City of Witches

1.

Countess Gemini loved alcohol.

Alcohol, a drink created by fermenting either grains or fruits.

There were certain depths involved within the world of alcohol, an endless grandeur that awaited everyone who tried to pursue it, similar to magic—perhaps that was the reason why they loved alcohol so much.

They could hear different melodies and tunes from each alcohol that they put in their mouths.

The unfolding aroma of cloves, butterball, and oak barrel, covering the subtle scent of cherries, entered their noses the moment they closed their eyes.

After decades of waiting, those different scents melted together, creating an avant-garde harmony that evoked a sense of thrill and excitement from the depths of their hearts.

The Countesses, who already took a sip of the alcohol in front of her while enjoying the scent that came out of it and savoring the taste in their mouth, finally gulped it down their throat.

“Phew~ As always, drinking alcohol after work just hits you in the right spots.”

“Unnie, where did you get this brandy from?”

“The Witch of Fortune gave it to me. There was a magic crop that we were going to auction at the ‘Red Roof Salon’, no? She said that she wanted to purchase it in advance.”

Generally speaking, the magic crops that were produced in Latifundium that were owned by Countess Gemini would be sold either in the Malkuth Gallery or the Gemini Magic Tool Shop.

However, there were exceptions to that, mostly the rare crops that had limited production, those kinds would be auctioned off at the Red Roof Salon instead.

One of such crops was the ‘Red Root Geranium’ that Periwinkle had purchased from them.

“I see. Making deals with her is always profitable for us.”

“There’s no reason not to sell it to her since she offered twice the market price anyway.”

Anyway, the Countesses would hang out together like this after they finished their work for the day. This was one of their favorite pastimes.

Normally, each of them would share stories about what they had been dealing with in their business or they would talk about the twins, but for today, there was one particularly novel topic that one of them brought up.

“By the way, Unnie, did you hear about the host club that was opened in Malkuth Gallery? They said that the host club it’s a host club for serving us witches.”

“Is that so?”

Though it was a novel topic, it wasn’t novel enough to catch Countess Albireo’s attention, though.

Instead, the thing that came to her mind the first time she heard it was, ‘Is Deneb interested in that sort of thing, seeing how she brought it up and all?’.

“Also, Shin Siwoo is working there.”

“Huh…?”

Before she could realize it, Albireo’s mouth hung open.

Since she frequently wandered around the Modern World, she knew what a host club was.

In her mind, it was the place where rich women would drink while rubbing a male hosts’ ass.

“W-Why is he—? Is he in such dire need of money?”

To Albireo’s knowledge, Siwoo wasn’t a big spender.

That was why she gave her a card with no credit limitations on it in the first place.

This revelation of him working came as a surprise for her.

Especially when the work involved flirting with witches while pouring them alcohol.

It was just so hard to believe.

“Maybe he’s doing it for fun?”

“What do you mean for fun?! Also, why are you taking this matter lightly?! Deneb, wasn’t it you who proposed the idea to match him together with our twins?!”

Seeing the expected reaction came out of her sister, Deneb let out a smile as she brought her glass to her nose, savoring the pleasant aroma.

“I was as surprised as you, but don’t worry, I looked it up. The Madame of that place is his old friend. He probably did it to help him out since the business has been in the red. Also, the club itself is quite clean; As in, there’s no sexual action involved.”

“Why didn’t you just say that first? You made me overreact over nothing…”

“Because it’s cute when you overreact. Anyway, what do you think would happen if our twins find out about it? Do you think they’d get jealous, Unnie?”

Deneb, who succeeded in making Albireo flustered, said so while giggling.

At that moment…

“Mr. Assistant—!”

“Is working—!”

““At a host club?!””

The door to the room suddenly swung open without warning.

People who could swing the Countess’ office door open rudely without suffering any consequences were few and far between.

But those two, the Gemini’s cute baby birds, were among those people.

Odile and Odette.

The twins, who decided to swing by the Countess’ office before going to bed, accidentally heard their conversation.

“So that’s why we haven’t seen him much lately!”

“He got himself that kind of job?!”

Odile’s eyes were wide open. She made a gesture, as if she had solved a closed room murder case.

Meanwhile, Odette was chirping beside her.

“Odile, Odette.”

When Deneb called their names out in a low voice, they quickly left the room.

-Knock, knock.

““Master, may we come in?””

“Yes.”

The twins' manners were perfect today as well.

As soon as they finished their greetings, the twins immediately rushed over to their Masters.

“Master, is it true that Mr. Assistant is working at a host club?”

“What’s a host club?”

“...”

Both Albireo and Deneb knew that the twins were all over their Mr. Assistant.

While they didn’t know if it was merely a young love from a pair of immature children or the beginning of a love that would last for a million years…

They were willing to support their love as their parents, as long as they didn’t cross the line, of course.

That was why they were at such a loss for words facing the twins who were tilting their heads so innocently.

“Uh… How should I put it…? It’s a place to drink?”

“You need to be more clear, Deneb.”

“Then, why don’t you explain to them yourself, Unnie?!”

Albireo, who was watching her sister getting all flustered, let out a smirk, feeling satisfied since this was exactly what she had just gone through. Then, with the smirk still on her face, she started explaining to the twins.

“It’s a place where you could drink with male hosts.”

“Male hosts?”

“What’s that?”

“Unnie!”

Like a mischievous father teasing his kids, Albireo explained. Deneb stopped her before she could do anything else though, by slapping her hand.

In the end, the duty to explain the matter to the twins fell upon her once again.

“A host is… Someone who pours drinks for their customers, talks to them, and sometimes, acts cute to them…”

Hearing their Little Master’s explanation, the twins seemed to be in shock.

They tried to connect her explanation to the conversation from before and came up with the conclusion that their Mr. Assistant’s job was to serve witches as a host.

And that he had to attend to a lot of witches that weren’t even their Sharon unnie.

“T-That… H-How…?”

“We let our guard down for a moment and this happened…”

“Anyway, isn’t it late for you two? Go to sleep.”

Deneb quickly cut this difficult conversation short by telling the twins to go to sleep. Of course, she gave them a warning too, just in case.

“I’m saying this just in case, but you two must never go there, okay? Our good twins must never go there. Understood?”

“Yes, Little Master.”

“Good night.”

Odile and Odette ended their words with a bow.

On the way back to their room, their steps were heavy and unsteady, as if they were sleepwalking.

Even after they entered their room, the revelation from before still lingered in their heads.

“Odette, this is an emergency.”

“I know, Sis.”

Now they knew why they hadn’t seen him ever since they came back from the picnic.

It had been two days since then and he hadn’t even come back for dinner.

They even tried to sneak out and visit him at night to commence the ‘Deadly Operation: Make Mr. Assistant Come to Us’ that both of them had set up.

Even when they went to the annex to see if he was with Sharon, they couldn’t find him there.

Since they couldn’t afford to lose out to Sharon anymore, they were thinking of breaking into his room, but what could they do when he wasn’t even there?

They never expected that he’d be getting a job in Lenomond Town, though.

“Odette, now that I think about it, isn’t this a good opportunity for us to get our comeback?”

“How so?”

“Just think about it, he’s working at the club to serve drinks, that means he gets paid to do all those, right?”

“Yes, and?”

Odile suddenly stood up.

She dragged a chair with her, stood on top of it and took something out from the top of the fireplace.

It was a bird-shaped porcelain bottle.

Though its shape didn’t fit the name at all, it was basically their piggy bank.

“It’s time to break this, Odette.”

“Ah! Good idea, Sis!”

Only then did Odette realize what her sister was trying to do and she didn’t hide her admiration for her sister’s amazing idea.

The twins then laid out a white sheet and threw the porcelain bottle on it.

-Crash!

-Clink, clink!

Of course, being the members of Gemini Household, the amount of their allowances were incomparable to that of a normal person’s.

Countless gold coins that they had collected for nearly five years sparkled among the broken bottle shards.

“Hehehe…”

“We will use this emergency as a chance to turn out the tides and buy out all of Mr. Assistant’s time!”

“We will!”

2.

Duchess Tiphereth loved alcohol.

Whenever she was struck with sadness, she’d drink a whole bottle to soothe her sadness, and whenever her heart was filled with happiness, she’d fill up her glass to share that happiness.

To her, the wine glass contained both the joy and sorrow of life. Sometimes a sip of its content was enough to wash over the sorrow and replace it with joy.

And sometimes, the glass also contained the tragedy of her running away from her love.

That was probably why the alcohol that usually could soothe her felt particularly bitter tonight; It contained the pain of having to deny the love that she realized far too late.

“...”

After she erased all the memories about her affair with Siwoo from his mind…

Eloa had been suffering from the aftereffects.

Even she herself didn’t expect that she’d be suffering this much from it, both physically and mentally.

She forcefully used her already weak body to conjure up a Covenant.

That made her body heat up and in pain all over, and she had to deal with incessant coughing, as if she was catching some kind of flu.

But, those weren’t the only things she was suffering from. Whenever she felt such pain, she’d feel the remnants of the memories that she had erased from Siwoo’s head.

The number of empty bottles of alcohol that had been piling up in her room reached a terrifying amount, as she had been doing nothing but drinking whenever she wasn’t sleeping.

“Haa…”

She let out a sigh that was clearly reek of alcohol as she endured the pounding headache.

Has Siwoo not returned from the picnic yet?

She had sworn to herself that from then on, she’d only treat him like a disciple, but the more time passed without seeing him, the more she grew to miss him.

Of course, she didn’t miss him as a master yearning to meet her disciple again, but as a woman missing the person she loved.

This was why she kept on drinking, so that she could get that kind of thought off her mind.

The only problem here was that once she got drunk, her longing only got more intense and this prompted her to drink even more, creating a vicious cycle.

“...What should I do…?”

Obviously, she didn’t know the answer to that question.

Actually, it wasn’t like she didn’t have anything else to do.

There was still one more person that she hadn’t confessed her sins to.

The lover of her precious disciple, Sharon Evergreen.

Erasing Siwoo’s memories didn’t mean that her past sins would disappear.

Even if Siwoo didn’t remember anything, her sins of having an affair with someone else’s lover wouldn’t just vanish into thin air.

The fact that she had been suffering from guilt didn’t mean that her sins had been erased.

That was why the correct thing to do here was for her to go to Sharon and apologize.

“...”

And so, she stood up.

Forcing her heavy legs, she stepped forward and headed towards the annex where Sharon was residing.

-Knock, knock!

She knocked on her door.

Though it was so late at night that even the plants were asleep, like her, Sharon was also a witch.

Not long after, she could hear the sound of footsteps and the door was opened.

“Duchess Tiphereth? What are you doing here? It’s late…”

“Sorry for intruding this late at night…”

Since Sharon was wearing a dark-colored nightgown, Eloa’s mind played a trick on her, assuming that the other witch’s complexion was as dark as her outfits were.

She even suspected that the other witch already knew about her affair and was about to give her a hard time for it.

“I want to share a drink with you, is that okay?”

“Sure, come in, please.”

Actually, ever since they came to Gehenna, both of them never even spoke to each other once.

Due to Eloa’s misunderstanding, during his first encounter with Siwoo, she almost killed him.

That and the fact that she caught Sharon and Siwoo having a sex made Sharon try to secretly avoid her.

Why is she inviting me for a drink this late at night?

Although she was confused, Sharon still invited Eloa in.