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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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“Follow me.”
Adelheid, ever the soldier, sought to resolve the matter directly. And Evangeline, confident in her own abilities, had no reason to refuse.
Johan, however, horrified, threw himself between them, trying to stop the impending duel.
“Master! What are you—?”
“Johan, there are times when a witch cannot back down… and for me, that time is now.”
“This isn’t some grand battle…”
A petty squabble between two women over a man. Nothing to be proud of. Yet the two witches, with an air of solemnity, took to the battlefield.
Johan, watching them ascend into the sky, could only stare, dumbfounded.
“…Whatever. It’ll sort itself out.”
He had given up.
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Flight. All witches could do it, yet at the same time, none could.
Simply expelling mana to fly was inefficient, a crude method for a witch, who prided herself on her intellect and understanding of the world.
Moreover, such a waste of mana in a battle between witches would be suicidal.
‘She’s good.’
Evangeline, observing Adelheid’s flight, could gauge her skill, her mastery of her magic.
The Witch of Ice. Adelheid was skating across the frozen sea.
Evangeline didn’t understand the science behind it—superconductivity caused by near-absolute zero temperatures—but she recognized its efficiency.
“First strike wins!”
A surprise attack, something the soldierly Adelheid hadn’t anticipated. She frowned and raised her hand.
Evangeline’s mana blast was blocked by a wall of ice. Adelheid chuckled.
But it was a feint. Evangeline began a process of nuclear fusion, using the surrounding seawater as fuel.
WEEEEEEEE—!!
A high-frequency hum, like that of a nuclear reactor, filled the air. Adelheid, sensing the immense danger, froze the sea around her, encasing herself in a cocoon of ice.
“Too late.”
The fusion began. A second sun appeared on Earth. A nuclear explosion, powerful enough to have wiped out the entire beach if not for Evangeline’s precise control of the blast, erupted, and a mushroom cloud of superheated steam obscured her vision.
An attack that should have obliterated any foe. Evangeline smiled, imagining Adelheid reduced to dust.
“Impressive. I can see why you’re so confident.”
Her smile vanished as a voice emerged from the steam.
Evangeline frowned and peered into the mist. Sharp icicles shot out, narrowly missing her, and Adelheid emerged, unharmed.
“But we’re a bad match.”
150 million degrees Celsius. The temperature of the sun. And Adelheid was unfazed. She raised her hand.
The sea around them froze, the waves ceasing their motion.
“I am the Witch of Ice.”
Not a witch who simply made things cold.
A being who could stop all motion, all energy.
The Witch of Entropy.
“The Guardian of the Empire.”
Crack—
The frozen atmosphere began to tremble.
The intense heat, equivalent to that of a sun.
Where had it all gone?
“And the Commander of the Northern Defense Line’s 2nd Battalion, Adelheid.”
Heat was energy.
And she unleashed the energy she had absorbed.
A second sun descended upon the earth.
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Woooooosh—!
A nuclear typhoon.
Johan, who had stepped out of the hotel, shielded his face from the blast and walked towards the beach.
The air, which had been momentarily sucked out, creating a vacuum, now rushed back in.
The wind shifted, blowing first one way, then another. Johan struggled to maintain his balance and finally reached the beach.
“What the hell is going on!?”
“Run! Is it a monster!?”
“The Commander! Get the Commander!”
Even the seasoned soldiers, who had fought countless monsters, were terrified by this natural disaster. Panic spread through the ranks.
A tidal wave, taller than the surrounding buildings, rose from the sea.
As the soldiers fled in terror, the massive wave, so high it blocked out the sun, froze solid.
“I-it’s the Commander!”
“The Commander is fighting!”
“Alright, men! Grab your weapons! We need to help her!”
The soldiers, seeing the frozen wave, regained their courage and rushed back towards the train to retrieve their weapons. Johan’s expression hardened.
‘Why… is this taking so long?’
Most witches were no match for his master. The only ones who had ever given her a decent fight were true monsters.
A creature that could distort reality, or a great witch who could control space itself.
His master shouldn’t be struggling this much against a random witch she had just met.
‘Is something… wrong…?’
Was she sick? Was she not at her best? But witches didn’t get sick. Johan knew this.
Even he, after rolling around naked in the snow, hadn’t caught a cold. Mana enhanced their physical abilities, making them immune to most diseases.
So the only explanation was that Adelheid was as strong as Evangeline.
‘I can’t believe it…’
He wanted a closer look. He took out Marguerite’s magic scroll.
She had asked for it back, but he had stubbornly refused, and it had become his personal possession. He channeled mana into it, and his body teleported to the other side of the frozen wave.
There, he saw a landscape of four-dimensional ice spikes, and his master, gracefully weaving through them.
‘…She’s so beautiful.’
Johan, batting away stray icicles, watched the two witches fight.
The sunlight, reflecting off the ice, made Evangeline sparkle.
She was beautiful even at rest, but in this situation, she was like a work of art.
“—Shouldn’t you be giving up by now, monster?”
“Look who’s talking. You’re persistent. Is it because you’re an old maid?”
The two witches, oblivious to Johan’s presence, continued their magical duel.
Adelheid was on the offensive, Evangeline on the defensive. Occasionally, Evangeline would launch an attack, but it was deflected by Adelheid’s magic, just as Adelheid’s attacks were deflected by Evangeline’s.
Their magic was useless against each other. It was a battle of pure power.
A battle of who had more mana.
And in such a battle, Evangeline had never lost.
But.
“This is getting boring. I have to see Johan, so let’s end this.”
“I agree. Let’s end this.”
They decided to stop their pointless skirmish and settle it with one final attack.
Their primary goal wasn’t to defeat each other, but to see Johan. Dragging out the fight would only delay their reunion.
A dramatic agreement. They gathered their remaining mana.
The magic of love versus the magic of ice.
A conceptual magic that controlled the very essence of attraction and repulsion, versus a physical magic that controlled the energy of motion.
The conceptual versus the physical. The world groaned under the strain, as if the end was near.
And then, it was over. The two witches, battered and bruised, fell into the sea.
“—Master!”
Johan, seeing Evangeline fall, rushed towards her.
Evangeline, floating in the water, saw him and smiled.
“Heh… I won.”
“What are you talking about…? At best, it was a draw.”
“No. It wasn’t that kind of fight…”
Evangeline said this and reached out to Johan. She pulled him closer and kissed him.
She pulled away, gasping for breath, and said,
“It was a fight to win you. And since you chose me, I won. Right?”
It was a stretch, a blatant manipulation… but he couldn’t deny it. Johan nodded silently, and Evangeline went limp.
“Ugh… Johan, I’m so tired… hold me… and give me some of your mana…”
“…I will, if you promise not to do this again.”
“I can’t promise that…”
“Then no.”
“Awww…”
Johan, seeing Evangeline’s dejected expression, slung her over his shoulder and began to caress her, comforting her.
“But… I can do whatever I want with you while you’re like this, right?”
“…Hehe, I’d like that even more.”
“Then let’s…”
Johan, about to leave, then saw Adelheid, floating unconscious in the water.
Though his master disliked her, he couldn’t just leave her there.
He slung her over his other shoulder and carried them both out of the sea.
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Battle for the glitzy..