Chapter 34: A Lead (5)

The little witch, who had been mocking the worthless humans as much as she pleased, suddenly froze and went stiff.

“…”

A tremor ran beneath the Ascending Star’s eyes.

The three others turned to Hestia.

She was more agitated than Nike had ever seen her at the training camp, wearing the expression of someone who had just encountered a long-lost friend.

She had been acting strangely for some time, but none of them expected it was because she knew this witch.

The shock was immense.

“What. Who are you.”

The child witch asked coldly. Hestia stepped closer.

“…It really is you. Betty. It’s me, number 47… Hestia.”

The witch’s pupils widened in an instant. Recognition flickered across her face, as if she remembered seeing Hestia somewhere before.

“Number 47…”

The little witch muttered quietly, then her eyes shot wide as she asked in a trembling voice,

“Could it be… you too are from the Hebra Territory…?”

Hestia nodded slowly to the witch’s question.

That was enough.

It was clear now. The two of them knew each other.

“…So you lived.”

Hestia’s eyes grew moist as she tried to step closer, but the witch bared her teeth in warning.

“D-Don’t come any closer. I’ll kill you. I don’t know you. And that weak little girl locked in the lab died a long time ago.”

“Betty, why… why did you become a witch…”

“Don’t call me by that name.”

“…Betty.”

“I told you not to call me that—!!!”

“Ugh…!”

The witch suddenly screamed, pouring her mana into her voice. Hestia’s eardrums ruptured and blood trickled out.

The others clapped their hands over their ears, eyes wide in shock. Even a first-rank witch could wield this much power if she wanted to.

“Why are you meddling when we were never even close!?”

Hestia’s eyes shone with deep sorrow.

Betty’s eyes, on the other hand, shook violently with turmoil.

The arrogant, mischievous little witch felt humiliated at her past being exposed.

She had despised and mocked humans, yet now her own pathetic human past had been dragged into the light. Facing the reality she had been denying filled her with disgust and shame.

Her face was flushed red as a proof of that.

The freckled girl gave her final warning.

“Get out, all of you. Before I change my mind and tear you to pieces!”

Her composure slipped, panic edging her voice.

But Rowen didn't miss that moment of mercy.

Swish!

A special rope designed for high level witches was cast in a lasso. The Ascending Star tried to react quickly, but her limbs refused to move.

Telekinesis. It was the moment that proved Nike’s extraordinary gift.

“What—!?”

She was stunned at the fact that a human could use magic, but there was no time for that.

Rowen leapt toward the distortion. The bound Betty was dragged in without resistance. The rest followed as one, fleeing the witch’s lair.

Thud, roll!

They tumbled across the ground after escaping the distortion. All around them rose the warped trees of the Dark Forest.

‘We made it!’

It was the Dark Forest.

The gloomy, suffocating woods now seemed like a relief. That was how twisted and dreadful the witch’s lair had been, an experience none of them ever wished to repeat.

“Mmph, mmmph! Mmmmmmph!!”

The witch, pinned beneath Lou Gehrig who was trembling uncontrollably, let out muffled cries.

Bound by Nike’s telekinesis, she couldn't move a finger or even her tongue.

Her face was red, as if about to burst in tears.

“Idiot! You are!”

The witches Nike had fought before had easily broken free of his telekinesis.

This little witch couldn't. She was truly just a fledgling.

Rowen breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her completely subdued.

“Nike, take Lou Gehrig off her, will you?”

“Okay.”

Nike grabbed Lou Gehrig by the scruff and tossed him aside. Rowen jabbed a poisoned needle into the witch’s tongue and gagged her with cloth.

If they could deliver her safely to the Captain, it would be a great achievement.

When the chaos settled, Rowen turned to Hestia.

“How do you know her?”

“…That’s.”

Usually so expressionless, Hestia was visibly shaken, and her beautiful face twisted with grief.

“…She used to live in the same fortress with me… a fr…iend.”

“Mmph! Mmmph!”

As if to deny it, the witch cried out through the gag.

Rowen folded her arms. The situation was more complicated than expected, but what mattered most was returning quickly. She decided not to pry further and focused only on the essentials.

“So she’s about your age, then?”

“…Yes. We parted four years ago, but she looks exactly the same as back then.”

“I see.”

Rowen nodded at Hestia’s bitter words.

“...So she became a witch after you were separated. No wonder she hasn’t even awakened her eyes yet, just a fledgling.”

They didn't know the details, but the broad strokes were clear.

“Well, that isn’t urgent now.”

Rowen soothed the team.

“Good. I’m glad you’re all alive. The barrier has fallen. Let’s hurry back to the Order.”

“…Yes.”

“Going! Going!”

Just as they turned to leave—

“Mmmph—!”

The little witch, straining until veins bulged in her neck, convulsed as black runes spread across her skin.

The first-rank witch writhed in agony. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Wait.”

Rowen raised her head toward the distortion they had come through.

Pause.

Nike was already there, smashing his fist into the eye of a chimera trying to force its way through.

“Damn it! There was another binding!”

Slave witches were often shackled with restrictions that triggered the moment they left a set area. Sometimes the memory of those bindings was erased.

Even if the master died, some curses remained until they were dispelled manually.

The girl’s desperate screams were not a denial of Hestia’s words, but the terror of knowing she would die the moment she was dragged away.

Black blood poured from her nose, eyes, and ears. She died where she lay.

Hestia’s arms shook. Her eyes trembled violently.

— Groooar!

The curse burst. The witch’s corpse became the anchor, and chimeras swarmed through the distortion.

Nike held them back as best he could, but beyond him more beasts tore at the corpses to push their way through.

“Lou Gehrig! Grab your axe!”

“…Huh, e-ehhh? Ah… I’m scared.”

Lou Gehrig crawled on the ground, reaching for the weapon he had dropped.

Crash!

Three chimeras thrust their heads through at once. Rowen and Nike could barely hold them back. They needed more hands.

“Hurry!”

“Ugh, hkk… I don’t want to… Brother. I want to go home… Uwaaahh!”

The moment he seized the axe,

Swish!

“Whew—”

Lou Gehrig’s eyes changed. His axe swept a half-circle, severing the torso of a beast with three human heads and a cow’s body.

“Fucking monster brats. I’ll kill every last one.”

“Sigh. That kid is really strange. But it works out here.”

Lou Gehrig transformed into a berserker, hacking apart every beast that forced its way in. Rowen swung her swordstick too, but the destructive force of the axe was greater.

“...Damn it, how many are there? We can’t hold all of this…”

Hestia regained her senses late and joined the fight, but with dozens pouring in, it was too much and she wasn’t much help.

“...What do we do? The only one who could close the distortion is dead.”

There was no way to kill them all, especially when they didn’t know how many there were.

“Aaahhh!”

Even with the axe, the enraged Lou Gehrig’s stamina was failing. Rowen and Hestia were also the type to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

The only thing to rely on was Nike’s overwhelming power now…

“Nike?”

But he was standing a little apart, staring into the air.

Was he playing around?

No.

Those eyes.

His crimson eyes fixed on the distortion told Rowen everything.

Nike was about to do something again.

* * *

The chimeras surged.

His comrades faltered.

Nike glanced at Rowen, then thought to himself.

He had not shown enough today.

He had not earned enough praise from her. His battles felt lacking, and he didn’t make any notable achievements.

Now was the time to shine. He couldn't return with nothing to report to Morgana. His pride won’t allow that.

‘Hah!?’

The thought of Morgana sparked an idea in his mind. He pulled back from the front line, stopped, and opened his demonic eye.

“Nike?”

Rowen called, but he didn't hear her. He was fully concentrated.

Nike saw a different world.

He possessed wisdom no one else had, and had mysterious power.

It was, of course, magic.

Not just ordinary magic that any ordinary witches could dare to approach, but knowledge of the highest order.

Morgana had taught him relentlessly, recognizing his uniqueness among witches.

Unlike a first-rank witch, who could only borrow others’ spells, Nike perfectly understood space itself.

It was instinct more than theory, but enough to know exactly what he needed to do.

The chimeras were pouring in through the distortion, the gate that connected spaces.

Just as Sestria had done, and just as Nike’s party had experienced.

A gate was magic that bent the laws of the world, folding distant spaces together, opening a hole, and binding them as one.

Simply put, if that hole was sealed, monsters could no longer invade this place.

With Sestria dead, the only ones capable of such a feat now were the first three witches and Nike.

“Urgh…!”

Rowen groaned, Hestia was wounded, and Lou Gehrig’s axe swings slowed. Time was running out.

He didn't need theory, but just needed to seal the hole.

Nike slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again. His crimson eyes, which pierced through truth itself, began to probe another dimension.

The invasion route Sestria had created. What looked like a precise and intricate distortion was, to Nike’s eyes, nothing more than a single circle.

Destroy the circle. It was an instinctive solution that rose to mind.

Nike reached out into the void.

All that was needed was a little effort.

It wasn’t the kind of act where one studies the theory and formula, then reconstructs it in reverse to dispel the spell, but a child’s pure destruction, like knocking over a sandcastle.

A peerless genius seized space itself, twisted it, and crushed the hole.

— !

The distortion closed.

The chimeras, cut off mid-charge, were severed and collapsed onto the ground.

“What the…?”

“...”

“N-Nike, w-w-what…? what did you just do…?”

The three of them stared, jaws slowly dropping.

* * *

“…I-I almost died.”

“…Hah.”

“Are you two alright? Any injuries?”

“…I-I have none!”

“Good…”

Lou Gehrig trembled. Hestia and Rowen wiped sweat and collapsed to the floor.

— Keke!

— Groooar…

Severed heads still writhed, jaws snapping while looking for its body.

The three exchanged looks after taking a breath, then all turned to Nike as if they promised.

He opened and closed his palm, studying it repeatedly. For him, it felt like discovering a neat little trick.

To the others, he was a miracle savior. Though of course, Nike himself only found this new little trick a bit amusing.

It was a crazy sight for anyone to see, but Rowen couldn’t allow his witch identity to be revealed. She quickly shifted the subject.

“A-Anyway, I’m glad everything turned out well.”

She wiped sweat from her nose and crawled to examine the witch’s corpse.

“…We failed to capture her alive.”

Rowen sighed, then sneakily glanced at Hestia and hid her expression.

After all, this girl was still very young despite being a witch, and she seemed to have been deeply connected to Hestia.

“…It’s alright. You don’t have to mind me.”

Hestia approached quietly, speaking as if she already knew what Rowen was thinking. She gently closed her old friend’s eyes.

Rowen felt a prickle of unease toward her.

“…She was right. We weren’t that close.”

“By test subject, is it the one I’m thinking of…?”

Rowen asked cautiously. Hestia nodded, her face cold as she looked at the dead old friend.

“…That’s why I became a hunter.”

Rowen felt like she understood. Every hunter had their story of vengeance against witches.

“I see.”

“…But I had questions for her.”

Hestia cast a faintly reproachful look at Rowen.

“...Ahem.”

“…But it’s fine. Witches must die.”

Rowen hesitated for a moment, then patted her junior’s back.

“Let’s return.”

They had survived in the end, gained valuable information, and the novices had proven themselves. It was a worthy result.

* * *

When Nike’s party returned safely to Vilnogos and were about to report their mission, Morgana’s messenger approached and, without listening to a word, summoned them straight to the Captain’s office.

For Morgana to call someone directly to her office was extremely rare. She usually communicated unilaterally through delegates or messengers.

And so they were summoned to the Captain’s office.

Naturally, Hestia and Lou Gehrig were not permitted to enter, so only Rowen and Nike stepped inside, where a familiar face was waiting for them.

“Yoo— Have you guys been well? Seems you’ve grown close while I was gone.”

“Master?”

“Boss!”

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