City ​​of Witches 87

Chapter 87 – #19_Uninvited Guest (8)

#85

1.
The Aquarius Witch, Aea Sadalmelik.

Her cruel nature and dangerousness are notorious even among the Exiles.
She takes pleasure in brutal torture that has nothing to do with magic, and she has no qualms about killing innocent humans.

A hundred years ago, she killed the apprentice witch of the ‘Tiphereth Duke’ who was out on a game, becoming more than just an Exile, but a ‘public enemy.’ If you think the reason she has survived until now is simply because she is a high-ranking Great Witch, you are mistaken.

Sadalmelik was a thorough hunter.
Her method of driving her prey into a corner, regardless of the means, was meticulous and persistent, and if she sensed she was about to be cornered, she would flee without hesitation.
After that, she would wait for the moment to hunt again, like a leopard slowly stalking a herbivore that had escaped bleeding.

“Let’s see what the ‘Perfume Witch’ is capable of.”

Ribbon strands began to multiply from Aea’s back.
One ribbon split into two, two split into four, and four split into eight.
The dozens of fluttering ribbons multiplied into tens of thousands in a short moment of less than three seconds.

Each and every ribbon was packed with enough energy to bring down a building.
This is the combat power of a high-ranking witch, comparable to a natural disaster.

According to the investigation, Amelia Merigold’s rank is 22.
On the other hand, Aea is rank 21.
In simple numerical terms, it may seem like there is not much difference.

But how much effort and talent does it take to raise one rank?
To make a crude analogy, it would be comparable to the effort it would take for a human to repeatedly conduct research alone and create a rocket to launch an artificial satellite without anyone’s help.
That’s how vast the gap of one rank is in magic.

But Aea knew.
She had achieved three rank increases from rank 18 to rank 21 solely by plundering the witch’s brand.
Some of those she hunted were higher-ranking witches than herself.

Aea Sadalmelik, who has hunted more than 10 witches over 300 years.
Amelia Merigold, who has been cooped up in her room and has never hunted even a homunculus.
Aea, who had developed her magic in a direction optimized for combat, had the experience and confidence to overturn a difference of one rank.

And Aea was not so sure of her superiority.
Variables could always exist, and reducing those variables was Aea’s surefire method when hunting witches.

Magic is a very precise science.
It is almost impossible to perform as usual when witnessing the tragedy of a loved one being slaughtered before your eyes.
Especially if they died brutally by a hair’s breadth.

Amelia was just sitting on the floor, hugging Siu, and showed no hostile reaction.
Looking at the reflected light burning along her eyes, it seemed like she was casting magic, but there were no signs of any attack.

Then Aea saw it.
Countless particles extending from Amelia’s body were enveloping Siu’s tattered body.
This crazy witch was sitting there without any resistance, trying to save a human who was already a corpse.

“Are you seriously trying to save him now?”
“……….”

Amelia, who was crying, looked at Aea without saying a word.
Aea, reading despair in her empty eyes, chuckled.

“I was hoping for a more interesting fight, though.”

Like a guillotine rising to behead a condemned prisoner, tens of thousands of ribbons began to twist simultaneously.
The taut, tense sound, like tuning tens of thousands of stringed instruments at the same time, made the air tremble.

-Drip

It started with a single drop.
Aea looked up at the moist sensation that had fallen on her cheek.
The late autumn sky, where the moon was shining brightly, was crying.

-Drip, drip, drip

Autumn rain fell from the black sky, shining like obsidian.
On the fallen tree leaves, on the trampled grass.
It gently tapped on the witch who had lost her loved one and the witch who had taken her loved one.

Aea, who was blankly receiving the falling raindrops on her body, suddenly felt a chill.
Her intuition, honed over the years of going through life-and-death situations, was screaming.
That she had to run away from this place.

But there was prey in front of her.
Prey that had given up resistance due to despair and was offering its neck.
The discrepancy between the reality she saw with her eyes and the sense of crisis she felt on her skin put a dent in Aea’s decisiveness.
A very brief moment of carelessness, thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to finish this one in front of me first?’

“Huh…?”

Mass fire.
After all, all that was needed was the brand and the womb.
The rest didn’t matter if it was mangled or not, so Aea ordered the ribbons, spread out like a giant peacock, to attack.

However.
They didn’t budge.
The ‘Maiden’s Loom,’ which had been carrying out Aea’s instructions more faithfully than her own limbs, had become unresponsive.
Even when she gave commands to each part, her magic was being sucked away somewhere.

New sprouts had sprung up.
In all the places where the autumn rain had touched, purgatory-colored life bloomed everywhere without a sound.
Even on the piles of dirt that had been turned inside out, on the fountain, on the roof, and on the exterior walls of the building.
They sprouted wherever a raindrop had touched.

“Melt it!”

The overly peaceful appearance, which was out of place, stimulated fear instead.
Absolute confidence was gone, and Aea chanted magic to activate her self-defense magic, feeling the anxiety she had not felt in hundreds of years.
Her Aquarius barrier was not just for concealment.
It was Aea’s digestive system to digest everything inside.

Normally, an acid that would decompose everything inside the barrier would have been secreted, melting everything except Aea…

“What is this…”

It was not listening to her either.
Now was the time to run away.
She had to return to the present world through the escape route she had secured earlier.

Aea, who was about to flee in horror, saw her feet, which had become unable to move at all.
Green sprouts were embroidered like embroidery on her shoes.
These were not growing from the shoes.
The sprouts that had taken root in her flesh and spread had simply grown through the shoes.

On her shoulders, which were exposed under her black dress, and on her slender hands and arms.
Aea felt fear at the sight of the sprouts that were blooming without fail.
The ribbons that had been spread wide behind her back were now covered with dense, light green leaves.

The raindrops falling from the sky were not a capricious change in the sky like a shower.
These sprouts that were sprouting after being hit by the rain were not ordinary sprouts either.
As soon as they took root, they were sucking up all the magic and growing like tumors.

“Wait a minute! Just a minute!”

Is this the power of a 22nd-rank witch?
And one without any proper combat experience?
That couldn’t be.
She had already tried several times to seize control of her magic.
But all those attempts were meaningless.
The more magic she emitted, the faster the sprouts grew.

Aea had experienced this sensation before.
The helplessness she had felt when she clashed with the 23rd-rank Tiphereth Duke before.
The powerlessness she had felt when all resistance was futile, and she had barely managed to save her life after throwing away everything she had built.

Amelia had crossed the wall.
She had broken through her own limits, which had been blocked for the past few decades, and had once again created a vast gap.

The difference from that time when she barely escaped with her life was that Aea’s reaction was not as quick as it had been then.
Amelia’s magic had already deeply invaded even Aea’s body.

“W-wait! I’m sorry. I was wrong!”
“………”
“I’ll compensate you! I’ll apologize too! I’ll give you all the slaves I have!”

Whether Aea, who was terrified, screamed or not, Amelia got up from her seat, as if her business was done, and held Siu in her arms.

“Wait! I said wait!”

The place where Amelia had been sitting was covered with wildflowers, as if decorating a queen’s throne.
Small, colorful flowers, never seen anywhere else, swayed gently in the breeze.

Amelia turned her back to Aea and began to walk.
Every sprout that her foot gently stepped on bloomed into a bouquet of wildflowers.
From there, the wave of life began.
Like raindrops falling on a clear mirror, the wildflowers that had grown began to burst into bloom all at once, starting with Amelia’s footsteps.

“Please… save me…”

Flowers bloomed in every place where sprouts had sprouted.
The wildflowers that covered not only the mansion but also the surrounding area flooded Aea’s arms, legs, belly, chest, eyes, nose, and tongue.
The fragrant scent of flowers punished Aea Sadalmelik’s recklessness without giving her time to leave a final death cry.
All that remained above the collapsed pile of flowers was silence.

2.
The rain had stopped.

Odile and Odette, who had successfully escaped thanks to Siu’s dramatic performance, returned to Amelia’s mansion with Jemernai.
Sophia, surprised by Amelia’s intense magic, flew from the cabin in the form of a crow.
What Sophia, Jemernai, and some of the onlookers who had gathered saw was a beautiful flower garden reminiscent of a heavenly garden.

Wildflowers of various colors blooming densely without any space to step on, and flower rain falling in a shimmering way as the fan-shaped structure crumbled.
Amidst that beautiful scenery, where splendor and simplicity were mixed, Amelia was wailing while hugging Siu.

The twins, who found Siu, rushed over.
Odile, realizing his condition, stopped in her tracks like a statue and shed tears, while Odette knelt down and sobbed.
Count Jemernai could not stop his pitiful sighs, and Sophia tried to stop Amelia, but was thrown off several times.

1886.
This was the first time that an Exile who had crawled into Gehenna after the war with the Exiles had caused such a big accident.
As it was a major incident, the Aquarius Witch’s attack was the talk of the town among the citizens of Tarot Town, attracting heated attention from the ‘First Red Roof Salon’ and the ‘Levana Grand Bathhouse.’

That terrifying Exile had targeted the apprentice witch of the Jemernai family.
Baron Merigold, enraged by the Exile who had caused trouble in his own mansion, had subdued the Exile in just a few days.
Thanks to that, fortunately, the casualties were only one slave.
It was said that the slave had played a major role in evacuating the twins.
Count Jemernai was said to have wanted to bestow the honorary witch title on the slave to commemorate his achievements.
A meeting was convened at the ‘Tree of Sephirot’ to prevent such mishaps.
While 10 barons, 2 counts, and 1 duke were seated, Duke Keter of the Ivory Palace still did not show his face.

But no rumor is hot forever.
In the first place, the public is not such a persistent bunch.
The ‘Aquarius Attack Incident,’ which had made Gehenna noisy for a while, also faded with the passage of time.