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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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To be honest, seeing the tears flowing from No. 17’s eyes, I fell into a strange emotion. Whatever intentions he had, it was clear that he too had tried to save the world from its end.
However, everyone present knew that it couldn’t justify all the evil deeds he had done so far.
Mana began to fluctuate again.
“You don’t think I, who has done everything to survive, would give up now, do you?”
The other witches also hurriedly drew up mana, but I stepped forward and blocked them.
“You have no right to kill this man.”
When I warned them while scattering killing intent, the witches were startled and began to read the situation, and the Grand Witch slightly nodded and issued an order to withdraw their mana.
Even while handling mana, he slightly bowed his head to me. I didn’t say that expecting gratitude. He was going to die anyway.
But if he felt even a little grateful that he wouldn’t die at the hands of the witches, I wanted to use even that, so I asked honestly.
“How were you able to handle mana even with Arianne’s Flower nearby?”
“Heh, you even know about Arianne’s Flower?”
No. 17 laughed absurdly. As if he thought it was all over anyway, he began to explain in quite detail.
“As I was running away from the witches and lost my way, a beast gave me a leaf, telling me to take it.”
“…Don’t tell me you’re talking about the Moon Werewolf with a black mane?”
I tried asking, thinking it might be, and he opened his eyes wide and had a surprised expression.
“How? Just how do you know all of this?”
There was no possibility that he stole or took Arianne’s Flower from ‘that guy.’ I thought that quite a compassionate fellow would have shown mercy.
“So you grew a flower with that leaf?”
“That’s right. I struggled quite a bit. In the process, I also found a way to inversely handle mana by using the characteristics of Arianne’s Flower.”
This time, I was honestly surprised.
No matter how outstanding a mage was, not only sabotaging Arianne’s Flower, the nemesis of mages, but even copying it despite partial issues.
‘Now I understand.’
From what I had seen so far, the Tudogs knew quite a bit about the Demon Realm Forest.
They had the knowledge and technology to implant the abilities of numerous beasts into bodies.
It was previously incomprehensible to me that such guys were annihilated without a trace while conquering the Demon Realm Forest in my previous life.
‘That guy must have noticed they replicated Arianne’s Flower.’
Then the story changes.
Once that fellow starts moving, no matter how great the Tudogs are, they couldn’t survive in this forest, and using his sensitive sense of smell, he would have erased everything related to the Tudogs from the continent.
‘Is this the reason I didn’t know anything about the Tudogs in my previous life?’
It was disheartening, but I definitely felt like I had finally reached the answer.
Recklessly replicating that guy’s treasure with a leaf he had given out of mercy was no different from asking to be killed.
“The conversation got long since it’s the end.”
No. 17 began shooting the mana he had gathered directly at me. Numerous spells poured down, and even the witches who were versed in magic seemed surprised by his magical skills.
It felt like we were having a magic competition.
To that extent, No. 17 was pouring out his everything to show me and the witches.
That he wasn’t just some material used for making magic or medicine.
That the likes of us couldn’t do anything to him.
In addition, he took out something very unique from his bosom.
It was a ‘hand.’
The hand, cleanly cut at the wrist, was strangely familiar, and surprisingly, a pattern I knew was engraved on the back of the hand.
“The mark of Helios?”
“As expected, this boy knew it too?”
No. 17 held up the hand insensibly and blew mana into it, and then the power of Helios that Ares used to use began to partly imbue into his magic.
“……”
“What? I’m a villain. I’ve lived a shabby life, did you pity me?”
“No.”
I don’t like Ares.
He wasn’t a friend I could call particularly good.
But if you ask me if he did bad things to the extent of having his hand cut off, that’s not the case either.
He was a third-rate villain, equivalent to a neighborhood delinquent.
Dodging the flying spells or deflecting them with a mana-coated sword, I kept advancing forward.
As if his heart was burning out, the closer I got to him, the more directly he felt his life ending, so he shot even more intense magic.
But in the end, my sword reached right in front of him.
Perhaps because he had already used all his mana for the attack, there wasn’t even a simple protective magic surrounding his body.
It wasn’t in the sense of taking revenge for Ares, but I unintentionally gathered mana and cut off his right hand, which was gathering mana.
“Argh!”
No. 17 staggered violently with a fierce groan.
I didn’t stop there and thrust my sword into his heart.
Letting out a faint groan, he rather leaned into me by thrusting his body forward. With his remaining trembling hand, he grabbed my sword.
“The Earliest Apocalypse… will come in 10 years.”
“Well, you could see it that way.”
“Can you… stop it?”
Although it was for the sake of survival, he was a man who had devoted all his time to preventing the end after becoming free.
Knowing what he wanted to hear from me, I whispered softly.
“Rin will no longer be the end.”
Perhaps he noticed the meaning in my words.
He looked at me with a surprised expression, then slowly knelt down.
That was the end.
Even if he was the notorious leader of those who lurked in the underworld under the name of the Tudogs, implanting the power of beasts and confronting the Chokugen Faction.
In the end, when a sword was thrust into his heart, he could only die.
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
The old woman slowly approached, leaning on her staff.
Adriana tried to support the Grand Witch, but she refused with a gesture and stood next to me.
“Truly pitiful…”
“In front of me.”
I cut off the Grand Witch’s words as she was about to speak while looking down at the dead body.
“Don’t flap your mouth carelessly.”
It was true that thanks to Adriana’s help, I was able to make an underhanded move in wiping out the Tudogs this time.
But on the contrary, the witches couldn’t escape from the responsibility of creating an organization like the Tudogs.
This happened because of their damn eccentric traditions.
I slowly picked up Ares’ hand that had fallen to the ground.
The palm was thick and had calluses, as if he had worked hard in his own way.
“It’s my friend’s hand, go and reattach it.”
At the coercive command, the witches’ eyebrows rose, and they finally tried to say something, unable to bear it, but the Grand Witch’s chuckle stopped them.
“You bowed your head just because you didn’t want to fight, so you thought it would be easy? If you want to ask for something, you should at least pay a favorable price.”
The Grand Witch laughed dryly.
Perhaps because this woman was old, she didn’t seem to grasp the situation at all.
“I have no intention of sympathizing with this man, but it’s clear that your inhumane traditions were the trigger for this situation.”
“……”
“Price? Fine, I’ll pay.”
Pulling out the sword stuck in the man’s chest, I glared at the Grand Witch.
“I’ll let you live.”
“……”
“Right now, I’m saying I won’t kill you and let you live.”
*
The return trip was bound to take time.
Perhaps because they were witches who lived hidden in the forest, there wasn’t a single warp marker connected to the outside world.
In the end, a strange party consisting of me, the Grand Witch, and Adriana was formed and headed towards Elgrid.
The Grand Witch and I didn’t exchange any other words, and Adriana, wedged between us, only read the atmosphere, but the journey ended when the tall buildings of Aios Academy came into view.
I immediately went to the hospital and easily found a familiar face in the corridor.
Eve was sitting on a hospital chair, reading a book.
Seeing the warm sunlight shining on Eve through the window, I felt like my heart, which had been contracted from tension, was loosening a bit.
It was a sight I could always see normally, but that’s why it felt like we had truly returned to peaceful normality.
“Eve.”
When I called her name softly as if reciting, Eve was startled and turned her head towards me.
Then, without even putting a bookmark, she threw the book and ran to hug me.
“Daniel! You’re back!”
I had already told the kids that I would finish off the Tudogs before using Adriana’s ring, so they must have been waiting anxiously.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m not hurt.”
When I told her with a slight smile, Eve slightly raised her head. Her eyes were moist.
Although Eve had recently achieved growth in her own way, seeing her like this reminded me of the feeling of a small animal I felt when I first saw her.
That’s how anxious and scared she must have been.
“Where are the others?”
When I asked Eve, who had calmed down and slowly separated from me, she pointed at the hospital rooms in the corridor.
“All the students from our school are hospitalized here. Including Miss Bertia.”
“……”
“Everyone was injured a lot, but they’re okay. Don’t go in with too dark an expression and smile brightly for them.”
“But……”
In a way, it felt too brazen to appear with a smile to the children who were injured while fighting for me and my sister, but Eve shook her head.
“They all fought like that because they wanted Daniel to smile for them.”
“……”
I was at a loss for words.
I couldn’t properly organize in my head what to say to them, but in fact, there was someone else I had to meet first.
Just then, Eve’s expression darkened.
“And Daniel may not know, but actually, there was an attack on the hospital too. In fact, Ares…”
“I know.”
I slightly nodded and pointed to the two people behind me. Among them, Adriana already knew Eve, so she just waved her hand to greet her.
“Where is Ares’ hospital room?”
Following Eve’s finger pointing to the room at the very end, I hurriedly moved my feet.
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So the witches used the males to make potions and shit?Man, they really deserved to get wiped out
You don’t remember but Adreana told him about the tradition of abducting male every half century to breed and the male born..well his name already told no?