Secrets of the Silent Witch - Volume 4 - Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Drawer Full of Treasures

Her consciousness drifting in and out, Monica ruminated on the man’s words.

Secure me? Why?

She couldn’t voice the question; it escaped her lips as mere groans.

But the man went on, as if in answer. “I’m a mage, too, dear. And that’s how I know that unchanted magecraft is superhuman.”

For Monica, unchanted magecraft was a hard-won solution to the problem of speaking in front of others. Its quick casting time was convenient, but it didn’t have any other benefits to speak of.

But the intruder, in his singsong voice, extolled her ability. “It’s a miracle, really. I’m quite sure my master would be very happy to have it… After all, we’ve already accomplished our other goal.”

…Other…goal? The man had said he had two goals. The first was the second prince. The second was Monica. They already accomplished what they wanted with the prince? What is he saying?

So she was right. The man wasn’t after Felix’s life. But then why had he pretended to be Cyril to get close to him?

“Ewan, were you able to confirm it?” asked the woman with the dignified eyebrows.

The man she’d called Ewan gave a slight nod. “I wasn’t able to make direct contact, but I got a good look up close, and I saw the traces. It’s the work of the traitor Artur. The prediction we were given was correct after all.”

Artur. When the man said that name, obvious strains of anger and loathing crept into his otherwise detached voice.

He wanted to check something about the prince up close? That was his goal? But why? What traces? Artur? Who gave them a prediction…? Monica’s thoughts were racing as she tried desperately to stay conscious.

But her mind was too hazy to process the information. It kept scattering away, like water cupped in her hands, draining out between her fingers—the terms, the information, everything.

“Let’s withdraw before the Barrier Mage returns,” said the man. “The drug, Heidi.”

“Here, Ewan.”

The woman with the dignified eyebrows—Heidi—took a vial out of her uniform pocket and handed it to Ewan. He took it and waved it in front of Monica’s eyes. A clear liquid sloshed around inside.

“This is just something to make you a good little girl.”

The vial likely contained a highly addictive drug. As soon as she ingested it, Monica would be overwhelmed by a powerful intoxication. Then, when it ran out, she would experience withdrawal symptoms and seek the drug out in larger quantities. She knew people used such substances to essentially make others their slaves.

She quickly gritted her teeth, trying to resist.

But Ewan easily pulled her weakened mouth open as Heidi brought the vial to her face.

Then, just as the first drop was about to fall onto her lips, there was a voice from the window.

“You harmed my master? Oh, you are in for it now.”

Perched on the windowsill was a tall, thin young man in an old-fashioned robe, his black hair cut short and his golden eyes blazing.

“Ne…ro…,” Monica croaked.

Nero pounced with superhuman strength, crossing the room instantly and delivering a brutal punch to Ewan as he held Monica down. Then, as he bent to pick his master up, Heidi slammed the vial into his face.

Nero showed little reaction. He simply lapped up the drug dripping around his mouth.

Heidi’s thick eyebrows flew up in shock, and her eyes went round. “One lick should have knocked you out instantly…”

“You think this dumb drug is gonna work on me?”

Holding Monica in his arms, Nero looked contemptuously at Ewan and Heidi. From his throat came an almost reptilian, hissing exhalation. A black fog began to cover up the left side of his body. He was so angry, his transformation was coming undone.

“How dare you lay hands on my master, foolish humans. I hope you’re ready. I’ll grind your bones to dust.”

“If you harm us, I’m afraid we can’t guarantee Cyril Ashley’s—”

“Ha!” Nero cut him off. “What about it? I don’t give a crap what happens to anyone besides Monica.”

The pupils in his golden eyes were too slender to belong to a person. His harsh, inhuman gaze flitted between his prey.

“You can beg for your lives all you want. I don’t care one bit about either of you. Now die.”

Nero’s fogged-up left half regained its human shape. Leaning forward, he launched into a sliding run, using his empty hand to grab Ewan’s face and dig his fingers into it. He tried to use this momentum to slam the back of the man’s head against the wall but couldn’t. He frowned.

“The hell is this?”

Nero’s fingers began to sink into the skin of Ewan’s face. It felt like they were stuck in clay. He instantly extricated his fingertips.

Ewan raised a hand to his twisted, mushy face. It no longer contained so much as a trace of Cyril Ashley.

“Well, that was just rude,” said Ewan. “Creating a face takes so much time and effort, too.” His voice came out muffled, probably because the region around his lips was all twisted up.

He used both hands to knead his skin, smoothing the distortions out along his skull. The result was a face Monica had never seen before, flatter than was common in Ridill. But Monica couldn’t be sure if it was his actual face or that of someone else entirely.

Nero opened and closed the hand he’d used to touch the man’s face and scowled. “What was that? When I grabbed him, he got all melty and gross.”

Her mind still hazy, Monica managed to squeeze out a warning. “Nero, be…be careful… He’s using…body-manipulation magecraft…”

The man’s magecraft—both his dragonshifting and his ability to transform into other people—were unknown variables. They couldn’t afford to underestimate him.

Nero, now on guard against the man’s techniques, stopped attacking and observed his enemies. They didn’t immediately lash out—they’d probably realized that Nero was no ordinary human.

Eventually, Ewan spoke up, breaking the stalemate. “Come here, tall, dark, and handsome. Let’s make a deal. I’ll give you the antidote for the drug in her system…all you have to do is let us go.” He took out a small vial and wiggled it for Nero to see.

Nero shot him a wicked grin. “I don’t make deals with people I don’t like. If you have the antidote, I’ll just kill you and steal it. Boom, problem solved.”

“My, how scary. In that case, why don’t we do it this way?”

The vial slipped from Ewan’s hand. With a shrill crack, it broke, spreading pungent white smoke everywhere. Probably some kind of poison.

“Heidi and I have built up a resistance, so this won’t affect us,” said the man. “But it will prove quite difficult for the Silent Witch.”

“…!” With a gasp, Nero looked at the girl in his arms.

She didn’t have his resistance to poison—she was a normal human being. And she’d already been hit with a different drug.

“Ack-hah…,” she coughed. “Argh, ahhh… ugh…” She writhed in his arms, clawing at her throat.

Nero jumped out the window to get Monica away from the smoke.

Ewan’s shrill laughter followed them. “See you, Silent Witch, dear. And…her knight in shining armor, I suppose?” He paused. “And once you’ve both realized the terrible truth, we’ll meet again, I’m sure.”

Past the white smoke, the sound of Ewan’s and Heidi’s footsteps faded. They probably intended to run back into the hall and escape through the campus.

They’re going to…get away…!

As she lay, tormented by her powerless state, Monica caught the sound of someone muttering. The voice didn’t belong to Ewan or Heidi. Nor was it Nero’s, Ryn’s, or Louis’s—it was gloomy, as if it wanted to curse the whole world.

“The most awful pain you’ve ever felt in your lives… I will re-create it for you.”

She heard the thud of someone falling to the floor. A moment later, Heidi’s scream pierced the smoke. “Ewan!”

As the poisonous smoke drifted out the window and cleared, Monica spied Ewan, writhing on the classroom floor. A purple emblem had appeared on his cheek—a shamanic seal borne by those inflicted with a curse.

“It’s hot! Ahhh, it’s hot, ahhh! My skin! My skin, it’s hot, it’s hot, agh! Stop! Stop, stop, stop, stop! Gaaah!”

Foam began to form at the corners of his mouth as Ewan shouted at the top of his lungs. Then something crept in from the window and entangled him and Heidi as she sat at his side.

They were plant vines in a poisonous shade of purple. They coiled around the two intruders’ bodies, then dragged them out the window.

What…? What’s going on…? Monica shifted her heavy head to find the origin of the coiling purple vines.

They were coming from a small flowerpot. They’d probably been roses before. Now, though, the flowers were mottled with black and purple, each petal expanding like fleshy gills, quivering as they grew.

They’d been infected by a curse and warped into something aberrant.

Holding the flowerpot to his chest, standing a short distance away from Monica and Nero, was a young man with purple hair, wrapped in the garments of the Seven Sages. It was Ray Albright, the Abyss Shaman.

His pink eyes glared eerily into the nighttime darkness. “Only a third-rate shaman curses to kill… A true Albright inflicts pain and suffering on the living without letting them die…”

“Ewan! Ewan!” Heidi flailed about with a knife, desperately slicing through the purple vines constricting her and her comrade.

But Ewan kept shouting and yelling. The seal on his cheek was slowly eating away at him.

“Know the bottomless despair of the abyss and suffer…!”

Ray pointed a slender finger toward Ewan. The seal on his cheek glowed even more brightly, and his shouts turned into piercing screams.

This was the Abyss Shaman, the man whose terrible, cursed arts allowed him to conduct any form of torture—and without leaving a scratch on the victim’s body. While the shamanic arts were much like magecraft, its techniques were the sole property of House Albright and its head, Ray. Thus, magecraft could do nothing to stop it.

Ewen eventually bit back his screams and gritted his teeth, his eyes turning to glare at Ray.

“Very good, my dear Saaage… This hurts a little too much to call a draw…” He huffed and puffed, Heidi supporting him from the side as she quickly chanted a spell.

A wind whipped up around the two of them. Flight magecraft.

“Fine, then,” spat Ewan hatefully. “We’ve accomplished one objective… You’ll be the ones who know despair in the end—when your precious nation is embroiled in the flames of war…!”

Heidi, holding him, used her spell to float into the air. It was extremely difficult to carry someone while flying, however. Especially when that someone was a big man—much bigger than her. They swayed dangerously in the air like a bird on the verge of death.

Normally, Monica could have easily shot them down. But with the poison interfering with her mind, she couldn’t use even beginner magecraft properly. And Ray was an expert in shamanic arts only—he couldn’t use techniques meant for regular mages like flight magecraft.

“Nero… Follow…them…,” begged Monica, grasping her familiar’s robe.

Nero frowned down at her. “And leave you here like this?”

“I’ll… I’ll be fine, so… Please…”

He made a sour face but eventually gave in. He lowered her to the ground, sitting her up against the wall of the school building. “Can’t disobey my master’s orders. Hey, you, purple guy! Don’t you dare let Monica die.”

And with that, he ran off like a gust of wind. She wasn’t sure how far he’d be able to pursue the intruders, but it was better than doing nothing.

“What was that supposed to mean?” grumbled Ray, evidently unhappy at being called “purple guy.” He picked up the flowerpot with the transformed roses and walked over to Monica.

By now, the flowers were completely black and withered. He looked down at them sadly. “Ahhh… They’ve wilted… A girl recommended these to me, too… I bought them to commemorate her talking to me…”

The flowerpot contained rose seedlings—the gardening club was selling them. Looking more closely, Monica saw a stuffed animal and a bag of cookies from the charity bazaar sticking out of the pocket of his robe. Apparently, he’d been enjoying the school festival in his own way.

Ray’s gaze shifted from the withered flowers to Monica. “I don’t know what’s happening,” he murmured, “but they looked like bad guys, so I cursed them…”

“You…saved me,” managed Monica.

“Were they assassins after the second prince’s life?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer him. The duo’s objective hadn’t been assassination. What traces had Ewan found on Felix?

When she tried to tell him she didn’t know, all she managed was a shallow groan. She still wasn’t breathing correctly, and she’d pushed herself too hard trying to speak. Plus, there was still some poison mist left in the area, and the wind blew it in her direction from time to time.

As her face went blue and she gasped for air, Ray started to panic. “S-Silent Witch! Um, what should I do…?! I only know how to curse… But what am I supposed to curse…?!”

“You should curse the assassins who caused this situation.”

“I already did!” shouted Ray before gasping and whipping around.

Standing behind him was Louis, his staff on his shoulder. His hair was a mess—he must have been flying pretty fast.

“Geh! The Barrier Mage…,” said Ray bitterly.

Louis silenced him with a smile, then narrowed his eyes at Monica, who sat against the wall of the school building. He performed a quick chant, then he lifted his staff, enclosing Monica and Ray in a clear barrier—probably to shut out the poison smoke.

Normal barriers were made to let in a certain amount of air so that those inside could breathe. But if the air itself was toxic, the poison would enter the barrier—a big flaw. Creating a barrier that would let in only clean air and keep the toxic substance out was extremely difficult. But Louis pulled it off—and while quick-chanting, too. His skill was befitting of his title.

Monica took slow, deep breaths, taking in the clean air. Eventually, she lifted her heavy eyelids and looked up at Louis.

He stared down at her, frowning. She couldn’t blame him. She’d let the assassins escape.

“Mr. Louis,” she said hoarsely, whimpering. “I’m… I’m sorry, I…”

As she sniffled and looked down, she saw the white rose decoration affixed to her chest. Seeing it only made her cry harder. She was useless.

“It would have…been so easy if I just thought of the numbers, but… But when they used Lord Cyril as a shield like that, I couldn’t… I couldn’t do any calculations…”

Enemy or ally, if she replaced all those around her with numbers, she could make even the most difficult of calculations in a flash. She could make calm, rational decisions.

But she hadn’t been able to overwrite the people around her—the kind people she’d met at this school—with mere numbers. She’d lost the ability to do so.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…,” she repeated, sobbing.

Louis used a finger to push up his monocle and made a bitter face. “This failure was a strategic mistake on my part. I should have better read the situation. I am not so narrow-minded that I would push responsibility for that onto a little girl like you.”

“But…”

“Your humanity matters little to me, my fellow Sage.”

His tone was cold, but it sounded to her like he was saying he didn’t mind if she was a cruel person who saw others only as bunches of numbers. If she was, or if she wasn’t—either was fine by him. This roundabout way of expressing himself was typical of Louis, and Monica smiled wryly despite herself.

“And anyway,” continued Louis, looking over at Ray. “It’s precisely because you didn’t treat him like a bunch of numbers that our dear shaman here came to rescue you, yes?”

Ray bared his teeth at Louis, glaring threateningly. “You may not treat me like numbers, but you do treat me like a slug… I know all about it, don’t you worry…”

“Ah-ha-ha!”

“You’re supposed to deny it, damn it! H-how are you such a horrible person? Maybe you’re the one I should have been cursing all along—”

“About House Albright’s missing items,” said Louis, cutting off the shaman’s muttered complaints.

“Geh!” Ray yelped, his pink eyes widening.

Louis flashed him a handsome smile. “I’m sure you’ll help us guard the prince in the future, right, my dear shaman?”

“Y-you haven’t a shred of human decency… Threatening a colleague? You’re positively heartless…! Damn it, damn it! One day I’ll curse you… I’ll curse you to stub your pinkie toe once every five minutes!”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to simply shatter my legs?”

“And you call yourself a m-mage…? How violent…!” Ray shuddered.

Smoothly ignoring him, Louis removed a small object wrapped in paper from his robe pocket. He pressed it into Monica’s hands in what was, for him, a gentle manner.

“Mr. Louis? What’s this?”

“It’s from someone else you couldn’t treat as numbers.”

Her fingers still tingling, Monica gingerly undid the wrapping. Inside was a white handkerchief—it was plain, except for the yellow flowers embroidered along the edge.

“……Oh.”

A cheerful grin flitted through her mind.

“Yellow flowers symbolize happiness where I’m from, so we embroider them a lot.”

“Sorry I won’t be able to…teach you horseback riding or make you that embroidery.”

It belonged to the girl who had once plotted to assassinate the second prince, whom Monica had caught and who had subsequently left the academy—the daughter of Count Bright, Casey Grove. Even knowing the details of the attempted assassination, Monica hadn’t been able to abandon her. After negotiating with Louis, she’d managed to have her sent to a convent.

Casey… Casey, you remembered…

Tears fell onto the cute yellow flowers that reminded Monica of spring. As she gripped the handkerchief, she realized something.

She’d never be able to see someone important to her as numbers ever again.

“The world is filled with numbers.”

Her father had left her those words. She couldn’t allow herself to use them as an excuse or an escape.

Louis informed her that he, Ryn, and poor Ray, who had gotten dragged along, would be acting as security for the ball that night. “I am not diabolic enough to foist this job on a little girl who was just poisoned,” he said to her. “Go back to your room and get some rest.”

Monica had taken him up on the offer, going back to her attic room and lying down.

Outside, the sun had completely set, and tiny stars twinkled in the indigo sky. They were especially vivid that night—perhaps because of the new moon.

As she stared at them idly, a dark shadow crossed her vision. It was a black cat—Nero. He deftly used his front paws to open the window and enter the room before jumping onto the bed and looking down at Monica. His face wasn’t as expressive as a human’s, but he looked somehow disappointed.

“Sorry, Monica,” he said. “They got away from me.”

According to him, Ewan and Heidi had boarded a carriage hidden along the way and used it to flee. While in human form, Nero possessed superhuman strength in his legs, but even he couldn’t catch up to a galloping horse.

“…Oh,” said Monica. “But that’s okay. The Abyss Shaman’s curse won’t fade for some time.”

According to Ray, it would last for a month at least, sporadically causing intense pain. They wouldn’t have to worry about Ewan attacking them in the meantime.

Slowly catching her breath, Monica continued. “You helped me so much today, Nero. Thank you.”

“Are you okay now?”

“Mm-hmm.” Monica nodded, sitting up in bed.

She wasn’t back to normal yet, but she’d recovered to the point that she could get up and walk around.

As she climbed out of bed, Nero said in a rush, “Hey, shouldn’t you get some more rest?”

“No, I have to get to Lana’s room…and get ready for the ball.”

Nero’s tail froze in midair. His golden eyes went wide. “You’re barely standing! That awful Lountatta guy can handle the security, so—”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, quietly interrupting. She wasn’t going to the ball as security detail. “I’m going because I want to,” she said, scrunching up her face. “After all, I won’t be around next year.”

Monica bent down in front of her desk and opened the locked drawer. When she’d first arrived at school, its only contents had been her coffeepot—a memento from her father.

Now it was a drawer full of treasures.

My precious treasures, she thought.

The letters and ribbon from Lana. The book and pendant from Felix. The embroidered handkerchief from Casey. And the white rose decoration adorning her breast.

None of them had been given to the Silent Witch. They’d been given to a small, plain girl named Monica Norton.

She closed her eyes, as if she was praying. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…, she thought. Just for now… Just while I’m here at this school, forgive me…

Who was she apologizing to? Louis, who had sent her on this mission? Or the friends she was deceiving?

…All of them, most likely.

At some point, Monica had begun to find the idea of letting go of her time as Monica Norton very difficult—even though she knew she was deceiving everyone.

I just want…to be Monica Norton for a little longer.