Chapter 197
Chapter 197
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 197
Chapter Title: Festival (3)
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Around the 16th century, when people firmly believed they could pioneer the New World and conquer nature with the power of science.
Witches, too, took an interest in fusing scientific technology with magic.
They believed that even base human techniques, when infused with the great magic of witches, would yield impressive results.
Witches versed in alchemy, and those from other lineages as well, became engrossed in the possibilities of magitech. It was the dawn of the magitech era.
Of course, its popularity withered within a mere century, and now most witches regard magitech as little more than a tool. Yet the ostentatiously ornate "Janissary," displayed as a mere ornament, was an offensive artifact born in that very era.
This gun required no gunpowder or lead shot.
It was an artifact that alchemized mana into magical projectiles before launching them with manifold destructive power.
Mana was drawn into the magic formula engraved along the oak stock.
That mana passed through the flash pan, coalescing into a single bullet.
The moment the trigger was pulled, the special rifling etched inside the barrel amplified and compressed its power dozens of times over.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
The mana bullets fired in an instant traced orange contrails as they blasted the piranhas to oblivion.
"Sis!"
"Got it!"
The twins needed no complex signals; they seamlessly covered each other's blind spots, methodically exterminating the piranhas.
It was far easier than shooting clay pigeons or flying ducks.
The target's distance, size, and even movements were all straightforward.
Bullets shredded sleek scales.
They shattered teeth and gouged out eyes glaring crookedly in their direction.
Amid the thick haze of mana smoke that billowed in place of acrid gunpowder fumes, the twins unleashed a barrage from their muskets without restraint.
By the time the piranhas—dozens, perhaps even a hundred—had visibly thinned out enough to count by eye,
a blue flash erupted behind them, accompanied by a massive ripple of mana.
Siwoo had successfully evacuated the civilians outside.
"Thank you. We wrapped it up thanks to you."
"As expected of the Assistant! So cool!"
"We'll handle the rest!"
Sweat dripped steadily from Siwoo's chin.
Coordinate-jumping this many people at once was uncharted territory for him.
On top of that, the mana flowing through this place felt off—different from the norm.
It interfered with spellcasting, clinging stickily like molasses.
Shifting sluggishly like flowing mud, it disrupted computations, forcing him to brute-force twice the usual calculations.
A throbbing headache and nausea surged from the mental arithmetic.
"Hoo..."
"Assistant, you okay?"
"A-Are you alright?"
Noticing his ashen face after they'd cleanly mopped up the last piranha, the twins asked.
He roughly wiped away the streaming sweat with his palm and nodded.
"Yeah, it's not unbearable."
"Assistant, there's something I need to tell you."
"What is it?"
"While we were taking down those fish... I think I've read about the 'relic' causing all this."
"Huh? R-Right!"
Odette's words struck Odile like a sudden epiphany, and she cried out.
The library the count had gifted the twins brimmed with eclectic tomes, including accounts of relics and artifacts from throughout history.
"Those monsters aren't homunculi. They don't look anything like homunculi, and most importantly, there's no core."
Come to think of it, that was true.
All the homunculi Siwoo had faced before were beast-shaped but grotesquely warped, barely retaining their original forms.
By contrast, these piranhas looked pristine, like oversized specimens pulled straight from an aquarium tank.
Not that it made them any less unsettling.
"So, what are they?"
"I believe it's a relic called 'Dagon's Flute.' A witch possessed it five hundred years ago... It heterizes the surroundings into an otherworld, turning the area into a hunting ground for familiars..."
"Meaning those aren't the Creation Witch's homunculi—they're familiars. The relic serves as the medium sustaining them, so destroying it should end this whole mess."
How many had perished in this chaos?
How many survivors remained?
Any still alive were likely cowering in hiding spots, evading the monsters' gaze.
Hunting down survivors one by one for evacuation was far less efficient than nipping the crisis at its root.
"We'll scout the relic's position."
"You can do that?"
"If it's the type that's constantly active, it shouldn't be hard."
"Then our goal's set."
Odile and Odette clasped hands.
A lovely melody, wholly incongruous with the department store turned disaster zone, wove into harmony.
Its unearthly timbre, far removed from human vocals, evoked the strains of string instruments.
The ambient mana pulsed, then radiated outward as gentle waves.
Ultraperception via sonic waves didn't confine itself to the vicinity.
It seeped through even the tiniest crevices, deeply mapping every corner of the building.
Two or three minutes passed that way.
"Found it."
"Found it."
The twins ceased their song and opened their eyes.
"It's on this building's rooftop."
"Come with us, Assistant! We can actually help now!"
The twins, who had once trembled helplessly during the clash with Ea, seemed to have grown markedly from the ordeal.
Despite the sprawl of corpses and the blood-scent stinging their noses, they quelled their fear and stepped up to aid Siwoo.
Both admirable and heartening.
Which was precisely why he couldn't bring them along.
"That might be tough."
"Huh?"
At Siwoo's response, the twins glanced down at their feet.
The coordinate-jump formula he'd used to evacuate the civilians sprawled beneath them.
While they busied themselves hunting for the flute, Siwoo had finished the calculations to send them back to the officetel.
Realizing too late, the twins scrambled to step off the magic circle.
"Wait! You can't just—!"
"No way! We want to fight alongside you...!"
A bluish light flashed, and the twins' clamoring voices vanished.
"Hoo..."
Mana drained from the stigma in his left eye.
This time, with the distance stretched far for just two people, it took a serious toll even so.
Perhaps because he'd evacuated those ten civilians right before.
"I'll apologize later."
Siwoo muttered the unheard apology.
He was grateful for the twins' earnest resolve to help him.
But leaving them here remained too dangerous.
If they'd stuck to picking off stragglers and aiding civilians, the risk would've been minimal.
The piranhas Siwoo tangled with were insultingly feeble for homunculi, and the twins' muskets packed more than enough punch.
But if someone had deliberately unleashed this hellscape with "Dagon's Flute," the culprit was likely public enemy tier.
Naturally, defenses would thicken nearer the relic, ramping up the peril.
Siwoo wasn't immune to fear at the prospect of facing a public enemy.
Witches would soon piece together the situation and swarm in.
He could simply stand down.
But...
Siwoo surveyed his surroundings.
The gruesome tableau resembled a slaughterhouse.
Gazing upon it, a seething rage bubbled up from his chest.
He'd never fancied himself righteous, yet he couldn't look away.
They were ordinary folk going about their daily lives.
Innocent citizens blissfully unaware even of magic's existence.
Even now, they were dying in pockets throughout the building.
He refused to stand idle just to save his own skin.
One more survivor, one fewer victim—he pressed onward for that.
"Let's see the face of whatever lunatic bitch is behind this."
Siwoo shrouded himself in shadows once more and gripped his swords in both hands.
He donned his helmet and charged into the darkness where blood flowed like a valley stream.
2.
"I didn't mishear that, did I...?"
Location Point Seoul Gwanghwamun Branch.
Sua's eyes rounded as she sat in the branch chief's office, leisurely savoring her afternoon green tea.
It was due to the report from a witch who had come dashing in, out of breath.
"You're saying Dagon's Flute activated smack in the middle of Gangnam?"
"That's correct."
Even a witch inured to casualties from homunculi and public enemies went pale at this cataclysm.
Dagon's Flute was one of the relics wielded by the "Deep Sea Witch," slain by Keter Duke.
In and of itself, it posed little threat to witches.
Heterizing an area and loosing weak aberrant fish was no match for them.
The flute's true purpose was tailored for human extermination.
The life force of humans hunted by those beasts in the otherworldly space transmuted into vast mana, stored within the flute.
In other words, less a combat relic than a mana-harvesting tool.
Sua shook her head.
No need to overcomplicate matters before they'd fully unfolded.
What mattered now was the otherworld rift tearing open in central Gangnam.
And the duty incumbent upon him as a human to seal it.
"Summon all witches on the network immediately."
"Yes!"
As she readied herself to head toward the flute's location, Sua contacted Tiferet.
"Can you hear me, Lady?"
The earring around Sua's neck hummed and vibrated.
Radio communication failed inside backspace barriers.
This earring was a magic tool crafted for contact even within them.
"The disaster's linchpin is Dagon's Flute. Owner and motive unknown. Leave survivor rescue and damage control to me and the other witches—may I entrust securing the culprit to you, Lady?"
"...No movement whatsoever."
The exchange of essentials ended, and the link severed.
A witch had unleashed magic to slaughter civilians by the hundreds—perhaps thousands.
Yet Keter Duke made no move.
She undoubtedly knew already.
An incident of this scale warranted her personal intervention.
Yet she stayed put, just as before.
"What in the world are you thinking..."
An inscrutable soul.
Sua muttered to herself.
3.
Elloa raced at full tilt toward the COEX incident site.
She kicked off building facades, soaring from one high-rise rooftop's edge to the next.
In the distance loomed a structure swathed in a colossal spherical barrier.
Piercing sirens and evacuation orders carried across the Han River.
Seoul's smog already fouled the air, but that zone was steeped in an unnaturally moldy deep blue.
Proof of encroaching heterization.
At that degree of erosion, overlaying a backspace barrier from above was impossible.
No mishaps this massive had struck in modern times.
"Gotta hurry and save the people..."
Muttering from habit, Elloa realized something.
Oddly, no emotions welled up.
No surge of righteous fury from her breast, no pity for the victims and their bereaved inside.
They ghosted through her hollow heart and dissipated.
The current Elloa merely carried out what she had defined as duty and atonement amid a profound, strength-sapped void.
"......."
No purpose to her life.
No reason.
Only an empty sense of obligation lingered.
Vengeance.
With that driving force vanished, all her hypocrisy peeled away—how absurd.
Lips pressed thin in blank expression, Elloa nonetheless hurtled toward the disaster zone like a comet.