Chapter 704
Chapter 704
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 704
Chapter Title: The Witch of Silence (4)
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Exactly matching the size of the playroom, the boundary field unfurls and dissipates.
The playroom, restored to its hemispherical form, bore no traces of the fierce battle.
Only the aftermath of the tsunami unleashed by the giant lingered, scattering golden mana like fine, drifting snowflakes.
"......"
In moments like these, after a magical battle ends and the echoes fade, it's easy to understand the arrogant mindset of a witch.
An absolute power no mortal could reach alone.
The ability to conjure miracles one after another—it would make most humans seem utterly insignificant.
Unlike the foolish masses, when immersed in sensations touching the world's truths, it's harder not to let a sense of privilege seep in.
But this exaltation fades as adrenaline levels drop and heart rate returns to normal.
"Guhk... guk...!"
And the body and mind, weary from exhaustion, finally register the battle's loser.
Rozzy, struck by the shockwave from the giant, was a pitiful sight.
She looked like a roe deer flattened by a car.
In truth, the magical and physical damage she'd taken wasn't much different from what an ordinary human would suffer getting hit by a dump truck barehanded.
The only reason Rozzy still clung to a human shape instead of a bloody pulp was the mana stockpiled in the workshop, which she'd used for defense and super-regeneration.
"Kuhk..."
Spitting bloody foam, she propped herself up on her broken limbs, her eyes—a tangled mess of unknowable hues—fixed on Si-woo.
After a sluggish recovery restored her crushed trachea.
Rozzy's first words came out half air, half blood.
"You... fucking bastard... cheating...!"
From her perspective, this hadn't been a proper duel.
It was no different from Si-woo flipping the board mid-game and smashing her with a sucker punch.
He took her resentful glare in stride, his thoughts drifting.
Magical battles he'd experienced so far were nothing like simply aiming a gun and pulling the trigger.
Though both were life-or-death gambles no different from a shootout in that regard, they involved countless mind games and psychological wars.
In that process, admiration, shock, or even quiet praise for the opponent's ingenuity could spark a strange camaraderie.
Perhaps this was Si-woo's defense mechanism, born of his reluctance to kill.
Even as a witch, it had only been a little over two years.
Si-woo's modern values still held strong.
The media portrayed killing lightly, but he knew how heavy it was to end a life.
How much more so if it wasn't during combat, but an execution-style killing afterward? How many could snuff out a defenseless person's breath without hesitation?
Si-woo still clung to that line of self-satisfaction others might mock as weakness, even after becoming a witch.
And yet.
Because that weakness had been pierced by resolve, his killing intent would never waver.
"You hypocrite bastard! You piece of shit!"
Rozzy staggered to her feet, hurling threats no different from before her defeat.
If released alive, she'd spawn another tragedy without a shred of remorse and bask in the blood and tears atop it.
Si-woo drew his spear.
Maintaining it alone was burdensome now.
Handling such overwhelming power had overheated his mana circuits, searing his body with burning pain—no room for further amplification or enhancement.
"Hik...!"
Rozzy's face paled the instant she saw the spear.
As if only now grasping reality, her screams cut off, replaced by desperate gulps of air.
If Rozzy had willed it, she could have expanded the boundary beyond the mansion.
Had she done so, intruders would've crashed the fight before it ended.
She hadn't because she'd seen Si-woo as mere prey.
That perception had held even as she rolled in defeat.
But even an arrogant witch who trampled lives and savored despair instinctively shrinks before the prelude of raw violence.
Rozzy cried out in panic.
"W-Wait, let's talk this out...!"
-Grgrgrgrk
He ignored her and advanced.
The eerie scrape of the spear tip against the floor drained what color remained in her face.
Si-woo closed in as Rozzy backpedaled.
"You think you'll get away with this? Killing me at Hexennacht?"
The playroom was cramped.
Rozzy soon hit the wall.
Glancing left and right for escape, she shed her fragile mask.
She'd read the resolve in his unyielding eyes, unmoved by her pleas.
"What did I do so wrong?! They're just apprentice witches who were gonna die anyway, right?! I didn't even kill either one! I just played with them a bit!"
Her self-justifying excuses reeked of ugliness.
Si-woo's response was singular.
-Whoosh!
The spear traced a fan-shaped arc.
No mana reinforcement, yet its power far surpassed human limits.
-Boom!
But the thrust aimed at Rozzy's neck halted before a translucent barrier.
The shield she'd conjured in her final desperation upon touching the wall.
Kneeling from the spear's momentum, Rozzy twisted into a warped grin at the halted strike inches from her face.
"Hahaha!"
That grin erupted into full laughter.
Rozzy had gauged Si-woo's state.
Both utterly spent.
She'd confirmed his exhausted swing couldn't dent her shield.
Even now, her workshop slowly converted accumulated high-density despair into mana.
"Loser, you're the one who's gonna die."
The game had ended in absurd cheating, but the victor was her in the end.
Just enduring like this left him powerless.
"Felt brave with your petty sense of justice boiling over? Let's see if you show the same swagger before our Clifford. You idiot... Kyak!"
-Boom!
Si-woo had no intention of letting her yapping go unchecked.
He hoisted the spear overhead with all his might and smashed down on the barrier like a woodcutter splitting logs.
No impact reached Rozzy, but the thunderous crash shook the entire playroom.
"I-It won't work! With your remaining mana...!"
-Boom!
Once more.
The black spear slammed atop the barrier with full force.
The recoil, unbearable even in spirit form, tore at Si-woo's grip.
Yet his hands clenched the shaft showed no sign of loosening.
-Boom!
The clang of hammering sheet metal.
Amid the spine-chilling roar, Rozzy's breath hitched.
-Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The afterimages of the great spear raining down from above blanketed the barrier.
Rozzy, plastered to the floor, stared at the savage display.
"Hup...!"
Breath linking his entire body's power as one.
From relaxed then taut muscles exploded monstrous strength, all channeled into the shaft with a forward lunge—he smashed down.
-Crack!
A spiderweb of fissures raced across the once-flawless translucent shield.
Blood droplets trailing the shaft splattered down, beading like dew.
Only then did Rozzy realize Si-woo had no intention of stopping.
To her, steeped solely in the magical world, the scene was inconceivable.
To think he'd shatter the barrier with brute force—and actually do it.
"W-Wait... I take it back. Everything I said, I take it all back."
She gulped, flipping her words like a palm.
But the spear thrust anew, cutting her short.
-Creeeak, crack...!
The mere cracks spread milky veins, devouring the barrier's surface.
"Ah..."
Rozzy watched the oncoming shaft with trembling eyes.
-Boom!
-Craaaack...
"S-Stop! It's breaking!"
Even in this dire strait, her childish belief that "I'm special" had sustained baseless optimism.
And the reality-denial from privilege crumbled.
Powerless, praying the barrier hold and he tire first, she finally confronted stark reality.
Her mental armor, shelled by arrogance and stubbornness, chipped away, letting her feel the ink-black emotion flooding her chest for the first time.
Despair, which she'd adored from afar.
The pitch-black, sticky despair she'd once praised as a consumer now pierced her entirely.
"Let's stop now, okay? I'll cover up everything that happened here."
-Boom!
"N-No, it was the blood, right? I won't touch a drop from now on. I'll release Mama too. Marnya and Malsha, I'll hand them over to you."
-Boom!
The despair she faced for the first time was no beauty.
A grating rasp grinding her heart like sandpaper.
Terror of sinking endlessly, chained to a heavy anchor.
The moment death's tongue vividly licked her cheek, Rozzy began desperate begging.
"I'm sorry, I'll apologize! Forgive me! Please, I beg you...!"
-Craaaaaack!!!!
At last, the thin shell guarding Rozzy shattered.
The executioner's shadow loomed over her terrified face.
"Hiiik!"
Until now, she'd timed her words to the rhythm of those monstrous blows.
But Si-woo merely gazed down with cold eyes.
"Y-Yeah... good thinking! Let's keep our constructive relationship going, okay?"
The moment Rozzy brightened at a sliver of hope amid utter despair.
Si-woo's tightly pursed lips parted.
"I have no right to forgive you."
A merciless, icy tone severing her fragile hope without pity.
No one left in this world could forgive Rozzy.
All hope lost, she bared her broken teeth.
"You fucking bastard! You think you can kill m—!"
-Crunch!
With a bloodcurdling crunch, Rozzy's limbs jerked rigidly skyward like a broken doll.
Si-woo brought the shaft down on the writhing Rozzy without mercy.
-Crunch!
Her convulsing limbs went limp.
No more sounds followed.
"Hoo..."
Si-woo wiped the blood from his face and caught his breath.
His first kill.
He'd once beaten Jack half to death for trying to kidnap and assault Diana, but ending a life directly was new.
No regret or fear came.
Only the sentiment of butchering a mad dog that bit not-humans.
Even Master would have chosen the same here.
Now, time to think of the aftermath.
Dispersing the Shadow Spear, Si-woo had no choice but to resummon it immediately.
-Clap clap clap
"A splendid fight."
Before he knew it, the playroom door stood ajar.
From the gap, applause echoed as someone entered.