City of Witches

1.

“Baby, are you feeling sick?”

“No, Mom, I’m not. I’ll just lay down for a moment, I’ll feel better…”

“Are you sure? Should Mommy not go to work today and just take care of you at home, Sweetie?”

“No, it’s fine. I just wanna be alone for a bit…”

“If you say so… Mommy will buy something tasty for dinner, so cheer up quickly okay, Sweetie? Mommy loves you!”

“I love you too, Mom.”

-Click

After Countess Lucy went off to work and closed the door to her room, Diana buried her face in the pillow again.

It had been two days since she had been doing this; groaning in her room in agony and distress.

As for why she was in this state… Well, she had just witnessed an absurd sight before her eyes, and because of it, one of the beliefs she had held so dearly was shattered to pieces.

“That was absurd… How could they…”

Recalling all the atrocious things the twins had done up to the…kiss…Diana bit her lips. Confusion and distraught enveloped her mind.

Their lips clearly touched!

A man’s lips touched those two’s lips!

And yet, their bowls are still intact…?

“Uuu…gg…”

Recalling the scene again, Diana felt nauseous.

The uncouth…

And unpleasant action…

Left an inexplicable feeling of aversion and disgust in her chest—the same feeling when someone accidentally came across a gazelle being eaten by a lion.

“…Anyway, I can’t stay like this forever…”

Saying that, Diana rose up.

Then, she combed up her messy hair.

It had already been two days since she holed herself in her room.

Something strange is going on here, definitely…

And that was the conclusion that she had reached after all the time she spent pondering.

Now, she was presented with two choices.

Would she settle with the pleasant lie that she had always believed for her entire life?

Or would she try to find out the truth, even though it might be horrible and cruel?

Diana was an apprentice witch of the Yesod.

And she was proud of that fact.

Any ordinary person would pick the first option without much hesitation but…

She was a witch, someone who was supposed to pioneer a new path to explore the depths of magic. That was why, picking the first option like an ordinary person wasn’t even an option for her.

The gap between lies and reality.

To explore through that gap, Diana took a step outside her room.

2.

With that in mind, the first thing Diana tried to investigate were all the people working inside the house.

As a side note, Countess Yesod didn’t employ any male employees there.

That was why Diana had it easier to ask around about something like this.

“Good afternoon.”

She approached the two maids who were chatting in the hallways. The moment they saw her, they instantly lowered their heads.

“M-Ms. Diana, h-hello…”

“H-Hello, M-Ms. Diana… W-We’re just about to go back to work…”

For a normal employee, meeting with Diana was an extremely rare occasion.

First of all, Diana barely left the vicinity of her room, as she spent most of her time in the pool that was directly connected to her room.

Also, ever since she was young, she spent all her time together with Countess Yesod, and that hadn’t changed even until now, so there just weren’t any occasions where the employees could have a talk with her.

That was why, when she suddenly approached them, the maids’ bodies became frozen stiff.

“I have a question for you.”

“Y-Yes!”

“Y-You can ask me anything!”

After hearing such responses from the maids—who seemed like a new recruit facing their TO—Diana went ahead and asked the question that had been weighing on her mind, but before that…

“Please don’t be weirded out by my question, it’s only for research’s purposes. Also, don’t tell anyone about this.”

For an apprentice witch who had received all kinds of advanced education to ask a few maids about her research…

Obviously, it roused their curiosity, but they were too scared to do anything else other than nodding their heads.

“Y-Yes!”

“I-I swear I’ll never tell anyone about this!”

For a brief moment, Diana hesitated.

Because she knew that her question wasn’t exactly a normal one.

Rather, it was an embarrassing one to ask to anyone.

“Ahem, so, do you know how babies are born?”

“…”

“…”

The moment they heard Diana’s question, the maids’ expressions hardened.

They looked at each other and began to sweat profusely.

“A-Ah… T-That… I-I’m sorry, b-but… W-We have to go back to work soon…”

“S-Sorry…!”

“Ah…”

Before Diana could even say anything, they already ran off somewhere.

It was as if she had just asked about a forbidden magic or something. Diana’s eyes widened when she saw their reactions.

I’m sure I worded my words carefully before I asked…

Was that really such a bad question to ask someone…?

Thinking back, it was probably a rather vulgar question for the young heir of a Countess Household to ask.

But, the strange thing here was, the way they just ran off made it seem like they were running away from their mother-in-law or something.

To be exact, running away in ‘fear’.

“…”

And that reaction piqued Diana’s curiosity.

It was human’s nature to try and explore something that they were told not to explore.

Now that she had overcome her laziness and indulged herself in her curiosity, she continued her investigation.

But, even when she asked the maid who was washing the laundry in the laundry room…

Or the cook who was preparing the food for dinner…

The employees who were making flower arrangements to decorate the mansion…

All of them showed the exact same reaction as those two maids.

It was as if they had heard something they shouldn’t have heard.

The way their faces turned pale and immediately scurried off made it as if someone had placed a gag order specifically for that question.

At that point, Diana became certain.

That this didn’t happen because they found her question strange.

“Mom, did you…?”

She had a feeling that the countess had a hand in this.

Of course, she wasn’t sure how.

But, from the way the employees ran off—the one who was making flower arrangements even threw the arrangements she was making—it was obvious that if she were to ask other people about it, they’d show a similar reaction. And so…

“I’ll try the library next.”

Books were something that contained all sorts of knowledge passed down from the past.

With that in mind, Diana bravely advanced into the mansion’s library by herself.

3.

It went without saying that Countess Yesod’s library was several times bigger than the average ones.

Every book that was crammed to the shelves inside the three-floored library were magic books.

Without a magical indexing system like ‘Librarian’, trying to find the information that Diana wanted would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

But, she already had a keyword in mind.

‘Who told you that a kiss on the lips could damage your bowl?’

‘It’s sex that could damage your bowl. Sex!’

The words that the twins said to her.

Apparently, Diana had ‘misunderstood’ that if a male and a female were to kiss each other on the lips, a baby would be made.

If she were to go with that logic, the twins’ words should naturally contain the ‘truth’ of the matter.

Just like that she already found her keyword.

“Sex…sex…sex…sex…”

Climbing on the ladder she started looking for books which had the word ‘Sex’ from top to bottom.

Occasionally, she’d take out the books that caught her eyes while she was at it.

Now that she could take another closer look at the book collection in the library, she couldn’t help but feel amazed.

She could find a bunch of books that her predecessors had written—books about force field and barrier magic mostly—as well as various unpublished papers and reviews.

There were even hardcover editions of old documents translations that were originally written with lost languages—it went without saying that those were extremely rare books.

However, no matter how hard she tried to look around, she couldn’t find any books that pertained a relationship between men and women.

“Strange…”

No, rather than strange, it’s just suspicious…

Men can’t have a brand, sure.

They’re unable to store mana due to their biological nature, sure.

I mean, they don’t have a uterus and all.

But that doesn’t mean they’re a completely separate matter from magic.

Half of the world is filled with them, there should be some research data about them.

Otherwise, there’s no way all those witches would pick out men as their test subjects…

But, there isn’t even a single book about men here…

Is it because they filtered out all the books related to—

But who would—?

It didn’t take long for Diana to find the answer to that question.

Countess Yesod. Her mother, as well as her teacher, whom she loved and trusted dearly.

“Mom…? Why…?”

A frown appeared on Diana’s face.

Though confused, she was a smart girl, she knew what she should do.

Since her mother went out of her way to filter out all the books about men, it meant that no matter how hard she looked, she wouldn’t be able to find them here.

But, she wasn’t out of options.

At the moment, her mother was out working.

And she knew that there was a separate room where her mother stored some books inside her room.

Since there was no way that her mother would throw away or sell all those books she filtered, if there was a place to store them all, it would most likely be there.

With that in mind, Diana climbed down the ladder and headed towards her mother’s private library.

4.

If the library in the center of the mansion was equivalent to the size of a city library, Countess Lucy’s personal library was significantly smaller than that.

At best, it was as big as a small bookstore in a neighborhood.

Since the countess maintained its humidity and temperature well with magic, even books that were at least a hundred years old looked as good as books that hadn’t had their ink dried.

The sunlight seeped through the window, combined with the smell of old paper gave anyone who entered this place a peace of mind.

Inside, the shelves were arranged in a ‘ㄷ’ shape with a desk placed in the middle.

On the desk, there were papers filled with magical calculations scattered around.

Actually, Diana came here quite often.

And the countess never refused her visits even once.

However, this was the first time she had ever sneaked her way in like this, so her heart was pounding even harder than usual.

“Huu…”

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop her from searching through the library for thirty minutes.

But, her search ended with disappointment.

Because she couldn’t find anything here either.

The only difference between the books in here and in the library was that the books here were smaller in number but more advanced in contents.

“Could I have been wrong…?”

Maybe, books about men were few and far between in the first place?

Does that mean Mom didn’t actually do anything?

At that moment a sense of guilt struck her.

She let out a light sigh before putting back the books she had picked up from the shelf and then…

-Click!

She didn’t mean to do anything.

All she tried to do was put the last heavy book back in its place before leaving the library.

But, she grazed the small statue on the side of the bookshelf by accident.

When that happened, the small statue portraying the silver crescent moon—the crest of Yesod—let out a sound that was similar to that of a gear turning.

“?”

She put down the heavy book in her hand and stared at the statue closely.

Huh? Is this something they usually put in a bookshelf?

“This…?”

Suddenly, she began to twist the crescent moon statue, seemingly realizing something.

Not long after, alongside the sound of interlocking pieces of metals, the shelf began to descend slowly.

I knew it, this isn’t a simple statue, it’s some kind of a mechanism!

After the bookshelf was completely out of the way, the wall behind it opened like an entrance to somewhere..

So, this bookshelf functions as a door of some sorts…

“A door to a secret room…”

Diana held her breath, waiting for the wall to be completely open before stepping inside cautiously.

This secret room, or rather, secret library didn’t look like anything special.

The location of the bookshelves and the table’s arrangements were the exact same as the countess’ private library.

But, the books inside were different.

From the titles alone, Diana could already tell that those were novels.

She quickly approached the shelves and began to look through the titles carefully.

“Dangerous Plays of a Bored Witch… Selling Your Life to Repay a Debt… How Butterfly Flowers Fall… The Tailor of Malkuth Gallery… Sweeter Than Cocoa…”

Diana had only been reading through the books’ titles, but it already made her feel uneasy.

She guessed that this was probably the kind of feeling she’d felt if she were to suddenly fall into a snake pit.

For some reason, she could feel her spine tingle and a strange chill struck her.

What are these titles…?

“Just what…?”

All the books here had similar sounding titles.

At first, she thought that this place was just a storage for those books or something, but the colorful bookmarks in those books disproved that thought instantly.

Essentially, a novel was a small story packaged in a book.

The witches deemed all the people who read it as graceless.

Especially the conservative witches who valued magic above all; to them, even Shakespeare’s works were worth less than a piece of garbage.

And Countess Yesod was among those conservatives, an especially stubborn one among the other conservatives even. Diana always had thought her as a perfect noblewoman, so it was hard for her to imagine that she’d ever enjoy these books secretly.

Of course, she wasn’t disappointed in her mother or something.

After all, she had her own concept of fun so she wouldn’t judge her mother at all if this was her way of having fun.

And she believed that everyone had the right to keep a secret or two.

So, she decided to just leave this place quietly, since it would be rude of her if she were to pry for her mother’s secret any more than this.

But then something caught her eyes.

A book with a bright leather cover that was sitting on the table.

Written in cursive, the book’s title was as follow:

‘Devil’s Delivery Service Volume 3’.

She reached out to the book instinctively.

“T-This…”

She recognized the handwriting on the title; her mother’s.

Unable to resist her curiosity, she proceeded to open the book.

From the first chapter to the last chapter…

The entirety of the book was written by Countess Lucy Yesod.