49. Witch (12)
Shweaak!
A shard of glass grazed his cheek as it flew past.
It had only barely touched him, but the stinging sensation was vivid enough that Baek Yuseol sensed the pain a moment later and frowned.
‘Ugh, damn it. It’s a pain in the ass to tell them apart.’
He had pushed his sixth sense to its absolute limit, but his opponent was a mage several levels above him, so it was not easy to properly detect the attacks.
Her power was strong enough to offset even the overwhelming advantage of their compatibility—namely, that illusion magic could not affect him.
Tudududung!!
A shower of soap bubbles poured from the ceiling.
Despite their pretty appearance, they were a crude spell with enough force to explode anything they touched—but this time, he did not dodge.
There was no need to dodge this attack.
‘Five steps.’
Ignoring the soap bubbles, he sprinted forward with exact steps, then Blinked.
After covering ten meters, he swung his sword, but his opponent summoned a stone slab inscribed with ancient language and blocked it.
‘Two steps back.’
He retreated in a flash, and at once the front paw of a giant sword beast burst from the floor and swept through the place where he had been standing just a moment before.
If that last attack had connected…
it might have been pretty bad.
‘But now I know for sure.’
Narrowing his eyes, Baek Yuseol stared at the illusion that ruled over this entire space.
Illusion magic meant making someone see things that were not there by scrambling the target’s mana.
That was why it should not have worked on him at all…
‘Some of the spells have real substance.’
They were illusions, and yet they had real substance.
It was such an absurd contradiction that the words themselves sounded ridiculous.
But it was true.
Because Melisher had inherited the ability of the legendary mage who could manifest illusions into reality—
the Last Witch.
That outrageous magic, which imposed illusion not upon the opponent’s mind but upon the world itself, had appeared only three times in the original game.
And every time it did, it displayed such monstrously vicious power that players were left in shock.
And the first of those appearances—
was right now.
Depending on the choices made in the Episode, one could end up facing Melisher directly in a boss fight, and in that case, the first line written in the strategy guide back then had been this:
[Walkthrough, Step One.]
[If possible, reload your save file and choose a route where you do not have to fight Witch Melisher.]
[If you’ve already saved more than twice and your previous data is gone…]
[We’re sorry.]
There was a reason the very first instruction practically told players to use a bug to restore an older save file.
Melisher’s boss fight required suppressing the flood of illusion magic and receiving help from Kaen and Hyeijin, who should be hidden somewhere in Arcanium around now—or else support from Stella’s Knights.
If you ended up fighting her alone…
your odds of victory were zero.
‘But Character Baek Yuseol was different.’
At that point in time, no one on Earth had ever raised Character Baek Yuseol all the way from summer break to the start of the new school term—
except Baek Yuseol himself.
Back then, during the fight with Melisher, he had been able to observe a very special phenomenon:
he could distinguish between the witch’s attacks that had real substance and those that did not.
In other words, Character Baek Yuseol had complete immunity to incomplete illusion magic that lacked real substance.
Of course, the substantial and insubstantial attacks had been marked with different colors, but even then, telling them apart one by one had not been easy, and he distinctly remembered pouring dozens of hours into clearing Witch Melisher’s fight.
‘Never thought I’d end up fighting this again in real life…’
Even so, the memory was unmistakably helping him.
‘The soap bubbles are fake, but most attacks in animal form are real.’
He dodged some attacks with everything he had,
while merely pretending to dodge others to make Melisher lower her guard.
She still had no idea that flaws existed in her magic.
Which made sense.
Unless someone had a mana-leak constitution, they would have been completely caught by every illusion, and without ever needing to distinguish between “illusions with substance” and “illusions without substance,” they would simply have taken damage.
‘If I remember the setting right… Melisher’s ability was still in the middle of evolving.’
Because it was still developing, only some of her illusions had gained real substance.
That had become a concentrated exploitation point for Baek Yuseol, but he still could not relax.
‘This is reality.’
In Aether World Online, all he had needed to do was exploit the weakness and clear the boss.
But as always, reality would be different from the game.
Baek Yuseol had only one concern.
‘Melisher… realizing something about her own magic.’
According to the original sequence, in order for her to ascend one step further, she needed the power of a special witch hunter.
But in reality, some other completely different trigger might cause her ability to explode all at once.
And knowing the weakness did not mean he had the advantage in actual combat, no matter how favorable their compatibility seemed on paper.
‘There’s no opening to attack at all…’
He had intentionally concealed about two meters of Blink’s maximum range, keeping it as a final hidden move, but there was no good chance to use it.
To begin with, Melisher was trying to keep as much distance as possible so she could respond safely to the irregular magic that was Blink.
‘Still, I can force an opening if I have to!’
[Blink]
Avoiding the boulders erupting from the ground with a careful sidestep, he teleported and swung his sword.
Melisher hurriedly spread a shield in the shape of a snail shell in midair.
But that too was part of his plan.
Pressing the button on the small light in his left hand and sweeping it across the shell, Baek Yuseol made the illusion magic vanish in an instant.
“Ah…!”
There was no mistake.
That was a witch hunter’s magic tool.
‘But…!’
Grinding her teeth, Melisher clapped both hands together and brought them to her chest.
At once, branches burst from her back and covered her whole body, and Baek Yuseol’s sword struck them and was thrown back.
Stagger.
“Ugh…?!”
Unable to endure the sudden recoil he had not expected, Baek Yuseol lost his balance and reeled violently.
‘Shit…!’
In that brief instant, Baek Yuseol sensed danger.
He had shown far too large a gap against a veteran mage, and on top of that there was still a slight delay before his next Blink became available.
If he were hit now, the injury would definitely be fatal.
Realizing that, he curled his body as best he could and braced for impact—
But.
Tap, tap!
‘…Huh?’
Instead of attacking him, Melisher leapt far backward, raised her trembling hand, and pointed her broom at him.
‘What the hell? Why isn’t she attacking?’
It had saved his life, but from Baek Yuseol’s perspective, it made no sense.
But from her side, it had been an extremely rational decision.
‘A deliberately exposed opening.’
Melisher had spent decades fighting all kinds of enemies.
That was why she had already realized long ago that the enemy before her was a highly skilled one.
Would such a veteran magic warrior really show such a glaring opening?
Impossible.
‘Pathetic.’
A cheap trick like that would not work on her.
“…Hmm.”
But then her mind turned blank white as she watched Baek Yuseol slowly start to steady himself again, wobbling precariously.
‘What is that attitude?’
She had already seen through the ploy of exposing a weakness in order to invite her attack.
And yet he still stumbled there until the very end, acting as though he could barely regain his balance.
That…
could no longer even be called magical combat or psychological warfare.
If anything, it was the sort of thing one did only when looking down on an opponent and mocking them.
And when that thought struck her—
“…Don’t make fun of me!!”
Grinding her teeth, Melisher shouted as though overcome with fury.
“…What?”
Already worn out enough to die, Baek Yuseol was utterly startled by the sudden scream.
But even that reaction of his seemed disgusting to her, and Melisher shrieked at the top of her lungs.
“Do you know what state of mind I had to be in to come this far? Do you think I came here just to be toyed with by some lowly human like you? What the hell do you think you’re doing right now?!”
Blood seeped from between her tightly clenched lips.
It was not an injury Baek Yuseol had given her.
She had bitten her own lips so hard that they had split.
“How dare you… knowing nothing of my resolve… play games with me…”
By this point in the battle, she could not help but realize it.
None of her attacks worked on him at all.
She accepted that reality with every inch of her body, so vividly it made her vision go dark.
And yet…
her opponent was not killing her.
Why?
No matter how she thought about it, there could only be one answer.
“I… am going to create the witches’ world once more. A witches’ village, a witches’ city, a witches’ nation. Do I… look ridiculous to you because I ran something like a restaurant?”
From the moment a witch opened her eyes, she was alone.
That was destiny.
That was providence.
That was an unchangeable truth.
Witches, who lacked sociality and emotion, were no different from starving beasts. They might seize one another’s territory, but they would never yield.
And in the end, witches could not unite.
One by one they were hunted by witch hunters, and now they had fallen into the pitiful state of hiding in the shadows.
Witches—
once called the finest, most superior race on earth, who could have conquered the world with ease if they had only wished it.
Melisher hated that.
Society? Nation? Loneliness?
That was not why she wished to create such things.
“I’m sick of living a life looked down on by inferior species. And now, even after coming this far, I’m supposed to be mocked by a lesser human who can’t even use magic…?”
Baek Yuseol’s expression hardened, and once more he raised his sword.
She had fallen into a strange misunderstanding, but there seemed no need to correct it.
If anything, it worked out in his favor.
Thinking that, he prepared to settle back into combat stance—
when suddenly…
She stopped.
“No.”
Melisher let her arms fall.
“No. No. Ah, right. I see.”
Tilting her head to one side, she stared fixedly at Baek Yuseol with empty, hollow eyes.
As if simply by looking at him that way, she might pierce straight through him.
“Why have you been dragging this out instead of killing me?”
“To play with me? No. That’s what I thought, but… thinking about it again, I don’t think that’s it. Right?”
Baek Yuseol did not answer.
But Melisher smiled as if she had gained certainty, tearing only one corner of her mouth grotesquely all the way toward her ear.
“Ahh? I get it now. You’re afraid of this space, aren’t you? Illusions may not work on you… but if you kill me, you won’t be able to escape this space that’s completely isolated from reality!”
“…Wait, what did you just say?”
What the hell was she talking about?
He did not want to understand it, but the shrike glasses’ automatic interpretation function dissected magic and injected the analysis into his mind whether he wanted it or not.
[Analysis of special witch magic, Illusion Barrier, has been completed.]
After the brief headache passed through his skull like a bolt of lightning, Baek Yuseol slowly raised his head with blank eyes.
[Illusion Space]
- Type: Reality-Type Illusion (Witch)
- Interpretation: A witch who has reached the ultimate height of illusion magic can create a new space out of imagination.
- Analysis: Said space is a new dimension isolated from reality…
- Reverse-calculation formulas ▼
[Void type, space type, reality-type illusion, charm type…]
Even amid the wave of countless pieces of information rising before him, Baek Yuseol found and read the most important line.
‘It really is… an isolated space?’
He had never heard of anything like this.
No, more than that—an isolated space?
The Melisher in Aether World Online had never been capable of magic on this level.
No matter how much it was an illusion, to distort space itself would require at minimum five 7-Class space-type mages gathered together.
‘Reverse calculation…’
was impossible.
All the categories required to reverse-calculate illusion-space magic were rare ones, so even if Baek Yuseol had not possessed a mana-leak constitution, escaping from here would have been practically impossible.
Cold sweat began to pour down him all at once.
Winning the battle was no longer the important issue.
“Ahaha… now it’s all right. Now that I know what you’re afraid of, there’s no reason to drag things out any longer, is there?”
Laughing emptily, Melisher let her broom hang loose and pointed her index finger into the air.
Tong…!
A tiny ripple spread through empty space, like lightly tapping on a glass bell.
But it carried an influence over this entire space.
“I am closing the space.”
“You were probably trying all this time to figure out a way to escape… but you didn’t know this, did you?”
Baek Yuseol hurriedly sprinted toward the wall of the illusion barrier and swung his sword, but—
Ttaeng!!
The only result was a dull shock, like striking an iron wall with a wooden club. It had no effect at all.
“You insane bitch! If you do this, you won’t be able to get out either!”
“Hah, so what?”
She was going to die anyway.
Why would something like that matter now?
Besides, if luck was with her and she managed to kill and absorb Baek Yuseol, she would obtain a witch hunter’s essence, so reopening the sealed illusion barrier would be no problem at all.
“Ahh, your expression… it’s gotten vicious. So now you’ve finally lost your composure? Are you finally willing to take me seriously?”
She elegantly covered her lips with the back of her hand and laughed like a refined noble lady.
“But what a pity. Even if you kill me now, you’ll be trapped in this illusion forever and never escape.”
When Baek Yuseol silently raised his sword at her, the smile on Melisher’s lips deepened, satisfied at last.
“This is the price for trampling on my pride and toying with me. Accept it gladly.”
Setting her broom vertically and stepping gracefully onto it, she parted her scarlet lips.
“Now then. Show me your full strength.”
Soon Melisher’s body began to float, rising up through the ceiling of the sewer and into the sky above Arcanium.
Then, laughing quietly, she murmured in a gentle tone toward Baek Yuseol, who was looking at her.
“Before the end, the least we can do is preserve each other’s pride, isn’t that right?”
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