City ​​of Witches 638

Chapter 638 – #129_City Of Night

#638

1.
“When are they coming?”

The Silent Witch glanced at the pocket watch hanging from a silver chain inside her cloak, then looked at the portal.
It was a portal leading to ‘Hexennacht,’ which had become both a means of escape from this desert and a new haven.

Sweat of impatience trickled down her forehead.
The agreed time was five minutes, but she hadn’t expected them to take the full five minutes.

After all, who was the Sword Witch?

Back when Qliphoth was at the height of its fame.
That is, even when they might have won the war against Gehenna if not for Keter, she was a powerful figure who made a name for herself.
It didn’t make sense for such a Linne to be held up by a mere first-generation male witch.

She had worked with the Sword Witch for quite some time, so she had seen her in battle a few times.
She would suppress her opponent by stealing the color of their magic, and she herself would become stronger in that space.
It was the ultimate one-pattern that she couldn’t think of a countermeasure for, no matter how many times she considered it.

The Silent Witch thought that no one but Duke Erelim, known as the highest-ranking witch besides Keter at the moment, could face Linne…

But she had seen it.
She had seen Duke Tiferet calmly parrying Linne’s fierce slashes, which were enhanced by the combined attacks of the Corpse Witch and the Silent Witch.

Of course, Linne had also held back at that point, but she could confirm that the Duke’s strength, which had been kept hidden despite his numerous achievements, was not a lie.

If a fully powered Duke Tiferet and a fully powered Linne were to clash, the fight could very well be this long.

“I need to be able to see something.”

Currently, the Silent Witch possessed the artifact that maintained the labyrinth.
However, she was not yet familiar with how to use it, so she couldn’t see inside it either.

There were only 30 seconds left.
Just as she was wondering whether to step into the portal first,

“We’re leaving immediately.”

Linne walked out, tearing through the space isolated by the labyrinth.
A limp, bloodied man was dangling from her shoulder.
As expected, she had clearly subdued and brought him.

“Why are you so late? I almost left first.”
“There was an unforeseen event.”
“An unforeseen event? Well, whatever. You’re here, that’s what matters.”

The Silent Witch, who had been using telekinesis to float the sack containing the three witches she had easily picked up earlier, belatedly noticed something.

“Huh?”

It was Linne’s right arm, which was hanging limply without moving.
At the end of it, drops of blood were dripping.

She hadn’t noticed it because of her black uniform.
The injury wasn’t just a slight cut on her fingertip, but large enough to soak the sleeve of her uniform with blood.
It was on the opposite side from where she was carrying the man, and it seemed to have bled from the inside, so it couldn’t have been from blood splatter.

“What happened? Was there another witch?”
“……”
“No way… You, of all people, in this state. You must have been careless?”
“…You talk too much.”

Careless?
That was absurd.

Linne recalled the brief clash from earlier.
The man who had fearlessly provoked her with a head-on fight, without resorting to any tricks.

Logically, it was a foolish choice to face an opponent head-on when they were fully prepared and ready to counter.
Nevertheless, Linne had willingly accepted the provocation and fought with all her might.
That was how she had always fought.

And this was the result.

She hadn’t been hit directly, but her shoulder had been pulled at the same time as she was slashing.

If she had been just a little slower…
If his left arm hadn’t been strangely duller than the rest, she might have been stabbed in a more critical spot.

If that had happened, what would have become of her?
Would Linne’s sword still have been able to break through the hard armor and cut his carotid artery?

Her heart was racing.
A sensation she hadn’t felt in a long time.
A thrilling moment of competition that made all the hairs on her body stand on end in that fleeting exchange.
Who but Tiferet could give Linne such an experience?

“……”

She had thought he was just bait to lure Tiferet.

A man personally trained by Tiferet.
He had only become a witch recently, yet he possessed such strength.
He might be more useful than she had thought.

“Let’s go back.”
“What are you saying, after being so late… I’m already done preparing?”

The Silent Witch and Linne each took their spoils and stepped into the portal.

2.
With the absence of Duke Keter, who was in charge of the order of the witch society, the tide was changing.

Public enemies were running rampant everywhere, exiles were taking advantage of the chaos to commit crimes and become public enemies, location points were being attacked, and witches were being subjugated by united witches.

As a result, exiles who didn’t particularly intend to cause trouble gathered around location points, and witches who had been in the mortal realm returned to Gehenna.

However, it wasn’t just the witches of Gehenna and the location points who were moving in preparation for this chaos.
Exiles and public enemies of other inclinations were also preparing for the new situation.

Just as there was a pattern to even a vortex, the witch society had maintained itself like an order within chaos.

If Keter, the greatest axis of that order, could no longer move, then the chaos so far would be nothing more than a prelude.
Everyone was sensing that a change of a scale incomparable to anything that had happened so far would soon arrive.
That the law of the jungle was no longer the only answer.

‘Hexennacht’ was also part of that preparation.

The members of Qliphoth, who had been weeded out and only the elite remained, had reunited with the goal of preparing for the change.

In order not to be left behind by the turning point of history.
Rather, to ride the torrent of change and be reborn as a new ‘rule.’
They had put aside their previous conflicts and created a huge pocket space like Gehenna to build their own society.

This structure guaranteed a certain level of safety.

It prevented subjugation by gathering public enemy forces, who were usually easily defeated individually, in one place.
This was also why even Duke Tiferet hadn’t been able to achieve any significant accomplishments in South America.

If you were to ask why such an obvious idea hadn’t been implemented until now, the answer was simple.
The idea was simple, but the realization was difficult.

Even Gehenna, which had existed for a long time, had major troubles and accidents like annual events.

It was obvious what would happen if a bunch of public enemies who would ‘really do anything’ for magic were gathered in one place.
Furthermore, even if you gathered such witches in one place and said, ‘Let’s all get along from now on,’ they wouldn’t listen.

To coordinate these troubles, Qliphoth controlled Hexennacht in two ways.

They didn’t care what happened ‘outside.’
However, the city was considered a completely neutral zone, and if chaos was caused, Qliphoth would step in and deal with it.

The existence of a safe zone controlled by the easy-to-understand logic of power.
This alone was enough to attract witches who didn’t have citizenship.

As a result, in just a few months, Hexennacht, where notorious public enemies from the past, exiles who had completely entered the path of public enemies due to this chaos, or exiles who had no qualms about becoming public enemies, were all gathered together, was.

It was truly worthy of being called the City of Night, the City of Death, or a Demonic Realm.

“But why am I here…”

Yebin Smirna sobbed, wiping away her tears.
A Japanese-style traditional house with tatami mats.
Through the half-open window frame, only the dark night sky that would never be bright could be seen.

In the open garden, cherry trees that never withered, in accordance with the owner’s taste, were scattering their petals, but she didn’t even glance at them.
It was because her future seemed as dark as that night sky.

Of course, she hadn’t walked in on her own two feet.
She had been kidnapped and detained for several months now.

When she thought about it, she wondered why she had such a miserable fate.

She had been a normal medical student when she received the mark of an exile and became a witch.
She had been tempted by the idea of being able to cure diseases that couldn’t be solved by science, and had followed her teacher, going around all sorts of conflict zones and doing forced volunteer work.

However, the ideal was far from reality.
The previous Smirna looked fine on the outside, but on the inside, she was a mad doctor.

She had developed a dislike for her predecessor, who saw humans as mere experimental tools, and wanted to use her witch abilities to help many people… but.

In reality, even after receiving the mark, Yebin, who didn’t have any significant combat abilities compared to her rank, had no choice but to choose to be a reclusive witch living in the far north.

She couldn’t do proper research, nor could she contribute to society.
After a while of doing nothing, a dramatic opportunity came.

The Jemenae family had requested the treatment of a human man in exchange for an exile amnesty.
His name was Shin Siwoo.
He was a great man who had learned magic as a man and had stopped an evil public enemy for the sake of an apprentice witch.

“He was great in many ways… he was great…”

Well, anyway.

After the twists and turns of treatment, she had set up a clinic in Taro Town with the support of the city hall.

“Ah… those glorious days I miss.”

After that, every day was a rewarding moment of self-realization.

She had even been praised as a saint for providing free medicine and treatment to the citizens.
She felt a level of self-efficacy that was incomparable to the days when she had to watch Netflix and drink beer in the snow.

However, unfortunately, the city’s support budget was too small to solve all symptoms with magic alone.
This was not because the support budget was small, but because the study of magic itself was a monster that sucked up money.

For example, if you used modern medicine for symptomatic treatment and relief of asthma, it would cost at most one gold coin.
However, if you were to deal with it with magic, you would have to prepare at least one handful of gold coins.

Therefore, Yebin, who had gone to the mortal realm herself to get medicine, had unfortunately encountered a monster she had never imagined.

The Sword Witch.

Yebin, who had memorized the public enemy list to survive since she had been hiding in the mortal realm, knew.

A battle maniac who even public enemies who were confident in their skills didn’t want to turn into an enemy.
A killer who had killed so many people that she couldn’t even count them.
When she had met her, she had thought she was going to die, but whether it was a misfortune or a blessing, she hadn’t been killed.

However, she had been brought to this Hexennacht and confined to a luxurious mansion with a strong Eastern-style feel.

After that, they had provided her with a workshop and had given her enough food and clothing.
They hadn’t particularly restricted her freedom either.

After thinking about it carefully, she seemed to be treated as a spare potion.

But no matter how good the treatment was, for Yebin, who was trapped in a city full of public enemies and aspiring public enemies, it was a tragedy in itself.
She was counting the days until she could find an opening and escape the city.

“It’s far, far away…”

However, even though she was a 19th-rank witch, she was truly a ‘healing witch’ who could only ‘heal,’ Yebin Smirna.
She was already sweating just trying to get out of this mansion, and now she was supposed to film a spy thriller in a city full of flying witches?
It was impossible from the start.

“I wish a prince would come and save me…”

Just as she was lamenting,

-Bang!
“Eek!”

The door burst open, and the taciturn witch, the owner of the house, Linne Samakiel, appeared.
She was someone she had been with for months but hadn’t had a proper conversation with.

“Doctor, come with me.”
“Yes?”

She didn’t even have time to be properly surprised.
She had just thrown out her business and turned away.
Yebin, who had been in a daze for a while, belatedly followed her.

She followed her strangely hurried footsteps down a corridor full of sliding doors.

-Slide

Linne opened the door and Yebin stepped inside.
A man was lying on a soft futon on the tatami floor.

“Heal him. If you fail, you die too.”

It was Shin Siwoo, with a pale complexion as if he were about to die.