City ​​of Witches 193

Chapter 193 – #42_White Knight

#191

1.
Even under the brightest sunlight, shadows always exist in the jungle.
In this regard, the city was like a jungle.
Even in a city overflowing with CCTV cameras and black boxes, there were always bound to be shady spots.

The long, now-abandoned drainage tunnels beneath Seoul were one such place.
They used to serve as passages to collect rainwater and send it to the Han River to prevent the city from flooding during typhoons, but they were too old, and new tunnels were built, rendering them obsolete.

Of course, these old drainage tunnels were also public facilities under the strict management of the city hall.
However, with a little magical manipulation, they could be turned into a blind spot that no one would find, a place whose very existence was forgotten.

-Clack, clack

45 meters underground.
The massive concrete walls, with a diameter of over 10 meters, amplified even the sound of shoe heels.
The walls were covered with tattered, rotten non-woven fabric, and the entire tunnel reeked of a foul, fishy smell from the rainwater.
Della Redcliffe walked through it, relying on a single decorative light.

-Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

A typhoon was raging above ground, so rainwater was likely still gathering like a waterfall in the drainage channels that were still functioning in places.
Della frowned as she turned a corner and entered a dark, massive chamber, the loud sound of rushing water echoing from afar.
No, it wasn’t just the noise that made her frown.

“Haa…”

She pushed her proud red hair back and crossed her arms in dissatisfaction.
It was because of the stench of blood that wafted out, mixed with the already musty odor.
When she added a few more decorative lights, the entire chamber lit up brightly.

In the center of the cylindrical chamber was a large altar.
On it lay people, staring blankly at the ceiling as if their souls had been taken.

“This is why I didn’t want to come… It’s still the same, Paula Sochtl.”

Above them, a witch was crouched, expressionlessly playing with a dagger.
With the precise skill of a seasoned surgeon, she was cutting open chests, severing ribs, and extracting hearts.
The Cowardly Witch, Paula Sochtl, with half her face mangled, silently looked up at Della.

“…It’s been a while, Della.”

But that was only for a moment. Paula silently continued to move her knife.
She would extract one heart, then the next, and then another, in rapid succession.
It didn’t even take ten minutes for the 32 men and women lying on the altar to meet their demise.

Della waited without stopping her or adding a word.
Before Duke Keter created Gehenna and made a fuss, human sacrifice and human experimentation were considered normal for witches, and even among the exiles of the present world, it was not an uncommon occurrence.

“Are you still continuing your experiments?”
“It’s all I have left.”

When Paula gestured, the air opened up.
A part of a homunculus’s body, hidden in a pocket dimension, poked out and snatched the remains left on the altar.
The sound of something being devoured greedily could be heard.

“So why did you call me to such a filthy place?”
“We’re friends, can’t we see each other’s faces after a long time?”
“I know you wouldn’t call me for that reason.”
“Haha!”

Paula distorted the intact side of her face as she laughed.
It was a grotesque smile, hardly recognizable as laughter.
When the laughter, which sounded like sand grating, stopped, Paula spread her arms, welcoming her old friend.

“Welcome to my temporary workshop. There are no fancy desserts or fragrant teas, though.”

Della’s brow furrowed.

“So what is it? You never answer when I contact you.”
“It’s to warn you.”
“Warn me?”

As Della looked puzzled at the incomprehensible words, Paula snapped her fingers.
Immediately, the space in the chamber tore open, and a homunculus, bound tightly in chains, appeared.

-Grrr…

A massive red armor over 2 meters tall.
A red spear that looked to be at least 5 meters long.
Fifteen pairs of eyes.
The homunculus’s appearance, writhing roughly as if a praying mantis caught in a spiderweb was trying to escape, was something Della had heard of before.

“…Red Knight?”
“Yes, as you can see, I haven’t completely subdued it yet. It’s an amazing one. Even in this weakened state, it doesn’t even glance at the 50 hearts I’ve gifted it.”

When Paula snapped her fingers again, the space that had been opened like a curtain closed.
Her magnetic magic was used to control homunculi.
Most homunculi would be unable to resist just by making eye contact with Paula.

“As expected, the ones who have lived for a long time have strong egos. They just won’t calm down.”
“That’s not why you called me, is it? It’s always what you do.”

The actions she had witnessed so far were too commonplace to warrant calling Della to ‘warn’ her.
That fact made Della feel a sense of unease.

“Did you see the spear that thing was holding?”
“The Red Branch, you mean?”
“Yes, if we use the ‘distortion’ contained in the Red Branch, we might be able to twist causality and providence. Miracles that ordinary magic can’t achieve might not be just a dream.”
“So?”

Della first calmly listened to Paula’s words.

“But with the methods I’ve used so far, I can’t tame this thing. Even if I forcibly take the Red Branch and try to wield it, I wouldn’t be able to do it as well as that thing does.”
“I suppose not.”

Paula grinned at Della, who couldn’t hide her discomfort as she agreed.
In one eye, curved like a crescent moon, there was an obsession bordering on madness.

“So, I’m going to try something I haven’t tried before. You might get caught up in it, so it’s best if you leave here for a while. That’s my warning.”

Della always felt uneasy whenever she saw her old friend.
It wasn’t just because Paula was a public enemy.
No matter what others said, Della remembered Paula as someone who was kinder than anyone else.
If there was anything she lacked, it was just a little bit of courage.
That was all that was missing.

Della hesitated before opening her mouth.

“Isn’t it time to stop? It’s funny for me to say this, but sometimes you have to give up.”

At the same time, a murderous gaze pierced her chest.
Paula, who had been laughing happily just a moment ago, was now glaring at Della with a chilling expression, as if she had flipped her palm.

Nevertheless, Della didn’t stop speaking.
Even if it was too late to turn back, it was painful to see her friend, who was suffering in pain, volunteering for meaningless atonement.

“Paula, there’s no magic that can bring the dead back to life. Not even the Witch of Creation can do it. Even if you use distortion, it’ll be the same.”
“I don’t need your honest advice. If you don’t want to die, shut your mouth.”
“I don’t want to fight. I just… haa… I’m sorry.”

Della readily apologized to Paula, who was reacting as sharply as a blade.
After all, she hadn’t come here to argue with her.
When Della apologized, Paula didn’t take issue with her words any further.

“Keep talking. So what are you trying to do?”
“That is…”

Paula’s lips moved slightly.
Della, who was prepared not to be surprised by anything, slowly opened her mouth.
She looked at Paula with trembling eyes.

“If you do that… Duke Keter will move.”
“That’s fine too.”
“It’s not fine, if she moves, even you…”

You’ll die.
Della swallowed the last words.
Paula probably knew it too.
Had she found a place to die?
Or was it her last struggle to put an end to over a hundred years of painful atonement?
Della couldn’t answer either question.

“I won’t stop you. But don’t think I’ll agree with you. I’m a Baron of Gehenna, after all.”
“I’m just telling you to be careful not to get caught up in it. Because we’re friends.”

The word ‘friend’ struck her heart heavily.
A brief thought.

Perhaps this was the last time Della would see Paula.
Over Paula’s broken and ruined appearance, the memory of Paula from their time at Trinity Academy, when they used to bicker with each other, overlapped.

“Hoo…”

When Della kicked the ground with her heel, relay circuits spread out in all directions along with the other dimension barrier.
Paula watched the scene with a blank look, as if she didn’t understand what Della was trying to do.

Paula would know.
Della couldn’t use large-scale magic until the relay circuits were fully deployed.
However, Paula thought of Della as a friend, and therefore, she couldn’t imagine that she would suddenly show hostility.

“So you want to do this?”

-Grrr…
-Squeak… Squeak…

Belatedly, the space behind Paula tore open.
From within the pocket dimensions, which seemed to number over a dozen, came the sounds of tearing and the murmuring of monsters.
It was a spectacle befitting the name of a witch who could manipulate the heavens.

“If this is the end, I’ll at least end it with my own hands.”

What Paula was trying to do was neither magical research nor anything else.
It was just a last-ditch effort to drag innocent humans down with her.
If it was a sacrifice necessary for research, that was one thing, but this was just a massacre.
If she was going to be brutally killed by Duke Keter anyway, then at least let her give her a proper funeral.

“……..”

Paula, who had read Della’s resolve, seemed shocked, and also looked very depressed.

“You still don’t understand me.”
“I’m doing this because I understand you.”
“I don’t really want to hear that.”

Paula bit her lip and turned her back.
At the same time, one by one, the homunculi she had tamed began to crawl out.

“Burn.”

Della’s hair fluttered, and red magical reflective light began to paint the surroundings like lava.
Della was already in perfect condition.
Furthermore, this narrow, enclosed space gave Della, who controlled flames, a geographical advantage.

-Kieeeeeeek!
-Kiiiiiiik!

Monsters that looked like carrion beetles, monsters that looked like octopuses, monsters that looked like wild dogs, monsters that looked like Siamese twins, and so on, each tried to respond to Della with various magics, but it was meaningless.
The crimson waves, exceeding tens of millions of degrees, incinerated every enemy that stood in their way into a handful of ashes.

Della, who had already fully activated the deployment, used large-scale magic in rapid succession without even breaking a sweat.
In fact, she hadn’t even used a tenth of her magical power.
The flow of battle, the location of the battlefield, and the compatibility of the two were all smiling on Della.

Before long, the dozen or so homunculi had either burned or melted away.
Paula watched the scene silently, without any sign of regret.

“Why are you only sending out these weaklings?”

Nevertheless, Della frowned.
None of them had more than ten eyes.
No matter how strengthened they were, Paula knew better than anyone that those kinds of weaklings couldn’t stop Della.

“I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For my toy soldiers to be completed.”

Only then did Della realize.
The hearts that had just been extracted and placed neatly on the altar were gone.

“You’ll have fun too.”

At the same time as Paula’s broken laughter, which seemed like she was giving up, came the sound of metal clanking against metal.
From within the twisted, opened space, homunculi in armor began to walk out.
The armors were exactly the same shape as the Red Knight, except that they were entirely white.
Their number was exactly the same as the number of people Della had just used as sacrifices.

“The ‘replication’ of homunculi was completed recently. As you said, there’s no need for weaklings. If you leave just one of the strongest, you can replicate as many as you want by offering sacrifices.”

Della didn’t feel much of a sense of crisis.
Replication?
So what?
Whether she made 00 or 1000, she could just burn them all.

“Burn.”

With Della’s indifferent gesture, flames surged again, covering the armor.
It would be a miscalculation to think that they could withstand it just because the material was metal.
There was no metal that the flames Della produced couldn’t melt.
Or so she thought.

However, even when covered in flames like this, the White Knights didn’t budge.
They held up large shields in one hand and blocked the flames like well-trained soldiers, forming a wall.

“What…?”
“The replicated ones are much weaker than the original, but they still take on the attributes of the homunculus that became the original. You know that the Red Knight has the ‘Guardian of Distortion’ drawn from the Red Branch, right?”

As Paula said, Della’s flames couldn’t even reach the shields.
Like plasma trapped in a tokamak, they just flickered in place, using up their magic and disappearing.
When Della’s flames subsided, the White Knights aimed their spears at Della in a coordinated manner.

“It’s a shame it turned out this way, Della. I thought of you as a friend.”

Paula turned her back, and the White Knights rushed at Della all at once.