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Volume 6 Chapter 1 Part 6

「If only Salvador continued to just live in the city, the he’d continue to be loved by many more people. Unfortunately, he was too naïve for his own good. If only he’d taken may advice, then he wouldn’t have lost his life. 」

「So, are you certain that you can beat Theo Cornero’s Chamberlain? 」

「To be honest… I don’t know. 」

Of course, he’s going to fight with the intention of winning, but even if he’s going to end up losing, he’s going to have no regrets.

「That Chamberlain has twin Werewolf sisters following him around. When I toyed with them back in the Forest of Eternal Darkness, they were still nothing but children, but they still managed to slay the subordinates of my associate at that time as if it was no big deal to them. 」

「Ah, I see… 」

Boltz nodded sullenly.

「Right now, they’re probably much stronger than back then. 」

The Black Witch then continued her story of when she fought against Clara the Werewolf Queen. Even though she was not wearing even the least bit of armor to protect herself, she still eliminated almost an entire group of the Heavy Knights of Waldrind one after another.

「If I challenge him to a duel, will that Chamberlain accept it one-on-one? 」

「That might not necessarily be the case. 」

Boltz smiled to himself wryly when he heard that.

「For him, who is a Chamberlain, the absolute one who takes priority above everyone else is his master. Everyone else is little more than a hindrance. There’s even a possibility that he might already know where I am, but because he knows that instead of his master he himself is my target, he’s not even trying to look for me because he knows that sooner or later I will come to him. 」

「Back in Elam, I killed Archduke Matthias Kraische, that Chamberlain’s previous master. Do you think he’s going to be targeting me because of it? 」

「The job of a Chamberlain is over when they fail to protect their master’s life. It’s their style to then go find themselves a new master whom they can serve. That’s why right now, his absolute priority should be protecting Theo Cornero, so as long as you won’t do anything to harm him, you should be safe. 」

「That’s great to hear, except for the fact that his current master is not Theo Cornero, but rather that Witch from Elam. When I summoned the Demon Lord in the Grand Cathedral, that little brat was trying to stop the summoning ritual, but was stopped by the Chamberlain who misread her intentions. Because of that, the Archdukes of the Kraische and Ducet families ended up dying, and as a kind of self-punishment he left the Kraische family and became the little brat’s tool instead. I learned about all of that later from my master, the head of the Black Witches. 」

「Was it the leader of the Black Witches who ordered you to assassinate the two Archdukes? 」

「That was her direct order. 」

Yana noded.

「However, the initial idea was not hers. You see, there’s is an organization called Pandora, and the Black Witches have been cooperating with it for many years. It seems that the purpose of that organization is to bring back the time of Extreme Chaos. Which makes sense, because if the Age of Chaos comes to an end, then both Arts and magic will lose all of their power, right? and apparently the same will happen to Lords and their precious Crests, so the organization has been asked to stop that possibility from becoming true. 」

「Pandora, huh? I’ve heard rumors about it. If Alexis Ducet and Marine Kraische got married and had a child together, that would mean that the Emperor has been born and that the Era of Chaos would come to an end, so I guess them wanting to stop that outcome is a sufficient motif for their actions. But I still think that actually pulling something like that off would be exceedingly difficult, so congratulations to you for actually succeeding. 」

「There’s not too much to congratulate me for, really. The arrangements were already in place, so all I had to do was summon the Demon Lord to the Grand Cathedral. However, when I finished my work and returned to the leader of the Black Witches, she told me to hide in the Forest of Eternal Darkness…no, it was more like an order that I couldn’t refuse, since after what I’ve done the Factory Alliance, the Fantasia Union and even the Mages Association were on the move looking for me. 」

「That must’ve felt like such a loss for you. 」

「Well, it did, but in the end it didn’t matter all that much, since I couldn’t go against the leader’s orders anyway, since all the Black Witches are under the effects of a curse that prevents us from doing so. However, the leader ended up dying sometime later and the curse was lifted… 」

But her death was still my fault, Yana said with a wry smile on her face.

When she fought against the leader of the White Witches, an invisible thread was attached to her. Unaware of that fact, she returned to the lair of the leader of the Black Witches, and as a consequence of that, the lair was later raided by the White Witches, the leaser of the Black Witches was captured, put on trial, and later burned at the stake.

「Thanks to that unfortunate mishap, I’m also being pursued by my former companions from the Black Witch’s clan, and when I contacted Pandora in hopes that they’d be the ones to help me, I almost got myself killed by them. It would seem that even to these guys, I am already an expendable nuisance. 」

Yana said so and laughed with a hollow voice.

「I don’t sympathize with you, but you’re a very unlucky woman. Maybe Salvador died the way he did because you were involved with him. 」

「Don’t say that. It’s enough that I think so myself. 」

Yana hangs her head down in disappointment.

「I’ve been following her ever since I was born. My mother died because of the complications after a difficult childbirth, and ever since my family, relative and neighbors learned that I had the power to see Chaos and manipulate its flow, they all shunned me and turned their backs to me when I needed them the most. They wanted to sell me to the Mages Association in Elam, but before I could reach the Magic City, the leader of the black Witches found me and spirited me away after she placed the curse on me.」

It seems that this Black Witch has been toyed around by fate for quite a long time. Her greatest misfortune was literally her extraordinary magical talent. She was therefore used conveniently, and when those who were using her no longer had any need for her, they discarded her.

「Well, I can’t speak for others either, but I myself was born in the slums of Laxia. The first thing I learned there was how to beg. Next, I learned how to use a knife, and then I learned the art of pickpocketing. 」

「Why did you end up becoming an Assassin then? 」

「One day, there was a child hunt in the slums. A group of people dressed in black suddenly started attacking and killing children one after another. I figured out how to escape, took only those whom I knew were slower than me and ran away. 」

「You used other kids as decoy? Well, well, well, color me impressed. 」

Yana said as if she was genuinely impressed by what Boltz said just now. After all, she is a Black Witch, and because of that her sensibilities are vastly different from those of the common people.
「The guys who followed me were killed off one after another. And before I knew it, I was running away alone. However, there were still three pursuers coming after me. Being cornered, I dared to run down a narrow alley and confront my pursuers there, even though my back would literally be pressed against a wall. 」

Boltz laughed coldly.

「Why did you decide to go to such a place? Surely you could’ve escaped elsewhere, could you? 」

「I thought it would be impossible for me to escape them any longer. I could fight them one-on-one there. I didn’t think I could win, but that was the only way I could survive. I was confident in my knife handling, and I knew what a human being’s weak points were. However, after crossing the first pursuer with a knife for a while, he abruptly stopped fighting and declared that I have passed. It turns out that the child hunting was a test to see which of us had what it took to be an Assassin. 」