City ​​of Witches 546

## Chapter 546 – #114_R’Lyeh Nukelavi (4)

#546

1.
There are many witches who have received direct or indirect help or favors from Siwoo.
So much so that if they heard he was in danger, they would drop everything to come to his aid.

Immediately after it was confirmed that Siwoo had been kidnapped by the Deep Sea Witch.
Count Jemernai quickly formed a rescue and search team, which included Amelia Merigold, Sharon Evergreen, Baron Aveneu, Count Jemernai, and Count Yesod.

It was truly a splendid lineup.
All the witches who gathered to help were Archmages.
Even excluding Amelia, who was a former Baroness, there were three nobles with titles.

It was an enormous force for a team assembled to find one person.

Count Jemernai and Count Yesod, who were too busy with official duties to participate directly, deployed five cargo ships equipped with military sonar in the South Pacific Ocean to serve as search bases, and Sophia, true to her moniker as the Beast Witch, released dolphins and whales to scour the ocean.

Sharon and Amelia stayed on the cargo ships, diving and searching directly.

However, despite these efforts, the search was not going smoothly.

In the first place, she was the Deep Sea Witch, who had been known to be dead for 300 years.
No one knew her whereabouts, and above all, the vastness of the ocean was a problem.

According to the True Ancestor Witch, the Deep Sea Witch’s workshop was a nuclear submarine.
It was not fixed in one place but moved constantly, and according to Clef’s statement, it was modified with an artifact.
It probably had a powerful cloaking function added to it.

Finding a submarine secretly submerged in the deep sea in the Pacific Ocean, which accounts for one-third of the Earth’s surface when combined north and south, was not much different from finding a needle in a desert.

And after a month of not hearing any news about Siwoo, Amelia’s patience was reaching its limit.

After returning from a dive, Amelia, her eyes burning blue, found Clef, who was confined to a corner of the cabin.
Normally, she would not have brought a captured enemy to the mortal realm.

However, at this point, Clef was the only one who had contact with the Deep Sea Witch.
It was inevitable to get her help in some way, so she had brought her along.

It wasn’t a risky choice.
Since her magical abilities were restricted by the chain of subjugation that Sharon possessed, it was impossible to escape in the vast ocean spanning thousands of kilometers.

Clef, who had been idly passing the time while Amelia was diving, looked at Amelia, who suddenly entered, with surprised eyes.

She was an enemy whose life was to be taken once this was over, and even the culprit who had instigated Siwoo’s murder and put him in danger.

But for some reason, Clef was strangely submissive to Amelia, and she was so cooperative in the search that she could be described as obedient.

“D-Did you… get back?”

Amelia, who sometimes ignored her with a vague sense of distance, but sometimes exchanged a word or two, had her pent-up frustration explode, and she grabbed Clef by the collar and slammed her against the wall of the cabin.

“Ugh…! Kugh…!”
“Speak clearly. Are you sure it’s around here?”

She didn’t know what kind of hardships her precious person was going through.
Nevertheless, the frustration and helplessness of not being able to do anything turned into anger, emitting an eerie aura.

“I’m sure! Because we met here!”

It wouldn’t be a lie.
After controlling Clef’s blood, which had been hindering the interrogation, she had interrogated her more thoroughly.
Moreover, the chain of subjugation that Clef was wearing had been further modified by the Jemernai family, who were skilled in artifact manufacturing.

She was in a state where she could not lie.

Nevertheless, the bleak situation where there was no answer raised doubts such as, ‘What if there was a way to avoid interrogation by some means?’

“……”
“I-It’s true! It’s not a lie!”

Clef protested, her eyes moist as if she was frightened.

Since she was controlled by the chain of subjugation, she couldn’t do anything anyway, but more than that, she didn’t show even a hair of resistance.

If she had acted as rebellious as she had at first, or glared with malice, she would have questioned her more persistently…
Clef didn’t even try to remove Amelia’s hand that was gripping her collar.
Amelia bit her lip as if chewing on it and let her go, and Clef was still leaning against the wall, panting.

“……”

It was a waste of time to stay like this.
As Amelia was about to move the ship’s position to explore another sea trench, Clef muttered behind her back.

“…Is he that precious to you?”

That was like pouring fuel on the fire that was simmering just below Amelia’s boiling point.

It was entirely the fault of the True Ancestor Witch that Siwoo was in this situation.
Was it even possible for the person involved to say such a thing?

Amelia, who had turned around with the intention of slapping her on the cheek this time, paused.
Clef, who had shrunk back as if frightened, was looking at her feet and bowing her head as if she was ashamed.

Amelia’s momentum subsided.
She was so dumbfounded that she didn’t even have the energy to get angry.

“…Yes.”
“Bianca was also precious to me. To me.”

The following words were also words that could be ignored.
Depending on how you heard them, they were inappropriate words that could be considered a provocation.

Then, what was she trying to convey by saying those words?
Was she saying that she was glad she had targeted Siwoo because she could indirectly torment Amelia, who had killed Bianca?
Or was she trying to confess that she was making her waste her time with a false confession for the sake of thorough revenge?

“So, are you saying you want an apology?”
“That’s not it, I just… I’m sorry.”

There was an emotion swelling up to a size that could not be ignored amidst the rising irritation and anger.
It was very ridiculous, but it was sympathy.

Bianca was an enemy who had committed numerous atrocities.

She had no regrets about killing the enemy, but ironically, she understood the emptiness and despair that Clef, who had lost her lover, must have felt.
It overlapped too much with her own appearance when she thought she had lost Siwoo.

In addition, it might simply be due to a difference in position, but Clef had never shown any sign of resentment towards Amelia.
Even though she was the one who had finished off her lover, Bianca.

That was why she might not be able to blindly pour out criticism and anger towards Clef.

Just as Amelia, who had ended up in a situation where she could neither do this nor that, was suppressing her anger.

-Thud!

A loud noise, as if something had collided with the deck, echoed throughout the cabin.
The impact was enough to make her think that the ship had tilted for a moment.

Amelia was not greatly flustered.

This pattern of magic was from someone she already knew, and there couldn’t be many witches with this level of ability.
The presence that landed on the deck was approaching Amelia without any sign of getting lost.

-Thump-thump

Footsteps echoed through the ship.
Soon, the door opened, and Siwoo’s teacher and lover entered.

Pink hair as bright as cherry blossoms under a turban and magenta eyes burning.
Eloa Tiferet, dressed in desert-crossing attire, with a cloak and scarf tied to block the sandstorm, asked Clef in a voice that seemed to devour her.

“Are you the True Ancestor Witch?”

2.
With the absence of Duke Keter confirmed, the situation in the mortal witch society had become a mess.

Location Points were attacked and collapsed one after another, and the exiles who had been watching for an opportunity crossed the line and turned into enemies.
Witches who had started conducting large-scale human experiments using magic were also springing up like mushrooms, and even the enemies who had a lot to lose because they had solid businesses were watching the situation and taking bold actions.

Therefore, the branch managers of the Location Points joined forces to prevent the unrest from spreading beyond South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Of course, Eloa played the biggest role in this process.

If she saw a witch acting violently, she would immediately rush to that place and purge them.
If the same incident happened again, she would rush there again and purge them.

Eloa could not completely replace Duke Keter.
It was impossible to eliminate enemies as quickly and surely as she did, showing an absolute difference in power.

And the enemies were clearly aware of that.
Nevertheless, it was true that the purges carried out by Eloa had become a threat.
Even if the probability was not high, the misfortune of having a one-on-one confrontation with Duke Tiferet was an event that most enemies wanted to avoid.

It was a temporary lull, but it was encouraging that the witches, led by the Location Points, had united and secured their self-defense capabilities.

Therefore, Eloa was also supposed to return to Gehenna to recover her magic and spend time with Siwoo for the time being… but.
As soon as she set foot in Gehenna, she received the shocking news that her disciple had been captured by the Deep Sea Witch due to the actions of some random trash that had infiltrated Gehenna.

Her disciple was always getting caught up in incidents no matter where she went, but she had been relieved because it was inside Gehenna, but such an absurd thing had happened.
She had come here without even closing her eyes for a moment to find the missing Siwoo and interrogate the True Ancestor Witch.

“…It’s my fault.”
“……”

Amelia, who had first separated the two because Eloa was about to cut Clef down.
Duke Tiferet, who had been raging as if overwhelmed by emotions, immediately became very dejected and slumped to the floor as soon as she regained her reason.

“If only I had prepared more thoroughly…”

When Amelia first saw Duke Tiferet, she had run away from that spot.

In fact, she still couldn’t treat her comfortably.
In terms of social norms, the two were rivals, so she didn’t know what Eloa thought of Amelia.
But when she saw Eloa shedding tears like beads and feeling upset, she reached out her hand without realizing it.

“Don’t blame yourself…”

She gently stroked Eloa’s shoulder, who must have been shocked by the sudden incident.

“Siwoo… will do well anywhere. He will definitely be alive and waiting for us.”
“Yes, I have to believe…”

Thus, another witch joined the Siwoo search party.