NOVEL NEXT 11 - Rank 8
I don’t know how many days have passed, but I finally woke up.
My body was cleaned up and dressed in fresh clothes, as if someone had taken care of me.
No, the clothes seem a bit unfamiliar.
“A dress?”
Wearing something so flowy made me feel embarrassed.
The witch’s outfit was at least familiar, and felt like cosplay, but this makes me look completely like a girl.
But that’s actually true.
I was in a daze, feeling a strange sense of self-loathing, when a pink-haired figure burst through my door.
“Grace!! Are you okay? Thank goodness!”
Sharen rushed in, somehow knowing I had woken up.
She tackled me with a tight hug, but I had neither the will nor the strength to resist.
The floral scent wafting from her was nice. I wonder what kind of flower it is.
While I was thinking about that, she explained what had happened while I was unconscious.
The mission was declared successfully completed, the mercenaries returned without further injuries thanks to Elender’s escort, and we were given a vacation to rest comfortably.
Moreover, since we completed the mission, we accumulated merit points within the Witch Society, and if we exceed a certain threshold, we’ll have the opportunity to rise to Rank 8… Sharen’s eyes sparkled as she said this.
“Rank 8, I can’t believe we might be able to reach that! We’ll have to work hard on missions from now on.”
“There’s no need for that…”
It’s incredibly carefree to say such things when we nearly died on the last mission.
Or maybe she doesn’t know what really happened?
They might not be telling her everything since she’s still young.
“Rising to Rank 8 would be so great! We could freely go to the city, enter the Witch Society headquarters, meet other senior witches, receive magic wands and auxiliary items…!”
Where did she pick up all this information?
She rattled off a list of the benefits of reaching Rank 8.
By the way, the Witch Society is just the tip of the iceberg. If you belong to a larger organization, your status and position change according to your rank.
Thanks to Sharen’s chatter about Rank 8, I started to think I should aim for a promotion.
I recalled the Rank 8 promotion ritual for witches in my mind.
▶ Kill hundreds of monsters/hundreds of humans/dozens of Rank 9 level beings/one Rank 8 level being. Achieve one of these conditions.
▶ Required sacrifices: 1. Twenty healthy adults 2. One shining silver lily 3. A ghost’s heart.
▶ Encounter the contracted demon after offering the sacrifices.
First of all, I already fulfilled the Rank 8 promotion condition itself.
The Turtlehide I killed by breaking its shell was a Rank 8 level monster.
Unless it’s an unusual case like mine, people sometimes resort to killing humans to meet the promotion conditions, but I consider that the worst method.
In the game, killing innocent people recklessly adds negative traits like
Moreover, now that this has become reality rather than a game, it’s even more so.
I don’t want to kill living, moving people right in front of me.
Secondly, you need promotion materials, but these are items that can be obtained somehow if you try.
To put it bluntly, if you ask around in the city, it’s not impossible to find them.
If they couldn’t be produced within this domain and had to be sourced externally, it would be difficult for lower-ranked witches to get promoted.
And the most challenging part, which I’d rather not offer if possible, is the twenty living sacrifices…
【Promotion Condition Relaxation】will take care of that automatically.
This special ability allows you to ignore some of the sacrifices.
There’s a reason why it’s used as effectively as the Mental Fortitude special ability.
While I was pondering when and where to aim for Rank 8 promotion.
Bang-!
The door that had been briefly closed burst open again.
The bronze-skinned witch… Ulrisa, wearing barbarian-style clothes with quite a high level of exposure instead of her witch outfit, jumped in.
“Comrade, you’re awake! Eat this!”
She suddenly offered me a slice of cake.
I won’t refuse a gift, but it’s a bit awkward to have a barbarian girl suddenly hand me cake.
I would have expected her to offer some chunk of meat, protein, or grilled reptile meat.
“Um, I’ll eat it well.”
“Eat well!”
Anyway, I’ll eat it since she gave it to me.
I was hungry, and since my body changed, my taste preferences seem to have shifted towards sweeter things.
As I was munching on the cake, another visitor arrived.
“Commoner! Lord Elender is looking for you…”
The room wasn’t that small, but suddenly having four people crowded in one place made it feel quite cramped.
Belladrin, still giving off that chick-like impression, and looking somewhat noble-like in casual clothes, was here today as well.
Come to think of it, is this the first time I’ve seen these guys in casual clothes?
Unless it was a vacation day like this, we had to wear our witch outfits normally.
I never felt particularly uncomfortable since I didn’t have anything else to wear anyway.
While thinking about this and continuing to munch on the cake, Belladrin’s gaze turned strange somehow.
“Commoner, I don’t think you would, but you’re not eating my cake, are you?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
I finished eating the cake and wiped my mouth.
Why would I steal someone else’s cake?
As I put down the empty plate, I pointed at Ulrisa who had just given me the cake.
“She gave it to me, didn’t she?”
“What? You stupid barbarian, where did you get that cake from?”
“It was piled up in the cold room, so I brought it! It was delicious!”
Ah, so she took it from the communal refrigerator?
Of course, in this medieval fantasy world, there are no electric refrigerators.
However, there was something similar using items.
They could maintain a cool temperature in one room.
That’s used as a kind of communal refrigerator.
In other words, Ulrisa took Belladrin’s cake and gave it to me as a gift.
It was probably done without malice, but, well, from Belladrin’s perspective, it might be a bit annoying.
The permission to go to the city was only given during mission execution, and now that it’s over, it would be difficult to get again.
Perhaps because of this, Belladrin’s expression turned red, looking like she might explode at any moment.
“You, you ate all of my snacks…!”
So she ate them all, huh.
There seemed to be enough motivation to cast magic.
But why is she doing this in my room, of all places?
“Hey, wait…!”
“Dark Arrow!”
A black arrow flew towards Ulrisa, and she avoided it with superhuman physical abilities.
The arrow that lost its target was about to destroy the innocent furniture in the house, but.
The golden barrier I instinctively used blocked it.
The knowledge of this power was engraved in my mind.
▶ It activates automatically in appropriate positions when life is in danger or when the user wishes.
▶ Can be used five times a day.
So, it’s a pretty good power that automatically blocks attacks that could endanger your life.
This time it was used in a bit of an odd place, but it would be very useful in a real life-or-death battle.
And fortunately… or maybe not, Belladrin’s second attack hit Ulrisa directly.
She rolled on the floor.
Looking at her pathetically, I said,
“If you’re going to fight, go outside. Are you trying to destroy my room?”
“Grace…. Shouldn’t you stop them at times like this?”
“Kids grow up by fighting, you know.”
“???”
Aren’t you the same age as me? Leaving Sharen with that expression, I looked at Belladrin.
She was still fuming, seemingly not having calmed down, but there was something more important.
“So what were you saying? You said someone called for me?”
“Ah, I forgot, Lord Elender called for you.”
“You should have said that first. How can you not deliver the message properly because you’re fighting?”
“Y-You…!”
The red color that had been settling down in her face seemed about to burst up again.
It’s a complex and subtle state, like ‘I’m really angry and frustrated but I have no way to retort so I’m getting even more furious’.
Belladrin’s reactions are always intuitive.
Is that why it’s fun to tease her?
I left the room before she could explode again.
I wondered if I should go wearing this flowy dress with nothing underneath, but I had no other clothes to wear, so it couldn’t be helped.
As I was walking, I thought, “Where should I go?”
But there was no need to wander around lost.
There was a woman extending her snow-white hand towards my eyes.
“You’re awake.”
That cool hand stroked my hair and caressed my nape.
I stayed still because she was giving me an affectionate gaze, but the sensation on my skin was a bit chilling.
Originally, I would have disliked it and struggled to run away, but now I stayed still.
Maybe she liked my docile response so much, she smiled brightly and grabbed my hand.
“How are you feeling?”
“Well, I’m fine.”
“I’m glad, really.”
Holding my hand, she led me forward.
I wondered where we were going, but Elender told me our destination.
“There’s someone who wants to see you.”
“Is that so?”
“They have a lot to ask you.”
“…”
Hmm, for example, do they want to ask how I saw through the Word of Power?
I had some usable excuses ready.
I’ve thought it all through in advance.
Led by her hand, we arrived at a dark room that seemed to emit starlight.
And on the other side sat a being with an appearance that seemed to contain starlight.
Elender, standing beside me, bowed her head respectfully.
“Elder Elune, I’ve brought her.”
“Yes, welcome.”
While Elender looked like a lady in her early 30s, Elune appeared to be a young lady just entering her twenties, at the age when beauty blossoms.
However, she had a perfect form.
Her features, body shape, balance, everything was as beautiful as if directly sculpted by a god.
…Indeed, from the middle ranks onwards, they’re different.
A being beyond human limits.
As expected of a Grand Witch of Rank 6, the pressure weighed down on my shoulders.
Elune asked me with a benevolent smile.
“Grace, I’ve heard a lot about you. A pitiful child who contracted with an unmanageable demon due to a failed ritual, yet still admirably maintaining your reason and enduring, and moreover…”
That benevolence quickly turned into ferocity.
My body, hands, and feet began to tremble involuntarily.
It wasn’t that I was trembling out of fear, but my body was trembling in terror.
Unless it’s an extreme case like me who vigilantly guards against evil deeds, a witch of around Rank 6 means…
It implies that they have piled up a huge mountain of corpses beneath them.
If they can’t do that, they can’t reach that rank.
Even if they don’t engage in meaningless slaughter, the number of lives that have died by her hands would be at least in the tens of thousands.
And that number of slaughters would grow even larger with the years they’ve lived.
Honestly, I expressed it as if it was nothing.
But when faced with reality rather than a game, it was a realm that could never be described as such.
They were so-called transcendents.
Beings that surpass humans and stand above them.
“A child who saw through its machinations.”
“Y-Yes.”
“How did you see through it?”
It might seem like she’s interrogating me, but that wasn’t actually the case.
It was just her killing intent towards ‘The Gathering’ that nearly caused all the witches sent on the mission to die.
A part of that killing intent leaked out and reached me, which is why my body couldn’t bear it.
Elender must have noticed this, as she patted my shoulder and spoke.
“Lady Elune.”
“Haha, how fickle I am at this age. Child, I’m sorry. I scared you too much.”
“…It’s okay.”
“Those worm-like creatures, to use a method that’s been obsolete for a hundred years to eat away at the Witch Society like this.”
Elune gritted her teeth and turned her head.
This time she controlled her killing intent well, so even though she burst out in anger, I wasn’t much affected.
“Child, I should tell you about that hundred-year-old method that put you in danger. Originally, this is knowledge you’d learn after reaching Rank 8, so it might be a bit early, but I think it’s alright.”
“Is that so?”
“Witches are inevitably invaded by demons. It’s inevitable, child. A fate that approaches no matter how much you dislike it. However, there are stages before it reaches right up to your feet.”
“Stages…”
“The first stage is when you still have intact emotions, like you. The second stage is when you lose emotions towards humans and view them like insects. The third stage is when you kill humans, engage in slaughter, and feel pleasure in being covered in blood. And the fourth.”
As she continued speaking, her eyes were filled with regret.
“When you lose emotions even towards fellow witches.”
“…”
“At that time, they must be treated as fallen beings and killed immediately. They are no longer witches, but monsters.”
It was as if she was saying this:
Since the history of witches began, there have been many witches who reached the fourth stage.
And she had killed those fallen beings.
Those who were comrades just yesterday.