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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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“Master—! Wh-what…?”
Johan stared at the object embedded in his abdomen. It was a cookie. A human-arm-sized cookie, the source of the sweet aroma he’d been smelling since he entered the city.
It was clearly magically created, but like Hecaterina’s magic, it wasn’t completely nullified by Johan’s ability.
While he could dispel the magic itself, he couldn’t undo the physical damage it had caused.
‘No, shit…’
He looked at Evangeline. Her face was contorted in horror. She had deflected the attack, and now, realizing she had inadvertently injured Johan, she would be consumed by guilt.
Already emotionally unstable from their separation, the realization that she had hurt him… Evangeline might lose control.
‘I have to stop her…’
No one could stop an enraged Evangeline. She would become an unstoppable force of destruction, turning the world into a wasteland of fire and ruin.
He had to stop her. Johan, collapsing, looked at Beatrice, hoping she could somehow calm Evangeline.
But Beatrice’s face was also filled with shock and horror.
‘She’s no help either.’
Johan closed his eyes, praying he wouldn’t wake up on a devastated planet.
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“J-Johan?”
Evangeline, seeing Johan struck by the ricocheting cookie, trembled. She couldn’t process what had just happened.
The witch had attacked, and she, not wanting to waste energy, had simply deflected the projectile. And that deflected projectile had struck Johan…
“N-no… Johan? This isn’t funny… get up…”
Evangeline, her legs shaking, slowly approached Johan. The other witch, Azmona, blocked her path.
“Wait, where are you going? We’re in the middle of a fight—”
“Move.”
“Kyaaaah—!?”
Azmona was flung towards a building by an unseen force.
She survived the impact, having quickly transformed the building into a soft, cookie-like substance, but she was annoyed.
“She’s causing so much destruction, hurting so many people, and she’s freaking out over one human?”
Azmona, standing on the rubble of the cookie-building, had a clear view of Evangeline.
An ordinary-looking man lay on the ground, a cookie embedded in his stomach. Technically, she hadn’t hit him directly. Evangeline had deflected her attack…
“He wouldn’t have been hurt if she’d just taken the hit.”
Azmona’s gaze shifted. Despite the police cordon, a crowd was gathering.
Some were holding cameras. She frowned.
“What are the police doing?”
She looked at Evangeline and saw an opportunity. She was distracted, vulnerable.
Azmona, a seasoned witch, seized the moment. She used the approaching onlookers as ingredients, transforming them into dozens, hundreds of human cookies.
“Sorry, but you came here of your own free will.”
That witch, left unchecked, would destroy the Empire. For the sake of the Empire, a potential home for millions, even billions in the future, a few hundred casualties were a small price to pay.
She launched the cookie-humans at Evangeline and the man on the ground.
Her ultimate technique, transforming everything it touched into cookies. But the projectiles never reached their target.
“…What?”
The cookie-humans froze in mid-air. Azmona, sensing something was wrong, tried to escape.
But she couldn’t move. Her eyes darted around, and she saw a red-haired girl.
Thousands of threads, emanating from the girl’s body, held her captive.
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When Johan collapsed, his stomach impaled by a cookie, the despair Evangeline and Beatrice felt was indescribable.
Even Beatrice’s kidnapping by the monster had been less terrifying. She had been injured, but not critically.
This was different.
“J-Johan… Johan…?”
Blood. Johan’s blood, dripping onto the ground, staining the cookie embedded in his stomach.
His face, rapidly losing color, was a stark reminder of mortality. Of death.
To Beatrice, Johan wasn’t just a friend. He was more than family. He was the only one who understood her.
“Wake… up… please…? I… I won’t complain about the food anymore… I… I won’t bother you with hugs anymore…”
The thread connecting her to the world snapped.
Evangeline arrived, but Beatrice didn’t see her.
A barrier, separating her from the world, was forming within Beatrice’s mind.
With Johan, the only one who could see past her curse, the only one who understood her, injured, everyone else was now just… dolls.
‘Ah… I see—’
The overwhelming despair dragged her into an abyss. And there, at the bottom, Beatrice realized something.
If everyone else was just a doll—
Then she could control them.
Thin, almost invisible threads of mana, emanating from the Witch of Dolls, reached out, connecting to Evangeline, to Lynne, to the unknown witch, to countless others.
Awakening.
Extreme emotions could push a witch to new heights.
Beatrice had awakened. Her red eyes blazed.
“Ugh—!”
The witch who had injured Johan struggled against her invisible bonds. But it was futile.
She was a doll now, and dolls couldn’t disobey their master.
Beatrice flicked her wrist, and Azmona’s body contorted, like a marionette’s.
“Aaaaagh—! Gah—! Guh—!”
—Crack, pop—snap—!
Her joints bent at unnatural angles, her body twisting into grotesque shapes, and Azmona, overwhelmed by the pain, lost consciousness.
Beatrice tossed her aside and looked at the cookie-humans.
Humans transformed into cookies by Azmona’s magic. No, dolls.
She infused them with her mana. Then, reversing the process she used to animate her dolls, she restored them to their human forms.
“Wh-what!? Just now!”
“What happened…? I… I was dead…?”
As the cookie-humans reverted back to their original forms, Beatrice, her focus fading, collapsed.
Lynne, catching her, looked at Beatrice, then at Evangeline, then at the unconscious Johan, trembling.
“…You.”
“Y-yes…!”
“Come here and heal him. You can do it, right? You fixed her nose before.”
“I’ll… I’ll try…”
Lynne, following Evangeline’s order, rushed to Johan’s side. A large cookie was embedded in his stomach. Evangeline quickly removed it.
As the cookie was pulled free, Lynne channeled her mana into the wound. She recreated his organs, then his blood…
She replenished the essentials for human life, and Johan’s complexion slowly returned to normal.
“Johan…!”
Evangeline, seeing him recover, sighed in relief. She didn’t question why the twins were there, or what had happened.
That wasn’t important right now.
She looked up and saw the crowd of onlookers, the cameras recording everything.
‘This is going to be a headache to cover up.’
She offered a silent prayer for the Emperor, who would have to deal with the aftermath, then, carrying Johan, Beatrice, and Lynne, rose into the air.
Their departure made the front page of the Imperial newspaper.
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