Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: While He Was Away (3)
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“Here’s where I live.”
“Hmm.”
“You don’t seem all that surprised?”
Adriana was showing him the underground village where the Witches of the Black Forest lived, as if introducing her own room.
The village hidden beneath the forest was certainly a mystical sight, but since he had seen it several times in his past life, it didn’t shock him much.
“But is it really okay to bring me here like this?”
He knew this village wasn’t exactly welcoming to outsiders.
There aren’t even outsiders who could stumble in to begin with.
No one entered the Demon Realm Forest itself, so how could they find a village hidden underground within it?
“It’s fine. I already told them all about you.”
“Hmm?”
“I can’t stay long, but even the Great Witch said she wanted to see you once.”
The Great Witch, huh.
If asked whether they had met, the answer was yes—but they weren’t close. In fact, she had been so afraid of him that she had only bowed her head.
He followed behind Adriana.
Along the way, witches spotted him and flinched in alarm, eyeing him warily, but it felt familiar.
I already went through this once at Yggdrasil.
Having experienced the elves’ guarded stares before, he easily brushed off the witches’ fewer, less intense gazes.
Though it did feel a bit more excessive than expected, all the same.
They entered a rundown house that screamed “witches live here,” where a wrinkly old Great Witch was stirring something in her cauldron.
Still the same as ever.
She looked exactly as she had in his past life.
If the Elf Queen seemed ageless, the Great Witch looked like she had aged as much as possible and couldn’t go any further.
Adriana gave a brief introduction, and the Great Witch set down her ladle and shuffled over, peering at him from every angle.
“Hmm... a face burdened with so very much.”
This old lady’s at it again.
She had this hobby of spouting cryptic words loaded with hidden meaning to total strangers.
It wasn’t wrong, but if you let it get to you, you’d end up like Adriana, who had summoned Abiel.
That’s the witches’ weakness.
They could glimpse fate or the future, but they were so obsessed with it that they often tripped over their own feet.
“Truth is, I couldn’t find what you asked me to look into, so I ended up asking the Great Witch for help.”
“Oh?”
That was smart of her.
The Great Witch would know plenty.
“You asked about the Earliest Apocalypse?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And Abiel told you about it?”
“To be precise, she said it while looking at a certain girl.”
Adriana hadn’t known that part and stared at him in surprise. The Great Witch’s half-lidded eyes slowly widened as she fixed her gaze on him.
“You’ve met the Earliest Apocalypse?”
“Yes. I know who it is.”
He stated it matter-of-factly, and the Great Witch let out a cackling laugh before extending her hand. Her staff flew from the wall into her grasp.
“Lead the way, then. I need to dissect that child.”
This was rich.
“Let me say one thing first.”
“......!”
“Ugh!”
The Great Witch—and even Adriana—suddenly bowed their heads and began trembling. He kept his eyes locked on them and repeated his words from before, unchanged.
“If you ever speak of that child that way in front of me again, you die.”
He withdrew his killing intent, and the Great Witch slowly set her staff on the floor, catching her breath.
“......Well, now. I thought you were just a child, but you’re a monster fiercer than any beast.”
“S-Scared me there.”
“Anyway, tell us what you know.”
There was no need to bow and beg here in the Demon Realm Forest. It was a place where power let you do anything.
The Great Witch knew that too, so without another word, she parted her heavy lips.
“Truth is, it’s not all that impressive. It’s just a fairy tale from one of our ancient tomes.”
“......”
He nodded for her to continue, and like an old storyteller, the Great Witch began spinning the tale smoothly.
“When the world fills with evil, the gods’ judgment begins. Among them, the disaster that topples the world the fastest is the ‘Earliest Apocalypse.’”
“......”
“It’s the apocalypse led by the apostle of an unnamed god of death.”
“Please, tell me more details.”
His voice rose in excitement, as if he had grasped a clue, but the Great Witch shook her head.
“That’s it.”
“......Pardon?”
“That’s all that’s written in the tome. Nothing more.”
“No, what does that mean?”
“What can you do? Want me to show you the book?”
She reached out, and a dusty tome floated over. She opened it to the page about the apocalypse and showed it to him.
“What is this?”
The text unfolded like a fairy tale.
Long ago, the world had fallen into corruption, and the god of death, beholding it, moved first among all gods to claim the wicked.
That was the “Earliest Apocalypse.”
And that was truly all it said.
He checked the next pages for more, but there was nothing.
“Honestly, I didn’t believe it until you came and mentioned it. But if a long-lived beast like Abiel knows of it, it must hold some truth.”
“So, does that mean the world really ends?”
The Great Witch couldn’t answer Adriana’s question. Up until now, it had just been a legend—what could she know?
“If it’s real, couldn’t we just kill that person and be done with it?”
Adriana asked despite not wanting to irk him, thinking it needed to be said.
But surprisingly, the Great Witch shook her head.
“If the god of death acts directly, it won’t be that simple. ‘Death’ itself might be the trigger that sets it off.”
“Ah...!”
Her speculation sent a jolt through his brain.
That fits.
When Rin had become the master of the Army of Death, she hadn’t looked like herself at all—like someone else entirely. At first, he thought it was just ten years passing, but...
The more time he spent with Rin, the more convinced he became that nothing could break her that badly.
If the god of death possessed her body upon her death, that would explain it.
Suddenly, his own hands came into view.
While attending Aios Academy, he had pondered killing Rin countless times—and actually tried multiple times.
A chilling vertigo stabbed through his entire body.
He had nearly ushered in that apocalypse in an instant.
“I’ve learned a lot, but...”
“Hm?”
“Did someone come asking about this before me?”
He lifted the tome slightly as he asked the Great Witch. It was covered in dust—except this one page, which looked recently cleaned.
“It’s weird that you’d even remember a term from some passing fairy tale.”
No matter how sharp the Great Witch was, he doubted she’d recall something like that. And sure enough, she fell silent for a moment before nodding.
“Yes. Before Adriana left the academy, a man came to us.”
“Pardon? To our village?”
“We tried chasing him off at first, of course. But before the power he showed us, we had no choice but to grant his request. It wasn’t anything major.”
“......”
“And that was about the ‘Earliest Apocalypse,’ just as you described.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No, but somehow... he wielded the power of a ‘beast.’”
The Pit Dogs.
Those Pit Dogs had come all the way to the Witches of the Black Forest to steal information—even about the apocalypse.
What the hell are these guys?
He knew they weren’t ordinary from the fact they roamed the Demon Realm Forest freely, but this?
“What kind of beast power did he use?”
He began pressing the Great Witch for more details.
It didn’t take long.
About thirty minutes later, he said his goodbyes and left the village.
The witches spitting at him as if to say “get lost already” was annoying, but that was just their nature.
A coven of old maids.
Burying themselves in books and magic meant they rarely saw men, so they were secretly starving but put on haughty airs and lashed out like spoiled brats.
Plus, the Pit Dogs had already been here.
That explained their extra prickliness—they’d already been roughed up before he arrived.
“You’re leaving already?”
But Adriana was different.
Since Hayun and Rin had dubbed her the “kiss attempt champion,” he took a step back before replying.
“Vacation’s over at the academy now. Even if I head back right away, I might be a little late.”
He couldn’t keep Michelle holed up in his room forever—there were issues to resolve.
He had a plan, though.
“Got some spoils of war, at least. Not a bad trip.”
He eyed the ancient tome he had taken from the Great Witch with satisfaction.
It had just been gathering dust anyway, and she had let him take it without complaint, so it must have been little more than a space-taking antique.
“I thought seeing you again after so long would lead to some heart-pounding development.”
“......Were you always like this?”
She had started as the intellectual girl type, but later he had only seen her desperately fighting for survival, so her personality felt all over the place.
“Hey, people grow, right?”
Overcoming a brush with death makes you stronger, huh.
He had gained insights himself after surviving near-death experiences in the Demon Realm Forest several times.
“Just so you know, I have someone I like. I’ve even confessed to her.”
He tried to build an iron wall, but Adriana just shrugged.
“Our village is all women—how do you think we keep the bloodline going?”
“......?”
“Every half-century, we bring in a man from outside and...”
“W-Wait! I don’t need to hear it!”
These witches were total lunatics.
For a split second, he recalled how they had clung to him subtly in his past life, and goosebumps prickled his skin.
“So I don’t have much hang-up about polygamy?”
“I do.”
As he pondered what insult would hurt most, Adriana pulled something from her bosom with an uncharacteristically exaggerated flourish.
“Take this.”
“Huh?”
What she handed him was a black ring.
A unique design woven from thin twigs, enchanted with magic—he could tell at a glance.
“Use this, and you can teleport to our village once. If anything urgent comes up, use it.”
“Thanks. I actually need something like this.”
He wanted to confront the ancient beasts right now and demand what they knew, but his gear wasn’t up to it.
Abiel had relied on her physical prowess and insect horde, but without her swarm due to the pact, he had taken her down easily. The other ancient beasts would be tougher with his current weapons if they fought properly.
I’ll come back later and crush them all.
He had killed some before and spared others he had nearly finished.
A tiny few he couldn’t beat wouldn’t be a big issue.
“Well, I’m off.”
He shook off Adriana, who eyed him longingly as if wanting to do something, and left the forest.
The trip from the forest to Elgrid should have taken at most ten days, but a carriage wheel breaking added three more.
In the end, even though vacation was over, he missed a few days of classes.
I won’t get expelled, right?
The Dean had his back, so she’d overlook this much. The moment he set foot in Aios Academy...
“Today, we settle this for real!”
“Hee hee, trapped in such a shallow mindset, you’ll never become the master’s woman!”
“You crazy bitches, let’s end this today.”
...He watched Rin, Elise, and May locked in a three-way brawl.
“How does this ring work again?”
He fiddled with the ring Adriana had given him.