City of Witches

From the day she returned from the picnic, Sharon had been coping with heartache by herself.

“Ugh…”

Since she was living off the salary from the Countess Gemini…

She decided to exercise some amount of restraint.

All so that she could fulfill her words to Countess Albireo, to keep an appropriate distance from Siwoo.

Though, if she were to be honest, she didn’t know what kind of distance could be counted as ‘appropriate’ in this case.

After meeting Siwoo again and having an intercourse with him, she reaffirmed her love for him and developed a deep trust with him.

She even went out of her way to ignore her promise with the Countess for that moment, albeit her conscience had been prickling at her greatly.

And to make up for it, she decided to not do anything like that to him during the time of their picnic.

Siwoo, who had been wandering around at night, came back to the villa, claiming that he drank some kind of tea and slept in the carriage by himself.

The problem here was the twins’ behavior seemed to hint at something.

And there were also the footprints she saw on the sandy beach, disproving his claim that he was by himself in the carriage the night before.

But, those footprints belonged to neither Sharon nor the twins.

Seeing at their sizes, it was clear that the owner was a woman, though.

So, she went out of her way and asked him

‘You weren’t lying, were you?’

To that, Siwoo answered.

‘Why would I lie? I really was by myself.’

And that was clearly a lie.

His claim that he was alone the previous night was a lie.

Since that was the case, there was a high probability that his other claim about him being unable to remember anything that happened that night since he just blacked out was also a lie.

The fact that she had tried drinking a lot and never got so drunk that she just blacked out due to her spirit body reinforced this suspicion.

Still, that didn’t mean Sharon would doubt him completely.

At least up until that point she had faith in him and believed that she was just being paranoid.

Besides, there was that thing that she had told him before.

About how she’d be okay if Siwoo were to play around with other women as long as he never forgot her and came back to her.

There really was no reason for him to lie to her, so her heart was at ease…that was, until she checked up on the carriage on their way back.

Back then, she noticed something.

The bedroom in the corner of the carriage was in a suspiciously clean and tidy state, as if someone had casted a cleaning spell on it.

A completely different state than when they first arrived at the beach.

After seeing this, a certain scenario played out in her mind, of Siwoo drinking while playing around with an unknown witch inside this carriage, making such a huge mess to the point that they had to resort to using a cleaning spell.

At that moment, she could feel her heart sink.

All kinds of thoughts came to her mind to the point that aside from classes, she only spent her day curled up in bed feeling all depressed.

“...Come to think of it… I’ve never even heard an ‘I love you’ from him…”

Of course, it went both ways as she also never told him that she loved him.

It wasn’t like she was a firm believer that men were the one who should confess first or anything.

She just didn’t want to tie him down and burden him with her feelings.

Still, she fervently believed that their feelings were mutual.

But, this incident had cracked her faith.

-Knock, knock!

Suddenly, a knocking sound interrupted her line of thoughts.

Thinking that it was probably Siwoo, she jumped up, adjusted her nightgown and hurried down to the first floor.

When she opened the door, a completely unexpected person was standing there.

A woman with light pink hair and dark magenta eyes.

It was Duchess Tiphereth who came knocking on her door, looking haggard.

2.

The building’s living room was more luxuriously decorated than the other rooms.

Probably because the Geminis believed that welcoming guests was more important than anything.

Eloa, who was already drunk, invited Sharon to drink with her, in which she accepted. Though, she only drank a little amount as she watched the other witch keep on chugging glasses after glasses of alcohol.

“Um… D-Duchess… May I know why you came here…?”

“Can I finish this bottle first before I talk?”

“O-Of course, feel free.”

After that, Eloa downed half of the bottle of alcohol that she had left.

For witches, as long as their autonomous defense was still functioning, they didn’t have to worry about something as trivial as acute alcohol poisoning, but even with that in mind the amount of alcohol Eloa drank was alarming.

With difficulty, she put down her glass before opening her mouth.

“Miss Evergreen.”

“Please just call me Sharon, I’m not so great of a witch to be referred to in that way…”

“...I owe you an apology.”

The moment she heard the word ‘apology’ came out of Eloa’s mouth, Sharon’s eyes widened.

After taking in everything that happened recently, something just clicked in her mind and her intuition guided her in that particular direction.

“I… Behind your back… Slept together with Siwoo…”

Ominous premonitions always came true and this time it was no different.

Sharon felt her heart sink deeply to the lowest part of her stomach.

She was so shocked to the point that she couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or not.

“Sorry?”

Without realizing it, she blurted that question.

Unable to meet her eyes, Eloa grabbed the hem of her dress and averted her gaze.

Her ears were red from all the guilt and embarrassment she felt from divulging this information to Sharon.

“I-I…came here…because I thought…apologizing to you is the right thing to do…”

“You aren’t being serious, right…?”

The dizziness that struck Sharon made her almost lose her grip on her glass.

Her already tangled mind became even more tangled after this revelation.

Especially since she knew that the Duchess and Siwoo were in a temporary master-disciple relationship.

In witches’ society, the status of one’s master was above almost everything.

This was because the relationship between an apprentice and her master doubled as a daughter and her mother.

It wasn’t just a figure of speech either. If anything it wouldn’t be strange if the relationship between a master and her apprentice ran deeper than one between parents and children in the Modern World.

Of course, since the word ‘temporary’ was attached to Siwoo and Eloa’s relationship, Sharon couldn’t just apply this rule to them. Besides, it wasn’t like Siwoo would inherit Eloa’s brand or anything.

But, when she heard Eloa’s confession about her having sex with Siwoo, to her, it sounded as if Eloa was saying ‘I fucked with my stepson’.

And it would probably sound the same way to other witches as well.

That was the first thing that came to her mind the moment she heard her confession.

Without realizing it, she had hurled criticism towards the witch in front of her in her mind.

“...Who started it?”

“...I was the one who seduced him first.”

Strictly speaking, after the first time, it was hard to put all the blame on Eloa.

But, she didn’t want Siwoo to receive the blame on this matter.

Besides, he had forgotten everything that had happened and as his master, she felt that she thought that she was the one who deserved all the blame for her failure to keep their lust in check.

“...Haa…”

This revelation made Sharon, a non-smoker, desperately wish that she had a cigarette in his hand right now.

While Sharon was unsure on how to act on this newly received information, Eloa revealed the whole story of how it all came to be while stuttering.

She recounted that the reason why they did it the first time was because the circumstances forced them to.

But, unknowingly, her feelings for him grew deeper over time.

Then, when they met each other at the beach, they ended up making love to each other.

She recounted everything, including the part where she erased his memory.

When she was finally done, she realized that her vision was filled with so much of her tears to the point that she couldn’t even see what was in front of her clearly.

Fear of Sharon’s retaliation slowly crept up in her heart.

“Haa…”

On Eloa’s shoulders bead-sized tears fell down as she felt both fear and sorrow that hit her like a truck after hearing Sharon’s heavy sigh.

Then, she felt a soft sensation enveloping her.

Barely managed to raise her head, she saw Sharon, embracing her with a worried look on her face.

There was no anger nor contempt in her mint-colored eyes.

Just like hers, there were tears in Sharon’s eyes.

When she heard Eloa’s confession at first, fifty thousand different scenarios came up in Sharon’s mind.

But after the more she listened to Eloa’s story, the more her heart was filled with pity towards the other witch.

Being unable to express her love and even had to erase the memories that she accumulated with him.

It was hard for her to not feel sympathy toward Eloa.

She just couldn’t bring herself to get angry at her.

“Are you okay? Please don’t cry, I’m not angry at all…”

At that moment, as if she felt relief from those words…

Eloa’s body grew weak as it trembled.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Sharon gently cradled her head and pressed it toward her chest, allowing her to cry to her heart’s content without holding anything back.

“...Fuu…”

After thirty minutes of crying, Eloa’s breathing turned stable as she fell asleep in Sharon’s hands.

This just showed how exhausted she was, both physically and mentally.

Somehow, seeing her like this, Sharon felt a sense of kinship.

The heartache that had been riddling her heart had disappeared.

Siwoo really wasn’t lying to her.

He just forgot about everything since Eloa had erased his memory.

That alone already made her feel relieved.

After listening to Eloa’s words, it was clear to her how deep her love for Siwoo was.

Eloa hadn’t said anything about it, but Sharon could tell how much determination she had when she decided to erase his memories and meet her to apologize.

Is a relationship between master and her disciple that big of a taboo?

Didn’t they say that love transcends everything?

All her desire to criticize Eloa had vanished.

Still, it’s a strange feeling…

I thought I’d be more jealous and possessive…

When I heard that she slept with Siwoo, my heart ached, but that was it…

After I heard that she fell in love with him…

It feels like I found a reliable ally who loves him as much as I do…

“Have a pleasant dream, Duchess.”

Sharon quietly stroked Eloa’s head before leaving the room.

3.

Rain fell on the desert.

The droplets of water seeped into the unmoving corpse, turning into blooming small wild flowers. It was an unrealistic scene, yet it was happening and it was beautiful to see.

Amelia witnessed this scene from a distance.

The corpse belonged to an Exile who was thrown out of Gehenna due to her vicious experiment that involved 120 people as her test subject. Even after she became an Exile, she soon became a Criminal as she kept on kidnapping travelers to take their hearts away.

“...Amelia.”

As she stood still like that under the heavy rain, Clara approached her.

She had been following Amelia as the latter continued her journey to hunt the Criminal Exiles.

It seemed that she was worried if she were to leave Amelia alone, the poor girl would get a mental breakdown along the way.

Of course she hadn’t asked for her permission beforehand, but since Amelia hadn’t told her to go away yet, she figured that this was her way of allowing her to tag along.

As soon as Amelia found out where the Criminal whose name was listed on the Duchess’ killing list was hiding, a fierce battle immediately ensued.

Clara had to watch it from a distance since both of them were spraying magic everywhere without a care. It was only after the battle was over did she finally dare to come over.

“Can I ask you something?”

When Amelia turned her sky blue eyes that had been staring off the distance dazedly to Clara…

The latter’s body flinched before it started to tremble.

It seemed like the emotions Amelia felt from her battle still lingered in her heart.

Because she was showing an expression that Clara had never seen before.

An expression so blank, so cold that made her unable to tell what was going on in her mind.

Clara tried to hide the nervousness that had come out before she realized it and confronted Amelia.

No matter how cold or blank her expression was, Clara could see clearly in her eyes. That she possessed the eyes of a weak-hearted person who was driven into a corner.

“...What is your reason for hunting the Criminal Exiles?”

The moment Clara voiced her question, Amelia’s eyes shook.

Her usual weak and clumsy side came out suddenly, as if this Amelia and the Amelia from before were different people.

Clara gathered a little more courage and spoke her words more carefully.

“If you’re having a hard time with it, you just need to stop.”

“...”

“I, too, have killed a lot of Criminal Exiles… If you don’t think that your heart is ready for it… You can just quit…”

Taking another person’s life inevitably came with a burden.

In Clara’s opinion, Amelia was unprepared to bear that kind of burden.

The sight of Amelia suppressing the Criminal Exiles with overwhelming force seemed more like she was strangling her own neck if anything.

“Because I have to.”

Follow her along, but keep a certain distance, that was Clara’s policy.

That was how she showed her consideration to Amelia since she was having a hard time, but she couldn’t help but intervene now.

It was her way to console the poor girl also.

“There is no need for you to feel guilty about killing a Criminal Exile. They are the people who caused great disturbances in the world and killed a great number of people. If you’re having a hard time, just think like that…”

Amelia looked at Clara for a while before turning her gaze away.

“I…always think…in my mind…”

The sight of someone’s body crumbling before turning into a bed of flowers and blown away by the wind…

Was always etched in her mind…

“Maybe, this witch was misguided…like me…and she hasn’t found what was important for her…”

Even Amelia herself didn’t expect those words to come out of her mouth.

That was the first time she had ever opened her heart to someone else like that.

“Maybe, by killing them I took their opportunity to correct their wrongdoings away…”

Amelia turned her gaze back at Clara.

“Are you willing to listen to my story?”

“Yes, I am. You can talk to me as much as you want.”

Clara replied happily.