City of Witches Chapter 72

Amelia strolled alone through the quiet Academy.

Trinity Academy was inherently quiet to begin with, but the stillness deepened especially at night.

If the weather had been just a bit warmer, the whispers of insects would have been audible.

That was the only slight regret.

"Why do I keep doing this..."

The walk was supposed to be a change of pace.

Yet, the thought of a certain man kept surfacing, and Amelia bit her lip.

It wasn't as if there was nothing at all.

Their unique meeting and connection were enough to make her think of him from time to time.

When she hit a snag in her Magic research and put a cigarette in her mouth, he came to mind briefly; when she organized materials for class, he came to mind briefly too...

So, each time, she would seek him out on some pretext and give him various instructions.

Because she couldn't quite grasp how to steer a conversation beyond work matters.

Looking back, she couldn't deny that she had wanted to keep talking with him.

Why?

Why was that?

Was it simply because he was a diligent person that she wanted to get closer?

Even when she subtly asked Sophia for the reason, she only gave an ambiguous smile.

She didn't tell her anything truly important.

"Pathetic."

What a pitiful state this was.

When it came to Magic, she could solve any question posed, but relationships with people were full of unknowns.

She wondered if there was even a predetermined answer.

Her steps were aimless.

The main reason cluttering her mind was Shin Siwoo, and as she walked while thinking of him, she found herself having wandered quite far.

The landscape painted by moonlight differed from that painted by sunlight, so it felt somewhat unfamiliar, but it was a familiar, gently sloping hill.

This was where the stable he had been living in until now was located.

For a full five years.

"........."

Suddenly, her mouth felt bitter.

What would happen if he found out the cause was due to Amelia's pettiness?

He'd probably be very angry, right?

Amelia turned her steps from the winding path down the hill toward the stable.

-Creak!

Opening the old wooden door that might as well not exist revealed a spacious, dilapidated stable.

"Ugh...!"

Suddenly, her chest prickled.

As if a blunt needle were poking her heart repeatedly.

It was the emotion of regret.

Soon, thoughts began to link one after another.

"Could other things be like this too?"

This was just the one thing she had confirmed with her own eyes.

Perhaps the many instructions she had tossed at him out of frustration were harsher than Amelia had imagined?

Had she made things much harder for him than planned?

That fear gripped her.

Now she thought she understood.

Why Siwoo had kept his distance.

Why he always gave ambiguous reactions even when she gave him gifts and showed consideration.

Why he had subtly avoided her while growing close to the Twins.

She had been thinking too carelessly.

She had been acting like a child throwing a tantrum, only considering her own position.

It was improper conduct.

If something was wrong, it should be corrected.

As Amelia paced, reflecting on her past mistakes, something caught her eye.

Beside the ditch running through the middle of the stable was a pile of straw used as a makeshift bed.

It seemed he had gotten hay meant for feeding horses from somewhere.

"Here for five whole years..."

Amelia slowly bent down and sat on the straw pile.

Because just looking at it, she couldn't imagine how uncomfortable it might be.

".....!"

And she was immediately startled.

Contrary to its fluffy appearance, a few sharp pieces of straw had slipped through her clothes and poked her bottom.

While Amelia closed her eyes in her soft bed, he had been tossing and turning in a place like this.

Soon, Amelia lay down completely on the straw pile and gazed at the ceiling.

The ceiling, damaged in places, was full of traces of clumsily hammered nails.

The hard wooden box felt beneath her back.

The hay that pricked her entire body as soon as she lay down, just as she had felt when sitting.

Amelia couldn't say anything.

It was just too.

An unimaginably uncomfortable place to sleep.

"......."

I should apologize.

I should tell him everything honestly and say I'm sorry.

It might seem ridiculous for Amelia, a Witch, to apologize to Siwoo, a slave.

That was why Amelia had kept her mouth firmly shut until now.

Because she had been taught that way.

Because she had learned that way.

Because she hadn't known it would come to this.

She didn't want to admit it, didn't want to be honest.

She thought if she just stayed quiet, if she covered it up in another way, it would be resolved.

Like when she had barely buried her longing for her Master.

But not anymore.

The outcry of her conscience had suppressed even the vain sense of authority Amelia had stubbornly tried to uphold.

If something is wrong, she intends to correct it and provide him with the compensation he rightfully deserves.

With a heavy heart, Amelia turned her body.

Then.

-Clatter!

"Eugh...!"

As she flipped over to get up, Amelia flinched, her body shuddering from the hard, sharp sensation that stabbed her tailbone.

It seemed there was a misplaced box under the straw pile.

Feeling the stinging pain in her tailbone, Amelia rummaged through the straw to find what had done this nasty deed.

"This is..."

What emerged was a neatly designed wooden box.

It didn't look particularly expensive.

But it was a sufficiently elegant box for a mere slave to possess.

It was quite heavy with whatever was inside.

She knew it wasn't a noble act to snoop into someone else's belongings.

Still, curiosity arose about what he treasured enough to keep like this.

He probably forgot and left it here.

What could it be?

Giving it a slight shake, she heard the jingling sound of coins inside.

She also heard the clinking of bottles and the rustling of paper.

I should just return it.

Amelia tucked the box under her arm and left the stable.

Then, a sudden thought occurred to her.

"I need to give an apology gift... but I'm worried about what to give."

Starting to talk to herself despite no one being around, Amelia glanced around unnecessarily.

"This is just part of the investigation process to find a gift that would suit his taste."

After a swift rationalization, Amelia slightly opened the wooden box.

And she froze on the spot.

A leather pouch filled to the brim with gold coins.

A bundle of battle magic paper.A bottle of the finest grade Magical Power, sealed with the Emerald Tablet's certification sealing wax.

And Siwoo's Magic Circle design blueprint spanning hundreds of pages.

Amelia set down the items.

Her head felt utterly empty.

It had been a long time since such confusion had visited her.

If she had to describe the degree of this confusion, it might be similar to when she first learned how sexual intercourse between men and women was performed?

The gold coins were understandable.

It was an amount one could definitely save up if they had diligently saved their salary up until now.

Besides, given that Siwoo was diligent, he probably didn't steal this either.

The Magical Power and battle magic paper were also understandable.

While she didn't know the details, Siwoo had recently been showing signs of getting close to the Twins.

If they were apprentice witches from the House of Gemernai, famous for magical tools, it wouldn't be strange for them to readily hand over such items as a gesture of goodwill.

However, what confused Amelia was the blueprint of the Magic Formula.

And not for some trivial life magic like ornamental flame, but a blueprint for a large-scale magic formula.

Due to recently entrusting him with ghostwriting for work or instructing him to create indexes when organizing documents, Amelia remembered Siwoo's handwriting precisely.

It was a bold, free-spirited, and frankly terrible scrawl, manly in its sweeping strokes.

His handwriting densely decorated over 200 pages of paper.

"How...?"

This was the first word Amelia uttered after scanning through it and staring at it for a long while.

Magic Formula was a very complex and highly difficult interdisciplinary field.

Mastery in just one area wouldn't suffice.

One had to be proficient in talents across various disciplines.

For the grammar using 128 runic characters, linguistic sense was required.

For the mathematical formulas to calculate the magic power flowing through the magic circuits, mathematical talent was needed.

For the imagistic geometry that symbolized the mental image one wished to manifest, even artistic talent was demanded.

And finally, the instinctive talent to harmonize all of this, to apply it, and to conceive inspirations no one else had ever thought of.

This was the foundation of all Magic.

Generally, apprentice witches who inherited the 'witch's bloodline' and were born with genius talent needed at least 10 years to learn all of this.

"Just how...?"

And Siwoo was captured and brought to Gehenna 5 years ago.

If Siwoo had been at a level where he could skillfully control these fundamentals, Amelia might have accepted it to some extent.

She might have brushed it off, thinking, 'He was said to be a mathematician in the outside world... if he had stayed in the Mortal Realm, he probably would have become the world's greatest mathematician...'

But what was drawn on the paper was not fundamentals.

It was woven in a bizarre method she was encountering for the first time, forming its own set of rules and adopting its own consistent grammar.

A proprietary method and calculation formula she had never seen even once.

It felt like someone who only knows English reading a poem written in Latin?

Here and there, she could tell how certain parts were calculated, but she couldn't understand what the entire formula meant, what its nuances were, or for what purpose it was created.

If Siwoo had explained it beside her, it might have been different, but the fact that Amelia, who had reached the 22nd Hierarchy, couldn't understand it at a glance...

This meant it was 'innate magic'.

The realm of mastering all fundamentals and pioneering one's own 'Ain'.

Who could believe that a mere slave, who hadn't even inherited a single Brand of the 1st Hierarchy, had accomplished all this?

The world is seen only as much as one knows.

What Siwoo had achieved was something far, far more incredible than what the apprentice witch Twins could possibly comprehend.

Amelia deployed telekinesis.

From page 1 to the incomplete 228th page.

As she connected it all like assembling a puzzle, the faintly emerging image of the magic circle became one and appeared.

Looking at it this way, she could more easily guess what he desired.

Although it was still just a vague prediction, like viewing a picture from very, very far away.

"Absorption and personalization of external magic power, load variable control, and this is..."

A Gate.

An attempt to directly interfere with dimensions to open a Gate was glimpsed.

The true nature of Siwoo's innate magic was a 'dimensional magic formula' that no one had dared attempt since Duke Keter created it.

Amelia could pinpoint what Siwoo wanted.

He was trying to leave Gehenna.

-Whirrrrrrl!

The spread-out papers gathered in order and became a single stack again.

Amelia pushed it back into the original box.

Her head was spinning.

She felt dizzy.

It wasn't due to fatigue.

"Is he... trying to escape?"

It might be a common-sense reaction.

It wouldn't be strange for slaves, captured and brought to Gehenna without knowing why, to yearn for freedom.

If he were to go out to the Mortal Realm...

Amelia shook her head.

She couldn't cite a rational reason, nor did she understand why she felt this way, but she suddenly felt afraid.

She had to meet him.

Magic power swirled at Amelia's feet.

Her body began bouncing like a ball, traversing the Academy.

Author's Note (Author's Afterword)

When I can't think of anything particular to say in the author's note, I use humor.

What happens when a three-legged octopus gets hair loss?

A one-legged octopus.

Since 'two legs' disappear, hahahaha.

Thank you.

#Additional Everyone seems to enjoy my humor.

That's good to see hehe.