49. Witch (10)
Following the witch hunter into his subspace, I once again confronted that peculiar sense of disgust I had felt before.
It was not some especially mysterious sensation.
Fragments of countless creature corpses, strewn all around and used as materials on experiment tables.
I knew very well that the horrifying sight before me was the witch hunter’s desperate struggle to prolong his lifespan, but there was nothing to be done about the instinctive revulsion it stirred in me.
“Looks like the interior’s changed a bit since last time. Guess you remodeled after I visited.”
From what I had heard back then, this witch hunter had only just become one, and had hunted no more than seven witches so far.
Someone might say, “Only seven,” but in truth that was already remarkable.
In a world where almost no witches remained, the fact that he had found seven at all was proof enough that he had already lived for several decades.
“Let’s see…”
That was that, but first I should gather what I needed.
Putting on the shrike glasses, I gave the laboratory a quick look around, and sure enough, there was more gear useful for hunting witches than I had expected.
There were almost no magic tools I could use, since I had no mana, but there were still plenty of items worth taking along as substitute protective gear.
“Is this Alekgro’s Cloak of Extinction? No, it isn’t. Why do you have a half-burned cloak? It’s a fake.”
—I took it as spoils after hunting a witch before. I had no idea it was counterfeit…
“I’ll take Legro’s Piercing, and what’s this? You should throw junk like this away. Oh, you even had Pahallen’s Oldwood Bracelet? Why would someone with no wrists have something like this?”
—…I used to have them.
“And this is Sahallen’s Beaker. I’m taking this too.”
—You have a good eye for magic tools. That one is inscribed with a sealing formation created by an ancient mage to imprison the grudges of witches. Are you planning to capture the witch?
“No. I’m using it as a thrown bomb. It burns well when you light it.”
No matter what kind of look the witch hunter gave me, I ignored it and kept gathering whatever seemed useful.
That witch hunter placed enormous pride in the very act of hunting witches, so once he had realized I was genuinely trying to hunt one, he could no longer interfere.
—Are you… planning to take all of that?
“Ah, I’ll use it and return it.”
—…Understood.
After gathering all the magic tools that seemed usable enough, I slowly shifted my gaze toward the beaker containing the witch’s essence.
“Sss.”
The moment I smacked my lips, the witch hunter moved slightly and blocked it from view.
That bastard. Too quick to catch on.
Though to be fair, I did not really intend to take any more witch essence anyway.
The witch’s crystal sphere I currently possessed had already reached five hundred years, so it could not grow any further.
And besides, the side effects of the crystal sphere kept making strange voices ring at my ears. There was no way I was insane enough to strengthen it further.
“Oh, right.”
—…What is it now?
Might as well ask while I’m thinking of it.
“Hey, do you know what kind of changes happen if a human gets exposed to a witch’s mana?”
—Of course.
“This is just about someone I know, but if a magician gets exposed to a witch’s mana and keeps hearing voices in empty space, what kind of symptom is that?”
—A very common auditory hallucination.
“No, it’s a little different. That magician is exceptionally talented in mental defense.”
With Crimson Spring March’s protection, my mental defense should rank among the very best in the setting.
No matter how strong a witch was, she should not be able to interfere with me so easily, yet I kept hearing those voices. It was enough to drive me mad.
Maybe a five-hundred-year witch had really been strong enough to punch through Crimson Spring March’s protection…
…but she was already dead, so it was hard to believe that much power could still remain.
—I do not know how great that magician’s mental defense is, but resisting a witch’s mana would still be difficult.
“Well… that person is supposedly an 8-Class barrier mage. He works at a barrier center called Ppukkom. But even so, he’s suffering from a witch’s voices. Doesn’t that seem a little strange?”
—…A barrier mage.
If you were to list the types of magicians most capable of dealing with witches, the obvious answers would be barrier mages, who could shut off all kinds of mana, and space-type magicians.
Space-type magicians were extraordinarily rare, and in any case that did not fit my condition, so I used a barrier mage as the example for someone who could defend against mental attacks. At that, the witch hunter tilted his head.
—That is a little strange.
“What is?”
—For a magician with mental defenses that strong to suffer auditory hallucinations, it would have to be a witch from Rohallen at minimum. But all witches from there have already been hunted, and the “Last Witch” is sealed.
“…Really?”
Then what the hell was it?
—Hm. Rather, another possibility comes to mind. The magician may have attempted to communicate directly with a witch…
“That doesn’t sound right. He hates witches.”
—Then perhaps he connected his mind to someone, and only afterward raised a barrier, causing the other party’s voice to no longer reach him properly and making it sound like hallucinations instead.
“…Huh?”
At that moment,
someone suddenly came to mind.
‘Wait… had I visited Iphanel lately?’
She had once been a divine spirit, but now she had been revived using the heart of a divine beast, and she and I were connected by soul, so we could contact each other whenever we wanted.
The problem was that doing so consumed far too much mental energy, so we did not communicate casually, and lately I had been so busy running around dealing with one thing after another that I had paid no attention to Iphanel at all.
‘No way…?’
What if Crimson Spring March’s blessing had grown stronger and stronger, blocking the telepathy, and Iphanel had been calling for me this whole time?
—What is it?
“Nothing. Thanks. I think I figured something out because of you.”
—…Then use my belongings carefully and do not break them.
“Of course. I’ll return them clean and exactly the way I borrowed them.”
As I said that, my mind kept drifting back to Iphanel, making it hard to concentrate.
‘Why was she calling me?’
If what the witch hunter said was true, then it meant she had been trying to reach me for days now…
…could something serious have happened?
‘Once this is over, I need to go see her immediately.’
For now, the witch hunt in front of me had to come first, so I forcibly pushed the thought aside.
“Anyway, thanks. I’ll make good use of this.”
After giving a wave to the witch hunter, who had generously lent me magic tools in service of the noble goal of witch hunting, I immediately left the subspace.
Whoosh!
I already knew exactly where she was hiding.
‘The sewer.’
Now, all that remained…
…was to take the witch’s head.
Arcanium, underground sewer.
Avoiding the drops of water that kept falling from above, Melisher staggered along and finally leaned against a wall to catch her breath.
Now that she had recovered her heart and put it back into her chest, the speed of her magic power’s recovery had improved greatly, but the pain from where the witch hunter had stabbed her still had not disappeared.
Still, the wound had almost fully closed by now.
Once her magic power recovered, she would be able to run the restaurant again.
‘Not enough.’
She had to restore her magic power more quickly.
Should she just grab one of the dark mages wandering around the sewers and absorb them?
No, that would not be very efficient.
Besides, if she needlessly touched a magician from the Dark Mage Union and they all rose up together, that would be troublesome in its own way.
They were lunatics with no real sense of belonging, yet if anyone touched their group, they would use that as an excuse to go feral.
‘Rather…’
The moment she clutched at her chest and felt the heartbeat there—
A chill shot through her.
Melisher accepted the foul sensation rising through her whole body from deep within, and instinctively spread an illusory barrier through the air.
Craaash!!
The underground sewer began to crack like shattered glass, and she blocked the giant shadow scythe that had come flying from the void.
Krrshhh!!
As the broken glass burst apart, the water flowing underground twisted off through a side channel, the ceiling collapsed toward the floor, and the floor rose up toward the ceiling—the space itself began to warp.
—…Witch. Found you.
A bleak voice brushed past her mind like something stabbing straight through it.
A dizzying sensation swept over her, making every hair on her body stand on end.
Melisher slowly raised her head and looked up toward the air above the sewer.
A fluttering black robe.
A form made of darkness even deeper than darkness itself.
Its red glowing eyes shone with ominous menace, like a sun standing with moonlight at its back.
‘Witch hunter…!’
This one was on a completely different level from the witch hunter she had met before.
It felt as though she were a mouse standing before a cat.
Facing a true predator, she gripped her staff with trembling hands.
“Hah… damn it…”
She had known that someday it would come to this.
Now that even the Witch Restaurant was gone, her chances were almost nonexistent.
She knew very well that she could not win, and yet the corners of her lips slowly curled upward.
“I finally found you.”
Ignoring her words, the witch hunter slowly raised his enormous scythe.
As she stared at the scythe made for one purpose only—to sever the heads of witches—Melisher slammed her staff against the ground.
Boom!!
At once, with a thunderous explosion, the very space of the underground sewer shattered apart and shot upward into the air.
Up, down, left, right—the distinction between them vanished, and even as the fragments split into smaller fragments and scattered again, the witch hunter did not so much as twitch.
—Pointless tricks…
“Pointless tricks? Don’t make me laugh. Hah, this is a show I prepared to hunt witch hunters like you! You’re going to be the first sacrifice!”
Kooong!!
The sewer ceiling was pierced through, and the ground of Arcanium collapsed. Brilliant moonlight poured down underground.
Slash!
“…Urk!”
The witch hunter’s scythe folded space itself in half, splitting the illusion in two as well.
Melisher barely managed to stop that strike by creating the illusion of a gigantic lotus flower in empty air, but the internal shock still rose through her, and she spat out blood.
“Cough…!”
Even so, it was fine.
Melisher held nothing back, drawing out all her magic power and covering the entire area in illusion.
The purple dawn sky flipped and became green, and the dirty black clouds turned pale gray, illuminating the air.
‘There’s no mistake.’
That witch hunter possessed the ability [Dead Witch’s Breath].
It was more fatal to witches than any other ability…
…but what if she could absorb it completely instead?
Then Melisher would likely gain perfect resistance against witch hunters.
A witch who no longer needed to be chased by witch hunters.
If such a witch could exist in this world—
‘I could rule the magical world with my own hands!’
The Witch Restaurant?
She would not need to do something that troublesome anymore.
If she could obtain the ultimate magic, one that governed both illusion and reality, why would she bother with such tedious groundwork?
This was something she had planned for a very long time.
The final spell, meant to absorb the power of the witch hunter—the natural enemy of witches—after inheriting the prophecy from her ancestor, the Last Witch.
“Illusion is only illusion.”
That was what witch hunters always said.
But from now on, those words would no longer hold true.
“Because reality will become illusion too.”
—…Mm!
The witch hunter’s eyes changed.
With red light flashing from them, he scattered black space in every direction in an attempt to suppress the illusion, but it was useless.
Such petty tactics would never work against a “perfect illusion no different from reality,” one forged at the cost of lifespan itself.
Crackle!!
“Strike!”
As Melisher chanted and swung her broom in a great arc, a crimson bolt of lightning came crashing down upon the witch hunter.
Crack!
The witch hunter, struck directly in his real body, staggered for a moment, but soon regained his stance and spun his scythe through the air in a slow circle.
The illusion began to scatter away like dust before a fan, but the moment Melisher clenched her hand in the air, even that was halted.
—You are not an ordinary witch.
“Heh-heh… of course not.”
Like the mother of all witches, the being who allowed witches to remain witches—the Last Witch—she had directly inherited magic from that existence.
And because of that, she possessed abilities that ran on a completely different track from other witches.
“I’ll be able to achieve my long-cherished wish…”
A world where witches no longer had to hide.
That was all the Last Witch had wanted.
But…
…witches could never truly mix with humans by nature.
Those lowly beings who were ruled by emotion, formed societies, and bound themselves with laws—we and they were different in kind from the start.
Witches could be complete even alone.
They could stand atop the world by mere existence alone.
So why should they ever compromise with an inferior species?
‘All I have to do is rule them.’
Krrsh!
Melisher jabbed her broom into the air.
The space around them splintered to pieces and tried to rip apart the witch hunter’s real body.
He tried to endure by wrapping himself in a black barrier, but the witch hunter, too, was beginning to reach his limit.
—That power… will only consume your lifespan…
She already knew that.
But what did it matter?
Once this fight was over, all she had to do was absorb [Dead Witch’s Breath], gain a perfect physical body, and perhaps she might even attain eternal life.
“Die thinking whatever you want. You’re nothing but fertilizer to me.”
—…What a pity.
At last, the witch hunter sensed his end approaching, closed his eyes, and then met his death as his body shattered into pieces.
Watching the witch hunter completely vanish into four-dimensional space without leaving even a corpse behind, Melisher’s teeth began to chatter together and the corners of her mouth rose.
“Hh, hhah…”
It had been easier than she expected.
Earlier, at the restaurant, she had spread the scent of the blue-haired witch everywhere in hopes of diverting the witch hunter’s attention, but if that had actually worked, it could have ended badly.
‘If I had never encountered this witch hunter… I would have regretted it.’
Because by facing him herself, she had gained the best possible power.
“Haa…”
Forcing strength into her thighs, Melisher made her way toward where the witch hunter’s corpse had disappeared.
All she had to do now was absorb that essence.
That was what she thought.
Clink.
…And then, all at once, someone appeared from the far side of the shadows and picked up the witch hunter’s essence.
“What… is that…?”
The boy was wearing Stella Academy’s uniform.
He had black eyes and black hair.
And above all, he held a staff in his hand, radiating beautiful light.
And more than anything—
‘The flow of mana… is strange…?’
There was no mana at all inside the boy’s body.
No—more precisely…
…the instant natural mana was absorbed into his body, it was immediately expelled back outside, as if his very body rejected mana.
‘How can something like that…?’
Then suddenly, something surfaced in Melisher’s mind.
Words the Last Witch had once spoken to her a very long time ago.
“You… could it be…?”
But before Melisher could finish speaking, the other party moved first, raising his sword and closing the distance.
Whoosh!
He closed his eyes, then opened them again—
and in that instant, the boy had already crossed a distance of ten full steps and was swinging his sword at her neck.
At that moment, she understood by instinct.
‘All things in the world flow according to the destiny of mana. No existence can defy that. Even the constellations in the heavens, even gods themselves, all contain mana.’
Was that why this being felt so familiar to her even as she swung her broom and raised a wave of illusion to block the sword of light?
‘But if there were someone in this world who possessed no mana… then that person might even be able to defy destiny itself.’
Back then, she had asked.
If such a being really existed, what should one do?
‘Run. Without even looking back.’
A voice so weak that it was hard to believe it had come from the Last Witch.
Clang!!
She fired a powerful illusion straight at the boy, but he pierced through it lightly and swung his sword once more at her throat.
‘Ha… so you really do exist…’
Back then, she had dismissed that being as nothing more than legend.
And yet here it was, real.
But Melisher did not think she would be able to heed the Last Witch’s advice.
‘Run without even looking back? How could I do that…’
Suddenly, her eyes turned cold.
“You look far too delicious to let go!”
Crying that out, Melisher jabbed her staff up into the sky.
And instantly,
the world flipped upside down.
‘If you are a being even the Last Witch feared…’
Then I will hunt you.
And absorb you.
That was the judgment Melisher made.
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