It Is Getting Dark - Chapter 22
22 – Auropea (2)
I was taken aback by her words.
It was surprising that she would answer, but she would openly reveal that she was a witch.
“Are you okay? Can you reveal yourself so confidently?”
“Why not?”
Rather, her question was asked in retrospect.
At some point, her words got shorter, but I didn’t find fault with it.
“Should I be afraid of a cult that even Baren can’t control?”
“But the church isn’t the only one dealing with witches.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, but even those guys don’t turn me into an enemy. There is no such thing as a name value for nothing.”
She handed me a business card.
“Valhalla?”
Wait, Valhalla Ramen.
“Are you talking about the mercenaries with wire and health?”
“You know Wire and Health, but you don’t know me? … I’m sad.”
In Witch Hunt, each character has a affiliation.
From noble mtl dot com.
As if the executioners belonged to a church.
And befitting a witch-hunting game, all of the playable characters either hunt witches or belong to a group that hunts them.
Even the church specializes in healing rather than combat, so it is far behind other groups in terms of combat power.
That’s why the church is struggling to show off its strength.
Nevertheless, the church has spread as an expert in witch hunting because only the church does not accept money, so citizens who have discovered witches inform the church.
Valhalla is a mercenary group.
As a mercenary group, they are sometimes mobilized for war as well as demons, demons, and witches.
These guys will hunt everything if you give them money, but on the contrary, if you don’t pay, there’s nothing free.
Wire and Health belong to Valhalla, essential human rights characters that make the game stop without them.
And Valhalla is a balance collapse group whose members are all scammers.
There are 3 people I don’t know about, even though they’re such prominent figures in Witch Hunt.
There are a total of 7 members according to the setup.
But a total of 4 people were revealed.
So, are the three undisclosed people all witches?
“As far as I know, Valhalla also hunts witches. Are you okay?”
“Has there ever been a time when people have not killed people since the creation of the world? There’s nothing special about killing people. It’s the same thing.”
She said, spitting out the smoke from her cigarette.
“Now it’s your turn to ask questions. So what’s your relationship with Baren?”
“I have been helped by Lord Baren.”
“That’s not the answer I wanted. What I’m curious about is why do you harbor the mana of that guy from Varen?”
mana?
“Besides, isn’t Baren the only one? I don’t know what it is, but you sucked one of the vulgar things and my mana? What are you really doing?”
The conversation with Baren suddenly came to mind.
The words that I absorbed his mana.
And the spark that flew when she and this woman touched her hand earlier.
As expected, the tattoo on my forearm.
And I couldn’t tell this woman about it.
“Baren got a circuit implant. What do you think is similar to that?”
“That’s funny. Do you know that cases like Baren’s are common? You look at me so stupid… It’s embarrassing, but that’s not my purpose, so I’ll move on.”
After saying that, Auropea put her elbow on her lap and rested her chin on it.
“You come to Valhalla. I’ll teach you how to use it.”
Why do only things that seem to bother me come rushing in?
I refused.
“I refuse. I did it earlier. It doesn’t even seem difficult.”
When she heard what I said, she burst out laughing.
After she laughed for a long time, she wiped away her tears.
Suddenly, he started talking about Baren.
The stream of consciousness was a bit strange.
“The first time I met him was in the snowy mountains of the Duchy of Lorraine. He said he had a dying body and was full of energy. Besides, when I looked inside, what was this? I don’t know how he did it, but he implanted the circuit. At first it was just curious. That there was a guy who came up with that idea and that there was a crazy guy who put it into practice. Even being successful.”
“… What do you want to say?”
“Listen quietly. Anyway, I was curious about that thunder naked guy, so I watched it. But as he used his powers, his body was breaking apart. Do you know what this means?”
His body was broken?
This was a pretty serious story.
“What do you mean?”
“It is true that Baren has the power of a witch in his body, but he is not a witch. What do you think witches do?”
“Aren’t you trying to fulfill the host’s wish?”
“That is included. What I want to say is something else. Do you know about turtles?”
Why are you suddenly talking about a turtle?
“I heard that turtles know how to walk since they were born. It’s the same. The process of learning to use one’s powers only with the thoughts of the host. That’s up In the meantime, though, all sorts of things happen to the stars. Among the processes, the process of optimizing the body according to ability is included. But Varen’s circuitry is not my own. That’s why Baren didn’t go through karma. Do you understand what this means?”
“Hasn’t she undergone optimizations to deal with her abilities?”
“Yes. If you use your witch’s power without thinking right now, the results won’t be very good, right? It’s the same reason why Baren can’t control his strength. I artificially put it through an optimization process to prevent its body from breaking, and it became too strong.”
What she said was more serious than I thought.
“My opinion is that if you use the power of Baren without thinking, you will not get well.”
“But, as for Baren, I have withstood Baren’s fists many times.”
“That’s right, mana must have been contained in the mana you sucked in.”
She bit the smoking pipe once, spat it out, and continued.
“Magic power is the engine that makes this train move, and mana is the fuel. It’s because Varen’s mana is attuned to her ability that you’ve survived. Now you have Baren’s magic, so if you try to use her ability, you should be able to use it, but after using all the mana you received from Baren, you have to use your mana.
In short, do you mean that you should put premium fuel in a luxury car?
“I understand the explanation, but it is difficult to give a definite answer. I don’t even know why you did this to me in the first place.”
“Why? You smell like money.”
She said with a laugh.
“Okay then. Come see me later.”
She suddenly grabbed my hand and something like an aura bloomed from her body.
My body started boiling as if she had done something to her.
“This is a service.”
A completely different feeling from when mana was absorbed.
This was more like a pain.
“Aagh!”
I screamed and shook her hand.
“You want to reveal your magical power too openly. He hid it.”
And what I said to her, she took back to me.
“I feel like I have a party, so I don’t think it will be any more difficult.”
When she looked in the direction she was pointing with her hand, she saw that Maria was coming back.
“Enough then.”
Asrai heard the voice in my ear. When I looked forward one last time, she had already disappeared.
* * *
After she left, Maria returned.
I treated Maria as if nothing had happened.
Maria wondered about the hole in the floor, but it wasn’t a big deal.
More than that, I was wondering if I could trust Auropea’s words.
I searched my head for being Baren’s teacher, but nothing came to mind.
In Witch Hunt, witches were hunting mobs.
The story was mainly composed of playable characters.
In other words, the story of the witches was not highlighted, so there was too little information there.
In the end, information on witches is virtually non-existent unless it is about the stage-specific boss mobs.
So, even if you recall information related to Baren, Baren is such a bat-like guy in the Witch Hunt that he won’t give you any information related to himself.
It’s a character that the newbies who don’t know what they first met while helping the player a little after the tutorial believed it, and then got hit in the back of the head.
So, Baren was the number one character that users prayed for when they were stabbed in the back of the head and asked to die.
The information obtained from Baren’s mouth was the name of the faction called Notices.
If you listen to the conversations of the boss mobs in the Witch Hunt, you could expect that there was a different force because there was a fight between them, but I first heard the direct name of Notices from Baren.
And he was clearly hostile to the name Notice.
If it’s Varen’s teacher, then at least it’s not Noticetice.
No, before that, are you certain that the Notis are my enemies?
Just because Varen’s enemy is Notice, can I call his enemy Notis my enemy?
He and I only helped each other because we needed something, but we are not colleagues.
Because that guy can’t be trusted in the first place.
Today, the worries do not end.
Where am I heading now?
What it means that the enemy is not clear.
I began to understand what the observer was saying.