Chapter 93: Witch Tamer [1]
Faust slowly pried her eyes open.
The moment she did so, blood rushed out of her mouth.
Her body felt abysmally weak.
During her time under the mercenaries’ captivity, there had been brief moments where she regained consciousness, only for them to inject something into her system and force her back into darkness.
Those fragments were all Faust could recall as she struggled to push herself up.
She looked around.
"...."
Bodies were scattered everywhere, torn apart as if by a blade.
Confusion set in, but it didn’t last long.
Faust suddenly retched, coughing up blood.
"Cough! Cough...!"
Her body was in no condition to move, and even as she tried to gather mana, she could feel her circuits fluctuating dangerously.
Still, she attempted to cast a healing spell.
"Akh...!"
Only for her body to give out again, lurching forward as another wave of weakness hit her.
"Haa...."
Faust knew she was in bad shape.
Most likely, it was because of the drug still inside her system. For something like this to affect her to such a degree, it couldn’t be an ordinary toxin. If it were, her circuits would’ve expelled them immediately.
That meant... it must’ve been a drug made specifically for witches like her.
Faust coughed a few more times before turning to the side to see Fiore lying there, in just as bad a condition as her.
"Fiore..."
No, Fiore was in an even worse shape than her.
Faust knew the moment her fingertips checked her pulse that Fiore wouldn’t have much longer to live.
An apprentice witch like her, with circuits at an infancy level, wouldn’t have the proper systems to expel a toxin like this.
The only reason Faust was able to move this much was that her circuits were still trying to fight off whatever was inside her.
"Cough...!"
Faust then turned toward the distance, where a powerful force was emanating. Whatever had caused all of this, it was certainly there.
Faust then got up and forced her broken body toward the distance.
Just one spell was all she needed.
If she could deal with whatever was responsible for all of this, then at least she would not go down without a fight.
But the moment she crossed the threshold, what she witnessed made her jaw slacken.
"L-Lancel...?"
* * *
Heidi Ermengarde.
Over two centuries ago, she had been a respected member of the Erudition Society.
She was regarded as an up-and-coming genius who would have redefined magic, particularly known for her specialty in dimensional-type magic.
It was a field not even the Grand Witch at the time, Cyrene, was fully proficient in.
That alone set Heidi apart.
She was the only witch of her generation to possess mastery over a branch of magic that could rival, if not surpass, the Grand Witch herself.
However, everything came crashing down the day her experiment malfunctioned, causing the lives of ten fellow members of the Erudition Society.
"It was a mistake..."
It had been a mistake.
She had begged for leniency, but she was thrown to the wolves.
That day, a newly appointed member of the Erudition Society, Faust Lieber, had mercilessly beaten Heidi, who at the time was not well-versed in magic duels.
In the end, Heidi was expelled from the Erudition Society and ultimately exiled from Riviere, without any chance to properly explain herself or receive a pardon.
To Heidi, it had been an unfair judgment.
The witches had agreed to participate in the experiment.
Who could have known it would end in their deaths?
And even so, it wasn’t as if Heidi had intended to kill them in the first place. It had simply been an honest mistake.
Yet the Erudition Society had shown no mercy. The Grand Witch, Cyrene, had deemed her defective, a danger to Riviere.
That day, Heidi swore to take her revenge.
She drove herself into isolation in the human capital, researching and refining her magic, forming connections with the underworld along the way.
Over time, she discovered a special property, something only those proficient in dimensional magic could truly grasp.
Like a black hole, dimensional magic could be refined to the point that it could draw in a witch’s magic circuits.
And from that, Heidi had become an infamous killer who had devoured an innumerable number of witches’ circuits across the continent, either killing them outright or leaving them alive, forced to suffer without ever being able to use magic again.
And finally, the first target of her revenge had to be the one witch who had forced her into suffocating humiliation, Faust Lieber.
Snap——!
With a snap of her fingers, the spine-like monster, which had been surprisingly resistant to magic, finally disintegrated.
As the snow that had obscured the vicinity began to fade, Heidi looked ahead, toward the emerging silhouette within the thinning haze.
"Hahaha... Fuck... This is crazy..."
Standing there was the man who seemed capable of using magic.
Heidi was certain that this man was yet another one of the Grand Witch Cyrene’s twisted experiments.
And so, she wanted to devour his circuits.
Just from the substance of his magic alone, from what little she had already felt, she could tell that his power was something entirely different, despite the surprisingly faint amount of mana his spells seemed to emit.
Heidi was no stranger to Cyrene’s eccentricity. This man’s existence, strange and unnatural as it was, could only be her doing.
"Oho?"
Yet for some reason, the man was just standing there, laughing like a crazed maniac despite his failing body.
Heidi’s amusement quickly faded.
She had seen enough.
It was about time she stopped indulging his little display and simply end him.
"Chains of Dominion."
But unfortunately for Heidi, time was up.
────────────
[Emergency Objective Completed!]
────────────
[Condition:]
∎ Survive for one minute
[Rewards Obtained:]
∎ Strength: +2.0
∎ Vitality: +2.0
∎ Endurance: +2.0
∎ Agility: +1.0
∎ Mana: +1.0
────────────
[Level: 8 → 10]
────────────
[Special Objective]
────────────
[Condition:]
∎ Reach Level 10
[Rewards Obtained:]
∎ Contract Capacity: +3
∎ Chains of Dominion +Upgrade
────────────
"...!"
At that moment, unseen chains wrapped around her body.