Chapter 1160 – #276_Overture(8)
#1154
1.
Erelim walked down the dark corridor.
The beautiful architecture, known to be Keter’s greatest effort, was delicately sculpted even on the inside.
However, the candlesticks lined at regular intervals in the corridor held not a single candle, and the moonlight seeping through the window on one side was the only light illuminating the field of vision.
In this desolate, if not forlorn, space, Erelim felt her heart beating slightly.
There were many things she wanted to ask.
There were many things she wanted to know.
Why, in the end, did she create an order for humans, even betraying the witches?
Why did she choose Shin Siwoo as her successor, instead of herself, who had silently protected this city, swallowing her love and resentment for Keter’s ideals?
And what should she do from now on?
“……”
It had been a long time since her last visit.
Yet, her footsteps, flowing like water without any thought, held a familiarity.
Her feet were heading towards Keter’s workshop.
-Click
As soon as her fingertips touched it after a deep breath, the door opened.
At the end of her gaze was a familiar figure.
There was Keter, whom she had resented so much, yet loved at the same time.
However, her appearance was very different from what she remembered.
No, even the appearance of this workshop itself was very unfamiliar to Erelim.
A huge magic circle was spread throughout the room.
In various places of the magic circle, which resembled an old tree, bottles and packs containing medicine were hanging like fruits.
The amount of medicine being injected was more than Keter’s body fluids, and they were flowing through thin hoses towards Keter, who was sitting on the throne.
Erelim, who was also well-versed in alchemy, was able to grasp their roles.
Each one was a narcotic-level drug that had a powerful analgesic effect on the spirit body, a suppressant that minimized metabolic activity, and the structure of the magic circle.
This was not a measure for treatment.
It was a measure for prolonging life.
Keter was no longer a witch who was far superior to Erelim.
From what Erelim observed, the power she had left was barely at the level of a Great Witch.
If Keter’s past appearance reminded one of a tired ancient dragon.
Keter, with dozens of hoses hanging from her, looked like a puppet dancing on strings, and at the same time, like a white butterfly caught in a spider web.
It was a miserable downfall.
“Blanche.”
After the door opened, Keter, who had lifted her heavy eyelids after a long time, looked at Erelim.
The golden eyes that had shone with brilliance and spirituality were also blurred by the drug.
“It’s been a while.”
“……”
Erelim couldn’t speak easily.
She knew that she was sick, but she didn’t know that she would be in such a serious condition.
At the same time, she realized.
This invitation was not Keter’s invitation.
Keter, even in her hazy reason and worn-out emotions, briefly expressed the question, ‘Why are you here?’
“Where did I put the black tea? Ah, here it is. It’s not much, but drink a lot. So, what brings you here?”
Keter used telekinesis to prepare something with a clattering sound.
It wasn’t the unique way of speaking that she had started using to emphasize her dignity.
It was the natural way of speaking from when the two were sisters, mother and daughter, and friends.
“……”
However, Erelim was dumbfounded.
What was on the table that Keter had brought out for tea time was not a teapot and teacups.
She had just piled up random things like a child playing house.
What is Keter seeing right now?
“Did something bad happen? You don’t look good. Please, sit down.”
She felt dazed as if she had been hit on the head.
She had always dreamed of reuniting.
She also knew that Keter was suffering from an illness.
But she didn’t want such a miserable form.
Erelim bit her trembling lip tightly and sat down in the seat she had offered.
“I prepared your favorite tea leaves especially for you.”
With those words, Keter handed her a bunch of dried mushrooms of unknown use.
“…Thank you.”
“No need to thank me.”
The playful tone came from a distorted expression and atmosphere, where one couldn’t tell what she was seeing or thinking.
She was like a broken tape recorder.
A tape recorder that only replayed past memories and personalities in a jumbled way.
However, Erelim soon composed her mind, which had been in confusion.
She had been through enough partings.
The parting that she had always been familiar with, that she had always foreseen, had just come in a slightly different form.
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Anything.”
“Do you know what’s happening in the current world?”
Keter was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded her head.
“I know.”
“I found out that you created an order for humans. Even making many witches outcasts and killing many of your friends.”
“……”
“I want to ask you why. I have the right to. Don’t avoid it this time.”
As if changing channels, the atmosphere around Keter changed.
Keter, who had been wearing a bitter smile, opened her mouth while stroking the teacup (something she thought was a teacup).
“Yes, I remember your devotion. You repaid me with faithful trust, putting aside your doubts. I am grateful.”
“I don’t need your gratitude. What I want to know is your thoughts.”
Erelim was certain.
Not a performance or an evasion, but that Keter’s mind was not sound right now.
Therefore, paradoxically, she could get closer to the truth.
“Mother always said. We are beings who cannot find the answer. All we can do is struggle endlessly and get closer to the answer. I had to make the witches prosper according to my mother’s words, and in the process, I prevented humans and witches from fighting each other. At the same time, I had to move towards transcendence myself.”
This was what Erelim had guessed.
Then, she could also guess that the order that Keter had insisted on, and still insisted on, was not the result of reason and logic, but the realm of morality and belief.
“But soon I felt the limit. I was branded by my mother, but it was a brand that had flaws in many places, like me now, because she had used her power in so many places. To stand on the rainbow, I felt the need to break free from the shackles.”
Thus, Keter shook off the impurities and dregs of her body.
In the process, Keter’s hierarchy greatly decreased, but she became a being closer to ‘order’, and the ‘chaos’ that was in her became the whispering witch ‘Lilith Keter’.
“Looking back, it was something I shouldn’t have done. It was a futile effort. Since that day. As time passed, I changed.”
This was also what Erelim had speculated.
Keter gave up even her high hierarchy to achieve a higher level, leaving only the order within her.
Perhaps chaos was also a part that completed the order?
Perhaps what was left for Keter was only an incomplete order?
She had thought so for a long time.
She worked for order, even killing her colleagues and her own kind, like a machine obsessed with her delusions.
The conversation so far explains why Keter continued the order for humans, even putting aside her sense of betrayal.
But that was all.
Why did she give her legacy to Shin Siwoo, not Erelim?
Why did she become such a mess that she would collapse without the power of medicine and magic?
It doesn’t answer what Erelim should do now.
“That is…”
“Don’t rush too much. I’ll tell you everything. I wanted to tell you someday.”
The gentle tone blurred the sense of distance.
It was clear that the last time the two had talked so affectionately was hundreds of years ago.
“Yes, after that, I continued to study magic. It wasn’t difficult because it was a path I had already walked once. But soon I realized it. My mother’s serious mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“Yes, it must have been the first time for my mother too. To write a new destiny beyond dimensions. Even the witch of creation had no choice but to make mistakes.”
The gentle tone of her voice rang an alarm in Erelim’s heart.
It was a warning from her instincts, created by the experience of her life, rather than reason.
This was something she shouldn’t hear.
It was a truth that was better left buried, a truth that Keter had hidden until now, and now, because Keter had fallen into a broken machine, the truth that she could carelessly speak was right in front of her.
“All the witches who originated from my mother are failures. None of us can stand on the rainbow.”
To stand on the rainbow.
This is a common expression in witch society.
To become a perfect and flawless being, that is, to reach the 32nd hierarchy, the achievement of the witch of creation.
“Even I, who directly received my mother’s vessel, was limited to the 30th hierarchy. For witches who are not, the 25th hierarchy is the end point. What should I call this… Yes, I can only describe it as a defective product. How is it? Isn’t it fun?”
Keter laughed.
It was a twisted and broken laugh, close to resignation.
A distant despair covered her eyes.
The essence and destiny of a witch is the pilgrim’s journey that ends in death.
To feed on her teacher, and to give the promised despair to her disciple, who is like her own child.
What makes one turn away from that cruelty is the awareness as a seeker who continues the achievements of the witch of creation, and the pride of a witch.
Keter says that all of that is destined to end in failure.
What Erelim, who sought Keter to get an answer, learned was nothing but endless despair that denied the pride she had held onto until now.
