City of Witches Chapter 346

“Are you feeling very unwell?”

“No, Mother. I’m really fine. I’ll just lie down and rest a little more….”

“Are you sure it’s okay for Mother to go out for work? Should I spend the day with our daughter today?”

“No, I want to be alone….”

“Oh, alright then…. I’ll buy something delicious for dinner tonight, so get your strength up. I love you, my daughter.”

“Yes, me too.”

-Click

As Countess Yesod left for work and the door closed, Diana buried her face in the pillows again.

It was already the second day she had been groaning in anguish and torment.

Because she had witnessed an unbelievable scene before her eyes, and as a result, one of the beliefs she had held sacred until now had been shattered miserably.

“It’s impossible… How could they do such a thing….”

Recalling the Twins’ outrageous act up to baladang, Diana bit her lip, overwhelmed by mental shock and immense confusion.

It was clearly lips touching lips.

A man and an Apprentice Witch had kissed.

Yet the Twins’ Vessels remained perfectly intact.

“Ugh… Gag….”

Remembering that scene again, Diana felt nauseated.

It was filthy.

Unpleasant.

An indescribable revulsion surged in her chest, as if she had seen a lion devouring a gazelle.

“But I can’t just stay like this….”

Diana sat up.

She combed her thoroughly tangled hair with a brush and dressed properly.

It was already nearing a full two days of seclusion.

Something was wrong with this world.

Diana felt it.

If so, there were two choices.

To settle for the happy falsehood she already knew.

Or to face the truth, even if it might be horrifying and cruel.

Diana was an Apprentice Witch of the Yesod Count House.

She had pride in that.

Blindly pretending not to know was the choice of an ordinary person.

As a Witch who explores the Magic Path and pioneers unknown ways, she surely had to make a different choice from ordinary people.

The disparity between ideal and reality.

To investigate that distortion, Diana strode briskly outside.

The first subjects chosen for investigation were the servants residing in the household.

As a side note, there were no male servants in the Yesod Count House.

Therefore, it was much more convenient for Diana to conduct this awkward inquiry.

“Good afternoon.”

Two maids chattering in the mansion corridor with laundry in their hands hastily bowed their heads upon seeing Diana.

“D, Diana, Miss.”

“Hello. Um, we were just about to go work….”

It was an exceptionally rare occurrence for ordinary servants to meet Diana.

Firstly, Diana rarely ventured beyond her room’s threshold to the outside of the mansion, and she spent most of her time in the Flow pool directly connected to her room.

Moreover, having spent most of her time since childhood with Countess Yesod, accidentally encountering and conversing with her was even more difficult.

Perhaps because of that, the maids stiffened rigidly at Diana’s sudden approach.

“There’s something I want to ask.”

“Yes!”

“Please ask us anything!”

To the maids standing straight like new recruits on high alert, Diana asked what she had been curious about.

“Please don’t think it strange. And promise you won’t tell anyone. It’s purely academic curiosity.”

An Apprentice Witch receiving all sorts of advanced education asking maids about academic curiosity…

It was a very strange statement, but the maids nodded anyway.

“Yes!”

“We absolutely will not divulge the secret.”

Diana hesitated for a moment.

She knew this wasn’t a normal question.

It was quite an embarrassing and shameful question.

“Ahem, do you know how babies are made?”

“…….”

“…….”

As soon as Diana’s question reached them, the maids’ expressions stiffened completely.

They looked at each other and began sweating profusely.

“Ah, well, um… we have to… go work right now….”

“Sorry, we’ll be going….”

“Ah….”

And then they vanished whoosh using remarkably fast steps.

Their demeanor, as if they had been asked about forbidden Magic, made Diana’s eyes widen.

She had asked after much deliberation, but…

Was it such an unaskable question?

Well, it might have been an immodest question for the Count House’s young lady to utter.

But seeing them leave in fear almost on par with a plague spirit, it was odd to attribute it solely to aversion.

Because clearly, the reaction the maids showed was ‘fear.’

“…….”

And that reaction, in turn, piqued Diana’s curiosity.

Humans, by nature, tend to feel more desire to do what is forbidden.

Having overcome even laziness and steeled her will, Diana continued her investigation.

But whether it was the maid washing laundry at the laundry area.

Or the cook preparing dinner in the kitchen.

Or the servant making flower arrangements to decorate the mansion.

All had the same uniform reaction.

As if they had heard something they shouldn’t have.

As if a gag order had been placed on Diana’s question, their faces turned pale and they hurriedly vacated the spot.

By that point, Diana was convinced.

This wasn’t a phenomenon occurring simply because Diana’s question was strange.

“Mother…?”

An intuition that the Countess was directly involved flashed through her mind.

She didn’t know the reason.

Judging from the servant who even abandoned the flower arrangement she was making and fled, it was obvious that asking others would yield similar reactions.

“Then, the library it is.”

Books, by their nature, contain all sorts of knowledge passed down from the past.

Diana spiritedly headed toward the library inside the mansion.

The scale of the Yesod Count House’s library was larger than that of an average bookstore.

Because every single book densely packed on the three-story bookshelves was an academic text on Magic.

Unless a Magical Indexing System like the ‘Secret Library’ was established, finding the information Diana wanted inside here would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But she already had a clue.

‘And who said Vessels get damaged by kissing on the lips?’

‘For that, you’d need to have sex. Sex.’

Exactly the Twins’ remarks.

The ‘misunderstood truth’ Diana previously held was that when lips touch, i.e., kissing, a baby might be made.

Then, the Twins’ rebuttal pointing this out naturally implied that the ‘real truth’ was mixed within.

In other words, the keyword was decided.

“Sex… sex… sex…. sex….”

Climbing the ladder, Diana began searching the topmost shelf for books with ‘sex’ in the title.

Diana, who usually casually picked out books she liked from below.Looking at the books in the library now, I couldn't help but marvel.

Of course, there were books written by successive generations of the Yesod family on Field Theory, as well as collections of various unpublished papers and reviews.

There were even rare hardcover editions of ancient documents translated from scripts that had already been lost.

But no matter how much I searched, there didn't seem to be any books written about relationships between men and women.

"This is strange..."

It's suspicious, after all.

Of course, men cannot bear Brands.

They are inherently incapable of even containing magic power.

It's only natural, as they lack a Womb.

However, that doesn't mean they are beings completely separate from Magic.

As members who clearly make up half the world, there should naturally be research materials pertaining to them.

Otherwise, Witches wouldn't have gone out of their way to use men as Experimental Subjects.

But on these shelves, there wasn't a single volume containing entries related to men and Magic.

In other words, it makes sense to think that only very strictly censored books are allowed in here...

By whom?

It goes without saying.

Countess Yesod, the mother and teacher Diana so trusted and loved.

"Mother... why..."

Diana furrowed her brow.

But even in the midst of this, the clever Diana was deciding what she needed to do.

If her meticulous mother led the censorship and controlled the information, Diana wouldn't be able to find the book she wanted in this library.

But there is another way.

Her mother is currently out on business in the Mortal Realm.

Her mother's room has its own private library.

Since it's unlikely she threw all the books away or sold them, if I search there, something should turn up.

Diana climbed down the ladder and headed for her mother's library.

If the library in the center of the mansion was comparable in size to a city library, Countess Lucy's private library was quite cozy.

It would be easier to think of it as being on the level of a small neighborhood bookstore.

Maintenance Magic always maintained the optimal humidity and temperature, so even books hundreds of years old remained stiff, as if the ink hadn't dried.

The sunlight creeping pleasantly through the window frame and the scent of paper brought an unwarranted sense of peace.

Books arranged in a 'ㄷ' shape and a table placed in the center.

On the desk, papers with various calculations for Magic Conception were scattered about.

In fact, Diana herself often came and went from this library.

Countess Yesod would never refuse Diana's visits.

But since this was the first time she had sneaked in like this, her heart pounded for no reason.

"Hoo..."

But after about 30 minutes of searching the shelves,

Diana quickly became disheartened.

It's not here either.

The only difference from the central library was that it contained books on much more advanced and esoteric magical information.

"Was I mistaken...?"

Could it be that books about men really are that scarce?

Was I simply misunderstanding Mother?

A pointless sense of guilt.

Diana let out a small sigh and tried to put back the books she had pulled out.

-Click!

It was a mistake.

I just meant to place the thick book back on the shelf and leave the room.

But the small figurine placed on one side of the bookshelf.

When I touched the silver crescent moon craft symbolizing Yesod, a sound like a winding mechanism turning was heard.

"...?"

Diana put the book down and looked again at the figurine at eye level.

Do decorations like this usually come fixed to bookshelves?

"This is..."

Diana, realizing something, twisted the crescent moon craft this way and that.

Then, with the sound of metal pieces meshing, the bookshelf slowly began to slide backward.

It wasn't a simple decoration but a kind of mechanical device.

Once the bookshelf had completely slid away, an empty space behind the wall was open like an entrance.

It seemed this bookshelf usually served as a door.

"A secret room..."

Diana held her breath, waited for the door to open fully, then cautiously stepped inside.

For a secret room, its appearance was utterly ordinary.

There was nothing particularly different from her mother's library, down to the placement of the bookshelves and the arrangement of the table.

But the books were different.

The books on the shelves in the secret library were, as one could tell just from the titles, all novels.

Diana walked over briskly and began carefully scanning the titles.

"The Bored Witch's Dangerous Prank... The Debt-Ridden Witch's Life of Redemption... How the Butterfly Flower Falls... The Tailor of Malcut Gallery... Something Sweeter Than Cocoa..."

Just saying the titles made a strangely uncomfortable feeling well up intensely.

Is this similar to the feeling of stepping into a pit teeming with snakes?

A chill spread for no reason, making my spine tingle.

What kind of titles are these?

"What is all this..."

Every single book title was like that.

Seeing the colorful bookmarks stuck in several places in each book, it was hard to think they were just for storage.

Novels, literally 'small stories'.

The consensus among Witches is that they cannot be dignified.

Above all, among Orthodox Witches who prioritize Magic, even Shakespeare's works are classified as lowbrow culture.

Countess Yesod belonged to the extreme right wing among Orthodox Witches, valuing authority and tradition, and it was surprising that my mother, the perfect noble herself, enjoyed such a secret hobby.

Well, it's not like I felt particularly disappointed.

After all, even I, Diana, was filled with thoughts of goofing off once I became a Witch.

Everyone probably hides some secret part of themselves.

Thinking it would be rude to dig further into my mother's secrets like this, Diana was about to quietly slip out.

Something caught her eye.

The bright red leather cover placed on the table.

The title written in an antiquated script.

'The Sadistic Deliveryman Volume 3'.

Diana stealthily reached her arm toward the book on the table.

"This is..."

Because that script decorating the cover was her mother's.

Unable to overcome her curiosity, Diana picked up the book and opened it.

From the first page to the last.

That book, entirely written in Countess Lucy Yesod's handwriting.

Author's Note (Afterword)

As I mentioned earlier, my second vaccine is scheduled for the 12th.

Therefore, regular updates on the 13th and 14th might be a little difficult. Maybe even until the 15th.

I'll check my condition and try my best to update if possible.

I plan to post a notice tomorrow afternoon about how I'm feeling.

Thank you!

For reference, this is not based on Countess Yesod's personal experiences.