Chapter 51: Liberation
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 51: Liberation
Margaret's curse was gone. And it happened right after we had sex. You'd have to be an idiot not to realize the two were connected.
“How did this happen?”
“...I know, right? I wonder how.”
But Margaret played dumb, acting as if she knew nothing. As I was staring at her, my teacher called out to me.
“Yohan, do you know anything?”
“Huh!? Ah, yes… I don't really know either…”
“Right? Hmm, maybe the curse disappears if you stick close to Yohan for a long time? If not that, then something else…”
Fooled by the lie, my teacher accepted our answers. True to her nature as a witch who uncovers the world's secrets, she immediately began to ponder why Margaret's curse had been lifted.
After all, the witch's curse was a shackle that tormented all witches. Some would even say it was the biggest reason witches couldn't mingle with humans.
But now, a way to break that curse had appeared?
‘Even I would try to figure it out…’
I glanced cautiously at Margaret. I couldn't tell what she was thinking; like my teacher, she was staring blankly into space with an expressionless face.
In the end, the topic was dropped, and breakfast continued uneventfully.
“Disciple.”
While I was washing the dishes, Margaret called for me, and I went to her room. As soon as I stepped inside, she used magic to completely seal the room from the outside and cautiously began to speak.
“This… it has to be because of that, right?”
“...I suppose so.”
“Aah, aah-! What do I do! What am I going to do!”
“What do you mean, 'what are you going to do'? The curse is broken, isn't that a good thing?”
“That's the problem!”
Margaret glared at me, her expression a mixture of fear.
“Whether this is permanent or temporary, Evangeline is going to try and figure out why the curse was broken!”
“Well… if it can be broken, anyone would want to break it.”
“Yes! That's the problem! Just imagine if Evangeline realizes that the key is having sex with you!”
Listening to her, I tilted my head in confusion, but it didn't take long for me to grasp what could happen if that fact was discovered.
What would happen if my teacher, who loves me so dearly, found out that I not only had sex with another witch, but that I’d slept with her before her?
My chances of survival looked slim.
“So… there's a good chance I'll die?”
“A good chance? It's 100% certain!”
“You could just run away, Margaret.”
“Idiot! What's the point of that! I just found a way to break the curse, and you want me to go back to how things were!?”
Margaret had a point. Just as a monk who has tasted meat cannot give it up, it's only natural that a witch who has been freed from her curse, even for a moment, would not want to go back.
This was the liberation of the soul, the dream of all witches.
“...Then what should we do? We can't hide it forever.”
“For now, I'll try to find a way somehow, so don't tell Evangeline. Got it? We absolutely—absolutely cannot get caught. It's not just me who'll die! You could die too!”
“I don't think I'll die… Ah, yes. I understand.”
For a brief moment, I could read the true meaning behind her words in her eyes. Even if my teacher found out, she wouldn't kill me.
At worst, she'd probably drain me to the brink of death, saying something about erasing Margaret's scent. But Margaret was different.
Threatened with death by my teacher, she could try to kill me at any moment. For the reason that if she can't have me, no one can… she could mercilessly shatter the world's only treasure.
‘We can't hide this forever…’
After making my promise to Margaret, I returned to the living room.
After that, even though Margaret's curse was gone, my daily routine didn't change much. Preparing meals, training, playing with Beatrice, then bathing and sleeping together.
But the mere fact that a once-invisible person was now visible was bound to cause a lot of inconvenience for others.
“...Ritz. Could you please wear some clothes?”
“Huh? But I always walk around like this.”
“Whoa, you always walked around like that!? You mean you walked around like that in front of Yohan!?”
My teacher was beyond shocked—she was horrified—to see the nudist Margaret. Margaret usually walked around so confidently that I'd wondered if all witches were like that, but it seemed that even to a fellow witch like my teacher, being naked was not the norm.
Margaret replied bluntly, in a tone that said, "I always do this, what's the problem?"
“I mean, it's all women here, so what's the issue? Disciple? I bet Disciple here actually likes it. Right?”
“Huh? No, I never particularly liked it…”
“Really? Says the guy who gets hard every time he sees my naked body?”
Hearing that, I shut my mouth. Honestly, I'm not impotent, and at my vigorous age, I wasn't confident I could see a body like that and not get an erection.
As I kept my mouth shut, my teacher's face twisted into a scowl, and she smacked Margaret's bare tits.
“Stop hitting on my Yohan! You crazy bitch!”
“Kyaaa!? W-what!? When did I ever hit on him!”
“Shut up! Either put on some clothes right now, or let's finish this!”
My teacher hadn't said much when Margaret was invisible, but ever since she became visible, she'd started to see her as a threat.
The reason was easy to guess. When Margaret was invisible, my teacher couldn't have known what her face or body looked like.
She would have never imagined that Margaret was her equal or even surpassed her, nor would she have thought that Margaret's easygoing personality meant she'd show off her naked body.
And so, only after seeing with her own eyes what Margaret was doing did she finally feel a sense of crisis.
“Aah, fine! I'll put them on, I'll put them on!”
In the end, her exposed tits now bright red, Margaret declared her surrender and immediately returned to her room.
Seeing this, my teacher wiped the sweat from her brow and gave me a thumbs-up.
“The villain has been dealt with, Yohan!”
“Ah, yes…”
It doesn't matter to me, but… I thought that to most men, my teacher would be the villain.
Two days later, around the time my teacher and Beatrice had gotten used to seeing Margaret.
Just like any other day, Margaret came out to the living room, stretched, and casually tried to sit down at the dining table.
“Haaam— Huh?”
Margaret, who had tried to pull out her chair, realized it wouldn't move. Tilting her head in confusion, she called out to me.
“Disciple—there's something wrong with this chair. It's like it's been glued down. It won't move.”
“Huh? That can't be right.”
I immediately went over and tried pulling the chair. It moved without any problem. When I tilted my head, Margaret tilted hers too, looking just as confused.
But not wanting to think too hard so early in the morning, she simply sat down and waited for the others—my teacher and Beatrice.
A few minutes after she sat down to wait, my teacher and Beatrice emerged from their rooms.
“Yohaaan—good morning.”
“Good morning, Teacher.”
“Yohan, me too.”
“Good morning, Beatrice.”
I greeted them cheerfully, and they both nodded before taking their seats at the table. After sitting down, the two of them looked around, tilting their heads in confusion.
“Huh? Is Ritz sleeping in?”
“What? What do you mean…”
Hearing my teacher, I was about to say that Margaret was right in front of her. But one look at Margaret's expression and I clamped my mouth shut.
Margaret's face was filled with anxiety. She waved her hands at me frantically, then brought a finger to her lips in a gesture telling me not to say anything to the others.
“...Hey, guys.”
“Yohan~ go wake Ritz up, quickly. I'm hungry.”
“Can't... you hear me?”
“Or is she sulking because I hit her chest the other day? Hmm... I guess I was a little out of line then…”
“...Evangeline, you idiot, you moron.”
Again and again, she called out desperately to the other witches, but the two of them chatted away amongst themselves as if they couldn't hear a thing.
As if in despair at the fact that the curse was active again, Margaret's expression darkened.
Whoosh. Using magic to escape her chair, Margaret looked at me and gestured.
“...Disciple, can you come with me for a moment?”
“...Teacher, I'll—I'll go wake Margaret up.”
“Would you?”
I followed the trembling Margaret to her room. The moment the door clicked shut, she threw herself into my arms and began to shake.
“Margaret?”
“...Just for a little while. Let me stay like this for just a little while.”
Most witches live lives isolated from society because of the curse. Not by their own choice, but by force. It's no different from being bullied by the world itself.
Having escaped, even for a moment, from the shackles that bound her soul, Margaret could not bear the chains that were once again binding her.
She couldn't endure this feeling of her very soul being damaged.
“Disciple.”
“Yes, Margaret…”
“...I'm sorry, but I—I don't even have the energy to move, so…”
Will you fuck me?
It was the saddest request in the world, and in the end, I granted it.
“Heya—! Sorry, sorry, I overslept!”
A short while later, Margaret walked out into the living room, her face blooming with a wide smile. Seeing her, the other two chided her for being so late before continuing with their meal.
As they ate, the two of them sniffed the air and tilted their heads.
“Hmm?”
“What's wrong?”
“No, it's just—there's a strange smell.”
“A strange smell?”
“It's like the scent of night-blooming flowers... Must be my imagination.”
Evangeline thought nothing of it and let it go.