City ​​of Witches 60

Chapter 60 – #14_Play Ball (3)

#59

1.
“We need to catch that thing.”

With Siwoo’s calm words, Odette shuddered.
To stand before the homunculus that had just threatened their lives again?
She didn’t even want to imagine it.

“Can’t we just, just stay hidden like this?”

Odette’s reaction was as expected.
He didn’t particularly intend to blame her.
It was a perfectly normal reaction when your life was on the line.

“You must have a good plan, right?”
“Oh, why are you like that too, sis? How can we deal with something like that?”
“Odette, calm down. Let’s hear what he has to say first. We can’t just sit here trembling.”

Odile hugged the frightened Odette and looked straight at Siwoo.

“Yes.”

Siwoo nodded and used the twig he had picked up earlier to draw a magic circle on the ground.

“When we were escaping in the fog, I created a smokescreen and sampled the black shadow with the remaining magic power.”

The three spears that were indiscriminately launched into the fog had brushed past Siwoo.
It was a heart-stopping moment, but Siwoo quickly analyzed the black shadow left in the spears’ trajectory.

“That shadow is probably the monster cat’s magnetic magic. Earlier, both Odette’s attack magic and the signal magic were shattered and scattered as soon as they touched that shadow.”
“So?”

Siwoo showed them an analysis formula that visualized the structure of the shadow.

“That shadow isn’t a single magic formula.
Each particle is a tiny magic formula, and they’re all combined to create it.
To put it in an image, it’s a sphere with countless thorns, and the ends are curved like hooks, so they indiscriminately cling to other magic.”

He hadn’t been able to examine it in detail since it was such a brief moment, but…

“If magic that is more precise than a certain level touches the shadow, it starts to erode it.
It randomly connects paths and messes up the structure of the formula, causing a short circuit.
If this many errors occur at once, there’s no point in trying to give feedback, right? The magic just breaks down.”

-Thump… Thump…!

They heard another tree falling.
This time, it was closer than before.
Odile and Odette, who had been listening to the explanation, widened their eyes as if they had realized something.

“But, assistant, even if you knew it was a multiple magic circle… how did you know the shape?”
“That’s right! Even if you sampled it, you wouldn’t be able to see the shape…”
“I thought about the way Odette’s signal magic broke down and the order of interference and reverse-engineered it. It’s impossible for the magic formula to collapse simultaneously unless it’s this shape.”

“……”
“……”

Even with Siwoo’s confident words, the twins couldn’t easily believe it.
To infer the shape of a magic formula by reverse-engineering it from the way it interfered?
It was more unrealistic than a demolition expert inferring where explosives were placed in a building by looking at the shape of the collapsing building.
Odile, who had been pressing her temples and thinking for a moment, suddenly opened her eyes.

“Okay, what’s the plan? You must have needed some preparation, so you gave us two options, right?”

If they could hunt the homunculus by hiding without any preparation, there was no reason to present two options.

“Sis! It’s too dangerous!”
“We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait for help here. They might only come after we’ve been torn to shreds.
It’s better to do something than to sit here and die, right?”
“Let’s just run away. There’s a way to get out of Latifundium…!”

Odile shook her head at Odette’s words.

“This is the edge of Latifundium. We have to get past that monster, and what if we get caught on the way?”

Certainly, the hunting method Siwoo proposed required thorough preparation.
It was impossible to adopt it as a second option while running away or hiding.

“Getting caught while running away is worse than just hiding. Then there really won’t be any way.”
“So, do we really have to catch it…? That scary thing?”

Siwoo took Odette’s trembling hand.
Now was the time when everyone’s cooperation was needed.
If they could do that, they had a good chance of winning.

“Odette, I know you want to run away.”
“I’m so, so scared… How can you all be so calm? Maybe if we just stay still, a way will appear…”
“Please trust me just once. If the plan goes wrong, I’ll be the bait. In the meantime, you and Odile can run away.”

Siwoo’s firm hand held Odette’s hand tightly.
A slight warmth returned to Odette’s cold hand.

“Ugh… Ugh….”

Odette slowly nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
He wanted to comfort her more if possible, but there was no time.
Siwoo began to explain the plan, scribbling a new magic circle on the ground.

2.
The black cat was wandering around, sending out shadow spears in all directions.
Its three shiny eyes checked every corner of the canyon without a single gap.

Like any other beast, it didn’t have clear reason.
Using magnetic magic was not an act of reason, but rather borrowing the power of the ‘legacy’ it carried within its body.
This beast, which had just woken up, did not have the intelligence to skillfully use its power.

However, it had a toy after a long time.
The time for the game that had come after a boring and long sleep triggered its hunting instincts.

It was very enjoyable to take out and chew on the fresh womb of a witch.
It knew that it could enjoy the world more freely with the power that had become even stronger.
Even though no one had taught it, the beast naturally realized it.

“Kiiiieeeeeeek!”

Excited by the hide-and-seek it was doing for the first time since it was born, the homunculus rummaged through every corner where its prey might be hiding and strode through the canyon with a confident gait.

And then.

“ne perenni cremer igne~”
“Inter oves locum praesta~”

A beautiful melody began to resonate from afar.
A magical song began to flow in the canyon, where no sign of life had been felt until now.

The beast had no aesthetic sense, but even it was drawn to the beautiful melody.

The beast, which had been rummaging through the roots of trees, raised its head and moved towards the sound.
It ran quickly, with black shadows draped like a cloak, with a noble gait.

“♬~ ♪”

The source of the song was, as the homunculus had expected, two small witches.
Especially in the middle of an open space with many trees.
The young witches, holding hands tightly, were singing with their eyes closed in a beautiful voice.

They were floating in the air, surrounded by a round barrier like a snow globe.
Only perfection that completely excluded external interference could be felt.

The harmony, more akin to the sound of an instrument than a human voice, vibrated through the space, resonating quietly like a music box.

It was a pleasant melody.
In itself, there was nothing wrong with it.
But…

-Wham!

The homunculus watched the two for a moment with intrigued eyes before forcefully swinging its tail.

A tail it had since birth.
The blow that had easily torn through the strange, thin membrane earlier was now deflected pathetically.

One would have expected at least some reaction, but the two sisters seemed lost in their own world, chanting the same melody without the slightest waver.

“Kyuu?”

The monster, as if puzzled, circled around the twins, observing their reactions. It then wagged its tail before striking again.

-Thwack!

There was a more definite reaction this time.
One of them seemed startled, slightly opening her eyes and glancing at the monster.
But she quickly closed them again.

The monster, having found an interesting toy, couldn’t take its eyes off them.
That very moment was the opening Siwoo had been aiming for.

3.
Siwoo was preparing to intercept the homunculus from about 50 meters away.
What he needed was ultra-high concentration of magic power.
And an impromptu magic formula to unleash that power.

Odile frowned upon hearing the amount of magic power Siwoo had calculated he needed.

‘So, where are you going to get that high concentration of magic power? I’m telling you in advance, Odette and I have already used too much magic. We’ll be able to use magic maybe two or three more times at most.’
‘Sir, a vessel that isn’t a brand… can’t hold that much magic power.’

Siwoo pointed at something in response to Odette’s concern.
A magic stream flowing like a river wasn’t enough.
He needed something denser and more refined.
For example, magic sap that emitted a light as intense as a lamp even when left alone.

“Hoo….”

Siwoo had injection needles dangling from his back, the ones he had used to inject magic sap into the tree roots.
He had pulled out all the nearby needles and connected them directly to his body using telekinesis.
He had a total of 12 needles stuck in his body.
As an aside, it was the most painful injection he had ever received in his life.

This was what he meant by prior preparation.
There was no way he could have stuck so many needles into his body while running away from the homunculus, right?

‘What’s next? What are you going to do with all that magic power?’
‘First, Odile and Odette, you just need to distract that monster for 30 seconds, no, 15 seconds.’
‘And after that?’

Two music boxes were spinning at Siwoo’s feet.
They were concealment devices to hide his presence while the magic was being activated.
The magic Siwoo was about to use would be much rougher and louder than any other magic.

‘As I explained earlier, that homunculus’s black shadow directly interferes with magic, completely breaking down the structure of the formula. If a mediocre level of magic is structured to be interfered with…’

There was one special remedy for boss mobs in the game that used tricky patterns and status ailments.

‘Make it so there’s no room for interference.’

Damage per second.
Instead of a delicately crafted magic formula that could be interrupted at any time, he would send out pure magic power in bundles.
He would push through with overwhelming force.
Siwoo quietly took a breath.

“Bloom.”

The magic Siwoo was envisioning and designing, the magic to open a door, was a large-scale magic circle that could only be activated by using even a single drop of magic water without waste.

Since he had no magic storage capacity, the part Siwoo had put the most effort into researching was ‘how to fully draw in and use external magic power.’
It was the only strength of Siwoo, the amateur magician.

At the same time as the incantation, intense magic power began to flow into his body.
This series of processes was dangerous.
He had to directly receive and refine 12 different colors of magic power into his body.

“Kuh!”

The massive amount of magic power, pounding through his body like a wildly thrashing horse, was directly converted into pain.
He could feel his blood vessels swelling roughly all over his body with an enormous overload.
A huge pressure that weighed down his entire body to the point where it was hard to take a single step.
The creeping sense of danger that even a small miscalculation could cost him his life began to rise.

The concentration of magic power, as well as the absolute amount, was on a different level than anything he had handled before.
In fact, Siwoo in his normal state would not have been able to instantly perform this vast amount of calculation.
But not now.

‘It’s a white parasol mushroom. It’s one of the few mushrooms that’s okay to eat raw. It acts on the cerebral cortex and accelerates thinking and calculation speed.’

As Odile had explained, the white parasol mushroom’s doping was very effective.
His thinking speed seemed to have accelerated threefold.

His five senses were clearly awakened, and he had a strange feeling as if a few hectares of blackboard had appeared in his head.
Siwoo was processing the calculations needed to activate the magic solely through impromptu mental arithmetic.
The confidence that he could do it now made his heart, which was experiencing arrhythmia, burn hot.

-Fzzzzzzzzzz

Pure magic power, so pure it was almost ignorant.
From Siwoo’s entire body, pure white magic power, devoid of any color, writhed like tentacles.
The flow of magic power, compressed to the point where it would burst out if he let his guard down even a little, was being rectified and rectified.

The image he conjured was a spear.
The connected thought was overwhelming power.

Siwoo’s eyes, gleaming with pure white light, turned towards the homunculus.
He drew in, drew in, and drew in the magic power that was making his body burn hot as if it were on fire.

And as the music box, which had been timed in advance, finished its performance.
A powerful wave of magic power spread out towards the homunculus.

“Squeak?”

A red eye belatedly turned towards this place, along with a cry that could be heard from afar.
Siwoo, confirming the homunculus’s reaction of tilting its head, released all his magic power.

That red eye, which the monster had tried to protect by using its shadow like a shield.
That was the weak point he should aim for with this spear.

“So, you’re finally looking this way? You son of a bitch.”

Magic power that had been compressed to its limit.
The bundle of magic power, transformed into a giant spear the moment Siwoo pulled the trigger.
It was shot with the single-minded determination to pierce through the enemy, cutting through the air.

A roar shook the surroundings.
A flash of light that stung the eyes tore through the darkness.
And then,
an explosion occurred.