Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Uninvited Guest (8)
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Aquarius Witch, Ea Sadalmelik.
Her cruel temperament and dangerous nature were infamous even among the exiles.
She took cruel torture—unrelated to magic itself—as a hobby, and she killed innocent humans without the slightest hesitation.
A century ago, she murdered the apprentice witch of the "Duke of Tiferet" during his excursion, elevating herself from mere exile to a full-fledged "public enemy." To think her survival until now was simply because she was a high-ranking great witch would be a grave misunderstanding.
Sadalmelik was a thorough hunter through and through.
Her methods of cornering prey knew no bounds, relentless and obsessive, yet she fled without a moment's hesitation at the first sign of being driven into a corner herself.
Then she lay in wait for another chance, biding her time like a leopard lazily stalking a bleeding herbivore that had escaped.
"Let's see just how skilled the 'Perfume Witch' really is."
Ribbons began multiplying from Ea's back.
One ribbon split into two, those two into four, and the four into eight.
The dozens of undulating ribbons proliferated into tens of thousands in less than three seconds.
Each individual ribbon contained enough concentrated energy to level a building.
This was the combat prowess of a high-order witch, rivaling a natural disaster.
According to investigations, Amelia Merrygold's order was the 22nd.
Ea, on the other hand, was 21st.
On paper, the difference seemed negligible.
But how much effort and talent does it take to ascend even a single order in magic?
To use a crude analogy, it was comparable to the solitary effort of a single human developing and launching a rocket capable of orbiting a satellite, with no outside help.
The gap of even one order in magic was that vast.
Yet Ea knew better.
She had climbed three full orders—from 18th to 21st—solely by seizing witches' stigmas.
Among them were witches of higher orders than herself.
Ea Sadalmelik, who had hunted over ten witches in three hundred years.
Amelia Merrygold, who had never so much as hunted a single homunculus from the confines of her chamber.
Ea, whose magic had evolved in a direction optimized for combat, possessed the experience and confidence to overturn even a one-order gap.
Even so, Ea did not overestimate her superiority.
Variables could always arise, and minimizing them was her foolproof strategy for hunting witches.
Magic was an exceedingly delicate art.
It was nearly impossible to perform at one's usual level after witnessing a loved one butchered before one's eyes.
Especially if they had died in such a brutal manner by the barest margin.
Amelia sat slumped on the ground, clutching Siwoo without showing any hostility.
The reflective gleam in her eyes suggested she was channeling magic, yet no signs of an attack emerged.
That was when Ea saw it.
Countless particles emanating from Amelia's body enveloped Siwoo's mangled form.
This foolhardy witch was sitting there defenseless, trying to revive a human who was already a corpse.
"No way... are you trying to bring him back to life right now?"
".........."
Tears streaming down her face, Amelia stared at Ea without a word.
Reading utter despair in those hollow, vacant eyes, Ea let out a hollow chuckle.
"I was hoping for at least a somewhat entertaining fight."
Like a guillotine blade rising to sever a condemned prisoner's neck, the tens of thousands of ribbons twisted in unison.
The air trembled with a taut tension, akin to tens of thousands of strings being tuned simultaneously.
-Plip
It began with a single drop.
Ea looked up at the damp sensation on her cheek.
The crisp late-autumn sky, brilliant under the moonlight, was weeping.
-Plip, plip, plip
Autumn rain fell from the obsidian-black sky.
Onto fallen leaves, trampled grass.
Gently pattering upon the witch who had lost her beloved... and the witch who had stolen him away.
Ea stood dazed, letting the raindrops fall on her body, when a sudden chill crept in.
Her honed instincts, forged across countless battlefields, screamed at her.
Flee this place.
Yet prey lay before her eyes.
Prey that had abandoned resistance in despair, offering up its neck.
The disconnect between what her eyes saw and the peril prickling her skin cracked her resolve.
A fleeting lapse: Shouldn't I finish this one off first?
"Wha...?"
Full barrage.
A stigma and womb were all that remained anyway.
The rest could be pulped for all it mattered, so Ea commanded her ribbons—spread wide like a massive peacock's tail—to attack.
But...
Nothing happened.
The "Virgin's Loom," more loyal than her own limbs in executing her orders, had gone dead silent.
Commands to its parts drained mana somewhere into the void.
Sprouts emerged.
Lime-green life sprouted silently everywhere the autumn rain touched.
On upturned soil mounds, on the fountain, rooftops, building walls.
Wherever a raindrop landed, buds unfurled without discrimination.
"Dissolve it!"
The incongruously serene sight only amplified the terror.
Her absolute confidence shattered, Ea—feeling anxiety for the first time in centuries—chanted a spell to activate her self-generating magic.
Her Aquarius barrier wasn't merely for concealment.
It was her digestive organ, meant to secrete acids that broke down everything inside except herself.
Under normal circumstances, it should have melted every other being within...
"What in the..."
It didn't obey either.
This was the time to flee.
She needed to escape through the getaway route she'd secured beforehand and return to the present world.
In a panic, Ea tried to bolt but looked down at her feet, now utterly immobile.
Green shoots embroidered her shoes like fine stitching.
They hadn't grown from the shoes.
They had rooted into her living flesh and pierced through the leather.
On her exposed shoulders beneath the jet-black dress, on her slender hands and arms.
Faced with the relentless sprouting, Ea felt fear.
The ribbons spread wide behind her back were now blanketed in dense lime-green foliage.
The raindrops falling from the sky weren't some whimsical downpour.
Nor were these ordinary sprouts that grew from rainwater.
The moment they took root, they sucked in all mana, swelling like tumors, proliferating.
"Wait! Just wait a second!"
Was this the power of a 22nd-order witch?
One with no real combat experience, no less?
Impossible.
She had already attempted to wrest control of the mana several times.
All efforts proved futile.
The more mana she expended, the faster the sprouts grew.
Ea had felt this sensation before.
The hopelessness during her clash with the 23rd-order Duke of Tiferet.
All resistance futile, forced to abandon her preparations and barely escape with her life.
Amelia had crossed the wall.
She had shattered the limit that had stymied her for decades, widening the gulf once more.
The difference from that prior escape was that Ea's reactions weren't as sharp this time.
Amelia's magic had already deeply eroded even her flesh.
"W-Wait! I'm sorry! I was wrong!"
"........."
"I'll compensate you! I'll apologize! Take all my slaves!"
Whether the terrified Ea screamed or not, Amelia finished her business, cradled Siwoo, and rose to her feet.
"Wait! I'm telling you to wait!"
Where Amelia had sat bloomed wildflowers, adorning the spot like a queen's throne.
Tiny blossoms of every hue swayed gently in the breeze, unlike any seen before.
Amelia turned her back to Ea and began walking away.
With each light step, a bouquet of wildflowers burst from the sprouts.
From there, waves of life rippled outward.
Like raindrops on a mirror-still pond, taking Amelia's footsteps as the origin, the wildflowers erupted in bloom all at once.
"Please... spare me..."
Flowers bloomed wherever sprouts had taken root.
The wildflowers blanketed not just the mansion but the entire area, overflowing across Ea's arms, legs, belly, chest, eyes, nose, tongue without mercy.
The fragrant floral scent offered no time for final cries, passing judgment on Ea Sadalmelik's atrocities.
Atop the collapsed heap of petals, only silence remained.
2.
The rain stopped.
Odile and Odette, who had escaped thanks to Siwoo's dramatic efforts, returned to Amelia's mansion with Gemernai.
Startled by Amelia's intense mana, Sophia flew in as a crow from her cabin.
What Sophia, Gemernai, and the gathering onlookers beheld was a breathtaking field of flowers evoking a heavenly garden.
Vibrant wildflowers bloomed densely without space to step, mingled with flower petals drifting down as the fan-shaped structure crumbled.
In the midst of that gorgeous yet humble scenery stood Amelia, clutching Siwoo and wailing in anguish.
The twins spotted Siwoo and rushed forward in a race.
Realizing his state, Odile froze like a statue, tears streaming down, while Odette dropped to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Countess Gemernai sighed endlessly in pity, and Sophia tried to restrain Amelia only to be flung off repeatedly.
1886.
This was the first time an exile who had slunk into Gehenna after the war with the exiles had caused such a massive incident.
As a major event, the Aquarius Witch's assault became the talk of "First Red Roof Salon" and "Levana Grand Bathhouse," spreading to every citizen of Tarot Town.
That monstrous exile had targeted an apprentice witch of House Gemernai, they said.
Enraged, Baron Merrygold subdued the exile in her own mansion in a single day, they said.
Fortunately, casualties were limited to just one slave, they said.
Rumor had it that slave had shone heroically, evacuating the twins.
Countess Gemernai planned to honor him with the title of Honorary Witch for his merits, they said.
To prevent such tragedies, the Tree of Sephirot had called an emergency meeting, they said.
With ten barons, two counts, and one duke in attendance, Duke Keter of the Ivory Palace still hadn't shown so much as his face, they said.
But no rumor burns hot forever.
The public isn't a tenacious bunch, after all.
The "Aquarius Assault Incident" that had set Gehenna abuzz for a time gradually faded with the flow of days.