Chapter 409
Chapter 409
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 409
Chapter Title: Harvest Festival (2)
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Mexico's largest cartel, the Alcoriza Familia.
This massive organization, notorious for its refined violence and reign of terror, controls 90% of Mexico's entire drug supply.
Beyond that, the profits from prostitution rings, human trafficking, arms smuggling, oil pipeline thefts, and illegal job placements amount to hundreds of trillions of won annually. Even their official membership numbers nearly 30,000.
Five years ago, they boldly triumphed over the president's military campaign declared to eradicate the cartels. The godfather of the Alcoriza Familia had already transcended the law, becoming a figure of dread feared by everyone in Mexico.
Yet few remember that just over twenty years ago, Luis Alcoriza—the godfather of this historically massive cartel—was merely the leader of a ragtag gang peddling pills in some backwater slum.
"Hoo, I have no idea."
In a vulgar room steeped not in generations of polished elegance, but in ostentatious vanity—like a perfect example from a book titled How to Decorate Like a Nouveau Riche—Alcoriza sat on a gaudy cowhide sofa, wiping sweat from his broad forehead.
His bulging gut made even the finest tailored white suit look ill-fitting. Strip away the flashy gold bracelets on his wrists and neck, the designer sunglasses, and he could pass for any one of Mexico's countless unemployed vagrants.
In truth, he was never a particularly exceptional man.
"Why... why do something like this...?"
Alcoriza clenched and unclenched a revolver plated entirely in gold, trying to steady his nerves. But no matter how hard he tried to calm himself, the sweat kept pouring.
He was a godfather whose infamy spanned the globe, a man who could curse out civilians on the street without fear. Yet even he lived in terror of witches.
Back when he was still dealing in grams of meth and opium.
After downing a drink and muttering curses over yet another exorbitant tribute demand, Alcoriza had a chance encounter with a woman.
In the brutal slums of Cuauhtémoc, where even burly men died from gunshot wounds, it was baffling how she wandered unscathed, untouched by rape or harm. She was a white woman with stunning jade-green eyes and aristocratic platinum blonde hair.
Normally, Alcoriza would have tossed lewd jokes her way or groped her.
But instinct told him she exuded both an ominous aura and an untouchable nobility. Instead, he bought her a drink and chatted politely.
That casual act of kindness, done without a second thought, changed his fate.
"It's a bit much to take it for free. Got any desires you want fulfilled?"
"Haha, I'm just a small-minded guy by nature. Wouldn't mind if the tributes stopped."
"That's really all? Tell me a bigger wish. I might just make it come true. I'm a witch, after all."
Bianca introduced herself as a witch.
Of course, he thought it was a joke.
"Hahaha."
"I'm serious. Not one of those poor women burned at the stake on false charges— a real witch."
"Then make me Mexico's biggest drug lord. I'll buy you something stronger to drink."
What he dismissed as drunken banter, cheap as it was, Bianca Bellrille made reality in under five years.
Follow her instructions, and everything fell into place seamlessly.
Rival gang leaders dropped dead without a trace.
She supplied unlimited quantities of mysterious new drug refinement techniques he'd never even heard of.
Timid and quick-witted as Alcoriza was, he wasn't entirely lacking in business sense. With Bianca's help unifying the cartels, he seized smuggling routes and absorbed clients, ballooning his operation overnight. When he came to his senses, he was Mexico's unrivaled drug kingpin.
It felt like becoming Faust, bound in a pact with the devil.
No, not quite.
Over time, he realized she was closer to a true demon.
Drunk on endless riches, Alcoriza ignored it and obeyed her commands, reaping the rewards. Wealth, fame, and power overflowed no matter how much he scooped up.
Hand over less than half the pure profits, and Bianca made it all real.
Once the cartel stabilized, she stopped meddling or issuing orders, content to collect her tributes.
Then, out of nowhere, she gave a bizarre command: Gather all 10,000-plus organization members at Alcoriza's mansion within 48 hours.
No matter their dominance in northern Mexico, this was a massive risk. It would draw police federales, intelligence agencies, maybe even direct U.S. intervention.
But defying her inscrutable whims terrified him more than any consequences.
Alcoriza no longer vomited at the sight of dismembered bodies, but Bianca Bellrille was something else entirely.
He still woke from nightmares of her beaming smile as she killed rival bosses.
It wasn't the cruelty that scared him.
What chilled him was that the rival leader—driven mad, devouring his own family, then killing himself in shock—wasn't a "message." It was purely the result of her idle curiosity.
"The double books? Or is she planning a war? Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
Alcoriza racked his brain, searching for his mistakes or her intentions. Lost in futile worry, the appointed time came and went with no sign of anyone.
As he lit a cigar with trembling hands, a strange quiet hit him.
His estate was vast, but 10,000 men had been milling outside. It shouldn't be this silent.
"José! Nemesio! What the hell's going on!"
He called for his two lieutenants guarding the door with assault rifles.
"......"
No response.
Eyes bulging, Alcoriza waddled to the window.
Peering out, he muttered a low curse.
"Joder..."
A massive water-jar-shaped mirage enveloped the mansion.
A bizarre phenomenon no science could explain.
Witchcraft.
That wasn't all.
The garish garden and pool—decorated to his tasteless nouveau riche whims—stood utterly empty. Even if every man had OD'd on drugs and started a game of hide-and-seek, this silence defied physics.
Alcoriza gripped the slippery pistol handle, shuddering.
He could feel it.
The demon who filled his vaults with mountains of gold had come to collect her due.
"O Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name..."
Mumbling the Lord's Prayer, Alcoriza scanned the room.
"Hello."
"Hah!"
He whipped the gun toward the voice.
A woman stood there with short bob hair falling to her shoulders. What stood out were her inhuman red eyes and beauty rivaling Bianca's.
"A... are you... a witch...?"
"Correct. So you're Bianca's money man?"
Utterly lost, Alcoriza nodded frantically. "Money man" suggested he might live if he kept paying up.
"Y-y-yes!"
"Hmm... you look too dumb."
The witch's eyes narrowed.
Her red gaze raked him up and down like a judgment, then rapidly lost interest.
"Why don't you kill yourself?"
"P-pardon?"
"I don't want to dirty my ribbon with your gut fat. Kill yourself. You've got a nice gun right there."
"W-witch! Forgive me! I'll swear eternal loyalty! P-please... just spare my life, just my life... Gahk!"
A black ribbon shot out, piercing his belly.
The agony dwarfed a headshot's instant death.
"Always ignoring advice. That was friendly."
"Kahak! Kuwaaa... w-w-witch... please..."
"Bianca's got terrible taste, keeping trash like you around."
Writhing on the floor, he realized how his 10,000-plus men had vanished.
His fingers began melting like wax under acid, painlessly dissolving.
His whole body followed, like sugar cubes in boiling water.
"Ah... no... sto...!"
In under three seconds, he couldn't even scream.
A faint something got sucked into the lotus-shaped artifact in Ea's hand.
"God, the fuel efficiency sucks."
Ea smirked at the item in her palm.
Not enough with the stigma extracted from Bianca Bellrille—she'd fed it 10,322 lives.
Only now did the lotus glow and activate, drawing a hollow laugh from her.
No matter that it could warp and regenerate anything, such abysmal efficiency meant it'd never work normally.
If the Kether Duke had moved, maybe.
But she no longer did.
The eerie glow from countless lives shimmered like a prism catching sunlight.
Finally blooming fully, the lotus answered Ea's call and wish with one miracle.
"Restore the past glory... to an even loftier realm."
⟨ Lotus ⟩
Its mechanism was simple enough.
It was already a finished artifact, designed for revival.
Ea felt the light seep into her body.
Within the dim Ain.
The plundered structures refilled densely.
They regenerated, surging with mana fiercer than before, amplified and reborn.
The ecstasy of nearly ten hierarchies ascending at once—an experience no ordinary witch could know.
"Ah... aah..."
It rivaled orgasmic bliss.
Ea moaned, savoring it.
And then...
"Welcome back, my lovely loom."
The thick ribbons sprouting from her back wriggled like festive decorations, heralding the glorious return of Ea Sadal Melik, the Water Jar Witch.