Chapter 546
Chapter 546
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 546
Chapter Title: Pursuit of the Deep Sea Witch (4)
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1.
Many witches had received direct or indirect help or favors from Si-woo.
They would drop everything and rush to aid him the moment they heard he was in crisis.
Right after it was confirmed that Si-woo had been kidnapped by the Deep Sea Witch.
The Jemernai Count swiftly assembled a rescue and search team. It included Amelia Merigold, Sharon Evergreen, Avenuga Baron, the Jemernai Count herself, and Yesod Count.
It was a truly dazzling lineup.
Every witch who gathered to help was a Grand Witch.
Even excluding Amelia, who had once been a baron, there were three titled nobles.
For a team formed to find a single person, it was an overwhelming force.
The Jemernai Count and Yesod Count, tied up with official duties and unable to join directly, launched five cargo ships equipped with military sonar into the South Pacific to serve as search bases. Sophia, true to her moniker as the Beast Witch, unleashed dolphins and whales to comb every inch of the vast ocean.
Sharon and Amelia remained on the cargo ships, diving without hesitation to conduct searches themselves.
Yet despite these efforts, the search wasn't going smoothly.
The Deep Sea Witch was someone known to have been dead for three hundred years.
No one knew her lair, and above all, the sheer vastness of the ocean was the biggest obstacle.
According to the Pure Blood Witch, the Deep Sea Witch's workshop was a nuclear submarine.
It wasn't fixed in one spot but moved constantly. And per Clech's testimony, it had been modified with artifacts.
It was likely enhanced with powerful stealth capabilities as well.
Finding a single submarine lurking silently in the deep Pacific—which spanned a third of the Earth's surface when north and south were combined—was no different from hunting for a needle in a desert.
A month had passed without any word of Si-woo, and Amelia's patience had finally reached its breaking point.
After surfacing from a dive and returning, Amelia sought out Clech, who was confined in a corner of the cabin. Her eyes burned a fierce blue.
Under normal circumstances, she never would have dragged a hard-won Public Enemy out into the present world.
But at this juncture, Clech was the only one with any connection to the Deep Sea Witch.
Getting her help in some form was unavoidable, so they'd brought her along.
It wasn't a risky decision.
With her magic sealed by the Subjugation Ring in Sharon's possession, escape into the endless ocean spanning thousands of kilometers was impossible.
Clech, who had been idly passing the time while Amelia was underwater, stared at the sudden intruder with wide, surprised eyes.
She was a Public Enemy slated for execution once this was over—the very mastermind who had orchestrated Si-woo's assassination attempt and put him in peril.
Yet for some reason, Clech was oddly compliant with Amelia in particular. She cooperated with the search efforts to the point of outright obedience.
"Y-You're... back?"
Amelia had awkwardly brushed off the ambiguous distance, sometimes exchanging a word or two.
But now, with her bottled-up frustration erupting, she seized Clech by the collar and slammed her against the cabin wall.
"Ugh...! Kk...!"
"Tell me straight. Is this area definitely right?"
Her precious person might be enduring unimaginable torment.
The frustration and powerlessness of being unable to act fueled a rage that poured out as a murderous aura.
"It's definite! This is where we rendezvoused!"
It probably wasn't a lie.
They'd taken control of Clech's blood when it interfered with the interrogation and grilled her even more rigorously.
Plus, the Subjugation Ring she wore had been refined further by the Jemernai Count's house, experts in artifact crafting.
She was in a state where lying was impossible.
Even so, the bleak situation with no leads sparked doubts like, What if she has some method to dodge the interrogation?
"......"
"I-It's true! I'm not lying!"
Clech protested, her eyes moist with what looked like genuine fear.
She couldn't do anything under the Subjugation Ring's control anyway, but she didn't show even the slightest hint of defiance.
If she'd been rebellious like at first, or glared back with venom, Amelia might have hounded her relentlessly...
Clech didn't even make a show of prying away the hand gripping her collar.
Amelia bit her lip as if grinding her teeth, then released her. Clech stayed slumped against the wall, gasping for breath.
"......"
This was just a waste of time.
From behind Amelia, who planned to relocate the ship and search another sea route, came Clech's mumble.
"...He's that precious to you?"
It was like tossing a torch into the pot of Amelia's rage, already bubbling right at the boiling point.
Si-woo's predicament was entirely the Pure Blood Witch's doing.
How dare the culprit spew something like that?
Amelia whipped around, fully intending to slap her this time—but froze.
Clech had shrunk back in fear, head bowed in shame as she stared at the floor.
Amelia's fury deflated.
It was too ridiculous to even sustain her anger.
"...Yes."
"Bianca was precious to me, too."
The follow-up remark could've been ignored entirely.
Depending on the ear, it might even come off as provocation—wholly out of place for the situation.
So why bring it up?
To torment Amelia, Bianca's killer, indirectly by implying the hit on Si-woo had been justified?
Or to confess she was wasting their time with false testimony as part of some elaborate revenge?
"So, what—you want an apology?"
"No, nothing like that. Just... I'm sorry."
Amid the surging irritation and fury swelled an unavoidable emotion, large and undeniable.
Pity, absurdly enough.
Bianca had been a Public Enemy guilty of countless atrocities.
No regrets for ending her.
But ironically, Amelia understood the emptiness and despair Clech must feel at losing her lover.
When she'd thought Si-woo was gone, it had mirrored her own pain too closely.
And while it might just be a matter of their positions, Clech had never once shown resentment toward Amelia.
Not even as the one who'd finished off her lover, Bianca.
That was probably why Amelia couldn't just unleash blind blame and anger on her.
In the end, as Amelia stood there, caught between lashing out and holding back, trying to swallow her rage—
-Boom!
A massive thud rocked the entire cabin, like something had collided with the deck above.
The impact was so sharp she half-thought the ship had listed.
Amelia didn't panic.
This mana signature was one she already recognized, and few witches wielded power on this level.
The presence that had landed on deck strode straight toward Amelia, without a hint of wandering.
-Thud thud
Footsteps echoed through the ship.
The door swung open, and in walked Si-woo's mentor—and lover.
Cherry blossom-pink hair peeked from beneath her turban, her eyes ablaze with magenta fire.
Eloa Tiphereth, clad in desert-crossing garb with cloak and scarf bound against sandstorms, fixed Clech with a devouring glare.
"Are you the Pure Blood Witch?"
2.
With Kether Duke's absence confirmed, the witch society of the present world had devolved into total chaos.
Location Points fell one after another to raids. Exiles who'd been lying low crossed the line and turned full Public Enemy.
Witches launching large-scale human experiments with magic sprouted up like mushrooms after rain. Even Public Enemies with solid enterprises—those with the most to lose—were starting to act boldly, albeit cautiously.
The Location Point branch chiefs thus banded together, pooling their strength to contain the unrest from spreading beyond South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Eloa had naturally played the starring role.
Any witch running rampant? She'd charge straight there and purge her.
Same incident cropping up again? Charge in once more and purge.
Eloa couldn't fully replace Kether Duke.
She lacked that blinding speed and certainty—that absolute gap in power to dispatch Public Enemies.
And the Public Enemies knew it full well.
Still, Eloa's purges remained a genuine threat.
No matter the low odds, a one-on-one audience with Tiphereth Duke was a misfortune most wanted to dodge.
It was a temporary lull, but heartening that the witches, led by Location Points, had united to secure their own defenses.
Thus, Eloa had planned a brief return to Gehenna. Time to recover her mana... and spend it with Si-woo.
But the moment she set foot there, the news hit: Si-woo, snatched by the Deep Sea Witch due to some intruder's scheme lurking in Gehenna.
Her disciple stumbled into trouble wherever he went, but she'd thought Gehenna safe. This absurdity...
She'd rushed here sleepless, to hunt the missing Si-woo and interrogate the Pure Blood Witch.
"...It's my fault."
"......"
Amelia had pulled the two apart as Eloa lunged to cleave Clech.
Tiphereth Duke, thrashing wildly in emotional overload, snapped back to reason—then deflated utterly, collapsing to the floor.
"If only I'd fortified our defenses more thoroughly..."
The first time Amelia met Tiphereth Duke, she'd bolted from the spot.
Even now, she couldn't quite relax around her.
Social norms branded them rivals, after all. Who knew what Eloa truly thought of Amelia?
But seeing those bead-like tears streaming down Eloa's face as she agonized... Amelia's hand moved on instinct.
"Don't blame yourself..."
She gently stroked the shoulder of Eloa, rocked by the bolt-from-the-blue crisis.
"Si-woo will... pull through, wherever he is. He'll survive for sure and wait for us."
"Yeah. We have to believe that..."
And so, one more witch joined the search party for Si-woo.