Chapter 441
Chapter 441
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 441
Chapter Title: Wandering (4)
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Albireo's face drained of color.
According to Deneb's report, it hadn't been a proper meeting at all.
It was just Duke Ererim's one-sided briefing and tirade, adopted wholesale without a single change.
That spoke volumes about how ironclad her justification was—and how suspicious her motives seemed.
In fact, even Albireo found herself wondering if Baron Merigold might actually be a public enemy.
In the midst of the chaos, she relayed the full story to Siwoo anyway.
She even showed him the overview diagram Duke Ererim had submitted during the meeting.
Siwoo had been standing on the magic circle Sharon had drawn, receiving reinforcement spells.
He was astonishingly calm, as if he'd already steeled himself completely.
Sharon's hands, on the other hand, trembled far more as she used elemental magic to reinforce the joints of his black armor.
"So, the time limit is thirty minutes, no immediate danger to civilians, and it's a massive spell unfolding within a randomized space... right?"
Siwoo calmly summarized and repeated back what Albireo had told him.
Albireo had a rough idea of the relationship between Amelia and Siwoo.
He had been her exclusive slave, and Amelia had been head over heels for him.
She could still picture how desperately she'd worked to save him when he was half-dead.
But for some reason, they'd parted ways, and she hadn't seen them face each other since.
The twins adored him to death, so Albireo pushed for it as much as she could, but there were aspects of Siwoo that didn't sit entirely right with her.
He was a playboy, a troublemaker who dragged incidents everywhere he went.
Still, she trusted his fundamentally kind nature.
Just like how he'd fought a homunculus and confronted a public enemy for the twins, who had been practically strangers to him.
This time, too, he'd step into the jaws of death for Amelia.
Even if only the gods knew what would come after.
"To be honest, I want to stop you."
Just like Sharon, who had been silently helping with preparations despite the tears welling in her eyes, Albireo—Count Jemernai—wanted to dissuade Siwoo from going in.
He was the kind of son-in-law who tumbled into near-death situations if you took your eyes off him for a second.
Heading into a randomized space alone—especially one riddled with an unknown spell...
Coldly assessing it, this was suicide.
In a demonic realm where the laws of all creation were warped, pushing through self-activating spells made magical utilization inevitable.
But beyond this boundary, everyday magical dynamics didn't apply.
Whatever spell you cast, you had to adapt to feedback from the ever-shifting 'space' rules on the fly.
One tiny mistake in that process, and the magic you'd so carefully woven would turn its fangs on you.
The higher a witch's magical attainment, the greater the risk that came with it.
That was why so many nobles and great witches were standing by idly.
Witches, above all else, prized their own safety.
"I can't even imagine what lecture the twins will give me for failing to stop you this time... My head's already spinning."
"It's fine. I've been through something similar before. I handled it without a hitch."
Amid all the objective indicators and circumstances screaming disaster, Albireo realized she was entertaining an absurd thought.
As a human, he'd captured a homunculus, had his brain scrambled by the Water Jar Witch and still revived.
He'd survived the coward witch's reign of terror, and most recently, he'd even defeated the Witch of Desire.
If he could somehow navigate the worst situations up to now, maybe he could twist this bleak prediction too?
It was baseless optimism that even she found ridiculous.
"It's ironic. So many witches here, and you're the first one going in."
Deep down, Albireo wanted to help him too, but she couldn't.
She had the twins to think of.
If she let sentiment pull her into a place with slim odds of survival and died, it would be a nightmare—for Odil, who wouldn't inherit the stigma at all, and for Odet, stuck with only a partial one.
"Sorry, but I'm heading in right now. It's tighter than I thought."
"Come back safe."
With that, Albireo stepped aside.
She rejoined Deneb to prepare Plan B, while giving Sharon and Siwoo a moment for goodbyes.
He was heading into a warzone, after all.
"Sorry."
"Say that one more time, and I'll slap you."
Sharon's carefully applied makeup was melting and running with her tears.
Her meticulously curled eyelashes were sodden and limp.
He was going in.
And with word that execution was decided if Siwoo didn't move, there was no way he'd turn back.
Thanks to the spells she'd cast in desperate hope they'd prove unnecessary, his armor gleamed with all sorts of magical reinforcements.
She'd emptied her coffers of precious materials she'd been saving to use later, when he went to fetch the red branch.
Sharon's autonomic magic was Tarba's elemental magic.
Its power scaled with the offerings... but even so.
Even offering top-grade rubies, black pearls, and azure diamonds changed nothing.
The Amelia who created this perilous space was a 23rd Hierarchy witch.
Sharon, who'd just barely entered the low 20s with offerings, would only drag Siwoo down if she went.
All she could do was max out his armor's responsiveness with every trick she had.
She swallowed her streaming tears and looked at him.
"No kiss. No asking what happened. And if you come back safe, I won't even bring up marriage."
"...Sharon."
He'd come back safe anyway.
Siwoo, who'd died and come back at least five times in less than two years.
She firmly, desperately believed he wasn't the type to fall to something like this.
"You just go. No words."
So, act like it was nothing.
Like the casual farewells they exchanged on short separations.
She pushed his back.
Siwoo, who had held her gaze for a long time, removed his eyepatch.
Like oil droplets floating on water.
Psychedelic hues swirled around the boundary, swallowing his back.
Sharon fought the urge to collapse and walked over to Albireo, waiting at a distance.
"We'll do what we can."
Sharon, the faint-hearted girl who always shrank at fear and terror.
Tears streamed from her eyes, but they masked a trust and resolve unbroken by mere tears.
2.
The moment he crossed the boundary, he felt an enormous overload surging through every corner of his mana circuits.
A prickling numbness spread like mercury on his tongue; his rigidly forged armor rattled like a stuttering kettle.
Such profound silence that he could hear the blood rushing through his veins.
The world, wilted to a filtered deep green, was mournfully blanketed by rainwater pouring like verdigris.
Utterly unreal.
"Hoo..."
A mad demonic realm where common sense didn't apply.
He'd said he'd experienced it before, and that was true—but only half-true.
He'd merely accessed unconscious memories; the Shin Siwoo from then had computational power incomparable to his current self.
If he could stroll leisurely, he might have the knack to resolve even inexplicable natural disasters.
But three adverse factors stacked against him.
One, this wasn't just a randomized space—it was laced with spells that could explode anytime.
Two, he had to head straight for the center.
Three, there was a time limit to boot.
Naturally, he'd have to force magic use, a single mistake would cost his life, and even overcoming all that wouldn't save Amelia if he missed the deadline.
If Siwoo was nearby then, he'd get caught in it too.
No time left to hesitate.
Siwoo immediately gripped the red branch, stripping off the ribbon with its control formula.
This red branch was an incredibly versatile weapon—as long as you ignored how it could shred its user if mishandled.
Fundamentally, no matter how severe the spatial distortion from randomization, it affected the whole area.
It couldn't possibly invade the distortion field emanating from the red branch.
"Bloom."
He recalled the memory.
Advanced along the warped path, centering the red branch, just like Shin Siwoo had then.
It wasn't all that hard now.
But that wasn't reason for optimism.
Like the overview diagram Albireo showed, the phenomenon intensified inward.
In other words, it was imposing this much strain even at the outskirts.
Clank clank
It had been nearly a year since his fierce battle with Bianca before he saw her again, but they hadn't shared a proper conversation.
After returning to Gehenna, Siwoo had searched for Amelia.
Time naturally dissolves negative emotions.
The betrayal and anger he'd felt toward Amelia upon regaining his memories.
Painful memories he'd rather pretend never happened had layered and sunk with time, leaving only a sharp thorn at his fingertips.
There was regret, and guilt.
He hadn't gone to her only because she hadn't come first—an excuse, really.
Her not visiting after reading his letter indirectly suggested she wanted to cut ties.
He wanted to hear the unfinished stories, have the conversations they'd put off, apologize where it was due.
But no one knew where Amelia, who'd resigned her associate professorship, had gone.
Only rumors that she'd left for the present world; every attempt ended in vain.
"Of all ways..."
And yet, this was their reunion.
Siwoo didn't know Amelia well.
She was difficult.
Often—no, frequently—incomprehensible.
All her actions so far smacked of a public enemy.
Even if Siwoo had attended the noble council, he couldn't have refuted Duke Ererim convincingly enough to sway the witches.
But more than Duke Ererim's sound logic, more than the visible circumstances,
something firmly propelled Siwoo's steps.
Faith.
That Amelia, for all her inscrutability and complexity, wasn't bad enough to be a public enemy.
That her kind smile and cheerful consideration in the log cabin hadn't been lies.
That all this was just a massive misunderstanding, a string of errors.
He believed it with absurd conviction.
He couldn't stand by and watch such an Amelia face purge over a misunderstanding.
Siwoo's pace quickened.
His mind adapted to the space with astonishing speed.
He pressed on, inhaling the gut-twisting gravitational warps and the cloying air reeking of oxidized iron deep into his lungs.