City ​​of Witches 1085

Chapter 1085 – #258_Return (2)

#1079

1.
Gehenna was buzzing.

Sharon Evergreen had returned with tremendous news.

“Did you hear about it?”
“They say Baron Shin Siwoo did something big again?”

The first Red Roof Salon.

This community of high-ranking witches could be described as patriotic conservatives.
They were proud and felt a sense of belonging as citizens of Gehenna, and at the same time, they were very conservative orthodox witches.

For them, the preemptive attack by the Lehar Group, affiliated with Hexennacht, was an outrageous act of provocation.
Some were even ready to retaliate directly, despite Duke Erelim’s request to refrain.

“A frontal invasion. That’s quite a comeuppance.”
“I heard they shut the place down completely?”

In the midst of all this, Gehenna’s Baron Shin Siwoo stepped up and carried out a massive retaliation.
He boldly stepped into the heart of enemy territory and gave them a big middle finger.

“His guts are something else.”
“Honestly, I was a bit annoyed after the last Dandelion Knight incident, but this is… I’ll acknowledge him as a Baron!”
“They said he was a 22nd tier, and it wasn’t a lie? But can a 22nd tier do that?”
“He’s always doing unbelievable things, but I heard another witch helped him this time, so I guess that explains it.”
“Ah, the… Acorn Witch?”

The witches were in a festive mood, enjoying the refreshing news.

Smiles didn’t leave their faces, and their inner affinity for Shin Siwoo was growing rapidly.

At that moment, Sharon, who had just returned after closing the ‘door,’ stood before Albireo.

“Ms. Sharon. You did a very dangerous thing well.”
“Hehe, it turned out that way.”

Although Sharon wasn’t a subordinate of the Jemina Count family, it was true that the Count family was supporting Siwoo and his lovers in every way.
Albireo, who heard the news from Sharon first, had a slightly bewildered expression.

When Dorothy died, and Shin Siwoo went out with a lotus flower to revive her, Albireo felt like his world was collapsing.

Wasn’t there a limit to recklessness?

He was already worried about what dangerous things his son-in-law, who didn’t seem to value his one and only life, would do. Then Sharon returned with her report.

It was a series of unbelievable events.

“To sow discord between the Lehar Group and the Solidus Trading Company, completely ruining their relationship, and on top of that, such a great achievement….”

Even with L’Riel and Sharon as his helpers, it was an unbelievable feat.

Moreover, according to Sharon, Siwoo had done most of it himself.
To make up for his lack of power with strategy and achieve this much, was he really the same slightly clumsy womanizer son-in-law?

“Hehe, hehehe….”
“Ms. Sharon…?”

Albireo tilted his head, looking at Sharon, who was giggling.

Even if she had returned with a victory, Siwoo was still in a dangerous battlefield.
Yet, she was smiling like that.

It didn’t seem like the reaction of Sharon, who was known to be somewhat soft-hearted.

Sharon twisted her body and said shyly.

“Actually, my epithet is a bit… you know.”
“…Ah, right.”
“The Acorn Witch is, how should I put it, a bit too pathetic….”

There were two types of titles in the witch society.

For example, if ‘Marygold’ is the witch name of Amelia Marygold, then ‘Perfume Witch’ is her epithet.

However, this epithet was not something one gave oneself.
Like a nickname in a martial arts world, it was given by others.

Originally, Sharon’s epithet was ‘The Witch of the Five Elements.’
It was a pretty good epithet with a nice ring to it.

However, after a grand experiment failed, she was burdened with massive debt and was kicked out into the mortal world. Sharon’s epithet became ‘The Acorn Witch.’

The acorns she had grown to an extreme had become a giant oak forest, blowing away an entire village, so it must have been quite an impactful incident.

It was a bit different, but it was similar to how Paola Sochitl went from ‘The Witch of a Thousand Hands’ to ‘The Witch of Cowardice.’

Of course, no one called Sharon ‘Acorn Witch-nim’ because it was an epithet that was practically a mockery….

“It’s been over 10 years! Don’t you think it’s too much, Count?”
“……”

That cute epithet seemed to have become a complex for Sharon.

“With this much achievement, shouldn’t I get a proper epithet now? For example, the Witch of Sealing, the Witch of Divine Punishment, or even the Witch of the Five Elements again. Ah, whatever it is, I just don’t want it to be Acorn.”

Sharon clenched her fist and puffed out her cheeks.
Albireo understood the situation, but he still felt strange.

Even so, Sharon seemed too carefree….
Was the plan really over, and was Shin Siwoo safe now?

As if sensing his questioning gaze, Sharon spoke first.

“Because I believe in him. I believe he will come back safely.”

Albireo looked at Sharon quietly.

Unlike her lively demeanor, she seemed like she wanted to bite her lip at any moment.

Of course, she couldn’t be without anxiety, she couldn’t be at ease.
This must be her way of cheering him on.

Albireo, who had been thinking, ‘Isn’t she a bit immature?’ felt sorry for her.

“You’re right. He will.”

Albireo, her former employer, patted Sharon on the back.

“Sister.”

Then, the door burst open, and Deneb, who was already pale, entered, looking even paler.

“What’s wrong?”

As Sharon had confidently stated, Siwoo returned safely.
It had only been about two hours since Sharon had returned to Gehenna.

He had defeated Herya Valhiri, the leader of the Lehar Group, and Lydia Magnus, the Golden Witch.

2.
After defeating Lydia, Siwoo carried the exhausted L’Riel and returned to Gehenna.

He didn’t forget to retrieve the relic, Mistilteinn.

It was a glorious return that should have been filled with joy.
He should have been greeted by the warm welcome of his lovers and the cheers of the Gehenna witches, but….

The reality was closer to a sewer.

As soon as he exchanged simple greetings with his lovers, who had been waiting for him with worry.

“Cough…! Guweeeeeeek!”

Siwoo vomited blood and collapsed in the sickroom.
The chills and fever wouldn’t stop.

Terrible pain and magical circuit spasms were constantly tearing through his body.

There was no way he could have completely dealt with such injuries and consecutive battles with recovery through ‘distortion.’
He wasn’t an expert in recovery magic either.

What Siwoo had done was only temporarily distort the 100 damage his spirit body had received to about 10 damage.

It was an illusion.

There was always homeostasis in this world.
As long as there was a tendency to restore what was distorted, distortion could not last forever.

Therefore, the remaining 90 damage seeped into Siwoo’s body over time.

It was damage that would have killed an ordinary witch five times over, but fortunately, Yebin and Gretel, who were called the best medical witches in their respective fields, were waiting.

They controlled the damage, which far exceeded the lethal dose, in real-time.
They succeeded in stabilizing the spirit body by treating it on the spot each time the damage was fed back.

After that, he conveyed his well-being to his lovers, who had been waiting anxiously, and then had a private meeting with Gretel.

“To revive a living corpse. I’m amazing too.”
“I give you a thumbs up.”

“Forget that and give me money. There will be aftereffects. We still need to monitor the progress, but for the time being, stop fighting.”
“I’d like to do that too.”

Now that his body was a little better, there was a problem that needed to be solved immediately.

It wasn’t about checking the ‘inheritance’ Lydia had left.
Nor was it about handling the newly acquired relic, Mistilteinn.

The lotus flower that had absorbed Lydia was fully charged.
Dorothy’s revival was the top priority.

“I’ve looked through the data you gave me. I’ve also looked at that terrifying relic lotus.”
“How is it?”

There was no one more of an expert on spirit bodies and souls than Gretel.
It wasn’t for nothing that her epithet was ‘The Soul Witch.’

“That lotus is twisted. How should I put it, the original owner used it so recklessly that the ‘axis’ has been distorted from its original purpose. There’s no way to describe this in an easy-to-understand way.”

It felt like his heart was sinking.

“To put it simply, the revived Dorothy will not be the Dorothy you know. She will look the same, but she will be ‘different.’ Something will be different. She will be twisted.”

The original owner was Aea Sadalmelik.

He had heard from his teacher that she had committed terrible massacres and completed the infinite reincarnation magic, ‘The Field of Higanbana,’ by recklessly manipulating the lotus flower.

Then, was all that suffering, all that hardship and effort, all in vain?

“…That’s what would have happened if I hadn’t been there.”
“Huh?”
“You threatened me before, speaking informally, right? This is my revenge.”
“……”

Just as his head was about to spin, Gretel said in a cheerful voice, as if she was enjoying Siwoo’s reaction.

“I can construct the ‘original form.’ However, if you use it in its original form, the lotus will crumble. Forcibly correcting the already twisted axis and using it will put a burden on the artifact.”
“That means….”
“I can revive her. Exactly as it was originally intended. Well, there will be some side effects in the revival process.”

“What are the side effects?”
“That is….”

3.
Dorothy, who was hugging Siwoo tightly, suddenly felt a sense of incongruity.
It was an incongruity she hadn’t noticed in her sleep, in her drowsiness, in her light body condition.

Originally, Dorothy was quite tall.
But even without heels, the difference in eye level was different from usual.

“But you know, darling, you seem a little bigger?”
“Do I? How much bigger do I seem?”

Siwoo smiled playfully with a sly grin.
He had a look that he was hiding something.

“Let’s see~ What are you hiding? Did you meet a lovely cow after a long time, and did something else grow in the wrong place?”

And Dorothy, who couldn’t stand to lose, used her playful counterattack technique.
Seductive eyes and a sexy lip lick.

“Ah, no! If you take it off, something really bad will happen!”

Siwoo urgently grabbed Dorothy’s shoulder as she tried to take off her pajamas.
An enormous urgency that was almost desperate.

“Wha, what a surprise! What, what? Are we being shy now?”

Dorothy, who thought something big had happened, stiffened.
And soon, she realized the shocking truth.

“My, my, my chest….”

Somehow, her shoulders felt too light.
She looked down and saw that the voluptuous hills that usually covered her feet were now shallow.

“Don’t tell me, I was revived at the cost of my chest…?”
“That’s not it. Come here.”

Siwoo grabbed Dorothy’s shoulder and led her to the full-length mirror in front of the shoe rack in the hallway.

“Eh….”

Dorothy looked at herself in the mirror with an unlike her dazed voice.

She was small.
Not only was her chest small, but her hands and feet were also small.
Her gentle, downward-sloping eyes and her tall height for her age were still the same, but she looked like Dorothy from her apprentice witch days.

In short, she looked like a 15-year-old middle school girl Dorothy.

Only then did she understand why Siwoo had desperately tried to stop her from undressing.

Dorothy, who had been blinking slowly, asked.

“Darling~ What on earth happened?”
“Ah, well, let’s talk about it while we eat.”