—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Mod7
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Space rippled and warped. This distortion, charged with powerful mana, spat out two figures like discarded toys.
Landing in the forest near the cabin, Johan immediately collapsed and emptied his stomach.
“Bleeeeurgh!”
Unlike planned teleportation that came after careful preparation, sudden spatial jumps weren’t so gentle. His head spun and his insides churned violently.
After retching for what felt like ages while clutching the ground, he finally managed to wipe his mouth and stand. Stepping carefully around the mess, he made his way to Marguerite, who was trembling nearby.
“Hah… hah…”
“Are you alright?”
“Y-yeah…”
Her usual confidence had vanished – now she shook uncontrollably. Whether from the sudden magic use or something else…
Thankfully, after a few moments her trembling subsided and she looked up at Johan while taking deep breaths to steady herself.
“I’m sorry, apprentice. I wasn’t much help back there…”
“No, thanks to you we managed to escape.”
“Ah, ahaha- you think so?”
She let out a hollow laugh while straightening her clothes. Looking back, it was pathetic – freezing up in fear before a potentially hostile witch.
But her terror had been unavoidable.
“Was it her curse?”
“…Yes.”
The reason she had been terrified was because that witch’s curse forced others to tremble in fear. Nothing else could explain how someone confident enough to laugh in the Pope’s face could be reduced to such terror.
“A witch who inspires terror… Do you know her?”
“No, first I’ve heard of her.”
“Master might know.”
They returned to the cabin together. Evangeline, who had been anxiously awaiting Johan’s return, smiled brightly when he appeared but quickly frowned seeing his disheveled state.
“Johan? Are you hurt?”
“What? No, why suddenly…”
“Your clothes are covered in dust, like you’ve been kneeling somewhere… And there are scrapes on your palms. What happened?”
Evangeline shot a sharp glare toward where Marguerite stood beside Johan. Though she couldn’t see Marguerite clearly, she could sense her presence.
Seeing Evangeline stare directly at her despite this, Marguerite stepped back slightly and tapped Johan’s shoulder.
“…I’ll explain.”
“Nothing serious happened, right?”
“Not really. Just…”
Johan briefly explained what had transpired in the capital – their encounter with the witch, how suspicious she seemed, and how they’d killed her and escaped.
Hearing this, Evangeline trembled as mana coursed through her body.
“Ritz… I sent you to make sure not even a hair on Johan’s head would be touched…”
“Master? I’m fine. Without Marguerite, I might have died there.”
“And without her, you wouldn’t have been in danger at all.”
“It’s fine. It was just an accident. Besides, the witch who attacked me is dead now.”
“…Huff, fine. I’ll let it go since she’s dead.”
Evangeline, who had been about to unleash her anger at Marguerite, sighed and withdrew her mana upon hearing they had killed the witch.
Right – the one truly at fault was dead. There was no need to harm an innocent person.
“Did you confirm she was dead?”
“We beheaded her. I saw her head come clean off.”
“Then she’s definitely dead.”
Evangeline nodded with certainty. Even witches die when beheaded. Unless they were an immortal witch, surviving decapitation was impossible – and there had only been one immortal witch since witches were first discovered.
Now that even that immortal witch was dead, there was no way a random witch they encountered would have learned immortality magic.
‘Still, might be worth investigating…’
She thought of her investigation-loving old colleague as she headed to the bath with Johan.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Heads flying through the air – his own, Marguerite’s, Master’s – all soaring skyward simultaneously.
‘Ah, just a nightmare.’
A recurring dream he’d been having since witnessing those witch follower executions in the city. By now it felt like a boring B-movie that didn’t even make him break a sweat.
‘Who could possibly catch and kill these people?’
I looked at Evangeline and Marguerite’s corpses wondering this. Who could catch Master, arguably the strongest witch alive, or Marguerite, unmatched at escape?
Unless there existed some object that could completely nullify witch magic on contact – but such magical items didn’t exist in this world.
Chirp chirp!
The nightmare faded as birdsong woke him. Despite dreaming of his companions’ deaths, he felt oddly untroubled.
He got up immediately, prepared breakfast in the living room, and after washing his face headed to Master’s room.
“Master? I’m coming in.”
He entered without waiting for permission. Where once she would have hidden her face beneath her hood, now that she knew her face had no effect on him, Master slept completely unguarded.
No matter how loudly he called from outside, she wouldn’t wake until he came in to rouse her personally… He stood watching her roll around on the bed, having kicked off her blankets.
She still slept in that arousing way even in the morning. Where once he would have had to suppress his desires at such a sight, now he knew there was no need.
“Master, it’s morning. Time to wake up.”
“Mmm─ five more minutes…”
“Okay, five minutes are up.”
Barely five seconds had passed when he pulled her up. She squeezed her eyes shut drowsily, covering her mouth as she yawned repeatedly.
After stretching for a while to loosen up, she finally opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Ah, Johan… good morning…”
“Good morning, Master.”
“Good morning to Johan Junior too…”
Fresh from sleep, she even greeted what lay beneath his pants as if it had its own personality. After waving for a while, she finally got up and made her way to the living room.
Though the pre-prepared food had cooled and hardened somewhat, reheating wouldn’t affect the taste much thanks to the magical seasoning.
He reheated the food while getting Marguerite up and bringing her to the living room. Once the food was warm again and all three were gathered, they picked up their utensils and began eating.
“Mmm- delicious as always, Johan.”
“It’s all thanks to your seasoning, Master.”
“Hm? My doing?”
“Without your magical seasoning, it couldn’t possibly taste this good.”
Master smiled broadly at his words. She must have truly enjoyed it, as she quickly emptied her bowl and wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“Not going anywhere today?”
“No, probably not.”
“Then- help me out. I have some experiments to do.”
“Experiments…?”
This was a first. Though Master often shut herself in her room absorbed in magical experiments, she had never included him before.
Being such a rare opportunity, he quickly nodded. If it meant more time with Master…
After quickly finishing breakfast and cleanup, he waited for Master. Shortly after, Evangeline emerged from her room in changed clothes and smiled lightly at him.
“Shall we go?”
“Yes.”
Having discarded her usual hood, Master donned a proper witch’s robe and pointed hat as they left the cabin and headed deep into the forest.
Perhaps sensing the powerful mana radiating from the witch, no monsters appeared to block their path. After walking for quite some time, they arrived at a wide empty clearing.
“What is this place…?”
“It’s where I come to experiment with magic sometimes. No distractions around, and my mana has soaked so deeply into the area that other monsters won’t settle here… You could call it a kind of secret base.”
Master revealed her secret with childlike innocence, smiling briefly before extending her hand toward him.
Blue mana began visibly gathering at her fingertips – even to someone as magically ignorant as myself, it looked quite dangerous.
“M-Master?”
“Now Johan, try defending against this with your magic.”
“Wait, I don’t even know how to use mag-!”
The mana concentrated at Evangeline’s fingertips exploded.
Seeing his vision flood with light, he instinctively swung his fist.
Crash!
The magic shattered against his fist, mana scattering in all directions like millions of fireflies.
But there was no time to appreciate the beauty.
“Good, now let’s see if you can distinguish between magic you can nullify and magic you can’t.”
Hundreds of magic circles appeared behind Master’s back.
I quietly closed my eyes.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“A-are you alright? Johan?”
“…No, I feel like I’m dying.”
Having taken hundreds or thousands of spells head-on, Johan lay trembling on the ground.
Though she had controlled their power, just as being stuck with thousands of needles could kill you – even weakened spells hitting hundreds or thousands of times had him seeing the grim reaper dancing before his eyes.
‘Get lost…’
Johan shooed away the dancing reaper before his eyes and slowly got up. Then he signaled to Evangeline that he was okay.
Watching him with evident concern, Evangeline received his signal and launched another spell.
Johan swung his fist at the incoming magic.
Crash! The spell shattered like breaking glass.
After breaking magic for so long, he was starting to understand the principle behind how he could destroy it.
‘I can break it if I think of it as magic.’
An apple falling from the sky.
Natural.
Being blown away by a typhoon.
Perfectly natural.
The laws of physics cannot be defied.
But water shooting upward, fantasy-like dragons attacking.
These were illusions.
Crack!
He struck a cool pose after shattering the incoming spell.
“Next.”
Johan, impressed by how cool he must have looked, internally congratulated himself.
‘That was sick. At this rate, whether it’s Master or whoever, they’ll all fall for me. Me who became a slave in another world, turns out I had this magic nullification cheat…’
Lost in these thoughts, Johan didn’t see the next spell coming and took a direct hit to the forehead.
When he regained consciousness moments later, he realized his head was resting in Evangeline’s lap.
“Johan! Are you okay!?”
“…No, not really.”
“Wh-what should I do…? A doctor! Should I take you to a doctor!?”
“Just let me stay like this…”
Johan burrowed deeper into her thighs. After trying to act cool only to immediately faint, he couldn’t lift his head from embarrassment…
Of course, even without that, it wouldn’t have been easy to pull his face away from those thighs.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
