Chapter 818 – #171_Soul Witch
#812
1.
“My dear, forget about what happened today. Absolutely.”
Rinne, squatting in the room, rubbed her reddened eyes.
Suddenly, she was reminded of the first time she had met him.
The sword demon with swords in both hands, creating a world of black and white behind her back.
A ferocious presence that made her skin crawl just by facing it.
‘Ah, I’m going to die like this!’ She had been genuinely terrified.
“……”
“Answer me.”
Rinne, pouting her lips and urging Siwoo, was already a different person from back then.
Even including Amelia, who had gone from a five-year-long nemesis to a lover, wasn’t she the person with the biggest before-and-after gap?
“Yes, I’ve heard the explanation enough.”
“In the dream’s setting, you weren’t my biological father. Really.”
“Yes, you said that too.”
“I just…”
Rinne, knowing it was a pathetic excuse, closed her mouth.
Even if Pandora’s Box had already been opened, it wasn’t like she wanted incest.
She needed someone to act spoiled with to her heart’s content.
More than a lover, she wanted a relationship that would fill both paternal and maternal love at the same time.
The person in front of her was exactly that kind of person.
Because she was too embarrassed to say that while sober.
She just wanted to pretend today never happened.
“…My dear.”
“Yes?”
“The place I hit earlier… does it hurt?”
Rinne, who had been silent, turned the topic, looking at Siwoo’s stomach.
It was the place where her fist had reflexively landed when she was too flustered by Siwoo’s teasing.
“Hey, it’s nothing.”
“Even so… to lay a hand on my dear. I’m not qualified as a wife.”
“Then, how about as a daughter?”
“My dear!!!”
Rinne almost threw another punch at Siwoo’s joke.
She had expected it, but it seemed like this incident would be a weakness that would be held against her for a long time.
Her dear was usually a bland person, like water diluted with water, but he was secretly very playful.
“Rinne.”
Siwoo gently picked up Rinne.
Rinne, as if she had never been angry, nestled into his arms like a docile cat.
He gently stroked Rinne’s fine hair.
Earlier, he had teased her because he wanted to see Rinne’s embarrassed face, but this time, he hadn’t said it with such simple intentions.
“I’m on your side, Rinne. What if it’s a shameful desire to show others? We’re not strangers.”
“……”
It was obvious that Rinne would worry about it later if they just buried it like this.
He wanted to resolve it right here and now.
“You don’t have to make excuses to me.”
“…My dear.”
It meant that he would accept any disgrace or embarrassing appearance as it was.
A relationship that was only possible when there was perfect trust in each other.
Siwoo was saying that his relationship with Rinne was like that now.
Rinne, realizing his true intentions, looked up at Siwoo.
Her eyes were filled with deep emotion.
“It’s okay if you call me Papa.”
Rinne, pinching his arm as if she was annoyed, begged for a kiss.
In a position to receive such excessive love, shouldn’t he do this much?
Rinne, the spoiled child who called him Papa.
It was too cute to see just once.
2.
He tore through the dream with Rinne, who had completely calmed down.
He had fully expected to be sucked back into the dream again, but this time there were no anomalies.
Perhaps, even if she was a homunculus, she had judged that it was meaningless to hold onto Siwoo any longer since the magic had been broken several times.
Amelia, who had already woken up, was on guard, and Rinne slowly got up next to her.
Quite some time had passed in the dream, but only about a minute had passed in reality.
Inside the barrier that looked like it had been manifested by a pig, the lovers who had not yet woken up were visible.
“Hehehe, hahahaha….”
Lürie was giggling and talking in her sleep.
“Hmm…. It’s mine…. To Mars we go….”
Sharon was smacking her lips and smiling happily.
“Oh my…. It tickles~”
Dorothy was also grinning with relaxed lips.
“……”
And even his teacher, who was sleeping soundly without making a sound.
“Oink oink oink.”
The pig-shaped homunculus approached Siwoo as soon as he got up, as if it was happy to see him, and tried to lick his face.
“What the hell, get away.”
“Oink oink oink oink.”
Even when he waved his hand to chase it away, it kept smiling brightly and acting friendly.
Siwoo pushed its face away with a bewildered expression.
“Rinne, Amelia, are you both okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m fine.”
Both of them seemed to be still immersed in the aftereffects of the dream, but there seemed to be nothing wrong with their bodies.
“I should wake the others up too.”
He picked up the red branch and started working on Lürie first.
He couldn’t leave them lying here like this.
He hadn’t just been wandering around in the dream, sucking his fingers.
During his travels through Siwoo, Amelia, and Rinne, he had also roughly completed the magical analysis.
The magnetic magic that the pig was using was a type of mental parasitic magic.
The pig only manifested the magic once.
After that, the spell was maintained using the magic power of the person being affected.
Siwoo just had to interfere in between and cut off the flow of magic with a dispel pin.
He could just crush the pig’s barrier with force.
“Hmm?”
Lürie’s eyes, which had been giggling, popped open.
Lürie looked around in confusion.
“Are you awake?”
Soon, Lürie’s face turned pale as she grasped the situation.
“Where is my carrier fleet?”
“You don’t have one yet.”
“What about the Nukelavi dynasty that conquered the world?”
“……”
Siwoo smiled wryly.
He could guess what kind of dream she had.
“Heeheehee… Is it, is it all a dream…? This can’t be… The reconstruction of the thousand-year dynasty… This can’t be…”
Lürie began to shed tears like chicken droppings with a deeply disappointed expression.
It seemed like she had been quite immersed in the dream.
The next person to wake up was immediately decided.
Dorothy was better at comforting Lürie than Siwoo.
“Hmm…. Honey? Is it time to go to work already?”
“Yes, it’s time to go to work.”
Dorothy, who had been smiling contentedly and sleeping soundly, seemed to have grasped the situation as soon as she woke up.
After looking around for a moment, she laughed in a hollow manner.
“Ugh…! It was a fun experience.”
Dorothy stretched and yawned.
Unlike the others, she seemed to have the least aftereffects.
He asked out of curiosity.
“What kind of dream did you have?”
“I’m not going to tell you~ A woman needs to have mysterious secrets to be more attractive, right?”
She gave a bitter smile that was hard to understand, and then went to comfort Lürie, who was wailing.
As soon as Lürie found Dorothy, she hugged her.
“Dorothy…. Dorothy…”
“Oh my, oh my, our queen~ Come here.”
“Sniff… This is too cruel… My dream, my kingdom, my fleet…”
“You’ll get wrinkles on your pretty face. Here, blow your nose.”
Lürie blew her nose hard into the handkerchief Dorothy handed her until it made a ‘paaeng’ sound.
They were always such a good aunt-niece pair.
Next was Sharon.
As soon as Sharon woke up, she showed tears no less than Lürie.
Sharon said that she had a dream of building a huge corporation and spending money like crazy.
“So, it was just a dream? Not like a prediction of the future or anything?”
“…No, but you never know what will happen in the future.”
“Sniff… Then I should have spent even more… Ugh, ugh, it’s so unfair…!”
Sharon, who was still lying face down and hitting the ground, looked pathetic.
Siwoo ended his consolation by patting Sharon’s back.
The last one was his teacher.
Unlike when he woke up the other lovers, his heart felt a little heavy.
Having been with Elloah for a long time, he could roughly guess what kind of dream she was having.
It would have been better to let her have a good time in there, like with Amelia….
But he couldn’t leave her like this.
Even though he knew that the pig and its magic weren’t dangerous, there was no guarantee that it would be safe in the future.
He was about to try to dispel it with the red branch.
-Kiiiiiing!
With a sharp sound, the tip of the spear bounced off.
A pinkish-purple spark of magic rushed towards Siwoo.
“Ugh!”
It wasn’t very fast, so he managed to dodge it by turning his head, but a few strands of his hair were cut off.
The sharp projectile that grazed his temple cut off the branches of the larch tree with a thud.
“Siwoo!”
“My dear!”
Even in the midst of the chaos, the lovers, who had sensed the magical waves, rushed over in surprise.
Around Elloah’s body, semi-transparent rings with ancient runes were spinning.
Their identity was Elloah’s autonomous defense, which had been activated to the highest level.
It was the first time he had seen it activate like this towards Siwoo.
“Why is the autonomous defense…?”
His teacher was still asleep, and the autonomous defense was still activated.
Everyone’s faces immediately turned serious.
Among them, Siwoo, who could infer the details more accurately, narrowed his brow even further.
For someone, a sweet dream would be a happiness they would never want to wake up from.
And he knew how many wounds his teacher, who seemed perfect on the outside, had.
And how tender her heart was.
“Let’s take care of that pig first.”
“Oink?”
He had roughly figured out how the homunculus’s magnetic magic was activated, but he thought that his teacher might open her eyes if he cut off the source of the magic.
If he was lucky enough to get the Gnosis’s egg, he could get her out of the dream even more safely.
Just as the homunculus’s body, sensing the danger, began to glow.
“You shouldn’t do that.”
A third party’s voice echoed with the sound of stepping on a broken branch.
“It’s not a wise choice.”
What emerged from the dark bushes was a woman dressed in a way that would make anyone shout, ‘She’s a witch!’
And not a Gehenna-style witch reinterpreted with a modern sensibility, but a completely old-fashioned witch outfit.
Her black, curly hair, which was completely disheveled and reached her ankles.
The dark circles under her eyes, which were tattooed like tattoos, added to her gloominess.
It was a bit rude, but it was amazing how she could waste such an outstanding ethereal appearance in such a way.
“Who are you?”
“The person you’ve been looking for. Nice to meet you, I’m Gretel Nephtys.”
The ‘Soul Witch’ answered in a very gloomy tone and offered a handshake.
