Chapter 104
Chapter 104
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 104
Chapter Title: The Price of Loss (3)
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1.
The twins were utterly dejected.
Startled by Siwoo's bizarre condition, they had rushed to Amelia.
In one corner of their hearts lingered a faint hope that the capable associate professor might somehow fix everything.
But she already knew it all and had given up.
To the twins, who reported through choking sobs, Amelia replied in a weary voice.
"That's the limit of what I can heal."
She said he wouldn't recover any further.
The result of the treatment was a Siwoo turned into a puppet, staring blankly at magic with no emotions left whatsoever.
Until just moments ago upon arriving here, the twins had been brimming with happiness, but now they returned to the carriage looking utterly worn out, trudging along.
They had hurried over the moment they heard Siwoo had awakened, expecting to see him healthy and whole—only to be met with this cruel truth.
"Ugh... sob... Sis..."
"Don't cry, Odette."
The moment Odette stepped into the carriage, she collapsed onto her seat.
Despite Odile's attempts to stop her, tears like beads fell from those beautiful violet eyes.
Odile wasn't faring much better.
She stood there gripping her fists tightly, but her eyes were fully red and swollen.
"It's... it's my fault... If only I... had listened to the exile back then..."
"No! Why would this be your fault?!"
"But, but if I'd dropped to my knees right away and begged the assistant to be spared... maybe things would've been different!"
Odette's self-blame began.
Odile couldn't escape that cycle of guilt either.
After all, Siwoo had confronted the exile to protect not just Odette, but Odile as well.
"What do we do... What about our assistant... Waaah...!"
"Odette, get up."
Even so, Odile swallowed her tears steadfastly and grabbed Odette's wrist, pulling her up.
Odette staggered to her feet like a drunkard and threw herself into her sister's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Let's go back... Let's talk to the assistant again... Okay? Or... we could tell him what we prepared! Then, then... maybe he'll snap out of it... while he likes it..."
Her carefully applied makeup was ruined by tears, a total mess, yet Odette kept sobbing with hiccups.
"I told you to stop crying!"
"Why? Why can't I cry... It's just... so, so sad..."
Odile snapped at her little sister, but soon her own shoulders began to tremble faintly.
"If you cry... it makes me want to cry too..."
Compared to her sister, Odile was the mature one, but her soft heart was no different.
In the end, Odile burst into tears as well, hugging Odette tight and wailing openly.
2.
Latifundium, which handled most of Gehenna's magical crop supply.
After the homunculus rampage left it in ruins, a dozen witches worked tirelessly, completing all repairs in just a month.
The mana essence supplied nonstop during the rest period restored the land's vitality, illuminating the darkness born from the great tree's branches and leaves.
Yet there was a pit tangled with the tree's roots and massive boulders that even that light couldn't reach.
A presence stirred in this space, perfectly hidden by foliage, untouched by any footsteps or gazes.
A translucent membrane with prominent veins and muscle fibers bulging over it.
Caked in mud from leaking mucus, it resembled a sleeping bag made of gigantic entrails.
The semi-transparent film, translucent enough to dimly reveal the inside, tore open, and sticky amniotic fluid burst forth.
From the ripped membrane, a slick, drenched arm groped its way out.
It was a slender, magnolia-white arm.
Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, the arm flailed for a while before painstakingly tearing through the rest of the membrane and pulling free.
"Ugh... urk... blegh..."
The woman who barely wriggled out collapsed face-down on the dirt, vomiting up a massive amount of sticky fluid from her mouth.
It was the same fluid that had coated her entire body.
"Damn it..."
Choppy black bob cut framing her face.
Fierce red eyes glinting through slime-stuck eyelids.
Long, lithe limbs and pristine white naked curves tracing feminine lines.
Ea Sadalmelik, the Aquarius Witch, shuddered at the revolting sensation of the horrific amniotic fluid clinging to her skin.
"Damn it...!"
She scanned her surroundings warily with venomous eyes, confirmed no one was around, and cast a spell.
Using a cleansing magic, every last drop of dripping fluid sloughed cleanly off her body.
But the foul stench matted in her hair didn't vanish so easily.
At the same time, a stabbing headache pierced her skull.
It wasn't a physical issue.
The moment consciousness returned, the vivid terror from yesterday assaulted her—like flowers blooming from her body, turning her into nourishment.
*Spurt!*
Blood burst from her bitten lower lip.
The sensation of her body becoming fertilizer, the haughty gaze of Baron Merrygold looking down, her own pathetic begging for life in the final moments, and the overwhelming gap in power leaving no room for resistance.
As her body regenerated, the pent-up memories of the past dragged Ea into a bitter swamp of humiliation.
"Someday, I'll pay you back a thousand—no, ten thousandfold... you bitch... I'll kill you..."
Ea shoved away the rising trauma by vividly recalling Amelia's hated visage in her mind.
Still, she had survived.
As long as she was alive, the next chance would surely come.
Ea was indeed a witch who chased impulsive pleasures.
But that didn't mean she was reckless or stupid.
Otherwise, a public figure like her wouldn't have survived this long.
After deciding on the witch hunt in Gehenna, Ea had set up two safety measures.
Backdoors for escape in emergencies.
One was the artifact she had just extracted herself from: "Chrysalis of Rebirth."
When the owner meets death, it takes the hierarchy from the stigma as payment, allowing rebirth once inside its cradle.
To be precise, it takes the magical structures built into the stigma, not the hierarchy itself—but losing them drops the hierarchy anyway, so no difference.
"How much is left?"
Ea caressed the stigma engraved on her lower abdomen, like checking a receipt the morning after a blackout binge.
The once-packed space yawned empty.
Each void she counted fueled her rage and hatred further.
15 strokes remained.
Barely enough to maintain autonomous defense—six entire hierarchies had evaporated.
*Squelch!*
Ea kicked the amniotic sac she'd huddled in for 100 days.
It tumbled like a soaked rag, spewing fluid with a wet slap.
"Damn, damn...! That insolent bitch..."
Surviving was good, at least.
But losing six hierarchies was an enormous price.
She couldn't even guess how long it would take to recover them.
Revenge or anything else was impossible like this.
Ea roughly wiped the blood trickling from her lips down her chin with the back of her hand.
Droplets on her white chest looked obscenely erotic.
Regardless, amid her boiling hatred, she knew exactly what to do next.
Confirm if her second backdoor was intact.
Ribbons unfurled from Ea's back as she memorized the terrain.
Fortunately, her main weapon, "The Virgin's Loom," functioned perfectly.
"Aquarius" also seemed untargeted in the transaction.
Ea used the ribbons to lift a massive boulder.
She was a hunter who had slain countless witches and homunculi, amassing various artifacts.
Among them was "Barrier Separator," which could rip a hole in Gehenna's barrier to create an exit.
"........."
A palm-sized gap hid in the crevice under the lifted rock.
Fixed open like a gutted belly for surgery.
Around it sat Ea's small Aquarius-shaped "backside barrier."
Her specialty: concealing internal anomalies from the outside, as used in the Merrygold estate raid.
Using homunculi to enter Gehenna and leaving the key homunculus alive as a taunt were all decoys.
If the exile's presence inside was revealed, witches would seal escape routes first.
Block the barrier gap, and Ea would be trapped like a rat.
"Good."
Real hunters spot the main den and leave minor ones untouched.
Ea knew this as a hunter herself.
As expected, her secret little escape hatch remained undiscovered.
Being able to slip out of Gehenna was welcome news.
Yet Ea's expression didn't brighten.
15 hierarchies were insufficient to survive the present world teeming with homunculi and dangerous witches.
And Ea's situation, piled high with grudges, was worse than most.
Once they realized her weakness, every witch she'd harmed would hunt her down bloodthirstily.
Not just Tiferet Duke still roaming the present world for her.
Even the riffraff she'd ignored would become massive threats.
But Ea didn't despair.
She'd just steal more witches' wombs.
Hunt more homunculi.
Return this humiliation someday.
For instance, when Merrygold takes in an apprentice witch someday.
Implant a vessel in the apprentice, then strike once Merrygold's power is restricted.
*Hummm...*
Ea reached out and activated the Barrier Separator.
With a faint vibration, it began widening the dimensional rift inside the Aquarius.
Maintained at minimal size, it would take about 30 minutes to expand enough for her to pass.
Once back in the present world, clothing first.
Ea glanced at her fully exposed nudity and clicked her tongue.
Then.
*Rustle.*
A sudden presence.
Ea whipped around in alarm.
This was one of Latifundium's most remote spots during rest period, devoid of people.
The safest candidate site she'd scouted for the Barrier Separator.
"Who's there?!"
No answer. Amid the taut silence, a man emerged, snapping twigs.
A familiar face in loose patient-like garb.
How could she forget that face?
The man whose eyeballs she'd gouged out herself, brain thoroughly pierced.
She'd carved him deep, yet he lived.
She'd lost so much, while Merrygold lost nothing?
Even amid stray thoughts, Ea stayed alert.
About ten ribbons sharpened menacingly behind her.
Her current limit.
"Oh, long time no see. Lost your way?"
She played it cool, but inwardly she was deeply confused.
Unlikely he'd come to this out-of-way spot alone.
Soon Baron Merrygold might appear, or another witch grinning as easy prey Ea fell into their trap.
"........."
But a minute passed with no reply.
No one else appeared.
"What?"
Soon Ea realized Siwoo's state was off.
An eyepatch covered the left eye she'd pierced herself, and he exuded no vitality—like a reanimated corpse.
He wasn't even looking straight at her, despite her being a clear enemy.
Instead, he stared intently at the gap pried open by the Barrier Separator.
As if he couldn't properly perceive Ea's presence at all.
She didn't know what was going on or how.
But Ea trembled with glee.
If she tore that bastard apart and scattered him here, wouldn't that be some revenge on Merrygold right now?
"Perfect."
Ea grinned.
Ribbons fluttered open behind her with a rustle.
"I was about to die of frustration. This is just right."
Ea looked at Siwoo.
That instant, Siwoo looked at Ea.
As if finally registering her, his lips twisted.
His blank face contorted in intense emotion.
Ea knew that stark feeling was hatred.
"Bloom."