sirin was beating wanted criminals to a pulp and escorting them back to the city.
“Why aren’t you moving faster? I’m exhausted. I absolutely need to rest inside the walls tonight. Do you have any idea how hard I worked tracking you lot down?”
“Why do you have to go this far with us…”
The men carrying the stretcher sniffled as if they were genuinely aggrieved.
The sight of it made Sirin even angrier.
“You’re crying? What exactly did you do to deserve to cry? You like crying? Want me to give you more to cry about? The guy lying down looks lonely — should I make sure he’s not lonely anymore?”
“Please, please…”
Passersby on the road recoiled in alarm and gave the whole procession a wide berth.
Even a beauty fit for myth and epic poetry becomes someone to avoid when she’s wearing a mask and whipping half-naked men.
Though, admittedly, some people would eagerly approach for exactly that reason.
And so Sirin and her wanted criminals occupied the middle of the road.
It was fine, though.
The road they were walking was well-paved — four lanes wide, impressively maintained for a world that was a jumbled blend of ancient, medieval, and early modern.
The Empire poured something close to obsessive passion into road construction.
Thanks to that, the Empire’s logistics moved fast — but the Imperial Army never had enough personnel to monitor all those roads.
The only ones who benefited were the cell-structured criminals who burrowed into every corner like snakes in a pit.
For some of them, though, that was now past tense.
The ones being dragged along by Sirin were no longer having a good time.
Before long, the outline of the city walls came into view in the distance.
The moment the criminals spotted the Imperial security forces at the wall checkpoint, they screamed like they’d found their saviors.
“S-save us! Arrest us, quickly!”
“Please, please just throw us in prison already! Hurry! HURRRYYY!!!!”
They were desperate.
The security captain sighed and signaled his subordinates with a look.
Soldiers stepped forward and took custody of the criminals.
The men immediately started raving at the soldiers.
“Kill that woman! She’s a Witch!”
“She spat poison! It melted through iron chains!”
“I saw her die! An arrow through the head — and then she came back to life!”
“She’s a Witch! A real Witch!!!”
Sirin snapped.
“You think prison means it’s over? You think prison is safe?”
“!!!”
The trash clamped their hands over their own mouths.
Watching them get dragged away, Sirin tried to steady her breathing.
They kept making her furious.
“…..”
The security captain glanced at the wretched state of the man on the stretcher’s lower half, pressed his throbbing temple, and turned to Sirin.
“Ssirin… no, Miss Sirin.”
“Hff, hff… what now.”
“….As I’ve said before, the, ah… aggressive physical damage you inflicted on certain body parts of some of the criminals is a clear overreach of your authority—”
“I performed tumor removal surgery.”
“…..”
Sirin’s expression shifted for a moment into something unsettling.
The security captain swallowed without meaning to.
“That one deserved what he got.”
Sirin smiled coldly.
“He was a rapist. The robbery, rape, and murder of a young couple in the area about two months ago — that was them. And that’s not all they killed. They sold children too. Filth.”
It was information Sirin had extracted through Mind Enlightenment during interrogation.
The security captain, unaware of that, felt his skin crawl.
“…Even so, the force you used was excessive.”
“Excessive?”
Sirin let out a short laugh.
“They tried to kill me. I was acting in self-defense. Technically, killing them outright would’ve been perfectly justifiable. Wouldn’t it?”
“…”
“But I didn’t kill them. I gave them a chance. Everyone has the potential to change — they deserve an opportunity for rehabilitation. That said, a chance is a chance, and a debt is a debt. They still have to pay for what they did. Don’t they?”
The security captain answered stiffly.
“Dispensing punishment is not your role. Your role ends at bringing criminals in. The execution of punishment belongs entirely to the Empire. What kind of world would it be if everyone enforced the law however they pleased?”
“They’re going to die anyway.”
“…They must stand trial.”
“They’ll be sentenced to death and executed, Captain. Based on experience? Based on precedent?”
The security captain found himself at a loss for words.
This woman seemed unhinged, but every so often she showed a clarity of insight that made his skin crawl.
*Precedent.* How on earth did a wandering adventurer, a bounty hunter of all things, know anything about Imperial law enforcement?
And not once had Sirin ever brought in an innocent person.
Every single one was trash who deserved to die.
What was she, exactly?
Her face was hidden behind a mask, yet even so, she had a beauty so captivating it was impossible to look away.
Her day-to-day behavior seemed unhinged, but beneath the surface she possessed knowledge and logic that no one raised in the gutter could ever have.
What was this woman?
The security captain managed to continue.
“…I suppose they would.”
“Then before they die, they should at least reflect on what they’ve done. I simply helped them come to terms with their crimes through their bodies — helped them feel remorse, repent, and seek redemption. I gave them the gift of deep introspection. I’m just that merciful. From now on, call me the Saintess of Mercy and the Whip.”
“…”
“Pure, unconditional kindness. Nothing more.”
Sirin nodded, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.
Then she looked up at the sky and nodded again — as if she could see someone invisible there.
The security captain’s head ached.
“…Please stop talking such nonsense.”
He waved his hand.
“I’ll warn you one more time. It is your prerogative to bring in criminals alive when you could simply bring their heads. If they resist and die in the process of capture, that’s unavoidable. But punishment is a separate matter.”
The security captain looked Sirin directly in the eye.
The woman in front of him clearly had the intelligence to understand what he was saying.
“Punishment and its execution belong entirely to the Empire. If you continue inflicting unnecessary harm under the guise of punishment, I will have no choice but to question your motives. Please do not cross the line. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
His position was clear: if he had to witness evidence of punishment — overreach — right in front of him, the Imperial Army, as an authority that had been challenged, would have no choice but to intervene.
Better to just kill them and bring the heads.
Corpses don’t talk.
Whatever happened before the killing was none of the Imperial Army’s concern.
Especially when what Sirin was bringing in were hardened criminals who deserved to be torn apart.
“Hmph. My business.”
Sirin understood perfectly and didn’t care.
For the criminals, and for Sirin alike.
But you had to think in terms of the total sum of suffering.
Sirin was capable of utilitarian reasoning.
If they were going to die anyway, they should live a little longer, suffer a little more, and then die.
Bad people deserved more pain.
And if they happened to feel remorse along the way, all the better — because genuine remorse would lead them to immediately take their own lives.
If they didn’t repent, they’d suffer.
If they did repent, they’d end their worthless lives on the spot.
Either way, a world where no one else got hurt.
Every modern person thought this way.
And Sirin was a modern person.
Sirin was willing to endure a little extra effort in order to spread the enlightened ideology of the modern world.
She thought to herself:
*I’m doing the work you can’t, and you have this much to say about it.*
But she didn’t say that out loud.
The Imperial Army wasn’t refusing because they didn’t want to do it.
Sirin had the sense of balance not to push past the line.
“The money?”
“I’ll notify the guild. Collect it later.”
“You people and your damn procedures.”
Sirin grumbled and turned to leave, then stopped.
She turned her head and looked at the security captain.
Her eyes were burning.
“There are accomplices inside the city. You’d do well to investigate.”
“….I’ll keep it in mind.”
Which meant: *we can’t.*
Sirin sighed and walked toward the city gate.
At the gate, a soldier lowered his spear to block her path.
“Ahem. Your Travel Pass, please.”
“Hey. You know me. You saw me yesterday, the day before — you’ve seen me every single day. Can’t you see I just came from talking to your captain?!”
“Ahem, I’m afraid you’ll need to present your Travel Pass.”
“I know for a fact you let other people through just by recognizing their faces! So why do you always give me this crap?!”
“Hrm! Regulations require it. A Travel Pass is necessary. Otherwise, you’ll need to submit to a separate inspection.”
The soldier’s face took on a faintly hopeful expression as he said that last part.
Sirin looked thoroughly disgusted as she pulled her Travel Pass from her chest — along with a single strand of hair she plucked out and handed over.
This damned Travel Pass demanded a strand of hair as well.
For someone like Sirin with thick hair, fine.
But what about bald people?
Sirin still hadn’t gotten an answer to that question.
The Empire was, as ever, a barbaric nation that had officially institutionalized appearance-based discrimination against the follicularly challenged.
Sirin’s own homeland wasn’t much different, but her convenience-driven brain chose to ignore that fact.
Before the soldier who’d received the Travel Pass could open his mouth, Sirin cut him off.
“Sirin.”
“Hmm… it looks like it says ‘Ssirin’ here…..”
The soldier shut his mouth under Sirin’s murderous glare.
—*Ssirin!*
The moment the Resonance Plate chimed, Sirin snatched the Travel Pass back and stormed into the city, fuming.
The checkpoint soldier watched her retreating figure and swallowed in disappointment.
It would’ve been nice if she’d lost her Travel Pass.
Soon, another soldier approached the one guarding the checkpoint.
He asked in a low, conspiratorial voice.
“How is it?”
The checkpoint soldier replied.
The two soldiers began quietly exchanging something.
The checkpoint soldier handed over Sirin’s strand of hair and said:
“It’s a long one today. I’ll need more for this.”
“Damn it. Don’t push it.”
The checkpoint soldier snorted.
“Lot of talk from a married man. Want me to tell your wife?”
Sirin said:
“Oh, you’re married? Your wife is about to be a widow.”