Witch's Time (3)
"Shit…!" The curse slips out before I can stop it. I'm late. Last night—or rather, this morning—I'd stayed up far too late listening to Gretchen explain the witches and the Walpurgis Night. The result? I'd overslept and was now in danger of missing my first major lecture of the day.
Thud-thud-thud! Ten minutes left. At least I hadn't missed the bus. If I kept running like this, I could still make it to the lecture hall on time. The only problem was…
"There it is…!" The infamous hill of our university came into view. Nicknamed "Panting Slope," it was a steep, merciless incline that even the athletic clubs struggled to climb at full speed. But there was no way around it if I wanted to reach the main building, so I sprinted desperately.
"Whoa, who was that just now? Track team?" A few students with time to spare glanced my way. I had no luxury to care about their comments.
"…?" As I ran up the slope, a strange sense of dissonance washed over me. I'd been running nonstop since getting off the bus. I wasn't so out of shape that a few minutes of sprinting would leave me gasping, but still—had I really not lost my breath once, not even while climbing this brutal hill?
"Huh—?"
"Ah!"
"!" At the top of the slope, right in front of the main building, a group of workers was moving what looked like decking panels. My speed made it impossible to dodge in time. Both they and I froze in surprise. A collision—and a serious accident—seemed inevitable.
Crack! On instinct, I slammed my right foot down, channeling power into it and leaping upward.
"!!" Thud!! I cleared a height of roughly 1.5 meters in a single bound. The workers, the watching students—everyone stared in shock.
"My body… what the hell happened to it?"
Setting aside the changes in my body for now, I opened the lecture hall door. Fortunately, the professor hadn't arrived yet. I let out a sigh of relief and took a seat in the very back row, then unconsciously scanned the room. There were more empty seats than usual.
While I was looking around, the professor entered and began calling attendance. Then…
"……Han Doyun. That's everyone."
"…?" The professor closed the attendance book. There should have been at least one acquaintance of mine in this class, yet his name hadn't been called.
"Excuse me, Professor."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"I think you skipped Kim Minseok."
"Kim Minseok?" An odd silence settled over the lecture hall—a cold, unpleasant stillness, as if the air itself had frozen. The other students turned to stare at me with puzzled expressions while the professor slowly checked the attendance book again.
"Hmm… Kim Minseok… Kim Minseok… There's no such student here. Is he a friend of yours?"
"What?" No such student…? That couldn't be right. We'd attended this very lecture together just last week…
In that moment, one of the detailed rules of the Walpurgis Night that Gretchen had explained to me at dawn flashed through my mind.
'Those defeated in the Walpurgis Night—the witch and her contractor—are consumed by the shadows, right? What happens then?'
'Their very existence is erased. Nothing remains to prove they ever existed. Only witches and contractors can remember them.'
"…I'm sorry. I must have been mistaken."
"Is that so? Then let's proceed with the lecture without further delay."
It was far too convenient. The realization made my stomach churn. In this day and age, killing someone carried enormous risk. Even the most reclusive shut-in left behind digital traces and connections online. Yet this erased even those traces completely—wiping away any lingering guilt or fear of consequences.
That meant the man I'd killed last night had vanished without a single person remembering him.
"…Urgh." And worst of all, the thought that my own acquaintance—someone I might have even considered a close friend—had become a contractor, stepped into this dangerous world, and then disappeared without anyone remembering him made my insides twist violently.
Class ended. I sat on a quiet bench near the university district.
"Hey, Han Doyun. What are you doing?"
"Ah… nothing. Just spacing out."
A friend approached and laughed at my half-hearted reply before continuing.
"Hey, did you know Kang Seonghun hasn't been coming to class lately?"
"Seonghun?"
"Yeah. I heard he's not feeling well. I was thinking of checking on him soon. You wanna come?"
"Sure. I'll go too."
When I nodded, he said he'd message me once the time was set and walked off. As I watched him leave, a swirl of purple light gathered in the air beside me, and before I knew it, Gretchen was sitting primly on the bench next to me.
"Gretchen?"
"I was checking the surroundings, Doyun-nim. Did anything happen?"
"Nothing special, really…" Then I remembered what had occurred that morning. "Actually, now that you mention it, my body felt a little strange earlier."
"Strange? What happened?" She turned her head sharply, worry filling her blue eyes.
"No, it's not that anything bad happened… It's just that my body feels off. Running, jumping—everything feels stronger."
"Ah… That's the effect of the contract."
"The contract?"
"Yes. Humans who form a contract with a witch experience an overall enhancement in their physical abilities."
…That made sense. Ordinary humans wouldn't stand a chance against witches who wield magic, so this was probably a balancing adjustment.
"…Have you heard any voices or anything unusual?"
"Voices?"
"Yes. Like someone suddenly speaking inside your head… that sort of thing."
"Hmm… Nothing like that so far."
At my answer, Gretchen stared at me for a moment before nodding in relief.
"That's good. If you ever hear anything like hallucinations, please tell me right away. I'll break the contract immediately."
"Wait, break the contract? What are you talking about?"
"…Because if you hear voices, it will already be irreversible."
Irreversible? What did that mean…? I looked at her in confusion, and Gretchen met my gaze with a slightly stiff expression.
"It was very late last night, so I couldn't explain everything in detail… but we have time now."
With those words, she gathered her mana.
"Construct. The abyss of oblivion, the sunken resonance, the colorless breath scattering between words."
⟨ Veil of Imaginary Numbers ⟩
Mana enveloped both of us. Gretchen's presence beside me grew faint, suggesting this was a spell that erased our existence from the perception of others.
Once our presence was concealed, Gretchen began her explanation in earnest.
"Contractors… inherit desires."
"Desires?"
"Yes. The intense desires, longings, or wishes that remain here on Solaris. They are inherited and converted into the contractor's power. Did you feel anything strange last night, Doyun-nim?"
"Strange…?" I thought back to last night. Honestly, everything had been strange, but one thing stood out—the sword that had severed the enemy witch and contractor's necks. It had appeared in my hand at some point, and despite never having used one before, I'd wielded it with expert precision to behead them. Then, once everything was over, it had vanished as if it had never existed.
"The sword that appeared in my hand…"
"That's right. That was likely the manifestation of the desire you inherited."
"What could I even do with a sword like that…"
"That's incorrect."
Gretchen shook her head at my words.
"The form doesn't matter. What matters is the scale and direction of the desire, and its compatibility with the contractor."
"Scale, direction… and compatibility?"
"Yes. While we say 'inherit,' it's ultimately a matter of chance. No one knows what desire they'll receive. It could be a trivial, insignificant desire, or an absurdly immense one. But… personally, I hope the desire you inherited isn't too large."
"Why?"
Gretchen closed her eyes at my question, then opened them again.
"Because if something goes wrong, you could be consumed by that desire, Doyun-nim."
00:00. It was Witch's Time. The festival had begun.
At this hour, witches generally fell into one of three categories.
First: those who actively hunted other witches. These were the ones confident in their own abilities. They sought out prey, killed them, and proved their strength.
Second: those who erased their presence and traces to avoid combat entirely. Most had either lost their contractors for some reason or were trying to create their own advantageous battlefield.
Third: those who became minions of witches from established families, acting as their pawns. These witches had no interest in becoming the Sun Witch. They simply wanted to secure their position by aligning with a powerful family.
"Hehehe~" And the witch Ceres belonged to the third group.
She considered herself lucky. At the beginning of the Walpurgis Night, she'd been unsure how to proceed—whether to fight aggressively or latch onto someone stronger. Then she'd met her.
Lucifina Sirius. A prodigy from the prestigious Sirius family, hailed as a once-in-centuries genius. A strong candidate for the next Sun Witch. When Ceres encountered her, she'd thought it was over—that she'd either be mercilessly defeated and consumed by the shadows or forced to return to the Sabbat.
But fortune had smiled on her. She'd become Lucifina's pawn.
"And after that, I even got a useful contractor to play with. I'm on a roll… Hehehe. At this rate, I might even get incorporated into the Sirius family, right?"
Ceres muttered to herself, dreaming of her bright future, then glanced at the contractor standing beside her.
"Don't you think so too? Your name was… Kang Seonghun, wasn't it?"
"Kek… hehe… khk…"
The man followed her with unfocused eyes, drooling and staggering. This was what happened when a contractor failed to resist the desire they'd inherited. But for a witch, that made him all the more useful.
"Then let's work hard… and clean up this place, shall we?"
With those words, the two of them disappeared into a dark alley beneath the purple moonlight.