City ​​of Witches 438

Chapter 438 – #92_Wandering

#347

1.
Unable to say what I want to say,
Unable to convey what I want to convey.

It was agonizing.
It was lonely.

I tried to fix what was wrong.
There are things that cannot be conveyed unless I speak like Clara would.

I knew it.
But I was afraid.
Afraid of being abandoned again, rejected, and met with cold, indifferent gazes.

Amelia couldn’t bring herself to meet Siwoo directly.
As if wanting to feign a chance encounter, no, perhaps even hoping to avoid meeting altogether, she wandered around Gehenna with a clumsy resolve and a fearful heart.

Wandering.
It was a fitting description.

An absurd gait, unable to settle her feet, yet not moving forward with a clear destination.
The aimless stroll that began in Lenomond Town ended as she reached Tarot Town.

Because she found Siwoo.
And beside him was a witch.
With deep green hair and mint-colored eyes, she was constantly by his side, her charming smile never leaving her face.

“……”

They exchanged affectionate smiles and talked, their gestures towards each other filled with deep trust and affection.

“Amelia….”

Clara, who had been watching the scene with her, gently touched her shoulder from the side.
It didn’t matter.
I stood there blankly, feeling time pass me by.
When I came to my senses, I was watching him from afar.

It was more heartbreaking than I thought.
And I felt less than I thought I would.

It was as if my throbbing heart had finally frozen, leaving only a dull, stinging sensation.

It wasn’t the first time.

When I had glimpsed him engaging in lewd acts with the twins of the Jemanae family.
When I had seen him mingling with Yebin Smirna, whom I had invited to heal him, there had been a dull, stinging sensation.

But as I probed the stinging sensation, like touching a wound, I could see that the root of this feeling was different.

Back then, there was ignorance.
Amelia didn’t know love, and she couldn’t acknowledge it.
Back then, there was hope.
A sliver of a future where she could apologize to him, no matter the cost.

What is he like now?
It was different from when I had faced Siwoo fighting the witch of desire in the present world.

The expressions, the gaze, and the voice that Amelia had seen so often when she lived with Siwoo in the cabin were now directed at an unknown witch.

There is no resentment for being robbed.
That is an emotion that is too much for me.

But the way the two of them were so immersed in each other, as if the world belonged to them, seemed so flawless.
As if it were proof of a relationship that could never be restored.
My legs give way.

“Amelia.”
“I’m okay, I’m fine.”

I was surprised that my voice, which sounded like it was coming from far away, was calmer than I thought,
and I was surprised again by the pain that felt like my necrotic heart was melting and burning my chest as soon as I spoke.

“I’m alright. I’m fine.”

My breathing became rapid.
The floor swayed as if my sense of balance had collapsed.

Why did it turn out like this?
I didn’t want this ending.

-Rustle

Something fell to the floor.
It was the twice-folded note that I always carried with me.
Amelia couldn’t bring herself to open it.

If what was contained inside was Siwoo’s last farewell message, it felt like she would endanger him again, abandoning her duty as a death note.
Afraid of losing the great pillar that had supported Amelia until the very end, she couldn’t bring herself to unfold it.

Amelia reached for the note.
It was a truly futile struggle to find a last hope.

Maybe he had already forgiven her.
Even if it was too late, she needed hope to cling to now.

It was only folded twice, but the note, which had seemed more solid than any strict magical barrier, unfolded far too easily.
The contents of the note were very short, with more white space than text.

[I can never forgive you]

That one sentence grabbed Amelia’s ankles as she tried to run away and dragged her down to the darkest depths.
At the same time, Lilith, who had naturally put her arm around her waist, wiped away Amelia’s tears.

“Amelia, Amelia, poor Amelia.”
“……”
“It’s okay, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Amelia didn’t respond.
It was as if she had confined her mind to a space only she knew, showing no reaction to external stimuli.

-Whoooosh!

Instead, a sign of an impending storm of particles swirled around her.
A witch who has surpassed the 15th level reaches a state where magic and mind become one.
Instinct and emotion become assimilated with magic, and the higher the level, the stronger the adhesion.

Lilith smiled lovingly as she watched this.
There was no need to pretend anymore.
Finally, the magic she had planted within her began to take over every corner of the imprint, along with Amelia’s collapse.

In Lilith’s own estimation, it was a poor and childish production.
She had only induced a misunderstanding between the two and subtly altered the note.

But for Amelia, who was breaking down on her own, no more production was needed.
The witch Lilith was in charge of was not just Amelia.
She didn’t have the energy to waste on showing off her craftsmanship.

It hurts.
I want to end it.
I’m sad.
Leave me alone.
I just need to be alone.
I don’t regret it.
I’m fine.

Fragments of torn emotions quickly brushed past Lilith’s ears.
She caressed each one of them, which were as beautiful as the light of a fairy, though they were not the color of lament.

Intense emotions are easier to shift than slow ones.
Whether it is great joy or blood-curdling anger, emotions that have gained momentum can be completely derailed with just a slight push from someone nearby.

“You can change it now.”

That’s what the witch of cowardice did, that’s what Bianca did, and that’s what countless witches whose names I’ve forgotten did.
There was no way an amateur like Amelia could withstand it.

“Let’s stop suppressing it now. It hurts me too much to see you sacrificing yourself.”

Lilith’s voice was already filled with undisguised laughter.
She gradually pushed the emotional rampage that was rotating violently and gaining momentum.

“It was hard, it was painful. You were the only one suffering. You’ve already finished atoning enough.”

-Whoooosh!

Fireworks exploded in the distance.
Tiny particles began to spread among them.

It rained.
A downpour poured down as if tears were falling from a cloudless sky.
The particles expanded, expanded, and expanded, sweeping through the entire Tarot Town.

Indeed, Amelia’s ability was great enough for Keter to try to make her his sword.
He was trying to bring this entire area under his control.

“Does it hurt? Are you angry? But it’s okay. I’ll help you. I’ll show you how to be happy.”

Of course, that wouldn’t mean true happiness.
Lilith flicked her finger slightly.

The magic that had penetrated Amelia’s entire body, as if moving a puppet, began to stir.

Amelia stared at Lilith with a blank look.
Her sky-blue eyes, which had always been filled with sorrow, felt like an empty, hollow abyss.

“Happiness…?”
“Yes! You have power. The power to reclaim the rights you should have.”

It was a flimsy logic.
It was closer to a sophistry that was hard to even call logic.
Even Amelia knew that the feelings between a man and a woman were not simply determined by the logic of power.

But that didn’t matter.

The easiest direction for sadness to shift is anger and screams.
From ancient times, negative emotions and violence have gone hand in hand.
Even if she would regret it later, it would feel right at this moment.

“You just have to snap your fingers. If you do that, you can keep your place by his side. I’ll help you live in a happy world together.”

Sweet talk filled with lies, sophistry, and unfulfilled promises.
Lilith’s poison had already finished controlling Amelia.
With every word that Lilith’s tongue flicked, Amelia’s magic began to rampage even more.

“Show him your sadness, your anger.”

-Whoooosh!

A spectacle of sprouts began to bloom wherever the raindrops touched.
When the buds, the size of a pinky fingernail, bloomed, everything would collapse.
With this, Lilith would achieve her goal, and Keter’s plan would be ruined.

-Snap!

Amelia’s finger, which had been raised as if in a trance, twisted in the air.
A very short wave.
It flowed like a ripple, mediated by magic and particles, and began to devour all things contained within her control.

-Kugugugung!

Every time a flower bloomed.
Every time a particle absorbed magic and produced even greater magic.
Joy filled Lilith’s face.

It was falling.
The collapse of Gehenna was imminent.

“…It can’t be….”

At that moment when Lilith finally burst into laughter,
the vibration stopped.
At the same time, Lilith’s wild laughter also stopped.

Her eyes scanned her surroundings.
Raindrops could be seen in the silence that had become eerily calm.
The raindrops, which had stopped slowly as if they had entered a zero-gravity space, were scattering light.

Lilith looked at Amelia in shock.

The moment she had mentally broken down, Lilith’s self-magnetic magic, ‘Whisper,’ had clearly taken over Amelia’s body.
She was already in a state that was no different from being Lilith’s puppet.

“It… can’t be…. I can’t do that….”

Then how could this phenomenon be explained?

Magical phenomena do not follow normal classical mechanics.
However, inertia applies to the execution of magic.
Just as a train that is running cannot be stopped suddenly, it is nearly impossible to stop such a large-scale magic.

Amelia had rejected Lilith’s sweet words.
She had used all her strength to control the magic that had been activated because she couldn’t control her emotional rampage.
As a result of forcibly stopping the magic, a high-level magic of the 23rd level had collided, and this was the result.

Randomization of space.
It was a phenomenon that normally only occurred when the magic used by two witches, giving their all, collided, but she had caused it alone.

“This can’t be….”

Lilith looked at Amelia with a bewildered expression.
Control still existed.
The leash that Lilith held was firmly connected to Amelia.

“Amel….”

Lilith, who was about to reach out to grab it again, saw a sprout bulging under her skin.
If she had stretched her arm out any further, her entire body, starting from her arm, would have exploded.

A clear rejection.

It was a rejection of Lilith, and at the same time,
a rejection of the entire world.

“Ahahaha.”

Bewilderment was only temporary as laughter burst out.

Lilith’s ‘Whisper’ works regardless of the target’s magical achievement.
It is a unique magic that changes its effect depending on the strength of the mind.

Amelia, who had only been seen as an amateur, was resisting the whisper with a clear will.
There was no excuse other than that she had underestimated her.

But that was it.
Amelia had clearly rejected Lilith’s control, but she was still in a rampage.

The fact that this randomized space was still being maintained and that the particles were pushing away everything around them and stopping them was proof of that.

As Amelia always did, she was pushing everything around her away and locking herself in her own space again.
She had recreated her own hiding place with new magic in a space that was ignoring and distorting the rules of the world.
The distortion of the space was becoming so thick that Amelia could no longer be seen properly.

“Okay, this isn’t so bad either.”

Lilith didn’t dislike the unexpected variable.
No matter how the process went, the result wouldn’t change.

“Show me your struggle.”

With those last words, a thick darkness covered Lilith like a flash, throwing her out of the space.