49. Witch (13)
Even if the sky falls, there will still be a hole to crawl through.
The reason I came to believe that saying dates back to when my parents died, back when I was fifteen.
Even looking back on it now leaves me feeling heavy and gloomy…
but this is not really the right time to get lost in memories, so I’ll skip over that.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I’ve always lived with the mindset of, “What’s the worst that could happen? Death?”
No matter what happened, there was always, somehow, a way to solve it.
Each time I overcame a crisis, I comforted myself with the thought, “I made it through again.”
That was no different even after coming to Aether World.
This place had thrown hardships at me far worse than anything I ever faced on Earth, but I had overcome every one of them and was still standing here.
But this time…
this one might be a little difficult.
‘Reverse-calculate it!’
—Impossible. User lacks sufficient mana.
‘Then anything is fine, just find me a way!’
—There is none.
Listening to the cold voice of the shrike glasses, I bit down on my lips.
Watching me, Melisher, mounted on her broom, wore a smile of complete leisure.
“Do you understand a little now?”
It was all bluster.
Melisher no longer had enough strength left to use even magic.
If I set my mind to it, I could kill her right now.
But…
would that act have any meaning?
[Impossible]
[Impossible]
[Impossible, impossible, impossible…]
The word “impossible” filling one entire side of the shrike glasses left me no choice but to sink into despair.
Dispelling the illusion barrier was impossible by any means.
Even if I killed Melisher, I was fated to remain trapped here forever.
The shrike glasses contained no record of a situation like this.
To begin with, an illusion barrier existed only for the convenience of a boss fight. Normally, the player entered, defeated Melisher successfully, and the barrier automatically collapsed.
But now this wasn’t a boss fight.
It was more like I had been trapped inside the “boss room” created for a boss fight, doomed never to leave.
Was this the difference between a game and reality?
I had always warned myself again and again not to confuse the game with reality, and yet how was I supposed to deal with a variable this huge?
“Ufufu, what’s wrong? Have you already lost your will?”
Keeping my mouth shut tight, I raised my head and met Melisher’s eyes.
“If you want, kneel and beg. Then perhaps I’ll special—”
[Blink]
“…Wh—?!”
I was sick of watching that woman flap her mouth, so I launched myself into the sky.
She hurriedly pulled back, but I had already expected that and threw one of the witch hunter’s magic tools into the air.
[The One-Armed Monkey’s Claw]
Chwararak!
A net shaped like a monkey’s arm burst out in midair and bound Melisher’s body.
But clicking her tongue, she lightly shook her head and tore the net to pieces at once.
Still, it had been enough to pin her in place for a moment.
I closed in to point-blank range and swung my sword, but Melisher sharply twisted her broom downward and dropped.
There was always a small gap between one Blink and the next.
No matter how hard I tried, in order to exercise fine control over the distance and maintain the concentration needed to cut it cleanly, there was bound to be some delay.
Most mages who fought me had always found those brief openings.
Melisher would be the same.
Judging this to be my opening, perhaps she meant to attack while descending from the broom, calling her mana up again—
Click.
‘Sahallen’s Beaker.’
An ancient artifact the witch hunter had cherished dearly.
It had the characteristic of a barrier-sealing technique engraved into it, capable of binding the opponent’s soul—but that effect only worked on amateurs.
The true power of this artifact appeared when all the evil spirits sealed inside it exploded at once.
Whoosh!
I hurled the beaker straight at Melisher, who was pointing her broom at me.
Only then did she sense the danger and hurriedly spread a shield.
‘It won’t help.’
If it had been a magic shield built from physical force, maybe.
But a shield of illusion and fiction, created from mana already running dry, could not stop that.
Crash!
…Thud.
A ridiculously cute impact sound for something one was supposed to believe was an ancient artifact.
But the effect was certain.
“Ah, ngh… urk…”
The moment Sahallen’s Beaker pierced straight through her body, Melisher suddenly wrapped both arms tightly around herself as though her body were being crushed from within, and began to cough up blood.
“Cough!”
If her mana had been even slightly intact, a crude throw like that would never have landed.
But Melisher had already been scraping rock bottom, so by sheer luck, it connected.
Vomiting blood, she fell to the ground and slammed into the side of one of Arcanium’s buildings, rolling several times before finally collapsing.
I did not miss the chance.
Blinking in, I drove my sword with all my strength toward her chest.
Puhk!!
“Kyuk…!”
It missed.
A barrier she had generated in a rush twisted the path of the blade, and I stabbed into her shoulder instead.
And even that, only shallowly.
Kwakakak!!
I wanted to thrust for a vital point once more, but crimson lightning began crackling from her body, so I had no choice but to jump back and retreat.
“Haa, haa… disgusting bastard… to think you were hiding an artifact like that…”
Using her broom to support herself, Melisher barely managed to pull herself back up.
Cold sweat streamed down her, but even so she forced a smile onto her face.
“Heh, hehe. Right, you can probably kill me. So then… what are you going to do?”
Kwa-jang!!
Glass fragments burst through the air, and space itself began to crack.
Through the tears between ripped-open segments of space, a pitch-black void could be seen.
A space where literally nothing existed.
The illusion world created by Melisher’s magic—
its true form.
Even if her life ended, this world would never disappear. It would remain forever as a form of emptiness in which direction, time, space, and even color did not exist…
and it would torment me forever.
“Hm? Go on, say something. Do you think anything will change just because you kill me? You’ll be living forever in that hell, unable even to die.”
There was no way.
Killing Melisher was not even the second-best option, nor even the worst one.
It was nothing but venting frustration.
And yet I still raised my sword toward her.
She no longer had the strength left to fight.
In the next few exchanges, I could cut off her head.
So why…
why couldn’t I move?
Guilt?
There was no way that was it.
I had no hesitation in killing evil people, and I was confident that if the moment came when I had to cut someone down, I would not waver.
But…
if I really cut Melisher down here, then maybe every possible way out would truly vanish.
That—
was what frightened me.
“You still think there’s some way left? You’re so dull… You’re no different from any other mage.”
A variable.
This was only a minor accident caused by an unpredictable variable.
If so, then I just had to introduce another variable.
I had always been a variable in this world, so this time should be no different.
Even if not even the shrike glasses could reverse-calculate the magic.
Even if none of my physical attacks worked.
Somehow—
if I kept wringing my brain dry and thought of a method, then just like before, a way to create a “variable”—
‘…There’s no way something like that exists.’
From the moment I learned that no magical interference whatsoever could affect this illusion barrier, I had already reached my limit.
Every means and method I possessed had been blocked.
Not even the shrike glasses could think of a way.
And I myself had no magical knowledge at all.
On top of that, I had never even experienced this situation in the game.
So as someone who was neither a mage nor anything special—
just an ordinary person—
there was nothing I could do.
That
was the conclusion I came to.
Once I thought that far, the strength drained from the hand holding my sword.
As the Terriphon Sword lowered, Melisher’s lips stretched long like a shadow cast in the sunset against the darkening sky.
“That’s the right answer.”
“You can’t do anything.”
“Did you get arrogant just because illusions don’t work on you? Well then, what a pity.”
Melisher began to walk toward me one step at a time.
“None of your magic works on me. Even if you pulled out every spell, every artifact, every magic tool you have right here and now, in front of my illusion they would all be useless!”
Before long she had reached arm’s length, baring her teeth in a gentle smile.
“How does it feel,”
Melisher whispered to me,
“to feel the helplessness of being unable to do anything?”
“That is exactly how I felt.”
She was right.
There was nothing I could do here on my own.
No matter what I tried…
there was absolutely no way left to create a “variable” that could overturn this story.
“Surrender.”
It was a rather sweet temptation.
“Kneel, and offer your soul to me. It’ll be better than wandering here forever. You’ll spend your whole life as my slave, living a life worse than a bug… but still, someday, I promise I’ll kill you. Hmm? Isn’t that a pretty good offer?”
Yes.
She wasn’t wrong.
I could not use magic.
Perhaps, forever.
Even if I remained in this place for tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of years without dying…
I still would not be able to use magic.
How ironic—
that even though I possessed an item containing the majority of the world’s magical knowledge, I myself was someone incapable of using magic.
Someday, after an unimaginably long time had passed, perhaps the shrike glasses would finally finish analyzing this illusion barrier.
And when that day came, the glasses would tell me:
“If you use this spell in this way, and that spell in that way, you may escape.”
And when that day came, I would fall into despair all over again.
There is no bottom to despair.
The moment even the slightest trace of hope appears, it lifts you high into the sky only to let you crash down again.
For someone like me, who could not use magic, a method that required magic might as well have been nothing but exquisite torture.
And that…
would completely destroy who I was.
“Now, choose.”
It was the final chance.
She spread both arms toward me, entirely defenseless, without even a shield.
A distance where, if I swung my sword, I could decapitate her immediately.
‘Go on, kill me if you can.’
She was certain.
Certain that I could not swing my sword.
And she was right.
I had absolutely no will to swing it.
Because she was the one and only final escape route left.
And so—
just as I was about to make my final decision.
…Suddenly, something black fell from the sky.
Splat!!
“…Huh?”
“Ah?”
Melisher and I both turned to look at it almost at the same time.
The figure was familiar.
‘Black short hair. Black eyes.’
A small girl wearing Stella’s black uniform, beautiful with its gold trim.
‘Flame.’
She lifted her head with difficulty.
Was it a coincidence that she looked straight at me without even needing to turn?
As I looked at her, smiling like an idiot, I did not have time to wonder about anything.
“W-wait…”
No—
more precisely, there was no time to wonder.
My sword was already shining again,
and its arc was already tracing straight toward Melisher’s chest.
“This… something’s wrong—”
Puhk!!
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