Chapter 160 – #34_Redcliffe(4)
#158
1.
Della felt annoyed.
The desire that had flared up so hotly had cooled down as if cold water had been poured on it.
She had been planning to take Sharon to her room and enjoy a wild time, but a pesky fly had come along and ruined everything.
Before Della could recognize the danger of the ribbon, her autonomous defense had activated, so Della had suffered no real damage.
However, that was just the perpetrator’s perspective; the crime of throwing her noble body into the air was severe.
Della was determined to hold him accountable.
“……..”
“……..”
A brief standoff.
It was a kind of reconnaissance where they sized each other up.
Della thought that the appearance of the sudden intruder was not like a witch.
Perhaps it was the armor, but he was well over 180 cm tall.
Moreover, he was wearing full plate armor and a helmet that seemed to have little to do with magic.
If she had to sum it up in one word, it would be a black knight.
That expression would be the most fitting.
But what witch would go around looking so old-fashioned and unsightly?
With such a unique appearance, it was impossible that rumors wouldn’t have spread, so he must be a nobody.
And that judgment gave Della even more confidence in her attitude.
“I am Della Redcliffe. This duel was for a legitimate reason, and I have the right to decide what happens to Sharon Evergreen. So, if you interfere any further, I will consider it a hostile act and use force.”
-Fwoosh!
As soon as she finished speaking, a small flame appeared in Della’s left hand.
The shape, which was barely noticeable, was like a small, faintly burning ember.
However, the heat emanating from it was not comparable to an ember.
It was an ultra-high temperature flame that would not go out until it had completely burned to ashes whatever it was meant to burn.
“………”
However, Siwoo did not respond.
The moment he answered, his voice would reveal that he was a man.
Even if he managed to shake off the witch and escape, the revealed truth would later come back to haunt him.
“Isn’t it okay to introduce yourself? And…”
However, Siwoo’s worries did not last long.
Della’s arm was sharply swung through the air.
Something was coming.
-Clang!
Before Siwoo, who thought that, could even take a defensive stance, he felt a sharp pain and a delayed heat on his forehead.
His neck snapped back, and he felt the helmet that had been covering his face fly off and his bangs singe.
“Ugh!!!”
He had been mistaken.
His opponent was a witch who could knock down Sharon without a single scratch.
She was not an enemy he could afford to deal with carelessly while deciding whether to run or fight.
“It’s polite to show your face when you meet someone for the first time…”
Her hair and eyes, which resembled a blazing fire, and her icy expression, which was the opposite, cracked.
Siwoo belatedly tried to regenerate his helmet with shadows, but judging by the opponent’s reaction, it didn’t seem to matter much.
“A man?”
“Ha… I’m screwed.”
“Are you a man who uses magic?”
Judging by the size of his magical power, she had thought he was around the 14th or 15th level, but she never imagined that he would turn out to be a man.
Della tilted her head, looking bewildered, which was rare for her.
“I showed you something amazing. Can’t you just let me go?”
In the middle of that, Della’s expression hardened.
Siwoo’s existence was clearly shaking the foundations of common sense.
However, the reason Della’s lips turned down had nothing to do with her magical curiosity.
A man suddenly appeared and shielded Sharon.
It wasn’t hard to guess what that meant.
Someone had already snatched what she was trying to get her hands on.
“I guess she picked up a boy toy while she was running around paying off her debts… She must have a pretty loose crotch.”
The target of her sarcasm was not Siwoo but Sharon, who was lying exhausted on the ground.
Sharon tried to say something but just sighed, as if she had run out of energy.
Siwoo, who didn’t know the details, tried to talk first.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, but I would appreciate it if you would let us go.”
Siwoo raised his hand and showed the ring of the Geminai family.
Unlike with Aea, it seemed like he was dealing with someone who could be reasoned with, and if that was the case, there was no need to take the risk of a head-on collision.
Della’s ruby-like eyes glanced at Siwoo’s hand.
However, her reaction fell far short of Siwoo’s expectations.
He had hoped that she would at least show some restraint, if not as much as Sharon…
“So? Did you think I would just see a ring and say ‘Okay, I understand’ and back down?”
“That’s not it. But at least for the sake of Count Geminai’s reputation…”
“What about my reputation?”
Della cut Siwoo off as if she didn’t think it was worth listening to.
“It was Evergreen who trespassed on my hunting grounds and attacked first. Moreover, she seemed to be badly injured, so I was going to treat her. And now you suddenly jump in and ask me to hand her over for the sake of Count Geminai’s reputation? Isn’t that too arrogant?”
At first glance, it sounded reasonable, but if you looked at it in detail, it was ridiculous.
She had beaten someone to a pulp and was now saying she was going to take her away under the pretext of treatment?
Besides, there was no way Sharon, who wanted to regain her citizenship no matter what, would have attacked first for no reason.
Even if that wasn’t the case, it was natural to trust Sharon more than Della, whom he had been with for almost a month.
“I will prepare appropriate compensation after I understand the situation later. I would appreciate it if you would let us go now.”
“You can go. But leave Sharon behind.”
See?
Even though he said he would provide appropriate compensation later, the fact that she was so persistent about taking Sharon was suspicious.
Then there was only one option left.
“Then, I guess there’s no other way.”
He would buy time by fighting Della and evacuate Sharon.
He could think about the aftermath later.
The fighting spirit must have been conveyed to Della, as red lines of magical power began to swirl around her.
“I won’t stop you. As you said, I have to consider Count Geminai’s reputation, so I won’t take your life, but I’ll show you what it’s like to get burned.”
-Thump!
As Della stomped her foot, the entire area, including the underpass, began to glow brightly.
The magical power flowing from her brand began to draw magic circles in the air as if scattering them.
And starting from those magic circles, the magical power that had been wandering around the area was instantly brought under Della’s control.
It was an unbelievable level of magical power control and spatial domination.
The thick, sometimes faint, clumps of magical power, intertwined like heat haze, were naturally drawing magic circles in the air.
It was clear that the magic had not even been fully activated yet.
The radiant heat emanating from it was so intense that it felt like it could cook flesh.
She said she wouldn’t take his life?
That was a joke.
Siwoo, who didn’t even have an autonomous defense system, had no way to block that level of heat.
If it was fully activated, he would die.
“………”
However, Siwoo did not flinch or get scared in the slightest.
Strangely, when he entered a battle, those trivial emotions were pushed to the back of his mind.
Moreover, Siwoo was different now than he had been before.
When he fought Aea at Amelia’s mansion or the homunculus at Latifundium, he had to observe how the magic worked and reverse-engineer the form of the magic.
But now, without any prior preparation, Siwoo’s left eye was clearly capturing Della’s magic formula.
The advantage of being able to ‘see the flow of magical power’ was an overwhelming merit in magical combat.
Her magic formula resembled a hearth.
As if she was telling the truth when she said she would fight without using too much power, the simple magic formula consisted of three lines connected in a wide V-shape.
Judging from the shape, angle, and surrounding environment, it was a kind of shotgun that fired flames created by magical power in three successive bursts.
It might not have much power on its own, but the problem was the number of them.
At first glance, there were dozens of magic circles branching out around Della as if they were protecting her.
“Burn.”
-Whiiir!
The magic circles, which were absorbing the surrounding magical power and making a sound like an overheated engine, were activated along with Della’s incantation.
Even if Siwoo focused entirely on defense, he would not be able to block an attack of that scale without taking any damage.
Therefore, Siwoo chose to try to dispel the magic circles before they were activated.
“Bloom!”
“What?”
The black ribbon that had been extending from Siwoo’s back began to weave through the magic circles.
Magic was most vulnerable right before it was fully activated.
Therefore, Siwoo used his ribbon to pierce the ‘core’ of the magic circles that he could see with his left eye and destroyed them as he saw them.
Before Della could even be surprised, the ribbon, like a snake crawling through the air, destroyed half of the magic circles.
Since the ‘particles of shadow’ themselves stuck to the magic formula and induced disability, they were much more effective than dispel pins, which simply created needles of magical power to disrupt the flow of magic.
-Whiiir!!!!
However, it was not possible to deactivate all the magic circles in time.
First of all, there were too many of them.
Therefore, while dispelling about half of the magic circles, he raised a shield of shadows in front of him to protect his heart and head.
-Wham! Bang! Wham!
Before covering his face, Siwoo glimpsed the colorful flames that were rushing at him, filling his vision as if a shotgun was being fired or fireworks were exploding in front of him.
The flames of magical power, scorching his entire body like hail mixed in a storm, scattered brilliantly whenever they touched his shadow armor and shield.
-Thud! Thud thud!
“Ugh!”
However, the shadow shield was not immune to all magical effects.
The sparks, which had already been activated and had temperatures of over several hundred degrees, grazed his armor and burned Siwoo’s skin without fail.
It was hot.
The anxiety that his armor would heat up and he would be roasted like a prisoner in a brazen bull was gnawing at his heart.
“You’re amazing.”
After ten seconds that felt like an hour, Della’s voice was heard.
It was a rare tone of genuine admiration for her, who rarely praised others.
“To be able to instantly see through my relay and dispel it… What are you? Are you some kind of secret magical weapon made by the Geminai family?”
Della’s specialty was fire elemental magic based on ‘spatial domination.’
Unlike most witches who used their own internal magical power to cast magic from within their bodies, Della used magic circles like ‘relays’ to cast magic with external magical power.
Although the precision was somewhat lower because it went through relays, the efficiency of magical power was extremely high, so once she had dominated a space, she could use large-scale magic several times.
“More importantly, how did you do it? I clearly hid it.”
Since the relay system was the basis of Della’s magic, it was no exaggeration to say that the most important thing was to conceal that relay system.
Therefore, when installing the relay, she used one stroke entirely for concealment.
She scattered a heat haze around it to interfere with identification and erase traces.
But this man had brazenly seen through that disguise and attempted, and succeeded, in dispelling it.
It was unknown whether he had an unusually good sense or if he possessed a self-magnetic magic that was specialized for detection.
But it didn’t matter.
She could make hundreds more of these relays.
Della stomped her foot again and installed dozens of additional relays around her.
“Hoo…”
Siwoo took a breath.
His armor had returned to its original temperature, but it hadn’t dried his sweat-soaked body.
As a result, his whole body was drenched in sweat, making it so hot that it was hard to breathe.
However, he could see some chance of winning.
Based on his observations from the previous clash, the order in which Della’s magic was activated was as follows:
1) Install magic circles in the air in advance.
2) Send the magical power of the brand to the magic circles.
3) The installed magic circles move the external magical power.
4) The magic is activated.
Then, what was the way to gain a definite victory?
When he engaged in battle, his instincts always gave him an answer close to the correct one.
This time, too, his intuition was shouting.
Something that Della didn’t have but Siwoo did.
He had to maximize that advantage.
He would use the strength enhancement of his armor to keep his distance and continue the melee.
At the same time, he would use his ribbon to dispel the magic circles floating in the air.
“Hoo!”
Siwoo inhaled.
His leg strength, which had been enhanced to its limit, crushed the soft asphalt like tofu.
Siwoo, who had completely sublimated all that power into a leap, charged toward Della with his shield in front of him.
