Chapter 160: Giving Up
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 160: Giving Up
He needed a witch. More than that, he needed a witch who was on his side—one who would agree to return to the past.
'I need ten of them.'
Recalling Regina's words, Yohan thought of the witches who could help him right now.
Evangeline, Beatrice, Hekaterina, Regina, Linna & Linne, and Adelheid. A total of seven.
He needed three more.
'If I can just do something about Margaret…'
The Margaret of the present, and the Margaret from the future. Even if he somehow managed to get both of them on his side, he would still be one short.
The last person Yohan had in mind was Makina. The Emperor of the Empire. The monarch who had built this age.
"…Then I guess I have to deal with Margaret first."
Persuading Makina wouldn't be easy, but even if he managed it, he couldn't return to the past without Margaret's help.
It seemed anyone with 'Ma' in their name was a problem. Yohan gave a bitter smile and headed for Margaret's room with Regina.
To the room of Margaret, who had been turned into a human and left all alone.
Time is solitary.
Even if the entire world wishes for it to stop, time flows on, aloof.
Time is solitary.
Even when, in the end, only things that cannot even perceive the concept of time remain in the universe, time simply flows.
Thus, time itself is solitary. The very concept of time imparts solitude.
“YohanYohanYohanYohanYohan….”
And this effect is amplified in a dark, empty solitary cell. In a room that makes one forget even the solitary flow of time, most people go mad.
Witches were no exception.
Screeeak…
“YohanYohanYohanYohan….”
"What's wrong with her?"
Opening the door to the solitary cell, Yohan stepped inside and let out a hollow laugh. He saw Margaret huddled in a corner, muttering his name.
He wondered if the witch had already gone mad. The only problem was that it had barely been a day since he'd locked her up.
'How could she not even last a day...?'
There had been a similar experiment on Earth, where a test subject had endured nearly a month in a dark, solitary room.
Considering that subject had emerged with no physical or mental issues, there was definitely something wrong with Margaret breaking down so completely after not even a day…
"Margaret."
“—YohanYohanYohan….”
"Look at me."
Yohan paid it no mind and immediately pulled Margaret toward him. Even with Yohan right in front of her, Margaret kept muttering his name as if she couldn't see him at all.
When he forced her head up to meet his eyes, Margaret finally, cautiously, hugged him.
“YohanYohanYohan….”
“…Has she really gone mad?”
But why? Yohan stared at her, unable to comprehend. He couldn't understand how she could go this mad in just one day. She was a witch, for crying out loud.
He glanced at Regina, who had come in with him. Regina nodded, approached Margaret, and stroked her hair.
A moment later, a bright light burst forth, covering Margaret's head and washing away the madness that was eating at her mind.
“—Yo, han?”
Finally coming to her senses, Margaret carefully looked up at Yohan and sniffled. As she began to hug him with enough force to break her own body, Yohan gently started stroking her hair.
"Margaret."
"Yohaaan—hic, it's Yohan. It's really Yohan…."
"What happened to you?"
He deliberately spoke in a warm tone. Feeling his warmth, a comfort she had longed for, Margaret trembled and began to answer his questions.
"I, just—because Yohan wasn't here… I was left alone…."
"What does being left alone have to do with it?"
"But, without Yohan—those things, those things…."
Watching Margaret stare off into the distance, trembling in fear, Yohan tilted his head in confusion.
In this empty room with nothing in it, what on earth could she be seeing that terrified her so?
'No, that's not right. Wait a minute…'
And in that moment, Yohan realized he had forgotten one thing.
Every witch has a curse.
The Margaret from the future was no exception.
He had confirmed that the curse disappears when it's removed and they are turned into a human—but Yohan had never once had sex with the Margaret who came from the future.
'I've never experimented with what happens when one becomes human while still possessing a curse…'
Yohan could finally see what lay in the direction Margaret was pointing. An intersection of time and space that transcended dimensions.
There was something there. Something Yohan could only see because his understanding of the fourth dimension had increased after Margaret's previous attack.
'What is that?'
If he had to describe their appearance in one word, it would be 'watchdogs'.
Watchdogs that guard time and law.
They were ready to tear out Margaret's throat at any moment.
"What... are those?"
"My curse…."
Yohan asked, looking at Margaret. As if realizing what Yohan had seen, Margaret buried her face in his chest and answered.
"Every time I tamper with the timeline, those things come to devour me."
"…They weren't there when you first arrived."
"That's—because you were there."
Margaret said, pointing at Yohan. The owner of magic nullification. His mere presence made it impossible to traverse the time and space around him.
It was a different matter for beings like Margaret or Regina, who were right beside him. But for something trying to travel from a rift in a distant outer dimension, countless light-years away, to a location near Yohan—a point smaller than a speck of dust on a cosmic scale—there was absolutely no room for error.
"—If I get rid of those, will you return Margaret?"
"…No."
"Why are you so obsessed with Margaret? The Yohan you know isn't me, anyway. Have you ever considered trying to live with this world's Margaret?"
At Yohan's words, Margaret burst out laughing. She looked like a madwoman.
"You really don't know anything, do you?"
The idea of living with her past self? That's impossible. And for good reason—.
"What I changed was the mind."
"…What did you say?"
"There's no way I'd have enough magic power to send a physical body hundreds of years into the past."
He had overlooked it. Even if Regina consumed twice the magic power of others, it still required the power of ten witches just to turn back time a few decades—.
How could Margaret possibly have leaped hundreds of years with her body intact?
"So this body right now, it belongs to the Margaret you know."
"…Then the Margaret of this time is."
"She's probably in the future I lived in. All alone in that empty place."
He couldn't save the original Margaret. But it didn't end there. If the present Margaret and the future Margaret were essentially one and the same person, he couldn't even gather the ten witches he needed to return to the past.
Yohan was trapped in this era, like a specimen preserved in amber.
Smiles never left people's faces. Food was plentiful, jobs were so abundant that they even created useless positions like 'elevator girls', and whenever a problem arose, the Empire solved it with incredible speed.
This would be impossible for a human. Humans judge problems with their own selfish motives, and as a result, the solutions that emerge are often the next-worst thing to the absolute worst.
But Makina, the current Emperor and the Imperial Family itself, was different. The only desire she possessed was 'to build machines'.
There was the secret that the Empire was little more than a miniature garden for her to build her machines better, but the citizens of the Empire didn't much care for such secrets.
"Her Majesty the Emperor? She's a very good person."
Despite being an absolute power, she is absolutely incorruptible. Because she is not human, the bribes offered by humans have no effect. Since she manages the entire domestic affair of the Empire alone, there is no irrationality or political competition that arises from having multiple parties.
A mechanical monarchy ruled by an absolute superhuman.
All citizens of the Empire pledge their loyalty to this nation.
"Do you know how much I suffered to create this nation?"
Makina was proud of having created such a nation. Like a scientist showing off their invention, she, the witch of machines, boasted of the mechanical component she had created called the 'Empire'.
And indeed, the Empire ran smoothly, like a well-oiled machine.
"And now what?"
The greatest mechanical device she had ever created.
The Empire.
An invention she could never give up.
"You want me to give up the Empire?"
Makina looked down at Yohan, who stood before her, head held high.
He repeated what he had just said.
"Yes."
Granted a private audience with the Emperor, Yohan spoke to the supreme leader of the nation before him.
"I'm going back to the past."
To do that, I need your power.
And to Makina, that sounded like nothing less than a demand to give up everything she had.