The owner of the voice was a black silhouette.
As if gradually emerging from the void, the black figure intruded into Elena’s vision—
But it was only a black ghost, a phantom that only Elena recognized.
Because this black silhouette was visible only to her.
In this instant, everything around them became slow. The figure, however, was unaffected. She walked toward Elena, and with every step, the shadows clinging to the figure dissipated slightly—until the silhouette took on Elena’s own appearance.
“If this continues, you will lose control completely by roughly the fifth time you release your Cold Qi. And those five releases of Cold Qi won’t even break that man’s defense. Instead of that, why not…”
As the figure spoke, she stepped to Elena’s side. In the next moment, a wave of coldness brushed against Elena’s ear. “Accept me. Let me control this body.”
“Get lost!”
The moment her anger surged, the flow of time around the girl returned to normal.
Elena mobilized the Mana within her body once more, but she had to suppress it at the same time. She constantly told herself: she was the master of this body, and her reason must never be devoured by this Mana!
But—
Initially, the Cold Qi she summoned could attack the Great Mage with the density of needles. However, as the number of attacks increased, the Cold Qi—which had still been somewhat obedient to Elena’s commands—began to gradually slip from her control.
Her hands were no longer trembling. This was because the rising chill had already caused her to lose all sensation in her arms.
The Cold Qi was eroding her body, spreading toward her heart…
Elena knew this process.
First, the limbs would tremble from the cold, then the cold would strip away all feeling in the extremities—then would come the voice, the light… Finally, only empty darkness and piercing cold would remain.
“Why suffer so much? You reject me, you refuse me—and in the end, you gain nothing and protect nothing.”
After the surrounding sounds vanished, the figure appeared once more.
“You want to bring Ai’er back to your side, yet you don’t dare go looking for her yourself. You lack the courage to face her. So you simply listened to what Sebas said—’that people have already been arranged to rescue Young Lady Ai’er’—and then went to Sirius’s Manor in a fit of rage to confront him.
You know Sirius wants the entire Duchy. You know that everything he does is to solidify your identity as a ‘Witch,’ to make the people of the Duchy fear and loathe you!
But, my dear, have you ever thought about it? Even if you see Sirius, what can you actually confront him with?”
‘Shut up…’
“Are you going to question why he took Ai’er? Or ask if he tampered with your mother’s relic? But—what do you plan to use to interrogate him? In the face of your identity as a Witch, you have no evidence that can convince the public!”
‘Shut up—’
“This is nothing but a farce! Just because you misunderstood the kind-hearted Ai’er, you’re now going to throw a tantrum like a little girl?
Good heavens… Is this your rebellion? It’s utterly meaningless! You clearly possess powerful Mana—Mana capable of destroying anyone who stands in your way!
You could release all of your Mana to kill this Magic User blocking our path! Kill Sirius! Destroy the Duchy that has brought us nothing but sorrow and insults! Then take the Ai’er you long for and go wherever you wish!”
“So accept it, Elena. Accept me, accept yourself, and accept this reality!
You are a Witch!”
‘SHUT UP!!!’
The moment she roared in her heart, everything before Elena’s eyes disappeared.
There was no sound, no light. It was even darker and colder than when she had stood on the Sea Cliff the previous night.
Elena was familiar with this state.
Eight years ago, on the day she learned of her mother’s death… she had seen this darkness for the first time.
But back then, she was only lingering in sorrow, standing on the edge of the pitch black. Before she could step into that darkness, she had remembered her mother’s words, which kept her away from that void.
But now, she had been completely swallowed by the darkness.
Ah…
Has my Mana… completely lost control?
But in the next moment, a speck of light suddenly spread from the pinky finger of Elena’s right hand.
Elena focused her gaze on her hand—it was a Pale Gold Crystal.
It was the Magic Ring Ai’er had given her. Even though the light was faint, it still tried to use that weak glimmer to dispel the boundless darkness currently enveloping the girl.
‘Ai’er…’
‘Am I going to… hurt her again…?’
“Do not worry.”
Before the pain could spread, the voice of her other self echoed in Elena’s ear.
“I am helping you control the Mana right now. Your Mana has not yet reached Ai’er through this ring.
But I hope you will take this ring off.
If I take control of this body and then try to remove it, it will hurt Ai’er… I do not wish for that either.
We are one and the same. You are me, and I am you—when it comes to how we view Ai’er, we are no different.”
Amidst the darkness, Elena looked at the Pale Gold Crystal, the only light in this void.
When the index finger and thumb of her left hand touched the ring, she felt a trace of warmth. When the pad of her index finger covered the crystal, she felt hesitation.
Once the last bit of light was covered by Elena herself… no moonlight could be seen in this darkness, just like the Sea Cliff the night before.
She couldn’t always wait for the moonlight to tear through the clouds… Her other self was right.
If becoming a Witch was what it took to tear through the clouds covering the sky…
Then she would become a Witch.
With a sudden burst of strength, Elena pulled the Pale Gold Crystal Ring from her finger.
—
“And then? What happened after that?”
In Elena’s Manor Garden, the noble girl standing before Elena blinked, a light named anticipation shimmering in her eyes.
Seeing this, a slight smile played across Elena’s lips.
Whenever children came to her and heard the “Story of the Witch,” they became unable to leave. Even the snacks on the table seemed to lose their appeal to them.
But if Ai’er were here… these snacks would have probably been replaced three or four times by now, wouldn’t they?
“After that?”
Elena paused. She took a light sip of her tea before placing the cup back on the table.
She glanced at the ring on her right pinky, at that Pale Gold Crystal.
“Afterward… the moment the Witch’s servants realized something was wrong, it was already too late to stop it.
Mana erupted from the Witch’s body, and the pulse of that Mana blew everything in the vicinity away—in the next moment, the Blizzard arrived…
That Witch naively thought that as long as she took off the ring, no matter how she used her Mana, she wouldn’t hurt that important person.
But she overlooked one thing—this ring was given to her by that important person specifically to suppress her Mana. If she discarded even this final medium, that important person would have no choice but to approach her with their physical body…”
As Elena spoke, the emotions contained in her gaze toward the ring grew increasingly complex.
Though 300 years had passed, it seemed she still couldn’t let it go.
“If that Witch had thought of it then: a Witch’s Mana isn’t something that only transfers to that important person’s body through a ring…
Perhaps the ending would have been different.”
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