Ch.868Welcome

[“What a bitch like a jackal. To run away like this, like this…!”]

Meiharin’s sudden suicide caused great sorrow and anger for Hersella.

Her plan to change Meiharin’s residence to a livestock pen had fallen apart before it could even begin.

Of course, that plan was impossible to execute from the start.

While I agreed with torturing Meiharin, “that kind” of torture was rather problematic.

Despite appearances, I am the saint of the goddess Astraea who oversees order and justice.

Even if the opponent was practically a witch, I couldn’t order her to be thrown into an animal pen—unless it involved extracting her brain or burning her with fire.

That would be an excessively secular and gloomy punishment.

‘Sigh… this is why I hate spellcasters.’

It was difficult for me to contain my disappointment. We had successfully captured the third apostle, but she blew her own head off before we could investigate anything.

This was the problem with spellcasters.

Unlike knights or warriors who become as helpless as larvae once their limbs are cut off, these people would readily commit suicide as long as they had enough mana to activate a single spell.

I should have knocked her unconscious beforehand, but regrettably, my hand was a moment too late.

I suppose it couldn’t be helped.

Meiharin’s casting speed was close to divine.

If I had tried to strike the back of her neck any faster to knock her out, I might have decapitated her entirely.

‘If only I had brought Ophelia…’

This was a moment when I particularly missed the absent mage.

If she had been here, she could have bound Meiharin’s mana flow, preventing her from doing anything.

I wanted to bring her along for this very reason, but she hadn’t even arrived in Hestella yet, so there was nothing I could do.

The subjugation of Meiharin and other sorcerers was literally an urgent matter.

In reality, if we had given them just a little more time, the subjugation would have been several times more difficult.

Instead of hastily summoning a half-formed Shengangshi while being beaten as she did this time, she would have greeted us with a properly completed Shengangshi by her side from the start.

If Imara hadn’t come to find me. And if she hadn’t informed me that something ominous was happening in Ordos…

We would have known nothing and suffered massive casualties from Meiharin’s surprise attack with her thorough preparations.

Ah, speaking of which, I wonder how Imara is doing.

The last time I saw her, her expression revealed her complicated feelings.

Well, I had to kill Meiharin, and it was the right thing to do… but for Imara, Meiharin was still her birth mother.

So while she might understand and accept Meiharin’s death, she couldn’t be entirely pleased about it.

Should I have Hersella comfort her when we return…?

…I’m not sure if that’s appropriate.

The very person who destroyed Meiharin going to comfort her daughter? From the outside, that looks like the epitome of terrible personality. Perfect for getting stabbed in the middle of the night.

But I can’t just leave her alone either… ah, really, what should I do with her?

After burning Meiharin’s corpse with Lacy’s holy fire, I continued to help with the aftermath of the battle while pondering how to deal with Imara going forward.

======[ Hestella ]======

…

Somewhere in the royal palace of Hestella, while the queen was away.

In a quiet, dark, and strangely gloomy corner of a room,

‘…Did it work?’

A black-haired woman opened her eyes slowly, as if waking from sleep.

The woman who was called “Her Majesty the Queen’s younger sister” by those wandering the palace, receiving both royal and foreigner treatment.

‘…It seems it worked.’

Haschal’s half-sister, Aishan-Gioro Imara.

Or more precisely, someone wearing Aishan-Gioro Imara’s shell.

The woman who had died minutes ago when her head exploded.

However, she had cast a reincarnation spell on her daughter in preparation for her own death.

‘Thank you, Imara. Leaving such a healthy body for your mother.’

Meiharin of the White Valley opened her eyes.

—-

The reincarnation spell.

It was Meiharin’s ultimate life-saving spell that she had prepared as insurance.

Like a snake shedding its skin to be reborn, this major spell allowed her to seize the body of a prepared relative the moment her original body met its end.

It was a resurrection spell independently created by Meiharin after receiving partial knowledge of the soul-splitting technique from Feyrus.

This was why Meiharin had tried to recover and save Imara. And why she could choose suicide without hesitation immediately after being captured.

Even if her original body died, she could be resurrected through Imara’s body.

‘Good. Now, if I can just escape to the steppes before that woman returns…’

Meiharin smiled, confident that her reincarnation spell had succeeded.

She was already thinking of ways to regroup the sorcerers once she returned to the steppes. Although she had been defeated in the Ordos battle due to unexpected variables, such a defeat hardly mattered now that she was resurrected.

‘I was underprepared this time. But next time, I will certainly…’

As long as she was alive, there would be plenty of opportunities to rise again.

That’s why Imara, or rather Meiharin disguised as Imara, smiled.

“Wow, this really worked?”

Until she noticed someone standing right behind her.

“What…!”

Someone who suddenly spoke to her. Startled, Meiharin quickly turned around and drew up her mana, but…

– Whoosh!

Before she could cast a restraining spell, the magic of the intruder behind her engulfed her entire body.

“Kyaaaaaaah-!”

A sharp girlish scream echoed through the dark room.

The agony was like having her soul completely extracted. Meiharin forgot her dignity as a grand sorcerer and screamed like a child.

After several seconds.

When the blue magical light covering Imara’s entire body finally faded, Imara rolled her eyes back, drooled, and collapsed.

“I was watching just in case, and I was right.”

Ophelia, the woman who had cast magic on Meiharin who had taken over Imara’s body, caught Imara’s falling body while raising the corners of her mouth.

She was holding a translucent gem with grayish currents swirling inside.

“Indeed, the thinking of soul-manipulating mages is the same whether from the east or west.”

She was in a very good mood. Like people usually are when their predictions come true.

Like mages usually are when they acquire a new test subject.

—-

Dozens of minutes later.

‘Uuuugh…’

Meiharin, who had barely regained consciousness, groaned from a headache that felt like her head had been ground in a millstone, and opened her eyes.

Or rather, tried to open her eyes.

‘…What is this…?!’

But she had no eyes. And not just eyes. No nose, ears, or mouth. Not even arms, legs, or a torso.

She had become a specter without a body. Meiharin was utterly shocked.

“Judging by your reaction, you’re awake?”

The mage Ophelia, who was fiddling with her bright red hair while writing something in a journal on her desk, turned her head toward her.

‘…A giant?’

Meiharin momentarily mistook the other person for a giant-like being.

Ophelia’s eyes, looking down at her with curious pupils, appeared almost as large as Meiharin herself.

Of course, Ophelia wasn’t a giant.

Meiharin soon realized this fact.

It wasn’t that the redhead before her was monstrously huge, but rather that Meiharin herself had shrunk to the size of the redhead’s eyeball.

‘You…! Who the hell are you! What have you done to me? Answer me!’

Meiharin shouted fiercely.

But of course, the voice of a soul trapped in a soul stone couldn’t reach Ophelia.

In fact, even if it had reached her, she wouldn’t have understood what it meant.

“Ah-ah. So, was the formula… like this? How about now? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

Ophelia, activating a translation spell, picked up the soul stone containing Meiharin and smiled while making eye contact.

“Ah, yes. Let’s start with introductions, shall we? Welcome, Mei… Meiharin, was it? I’m Ophelia. Ophelia van Sigmillus.”

“Who cares about your name right now…!”

Meiharin glared at Ophelia, grinding her teeth. She had neither teeth nor eyes, but that was the feeling, anyway.

Of course, Ophelia couldn’t hear Meiharin’s words. She merely observed with a smile as the gray currents in the gem writhed violently.

“How is it inside the soul stone? Since I made it but never had to go inside myself, I don’t know what it feels like.”

“…Soul stone?”

Meiharin was genuinely shocked at that moment. She already knew what the term “soul stone” meant, having heard about it from Feyrus.

It was a word equivalent to a death sentence, indicating that her life had fallen to the worst possible outcome.

“Ah, perhaps you don’t know what a soul stone is…? Well, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, thank you so much.”

Ophelia smiled, gazing at the gem with its swirling grayish currents with an enraptured expression.

“If I can complete this research, I think I can advance to the next level, but it’s research that absolutely requires a ‘sample,’ so I couldn’t start it.”

It meant that the method to overcome her barrier had fallen into her hands.

“Looking forward to working with you?”

Meiharin let out a scream filled with despair.