Chapter 8 : Chapter 8
Chapter 8: The Witch, Iris
Just as the woman’s hand was about to reach the boy’s shoulder, a flash of silver suddenly flared before her. She reflexively turned her palm, and a tiny shard of ice instantly formed in front of it—
Clang!
The silver light burst apart before her eyes. The masked woman flicked away the shattered ice crystals from her hand and looked at the broken sword raised in the boy’s hand in surprise.
“You move quickly enough. And that sword... are you from the Silverblade Knights?” The woman did not seem angry. Instead, she pointed at Caroline and asked, “What is she to you?”
Seeing that the woman no longer intended to keep laying hands on him, Cyril shook out the hand that had gone a little numb from the impact, drew the broken sword back to his chest, and bared his teeth slightly. When he looked at the woman again, there was now a trace of alarm in his eyes.
He had been certain that his move just now had already been fast enough. He had merely flipped his wrist and brought the broken sword up in a reverse grip. If it had been an ordinary person, their palm would surely have been sliced open by the blade.
And yet she had not hesitated in the slightest. A shard of ice had already formed in her palm and blocked his sneak attack.
There had been no sign of chanting, no casting tell, not even a ripple of mana.
That ice had appeared out of nowhere.
And even more terrifying was the fact that his strength had actually lost to a casual lump of ice she had conjured with one hand.
A witch.
This woman was actually a witch!
In Road of Radiance, witches were the most mysterious class there was, bar none. They resembled mages in many ways and were often mistaken for them, but in truth, the two were fundamentally different.
Simply put, a mage’s spells were built upon the control of elements.
What witches wielded, however, were laws.
It was not until the year 1456 in the game timeline—sixteen years after launch—that the concept of laws was opened to players. Before being brought here, Cyril had himself been completely absorbed in researching them.
Even up until the moment of his transmigration, those mysterious witches, who had always remained apart from ordinary humanity, had appeared before players only a handful of times. If Cyril had not completed a long quest chain and learned a great deal about witches and laws, then his own knowledge of them would have been little more than a blank page.
Cyril forced his expression into calmness and pulled Caroline behind him with one hand. In a low voice, he said, “She’s my younger sister.”
“What utter nonsense. Are you a fool, or do you take me for one?” The woman gave a scornful laugh and pointed at his head. “Just look at those pointed ears. You’re an elf. Since when do elves serve in a human knight order? That only makes you more interesting.”
“I’m a half-elf. There’s no contradiction in my sister not having elven blood.”
Cyril tried his best to keep his tone steady as he lifted his head and met the face hidden behind the mask. Witches were all eccentrics. No matter how one looked at it, angering a rare and powerful witch was not a wise choice.
The woman lowered her gaze, examining the two young figures before her, then finally shook her head.
“Forget it. I’ll assume what you said is true. It doesn’t matter.”
She looked Cyril over a few more times, then turned and said, “Come with me.”
“Come with you? Where are you taking us?” Cyril froze. She was far easier to reason with than he had expected.
“If you don’t want your sister to die of fever in the snow, then follow me.”
Cyril hesitated for a moment, glanced back at Caroline, who was already so weak she could barely speak, then decisively lifted her onto his back and followed the mysterious witch.
The situation in Talin Town was even worse than Cyril had imagined. Harsh, inhuman howls echoed from every direction. When he looked toward the center of town, he saw a mass of black smoke continually forming and spreading outward through the streets.
That was the War Fog.
War Fog was the sign that a necromancer had begun establishing a base for the undead. It blocked vision, fouled the air, and reshaped the environment into one that living creatures could barely survive in. It was the most important step that allowed the undead to turn enemy ground into home turf.
Cyril’s heart tightened. The War Fog had appeared far earlier than he had estimated, and worse still, it had appeared inside the border itself.
The mysterious witch moved with light, effortless steps. She avoided every villager, whether dead or alive, then after several turns she pushed open the door to a small house and slipped inside. Cyril entered the pitch-black room with Caroline on his back, only to hear a hoarse voice sound out:
“You’re five minutes late.”
“Something came up,” the masked woman replied. “Shut the door.”
Cyril obediently closed the door. The moment the room sank into darkness, it was lit up by a sphere of light. The masked woman held the glowing orb in her hand, blew on it gently, and it scattered into countless bright motes throughout the room, each one shining on without fading.
Besides the masked woman, Cyril, and Caroline, there were two other people inside, both sitting casually on the floor, both wearing strange masks as well.
“Was Sandru disturbed by them?” One of them clicked his tongue and looked at Cyril with obvious displeasure.
“Perhaps,” the masked woman said with a shrug.
“Then we should leave.” The other stood up, patted the woman twice on the shoulder, and started for the door.
“You mean to leave this mess for La Rochelle?” the woman suddenly shouted.
“What does La Rochelle’s fate have to do with you or me?” the person walking toward the door said coldly, his eyes falling on Cyril by the entrance.
Cyril’s heart lurched violently. He threw himself backward at once, slamming both himself and the girl behind him against the wall.
In the next instant, a burst of flame erupted from the very spot where they had just been standing, instantly painting their already pale faces red.
Cyril felt as if his heart were about to leap out of his chest. His hand on the hilt of his sword was slick with sweat. Before he could react further, the masked woman began a low, chilling chant:
“Splava!”
The moment the obscure word left her lips, the old wooden house let out a groan as though it were being crushed under a thousandfold weight. The man still seated on the ground jumped up violently, while the one near the door turned back and raised his hands in defense toward the masked woman.
“Those two know our plan! They deserve to die!” the man by the door roared.
“The people I brought back are none of your concern,” the masked woman said coldly, and yet the pressure weighing down on both men did not ease in the slightest.
“Iris! Even if they’re people of La Rochelle, that has nothing to do with you!”
His only answer was an even heavier suffocating pressure. The points of light scattered across the floor now blazed so brilliantly that Cyril and the others could barely keep their eyes open. Yet he heard every word spoken, and when he heard the man address the masked woman by name, he almost cried out in shock.
That invisible struggle went on for quite some time. At last, as though making a painful decision, the man in the room let out a muffled groan, then finally gave in and rasped,
“Fine! We agree! We’ll go deal with Sandru!”
The woman called Iris gave another cold snort. The two men immediately collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, their limbs too drained to summon even the slightest strength.
Iris did not spare the two fallen men a second glance. She simply pushed open the inner door and turned to Cyril, who was still standing by the entrance looking thoroughly stunned.
“You two, come inside.”
Iris.
It was actually Iris.
Cyril groaned inwardly, though he did not dare show a trace of it on his face.
A Rogue knew better than any other class how to stay alive.
Hurriedly, he scooped up Caroline, who had been knocked against the wall by his own movement moments earlier, and followed Iris into the inner room.