City of Witches Chapter 343

Three days of secluded training.

Diana immersed herself in studying magic and researching the Witchboard to prepare for her revenge match.

Though her life as an apprentice witch hadn't been long, this was the first time she had delved so deeply into something.

No matter how much she enjoyed playing the Witchboard, it was ultimately just a game.

She had never felt the need to set aside separate time to study it seriously.

But for the first time, she realized something.

That vengeance is a motivation intense enough to overcome her inherent laziness.

Seeing Diana shut herself in her room from morning until late at night, passionately studying, one could well imagine her fervor—especially considering Count Yesod's tear-stained handkerchiefs had already surpassed a hundred in number.

She analyzed the game records of famous witches and pored over magic books to study dispels, an area she personally felt her knowledge was lacking.

And after analyzing it in connection with Siwoo's playing style, Diana made a startling discovery.

"How shamelessly he lied..."

That male witch was absolutely,

absolutely not a beginner.

The method of laying down preparatory moves in advance and frequently setting up dispel angles—

she discovered by browsing through game record collections that this was actually a tactic a certain witch had specialized in using around the 19th century.

Of course, it seemed he had added his own arrangements, but the positioning and method of the preparatory moves were almost identical.

Even the technique of concentrating three magic power sources at a single point to enhance breakthrough power was similar.

The tricky dispel method that a mere male witch shouldn't have been capable of was, in fact, not his original creation but merely a copycat.

And yet he pretended it was his first time.

Pretended he had never heard or seen it before.

He made Diana let her guard down and brazenly stole victory.

Of course, she had no intention of holding that against him.

Though it was a dirty and despicable act, since she lost the final match not in a dispel but in a chaotic melee, dwelling on that now wouldn't change anything.

"But... I already have a surefire strategy prepared...!"

However, Diana's growth rate after fully committing to her studies was fierce.

She had achieved what felt like a 1.5-fold increase in combat power.

With a countermeasure prepared for the sole variable—the dispel pin—there was no chance of defeat.

Diana pushed herself up from her seat and strode with a dignified gait toward the host bar.

"Um... Siwoo is currently with a guest right now."

Diana, her heart filled with vengeance cold enough to frost over even in June.

She had arrived at 7 a.m. to secure ample duel time, but Siwoo didn't come out to greet her.

Instead, the doorman she had seen before looked at her with an awkward expression.

"If I order more expensive drinks, that should be fine, right?"

"B-but...! P-please wait a moment...!"

"I don't have time to wait. Show me the way. Now."

If this were the old Diana, she would have waited or come back tomorrow.

But now, she had no such leisure.

She had trained so intensely that she wouldn't be satisfied unless she knocked that man down right this instant.

Diana brushed past the flustered doorman and headed straight for table number 1, where Siwoo always sat.

Her stomping footsteps carried her emotions, and the moment she roughly pulled back the temporary blind—

Three pairs of eyes, startled by her sudden appearance, turned toward Diana.

"...Oh, hello?"

"......"

"......"

An entirely unexpected person was with Siwoo.

A half-bonnet larger than her face and a dress that looked as expensive as Diana's own clothes.

Lustrous black hair with cascading curls and violet eyes—an apprentice witch with a doll-like, adorable impression that was strikingly similar.

"Huh? You're...?"

The daughter of her mother's friend who always appeared as a supporting character whenever Lucy scolded Diana.

The only twin witches who were two-in-one—the apprentice witches of the Jemernai Count Family were here.

"That lazybones?"

"That apprentice witch who doesn't listen to her mother?"

Diana bristled at the twins' peculiar assessment upon recognizing her.

"Don't call me weird things."

Since the House of Gemernai and the House of Yesod had interactions, Diana was acquainted with the twins.

However, it was merely an acquaintance—there was no friendship to speak of, not even a speck.

Thus, she had no way of knowing why the twins were here.

Setting aside the sudden presence of the twins, another scene that surprised Diana was this:

The twins were clinging tightly to Siwoo on either side.

If one could gauge intimacy by the distance between two people, that was a closeness only lovers would maintain.

Moreover, one of them was spearing a fruit snack with a fork and feeding it into the man's mouth.

"I was about to introduce you, but it seems you already know each other."

"No, we're not really close."

"We just know each other by face."

Diana was dumbfounded as Siwoo accepted the fruit matter-of-factly and acknowledged the greeting.

She had no idea what was going on.

But she had no business knowing why another family's apprentice witch seemed so close with this male witch.

For Diana right now, only vengeance and redemption mattered.

Thus, she declared boldly:

"I came for a rematch."

"A rematch?"

"If there are other people here, it'll be a disturbance, so move aside."

Diana placed her hands on her hips and announced in a solemn voice.

Even among apprentice witches of the same count family, there was a hierarchy.

Her opponents were apprentice witches whose education to inherit the Brand wasn't even complete yet.

In contrast, Diana was an apprentice witch who had undergone three years of accelerated succession ritual training.

She was older and superior in magical skill as well.

She believed she had every right to make such a demand.

"Who are you? Why are you interrupting? Are you close with our assistant?"

Then, one of the twins, her temper flaring, shot Diana a sharp look.

"Assistant, you said you'd play with us today."

The other twin tilted her head and tightly gripped Siwoo's hand.

Though their reactions differed, the common point was that they seemed to treat Diana's words as background noise, radiating an atmosphere of absolute refusal to budge.

"You're just going to fool around anyway. My purpose for coming is far more important than that, so I'm asking you to vacate the..."

"Huh? A Witchboard. Assistant, do you know how to play the Witchboard?"

"We're pretty good at this. Want to play together sometime?"

"Don't ignore me!"

But the twins, having lost interest in Diana who had barged in suddenly, refocused their attention on Siwoo.

Diana shifted her gaze to Siwoo and launched into an impassioned speech.

After all, talking to the twins seemed utterly useless.

"Play a game with me first! You told me to come back, so I came back!"

"Since you hadn't shown up for days, I assumed you wouldn't come anymore..."

Diana pressed insistently while Siwoo wore an awkward expression.

Seeing this, Odil expressed her displeasure in a sharp voice."Hey, we reserved first, why are you cutting in line? Are you closer with the Assistant than us?"

"Did you just say 'hey' to me?"

"Typical of someone with nothing to say. Nitpicking."

"It's not nitpicking...! It's just that my matter seems more important, so I'll take care of it first...!"

"Important or not, we were here first, okay? Why are you being so unreasonable?"

"Assistant, by the way, why is she here?"

"First, let's not fight. I'll explain."

Siwoo took the time to explain the situation to the Twins.

Upon hearing it, the Twins looked at Diana with a peculiar glint in their eyes.

Their hostility had subsided a bit, replaced instead by a look tinged with relief and a sense of victory.

"Aha, so you're not in any special relationship? You've just played a few games together, right?"

"Then it should be you who needs to step aside. To think you tried to come between us with just that. How absurd."

"Lady Diana, while I'm truly glad you came back to see me, as you can see, Lady Odil and Lady Odette made an appointment first. As you said, I don't think I'd have the face to kick them out."

Seeing the three seemingly siding together somehow made Diana even more furious.

Biting her lip hard, she plopped down in front of Siwoo.

"Then I won't tell you to leave separately. Let's play a game."

"Lady Odil, Lady Odette. My work is done for today, and I'll make separate time this evening. Is it okay if I join you?"

The Twins briefly consulted each other with a glance.

"If the Assistant is okay with it, then whatever. We don't mind!"

"Me too! I also want to see how the Assistant does it!"

"Thank you."

While glancing at the three with a strange look, finding their relationship more intimate than imagined.

Diana activated the Witchboard and calmed her mind.

Truthfully, she had various things to say and questions to ask, but with the Twins watching over there, it felt awkward to bring them up.

How could she reveal the fact that she lost to a man on the Witchboard, and that she studied and came back because it was frustrating?

"You go first. And..."

"Yes."

"...Do it properly. I won't fall for it now."

With Diana's warning, ultimately phrased in a roundabout way, the game began.

Diana took a small deep breath and calmly made her moves.

It was different from before when she only pursued rigid, orthodox strategies.

To force a clear either-or choice, she needed to prepare various builds to make the opponent conscious of them.

While steadily securing Runes as usual, Diana also applied pressure, signaling she was ready to rush in and start a fight at any moment.

It wasn't about blindly pursuing a stable game or pushing aggressively from the start, but rather maintaining balance in the mid-game and progressing from there.

"Hmm..."

Whether it was due to her mood or not, she could definitely see the flow of the game better than before.

Diana's rational tactics, discarding what should be discarded and taking what should be taken, were accumulating small advantages bit by bit.

Whenever it seemed Siwoo was laying down a Dispel stone, she would chase right in to disrupt it, steadily blocking variables as well.

But regardless of that, it was surprising.

Siwoo's magic power source concentration setup was an early-game, one-trick strategy that would lack stamina by mid-game.

But even as the mid-game was gradually nearing its end, the game was still tightly contested.

If you weighed the pros and cons, it was about 5.5 to 4.5.

Even under relentless pressure, he somehow found a breakthrough with pinpoint attacks and dragged out the fight.

But no matter how wide the Witchboard's grid is, the number of moves for each side is limited.

Even if you writhe like a venomous snake, if you keep pressing down, it will eventually burst and die.

Diana maintained a calm mindset, reading the board, and guarded against Dispel until the very end.

-Tap!

When Diana placed her stone.

The idle chatter of the bored Twins reached her ears.

To be more precise, it wasn't advice or commentary, but a private, local broadcast of whispers between themselves.

"Uh, that's not how you do that..."

"Why place it there?"

She ignored it.

They're just clueless about the game, that's why they talk like that.

She thought it wasn't even worth responding to.

"If you place it there, you can catch the Great Demon."

"They're playing really weirdly..."

"But the Assistant is really good."

"As expected, amazing, Assistant!"

It was something she could ignore by closing her ears.

The Great Demon that had flickered before her eyes moments ago was an ambush.

The moment you place a stone, it's a dangerous trap you get sucked right into.

Not knowing that, and even with the flow of the game leaning towards Diana's side, they blabber on like that without a clue.

Unable to bear it any longer, Diana opened her mouth.

"Hey, could you please shut up?"

"We were here first and are making concessions to you? Can't we even chat among ourselves?"

"Your attitude is really terrible."

"Haa, really... fine.... Talk all you want."

It wasn't entirely wrong, which made her even more angry.

But it didn't matter.

She would just show them with the result.

However, the Twins' intermittent psychological attacks left a crack in Diana's mental fortitude.

After all, she made a stupid move, a so-called 'blunder', that she would never make under normal circumstances.

"Ah..."

Realizing her mistake belatedly, Diana thought, 'Oh no.'

And as if her silent prayer to pretend not to notice and move on was in vain, Siwoo sharply dug into that mistake.

It was like stumbling in a tightly contested tug-of-war.

"Kkeuk...!"

Diana tried repeatedly to recover from her mistake.

Siwoo persistently pursued and even succeeded in the Dispel that Diana had been so wary of.

The board had flipped over due to just one mistake.

"As expected, there's no way I could beat the Assistant."

"Assistant! You're truly amazing as expected!"

Diana hung her head low, her shoulders trembling.

Siwoo stopped the Twins.

No need to pour oil on a fire.

"Lady Odil, Lady Odette, please stop. Lady Diana, it was a truly close match. If only you hadn't made that one mistake in the middle..."

"I know!"

Diana gnashed her teeth and glared at the Twins.

"Are you two so good at Witchboard? Then face me."

Clearly, until she sat down here, Siwoo was the target of her anger, but now she was more furious at the Twins who snickered from the side and disrupted the match.

"Hoho? You're picking a fight with us?"

"Gaming is our specialty, are you that confident?"

Odil, who received the sudden challenge, raised one eyebrow and snorted.

Odette also crossed her arms, meeting Diana's provocation.

"I suggested it because I'm confident. But let's make a bet. The loser steps aside."To clear away those nuisances and engage in a proper, serious duel once more, Diana threw down her gauntlet splendidly.

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This is Amelia, created in 3D by Orcamission.

How on earth did you make this…?

It came out so beautifully and well-made ㄸ