City of Witches Chapter 104

The Twins were utterly despondent.

Startled by Siwoo's abnormal condition, they had rushed to Amelia.

In a corner of their hearts, they held a faint hope that Amelia, being a capable Associate Professor, might be able to do something about it.

However, she already knew everything and had given up.

To the Twins, who were reporting through sniffles, Amelia replied in a powerless voice.

‘What we can treat has reached its limit.’

She said he would recover no further.

The result of the treatment was Siwou, who had become a puppet gazing only at Magic, devoid of emotion or anything else.

The Twins, who had been brimming with happiness until they arrived here, returned to the carriage haggard and dragging their feet.

They had hurried over the moment they heard Siwoo had woken up, expecting to see him healthy, only to be met with this cruel truth.

“Sniff... Snff... Unnie...”

“Don’t cry, Odette.”

The moment she entered the carriage, Odette plopped down onto the seat.

Despite attempts to stop her, pearly tears dripped steadily from her beautiful violet eyes.

Odil wasn’t much different.

Though she stood with her fists clenched tightly, her entire eyes were red and swollen.

“It’s... it’s my fault.... If I... if I had listened to the Exile back then...”

“No! Why is this your fault!”

“But, but if I had quickly knelt and begged for the Assistant’s life... maybe something would have been different!”

Odette’s self-blame began.

Trapped in that cycle of blame, Odil couldn’t remain free either.

After all, Siwoo had confronted the Exile not just for Odette, but to protect Odil as well.

“What do we do... what about our Assistant... Waaah...!”

“Odette, get up.”

Nevertheless, Odil stubbornly swallowed her tears and pulled Odette up by the wrist.

Staggering to her feet like a drunkard, Odette sobbed and collapsed into her sister’s embrace.

“Let’s go again... let’s go back and try talking to the Assistant... okay? Or... let’s tell him about what we prepared! Then, then... maybe he’ll come to his senses... since he liked it...”

Even as the carefully applied makeup was ruined by tears, Odette continued to sob, hiccupping.

“I said stop crying!”

“Why? Why can’t I cry... It’s just, just too sad...”

Odil’s shoulders, which had been tense with frustration at Odette, also began to tremble faintly.

“If you cry... I feel like crying too...”

Though Odil was more mature compared to her younger sister, her tender heart wasn’t much different.

In the end, Odil, who had started crying profusely, hugged Odette tightly and wailed.

Latifundium, responsible for the majority of Gehenna’s magical crop supply.

Latifundium, which had been reduced to ruins after being ravaged by the Homunculus, completed all restoration work in just a month thanks to the efforts of over a dozen Witches.

The Magical Power, supplied ceaselessly during the fallow period to restore the land’s fertility, brightly illuminated the darkness born from the branches and leaves of the giant tree.

However, even that light could not reach a pit where the tree’s roots and large rocks were entangled.

A presence stirred in a space, perfectly concealed by bushes, untouched by anyone’s footsteps or gaze.

A translucent mucous membrane with prominent blood vessels and fascia on its surface.

Caked with mud from the oozing mucus, it resembled a sleeping bag made from a giant intestine.

The translucent membrane, thin enough to vaguely see inside, tore, and sticky amniotic fluid burst forth.

Through the torn membrane, an arm, slick and wet, groped its way out.

It was an arm as white and slender as a magnolia branch.

Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, the arm flailed for a while before tearing through the remaining membrane with difficulty.

“Ugh, ughk... Blech...”

The woman, who had struggled and barely freed herself, lay face down on the dirt and vomited a large amount of sticky fluid from her mouth.

It was the same fluid that had covered her entire body.

“Damn it....”

Short black hair cut at the shoulders.

Sinisterly glowing red pupils visible between eyelids caked with mucus.

Elongated limbs and a stark naked body tracing feminine curves.

The Witch of Aquarius, Ea Sadalmelik, shuddered at the dreadful sensation of the amniotic fluid clinging to her entire body.

“Damn it...!”

She scanned her surroundings with sharp eyes, realized no one was there, and used Magic.

Utilizing a cleansing spell, every last drop of the dripping amniotic fluid cleanly separated from her body.

However, the foul smell that had soaked into her hair didn’t vanish instantly.

Simultaneously, a headache stabbed through her mind.

It wasn’t an internal physical issue.

The moment her consciousness returned, the terror of flowers blooming from her body and turning into nutrients—vivid as if it happened yesterday—assaulted Ea.

-Squish!

Blood spurted from her tightly bitten lower lip.

The sensation of her body becoming fertilizer, the gaze of Baron Marigold looking down on her haughtily, her own wretchedness as she pathetically begged for her life at the last moment, and the overwhelming gap in Hierarchy that showed no room for resistance.

The accumulated thoughts from the past, while her body regenerated, drove Ea into a bitter swamp of humiliation.

“Someday, I’ll pay you back a thousand, ten thousandfold... you bitch... I’ll kill you...”

Ea pushed back the fear trying to surface like trauma by recalling the hateful image of Amelia in her mind.

But she had survived.

As long as she was alive, another opportunity would surely come.

Ea was clearly a Witch who pursued impulsive pleasure.

But that didn’t mean she was reckless and stupid.

If she were, she, a public enemy, couldn’t have survived this long.

After deciding to hunt Witches in Gehenna, Ea had set up two safety measures.

Backdoors to escape in an emergency.

One was the Artifact ‘Cocoon of Rebirth’ from which she had just extracted her body.

An item that allows the owner to be reborn once from the cradle, at the cost of the Hierarchy being taken from the Brand when death is met.

To be precise, it takes the magical constructs built into the Brand, not the Hierarchy itself, but since losing them results in a drop in Hierarchy, there’s no difference.

“How much is it?”

Ea stroked the Brand engraved on her lower abdomen, like checking a receipt the day after a blackout from being drunk.

The space once densely packed was now hollow and empty.

With each empty space she counted, her rage and hatred only grew.

The remaining strokes: 15.

Excluding the bare minimum needed to maintain Autonomous Defense, 6 entire Hierarchies had evaporated.

-Thud!Ea kicked the amniotic sac she had been curled up in for a hundred days.

With a sound like a wet rag being flung aside, the amniotic sac tumbled and rolled, gushing out amniotic fluid.

"Damn it, damn it...! That bitch with no manners..."

At least surviving was good.

But the price was enormous—enough to drop not just one or two, but six levels of the Hierarchy.

How long it would take to recover from that was beyond comprehension.

With this, revenge or anything else was nothing but a pipe dream.

Ea roughly wiped away the blood flowing from her lips down to her chin with the back of her hand.

The droplets of blood that had fallen on her white chest looked intensely sensual.

Separate from the boiling hatred, she knew exactly what she had to do.

That was to check whether the second backdoor she had prepared was still intact.

Ribbons billowed up from Ea's back as she familiarized herself with the surrounding geography.

Fortunately, her primary weapon, the 'Maiden's Loom,' was functioning properly.

It seemed the 'Water Bottle' had also not been designated as part of the transaction's price.

Using the ribbons, Ea lifted a large rock.

She was a hunter who had hunted countless Witches and Homunculi, and as such, she possessed a variety of Artifacts.

Among them was an Artifact called the 'Barrier Separator,' which tore away Gehenna's barrier and created an entrance.

"........."

In the gap beneath the lifted rock, a crevice the size of a palm had opened.

It was fixed wide open, like the belly skin split open for surgery.

Around it was a small 'Hidden Boundary' in the shape of a water bottle that Ea had installed.

Like the one used during the assault on the Marigold estate, it was Ea's specialty—concealing internal anomalies from the outside.

Using a Homunculus to enter Gehenna, and conspicuously releasing the Homunculus used as a key without killing it, were all part of the deception.

If it were discovered that an Exile was inside Gehenna, the Witches would first block any holes through which they could escape.

After all, if the gaps in the barrier were sealed, Ea would be like a rat trapped in a bottle.

"Good."

Originally, when hunters find the largest burrow, they leave without disturbing the smaller ones.

Ea, being a hunter herself, knew that well.

As expected, the small, precious escape route she had separately prepared remained undiscovered.

Being able to extract herself from Gehenna was good news.

Yet, Ea's expression refused to brighten.

The 15th Hierarchy was insufficient ability to survive in the Mortal Realm, teeming with all sorts of Homunculi and dangerous Witches.

Moreover, Ea's circumstances, having accumulated nothing but resentment, were worse than other Witches.

If they realized she had lost her power, all the Witches who had suffered at her hands would become desperate to capture her.

It wasn't just Duke Tiferet, who still roamed the Mortal Realm to capture her.

Even the trivial beings she hadn't even cared about or ignored would become immense threats.

But Ea did not despair.

She just needed to steal more Witches' Wombs.

She just needed to hunt more Homunculi.

This humiliation could be returned someday.

For instance, on the day Marigold takes on an Apprentice Witch.

It would be fine to plant a Vessel in the Apprentice Witch and wait for Marigold's power to be restricted.

-Hummm

Ea reached out and activated the Barrier Separator.

Along with a faint vibration sound, the separator inside the water bottle began to widen the dimensional gap further.

Since it had been maintained at the minimum size, it would take about 30 minutes to expand enough for Ea to pass through.

Once back in the Mortal Realm, she needed to figure out clothes first.

Ea glanced over her fully exposed naked body and clicked her tongue.

Then.

-Rustle

A sudden presence.

Ea flinched and turned around.

This was a particularly remote spot even within the Latifundium, which was deserted during the off-season.

It was the safest location among the candidate sites Ea had scouted to install the Barrier Separator.

"Who's there?!"

Breaking the tense silence without an answer, a man appeared, snapping a tree branch.

A man with a familiar face, wearing loose clothes like patient attire.

How could she forget that face?

It was the man whose eye she had personally gouged out and whose brain she had surely pierced.

She had stirred it deeply, yet he was alive.

Did this mean that while she had lost so much, Marigold had lost nothing?

Amidst these trivial thoughts, Ea did not let her guard down.

About ten ribbons behind her back sharpened menacingly.

For the current Ea, this was her limit.

"My, it's been a while. Did you get lost?"

Outwardly, she spoke calmly, but inwardly, she was extremely confused.

It was hard to believe he had come to this secluded place alone.

Soon, Baron Marigold might appear, or other Witches might emerge, grinning, trying to capture and kill Ea, who had become easy prey.

".........."

But a minute passed, and still no answer came.

No one else showed themselves either.

"What's this?"

Soon, Ea realized Siwoo's condition was not normal.

Not only was there an eyepatch covering the left eye she had personally pierced, but he also seemed devoid of vitality, as if a corpse had been revived.

Moreover, he wasn't even looking directly at Ea, who was clearly a hostile figure.

Instead, he was intently observing only the gap in space opened by the Barrier Separator.

It was as if he didn't properly perceive Ea's very existence.

She didn't know the reason or the circumstances.

But Ea trembled with exhilaration.

If she tore that bastard to shreds and scattered him here, wouldn't she be able to exact some measure of revenge on Marigold right now?

"Perfect."

Ea grinned.

The ribbons behind her rustled as they deployed.

"I was just about to die from frustration. This works out perfectly."

Ea looked at Siwoo.

At that moment, Siwoo also looked at Ea.

As if finally recognizing her presence, the corner of Siwoo's mouth twisted.

A violent expression distorting his previously impassive face.

Ea knew that clearly rising emotion was hatred.

"Bloom."

A word from the author (Author's Note)

You've all worked hard today.

After reading Witch City, sleep tight!