Chapter 55: The Crack
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 55: The Crack
“That’s it for today’s training.”
“Haah, haah—! Th-thank you for your hard work…!”
“Thank you for your hard work…”
The trainees, their training finally over, began to tremble like newborn fawns. I watched them for a moment before adding a reminder to get proper nutrition.
“Even if you’re exhausted, make sure you eat today. Especially protein—that is, meat. Eat until you’re stuffed.”
“Y-yes, sir…”
“That’s all, then.”
I left the training grounds and headed for the place where I’d promised to meet Margaret: an inn near the central plaza. The sun was beginning to set, and the streets were bustling with people.
I could have spent hours just staring blankly out the small window in the inn room, watching the people go by and losing all track of time.
A glance at the clock made me realize the appointed time had already passed.
‘…Why isn’t she here?’
Clocks were expensive, but they weren’t particularly rare for a witch. Most witches who had lived for a long time were wealthy.
Both my teacher and Margaret, having lived for hundreds of years, had amassed considerable fortunes without even trying.
Besides, my teacher’s house had several large clocks. It was impossible to lose track of time there even if you wanted to.
‘Did something… happen?’
If Margaret hadn’t come, it meant something had happened to her. And there weren’t many things that could happen to her while she was staying quietly at the cabin.
There was only one possibility. My teacher had found out about her sleeping with me, and a fight had broken out over it… but I’d devised all sorts of ways to avoid getting caught. Unless Margaret herself brought it up, the chances of being discovered were nil.
The moment she opened her mouth, a fight would erupt, and I couldn’t imagine Margaret would be foolish enough to do that.
‘It’s probably fine.’
With that thought, I simply waited for Margaret to arrive. I just waited, stubbornly.
The sun vanished completely, and the night characteristic of a medieval fantasy world settled in, a low-lying darkness punctuated only by the faint glimmer of lanterns.
Margaret never came.
“That’s all for today’s training.”
“Heuk— Haah!”
Watching the trainees collapse from exhaustion, I hurried to Elesis’s office. I gave a perfunctory knock on the door and went inside. Elesis frowned slightly at my unannounced entry, but this was no time to worry about that.
“Elesis, I need to take a short leave.”
“A leave? It’s only been two days.”
“Yeah. I think something serious has happened. I can’t get in touch with my teacher. I think something’s wrong.”
“…That does sound serious. Do you need a carriage?”
“No, I can run. I just came to ask you to cover my class tomorrow.”
Elesis stared at me as if I were absurd, hearing that I planned to run to a cabin that was more than a two-day journey even by carriage. But humans are naturally good at long-distance running.
On top of that, with my body enhanced by magic power, I could run all day at the speed of a normal person’s full sprint. It would be tiring and difficult, but possible.
“Alright, I’ll take care of your class tomorrow. Be safe.”
“Thanks.”
Temporarily relieved of my instructor duties, I immediately left the village, faced the direction of my teacher’s cabin, and took off at a dead sprint. I just ran, mindlessly.
I was certain that something must have happened to either my teacher or Margaret.
The cabin was in ruins. When Beatrice opened her eyes, she realized she was all alone and began to sob, clutching her dolls.
Not long ago, Yohan, Evangeline, and Margaret had been here. Adults who had looked after her, a young girl who couldn’t even speak their language.
But now? No one was there. Not a single trace remained, as if everything she had experienced had been a dream.
“Yohan, Yohaaaaan… where did you go…”
Meanwhile, the air around her throbbed with a rhythmic thump, thump. Each time the intense magic power erupted from beyond the dimensional space, Beatrice trembled in fear.
She shivered in terror, wept from the sheer loneliness, despaired at being abandoned yet again, and felt a budding resentment for everything in the world.
She looked at the dolls in her arms. They didn’t answer when she spoke to them. Now, even the dolls wouldn’t talk to her.
It wasn’t hard to guess why. Dolls couldn’t talk in the first place. Drowning in loneliness, she had been unconsciously ventriloquizing.
In the few days since meeting Yohan, with whom she could finally converse and pour out her long-held sorrows, her subconscious must have forgotten how to do it.
Forgotten so completely that she couldn’t remember how, even now when she needed it so desperately.
“No, nooo… Yohan, Yohaaan… Evangeline… Margaret…”
She cried out desperately. But no one answered.
In that moment, she was once again all alone.
This time, even her dolls had abandoned her.
She was utterly, completely isolated in this world.
“Huu— Huuk!”
A sudden wave of nausea washed over her, and her head began to spin. Beatrice took deep, ragged breaths, trying to fight it down.
It wasn’t easy. In the end, she vomited on the floor. The stench of her own vomit made her throw up again—and the sight of the soiled floor made her retch once more.
She heaved until there was nothing left in her stomach, and when that wasn’t enough, tears and snot streamed down her face.
She collapsed onto the bed, clutching her dolls, and just kept crying.
“…Beatrice?”
So when she even started hearing an auditory hallucination, she realized she had truly gone mad. But it was a voice so sweet, so longed-for, that she welcomed the madness.
Yohan’s voice. The voice she had been searching for all day, sounding as vivid as if he were right beside her…
“Beatrice, are you okay?”
“…Huh? H-huh?”
She slowly lifted her head. Yohan was really there, right in front of her. It was too real to be a hallucination; his form, drenched and dripping with sweat, looked all too real.
The sharp smell of her vomit mixed with the scent of his sweat, proving it wasn’t a hallucination. This was real.
Tears streaming down her face, Beatrice threw herself into Yohan’s arms.
“Waaaaaah—! Why, why did you leave me! You said you wouldn’t—!”
“Leave you? When did I? I came looking for you, didn’t I?”
“Sob, I don’t want to—I don’t want to be apart, I don’t want you to be far away—. Just stay by my side, you idiot—!”
Patting the sniffling Beatrice, Yohan looked around for Evangeline and Margaret, who were nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s my teacher?”
“…Sniffle, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“When I woke up, they were suddenly gone. I don’t know where they went…”
Hearing Beatrice’s words, Yohan was convinced something must have happened to them. He immediately went outside the cabin, took a deep breath, and shouted with all his might.
“Fen! Ri! R!”
A moment later, a wolf the size of a house emerged from the deep woods. Yohan wasn’t its master, but he was the disciple its master cherished most.
Fenrir appeared, looking down at Yohan with an annoyed expression as he asked what was wrong.
[What is it all of a sudden? In the middle of the night…]
“My teacher is gone. Since yesterday morning.”
[—Since yesterday morning? That can’t be. She is still nearby.]
“She’s nearby?”
[Yes. Is she not inside the cabin? The Pass is connected to that place.]
Hearing Fenrir, Yohan thoroughly searched the inside of the cabin. But he couldn’t find his teacher anywhere.
Fenrir’s expression turned slightly more serious as he looked at Yohan.
[…Can you take responsibility for what I am about to do?]
“What are you going to do?”
[I plan to find the source of the Pass and smash the cabin. I cannot exactly peer into that tiny house at this size, after all.]
“I’ll take responsibility. Just find her, quickly.”
At Yohan’s words, Fenrir grinned and swung his forepaw at the cabin. A powerful barrier my teacher had set up beforehand stopped his paw, but Fenrir crushed it with immense strength and succeeded in demolishing the cabin.
Having swatted the cabin away, Fenrir pointed to the area that had been the living room and spoke.
[Here, I can feel the Pass from here—is there nothing?]
“I don’t see anything… Wait a second—.”
Wondering if Evangeline and Margaret had been attacked and sealed away by another witch, Yohan activated his magic. At that moment, a faint crack, previously invisible, came into his view.
It looked unsettling, but Yohan fearlessly reached out and touched the crack. The next instant, a tiny hole opened in the crack and sucked Yohan right in—swallowing him whole.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa?”
He was pulled inside for only a moment before he found himself standing alone in what looked like some kind of ruin.
A place so devastated it felt like a battlefield. Looking around, Yohan felt a thumping vibration from somewhere and sprinted toward it.
“You, you damn bitch—! Give up!”
“Shut up—if anyone’s giving up, it’s you!”
And there, he found Evangeline and Margaret, fighting and flinging magic at each other. After fighting for some time, they seemed to have run out of magic power, as they simultaneously rushed each other and grabbed each other by the hair.
“Kyaaak—! Let go!”
“You, you let go first—!”
“Shut up, you damn harlot! The moment we get out, I’ll kick you out first…”
As she was shouting and fighting, Evangeline spotted Yohan watching them from a distance and froze. Seeing her reaction, Margaret glanced over to see what was wrong and also saw Yohan.
The two witches, who had been fighting fiercely enough to pull each other’s hair, quickly let go and collapsed weakly.
“Oww… Yohaaan~ Help me~.”
“Disciple… I think I’ve sprained my ankle…”
For Yohan, who had just witnessed their violent brawl, it was an utterly ridiculous sight.
Deciding he should at least hear what happened, Yohan approached the two of them.