A Mother's Scorn
Even if Olsidra died and the fusion could no longer be maintained, a creature of that form would remain unaffected.
“…But how long is that thing going to keep growing?”
The sight of it swelling past the size of a small house was starting to make me uneasy. Though there was still some distance between us, the speed at which it continued to expand was undeniably threatening. The stench had also grown stronger.
Even with the remaining distance, I considered backing away. The witch had been swallowed inside, but there was no guarantee she was dead yet. I had planned to buy some time, but surely it wasn’t going to multiply endlessly?
At my signal, Jequirak dropped several fireballs onto the surface for confirmation. Fortunately, the areas touched by the flames clearly shrank. It seemed the reason it had withstood the witch’s spells earlier was not only due to Urshus’s power, but also because its massive body had been compressed into such a small form.
However, after being struck by Jequirak’s flames, the creature that had been quietly inflating its body suddenly began to thrash violently. As if in agony, it swung its tentacles wildly and writhed. Upon closer inspection, a murky light was emanating from the center of its translucent body.
It spread like poison through a wound. The light that had been flowing from within the opaque body soon permeated every part of it, and the convulsions grew more intense.
The bluish-black objects floating inside the jelly-like body moved frantically, clustering together as if trying to form something. Some lumps even struggled to break through the surface and escape, but it was futile.
Under the influence of that murky light pouring from within, the body that had been growing larger than a house began to shrink rapidly. It was a pitiful and desperate sight as it contracted while simultaneously being erased from the inside, yet the speed only accelerated as it diminished.
Not only its visible form, but also the unpleasant presence and stench that had blanketed the surroundings were clearly fading. Of course, in their place, a different kind of unpleasant presence began to take hold.
And I was all too familiar with this one.
“…How tenacious. This time it’s a High Phantasm.”
The alien presence and the complex, unreal sensations transmitted from deep within my consciousness were unique to phantasms. I knew witches sometimes formed contracts with phantasms, but a spell of this magnitude… Without a doubt, it was a higher-ranking phantasm than Kadorukude.
When the unpleasant presence completely vanished and the jelly-like body and tentacles fully evaporated, the murky light that had been flowing also disappeared. What remained was a group of large phantasms and the witch prostrate beneath them.
“…Why do phantasms always have to look like that?”
Both the aura they emitted and their repulsive appearance naturally made me frown.
At the center was a bloated phantasm with the witch lying beneath it. Floating in the air behind them were four or five elongated phantasms that lacked arms, legs, or faces—only vague shapes. Yet one part stood out in grotesque detail: abnormally large phalluses, larger than their bodies themselves, ending in animal heads resembling goats or owls, every minute feature rendered with horrifying clarity.
Still, compared to the phantasm floating at the center, those were almost tolerable.
The massive woman, whose body appeared almost circular due to layers of sagging fat and drooping breasts, had worm-like tentacles where arms should have been. Her neckless face, seemingly buried directly in the flesh, was covered in wrinkles and filthy boils.
Of course, her naked body was also covered in boils and wrinkles, but even more repulsive were the black, filthy stains and foam running down her form.
An ordinary person would have been unable to hold back their nausea. Enduring the unpleasant presence of a High Phantasm was already difficult enough, but its appearance didn’t stop at mere shape—it carried a power that amplified that revulsion several times over.
Now it doesn’t matter, Contractor!
Unable to tolerate the disgust any longer, Jequirak began pouring down massive fireballs and lightning. Yes, at this point, there was no longer any reason to wait. As planned, one side had died, leaving only the other.
However, the fireballs and lightning Jequirak unleashed were blocked by a faint barrier before they could reach the phantasms.
“Kekeke. Such childish mana tricks won’t work on Lady Suk Goetina.”
Though transmitted through mana, the unfamiliar old woman’s voice was difficult to understand clearly. Yet I soon recognized the mana’s aura and her manner of speech.
“Oh? So that’s your true form?”
Upon closer inspection, her robe and clothes were still in tatters, but her skin and face were no longer festering or melting. That said, it wasn’t the youthful face I had seen at first either. The face looking up at me was no longer that of a woman standing delicately between purity and maturity.
An old woman. Her wrinkled face, which looked well over a hundred years old, was devoid of any vitality, like a corpse. Not a single strand of hair remained on her head, only wrinkles and liver spots. Her eyes had turned completely white and cloudy.
“I see. I thought something was strange. So the appearance from earlier was fake.”
“It was not fake!”
Her shout carried beyond anger, sounding almost like a curse.
“You insolent failure! You’re not even worth feeding to maggots and frogs after tearing you apart! Because of a worthless thing like you, I had to undo my secret art!”
The old woman spewed curses in slurred pronunciation for a while. Not only were they hard to understand, but more than half were ancient or archaic words I had never heard before. Yet after raging with curses for some time, she suddenly broke into a smile.
“You really were a fool until the very end. You rambled on so arrogantly, doing whatever you pleased, only to have your will broken by a single sentence. You knew it was just something I said on a whim, didn’t you?”
Well, I had been curious about that too. What exactly had she said that made the strong will which had seized Urshus’s departing power and rekindled the flames scatter?
“Could you tell me what you said? I’m quite curious myself.”
Suk Goetina, was it? Fortunately, the phantasms remained still, simply maintaining their grotesque forms.
“Oh, so you want to hear it too?”
At my question, she let out an unpleasant chuckle and spoke with exaggerated gestures and tone, as if performing on stage.
“I’m sorry, my son.”
It felt as if my head were turning cold—or perhaps it was more accurate to say my blood was freezing. Revulsion, disgust, anger, excitement—all of it was turning into cold ice. Yet within that transparent ice, everything remained vividly present.
“So he really was your actual son.”
I had been puzzled when she called him “mother” earlier. Yes, with that appearance, it made sense. But at my question, she displayed not only displeasure but outright contempt.
“I merely carried him in my womb and took him out. That’s all. Originally, I would have just thrown this failure into the swamp, but I kept him alive thinking he might be useful someday. And yet, ungrateful as he was, he ran away, and now he’s even come for my throat?”
She attempted to spit, but it merely dribbled down instead.
“He knew full well it was just something I said, yet he still wavered at those words. He really was a failure to the end. Even after throwing away his life and reaching that state, even after barely grasping an opportunity, he crumbled at a single sentence. He almost became truly dangerous, but even while pretending to be a vengeful avenger filled with resentment, he was still nothing more than a child craving affection. Useless thing.”
The intense contempt and mockery paradoxically revealed how severely Olsidra had pressured her. The fact that she now went out of her way to scorn and mock someone she had previously ignored meant she felt the need to do so—and whether she liked it or not, she had become that much more conscious of him.
And that made it all the more tragic.
“…But it’s truly lamentable that my secret art was undone because of such a thing. The gravekeepers will be here soon, and I need to find that foolish broom Selkel, so unfortunately, I’ll have to make do with you for now.”
As she raised both hands and muttered something, the unpleasant aura around the phantasms grew stronger. It felt like a sticky, chilling presence creeping closer, like insects crawling.
“If you tell me where the other Dark Priests are, I’ll spare you the pain.”
It was a lie. From her words about lacking time and needing to replenish, it was clear her goal was to finish this quickly anyway.
Even if it was just a desperate probe, I must have looked quite naive.
“…I don’t know. And even if I did, I have no intention of telling you.”
“Still playing dumb? Or are you trying to keep some semblance of loyalty?”
I finally activated the sentences I had prepared in the air long ago. Truthfully, if I had known she would be this relaxed, there would have been no need to maintain them.
“No, it’s because answering would be meaningless.”
Through the black and blue sentences, a dark and powerful mana erupted. Compared to the phantasms’ aura, it was somewhat inferior, but that didn’t matter. From the beginning, the numbers were different.
“You heard it clearly earlier. Urshus said it.”
Gods never lie, no matter the occasion. Even if their words are ambiguous or carry hidden meanings, they always contain truth.
“That today is your end.”
What emerged between the sentences looked, even to me who had summoned them, like someone’s nightmare marching right before my eyes.
The Followers of the Yellow Honor, hunched figures covered in yellow rags. The Faceless Ones in tattered brown robes adorned with the faces of others. And at the very rear of the procession, walking like a king, Dede Samudi.
With a hazy face like a ghost or blue mist and a large, sharp single horn, Dede Samudi, cloaked in black flames like a mantle, openly displayed displeasure, hostility, and contempt at the sight of the massive phantasm before him.
And that emotion only grew more intense the moment he saw the witch beneath the phantasm.