City of Witches

༺ Uninvited Guest (4) ༻

1.

“Since that’s the case, why don’t you all consider my proposal as well?”

Ea readily responded to Odile’s suggestion. The tone of her voice made it sound like she was singing.

The fortunate part about their ordeal was that their opponent was someone who wasn’t completely unresponsive when they were trying to talk to her.

The wicked witch frowned, as if lost in thought for a moment, before opening her mouth.

“I really, really hate those Gemini bitches. Can you believe it? They destroyed my mana plant, the main source of my income, 5 years ago.”

Like thick mud being severed, her voice rippled with viscous malice.

Her accumulated resentment was so deep to the point she broke her pretentious facade, revealing a twisted expression on her face.

“What’s your name?”

As if she was performing a play, Ea took a deep breath and changed her expression.

Odile, trying to not let her guard down, straightened her shoulders and spoke,

“Odile, Odile Gemini.”

“Alright, if Odile here sacrifices herself and obediently follows me, I’m willing to let the rest of you go.”

“What about your proposal? What is it about?”

A suspicious smirk appeared on Ea’s lips.

“Firstly, I need to verify that the courage you’re showing me is genuine.”

“No need. I’m not afraid of death.”

“Calm down first and listen to me. These are the things that you’ll experience from now on. Sometimes courage is bred by ignorance, so who knows whether your courage will persist or not after hearing what I have to say.”

Ea, who had been absentmindedly tapping her fingers, calmly began to lay out her words.

Words that were filled with a cruel, brutal scenario breed by vengeance.

“First, I’ll extract your uterus alive, oh, I won’t apply any anesthesia on you if that isn’t obvious already. An apprentice witch’s womb isn’t that useful as a brand, but it’s still a precious research material, so you don’t need to worry about me wasting my effort on this. This is not my first run, okay? By the way, you won’t die. No matter how much pain you suffer, you won’t die. I’m looking forward to the lovely screams that you’ll make~”

Her words were just words, but her threatening tone carried a tangible bloodlust as she scanned over Odile’s lower abdomen.

Having to face that penetrating gaze, Odile’s body trembled uncontrollably.

“After that, you’ll be left with a small scar and an attractive body. Now, if I were your usual Exile, I would have disposed of you immediately, but as I mentioned before, I have quite a bit of personal grudge against the name Gemini. With my nature as a thrifty person, I will make use of all of your beings cautiously and frugally.”

She licked her lips.

The wicked witch writhed her body, it was as if she was experiencing multiple cathartic orgasms from her imagination alone.

“You see, my hobby is to travel all over the world. Getting traveler funds is always tricky, but this is where you come into play, Odile! I can put you to work, using your beautiful appearance, you should be able to sell your body to the locals and earn me money this way! What a great idea, right?”

Generally, witches possessed substantial wealth.

The moment they inherited their brand from their predecessors, they automatically inherited their assets as well.

Even if she was an Exile, there was no way a powerful witch like her would lack expenses for traveling.

In other words, her actions were solely driven by her own sadistic tendencies and her desire to gain entertainment in such cruel ways.

“Since there are 24 hours in a day and you still need to sleep because you’re an apprentice witch, 20 people per day should be a reasonable enough workload for you, right?”

Ea proceeded with her monologue at her own pace, as if she had already received Odile’s approval.

“Oh, I’m so excited! My heart is pounding! Ah, right! Every time you fail to meet your quota, you have to receive a punishment from me, okay? A toe every time you fail. When your feet have lost all their toes, I’ll move on to your fingers, arms, legs, eyes, tongue… Little by little, I’ll break your body apart~”

Her flushed cheeks weren’t caused solely by her active imagination.

There was her sexual arousal mixed in there as well.

Inhumane ecstasy and sadism that was incomprehensible to Siwoo and the twins, bloomed like poisonous mushrooms in the midst of her words.

Odile’s legs were trembling, as if they could collapse at any moment, meanwhile Odette was whimpering with her eyes already leaking with tears.

“So, what do you think of my proposal? As cold as they are, wouldn’t the Geminis be surprised if they find out that their apprentice witch became a traveling whore?”

“You crazy bitch…”

“Blergh…”

Siwoo unintentionally cursed under his breath.

Meanwhile, Odile couldn’t bear the thick malice she exuded and ended up vomiting on the ground.

As for Odette, she slumped to the ground as if strength had left her legs.

Ea somewhat regained her senses as her delusion passed and clapped her hands enthusiastically.

It was as if she was signaling the end of a trivial joke.

“…Upon further consideration, let me take back my proposal. Instead of only taking Odile, I’ll take both of you instead. Two walking wallets are better than one, right? If one of them fails to meet my expectations, I can just punish the other! It will be more entertaining that way! I really want to see that touching scene, filled with tear-jerking sisterly love~”

Listening to the woman who backtracked on her proposal as easily as flipping her palm before offering an even more terrifying idea, Siwoo became convinced.

This woman was out of her mind and there was no way out here except to fight her.

Ea’s crimson eyes, with her chin held high, turned sharply toward Siwoo.

At this point, his previous thought that described her eyes as a pair of cursed gems didn’t even cross his mind.

All he could feel was a nauseating repulse toward her, as if his internal organs were being scooped out and clumped together.

Siwoo twisted open another bottle of mana water.

He swallowed every drop of it from that bottle.

In his mind, his life was as good as gone anyway.

There was no need to plead for mercy anymore.

This wicked witch wasn’t someone that he could negotiate with.

‘I’ll fight.’

‘Even if my efforts end in futility, like trying to crack a rock with an egg…’

‘I’ll fight while clinging to this tiny shred of hope.’

“Bloom.”

Siwoo found himself frozen in the chilling terror where even the air itself turned cold.

He lifted the spear, knowing that his resistance was futile.

But it was the same spear that he honed and polished to escape this absurd life he had for the past three years.

And he aimed the spear at the enemy, the evil that stood in his sight.

2.

Amelia crouched down.

It was a nameless beech forest in Gehenna.

There, was a small cabin where she left her memories of her master buried.

With her limbs curled up on the rocking chair, where her master would sit while reading her books,

She clung desperately like a baby digging into her mother’s embrace. Her nose was buried in the blanket she always covered herself with.

“Master…”

No matter how troubled she felt, the moment she came here, all her troubles melted away, replaced by the transient warmth.

This was the place where she could escape in the dreams of her past, where she basked in both joy and sorrow.

No matter how much time had passed, the memories of her master’s kind touches never faded. In fact, she could feel as if her master was stroking her head right now.

“I’m back, Master…”

‘I don’t need anything.’

‘Whether is a pile of sweets that could make my eyes spin due to how numerous they are, the fragrant smoke of the cigarettes I always tasted or the splendid garments everyone else yearns for.’

‘I need none of them.’

‘Even relationships with other people. It only brings me more pain.’

Her heart felt as if it were about to tear apart, so she clutched them while reminding herself that this was the place where she should be.

“I won’t go anywhere, ever again…”

Crouching and pressing her cheek against the blanket, Amelia closed her eyes tightly.

At that moment…

“Haah… I knew you would do something like this.”

The moment she felt that she could be happy again,

A resolute voice suddenly dragged her back to reality.

She swiftly turned her head to look at her back.

There stood Sophia with her arms crossed. A hint of pity was mixed in her expression.

“W-Who let you come here? No, more importantly, how did you know I’m here?”

“Just a guess. If your work went well, you won’t be here, so I can just go back to my mansion in that case, but if it doesn’t, with your personality, you won’t come to visit me, so I figured that I’d just come here.”

In fact, if Amelia had followed Sophia’s words closely, her reconciliation with Siwoo would happen without much trouble.

However, Sophia knew how bad Amelia was in conveying her emotions.

That was why she transformed into a crow and flew here, just in case things went awry.

The fact that she was already inside meant things were even more disastrous than she predicted.

“I want to be by myself. Leave, please.”

Sophia noticed the tears in Amelia’s puffy eyes.

She took a deep breath before approaching the blonde witch.

“Tell me what happened.”

“W-Why should I tell you?”

“Because we’re friends.”

Amelia’s miserable look was something Sophia hadn’t seen ever since she returned to Gehenna.

After all, she was always emotionally defunct like a wax doll, as a friend, seeing her drowning in her emotion like this was a good thing to see.

‘However, it isn’t like I can stand idly after seeing her clutching onto her old master’s blanket while sobbing pitifully.’

“Tell me. I’ll listen properly. I won’t laugh at you.”

“…”

“Well, if there’s something I need to criticize, I assure you, I’ll point it out to you. But, I promise you, hearing my harsh words will be much more comfortable than bottling your feelings away.”

Sophia sat down on the floor, matching her eye level with Amelia, who had laid down her head to the armchair for comfort.

Amelia’s lips, that trembled so much that it was heartbreaking to see, slowly parted.

“A mere slave… How dare he… Used such foul words… To speak to me… He cursed me even though I offered him gifts… And proposals that he might like…”

With a fragile voice, Amelia spoke out while stumbling over her words.

It felt like she could burst to tears at any moment.

“He cursed at you?”

Sophia’s mouth fell open in astonishment.

He was a slave who was close to Amelia, having spent considerable time observing him, Sophia knew about him.

Based on her judgment, he wasn’t a resolute or an extraordinary individual. He wasn’t even close to being a revolutionary or a sage, let alone a hero.

Besides his intelligence, he was merely an ordinary individual who could feel fear, cautious and with the right amount of kindness that she could find anywhere.

With that in mind, it was hard to imagine how he could swear right in front of Amelia’s face.

‘How did things get so messy to reach that point?’

“I won’t forgive him… No, I’ll stop caring… Apologies or whatnot… I don’t care, I hate everything… I’ll stop… I won’t listen to your words again…”

“Have you apologized properly to him?”

“…I was going to… I wrote my apology on paper… Practiced it… But…”

Amelia poured out the full story of what had happened to Sophia as if she was emptying her heart.

Roughly speaking, she offered her compensation to Siwoo with a near dismissive tone.

Not only that, she also put off on her apology and instead focused on endlessly expressing her own thoughts.

“Urgh…”

With his only chance of returning to the modern world gone, she offered compensation to him to show him her goodwill, but he reacted aggressively to her.

“…I couldn’t get angry at him… I wanted to be, but I couldn’t… He was crying… Because of me… I made him cry, didn’t I…?”

Finally, the teardrop that had been clinging to the corner of Amelia’s eyes trickled down her cheeks.

‘Poor girl.’

Sophia extended her hand and pulled Amelia into her embrace.

“Amelia, dear… I really should have explained it to you more…”

“…Sniff…”

Under normal circumstances, Amelia would have pushed Sophia away because of her pride, but this time, she quietly nestled into her arms without resisting.

Sophia gently stroked Amelia’s small head.

“Now I don’t know how to look at him anymore… Even though I hate him… When I remember his crying face… I feel strange… My heart throbs so hard that it hurts me… My mind became a mess and I can’t think about anything…”

“It’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes, but the important thing is to learn from those mistakes.”

“I can’t do that… I don’t want to try anymore…”

From Sophia’s perspective, it was a futile attempt and she could always try again, but for Amelia, she had put on her everything for that attempt.

Seeing Amelia, who usually carried a haughty demeanor reduced to such a pitiful state, Sophia’s heart became filled with sadness.

However, despite the sadness in her heart, there were still words that she needed to convey.

“Amelia.”

“…”

“There’s something that I want to tell you.”

She hesitated whether or not to share the story she had in mind because it felt like it would be cruel to Amelia. It would add to her burden if she were to tell her.

“It’s about the day you went on a date with Assistant Siwoo to the Border Town.”