episode_0174

Nothing happened to those in the capital.

There appears to be no movement to suppress the harvesters themselves.

When you think of the city of Bern, it wouldn’t be strange if there was some action.

Bern City is now seeing the protesters’ anger turn to despair. Even if the fight originally started with anger, if the fight lasts a long time, people get tired.

Now that your emotions have calmed down, you will be able to see things that you couldn’t see because of your intense emotions.

That’s why the people who protested in Bern City. The Purple Twilight Society are fighting, divided between those who believe they should surrender and those who believe they will die if they surrender.

Division is not a good sign.

Of course, I hope that no matter how I roll, I can gain a lot of warmth in the process!

More importantly, I need to tell the king that a witch named Maleficent attacked me. So when I meet with him, I’ll have to ask him why he didn’t protect me when there was an attack.

If I tell my escort that I was attacked, the king will know too.

I thought about that and waited for the Royal Academy to end. I guess it wasn’t a good topic to talk about within the Academy.

In the meantime, nothing special happened in the classroom.

No, there is one.

At the end of class, the teacher told us to prepare for the midterm exam. Most of the students were excited. But that was none of my business.

It was funny how Victoria’s expression turned pale. Victoria has to study twice as much as the average person, right?

I finished my afternoon classes and went outside, cheering her on internally. Then I went to the front gate and called Merryweather.

“Merryweather.”

“Why? Calling?”

“The witch attacked me.”

When I say that, Merryweather is extremely surprised. Is it because she didn’t recognize that she was an escort?

“So?”

Huh? So that’s why? Oh. Do you think I can handle it because I have special powers?

It may seem strange, but it’s better to let them handle it themselves if possible.

If you can handle a witch, doesn’t that mean you’re more powerful than the witch?

And there’s also the possibility that I won’t be able to handle her, because I won’t be able to reach her unless she finishes the contract and attacks me.

Besides, it’s not like you’ll die if you take away the warmth…

There is a possibility that a witch who has been robbed of her warmth could become a terrible monster like me, so I plan to approach this part cautiously.

Of course, I plan to take the failure of the second world as a lesson and move forward more boldly.

I can’t help but feel the warmth of the witch, as I think of the beast that laughed at me and killed itself in that world.

“You’re an escort. Don’t you report to the king?”

“To the King. Yes… … .”

Merryweather looks at me with suspicion. I guess she’s suspicious because I suddenly told her that a witch attacked her.

I’m on guard as if I’m seeing a scary monster.

When I got hit in the head yesterday, I guess I had to regenerate quickly so that the wound wouldn’t be visible. My sense of pain was dulled compared to when I entered a living body, so it was a lower priority, but looking back, it was a pretty gruesome sight.

Hmm.

“First, why don’t you tell me what you know?”

Merryweather said so.

Oh, right. If I were to report it properly, I’d have to say that the witch attacked Belle.

“I had a nightmare-like vision yesterday.”

As you pass through the black space, there’s a conversation between two witches behind you. I didn’t hear the whole thing, but somewhere along the way, they said they lost control.

It may sound like nothing when I say I’ve lost control of my magic, but when I look back on what happened to me, it was really something.

Even from that morning until the afternoon, I couldn’t properly recognize that I was in a fantasy.

It’s a very powerful magic.

“You weren’t just having a nightmare?”

Oh, I see. Even though my body sleeps, my consciousness itself is always awake. Should I say this?

I’m nervous about letting too much be known about me, but I still have to tell the king why I was attacked. Just twist the words a little.

It’s not that I don’t do it because I have the ability, but it’s like I can’t do it because I don’t have the ability.

“I can’t sleep.”

“What? You can’t sleep? But, you. You’ve been sleeping well so far, right?”

“The body sleeps, but the consciousness is always awake. In my opinion, there is no point where my consciousness is cut off.”

And in between, as I spend time observing other harvesters, my sleep time quickly disappears.

“Then you know everything that happened while you were sleeping.”

“No. I told you. The body is sleeping. If I don’t see it with my own eyes, it means I can’t see it directly.”

I can hear the sound and smell, but I’ve hidden it behind the scenes.

“Okay, I got it. But what do you think about witches?”

“What do you think?”

“I attacked you. Do you hate me or anything?”

That’s a weird question. If I knew I was going to get attacked anyway, why would I care about my feelings?

“The witch is a witch. And her name is Maleficent. Do you know that name?”

Merryweather looked at me with a very strange expression. He looked angry and suspicious at the same time. What was strange about what I said?

I explained everything that needed to be explained properly.

“I know. It’s a name I know well.”

“She doesn’t seem to be a famous witch.”

Among the harvesters, no one knew about the witch. Not even the poor, Victoria, who was considered middle class, or Kanna, who was considered upper class among the upper class.

Even Aurora didn’t know about the witch.

Suddenly, Merryweather’s mood became noticeably worse.

“So, after Belle is informed of the witch attack, what will she do? Catch the witch?”

Merryweather asks me through gritted teeth, as if holding back her boiling anger.

As expected from the Royal Intelligence Service, Merryweather is a really good woman who tries to get information from me until the end. But I just shook my head from side to side there.

“Why am I holding on to that?”

Powerful regenerative abilities and the ability to create harvesters. Those are the only two I’ve shown people. It’s hard to catch a witch with these.

In reality, you can’t catch a witch unless she attacks you.

Of course, it’s not completely impossible. If we just break this world, we can get warmth on our own. But that’s not going to happen, so it’s right to say that it doesn’t happen.

“Okay. Got it.”

Merryweather bowed her head and turned away as she said that. The royal family must have known by now that I would not be of any help beyond bait.

But can those in the royal family catch a witch?

I watched Merryweather go to Wangseong and went back to my lodgings.

Merryweather will be busy now, not only because she has to watch me, but also because she has to catch the witch.

***

That evening.

As Victoria was returning from Clockwork Knight School to her dormitory at the Royal Academy, a group of people appeared in front of her.

And they threaten you by pointing a nailed club or other heavy tool at you.

Tell yourself to bless yourself too.

Everyone else is blessed, so why are we the only ones who are suffering like this?

And since he knows that the blessings are given for free anyway, he makes ridiculously exaggerated demands to receive blessings for himself too.

Victoria shouted loudly that she would never give blessings to people like you. As she said this, her eyes quickly scanned her surroundings, as if she had intended to ask for help from someone.

But not only the person standing in front with a weapon, but also the people around him are all glaring at Victoria with eyes full of desire.

It wasn’t a few people who attacked on impulse.

We planned the attack thoroughly so that they could not escape.

Then Victoria says she doesn’t have that ability and that she mistook you for someone else.

It seems like the people there already knew.

They opened their mouths and laughed at Victoria’s words.

I know that the one who gives the blessing is a small person like a child, and he rarely comes out, so I tell him that he will take the person who is stuck next to him as a hostage.

Me. Have you been going out a lot lately?

I’ve been going out a lot lately, but I guess I didn’t notice because I took a road that not many people took.

Why did you choose Victoria?

Although they have no grudge, the harvester candidates rush in, saying they must become hostages.

But their weapons did not reach Victoria.

Because a transparent sphere of water droplets blocked the weapon, and when Victoria swung her hand, the person who had been rushing at her flew in the opposite direction from where he had come.

People flying around, swept away by the flow created by the water streams that were pulled in from all directions.

There were people who had learned magic, some of whom could shoot fire or lightning, but none of them could pierce the water surrounding Victoria.

The person who shot the lightning actually collapsed from electrocution due to the water.

As I was sitting on the bed, looking at Victoria’s peers, someone knocked on the door where I was.

So I went outside and there were a bunch of armed soldiers standing there.

Merryweather must have told the royal family that reinforcements are coming.

When he saw me, a man who seemed to be a commander among the soldiers approached me. Then, the man who introduced himself as a member of the guard asked me this.

“Bell, you’ve been escorted by someone named Merryweather Olcat, right?”

Huh? Now I thought you were going to protect me from the witch’s touch or send me somewhere to be bait to catch the witch, but you’re saying strange things.

“Yes. What’s wrong with Merryweather?”

To my question he said:

“Merryweather Olcat found dead.”

Yes? In just a few hours? The witch must have been really holding out. But it’s a valid tactic. Cutting off reinforcements is a basic tactic. If he had just stayed alive, I could have turned him into a harvester. It’s a shame.

“Only part of the body was found, but the autopsy results suggest that she was killed at least 20 days ago.”

But the commander told a very strange story. He said that Merryweather Olkett had been murdered three weeks ago.

“Then, who is the escort who has been with me until now?”

“Someone took her place, and deceived the people. And there is only one such target.”

The commander says this while holding back his anger.

“It’s a witch. The witch was hiding.”

“Maleficent?”

“You know that ominous name, Belle-nim. Yes. That’s right. Princess Aurora’s birthday. She’s a powerful witch who came without being invited and cast a curse on me without permission.”

So, the person I thought was the royal intelligence officer up until now was a witch?

Now that I think about it, it’s a bit weird to use Merryweather’s nickname as Mali. I thought it might be because there are cases where the rhyme is slightly distorted, but if you say it’s Maleficent’s nickname, then it makes sense.

And when it comes to witches, it’s easy to understand the reaction she had.

I was completely fooled.

I’m not that smart. If I were, I could have figured out her identity in an instant.

“Then, now-”

Just as I was about to ask what I was going to do.

Woof!

The sound of something collapsing was heard from all around. The commander hurriedly ran to the window. The soldier who had come with him also went to the window and looked in the direction of the sound.

Meanwhile, I look at what is happening in the capital right now through the eyes of a harvester.

Black thorn trees grow around the capital, enveloping it. They spread out like a tidal wave, tearing apart all who stand in their way.

And after a long period of earthquakes that seemed to shake the world, the thornbush stopped.

Many harvesters are torn to pieces on the road, and those that survive fall asleep as soon as they are pricked by thorns.

The trunk of the giant thorn tree has stopped moving, but the branches continue to spread out and dig into the building.

If you look at the sights that the harvesters saw, these thorn trees were covering the entire capital.

Maleficent is an amazing witch.