City ​​of Witches 166

Chapter 166 – #36_The Contract Witch

#164

1.
The Altai Mountains.
Meaning ‘Golden Mountain’ in Mongolian, this mountain range stretches 1,600 km from the Gobi Desert to the West Siberian Plain, crossing four countries—Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and China—from southeast to northwest.

A newly formed, crooked river meandered across the vast land, and beside it, sparsely growing birch and larch trees rustled in the fierce wind that swept through the valleys.
The mountain peaks, piercing the eye-searing blue sky, wore caps of eternal snow, and wild goats frolicked on the untamed slopes along the mountain range.

Amidst the grandeur of nature that would make even those who do not believe in gods praise them, a small woman stood.
Despite her mature aura, her appearance was youthful, more like a girl than a lady, as if she had just come of age.

However, anyone who saw her for the first time would take a moment to realize this.
This was because the girl’s hair and eyes were more mysterious than the natural scenery of the Altai Mountains.
Her soft, peach-colored, luscious long hair and magenta eyes were as bewitching as a fox’s, captivating people.

It wasn’t just the girl’s appearance that was bewitching.
This was a rugged area, dozens of kilometers in a straight line from the nearest nomadic settlement.
Yet, she stood on the surface of the icy lake formed by melting glaciers, dressed lightly as if she were out for a stroll, without a proper guide.
The strangeness would be doubled if she were holding a pure white sword longer than her own body.

“……..”

Around her, waves of magical power began to emanate.
Magenta magical reflections clung to the corners of her eyes.
With the dense outpouring of magical power, the mirror-like surface of the water, which had been without a single ripple, was disturbed as if facing a storm.

The otherworld barrier, which began to expand from her in a small sphere, gradually began to devour the surrounding scenery.
10M, 20M, 100M, 500M, 1KM, 5KM, 10KM.
Even if it was an otherworld barrier that Duke Keter had simplified and supplied, deploying it on this scale would consume a lot of magical power.
However, her eyebrows, which were straight and devoid of any cuteness, were unwavering, belying her adorable appearance.

“You’ve come.”

The girl, who had muttered softly, kicked off the water’s surface.
The lake roared and splashed as if a torpedo had exploded.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t any magical action.
The pink-haired girl had simply kicked off the water with all her might.
The sheer leg strength generated was enough to cause such a violation of the laws of physics.

With a single leap, the girl’s body, having jumped across a lake hundreds of meters wide, rushed towards her destination.
Each step she took caused the ground to explode.
Her full-speed dash, breaking the sound barrier, shook innocent larch trees to their roots and shattered the lake just by passing by.

After running for about 10 seconds, she stopped abruptly on a high-altitude meadow covered in weeds.
She had found the homunculus, ‘Red Knight,’ who had been hiding in the sub-space to escape her.

“……..”

His height was approximately 2 meters.
As his name suggested, he was covered from head to toe in a sinisterly dark red armor.
As if recognizing the presence of the girl who had stopped, he glanced in her direction.
Even though he had been injured, he looked completely fine, having recovered inside the sub-space.

Most homunculi are not given names.
Each individual is unique, and once discovered, they are immediately hunted, making it inefficient to give each one a unique name that will never be used again.

So, what does it mean for a homunculus to have a name?
It means that it is a notorious homunculus that has survived for a very long time.
Just as a ‘public enemy’ tag is attached to an exile who has harmed witches and humans, the hideous red-armored homunculus was given the unique title of ‘Red Knight.’

Since being discovered in the Apennine Mountains 500 years ago, he had caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and had hunted down seven witches who had come to hunt him, a monster created by the Witch of Creation.

-Clank!

The Red Knight raised a spear as red as his armor.
At the same time, the eyes that had been hidden under his helmet opened.
Fifteen pairs of eyes, curved in a way that seemed to mock his opponent, were directed at the girl.
Not intimidated in the slightest by the ominous gaze, she gripped her sword.

-Creek!

The grip, crushed by her immense grip strength, made a creaking sound.

“You’re a pain in the ass. Let’s settle this here.”

The girl’s body, gripping the handle with both hands, tilted diagonally.
With the strength that had reached divine power through ‘contract,’ there was no need for human techniques like half-swording.
All that was needed was a preparatory stance to unleash all her power with full force.

“I contract.”

With a short incantation, the fairy script appeared on the side of the pure white sword, beginning the declaration of the contract.

Contract one, increase in full-body muscle strength.
Contract two, increase in full-body muscle agility.
Contract three, enhancement of full-body muscle flexibility.
Contract four, conversion of all paid magical power into a single strike.
Contract five, disregard of the distance between each other.
Contract six, cut through everything in the sword’s path.

With each contract added, the pressure of magical power, which doubled, pressed down on the surroundings.
The Red Knight, as if not intending to stand idly by, pointed the ‘Red Branch’ in his hand at his opponent.

“I will cut you down.”

The girl’s legs, firmly planted on the ground, were as stable as a rooted giant tree.
Her front foot, fixed to prevent her body from floating by bearing her weight and strength, became a pivot, shaking the earth’s axis, and the soil exploded from her back foot, which pushed off to add propulsion.

A strike that seemed to cut through space.
The sword, swung with invisible speed, cut through the air without sound or wind, so clean that it was almost too perfect.
At the same time, a dark red barrier extended from the tip of the Red Branch, which had been facing the girl.

2.
The otherworld barrier, which had been deployed on a massive scale, was lifted.
Each time it shrank, like tightening a noose from the edges, the traces of destruction created by the strike were restored.

The lake, which had been swept away by the aftershock of the sword wind.
The mountain range, which had been cut off like cheese across the range of the strike, all returned to their original state.
What remained after the barrier disappeared was the peaceful and idyllic high-altitude meadow, as usual.
Duke ‘Eloa Tiferet’ nonchalantly reverse-summoned her artifact, the ‘Contract Sword,’ and clicked her tongue.

“Tch.”

She missed again.
The strike that had cut through the Red Knight along with the mountain range, which was easily hundreds of meters away, had failed to penetrate the barrier created by the ‘Red Branch.’

“Was he planning to escape from the start…”

She had thought that he had finally decided to fight since he had suddenly popped out of the sub-space.
The Red Knight had disappeared through a dimensional rift immediately after defending against the strike.

Homunculi have a unique ability to cross dimensions.
During their inactive periods, they hide inside the sub-space, and when they become active, they travel around the world, causing chaos.

In particular, the ‘Red Branch’s’ ability to distort allowed him to use his means of escape more precisely, and the Red Knight, being humanoid, was intelligent enough to use it very effectively.

This was the reason why Eloa had not been able to take his head, despite clashing with the Red Knight seven times and winning all seven times during her year-long pursuit.
Even if she won the fight, he would scurry away if she gave him even the slightest opening.

This time, her month-long ordeal in the rugged terrain had become meaningless, but Eloa did not express much annoyance.
She could just chase after the escaped prey again.
Generally, it would take an enormous amount of time to track down a specific homunculus in this vast world, but Eloa’s case was a little different.

She had prepared a means of tracking him after their fifth clash.
She had used one of her twelve ‘contracts’ to end a contract with the Red Knight.
The content of the contract was ‘to be able to determine each other’s location.’
Therefore, Eloa could vividly sense the presence of the Red Knight, who was far away.
Although there was an error margin of several tens of kilometers, it was already a hope just to have the search area narrowed down.

Based on her experience hunting hundreds of homunculi, there were limitations to a homunculus’s spatial jump.

There was a cooldown period, and the cooldown period became longer as the distance of the jump increased.
The Red Knight, who had been jumping through space bit by bit to escape, had escaped a considerable distance at once this time.
In other words, it was impossible for him to sneak away like that for the time being.

Eloa immediately lowered her body and began to sprint.
Her body, which accelerated more and more as she ran, approached the speed of sound, traveling several kilometers per minute.

[Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!]

Eloa stopped running at the sudden sound of her cell phone alarm.
Having lived in remote areas for a while, she had received a backlog of emails as soon as she came to a place where signals were available.

“………”

And upon checking the email titles, the Duke stopped dead in her tracks.

[Lady Tiferet, Ea Sadalmelik, who invaded Gehenna, has been killed by Baroness Amelia Merigold]
[Notification of the death of public enemy Ea Sadalmelik]
[Sadalmelik’s death]

Dozens of emails with similar content had arrived.
Duke Tiferet was the founder of location points all over the world, and as such, all information about homunculi and public enemies gathered to her.
Moreover, for Eloa, who was burning with the desire to get rid of Ea, reports about Ea took precedence over any other matter.

There were dozens of emails, but they all meant the same thing.
The public enemy who had killed Eloa’s apprentice witch 100 years ago, Ea Sadalmelik, was dead.

Dead?
That cockroach-like woman who kept running away.
That woman who wouldn’t be satisfied even if she was chewed to death from her fingertips.
She just died?

Eloa felt the string that had barely been holding her together snap.

At the same time, two scenes flashed in her mind.
Her own appearance, having allowed her apprentice witch ‘Lafi,’ who had been begging to be allowed to play, to go to the mortal realm.
Her own appearance, wailing as she hugged Lafi’s body, which was growing cold in a shabby warehouse.

She had sworn an oath that day.
To live in order to take revenge on the evil enemy who had killed her innocent apprentice witch and stolen her vessel.

But her revenge was over.
No one can hold a dead person accountable.
Without any atonement, without any requiem.
She had been robbed of the right to burn with emotion, the right to be truly angry, and it had suddenly ended.

“Lafi… Lafi….”

Eloa, whose legs had given way, collapsed to the ground and called out the name of her beloved disciple.
After muttering blankly for a while, Eloa barely managed to get up.

Nothing was certain yet.
It might just be a rumor.
She had to determine the truth immediately.
Eloa took out her citizen ID to return to Gehenna, injected magical power into it, and then threw herself into the nearby blue river.

=====

I received fan art after a long time!

The identity is… Della Redcliffe, drawn for the second time by the mentally-broken artist!
I’ve felt it before, but I think they are really good at drawing slightly scary women!
You can check out another piece of fan art in the fan art gallery in the notice.
Thank you again so much!!!