Chapter 165: The Witch and The Contract of Magic (7)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 165: The Witch and The Contract of Magic (7)
Donnengarten was turned upside down.
“What in the world is happening! For the tower's defenses to be breached not once, but twice in a row! I told you all to be on high alert!”
“F-Forgive us, my lord.”
“At this rate, I'll go myself—”
“You must not!”
“Indeed. Not only have the original guards fallen, but anyone new who approaches the tower collapses instantly. It's too dangerous!”
“Hah...”
The lord sighed, but his vassals were adamant.
Not only the soldiers guarding the tower, but even the other soldiers who approached to check on their fallen comrades immediately lost consciousness as if they had fainted.
To make matters worse, faint, whitish figures were popping up here and there, lingering around the fallen, creating a ghastly atmosphere.
There was no way they could send their lord near the tower in such a situation.
Meanwhile, Adelaide, who had been watching the whole situation from a corner, asked in a trembling voice.
“This... this is the witch's doing, isn't it?”
“I'd say so. You can see vengeful spirits all over the place.”
“Can we... handle the aftermath?”
“Hmm, probably?”
Adelaide looked unconvinced at Sophia's surprisingly nonchalant reply.
“Still, it's strange. The witch was usually reluctant to use necromancy in front of others. Why is she being so blatant about it this time?”
“There could be several reasons for that. Maybe she figured rumors wouldn't spread far since this is the countryside, or she thought she could feign ignorance given the circumstances, or perhaps her competitive spirit was so fired up that she wanted to solve this no matter what. And, most importantly...”
“Most importantly?”
“Since she's been hanging around with Sir Tin, don't you think her own standards might have gotten a little skewed? Like, 'This much should be fine, right?'”
“...”
“Ah, please don't mention it to her. Unless you want to watch her vehemently deny it at first, only to start writhing in self-loathing soon after. I won't stop you if that's what you want.”
Adelaide just nodded blankly.
*
Rapunzel quietly steadied her breath.
She replayed the 'plan' she had received from the bone mouse in her mind.
'I'll explain one last time before we begin, so listen carefully.'
'The 'tower' you're in is a different space from reality. Only those who meet specific conditions can likely enter, and we have neither the time nor the resources to investigate those conditions in detail. However, if you give us a hint from your side, that's a different story.'
'When the operation begins, swallow the gem the mouse is carrying. It contains my mana, and eating it will imbue your body with my mana as well.'
'Cut off your hair and leave it in the places the bone mice show you. That will allow me to detect my mana inside your body.'
'However, once you swallow the gem, I'll have no way of seeing your condition. You won't be in a situation to leisurely read messages either. In other words, we won't be able to communicate anymore.'
'I won't say things like 'good luck' or 'you can do it.' We barely know each other, after all. But I will say this.'
'Make it happen. If you want to get out of there.'
Rapunzel looked down at the ground.
A single bone mouse, its presence greatly diminished, perhaps from giving its gem to Rapunzel, used its half-worn-away tail like chalk to write a message.
'Begin.'
“Hup.”
Rapunzel gulped down the gem she held in her hand.
The question of whether it was okay to swallow a gem that had been attached to an undead was meaningless.
If she didn't, a bleak future awaited her—whether she starved to death, died of frustration, or met some other, more miserable end. What was a little revulsion in the face of that?
The gem, which had been hard when she first put it in her mouth, melted like water as it went down her throat.
At the same time, vitality surged through Rapunzel's body.
The lethargy from days of not eating properly vanished, and she was filled with as much energy as usual—no, even more than usual.
She kicked the door with all her might.
CRASH!
The iron door that had imprisoned Rapunzel clattered to the floor, and the short-tailed bone mouse leaped over it.
Rapunzel started running, following the bone mouse.
Scrabble!
When the bone mouse began to circle a spot on the floor, Rapunzel grabbed the end of her long hair and cloaked her hand in mana.
A handful of her hair was severed, and Rapunzel threw it into the center of the circle the bone mouse had made.
As soon as it confirmed this, the bone mouse darted toward the stairs. Rapunzel followed.
The layout of each floor was a jumbled mess.
She would go from a floor with four doors up to one with eight, only for the next to have three. Sometimes, she would climb the stairs, only to find herself back down on a floor different from the one she had just seen.
The locations the bone mouse designated were also completely arbitrary—a blank wall, the space between stairs, the crack under a securely locked door—so Rapunzel had to sprint frantically, scattering her hair as she went.
She was anxious about whether the plan was working, but she no longer had any way to communicate with the mysterious 'witch'.
More importantly, the situation didn't afford her the luxury of worrying.
Clank. Clank. Clank!
Because along with the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, 'they' appeared.
Armor of mixed metal and leather. Spears clutched in their hands.
They looked identical to the guards seen anywhere in Donnengarten, but the problem was what was inside the armor.
Where their eyes, noses, and mouths should have been, there was only smooth, featureless skin, like black rubber.
Clearly inhuman, they pursued Rapunzel with terrifying speed.
Rapunzel couldn't suppress her tension.
The black guards weren't particularly fast or strong.
During her first escape attempt, she had even managed to defeat one on her own.
But there was no end to them.
No matter how many she defeated, new ones kept appearing from somewhere, and the longer her escape attempt dragged on, the more frequently they appeared.
'There's never been this many from the start before...!'
Rapunzel was soon cornered.
She had failed several times even when focusing solely on escaping, so it was only natural that she would be caught now, with the added constraint of having to follow the mouse to specific points.
The bone mouse had initially used its small size to dodge the soldiers, but when they stopped using their spears and started trying to crush it with their bodies, it was quickly trapped.
The shafts of the black soldiers' spears pinned Rapunzel down, and a lock of her golden hair fell over the spot the mouse had just designated.
It was at that moment.
Swish!
Abruptly, without any warning, the heads of the five soldiers surrounding Rapunzel flew into the air.
“Huh?”
Rapunzel couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
As she sat there blankly, looking around, the bone mouse flew at her face and slapped her cheek.
“Gah!”
Smack!
“Hey, wait, you didn't have to hit me! ...Wait for me!!”
*
While Rapunzel was frantically running around inside the 'Donnengarten Tower' in the alternate space...
...Dorothea was hard at work relaying information from the 'Donnengarten Tower' in reality.
“Third floor! Eleven o'clock!”
«Third floor, eleven o'clock! Third floor, eleven o'clock!»
Dorothea's eyes were closed, both hands gripping her staff, its end planted firmly on the ground.
Her sight was not on the darkness beneath her eyelids, but on the bizarre magic enveloping the entire tower.
It was like a mass made of shadow. Water held without a vessel. A square with no corners, only curves. The weight of a cat's footfall.
If any of the Empire's ordinary mages had been here, they would have been utterly aghast, or perhaps screamed that this wasn't magic at all.
And for good reason.
The magic they knew was a precise formula, a flawless blueprint, a proposition of sound logic.
Because it was so orderly and rational, magic had become an understandable 'technique'.
Tossing a piece of paper that looked like a child's scribble at such mages and telling them to 'interpret it' would only serve to anger them.
But Dorothea was different.
She was a Necromancer.
She was also a witch.
Not just a female mage, but a witch who had inherited the esoteric art of witchcraft.
From a time when magic was not yet a technique.
A time when magic was a mystery in and of itself.
Like the witches in fairy tales who answered the calls of crying girls and performed simple miracles, she delved into the mysterious power cast upon the tower.
“Second floor! Four o'clock!”
«Second floor, four o'clock! Second floor, four o'clock!»
Every time Dorothea shouted, the skull at her feet repeated her words.
The skull the Tin Knight carried would be saying the exact same thing.
And sure enough, a constant stream of crashing sounds echoed from above her.
If Dorothea hadn't put everyone inside the tower to sleep with her spirits beforehand, there would have undoubtedly been a huge commotion.
“Fifth floor! Two o'clock!”
«Fifth floor, two o'clock! Fifth floor, two o'clock!»
Their process was as follows:
Dorothea would interpret the 'signal' sent by Rapunzel to give a general direction, the Tin Knight would use mana detection to pinpoint the exact location and pierce it with his sword, and then Dorothea would pour her mana through that 'gap'.
Just like driving in a wedge.
It was no easy task.
Precisely identifying the moment the two towers touched, point to point, then physically cutting it open and inserting mana—neither was something a person of ordinary skill could even dream of.
But for Dorothea and the Tin Knight, it was possible.
Whaaaaaam!
The tower began to tremble.
The mage's panic was palpable.
As more and more wedges were driven in, the twisted space gradually began to return to normal.
The tower of reality and the tower of the alternate space were slowly overlapping, becoming one.
If this continued, it would become possible for them to physically influence each other.
As if to prevent that, the walls and ceiling of the first floor where Dorothea stood began to waver.
Something like black mud oozed out, quickly taking the form of an armored soldier that thrust its spear at Dorothea.
Dorothea did not open her closed eyes.
Kaaang!
Instead, the staff in Dorothea's hand simply glowed with a green light.
As if refusing to let anything touch its master, the staff emitted a low hum and created a translucent barrier.
The black soldiers multiplied and attacked Dorothea relentlessly, but the staff greedily absorbed her mana, further strengthening the barrier.
The staff Dorothea had prepared to fight Algind possessed the power to convert the user's own mana directly into defensive power.
Because Dorothea's total mana capacity was so absurdly large, it couldn't achieve a perfect conversion, but even with its upper limit, the defensive power was enough to scoff at most castle walls.
Moreover, though Dorothea herself hadn't realized it, the staff itself was growing, and its upper limit was gradually increasing.
The mage, too, must have realized that ordinary attacks couldn't break through to Dorothea, as they sent out a soldier possessing mana as powerful as all the previous soldiers combined.
The black soldier, which looked like a knight, swung its sword—
[The 'Tin Knight' exclaims that he's found a high-score hidden mole!]
—but before it could finish, the Tin Knight, who had suddenly appeared on the first floor, lopped off the black soldier's head.
The black soldier tried to regenerate by turning its body into mud, but before it could, the Tin Knight swung his sword down from above.
BOOOM!
The attack was a slash, but the result was like a direct hit from an explosion.
It was the result of the Tin Knight simultaneously cutting the enemy and scattering his sword energy like turbulence to grind its insides to pieces.
It was a technique he rarely used against people because it horrified his pupil (and even the witch, though she wouldn't say it, would frown), but it was perfect for a regenerating monster like this.
The lord's wife, who was watching from the side, quietly gasped, but the Tin Knight didn't even glance her way as he spoke.
[The 'Tin Knight' reports that he briefly saw the kid from the water mirror!]
[The 'Tin Knight' says she looked like she was about to be caught by some weirdos, so he cut them all down!]
“If physical interference is possible, that means there's not much time left— Hey, fifth floor! Fifth floor! Hurry!”
[The 'Tin Knight' points out that while he can understand even the most crude instructions perfectly, she still needs to give him a direction!]
“Center! Right as you get up the stairs!”
[The 'Tin Knight' acknowledges and dashes off!]