The Witch of the Dark Forest
The Witch of the Dark Forest.
El Pandor Luntera. This damn high-difficulty game was basically a defense game.
The goal was to raise the player and the heroines as much as possible in preparation for the coming apocalypse, then protect the empire from the demons’ invasion.
“Teach me. How can I get stronger?”
In that sense, Charlotte’s request was practically an event flag.
In this game, heroines whose growth paths were blocked would usually take another step forward through their connection with the player.
“Let’s head to the lab first.”
So I played my part as the player.
I brought Charlotte to the lab and handed her a cool drink while she was still visibly worked up.
After quenching her thirst, Charlotte’s anger subsided. She returned to her usual tense self, sneaking glances at me.
“S-sorry for springing this on you… Asking for something like this…”
The moment her rage cooled, she immediately apologized.
Her expression made it clear she had agonized over asking for my help for a long time. She probably wanted to solve it on her own if at all possible.
But if she’s desperate enough to come to me…
It had to be something she couldn’t overcome alone.
I asked Charlotte to tell me exactly what had happened. She explained everything, and I came to fully understand the situation she was trapped in.
Cardmos Kratz.
That scumbag had been blackmailing her.
“Must’ve been rough.”
“…….”
“But it’s fine. This isn’t a big deal.”
From my perspective, it really wasn’t worth getting worked up over.
To Charlotte, Cardmos might look like an insurmountable mountain. To me, he was nothing more than a sandcastle that would crumble with one solid stomp.
“First, I’ll pay off the money he lent your family.”
The amount the Kratz family had lent the Verdian family was a mere thirty million Orden.
A laughably small sum.
My monthly air-conditioner subscription and mosquito-net revenue alone came to billions, yet here he was acting like a big shot over pocket change.
“B-but…! I can’t possibly accept that much help…”
Charlotte seemed burdened by the offer.
So I told her—
“Pay me back later.”
“…Huh?”
“Just pay me back later. With interest, of course.”
I gave her a proper justification so she wouldn’t feel too indebted.
Charlotte’s expression softened and she nodded.
“…Okay.”
She lowered her head, gripping the hem of her clothes tightly, clearly feeling guilty toward me.
Knowing Charlotte, she would quickly repay this emotional debt. She had a sharp sense for money—she was the one who came up with the glow-flower product, after all.
“Money problem solved. Now we just need revenge, right?”
“…Huh? Y-yes? But that’s… I mean… I’m only C-rank…”
“It’s fine. Winning will be easy.”
“It’ll probably be har—huh?”
Charlotte whipped her head up in shock at my words.
“W-what did you just say…?”
“I said it’ll be easy. You can crush someone like Cardmos without breaking a sweat.”
“……?”
She looked at me like I’d just claimed one plus one equals three.
I began explaining so she could understand.
“Charlotte. You were never meant to be C-rank. You should be at least A-rank.”
“……?”
Charlotte’s greatest weakness wasn’t her physical condition, her clumsy mana control, or even her family’s unique spells.
It was her mental state.
The inherited mindset that had shackled the Verdian family for generations was the real problem.
“Charlotte, you’re limiting your own potential too much. Actually, your entire family has a tendency to suppress violent impulses. You can’t fight properly like that.”
The Verdian family had long valued avoiding conflict and prioritizing harmony and coexistence.
That philosophy clashed with the empire’s competitive system, and they had declined to the point where they could barely afford academy tuition.
All because of their progenitor’s heavy influence.
The Verdian founder had been an elf—one who loved humans and settled in their world.
After centuries of intermingling, the family had come to resemble humans physically, yet they still carried that incompatible elven mentality.
“Your nature-creation spells hold infinite possibilities. Especially if you direct them toward ‘killing,’ they can display tremendous power.”
My role was to awaken her.
To free her from those long chains so she could embrace fighting spirit and malice.
“M-my spells… for k-k-killing…?”
The moment she heard the word “killing,” Charlotte’s face went deathly pale.
Yeah. She definitely needed some mental remodeling.
With a heart that soft, she was wasting her incredible unique spells on making hotpot.
“Yep. This world is full of cruelly evolved carnivorous plants.”
“C-cruel? Plants…?”
“Want to see for yourself? Let’s take a quick field trip to the Forest of Death.”
***
Four days flew by.
Finally, the long-awaited selection matches began.
In the massive circular arena, one-on-one no-holds-barred duels unfolded.
“Ascen!!! Win this!”
“Pintel, you bastard! You lose and I’ll kill you!”
The stands were packed with students and their entourages.
Since this was the selection for the Wall of Water—one of the world’s three great magical anomalies—newspapers and high-ranking nobles had turned out in force.
“Waaaaaaaaah!”
The matches burned with passion.
Every student fought desperately, producing spectacular bouts.
The crowd roared in approval while journalists frantically clicked their shutters.
“When’s the Edga Fix versus Lucas Elmar match again?”
“Last one, I heard.”
“Ugh. The wait is killing me.”
Despite the excellent fights, the audience still wasn’t satisfied.
Their anticipation for the highlight—Edga Fix versus Lucas Elmar—had pierced the heavens.
Lucas, the genius spell user who took second in the class evaluation, versus Edga, the man called the reincarnation of the blacksmith god. Who would win?
No one dared predict the outcome.
Expectations for Ed, whose gear improved daily, were enormous—but so were expectations for Lucas, the greatest prospect the Elmar family had ever produced.
“Next match: Cardmos Kratz of the Kratz family versus Charlotte Verdian of the Verdian family.”
Amid the explosive interest, the next contestants were announced.
Cardmos from Block A versus Charlotte from Block B.
The crowd’s reaction was icy.
Cardmos was ranked sixth in A-class, while Charlotte lingered near the bottom of C-class.
She had only reached C-rank in the first place by riding Edga Fix’s coattails.
“Eh, nothing to watch here.”
“At least it’ll end quick. Three-second knockout, maybe?”
“Still, she has gotten prettier, hasn’t she? Even if she’s weak, a good marriage could raise her status. Graduating the academy is decent enough on a résumé.”
The audience had zero interest in who would win.
They only bet on how fast the match would end or gossiped about Charlotte’s recently improved looks.
Nearly every student predicted an overwhelming victory for Cardmos.
Is that so?
But there was one person who believed Charlotte would win.
Edga Fix.
After four days of brutal training, I had concluded she had more than enough power to take the victory.
It’s a dirty trick, though.
The method I used wasn’t normal.
A bottom-tier C-ranker beating a top-tier A-ranker was practically a miracle.
To make that miracle happen, I didn’t improve her skills—I changed the person herself.
“So, have you made up your mind?”
While I was lost in thought, Charlotte and Cardmos faced off in the center of the arena.
Cardmos wore a cocky grin as he spoke to her. Charlotte kept her head lowered, her face hidden in shadow.
She answered his taunts with silence.
“Heh heh heh…”
Cardmos interpreted her silence as fear.
She wanted to act proud, but she was so terrified she couldn’t even lift her head.
“C-c-can’t even talk anymore? Heh heh…”
He mocked her mercilessly, mimicking the timid behavior she had developed because of him and making his usual disgusting face.
Swoosh.
Then Charlotte lifted her head.
Unlike the trembling girl from before, she stared at Cardmos with calm, serene eyes.
She spoke.
“No matter how much I think about it, I can’t forgive you.”
“……?”
The sudden shift in her aura made Cardmos doubt his ears.
Who the hell was forgiving whom?
He let out a hollow laugh.
“What the hell are you saying? Has this bitch finally gone insane?”
“You should have only messed with me… You tried to take everything from my family too.”
Charlotte spoke clearly, each word precise.
Cardmos still looked at her like she was ridiculous.
“Prepare for the match—!”
The referee gave the signal.
They would count down before starting.
“You worthless fucking bitch.”
Cardmos cracked his knuckles, preparing to charge.
He needed to teach this stupid girl exactly what real education felt like.
Swoosh.
Charlotte pulled out the strange object I had given her.
The mask.
She fitted the sleek obsidian metal mask over her face and pressed a button.
Then—
Pssssshhhhh—
Black smoke erupted inside the mask and poured into her lungs.
The smoke stimulated her brain nerves, activating mana receptors and rewriting her emotional control center.
It severed the altruism and compassion that made up most of Charlotte’s personality.
Hwaaaaaah—
And it amplified emotions completely foreign to her.
Superiority. Sadism.
And pure violence.
The hormones I had meticulously selected to hunt demons flooded her system.
Swooooo—
As her inner self completely inverted, her outer appearance transformed as well.
Her once moist eyes turned pitch black. The area around them darkened like smoky makeup.
Empathy and mercy—blocked.
Violence and superiority—maximized.
The gentle noble girl was gone.
Only the Witch of the Dark Forest remained.
“Match begin!”
While Cardmos was still stunned by her sudden transformation, the referee finished the countdown and declared the start.
Cardmos finally snapped out of it and kicked off the ground, charging at Charlotte. At the same moment, she activated her spell.
Boom!
The spell took the form of a boulder.
She had summoned it to block his charge.
Cardmos exploded with laughter.
“Kahaha! Of course! A bitch like you can’t do anything better than this!”
He shattered the rock, showing off his strength.
He could break a hundred, a thousand of them.
Gurururuk—
But Charlotte hadn’t summoned mere rocks.
When the boulder shattered and visibility returned, what appeared before Cardmos was not the arena but an entirely different landscape.
“…What the…?”
Charlotte’s new spell—a fusion of illusion-type and nature-type magic.
An area-of-effect attack that transformed a designated zone into the Forest of Death.
Ominous red currents swirl through the corrupted woods. Trees and plants exhale lethal toxins instead of oxygen. The air itself is malice given form.
【Kuhuhuhuhu····.】
In the Forest of Death where sinister crimson currents flowed, a wicked woman’s laughter echoed like a haunting refrain.
Cardmos stood in the center of the forest born from Charlotte’s malice, breathing hard, eyes darting everywhere.
Every direction was filled with traces of death. Bizarre trees and grasses spewed toxic gas instead of carbon dioxide.
Whoosh!
While his mind froze at the grotesque sight, a black silhouette flashed past at terrifying speed.
At the same time, a spine-chilling woman’s laughter pierced his ears. Cardmos instinctively knew it belonged to Charlotte.
“Haa… Haa… Haa…”
Cardmos’s breathing grew ragged.