City ​​of Witches 196

Chapter 196 – #43_Festival(2)

#194

1.
“Cough! Coough! Cough!”

A brief silence fell.
The student who had been swallowed by the piranha couldn’t even scream, their lungs shredded by the sharp teeth, and they died.
Like juice flowing out when a ripe wild strawberry is put in the mouth, beautiful crimson blood flowed from the piranha’s mouth.

“Kyaa!”
“……..”
“What is this….?”
“Did they die?”
“Is this real?”
“Isn’t this a hidden camera?”
“Bullshit, what kind of hidden camera is this? We should sue.”

Even after witnessing such a scene, people just murmured in place and didn’t run away.
If they had heard a gunshot, if someone had been blown away by an explosive, if a robber with a weapon had gone on a rampage.
There would have been a more definite reaction than this.

But the sight of a huge fish crunching and eating a person under the halogen lights of a department store.
The B-grade horror movie vibe was so strong that their brains couldn’t recognize the crisis situation.

But only after seeing the student’s limbs dangling like dried radish greens stuck between the piranha’s teeth.
Only after the terrible fishy smell, which could not be dismissed as a delusion, filled their nasal passages.
Only after the strangely large amount of blood flowing down the chin formed a puddle on the imitation marble.

“Sh, sh, shit, what the hell!!!”
“Kyyyyaaaaaa!”
“Call 119! 112! Call them all!”
“What is it! Why can’t I get through!?”
“Mom! Mom!”

They belatedly grasped the situation.
The men’s clothing corner of the department store became a scene of chaos with screams, tears, wails, and confusion.
Amidst the people scattering like baby spiders, black armor passed by, cutting down the piranha that was the source of the terror.

2.
Siwoo, who had jumped from the middle of the escalator, instantly created a shadow armor and a longsword.
And with his weight and the force of the fall, he slashed the piranha with all his might.
There was a heavy feeling in his hand.

As Siwoo’s blade passed, the piranha, neatly cut in half, fell to the floor, spitting blood.
Even after being cut in half, the piranha’s mouth still gaped and its tail flapped.
Even that sight was creepy.

“Gather here!”

Siwoo called out to the people loudly.
However, the crowd, in a state of extreme chaos, was unlikely to listen to just one person and follow instructions in an orderly manner.
It was a mess.

“What the hell is this situation?”

Siwoo took off his eyepatch and looked around.
It was almost certain that this piranha was a homunculus.
However, judging from the flow of magic around him, this place was not an otherworld barrier.
He also knew from Sharon that homunculi did not bring so many humans into a barrier when hunting prey.
In other words, a homunculus had appeared in the real world without an otherworld barrier and was massacring people.

““Assistant!!!””

The twins came running up the escalator against the flow of people towards Siwoo, who was confused.

“Stay behind me for now. We don’t know what might happen.”

A person had died in front of his eyes.
He didn’t know what kind of threat awaited them.
Siwoo, who had entered a state of combat readiness, realized that he was more calm than he thought.
Even considering the many life-threatening battles he had been in, his eyes, like a veteran, were observing the situation on the battlefield and preparing for variables, separate from the chaos in his mind.

“Can you contact Deneb?”
“No… I can’t!”
“I, I tried both my artifact and my cell phone, but neither works at all.”
“What the hell is this….”

The one piranha that had caused this chaos was already dead, but the air that touched his skin, the atmosphere of impending war, told him.
That it wasn’t over yet.
That it hadn’t even started yet.
Something else was coming.

– Ting Ting Ting Ting Ting

As if in response to Siwoo’s expectations, all the lights inside the department store began to disappear one by one.
No, they hadn’t completely disappeared.
It was just that the amount of light was suppressed to its limit, as if they had sunk into the deep sea.
Since there were no windows in the department store, the entire building quickly turned dark.

“Kyyyyaaaaaa!”
“What is it, what is it? Is it a terrorist attack?”

Darkness leads to fear.
The commotion in the department store also reached its peak.
The commotion grew not only on the current floor but also on the floors above and below the escalator.

“Ah…..”

And Siwoo saw it.
He didn’t know where they had come from.
They appeared, leisurely waving their fins and tails, as if they were wandering around an aquarium.
Dozens of piranhas.

The twins, without being stopped, jumped out next to Siwoo, who was frozen.
Each of them held a finely crafted musket rifle.
As soon as they aimed and fired, two piranhas that had been hovering in the air fell with a thud.

“Assistant, we’ll help too!”
“We can protect ourselves!”
“Odile, Odette.”

It was the musket ‘Janissary’ that the Count had prepared in advance so that the twins could at least protect themselves after the attack by Eia Sadalmelik, which fired artifact magic bullets.

“We’re confident when it comes to hunting.”
“We’ve done it a lot!”

Siwoo didn’t hesitate any longer and immediately created two ribbons and twin swords and jumped into the piranhas.

Please stay still.
Please don’t move.
Siwoo’s wish was in vain, and with the shock of an unspecified number of people, a shower of blood instantly rose.
Just like piranhas that smell blood and swarm to bite their prey, dozens of piranhas began to devour the humans around them all at once.

A student was bitten by the teeth and flew into the air.
Several piranhas swarmed the student, who had been pierced by the teeth, and began to bite them.
Their limbs were torn to pieces, and only hot, murky liquid fell with a thud.

“Kyyyyaaaak! Mommyyy!!!”
“Uwaaaak, what, what are these things!”
“Status window! Status! Inventory! I will awaken my gaming lifeeeeee! Ack! I’ve been bitten!”

At that moment, Siwoo had already cut down five piranhas and pierced them with his ribbons.
The piranhas were terribly weak, but they were fast.
To civilians who had no means of responding, they were no different from wild beasts flying freely in the air.

Moreover, they were so cunning that they didn’t even put up a proper fight, and instead of fighting Siwoo, they were busy enjoying the feast that had been prepared.
Even if Siwoo ran in and cut down a few, the rate at which people around him were dying was much faster.
The twins were also helping by shooting their guns, but it was like trying to stop a typhoon with the palm of their hand.

“Come here! Come here!”

No matter how hard Siwoo tried to call people together, his voice was drowned out by the screams, wails, and the sounds of flesh and bones being torn apart.
Only about ten quick-witted people were trembling next to the twins who were shooting their guns.
In an instant, the entire floor was stained with crimson blood.
Now there was no place to step that wasn’t dark red.
The stench and metallic smell that stung the tip of his nose, the pieces of entrails and severed limbs, lay coldly on the display stands.

“This… this is such a fucked up situation….”

Siwoo felt the blood drain from his head.
It was already too late.
In the 20 seconds it took Siwoo to catch and kill 10 piranhas using his ribbons and sword, most of the humans on this floor had become food for the piranhas.

“Um, excuse me. What the hell is going on?”
“Is this a broadcast shoot? This isn’t a real situation, is it?”
“A, are you special forces or something?”
“Mom… Mom… I’m scared… save me….”

The survivors next to the twins, each in a state of panic, clung to Siwoo, who was wearing armor and massacring the monsters.

What should I do?
Is this even real?
Those things probably don’t exist only on this floor.
Then how many people are involved?
Is there a way to save more people?
This is an incident of a scale that could not have happened without someone behind it.
Whose scheme is this?
What are the other witches doing?
Should I send the twins away first?
Is this an incident that I can handle alone?
It’s so unrealistic.

“….Assistant!”
“Assistant!!!”

Suddenly, Siwoo gasped as he heard the twins’ loud shouts in his ears.

“Get a grip! What are you going to do if you’re spacing out?”

He heard ringing in his ears, and as his blurred vision cleared, he could only see the piranhas looking at him, ready to devour the remaining prey.
Unlike the easy prey, the piranha swarm, wary of Siwoo and the twins who were putting up strong resistance, did not easily attack.

Odile, with her musket aimed in a standoff, asked.
Siwoo shook his head.
He would worry about it later.
First, it was a priority to deal with the urgent matter at hand.

“First, I’ll evacuate them.”
“Evacuate? How?”

He had regained some of his senses.

“I’ll use a teleportation spell. The magic I used to escape with Odile and Odette before. It will take some time, can you cover me in the meantime?”
“Of course, leave it to us.”

Odile said confidently.
In Siwoo’s perception, these piranhas were weaker than the wild dogs he had faced before.
However, their speed was faster than any other creature he had ever faced.
The fact that they were fast and could move freely in the air meant that it was difficult for a type specialized in close combat like Siwoo to deal with them.

On the other hand, Odile and Odette’s shooting was excellent even while Siwoo was fighting frantically.
Even though they were apprentice witches, he decided that he could trust them to take care of it as long as they had powerful attack-type artifacts.

“Everyone, gather in front of me.”
“Explain what this is! Are you a soldier, mister?”
“You can at least tell us what’s going on!”

The survivors, who were in a state of panic in this chaos, raised their voices as if they were trying to argue with Siwoo, who seemed to know something.

“I’m not a mister or a soldier, and I don’t have time to explain, so just gather. I’m going to help you escape.”

However, when Siwoo shook off the blood from his sword and shouted loudly, the grumbling stopped.
To them, the monsters that suddenly ate people and the man covered in blood who was slaughtering those monsters were both equally frightening.
Knowing that, he decided to use it.
He thought it would be easier to control them this way.

“Odile, Odette, please stand nearby as well.”

Siwoo was planning to stay here.
He thought that there would be survivors hiding from the disaster.
His goal was to get at least one more person out of this massacre.
But the twins shouldn’t be here.
As he said, since he didn’t know what would happen in the future, it was a priority to evacuate them and inform the outside world of the situation inside.

However, Odile and Odette did not budge.

“No, we’re going to fight with you, Assistant.”
“That’s right! We’re going to save people!”
“This is not the time to say that! You have to inform Deneb!”
“That’s something that the people who get out of here can do. It’s just a phone call, right?”
“But….”

Odile firmly cut off Siwoo’s words as he tried to explain further.

“Assistant, a noble’s honor doesn’t come from their family name. It comes from fulfilling their duties and responsibilities as a noble.”
“That’s what you taught us, right?”

He didn’t remember teaching them that…
It was true that he was desperate for even one person’s help right now.
Especially since the guns that the twins were holding seemed to be a great asset against the terrible piranhas.

“Okay. Then I’ll prioritize evacuating the civilians first. However, if I see even the slightest sign of danger, I’ll evacuate you two first.”

As soon as the priority of action was decided, Siwoo looked around.
He had been feeling a flow of magic that was completely different from an otherworld barrier for a while now.
A much heavier, dark magic, as if crushed by the deep sea, was circulating throughout the area.
If that was the case, he needed to move them much further, to the outside of this building.

Siwoo handed a cell phone to one of the survivors.

“As soon as you get out of here, please contact this number and this number and explain the situation. You have to do it.”
“Wh, what should I say?”
“Just say that monsters have appeared at COEX.”
“Yes, yes…”

The soldier with a buzz cut, who seemed to be on leave, nodded repeatedly while trembling.
This was not a situation where he could calmly comfort them.

“Odile, Odette, please cover me then.”

Blue circles began to appear under the feet of the people.
Siwoo’s magnetic magic teleportation was about to activate.
With this many people and this distance.
According to his calculations, it would take at least one minute.
It was the twins’ job to buy that time.

The piranhas, who had been observing the situation for a while, had also reached the end of their patience.
As if stimulated by the blue light, the predators were preparing to pounce on the survivors, their teeth clattering.
Siwoo trusted the twins and closed his eyes, falling into perfect concentration.

Odile and Odette were not trembling like they used to.
Before, they were only protected, but now it was time for them to protect their Assistant.

Odile and Odette stood as if blocking Siwoo and firmly gripped their musket rifles.

“Ready, Odette?”
“Of course, sister.”

The twins aimed their guns and pulled the triggers, firing magic buckshot.