Chapter 861
Chapter 861
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 861
Chapter Title: Gift Worries (3)
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1.
Dorothy, clad in a nun's habit wrapped round and round with a magic circle, moved with slow steps, gripping a blunt sword.
The massive billboard depicting whiskey and the city's illumination from neon signs.
The glow dyed her white cheeks rosy red.
Dorothy's experience traveling in Japan was limited to Tokyo.
Even that had been eighty years ago, right in the thick of the war.
To build such a bustling district in that short time—human progress was astounding, leaving her tongue-tied day by day.
"Oh my~ It's here again today."
-Thud thud thud thud!
Dorothy's sparkling silver eyes locked onto the homunculus.
A massive gorilla, straight out of a B-grade monster movie, was perched on a building rooftop, pounding its chest and roaring.
This one wasn't in the DB either.
From a distance, she'd identified twenty eyeballs.
Notable features: elongated fangs and three pairs of arms.
By normal senses, it seemed like a formidable foe.
Just the shockwaves from its chest-thumping were shattering building windows into fine powder.
"Haa~ This one's gonna be a hassle too."
Facing a monster that even most witches would hesitate against, Dorothy let out a languid sigh utterly out of place.
She wasn't just relaxed—she looked utterly unmotivated.
"But it's for our darling."
As she released her suppressed mana, the gaze of the massive gorilla, with its spider-like eerie eyes, turned toward Dorothy.
It had stimulated the predator's instinct to devour its branded prey.
Or rather.
It was clear Dorothy had stirred more than just the predator's instinct.
Did this homunculus, resembling a primate, share even its base nature?
The gorilla's penis, at least a meter long, stiffened straight toward the sky.
"Ugh..."
Dorothy wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"Anyway~ It's this sinful, irresistibly charming body of mine that's the problem."
"KuwAAAAAAAA!!!!"
-Boom! Boom! Boom!
The gorilla let out a massive roar toward Dorothy, then leaped between buildings using its six arms and two legs.
Moreover, its beastly movements as it charged, smashing the city apart, were utterly destructive.
To charge at near-subsonic speeds with that bulk...
"That's right~ That's right~"
A fairly tall woman for her kind, but bent forward, she faced the five-meter gorilla head-on.
The outcome of the clash seemed obvious.
A normal human would have been turned into a gory mess of organs and flesh, plastered long across the asphalt like chewed gum...
But as everyone knew, witches were far from ordinary humans.
"Fear not."
With her incantation, the city's glow dimmed as chapel pillars cascaded down behind Dorothy's back.
Absolute power dwelled in Dorothy's body.
-Boom!!!!!
The monster gorilla, terrified by her suddenly swelling presence, swung its arm.
The mana-reinforced strike was ferocious enough to crumble a mountain.
The gust alone crumbled nearby asphalt like cookies, bending streetlights and signs like reeds in a typhoon.
"Keeek...! Kuoooo!"
"Hmm~ Self-reinforcing body strengthening magic? This feels like a total dud."
Yet Dorothy, blocking the attack with one arm, wore an utterly nonchalant expression.
Not a single scratch, not even a ripple in her life force.
The power Dorothy wielded was absolute force.
A irrational strength that ignored weight class and raw power.
The gorilla realized the mana waves the witch had emitted were just a lure and tried to pull back swiftly.
But it didn't get its way.
"Monsters and gorillas are slain not by biplanes, but by beautiful maidens, after all."
As Dorothy stomped her foot, an immense force crushed down on the gorilla's body.
-Creak!
The steel-beam bones and bridge-cable muscles supporting the monster's flesh screamed on the verge of destruction.
"Why leave so soon? Not that great up close?"
"Grrrrr...!"
A force like an invisible giant press crushing its entire body.
The gorilla slammed its head into the ground, looking up at Dorothy on its head with fear-filled eyes.
"It bruises my pride just a liiiittle?"
Dorothy, halo of an angel floating above her head, stomped again.
What she was doing was a simple application of self-reinforcing magic.
Applying absolute force to gravity and amplifying it.
For Dorothy, with no mobility, it was the perfect way to hunt a wildly leaping homunculus.
-Crush!
With a dry boom, the ground around Dorothy's feet sank over ten meters deep.
The monster that had tried to squash the busty witch like a frog died just like a frog run over by a tire.
Without so much as a scream.
"...Hoo, that was tiring."
Using the angel's halo had drained her mana completely.
Still, her heart swelled with a bit of anticipation.
Dorothy used telekinesis to extract spoils from the crumbling corpse into ash.
A pointless homunculus 'core'.
And a bizarre black cat's-eye stone.
Homunculus hunting yielded three main spoils.
The Witch of Creation's research data, artifacts, and eggs of gnosis.
The black cat's-eye stone in Dorothy's hand now occasionally held recorded 'information'.
Treasure maps hiding other relics, prophecies recorded long ago, or info on other homunculi encrypted within.
"...Total dud."
If anything, it was a bust.
Treasure map spots were usually looted after so much time,
prophecies had outdated interpretation structures, yielding headaches over nothing,
and info on other homunculi wasn't that important anyway.
Dorothy's face darkened.
Siu said it was fine, but they still had no way to heal his body or avert the prophecy.
What if she really lost him?
"Lady Dorothy."
At first, she thought it was a hallucination from lovesickness.
He couldn't possibly be here.
"Getting all weepy~ Weepy."
"Lady Dorothy, are you having a tough time?"
Only at the second call did Dorothy whip around.
There stood her darling, Siu, in a sharp suit with a red tie slung over his shoulder.
"Wh-what? How'd you get here?"
"I stopped by briefly."
"You can leave her alone like this?"
"I let Countess Albreo know. I ran the shortest route to the location point and ran into you."
"How long you staying?"
"Can't stay long. I told them I'd head back tonight."
Her gloomy mood evaporated in an instant.
Dorothy felt her steps lighten as if she might float away, hugging into Siu's embrace.
Sniffing his scent calmed her a bit.
Starting from his shirt chest, Dorothy nuzzled up to his nape, wrinkling her nose repeatedly.
"Sniff sniff hmm, such a goooood smell."
"What're you, a puppy?"
"Not a puppy. I'm a cute milkmaid missy, remember? Nomm~"
Siu, chuckling wryly at Dorothy's joke, rummaged in his embrace.
"Ah, Lady Dorothy. I have a gift."
"A gift?"
"Yeah, I made a ton of money this time. I'll explain the details where the masters are. But first, the gift."
Siu gently pushed away the clingy, coquettish Dorothy and placed something on her palm.
A pretty necklace on a white handkerchief.
A silver chain with a blue diamond set in it—chosen because it seemed perfect for Dorothy's overall white tones.
"Do you like it?"
Dorothy blinked at the necklace in her palm for a good while.
"......"
"What do you think?"
"It's good. Better taste than it looks."
Her reaction felt a bit lukewarm.
Maybe the cigar set he'd originally planned would've been better?
"If you don't like it, I can exchange it? I wasn't sure what you'd want..."
"Where's that coming from? You gave it to me once—it's mine now."
As Siu reached to take the necklace back, Dorothy spun away like a hamster robbed of food.
"So clueless~ For this, you don't just hand it over—you put it on yourself. Do it now."
"I didn't know."
Dorothy tied up her long hair and bared her neck to Siu.
Siu sighed inwardly, feeling this gift might've been a mistake, and clasped the necklace on.
"Harder than it looks, this."
"Take it slow."
"Yeah yeah."
Acting all childish and grinning felt embarrassing.
With her back to him, Dorothy finally let her happy smile bloom freely.
She had to stifle giggles threatening to burst out.
2.
Originally, the Witch of Creation had used homunculi as familiars to guard her feats.
However, they weren't merely guardians.
The Witch of Creation's intent was unknown, but the monsters' power source was witches' brands.
Once witch numbers dwindled from infighting, they even preyed on humans.
Humans, ignorant of magic and unable even to identify homunculi visually, had no counter to this tragedy.
Only after a duke who lost his apprentice witch established the Location Point subjugation agency did the one-sided tragedy come under some control.
The symbiotic system, after twists and turns, settled over a century and found its own stability. Now, large-scale incidents or massacres from homunculi were rare.
With subjugation data accumulating in the Location Point DB, witches could adapt to patterns, leading to effective hunts.
But after Hexennacht's founding, cracks formed in the stable system.
The first reason was easy to grasp: fewer exiles remaining in the present world.
At present, with average witch hierarchy steadily rising and equalizing.
Except for a few extremely dangerous 'named' ones, homunculi weren't threats to witches.
Thus, exiles had subjugated them for research or funds.
But with exiles absorbed into Hexennacht or hiding amid unstable present-world tensions, easy manpower shortages arose.
The second reason even puzzled Eloa.
Sudden changes in homunculus ecology.
"Any guesses on the cause?"
"...No clue."
Masters Linne and Eloa sat facing each other, reviewing documents.
A homunculus trends report compiling data from Location Point branches worldwide.
"The number waking from hibernation is abnormal."
"New unrecorded specimens are surging too."
The two, still awkward from their embarrassing encounter, had grown somewhat natural conversing together at the Hokkaido branch.
Of course, non-work topics still silenced them both.
Normally, homunculi hibernated in dimensional rifts, awakening every few years to decades.
This frequency and numbers stayed consistent, but lately, existing named and reserve named ones appeared en masse.
Japan alone showed this trend—unprecedented.
"If this continues... Human casualties will skyrocket."
"......"
Eloa's expression darkened.
Linne remained expressionless, but unease stirred within.
Her husband Siu disliked harm coming to humans.
As the heavy mood made the air feel stagnant,
the hotel door burst open, and Dorothy entered.
"Hey everyone! How've you been while I slaved away?"
"Long time no see. Did I barge in at a bad time?"
"Husband."
"Siu!"
And Siu, gifts in both hands.