City ​​of Witches 134

Chapter 134 – #29_Clean Up (4)

#132

1.
“I want you to return to the mortal realm.”

Siwoo, now alone with Albireo, was met with her firm words as soon as Deneb left.

“To be more specific, please consider the option of ‘staying with the Geminae family as a retainer,’ which Deneb suggested, as nonexistent.”

Was it just his imagination that the favor she had shown him seemed to have cooled slightly?
With the newly received information not yet fully processed, Siwoo looked at her face.

“Why is that?”

In just over thirty minutes, his face looked incredibly tired.
Albireo opened her mouth.
At the same time, Siwoo’s left eye caught the surrounding mana fluctuating.

“What did you do with Odile tonight?”

Instant focus.
His concentration, spreading from his left eye, perceived everything happening around him in slow motion.
The surrounding mana fluctuated as if in response to Albireo opening her mouth.
Her voice, through her breathing, intonation, pronunciation, and pitch, was realized as a kind of magic formula.
The air from her lungs, vibrating her vocal cords, fused with the surrounding mana, forming very fine black feathers.

As the dozens of feathers created flew towards Siwoo, his left eye glowed.
Siwoo instinctively raised his hand and brushed them away.
His hand, surrounded by mana so faint it was invisible, scattered the feathers and dispelled them.
The reason he bothered to cast dispel was because he instinctively knew the nature of the magic Albireo was using.

At this timing, if she were using magnetic magic, there was only one use for it.
Probably the Confession Poem.
He wanted to avoid blurting out everything that had happened with the twins.

“Huh?”

That was the first time Siwoo had heard such bewilderment from Albireo.
Albireo stared with wide eyes as the Confession Poem was scattered.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The Confession Poem that Albireo used was on a level that couldn’t be compared to the twins’.
It was that subtle, that natural, and that difficult to break.
It wasn’t something that could be defended against simply by plugging your ears and blocking out the sound.
But Siwoo had immediately sensed it and had also cleanly scattered the formula’s structure without any fuss.

“How did you do that?”
“Uh, I did it without thinking…”
“I asked how you did it.”

To dispel magnetic magic on the spot, no less.
As someone walking the path of magic, how could she not be curious about how such a thing was possible?

“I just brushed away the magic formula that I saw.”
“…Siwoo, you never cease to amaze me. You could see my magnetic magic?”
“Yes. Ever since my body recovered… I can naturally see the flow of mana.”

Albireo was lost in thought for a moment.
He could see the flow of mana?
Could he dispel magnetic magic simply by being able to observe the flow of mana?
That couldn’t be.

He was misunderstanding his mysterious left eye.
He would realize it soon enough.
Albireo felt a surge of academic curiosity about magic, like an impulse.

For a witch, academic curiosity was a natural and intense desire, like a human’s appetite, lust, or need for sleep.
But she suppressed that impulse.
This place was not for her magical research.

“I’m sorry for suddenly using magic. It seems like you’re hiding something instead of being honest.”
“……..”

Still, to suddenly use such a terrible magic like the Confession Poem.
Once with Odile, once with Odette.
Having already experienced it twice, Siwoo didn’t want to experience that magic again.

“Siwoo, you had a physical relationship with our twins, didn’t you?”

As expected, the intuition of a witch who had lived for over a hundred years, and a mother’s intuition, was not something Siwoo could easily deceive.
The fact that she had immediately used magic meant that she had already detected enough suspicious circumstances.
With her suspicions already strong, Siwoo decided there was no need to lie and go against her judgment, and he nodded.

“Yes, but I can explain everything.”

He had been caught in the end, but he thought, so what?
The cruel truth he had just learned had brought Siwoo great disappointment.
To be honest, he didn’t think he would care even if he died in this place.
His five-year dream, the goal he had looked to and relied on, had been shattered in an instant.

Albireo looked at Siwoo, who was speaking so nonchalantly, and closed her eyes tightly.
Wasn’t this something she had already sensed?

After Siwoo had collapsed, the twins had visited him every week, and the way they looked at him with such affection, she didn’t think it was just because he was the benefactor who had saved their lives.
Albireo had expected that there was some kind of relationship she didn’t know about.

“Haa…”

Nevertheless, she calmed the anger that had suddenly risen the moment she heard the confirmation and cooled her head.
When Albireo opened her eyes again, her pupils were clear, with no trace of anger left.

“I already know that Siwoo is a sincere and righteous person. There’s no way such a person would have approached an apprentice witch indiscriminately. Was it the twins’ curiosity that started the relationship?”
“That’s right.”

Siwoo was slightly surprised that Albireo’s observation was so accurate.

“I’m not trying to overprotect the twins to the point of criticizing the natural feelings that arise between a man and a woman. Odile and Odette are at an age where they will fall in love. If I dare to judge, Siwoo, you are someone worthy of receiving that love.”
“I’m grateful that you understand.”
“However.”

Albireo conveyed her intentions in a stern voice.

“I have no intention of disrespecting the emotion of love itself. I also cannot deny that Siwoo is a benefactor of our family. But before I am Albireo of Geminae, I am the mother and teacher of my two children. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s too dangerous and premature to keep you by the twins’ side.”

Even if she forcibly separated him from Siwoo, if he was inside Gehenna, the twins would somehow go to meet him.
And a busy count couldn’t just stick by the twins’ side all the time.

It seemed that she was currently preventing the vessel from being corrupted through acts of pseudo-sex or other methods (she could guess, but didn’t want to think about it in detail), but a moment’s mistake could cause things to go wrong forever.
Therefore, she thought that the best course of action was to send him back to the mortal realm, as he originally wished, and separate him from the twins.

“If Odile and Odette officially inherit the mark, I won’t need to interfere like this, nor will I have a way to. It won’t be long. Could you understand the heart of a flawed mother for just about five years?”

Siwoo didn’t have any major complaints either.
Even though the twins had started it, he could have refused at any time after that.
In the end, wasn’t it his own desires that had won?
He was planning to humbly accept the decision, thinking that Albireo’s reaction was very polite.

“It might feel arbitrary to you, Siwoo. You were brought here against your will, and now you’re being told to leave against your will. I’m sorry.”
“No, I can understand it well enough. Besides, I would have been dead if I hadn’t been brought to Gehenna anyway.”

A moment of silence.

“Before that, I hope my request doesn’t go too much against your wishes. Do you still want to return to the mortal realm?”
“Yes, I have things I need to do. And things I want to do.”
“Should I say that’s a relief?”
“I guess so.”

Siwoo hesitated for a moment before nodding.
The danger she had mentioned was something that Siwoo could prevent if he paid attention.
Albireo spoke, inwardly showing a hint of apology.

“Lastly, it will take about a week to prepare a place for you to live when you leave and to complete the procedures at the Gehenna City Hall. I’d like you to wrap up your life here within that period.”
“I will.”
“Until then, you can stay at this villa. I’ll try to come back as soon as possible.”
“Yes.”

Albireo went up to the second floor, took the twins, who were sound asleep, under her arms, and returned to the mansion. Siwoo, left alone in the house, took out some alcohol and drank alone until the sun was high in the sky.

2.
He felt the impermanence of life.
The woman he thought was a good person and the first woman he thought he liked was actually the woman he hated so much, and his return to the mortal realm, which he had prayed for while working his ass off for five years, might be the beginning of a new hardship.

“Damn it, did I sell out my country in my past life?”

The living room was dim even in the middle of the day because it was built in a shady corner.
Siwoo sprawled on the sofa, drinking straight from the bottle and muttering to himself.

Next to him were piles of empty bottles.
He had gone down to the basement storage to get some of the beer Odile had bought him, but there were so many expensive-looking liquors that he had brought them all up and was comparing the tastes one by one.

Every single one of them was terribly tasteless and just strong.
But he didn’t know why they were going down so easily.
Was it because his heart was so empty?

Siwoo staggered to his feet.
If he just kept drinking here, his heart would be filled with mold.
Thinking that he needed to meet someone, Siwoo immediately used the portal to head to the academy.
He had a lot of gold coins that he could only use here anyway, and he had been promised generous support even when he went to the mortal realm, so he didn’t really care about the money.

As he walked through the corridors of Trinity Academy, which he hadn’t seen in a long time, and headed towards the east faculty building, he saw a familiar face.
It was Takasho, sweeping the floor as if he were an NPC.

“Oot…! Ooooot..! Ooooooooot!!!”
“Shut up, you idiot.”

Takasho, who had thrown down his broom and rushed towards him with a scream as soon as he found Siwoo, hugged him tightly.
As expected, his strength was immense, and Siwoo almost threw up.

“You bastard! You’re alive. You’re okay!”
“Hey, hey, hey, get off me, you’re disgusting.”

After that, Takasho welcomed Siwoo for a long time, with tears welling up in his eyes.
They couldn’t make a fuss in the hallway, so they moved to a nearby bench and sat side by side.

“I was wondering where you had suddenly disappeared to after getting up, you friend.”
“I heard you visited me often. Thanks.”
“Dude, my friend was on the verge of death, of course I had to go. But I didn’t go too often because I thought you might keep sleeping if you didn’t want to see me. By the way, what’s with the eye patch? Are you Kakashi?”
“I have my reasons.”
“By the way, the witch who treated you was really pretty. Do you keep in touch with her?”
“No, I don’t even know what she looks like. I was going to thank her sometime.”

Takasho, who had initially welcomed Siwoo with joy, seemed to have noticed Siwoo’s subtle mood.
Now that his body was fully healed, it wouldn’t be strange for him to be jumping for joy, but he was very depressed.
And he smelled strongly of alcohol.

“What’s wrong?”
“Something’s wrong. That’s why I’m like this.”

Siwoo poured out everything like he was throwing up.
What had happened with Amelia, the complicated feelings that resulted from it.
What would happen when he returned to the mortal realm.
He went on and on for almost an hour.
The funny thing was that not a single tear came out, not even a drop of moisture in his eyes.

“Oh man… I don’t know what to say. You must be really upset, my friend.”

Takasho patted Siwoo’s back.

“So, even though you’re in this state, is there a reason why you absolutely have to go back? I didn’t want to say it because I thought it might seem like I’m holding you back because of my own selfishness. Can’t you just stay here with me?”
“I still have to see my parents’ faces. They must have been so worried.”

Takasho, who had been trying to dissuade Siwoo, was speechless.

“So what are you going to do? About that, uh, Amelia’s assistant professor thing.”
“I just have to forget about it and live. But she did run around everywhere to save me, so should I thank her for that? Ah, I don’t know.”
“That much of a thank you is okay, right? If what you said is true, you won’t be seeing each other again.”
“I don’t know about that either. To be honest, I…”

He wanted to meet her and talk.
He wanted to ask why she had done that, and what she had been thinking.
He still couldn’t get the image of Amelia sitting there crying out of his head.

And at the same time, he didn’t want to see her face.
Her cold face, the opposite of the warm memories, came to mind.
The betrayal that all those smiles were nothing but deception was chilling.

It wasn’t just the five years that were the problem.
Everything in Gehenna only made Siwoo more confused and tormented.
Siwoo lowered his head and exhaled the thick smoke from the cigarette Takasho had given him.
Tears still didn’t flow.