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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
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Evangeline, extending her hand, realized she could control the distant sea. She did so, and a massive wave rose from the calm ocean.
The swirling vortex of water then erupted. Nuclear fusion, from a distance…
Evangeline looked at her hand, as if it were a foreign object.
‘This is… awakening…’
She felt as if invisible threads were extending from her body, connecting her to the world, allowing her to manipulate it as if it were an extension of herself.
But…
‘My mana is draining quickly. Does it consume mana just to maintain this connection?’
Evangeline closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The invisible threads receded.
She could create and dismiss them at will. But maintaining them was draining.
‘Ah, but… just one more thing…’
Evangeline glanced towards her disciple and sent her threads towards him. She gently nudged him.
‘You feel an overwhelming urge to touch me… you’re falling deeper in love with me…’
The threads shattered. The spell had failed. She tried again, several times, but the result was the same.
Johan’s magic nullification was absolute, even against an awakened witch.
This wasn’t fun. Evangeline pouted and looked at the sea.
Even this view was getting boring.
“Johan.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Should we go back?”
“Gladly.”
Johan, seemingly of the same mind, agreed. They didn’t have much to pack. Johan had his spatial magic scroll.
They gathered their clothes and returned to the hotel.
But upon their return, they felt a nagging sensation that they had forgotten something.
“Huh… I feel like we’ve left something behind.”
“It’s probably nothing. Ugh—why is it so cold here?”
Evangeline shivered in the cool Imperial air and hurried to her room. Johan, though puzzled, followed her.
They only remembered Hecaterina three days later, when she finally returned.
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There were several reasons why the Empire, a civilization of guns and cannons, hadn’t invaded the Kingdom, a medieval society of swords and spears.
The Emperor, with her remarkable foresight, had judged that it was more profitable to exploit the Kingdom as a colony rather than conquer it, and also because of… God.
Whether or not God truly existed was unproven, but the Kingdom’s Holy Knights did possess a strange power that ordinary humans couldn’t use.
The source of that power was unknown, and the Empire was wary of provoking it. What if God did exist, and divine retribution befell them for attacking the Holy Kingdom?
“The Kingdom has been getting a bit… bold lately.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What should we do?”
“As I’ve always said, Your Majesty, we should just blast them with our cannons.”
The Emperor shook her head at her fire-power-obsessed advisor. They weren’t refraining from attacking because they couldn’t defeat them.
Another advisor offered a different suggestion.
“It is said that the best way to humble a civilization is to remove its greatest threat.”
“Remove its threat…”
“I’ve heard there are monsters in the Kingdom that even the Holy Knights cannot defeat, monsters that have been sealed away.”
The Holy Knights, with their divine power, could cut through magic. But monsters weren’t so easily defeated.
Dozens of ordinary soldiers with spears were more effective against a single monster than one Holy Knight.
And so, while they continued their foolish witch hunts, they suffered regular monster attacks.
“They call it… a dragon.”
“A dragon.”
“To those barbarians with their swords and spears, it’s a monster… but to our army, it’s just a large lizard.”
The Empire, in contrast to the Kingdom, was almost completely safe from monsters, though vulnerable to witches.
That’s why they employed witches and used their army to fight monsters. The Northern Defense Line, which faced hundreds of monsters daily, was proof of their effectiveness.
Guns, cannons, and gunpowder were incredibly effective against monsters. So effective that even a child could hunt them.
“Send the army. The Kingdom can’t refuse if we’re offering to help them defeat a monster.”
We shall bestow upon them our grace.
A grace of lead bullets.
A festival of blood and gunpowder.
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In the dead of night, the phone rang.
Johan answered, then, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, went to wake the witches.
“Deployment… anyone…?”
The witches, half-asleep, just groaned. Johan, seeing their lack of enthusiasm, woke Linna, who had the fewest points, and teleported with her to the northern border.
Linna, grumpy from being woken up so early, climbed onto the wall and began firing her annihilation rifle at the approaching monsters. Johan, meanwhile, yawned and dozed off behind the wall.
“Um… Mr. Johan?”
“Hm?”
A soldier cautiously approached him. Johan, tilting his head, looked at his rank insignia.
Private first class. Not the lowest rank, but still a grunt, tasked with all the menial chores.
“What is it?”
“I’m… sorry to bother you, sir… but I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor?”
Johan, wondering what a soldier could possibly ask of him, a non-witch, looked at him. The soldier, with an apologetic expression, spoke.
“The elf who’s on phone duty, sir…”
“The elf? Oh, the doll.”
“Yes, her… could you… make another one…?”
“Another one? But the doll doesn’t sleep, so there’s no need for two.”
“Well… one… for us.”
Johan finally understood what he was asking. The northern border. An extreme environment, completely devoid of women.
And then, a beautiful elf doll appears. It was only natural that the men, in the prime of their lives, would be… tempted.
He was asking for a love doll for the soldiers.
“You know I have no reason to grant such a request.”
“Yes! I’m sorry! I didn’t want to ask, but my superiors…”
“I’ll discuss this with the Emperor directly.”
“W-what!? The Emperor…? P-please, sir! I’ve made a terrible mistake!”
The soldier fell to his knees, begging for forgiveness. Johan tilted his head.
“What are you doing?”
“Please, sir! If the Emperor hears about this, it won’t just be my head on the line!”
“…That’s not what I meant. I was going to ask the Emperor how much she’d pay for the love dolls.”
“—Th-that’s… still a problem! If Her Majesty hears that we made such a request of a witch…”
“I doubt she’ll care. She seems like a reasonable person.”
Though there were no records of militaries in the 21st century providing sex dolls or prostitutes for their soldiers… it was a common practice in the past.
And in this monster-infested land, where women were scarce, a sex doll would be a valuable commodity.
“D-do you think so?”
“Sexual desire is one of the three basic human needs. It’s the state’s responsibility to provide for its citizens. And sexually frustrated men are a liability.”
Moreover, only Beatrice could create these lifelike, thinking, moving love dolls. A product that was unheard of even in the modern world.
They could corner the market, and it would be a way to legally distribute Beatrice’s golems throughout the Empire.
‘If we play our cards right, we could even replace the Imperial army with Beatrice’s dolls…’
And even if they couldn’t, distributing these dolls throughout the Empire, which could potentially become his enemies…
The love doll business was a very attractive proposition.
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