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→ Salvation (2) ←

1.

Siwoo and Eloa woke up after sleeping for four hours.

They went straight downstairs after they did because Branch Manager Sua called for them.

Della had woken up.

When they arrived at the Branch Manager Office, they saw her, sitting on the bed, dressed in a white cloth.

She was sitting with a blank look on her face and there were bandages all over her body.

It was to the point that there were barely any parts of her skin that were exposed for them to see.

“…Thank you for saving me.”

As soon as she was out of her daze, she immediately thanked them.

Though, from her expression, it was clear that she was still a little out of it.

Then again, who could blame her? No matter how strong her mental strength was, getting imprisoned in a place without even a ray of light while her body was getting impaled by spears still took a toll on her.

While Branch Manager Sua was disinfecting the needles she used to treat Della…

Eloa stepped forward to face her.

Since she came down as soon as she woke up, her appearance looked messy.

As usual, she was wearing leggings and a sports bra, with her windbreaker draped over her shoulders.

Even her pink hair looked messy due to her bed hair.

But, she wasn’t THE Duchess Tiphereth for nothing.

The gentle atmosphere she exuded last night was gone.

Instead, she let out a strong air, just like a well-honed sword.

There was a hint of elegance amidst the intimidation and the dignity she exuded made her seem like a battle-hardened general.

“I’ll get to the point, Baroness Della Redcliffe, you are under suspicion of cooperating with the Cowardly Witch.”

“Cooperating? Me and her? Do you really think she’d treat an accomplice of hers like this?”

Della let out a bitter smile as she pointed at the bandages all over her body.

Her expression was filled with exhaustion. It was as if she was a prisoner of war who had just been released from a concentration camp.

“We can’t just let the possibility of her sending you here as a part of her plot. Especially considering that none of your twelve grave wounds actually penetrated through your internal organs.”

Eloa made a valid point.

In fact, Paola didn’t really want to take Della’s life. The wounds only came from her pinning the other witch into the wall.

“I’ll just tell you everything I know. You can punish me or whatever if you think that I’m lying.”

“No need. We have an easier way to find out.”

“Your Ladyship.”

The moment Eloa took out the Sword of Covenant…

Sua, knowing what she was about to do, immediately stepped in.

The Duchess was trying to create a covenant for Della to confess everything she knew cleanly.

If the situation wasn’t urgent, this was probably the best option they had.

But, it wasn’t the case at all, they couldn’t afford to do so.

“Please preserve your power well, Your Ladyship. Have you not signed a covenant for Lord Siwoo prior to this?”

Currently, Eloa was the strongest force this branch of Witch Point had.

If she were to sign a new covenant now, she’d need to wait for a while to regain her power again.

In Sua’s opinion, she shouldn’t willfully use up her covenant when the situation was uncertain like this.

“It won’t be too late for you to take action after the questioning is over, Your Ladyship.”

“…Very well.”

While the two of them were talking, Della’s eyes hovered in Siwoo’s direction.

That brought a little life to her eyes.

After all, he left such a big impression on her the last time they met.

“…As expected, you aren’t a normal guy.”

A male witch.

One that was under the protection of Countess Gemini.

Though the circumstances were against her, he managed to beat her.

Not to mention that he was worthy enough to listen to the conversation between Duchess Tiphereth and Branch Manager Sua.

Her belief of him not being an ordinary man became firmer.

She suspected that he was some kind of product of an experiment involving several big names.

Or at least that was what she thought.

“It’s been a while. Sorry for hitting you with the car last time.”

“Don’t fret over it. Just give me some alcohol if you have some. Wine is preferable.”

The first thing he did after greeting her was apologizing, in which she just dismissed it as if it wasn’t anything important.

Then again, if he didn’t ram into her, she would probably still get chased by the White Knights now, or she woulda been dead already.

If anything, getting hit by his car was a blessing in disguise for her.

Siwoo brought her a bottle of wine. She didn’t stand on ceremony and gulped it down.

Almost half of the bottle disappeared in one go.

“Haah… I missed this taste so badly…”

Now satisfied, she turned her gaze toward Eloa again.

“I’ll tell you everything I know.”

2.

Della elaborated on the reason why she risked her life to escape from the Cowardly Witch.

She wanted to inform the Witch Point about the terrible disaster that was about to occur.

In fact, if it was someone else other than the Cowardly Witch, she wouldn’t go this far.

Because in her view, all humans would die anyway.

Whether it was from natural causes, hunger, accident, illness, disaster, or war.

In this wide world, tens of thousands of people die fleetingly like an insect every day.

The disaster that would happen would only reap more lives than usual and that was it, nothing more, nothing less.

Besides, as a witch who walked down the path of magic, she had no reason to risk her life to save the lives of mere humans.

That was what she believed from the bottom of her heart.

However, the person who planned this disaster out was her own friend, Paola. Thanks to this, she felt a sense of responsibility to stop her.

Paola had already committed an unforgivable sin, she didn’t want her dear friend to bear a worse stigma than the derogatory moniker ‘Cowardly Witch’ that she had now.

And so, she conveyed everything that she knew.

How the Cowardly Witch had subdued the Red Knight.

How she made thousands of White Knights from the soul she reaped through the usage of Dagon’s Flute last time.

How she sacrificed the four witches she killed to complete the unidentified ‘altar’ in her lair, and as soon as that ‘altar’ was completed, the White Knights would come out of the waterway and immediately swarm through the city.

To kill more humans, to gather more mana.

“…”

“…”

Shortly after they got all the intelligence they needed from Della, who spoke as if she was recounting something from another world…

The Branch Manager Office was enveloped in total silence.

Branch Leader Sua, someone who had lived for a long time and experienced plenty of historical events, opened her mouth in shock.

Even Eloa whose bone was thick from all the combat experience was staring at Della with an astonished look.

If those two were like that, there was no need to mention about Siwoo.

“I understand your reaction, but there’s no time to dawdle like this.”

Despite saying that, Della’s tone didn’t sound spirited at all, it was as if everything was already ‘too late’.

Rather than feeling hopeful that they could stop Paola, what she felt was self-hatred over the fact that she failed to save her before they reached the point of no return like this.

Still in shock, Eloa managed to gather herself and opened her mouth.

“…There’s still no guarantee that everything you had said is true.”

“Which part of it isn’t true? The part where she’s planning to massacre even more humans by deploying the White Knights? Her victim count already reached four digits when she unleashed the Dagon’s Flute and all of them were used as a sacrifice. It’s already a fact, why would I lie about this?”

“Aren’t you a friend of the Cowardly Witch? There’s a possibility that you’re sharing distorted information with us so you could protect her.”

“I swear using my name as a witch. If there’s even a single falsehood in my words, I swear I will pay for it later.”

The dam was already on the verge of collapse.

Cracks were already appearing and the repair workers were running it late. Just a handful of rainwater would be enough to make it collapse.

That was how the situation looked at the moment.

“According to you, Baroness, the Cowardly Witch had subdued the Red Knight and is now assembling an army of White Knights, the clone of the Red Knight. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“May I know their number?”

Maybe because it wasn’t long since she woke up.

Somehow Della missed the most important fact.

She casted her gaze down, her head dropped slowly.

“Around…twelve hundred…”

“Twelve hundred, is it…”

“Numbers aren’t the only thing that they have. All of them are wielding the clones of the Red Branch as a weapon.

“The more they’re grouped together or the closer they get to the Red Branch, the more they resonate and they could create a force field that acts like a barrier.

“Unless you can attack them physically like the Duchess, you can barely attack them. I could only take care of twenty out of thirty of them, if more of them were grouped together, then…”

Della was a 20th ranked grand witch.

She could freely manipulate heat and flames through the use of her numerous repeaters.

Even someone like her could only deal with twenty.

One could say that her skillset wasn’t compatible with her opponents, but considering her identity, this was still a big deal.

“Too much time has passed. Xochitl didn’t plan this in a day or two, she has been doing it for several decades. And we only have a single night to stop it.”

Paola, whose magic originally could only command and strengthen the Homunculi, had grown stronger to the point that she could clone them at will.

And she didn’t stop there. She went out of her way to collect various artifacts and formal wears that she could use to reach her goal.

While the witches in the world relied only on Duchess Keter and completely ignored the Criminal Exiles altogether, Paola prepared all this with intense tenacity that touched the border of madness.

“It’s already too late to stop her. We can only minimize the damage at this point.”

“No, it’s not too late.”

Eloa’s confident voice cut through the air.

“I will stop her.”

“The waterway stretched for 12 km, there are more than six openings that connect it to the city. It’s like stopping rain with one hand, no matter how strong you are, Duchess, it’s useless.”

From that fact alone, it was clear that the Cowardly Witch had made a thorough preparation.

The countermeasure that Sua and Tiphereth could come up with was pale in comparison.

However, the things that Della had mentioned before hadn’t happened yet.

Since the White Knights still hadn’t jumped out to the city and slaughtered the civilians yet, they still had a chance to respond.

“Before she could pull out any more tricks, I’ll visit her myself. I will slain the Cowardly Witch with my own hands and stop her from carrying out her plan.”

Eloa was right. If she were to kill the Cowardly Witch, everything would be resolved.

But, that meant she had to visit the enemy’s den personally, which was definitely filled with traps.

What she was trying to do was essentially storming at the place where the enemy’s power concentrated the most.

No matter how accomplished the Duchess was when it came to Homunculus hunting, no matter how strong she was…

For her to deal with twelve hundred enemies at once, all while dealing with the Cowardly Witch directly, it was doubtful that she could do that.

“This subject wouldn’t sit idly either.

“A line has been drawn all over Seoul. Even if the Cowardly Witch deployed her twelve hundred White Knights all at once, this subject would still be able to confine them within a barrier for a while.”

As she said, Sua wouldn’t just stay idle.

Though she was unable to prevent the other witches from leaving Seoul and she couldn’t draw in great support from elsewhere, she could still act as a last line of defense to prevent the worst case situation from happening.

“Also, this subject will summon the other witches to come.”

All they needed afterwards was to convince them.

Within an hour, using the artifacts set in advance, a total of seven witches gathered in the Witch Point.