Chapter 237 – #54_The Lucky Witch
#235
1.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion.
A harpoon suddenly jutted out from behind Sharon’s back.
It was so bizarre, resembling jagged teeth, that it made both the harpoon and Sharon, impaled by it, look like strange objects.
In the gaping cracks of a reality that was drifting away, a black, sticky emotion welled up.
It was fear.
It felt like my consciousness was trapped inside my body.
Even though Sharon was right in front of me, suffering like that, I couldn’t muster the strength to lift a finger.
It seemed impossible to even breathe unless I consciously made the effort.
-Thud!
Just before Sharon’s body hit the ground.
Siwoo bit his tongue to regain his senses.
Only after feeling the gruesome pain of his tongue being half-severed with a sickening crunch was he barely able to move his body and catch Sharon.
It’ll be okay.
Nothing will happen.
It’s nothing serious.
Sharon, who had been talking so cheerfully just moments ago.
And not just any ordinary person, but a witch, no less, couldn’t possibly die so easily.
If it were the mischievous Sharon, she was surely just pretending to be fatally wounded to tease Siwoo.
“Sharon, hey. Answer me.”
Siwoo carefully turned over Sharon’s motionless body.
Her gruesome wound, hidden by her cloak, was fully revealed.
As the harpoon slowly lost its shape and turned into black seawater, a hole about the size of a ping pong ball was visible.
A deep wound that went straight through from her solar plexus to her back.
The red, gaping wound showed traces of being gouged by a saw.
Pink flesh, muscle, and even the whitish ribs were exposed.
“Ugh… ugh….”
Sharon’s body was trembling due to shock.
He remembered hearing that when someone suffered a penetrating wound, you shouldn’t remove the object that caused it.
Because it would be impossible to stop the bleeding.
Every time Sharon’s body convulsed, a handful of blood gushed out.
Like a broken sprinkler, her heart pumped out blood with every beat.
Siwoo tried to block it haphazardly, but only bright red blood spurted through his fingers.
Siwoo watched the scene as if he were dreaming.
Sharon was dying?
His body trembled.
The blood from his half-severed tongue filled his mouth, but the air was already so full of the smell of blood that he couldn’t tell whose it was.
“Ah…..”
Until now, he had been so arrogant.
Just because he had taken down a few homunculi.
Just because he had luckily defeated Della once.
Just because he had received a compliment that his skills had improved dramatically.
He had been so conceited, acting as if he were someone great.
And the price of that carelessness was right here in front of his two hands.
Sharon, dying and spitting up blood, seemed to be mocking Siwoo.
This was the reality you were in.
The price of negligence is right before your eyes.
The peace you had enjoyed was nothing more than a brief respite within a fence.
He couldn’t do anything.
Normally, he would have been furious.
He would have stood up with the sole determination to defeat the homunculus in front of him and save Sharon, no matter what.
However.
When he met the bulging eyes of the drowned witch, all his fighting spirit vanished.
The dark seawater that had risen to Siwoo’s waist broke the very foundation of his will to fight.
The armor of shadows scattered.
The armor that had always given him a final move in the worst situations fell away powerlessly.
Siwoo simply hugged the bloodied Sharon.
-Clang!
Various weapons floated to the surface of the water.
Anchors and chains, ropes and harpoons.
The blade of a guillotine, widened slightly, filled the room.
“You shouldn’t look too deeply into the darkness.”
At first, he thought it was a hallucination.
Because he hadn’t even considered the idea of a third helper.
A person who has lost all their wit and fighting spirit in despair doesn’t suddenly seek hope.
Moreover, the voice was so relaxed and calm that it didn’t fit this tragic scene at all.
“The image of the monster rippling on the black surface is ultimately derived from human fear. The homunculus born from fear becomes stronger the more fear it consumes.”
A witch had appeared out of nowhere.
Her navy blue hair flowed down to her hips like part of her dress, and her same-colored eyes pierced through the enemy without a hint of wavering.
Despite wearing a baggy bathrobe, her seductive figure and the beauty mark that oozed sex appeal couldn’t be hidden.
It was the witch who had openly flirted with Siwoo at the rendezvous point before.
‘Cybele Periwinkle’.
“Therefore, the more a witch has experienced the fear of death, the less they can cope with a drowned witch. The imagination of someone who knows fear is deeper and more intense than that of someone who doesn’t.”
Periwinkle, holding a pure white rapier in one hand, calmly stepped between the two and glanced at Siwoo.
It wasn’t a look of pity or sympathy.
Her calm, analytical gaze looked down at Siwoo with an air of interest.
“You seem to have experienced death too closely.”
“Help… me…. I’m okay… but… Sharon….”
Siwoo pleaded earnestly, rolling his tongue that was numb and swollen and didn’t move well.
The only thought his paralyzed mind could muster was that.
The erosion of drowning had already reached the end of his spirit.
“I don’t usually get involved in these kinds of troubles. But since I’m interested in you, I’ll help you out.”
As Periwinkle flicked her hand, a four-leaf clover fluttered down and landed on Sharon’s body.
“That should prevent it from getting fatally worse.”
After finishing the first aid, Periwinkle elegantly pointed her rapier at the drowned witch.
But even to Siwoo, who was almost a beginner in martial arts, the stance was clumsy.
Even if she were holding a wooden stick instead of a rapier, if she took the right stance, it would be more intimidating than that.
However, Periwinkle smiled very calmly.
“Anyway, I should take care of this annoying business quickly.”
The drowned witch, who had hesitated at the appearance of the sudden intruder, seemed to have no intention of giving any more leeway.
It opened its mouth wide, making a bizarre and repulsive expression.
-Kuuuuu
The entire room trembled, making a strange sound.
As expected of a homunculus with a lot of battle experience, it knew how to maximize its strengths.
Horrifying weapons that defied common sense.
An appearance that caused physiological disgust and fear just by looking at it.
The rising seawater and the rusting scenery around them.
It was intentionally inducing fear.
It was a rather unremarkable tactic that forcibly widened the fear in their hearts, making itself stronger and the opponent weaker.
At least for Periwinkle.
“You’re truly hideous. Just having you in front of me is disgusting.”
As if responding to the insult, weapons swirled like a storm from all directions.
Six anchors simultaneously cut through the air with a menacing sound, and harpoons shot diagonally from the surface of the water towards Periwinkle.
In the face of that storm of destruction, Periwinkle did something very simple.
She didn’t raise her magic power or create a cumbersome defense.
She just took one step forward.
-Clang! Bang! Crash!
With just that, an anomaly occurred.
The anchors and harpoons that had been swung accurately became tangled, messed up, and broken in the process of chasing their target.
Rusty chains and rotten ropes collided with each other in the air with a roar, bouncing around uncontrollably as if they had lost control.
Even though the shattered fragments scattered like shrapnel in all directions, Periwinkle’s body was not even scratched.
All the accidents and damage ‘coincidentally’ missed Periwinkle.
“My fortune today was very good. Well, I always get good fortunes, though.”
The homunculus, which seemed momentarily flustered by the unexpected situation, swung a large anchor again.
“Oh, right.”
Periwinkle turned back to Siwoo as if she had suddenly remembered something.
It was an act of completely turning her back to the enemy.
Yet, with perfect timing, the huge anchor, which had been swung in anticipation of her original movement, grazed past Periwinkle by a hair’s breadth.
“I think I forgot to mention this. If I help you, you’ll do me a favor in return, right?”
Siwoo couldn’t believe what was happening.
An overwhelming enemy that seemed impossible to touch was being easily ravaged.
That was the power of a 20th-tier witch.
An overwhelming power that was on a different level from the strength Siwoo had overestimated.
“I’ll take that as a yes for now. You don’t seem to have the energy to answer.”
Without even waiting for an answer, Periwinkle turned back to face the drowned witch.
She followed the homunculus, who was slowly retreating, with a leisurely gait.
-Kuoohhhhh!
The drowned witch, who had been silent until now, let out something like a scream from the depths of hell, the wail of the dead.
“Are you getting impatient? What a shame, monsters are scarier when they don’t speak.”
The attacks became more ferocious.
The movements, which had followed a certain pattern, became wild, as if they were being swung haphazardly.
But the result was the same.
Every time Periwinkle moved leisurely as if strolling through a garden, things that could only be described as luck continued to happen.
It was like playing Russian roulette with an automatic pistol and the bullet not firing because it was a dud.
It was like a claymore exploding right next to her, but the shrapnel missing and not causing any injuries.
This level of luck was repeated over and over again.
-Kuu….kuooh….
The drowned witch slowly backed away until its back hit the wall.
The strange sound it made, like a moan, was clearly subdued.
Its bulging eyes spun around as if looking for a place to escape.
“Are you scared of me?”
The seawater that had risen to her thighs gradually disappeared, barely wetting her heels.
The interior of the room, which had decayed as if many years had passed, began to return to its original state as if time had been reversed.
The overwhelming ego, which believed in its victory and had never feared death, did not overlook even the smallest erosion.
Homunculi also have a faint intelligence.
It couldn’t win like this.
As soon as the drowned witch realized that, it decided to flee.
In that brief moment of time when it tried to secure an escape route and method.
The moment when its consciousness, which had been focused on defense and attack, was distracted, the white rapier shot out.
-Kuek!
That was why the drowned witch couldn’t react to the rapier that had slowly extended.
It could only look down at the pure white blade that had pierced its chest like a skewer.
It wasn’t an overestimation to say that its repulsive face was stained with shock.
The durability of homunculi is generally high.
If it had 17 eyes, you would need to bring something like an anti-material sniper rifle to have any effect.
However, the rapier, with just a little magic power, cut through the rotten and bloated flesh like tofu, destroying the homunculus’s core.
The cold, navy blue eyes reflected the drowned witch’s last moments.
“You were lucky. Though it was bad luck for you.”
The one-sided fight was over.
