The Witch Must Defeat the Witch
“D… don’t… turn it back…”
My throat is raw, my body trembling so violently I can barely form words. Without realizing it, my fists are clenched so tightly that the handcuffs bite into my wrists.
“Give her back… Pirel… turn her… back…”
Only Viran’s flat, emotionless reply returns.
“I can’t. Not me.”
Viran approaches the frozen statue of Pirel and gently strokes her head.
“This spell was developed to kill dragons. A pure death magic created without any thought for trivial matters like restoring life to a petrified dragon. Pirel is completely dead now. Even I, the greatest archmage, cannot bring back the dead.”
Viran smiles faintly and corrects herself.
“Well, something similar might be possible. There are perverse spells that turn stone into lumps of flesh. Then we’d have a fresh meat doll shaped like Pirel. Lifeless, so it will rot away soon enough. Would that satisfy you?”
“No… I-I don’t want that… Such a terrifying thing… Don’t…”
Hearing my terrified muttering, Viran speaks without losing her smile.
“But,”
Viran walks toward me. Still kneeling, I try to scramble backward… but my body refuses to move.
“You can do what I cannot. It is something only you in this world can do, Hero Kaira.”
“Pirel… is she… truly… dead…?”
In contrast to my voice trembling with fear and rage, Viran’s tone carries no emotion whatsoever. After a few gestures, she speaks again.
“Yes. I cannot sense any mana circulation, and just to be certain I used Mentius’s magnifying glass to examine her talent. The result was ‘nothing at all.’ If the target were still alive, even a snail would produce some reaction.”
I grind my teeth and spit the words out.
“…I’ll kill you…”
“Oh my, how frightening.”
Of course, Viran’s laughing voice holds not a trace of fear.
“With iron weights on your limbs and magic-sealing fibers wrapped around your fingertips, I wonder how you intend to kill me. I could reduce you to ash, frozen meat, fried flesh clinging to a few bones, or melted slime with a single rub of my ring. Shall we test it? The same way I dealt with your mother?”
Viran’s chilling voice reverberates in my skull, yet—
“If you die like that, Pirel will remain dead forever, won’t she? Smiling brightly in that grotesque pose. Well, that suits me fine. I’ll have a cute little statue to sneer at whenever I please.”
I refuse to be provoked and grind my teeth harder.
“I’ll kill you… I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you…!!”
“Sounds like a dog on a leash barking.”
The archmage’s cold gaze looks down upon me as I scream in madness.
“So, will you cooperate with the experiment, or die miserably like this? The choice is yours.”
Rage overtakes fear and paints my vision red. Losing all reason, I charge forward with clattering chains.
“Uwaaaaaah!!”
Viran laughs as if amused and easily catches my chained hands as they descend.
All I can do is struggle to wrench my hands free from her single grip, my legs trembling uselessly because the chains prevent me from kicking.
“Forgotten already, Kaira? ‘A mage must never lose composure under any circumstances.’ What exactly are they teaching at universities these days? I should send Apryon a scolding letter.”
In a state no different from madness, hearing and seeing nothing, I thrash and scream.
“Turn back… Turn back!! Turn back, Viran!! You should have died hundreds of years ago! Return to dust, to ash, to where you belong!! Quickly!!”
No matter how loudly I shout, time does not respond, and neither does Viran.
“And now, up we go.”
“Huh…?”
Her bandaged, bony hand pushes me lightly. With my ankles bound by short chains, I lose my balance and fall backward.
Toward something small behind me.
My shoulder strikes something like a solid stone pillar, sparing my head, and I land on my bottom with a thud.
Behind me comes the sharp crack of something large and crystalline splitting, followed by the rustle of scattering rock fragments. A few stone pieces strike the back of my neck.
“Ughhh…”
Even in confusion I turn my head. There…
Pirel…
Pirel’s head, split cleanly in half.
Both arms lie severed, the neck shattered into powder, the torso retaining its shape with only faint cracks, and the severed feet beside it.
“Pirel…? Pi… rel…?”
Crawling across the stone-dusted floor, I kneel before Pirel’s halved face with a blank expression.
“Now, Kaira. You need to regain your composure. That pile of rocks has not been Pirel for a long time. It was merely stone. Now even its form is no longer Pirel. What a shame. That was not my intention… or perhaps it was. Pfft.”
I do not hear Viran’s mocking voice from behind.
“So what will you do? You have broken the pretty garden statue, so you must pay the price. Will you die by my hand like this? Or will you fix that statue?”
“Pirel… Pirel…”
I desperately gather the stone fragments, trying in vain to reattach them, muttering with vacant eyes.
“Pirel… Mother… Mother, Mother… Sob, sob…”
Then I collapse and weep, clutching the half-broken head-shaped stone that still holds the warmth of living flesh.
“Waaaaah… Mother, Mother… Mother…”
From behind comes the archmage’s emotionless remark.
“What, how boring. Did you regress to infancy?”
I turn my head and glare fiercely at the witch looking down on me with contempt. …With this body, that is all the defiance I can manage.
“Why… are you doing this…? To me, to Mother… Why on earth…? If you had simply asked… even if you had taken Pirel hostage and threatened me, I would have used that power… as much as you wanted, without any price…”
I wail through my tears.
“Rather… rather, just brainwash me too… I don’t want to endure this while sane anymore… It would be easier for you as well—just turn me into an obedient puppet, a doll that does everything you say…!! Why, why did you drag Pirel into this…?”
Viran lets out a dry laugh, slightly closes her eyes, and speaks.
“Hero Kaira, it seems you are misunderstanding something.”
Her bandaged, thin, bony hand seizes my collar as if about to tear the dress apart.
“Hic…?”
“If I wished, I could make you cooperate regardless of your will. Using Olberg’s Gentle Dog alone would destroy half your personality, regress your intelligence, and turn you into a stupid bitch who happily carries out my every command.”
After speaking so threateningly, Viran releases me. My body, drained of strength by fear, collapses limply onto the garden floor.
“Well. Even that spell only lasts about a day, after all.”
Viran dusts off her bandaged hand.
“But using a bitch who can only say ‘Yes, Master!’ as an experimental assistant would be aesthetically displeasing. Why do you think I cast the cooperation spell on Pirel instead of you? Because you had to assist with my experiment of your own free will.”
The witch’s faint smile taints my vision.
“You asked why I am doing this. Knowledge, knowledge… I have lived over two hundred years in search of knowledge. Capturing the dark dragon, wandering the floating cities of the desert elves, forcibly extending my lifespan—all for that single purpose. And then you appeared. The most fascinating mystery in all the countless years I have lived.”
The witch lifts her dirt-caked, filthy bandaged foot and presses it against my forehead as she poses her final question.
“There is no way I could overlook that. I simply wish to observe your miracle, Kaira—the miracle of one who revives the dead without hesitation. But I have no desire to taint this once-in-a-millennium experiment by turning you into a mindless puppet. So I will ask once more. Will you revive Pirel, or die like this? The choice is yours, but you have no right to choose anything else.”
My opponent is an archmage capable of burning an entire castle to the ground alone. If I yield here, I will likely die horribly… and Pirel will remain broken. There is no other path.
I am furious. Too furious to yield like this… Yet swallowing that rage, I manage to answer in a subdued voice.
“I understand. I will do it… I will do it.”
“Good. That is a good girl. Well thought.”
Viran carefully approaches and lifts the chain of the handcuffs, slightly loosening the magic-sealing fibers on my fingertips.
“That is enough, yes? Now. Reattach the broken stone pieces or do whatever you must to revive her. I will adjust the measuring device so it does not glitch from sudden abnormal signals.”
“…Understood.”
Just one segment of my fingertip.
That was enough.
Suppressing nausea, I barely move my legs weighted with metal lumps and begin gathering the shattered pieces of Pirel’s body. …Because I did not want to see Mother restored in the form of broken meat chunks.
Before reattaching the fragments to their original shape, I glance at Viran’s back. She is absorbed in operating what she calls the measuring device—a jumble of parts with no proper control panel or display.
‘I can do it. I have done it many times, and I have never failed…’
I place my fingertips on the ground. Even an archmage walks upon the earth. She is in contact with the ground. And so are my fingertips. Looking at Viran’s legs—calves exposed even in midwinter, dirty bandages clinging to them—I think.
‘Turn back…’
Yes, turn back. To the present. Whether one second ago, 0.1 seconds ago, or a single Planck time ago. Even the briefest moment is fine. So that she dies without even realizing she is dying—return to the thin past, to the cross-section of the present, to the dead past.
And then, it turned back.
The head of the archmage who had lived over two hundred years falls from her body so futilely. The bandages wrapped around her neck are sharply severed and flutter.
“Hoo…”
Only then do I turn my gaze to Pirel. Stone fragments roughly fitted together like a crude puzzle.
…Can I revive this inanimate object by rewinding its time? Even if I turn stone back into flesh, can it return as a single mass, as a living person?
Viran had mocked me multiple times that the choice was mine, but in the end there had been no choice. There was only one path.
‘I have no choice but to try.’
My robe has been taken, so I have no ticking clock to rely on… I place my fingertips on the cooled pile of stones, then press my other hand to my chest, feeling the rhythm of my beating heart. And I tightly close my eyes. Because if I open them, I will not be able to bear it.
Please, turn back…
I prayed so many times, yet my eyes remain in darkness. Because I have not opened them.
I was afraid of light leaking in, terrified of seeing Pirel’s wrong form, so for a long while I fluttered my eyelids, squeezing my eyes shut so hard that wrinkles formed.
“Kaira…?”
A gentle voice that seems to wash away all the chill of early winter…
“Just now… what… happened to me?”
Until a curious voice, unaware of what had just occurred, brushes against my ear.