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Volume 2 Chapter 4 Part 17

Yana left those regretful words behind, as she descended to the ground. But even if she fell from this height, she would probably be safe.
「I will never forgive you… do not think for even a second that will ever forgive you! 」

Yana confirmed the wound on her leg, touched it lightly with her finger, and only stopped the bleeding for the time being.

「Anyway, I have to get out of here as soon as possible. 」

Yana decided to head to the elder’s house, since there was a lot of things that she wanted to complain to her about, but…

「Oh you have got to be shitting me?! 」

Yana’s eyes widened when she saw that there were many shadows already waiting in the direction Yana wanted to go.

「White Witches… 」

It can be said that White Witches are the natural enemy of the Black Witch. Originally, the previous Black Witch was also a White Witch, but she had a falling out with the other witches when she decided to abandon their ways and follow the Demon Lord instead, making herself the number one enemy of the White Witches, who labeled her and everything related to her as taboo.

「Give me a break… 」

Yana muttered again and sent her broom flying at high speed.

White witches attacked her from all sides by shooting fire magic towards her, and Yana also fought back with the same magic. While you are flying, you can only use simple magic, however, if any of the fire spells ends up brushing the tip of her broom and it catches fire, she will have no choice but to fall back to the ground.

「I am always being chased, so I am already used to this! 」

That was by no means something that should be bragged about, but still, to Yana, having a lot of experience in that field was a kind of a huge deal that could make a difference between life and death. Yana dodged the opponent’s flames with acrobatic movements, burning the brooms of the White Witches who could only fly monotonously and were no match for her flexible manuevers.

While screaming, the White Witches descended to the ground. Some witches even jumped off their brooms because of the fire that was spreading across their brooms too fast.

「If you cannot cast a spell while falling without a broom, you are as good as done for. 」

Yana sneered at her opponents…

… but one of the witches still stood in her way. She held her broom in the air, stood on it and prepared herself to cast something that looked to be an incredibly intricate spell.

「Elder Zelma… 」

Yana gulped. The elder of the entire White Witch clan. It should go without saying that for Yana, someone like her was the worst possible opponent that she could have asked for.

In the first place, it is difficult to completely stop the broom, but moreover, Yana did not even try to stand on it and use magic at the same time, so she did the only thing that she could possibly do right now: she turned around and ran as fast as she could.

She did not care in the slightest what kind of spell Elder Zelma was going to cast and she did not want to end up at the receiving end of it, but unexpectedly… nothing happened. Elder Zelma simply disappeared from her sight completely, and there was also no White Witch chasing after her.

「Well that was easy. 」

Yana said triumphantly, and thinking that she is going to have one less thing to complain to the elder of the Black Witches about, she left The Forest of Eternal Darkness and headed out towards an unspecified direction.

「Elder Zelma… 」

White Witches gathered one after another around Elder Zelma, who was still standing on top of her broomstick.

「You did good, girls. It was tough, but it was worth it.」

Zelma called out to them. In her right hand she held a spinning wheel that continued to spin and rattle, indicating that the thread it produced has been attached to something.

「While she was distracted, I managed to get a thread onto her. Now, wherever she will go, we will be able to follow after her. 」

Saying that, Zelma jumped up and deftly straddled the broom. and descend back down slowly. As she was doing that, her eyes inadvertently wandered towards the direction of the Vampire King’s castle…

* * *

For the time being, Artuk’s army refrained from besiedging the Vampire King’s castle to see how the situation was going to develop, but even as the sunset was fast approaching, there was no order for the soldiers to retreat, because at this point, retreat was simply not an option anymore. Just thinking about going back to The Forest of Everlasting Darkness in the middle of the night made everyone sick.

So far, there was only this one sniper-like attack made by The Black Witch from the top of the tower, but other than that, there was no reaction from the castle whatsoever. Since Theo was wounded in The Black Witch’s attack earlier, he was now being treated with both first aid and pain-relieving spells. After the power of Priscilla’s Crest was sufficiently restored, it was time for th full-scale healing to take place.

「We should make an official call for them to surrender. 」

Eugen, Theo, and some of the other Lords held a council of war and decided that this should be their next course of action, and soon after that a delegated Lord approached the Vampire King’s castle and called out with a loud voice, demanding the castle to be surrendered to Artuk’s forces at once.

And one monarch calls for the castle to be surrendered in a loud voice.

Immediately when he said that, the sturdy door of the castle opened widely, but when the announcing Lord tried to enter the castle through them, he was stopped right in his tracks by an object that flew towards him at high speed and hit him straight in the chest. It turned out that said object was actually a walking stick. The stick was not sharp enough to penetrate the armor that the Lord was wearing, but it was thrown with such force placed behind it the he ended up being blown away backwards due to the impact and he fainted on the spot.

After that, nobody had any doubts anymore. This could not have been a sign of the castle’s inhabitants being ready to surrender themselves to Artuk. Apparently, the defenders of the castle were determined to fight for it to the bitter end.

Those who are inside the castle are determined to fight.

「I am going to go instead. 」

Eugen prepared his sword and shield and tried to advance, but the surrounding Lords all stopped him in a hurry.

「We are well aware of your bravery, Baron Eugen, but we are afraid that the enemy we are dealing with here is far too much for a single soldier, even someone like you, to handle. 」

「That said, if you just allow the troops to rush in unprepared, it will only foolishly increase the number of the dead on our side. 」

「That may be right, but… 」

Artuk’s Lords looked at each other and sighed.

「I am afraid that even if we all were to rush in with our soldiers, it would still not be enough in order to bring down the Vampire King. 」

「In that case, maybe I should be the one to challenge him? 」

Milza came forward and said sarcastically.

「I appreciate your offer, but I am afraid that I must refuse it. 」

Eugen said bitterly. After all, it would be a situation in which none of the possible outcomes would be a good one. If Milza ended up challenging the Vampire King and losing his life in the dual with him, that would spell no end of diplomatic issues for the Earl of Artuk who took him in as his guest, but if he actually managed to win, then the Lords of Artuk who were present at the scene of the siege but chose to do nothing would become the laughingstock of the entire continent, if not the entire world.

「It would seem that we have no choice but to go in ourselves after all… 」

It was when Eugen was about to finish what he was saying.

「Then we will go there! 」

It was Ion, who had become the new ing of the Werewolf tribe, who offered to do so.

「It seems that the Vampire King is my mother and the late queen’s true enemy after all. And if that is indeed the case, then I have no choice but to confront the Vampire King and battle him to uphold the honor of my entire tribe. 」