City of Witches

༺ Festival (3) ༻

1.

Around the 16th century, back when mankind believed that they could develop a whole new continent and conquer the world with the power of science.

This behavior of mankind roused the witch’s curiosity to combine science and magic.

They believed that even though science was something that was created by the lowly mankind, if they added a great witch’s magic into the equation, they’d be able to create great things with it.

Thus an era of magic engineering was born. The era when all the witches who were well-versed in alchemy and some of the other branches of magic were immersed in seeing through the potential of science.

Sadly, the era only lasted for less than a hundred years, and the popularity of magic engineering declined. Nowadays, witches only regarded it as one of many paths one could take to develop one’s magic. The lavishly decorated ‘Janissary’ on Odile and Odette’s hands were a combat artifact that was created during that era.

It was a musket that didn’t require gunpowder or lead.

Because it created its own magic bullets and shot them out with several times more firepower than the bullets originally held.

The magic formula engraved its body, made out of oak, would suck in its wielder’s magic.

Then, the magic that was absorbed would go into the barrel and transform into a magic bullet.

When its wielder pulled the trigger, the engraved steel wire inside the musket would amplify the bullet’s power several times.

-Bang, bang, bang!

Following those loud sounds, a magic bullet came out of the musket’s muzzle and killed the piranha swimming on its way, leaving an orange-colored trail.

“Sis!”

“I know—!”

There was no need for the twins to give each other complex signals. They were able to cover for the gap that the other one left and killed the incoming piranhas swiftly.

To them, what they were doing was way easier than duck hunting or shooting flying frisbees.

Everything, from their distance to their targets, the targets’ size and movements, all of them made everything easier.

Bullets ripped through the piranhas’ smooth scales.

One of them turned their head towards the twins, only for its teeth and eyes to be crushed by the incoming bullet.

Unlike normal muskets, the Janissary didn’t leave any residual smoke even after the twins pretty much spammed it.

Eventually, the dozens of piranhas, probably close to a hundred in total, were reduced to a number that could be counted by taking a single glance. At that moment, a blue light glowed behind the twins, followed by a strong wave of magic.

With that, Siwoo finally managed to teleport the citizens out of this place.

“Thanks, you two. It went well thanks to you two.”

“As expected of Mr. Assistant! You are amazing!”

“We’ll finish up the rest!”

Sweat dripped from Siwoo’s chin.

This was the first time he had to use Dimension Shift on such a huge number of people at once.

Not to mention that there was something strange in the flow of mana.

It interfered with the activation— no, rather, it felt like it was ‘sticking’ to him tightly.

If normally, mana flew like water, this time it felt like mud instead. Thanks to that he had to perform his calculation twice as hard as usual.

Add to the fact that the calculation he had to do was a complex one to begin with, it was no wonder that he felt nauseous because of it.

“Whoops…”

“Mr. Assistant, are you okay?!”

“I-Is something wrong?”

The twins, who finally managed to clean up all the piranhas, noticed Siwoo’s pale complexion and approached him.

He wiped the sweat away with his palm and nodded.

“Yeah, just a little dizzy, nothing I can’t handle.”

“Okay…by the way, Mr. Assistant, there’s something that I noticed.”

“What is it?”

“While I was shooting those fish…it reminded me of a certain ‘Formal Wear¹not actual formal wear, but more like clothes, or something ceremonial that harbors certain magic abilities’ that I once read in a book…”

“Huh? Wait, yeah you are right!”

Hearing Odette’s words, Odile made a loud exclaim, confirming the truth of her sister’s words. Apparently in the Gemini Household’s library, there were all kinds of miscellaneous books, some of them touched on the topic of Formal Wears and artifacts that existed throughout history.

“Also, those monsters aren’t Homunculi. They don’t look like them, and they didn’t leave any crystals when they died.”

‘Huh, come to think of it…’

Until now, all of the Homunculi that Siwoo had beaten, while they seemed like they were based on animals, they looked so bizarre that there was barely any semblance of that.

On the other hand, those piranhas looked exactly like real piranhas. Their sizes were just a lot bigger than normal.

But, if anything, this revelation only made him feel even worse about the whole situation.

“So, what is it that you’re trying to tell me?”

“It was recorded in the book, the Formal Wear, ‘Dagon’s Flute’. A witch from five hundred years ago was said to possess it. The records said that the formal wear could change the surrounding area into a hunting ground for her familiars…”

“Which means that those piranhas are familiars and like all familiars, they need a medium to exist, and that medium should be the Formal Wear…so, if we get rid of it, they’ll disappear, and we can stop this whole mess.”

How many people had died in this mess?

While there might be some people alive…

There was no way they’d be able to find them easily, as they had to hide from the sights of those monsters.

Rather than trying to find those people and send them out one by one, it would be way easier for them to just end the mess entirely.

“Alright, we’re going to find that Formal Dress!”

“Can you do that?”

“Since it’ll always emit some kind of mana, it surely won’t be that difficult.”

“Okay, it’s decided!”

The twins held each other’s hands.

Then, a song that didn’t fit the dreary atmosphere of the department store filled the air.

It didn’t sound like something that came out of a human’s mouth, but rather something that came out of a string instrument.

The surrounding mana pulsated before turning into a calm wave that spread out in all directions.

The wave didn’t stay in one place.

It stretched to even the tiniest gaps in the building, as if trying to map the entire place in one go.

Two, three minutes passed just like that.

““Found it.””

The twins stopped singing as they opened their eyes.

“It’s on the roof of this building!”

“Let’s go together, Mr. Assistant! We can help you!”

Back when they clashed with Ea, the twins could only tremble in fear, but now they had become a lot more reliable.

There was no way that they didn’t see the corpses sprawling around, or smell the pungent scent of blood that permeated the air. Siwoo knew that they chose to ignore those discomforts just to help him.

He couldn’t help but feel proud of them.

But that was exactly why he couldn’t just let them come with him.

“That’ll be a little difficult.”

“Huh? Why?”

In response to her question, Siwoo looked down at their feet.

While those two were busy searching, Siwoo had already deployed the magic circle for Dimension Shift.

By the time they were done, he had already finished all the calculations necessary.

Realizing what was going on, the twins immediately rushed out, trying to escape the range of the spell.

“Wait! This isn’t what you—!”

“No! I want to fight with—!”

A blue light flashed and the twins disappeared from his sight.

“Phew…”

He could feel his magic power was being drained from the brand on his left eye.

The teleportation that he had done was also as difficult as the previous one. While he only teleported two people at once, he sent them to a rather faraway place.

Though he shouldn’t have felt this exhausted just from that, so he assumed that it was probably because he did both teleportations in such a short span of time.

“I’d have to apologize to them later…”

He muttered.

Of course, he was grateful for their willingness to help.

But he couldn’t just let them brave this kind of danger together with him.

If they only had to kill those piranhas and rescue the survivors inside the building, then he was more than willing to let them stay.

After all, those piranhas were pathetically weak. One couldn’t even compare them to real Homunculi, as the twins’ muskets could easily make short work of them.

The problem here was that there was definitely someone behind this. And to go to such lengths, deploying the Dagon’s Flute without much care, there was no way that the mastermind was on the level of a common thug.

And the closer one got to the Formal Dress, the more dangerous it would be.

Of course, it wasn’t like Siwoo needed to face the mastermind directly.

Because by now, the witches in this city would have heard of the commotion, and were probably on their way here.

Which meant, he wouldn’t need to do anything at all.

But…

He looked around.

His surroundings had turned into a site of a massacre.

Seeing this scene made his blood boil.

He had never considered himself as a righteous person, but he felt that he couldn’t just sit around after all this.

The people who had died here were just normal people. They were just living their own lives peacefully.

Innocent people who weren’t even aware of the existence of magic, let alone witches.

Even at this moment, more of them were probably being massacred in this building.

And he didn’t want to ignore them just to save his own skin.

He decided to move. So that he could save at least one more person.

“I want to know what kind of crazy bitch did this…”

Once again, he covered his body with his shadow and held a sword in each hand.

He put on his helmet before dashing through the darkness, leaving trails on the floor that was flooded with blood.

2.

“I…didn’t hear wrong, did I?”

At Gwanghwamun Branch’s Witch Point, Seoul.

Sua, who was sitting leisurely in her office while sipping her tea, widened her eyes.

The cause was the report of the witch who came to her in a hurry.

“Dagon’s Flute was deployed in the middle of Gangnam?”

“Yes.”

The magnitude of the incident was so big that Sua’s face turned pale, even though she was a witch who had seen countless incidents caused by Homunculi.

Dagon’s Flute was one of the Formal Wear of the ‘Deep-Sea Witch’, a notorious witch who was killed by Duchess Keter.

The Formal Wear itself wasn’t actually that dangerous even for normal witches.

So what if it could summon a bunch of familiars? They were weaker than even the weakest of Homunculi, they weren’t of any threat to the witches.

But, the purpose of Dagon’s Flute wasn’t for fighting witches, it was for slaughtering humans.

Under the influence of the flute, the familiars would begin to hunt humans, turning them into mana sources that could be used for later.

To put it simply, it wasn’t something that one would use for a battle, but to prepare for one.

Sua shook her head.

She decided to stop thinking about scenarios that hadn’t even happened yet and focus on what was currently going on.

The fact that such a monster house had appeared in the middle of Gangnam.

And it was their duty to prevent humanity from taking any more damage.

“Immediately summon all the witches you can contact.”

“Understood!”

Sua prepared to move to where the flute was, and of course, she contacted Duchess Tiphereth before doing anything.

“Your Ladyship, can you hear me?”

Her earring started to vibrate.

Any kind of communication method using radio waves couldn’t go through a barrier.

That was why she used this earring, a magic tool that could let its users communicate even through a barrier.

[I can. Almost there.]

“The cause of the disturbance is the Dagon’s Flute, the identity and purpose of the perpetrator is unknown. Other witches will save the survivors and prevent the damage from spreading any further than this…so, may I ask you to secure the source of the disturbance, Your Ladyship?”

[What about Duchess Keter?]

“…She hadn’t made a move.”

[Got it.]

After that, the communication was cut off.

A witch using their magic to slaughter three— no, perhaps the number of victims were already in four digits.

Despite that, Duchess Keter hadn’t made a move.

Even though there was no way that she wasn’t aware about this.

Normally, she would personally involve herself to deal with the situation.

But for some reason, she didn’t do so this time.

“What is it that she’s doing right now…?”

Sua muttered.

No matter how hard she tried to think about it, she just couldn’t understand what was going on in the Duchess’ mind.

3.

Eloa was dashing toward COEX, the place where the incident occurred.

Dashing wasn’t the right word to use, as she was actually hopping from rooftop to rooftop of the various skyscrapers in the city.

In the distance, a building surrounded by a huge spherical barrier entered her field of vision.

Sharp sirens, signaling an evacuation order, could be heard from the other side of the river.

They said that the air in Seoul had gone bad due to the pollution, but the air around that particular building looked even dirtier than that.

This meant that the area was turning into ‘another world’.

Since the air had changed to that extent, even an interdimensional barrier wouldn’t help the situation at all.

This was the first time that an accident of such a magnitude had occurred in the modern era.

“I have to get there quickly…and save everyone…”

Eloa muttered, out of habit.

Then she realized something. Even when she was facing this kind of situation, she was surprisingly calm. No, rather than that, she actually couldn’t feel any emotions coming from her heart.

Normally, her heart would be filled with a sense of duty to save those innocent souls, and a feeling of sadness toward the families of the victims, who had to experience the pain of losing a loved one.

But she couldn’t feel anything, as if her heart had already died.

All she could feel was the mental exhaustion that washed over her, and she was only doing it because this was her responsibility.

“…”

‘My life has no purpose anymore.’

‘No more reason to live…’

‘Only this hollow responsibility remained…’

Once upon a time, she had lived only for revenge.

But now that she had lost that goal of hers, she could feel her hypocritical sense of justice disappear, leaving her with her empty current self.

She pursed her lips, though her expression was still indifferent. Then, she hurried to the place where the incident was taking place.

Footnotes:

• 1not actual formal wear, but more like clothes, or something ceremonial that harbors certain magic abilities