Rewrite That Witch
CH461 · Rewrite
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Chapter 461: Respective Beliefs

It was the strangest assembly Rene Medde had ever sat in.

A detailed map of Longsong Stronghold occupied the center of the table. Six people stood around it: Commander of the First Army Iron Axe; Police Chief of Border Town Vader; Crack, current leader of Ragingfire; Nightingale, head of the Security Bureau; the dark-haired witch Ashes; and Rene himself, Earl of the Elk Family.

He had not expected to need Rats. He had not expected to stand shoulder to shoulder with witches. And yet here he was, studying the map while the leader of one criminal organization explained the territories of the rest.

“About seven or eight gangs in Stronghold, my lords,” Crack said, bowing with the ease of a man long practiced at making himself agreeable to dangerous people. “The Sickle Gang controls the northern outer city—five or six hundred members, the largest. But Knell Gang in the inner city is the most powerful. Mostly escaped convicts and mercenaries, rarely accepts ordinary members, more than adequate arms and armor. They hold the most lucrative territory.” He shifted along the map. “The eastern city belongs to Dead Flesh Eaters and Vulture Gang—slaves, Dreamland Water, the harbor routes. Rumored backing from the Wolf and Maple Leaf families, though when Ragingfire crushed them a few years back, no great noble lifted a hand to help.”

A faint note of pride there.

“As for the western city—the gangs are more fragmented. I know their leaders personally, but I’d need to go through names—”

“The gangs’ structure isn’t the priority.” Iron Axe’s voice was quiet and precise, the unhurried authority of a man who had learned to mean every word. “What I need to know is whether you can lead us into their lairs.”

Crack cleared his throat. “A common saying: ‘Rat lairs are riddled with caves and holes.’ I know all the main gathering points, but the individual hideouts—dried wells, cellars, the places they only show their closest people—I can’t map those on my own. For those, I’d need the leaders and their trusted men to lead us in.”

“He’s right.” Rene heard his own voice come out heavier than he expected. “Face them directly and they have no chance. But clearing them completely is another problem. The notice has already been announced. By the time we move, the leaders will have gone to ground.”

“Gone to ground?” Ashes laughed. It was a short sound, more assessment than amusement. “Unless they leave Stronghold entirely, they won’t stay hidden for long.”

“Yes.” Crack wiped the sweat from his forehead and did not argue.

Rene understood why. He had been in battle. He had fought demonic beasts in the passes above Hermes. He knew what a real fighter looked like—not in size or posture, but in something subtler, something in the eyes and in the way the body occupied space. Even soldiers from the Judgement Army, veterans of a hundred engagements, would flinch from Ashes without being able to say exactly why. She wore no particular expression. She was simply standing. And yet the air around her carried the specific weight of someone who had stood between living and dying so many times that the distinction no longer altered her bearing.

Iron Axe straightened. “His Highness has given us three days to prepare. When the first rations are distributed, the army will begin from the western city gate and sweep through all areas. We are targeting the organizers only—remove the leadership and the Black Street collapses without a prolonged campaign.”

He turned toward the door.

“But—” Rene couldn’t stop himself. “Will this actually work? No city has managed to eliminate the Rats. As long as citizens exist, so will they.”

Iron Axe paused at the entrance. He turned, and for a moment Rene thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“Is that so?” he said quietly. “Border Town doesn’t have any.”

The room emptied. Only Vader remained.

“Earl—has anyone applied for the police positions yet?”

“Not yet.” Rene lowered himself into a chair, Iron Axe’s words still in his ears like an echo that hadn’t finished arriving. “Though I hear from Petrov that dozens of men from the Second Army have already signed up.” He sat quietly for a moment. “Is it really true? No Rats in Border Town at all?”

“If you mean conventional Black Street organizations—no.” Vader shrugged. “No man or woman goes hungry there, and everyone can find work. Even odd jobs pay enough to live on.” He paused. “Honestly? Before I went to Border Town, I didn’t believe a place like that could exist in Graycastle.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, my lord. His Highness is capable of things no other noble I’ve known has even considered.” Vader spread his hands—not as a gesture of ignorance, but of genuine wonder, the kind that had settled in over time.

“No need for ‘my lord.’” Rene waved it off. “His Highness wants us to work together. Titles can wait.”

Vader nodded without protest. It was the kind of frankness Rene found he admired—no performance of deference, but no aggression either.

“Do you believe he can actually clear the Rats? All of them, across the whole Western Region?”

“I’m not sure,” Vader said, and the honesty of it was unexpectedly steadying. “I was a Patrol Leader for years. I know Rats the way you know a neighbor whose habits haven’t changed in a decade. Blunt force doesn’t fix it—they just redistribute. His Highness said once that if he were dealing with a city of a million people, he might not be able to manage it. But ten thousand people? He thinks he can make it too risky to be a Rat and too possible not to be.”

“Too risky,” Rene repeated. Ten thousand people. He set that aside for later, though the number nagged at him. “That will take years.”

“That’s why he built the police force.” Vader’s voice carried something careful and deliberate now. “I’ve tried to explain this before—it’s genuinely different from a patrol team. It reports to the City Hall, not to a noble. It maintains order rather than protecting noble interests. It doesn’t deal with criminals; it removes them from the equation entirely.”

“You said His Highness told you something.”

“I had the same doubts you do now.” Vader almost smiled. “He asked me: So you won’t try, because it’s hard?”

Rene felt it land somewhere behind his sternum.

He had not inherited the title of Earl by choice. He had wanted to be a knight—to earn something, to fight for something that mattered, person by person and stone by stone. The title had arrived uninvited, and for a while he had feared it meant the end of that. But the path had not closed. It had only widened in a direction he hadn’t expected.

“Now,” he said, and took a slow breath, “I understand.”

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