Chapter 78: Corruption
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 78: Corruption
“What kind of fortune-telling? Surely, it's not something as trivial as palmistry... Astrology? Numerology? Or maybe that card reading that's been popular lately?”
Eleanor's ears perked up. They almost seemed to flutter like wings.
There was no time to stop her. Like a child captivated by sweet candy, Eleanor fell for the old woman's lure and entered the alley.
‘She's like a child left unattended by the water.’
Because of her ability, she had rarely ever been harmed, and since this was her first time seeing the outside world, Eleanor was naive to a fault.
It was the same now. An old woman casually luring a well-dressed man and woman into an alley in an age where clothes proved one's status?
If I had been alone, I would have drawn my sword and knocked back the hood that covered half her face.
Still, the reason I followed Eleanor into the shabby tent without a word was that, unlike a pickpocket, the old woman's gaze had been fixed on Eleanor from the very beginning.
That meant my ability hadn't activated, and that this old woman was a witch.
‘The Star Witch.’
It had to be the Star Witch, the mastermind who founded the assembly of seven witches. The long, hooked nose and the wrinkles around her mouth had to be a disguise.
What did the Star Witch want? Even searching through the memories of my past life, I couldn't find the reason she helped the other witches. I saw this meeting as an opportunity to find out.
“You could say it's a branch of astrology.”
Chuckling, the witch took seven orbs from a leather pouch and placed them on the table. They were beautiful orbs that shimmered brilliantly, as if they contained the universe and galaxies within them.
“Wow… They're beautiful! Sell them to me. Okay?”
They were far too exquisite for a mere back-alley fortune-teller to possess. Eleanor, who had been admiring them, recognized their value at once and made her offer. Her attitude suggested she didn't even consider the possibility of refusal.
“Heh heh. What kind of fortune-teller would sell the tools of her trade?”
The old woman refused as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But for Eleanor, who was used to getting whatever she coveted, the situation was anything but natural.
“Huh…?”
Only then did Eleanor realize something was off. She turned to me and gripped my hand tightly. It seemed she no longer found it strange to rely on me, her love rival.
“It's all right. I'm here, aren't I?”
“Wh-who said anything? Hmph!”
Belatedly realizing she was squeezing too hard, Eleanor whipped her head away. Of course, while her grip loosened slightly, she didn't let go of my hand.
“Heh heh heh…”
The Star Witch watched Eleanor with a fond smile.
But when her gaze turned to me, its temperature was the complete opposite. It was enough to remind me of when I first met Eleanor.
I had a rough idea why.
“I was just talking, so don't mind me. Anyway, you said it's astrology? How does it work?”
“Heh heh. You must have heard the saying that the number of people is the same as the number of stars hanging in the sky. If you can find the star that points to you among them, you can see the past and the future.”
“So these star orbs are the tools for that?”
“Heh heh. Would you like to try?”
An orb pushed by the witch rolled across the table. Eleanor, unable to tear her eyes from the galaxy within it, carefully picked it up.
“Th-there's nothing special?”
“Heh heh. Of course it would mean nothing for a non-practitioner to touch it.”
The witch casually covered Eleanor's hand, still holding the orb, with her own. A startled Eleanor tried to pull her hand away, but the witch's grip was so strong it wouldn't budge an inch.
“Allen…!”
Panicked, she asked for my help.
“It will be fine.”
“You're up to something again, aren't you?”
“Not this time.”
“I don't believe you.”
While Eleanor and I bickered over her absurd suspicions, the witch, who had been concentrating with her eyes gently closed, slowly opened her mouth.
“Heh heh. A cruel fate, indeed. I see you were born amidst everyone's blessings, yet you are gradually becoming an outcast. The pity is that you neither wished for it, nor did anything to deserve it.”
Eleanor's hand tightened on mine.
“Isn't that... a little too obvious? Anyone could guess that just by looking at me. You can't fool me with something like that.”
The witch lifted her head slightly. Her half-opened eyes, now visible, scattered a faint red light. The corners of her mouth were curled into a smirk.
“But you know better than anyone that the influence of your appearance is but a speck of dust...”
“How do you know that…?”
The nuance was that she knew something. Genuinely flustered, Eleanor asked again.
“D-do you perhaps know a way to lift the curse?”
“It is not a curse. Nor is it a blessing. It is simply a harsh fate.”
“Fate…”
“The only consolation is that you are not the only one with such a destiny. If you meet another born to the same fate, you will surely be able to ease your loneliness.”
The Star Witch was alluding to the other witches. Before Eleanor could think of Aenya, I traced my finger along her palm.
When she reflexively turned to look, I gave her a grin and a shrug, as if to say that I was the fated partner the Star Witch spoke of.
‘The witch assembly is no longer needed.’
I wanted Eleanor to rely on me and me alone, not the other witches.
Of course, Eleanor, not yet fully tamed, snorted and whipped her head away again.
“You said you can see the future, right? What does my future look like? I'm especially curious if things will work out with the one I love.”
The Star Witch paused, as if she'd been asked a question she had never considered. Then, she looked at me with a displeased gaze.
“…Unfortunately, it is a love that cannot be. You may form an excellent lord-vassal relationship, but you are not fated to spend your lives together.”
Eleanor frowned slightly. Then, she let out a small snort of laughter.
She realized the Star Witch had mistaken me for Aenya, the person she was actually asking about. With that, she dismissed everything the witch had gotten right so far as mere luck.
Trust has always been hard to build and easy to lose.
“Oh? How bad is it?”
The Star Witch seemed to notice the lightened atmosphere and tilted her head, but that was all. Without knowing the complexity of our relationship, she would have no way of understanding Eleanor's reaction.
“A husband and wife are meant to be in a mutually supportive relationship. However, your love will go beyond that, seeking to dominate and devour you, until you are reduced to a mere doll.”
“Then I should stay as far away as possible, shouldn't I?”
Eleanor said, shooting me a sidelong glance. The corners of her mouth twitched, as if she couldn't control them. And yet, for all her talk, she refused to let go of my hand.
The Star Witch continued, with an air that suggested something was wrong.
“As I said before, you could not have a better lord-vassal relationship. Therefore, it would be best to maintain an appropriate relationship.”
One thing was certain: while the Star Witch clearly disliked me, she still wanted me to help Eleanor.
“Hehe, did you hear that?”
Eleanor grinned and looked back at me. She seemed to be trying to express that she still disliked and was wary of me, but she didn't appear to realize how much softer her attitude had become compared to when we first met.
Without giving me a chance to reply, she turned back to the Star Witch.
“What about this man?”
“Unless he himself wishes it, I cannot speak of his past and future in front of you.”
“That's unfair.”
The Star Witch just smiled without a word. It seemed she wanted to speak with me alone.
“Eleanor. Would you mind stepping outside for a moment? Ah, don't go too far. You might get lost if you go alone.”
“Who do you think I am, a child? Hmph.”
Eleanor shot up and stormed out of the tent. I wondered why she'd obeyed so readily, but then I saw her shadow pressed right up against the tent flap. She clearly intended to eavesdrop.
“Hoo.”
As if she'd expected it, the Star Witch took a handful of powder from her robes and blew it toward the tent's entrance. In that instant, the shadow outside suddenly dropped lower.
“Aren't you worried?”
The Star Witch asked, her voice no longer raspy but possessing an androgynous charm.
“Eleanor is safer on her own. That must be why you did that.”
“It seems you haven't lost your memories, so why didn't you act according to the contract?”
The moment the Star Witch finished speaking, another image of her overlapped with the one before me. But the background was a modern hospital room from my memories.
At the same time, as if a lock on the storehouse of my mind had been broken, dormant memories came rushing out, one after another.
That's right. I had met the Star Witch before.
To be precise, the owner of these memories had.
“I don't know what you're talking about. Wasn't the contract that I would receive a new life in exchange for saving the witches? I believe I've upheld my end of the bargain perfectly.”
I spoke nonchalantly, as if I knew everything. It was an instinct telling me I couldn't let her find out that the modern man's ego had merely been absorbed into mine.
While the party to the contract was technically the modern me, in reality, wasn't I a being far closer to Allen Tobalts?
I didn't know why, but it meant the contract hadn't been properly fulfilled.
“Nonsense! You broke the contract! You put Eleanor in danger because of your greed!”
She was talking about the fishing rights that drew Count Dresden into the war. If I hadn't intervened, the Count would have fallen on his own, thanks to Eleanor's ability.
In other words, the Star Witch also knew of that future. After all, wasn't she the one who had managed to, however imperfectly, make this transmigration happen?
“I believed sending Aenya to Eleanor was the safest method. To do that, I simply needed a point of contact with Eleanor.”
“Are you going to say you had no greedy intentions at all?”
I shrugged.
“In the end, I succeeded in protecting Aenya.”
“But you endangered Eleanor in the process. The result is worse than if you'd done nothing at all.”
“If you don't like my methods, why don't you try it yourself?”
“Who says I haven't!”
That was the answer I wanted. Why would someone powerful enough to orchestrate even an imperfect transmigration to another world use a proxy to save the witches?
Considering we met in the modern world, she must know how this world is supposed to unfold.
The question that had been circling my mind ever since I regained my memories was finally answered. It wasn't that she wouldn't act—it was that she couldn't.
“You intervened directly, but the results were poor, weren't they? That's why you decided to use me. Am I wrong?”
That would make sense. She has to act minimally to avoid changing the future we know. That's the only way to fully exploit her superior knowledge.
‘However, if things start going against her wishes, she'll intervene at any time. This meeting is proof of that.’
The Star Witch fell silent. She must have realized too late that she'd fallen for my probing.
“You've changed.”
Her gaze was openly suspicious. I, in turn, scoffed at the Star Witch.
“Why? Did you expect the little brat who spent half his life bedridden, knowing nothing of the world, to still be here? Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. To throw me into an environment where I couldn't survive without changing and then expect me to stay the same?”
The Star Witch needed something from me, so she couldn't do anything to me. On the other hand, I was curious to see what she could do.
That was why I provoked her.
“Uphold the contract...!”
“I have always been faithful to the contract. Unlike you, watching from a safe place, I put my own life on the line to save Aenya and Eleanor.”
Bang.
The Star Witch slammed her hand on the table.
“I'm telling you to stay away from Eleanor! Don't you get it yet? Your greed is ruining everything!”
“Are you trying to add a new condition? Without offering anything in return?”
Not yet. It wasn't time yet. O, Star Witch. What are you hiding? You wouldn't have made a complete stranger from the modern world your proxy without some kind of leverage, would you?
For the first time since we'd met, the Star Witch smiled. It was a sneer, much like my own.
“Human greed truly knows no bounds. Did you think I wouldn't foresee this?”
“What…?”
As I deliberately hardened my expression, her smile only deepened.
“The fact that you've become greedy means you've grown to want to live this new life to the fullest. But without my permission, your life is only half-complete. Because I've put a leash on that body of yours.”
“What did you do to my body!”
This time, it was my turn to slam the table as I stood up. Despite my fierce glare, the Star Witch calmly put the orbs back in her pouch.
“All living creatures instinctively try to leave behind offspring. For someone like you, who spent half his life in a sickbed, that urge must be even stronger.”
There was a reason no child had been conceived, even though I'd never bothered with contraception.
“Don't tell me…?”
“‘My body?’ Don't be mistaken. That body isn't entirely yours yet. Now, I'll give you one last chance. Stick to the role you were given. If you want your reproductive functions back, that is.”
“…!”
Having said her piece, the Star Witch stood and left the tent. I lunged after her and grabbed the hem of her robe, but I only caught the cloth. The Star Witch who should have been inside was gone.
The main street outside the alley was still packed with a huge crowd. It was impossible to find the Star Witch there, whose face I didn't even properly know.
“Mmm…”
I dragged the soundly sleeping Eleanor back inside the tent. Then, I stretched and leaned back leisurely in my chair.
“I wonder if that looked desperate enough.”
Would it have been different if the modern me had been in charge? Unlike what the Star Witch thought, the current me had no particular attachment to the idea of having offspring.
In fact, I welcomed the leash. It meant I could fuck as much as I wanted without worrying about pregnancy.
“Of course, it's still a bit annoying…”
I spread out the robe the Star Witch had been wearing. It was by no means a man's garment. It also lacked the smell that inevitably comes with old age. Instead, it carried a familiar scent I'd smelled somewhere before.
Furthermore, judging by her true voice, her age was within my acceptable range. And considering the average appearance of the witches, she was bound to be beautiful. Greed stirred within me.
“Next time, I won't let her get away so easily.”
In truth, I had made up my mind after confirming that Eleanor's ability didn't work on me. I would take all the witches for myself.
Of course, I had no intention of asking for their consent.