Chapter 71: Kidnapping
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 71: Kidnapping
Unlike the ever-advancing modern Earth, Yohan's life in the witch's forest cabin remained largely unchanged.
His days followed an unchanging routine—the kind of pastoral life many dreamed of, though some might have called it boring.
Today was no different. As part of his routine, Yohan was patrolling the forest, training his body along the way.
“Are you holding on tight?”
“Yep. Holding on tight.”
“Alright, let’s go, Hati.”
“Awoof—!”
When Yohan nudged Hati’s side with his foot, she took the signal and instantly began to tear through the forest.
Feeling Beatrice’s hands gripping his lower back, Yohan lowered his posture slightly. Swoosh—the wind whistled past his ears.
This other world had little entertainment to offer compared to his modern one, but this was the one thing he could truly enjoy. Riding on Hati's back as she tore through the woods like a motorcycle, he could leave all his worries behind.
He was just thinking that this must be why people enjoyed racing when Hati caught the scent of a monster and carried him right to it.
Whish—The moment he spotted the monster, Yohan gripped his weapon, held it tight against his body, and thrust it forward. It was a lance charge, using a sword and a wolf.
—Kweeeeeeek!?
As expected of a tactic that had dominated thousands of years of human history before the invention of gunpowder and firearms, it was more than effective in this world. Yohan finished off the monster, still flailing on the tip of his sword, by slamming it into the ground. He then dismounted and began to harvest the corpse.
He took what could be used or sold and gave the rest to Hati. With a happy cry, Hati began to crunch and chew on the monster's remains.
Beatrice, who had been watching intently, frowned slightly and spoke.
“...Poor thing.”
He thought that was a strange thing to say for a witch who turned dolls into people to build a village, so he kept his mouth shut. But Beatrice kept asking questions.
“Why do you kill monsters?”
“Because they’re nothing but harmful.”
“Harmful?”
“It means they’re creatures that do no good by being alive.”
Unlike plants and animals, which were self-regulating parts of the ecosystem, monsters mutated by magic required population control.
Monsters fought by tearing each other apart, and they never stopped. When there were fewer monsters to fight, they attacked animals. When there were fewer animals, they devoured plants.
They showed no restraint in the process. They continued until an entire ecosystem was wiped out. Most monsters lacked the intelligence to realize this path led only to their own destruction.
“If we let them live, we won’t be able to eat the delicious food we have every day.”
“That can’t happen. Okay. I’ll help too, Yohan.”
“Thanks.”
Yohan roughly wiped the blood from his sword and Hati’s mouth, then got on her back again and rode off to find the next monster.
Hati caught the scent of another one and dashed off, arriving before it in an instant, just as before.
But as he reached for his sword, Yohan froze.
‘…It’s already dead?’
The monster lying before them was dead, bleeding profusely. He could tell right away it wasn't just pretending.
Approaching it while still on Hati, Yohan realized it was the giant snake monster they had seen before.
He remembered being so intimidated by its size—it was large enough to rival Evangeline's familiar, Fenrir—that they had fled.
‘What in the world could have….’
As he approached the corpse to investigate the cause of death, Yohan realized the monster had been torn apart by overwhelming physical strength. He didn't dare to imagine what kind of creature could exert the strength to rip apart a monster of this size.
“Run—.”
Before he could even give the signal, Yohan felt a chilling killing intent radiating from behind him. Hati must have felt it too, as she instinctively shot forward.
An instant after they bolted, a jet-black arm dropped down where they had been. Yohan glared at the arm's owner.
‘What is that….’
A jet-black monster appeared. It seemed too small to have ripped a train-sized snake in two, yet it was larger than most trees.
The moment he looked directly at the monster, Yohan couldn't help but frown.
‘I can't see it.’
He could tell it was a monster. He could see it had black fur and that its body was as large as a tree. But whenever he tried to look at its form, his focus would blur.
To be precise, only the area around the monster became blurry. It was some kind of magic that prevented one from seeing the monster's true form—a unique magic that some monsters possessed.
Even Yohan, with his magic nullification, couldn't see through it. To use his magic, he would have to make direct contact with the creature, but massive monsters are still monsters even without magic.
The monstrous strength that came from its overwhelming size was more than enough to crush a person, magic or no magic.
“Yohan.”
“Huh? Y-yeah?”
“You go on ahead. I'll hold it off.”
Perhaps sensing Yohan's fear, Beatrice, who had been holding onto his back, slowly slid to the ground.
Once on her feet, she took out the tiny stuffed dolls she always carried with her. In the next moment, her magic breathed life into them, and the small dolls became knights to protect her.
“But…”
“Yohan. My friend. That's why I'll protect you."
Fwoosh—!
Large wings spread from the back of the doll that had become a knight. It stood imposing, as if declaring it would not lose to such a monster.
“Besides, I'm a witch, too. You think I'd lose to a monster like that?”
“...Beatrice. I'll be back soon. Wait for me.”
Yohan immediately spurred Hati's side and escaped the forest. Watching Yohan flee into the distance, Beatrice's smile vanished, and she began to wind plush thread around her fingers.
—!@#$@!$#@%#@
“I can't understand a single thing you're saying.”
—ñ̷̡̛̮̩̣̞̎̑͗ȩ̵̢̺̣͖̥͓̱̦̏͊̇̄̐̅̋̕͝m̸͓͋̂̄̆̓̿̾͊a̷̰̩̙͓͕̥͍̽̅͐́̊̈̔͘͝ẻ̴̪̥͔̖̻̉̆̒̒͐̏̚a̴̖̞̗̹͕̲̾̄̉̚͜͠
“Like I said, I can't understand you at all.”
Beatrice grinned and shot out the plush thread, stopping the monster's movements. The moment the thread, harder than steel, bound the monster, the knight moved. A bloody battle to kill the monster had begun.
—Pant, pant! Hah, hah!
“Hati, just a little more!”
Having run dozens of kilometers in an instant, Hati stuck her tongue out to regulate her body temperature and began to pant heavily.
She had run so hard that Yohan could feel her heartbeat even from his position on her back. A normal wolf's heart would have probably burst long ago.
But Hati was a child of Fenrir and a familiar who received magic power from him. She wouldn't die so easily from something like this.
The moment they finally reached the cabin, Yohan leaped off Hati, tumbling as he landed.
He kicked the door open, and the witches gathered in the living room turned to look at him at the sound of the door flying open.
“Master!”
“Yohan!?”
Seeing her disciple covered in dirt and minor scratches, a startled Evangeline rushed over. After checking his condition and confirming he wasn't seriously hurt, she asked him what had happened.
“Beatrice is…!”
“Beatrice? Come to think of it, where is she?”
“That way, over there!”
There was no time to explain the exact location. Realizing from Yohan's reaction that the matter was urgent, Evangeline and Margaret immediately took him and flew in the direction he pointed.
“This way, right?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Then let's go. Tell me when you see it.”
They leaped through space.
Leaping over a kilometer every 0.1 seconds, they covered the distance Yohan had run in a matter of seconds.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before Evangeline spotted the traces of a battle and shouted. Margaret descended to the spot.
“This place…”
“This magic power is Beatrice's…”
As expected of archwitches well-versed in magic, they instantly grasped what had happened here.
They collected the magical traces left by Beatrice and the mysterious monster and began to track them. Since they were renowned archwitches, Yohan thought they would be able to find Beatrice without any trouble.
“...What is this?”
“What's wrong…?”
“I can't see the trail. What? No, I can see it... but I can't see it?”
Distortion. Yohan remembered the magic the monster had used, and his heart sank as he looked at his master.
Evangeline glared, trying again and again to find the magical traces, but in the end, she couldn't. With a stiff expression, she looked at Yohan and spoke carefully.
“...I'm sorry.”
Those were the last words he wanted to hear. But no others came.
Inside a dark cave, the monster that had captured the witch continuously tried to communicate with her.
—Found you. Finally.
“Like I said, I can't understand you.”
—룐렉꽜꽥럇궁흐?
Unfortunately, the monster and the witch could not communicate. The monster had the ability to speak, but Beatrice was under a curse that prevented her from conversing with anyone other than her dolls.
Beatrice hugged her broken doll and curled up. The monster seemed to be treating her very politely, but she had no need for such things.
All she needed was Yohan. She needed Yohan. She wanted to see Yohan.
“I want to go back.”
—No. Sit.
“...You're mean.”
Because the monster would make her sit back down every time she tried to stand up, Beatrice couldn't even think about escaping the cave.
—Eat. You're not eating?
Seeing the monster offer her food with a broad smile—Beatrice felt a disgust that rose from the very bottom of her soul.
‘Yohan… hurry…’
The library he had sworn never to visit again.
Yohan set foot in that very place.
The librarian here, Regina, looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise.
“You said you could find out anything, right?”
Yohan asked, looking at Regina. She gave a slight nod. Seeing this, Yohan clenched his fists and spoke.
“...I'll do anything. There's something I need you to find out for me.”
At those words, Regina's eyes sparkled.