Chapter 35: Witch of the Electrosphere
“It's you. The human called Diesel.”
The Witch of the Electrosphere looked down at me and spoke.
“…….”
“Why are you so surprised? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
I soon came to my senses and called out to my younger sister.
“Lee Hayun……?”
Was it really my sister?
‘No.’
The instant the name left my mouth, I realized it instinctively.
That was not Lee Hayun.
As if to prove it, the witch’s expression crumpled.
She lightly hopped down from the server, then walked softly toward me barefoot across the ground littered with glass shards.
“Listen carefully. I’ll tell you the things you should never do in front of me.”
As the witch drew closer to me, Ar, who had been blocking her path, raised his fur even more and hissed.
“One, don’t ignore me.”
But when the witch gently stroked the Electrosphere Spirit with her slender arm, Ar’s behavior calmed down as if nothing had happened.
“Two, don’t think about deceiving me.”
The witch came right up to me and met my eyes head-on.
“Three, never call me by that name again.”
“…….”
A declaration delivered like a warning.
This time, my face twisted.
“What are you?”
“You look like you could kill me at any moment.”
“Yeah.”
I drew strength into my arm.
Then the ‘Leigong’ that Kaztikan had shown manifested in only one of my arms.
As an electric force no ordinary human muscles could withstand settled in, an overwhelming searing pain was detected, and a powerful painkiller was automatically administered.
Even so, the pain that bored into my bones couldn’t be stopped.
“Talk. Now.”
But that kind of thing didn’t matter.
I grabbed the witch by the nape with the arm imbued with the power of the lightning god.
“Why are you wearing that face?”
“…….”
Blue flames scattered from my eyes.
It was the mana recoil phenomenon that appeared in melee mages.
“Hm……. This is a bit unexpected.”
Suddenly, a voice came from behind.
“I didn’t expect you to come at me so aggressively.”
Then from the left.
“I didn’t think you were so hot-blooded.”
Even from the right.
The witch’s voice echoed from all directions.
Before I knew it, the witch’s body I had been holding was slumped down like an android whose operation had stopped.
“You…….”
“Let’s change locations for now.”
Witches with identical faces simultaneously looked up at the sky.
“Space is nice too, but if you see it too much, you get sick of it.”
One of them snapped her fingers sharply in the air.
As if a light had been switched off, my vision went dark.
A lake covered in pitch-black darkness.
A calm water mist lay quietly over it.
On the motionless surface of the water stood a single, neat pavilion.
Drizzling rain gathered at the edge of the eaves and fell into the lake, but the surface didn’t so much as ripple.
Inside the building, which was open on all sides, two people were seated.
Among them, the Witch of the Electrosphere picked up a teacup placed on a round table and spoke.
“Have you calmed down a bit?”
A warm-colored glass lamp illuminating the pavilion shone on my expressionless face.
‘This place is…….’
I didn’t know what method she had used, but I was now inside the Electrosphere.
That was despite Little Sister having cut off all connections to the Electrosphere.
‘The Witch of the Electrosphere…….’
Her reputation clearly wasn’t for nothing.
The witch was leisurely sipping her tea.
“You look like you have a lot you want to ask.”
“…….”
I couldn’t tell how she had brought me into this space and seated me here.
But one thing was certain: that witch wanted something from me.
Otherwise, there would have been no reason to go to such lengths.
“It seems like that goes for you too.”
At my reply, a sharp gaze flew toward me.
“This lake is called ‘Damseol Pavilion.’ It’s one of the matrices I cherish the most.”
“…….”
“It’s a special place where I can impose restrictions on the other party’s actions.”
A matrix.
An independent space artificially created within the Electrosphere.
Looking around roughly, it was about the size that only a Megacorporation would operate.
Maintaining a matrix of this scale alone would require enormous computational power, but to the witch, it seemed like nothing special.
‘Inside a matrix made by the witch…….’
I had truly entered the tiger’s den.
“You look like you want to get straight to the point?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Alright. Then shall we place the restriction first?”
Most matrices had a purpose.
Some were used for decadent purposes by amplifying specific senses, others to force out desired information by implanting painful memories into the other party.
This matrix, true to its name Damseol Pavilion, seemed to be a matrix for conversation.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an ordinary conversation.
“The rules are simple. We take turns asking one question at a time. The answer has to be convincing enough for the other party. If it isn’t, or if you lie…….”
Ripples formed on the surface of the water near the pavilion.
As if something enormous was writhing beneath the lake.
“You’ll be submerged beneath that lake.”
“…….”
“How was it?”
“That restriction applies to you too, right?”
“Of course. I’m thorough when it comes to rules.”
I had no intention of dancing to the witch’s tune, but for now, I decided to play along.
The witch wasn’t the only one with questions.
“Alright.”
At my answer, the witch set down her teacup and spoke.
“I’ll give you the first opportunity.”
A line tossed out as if she were doing me a favor.
But that wasn’t some noble intention of yielding the initiative.
Rather, she probably didn’t want the method of conversation in this matrix to be exposed.
The restriction the witch had imposed: ‘the answer must be convincing.’
If that was the case, the vaguer the question, the more advantageous it was.
That way, the respondent would spill information until the questioner was satisfied.
I stared at the witch and asked.
“What are you?”
Given the nature of a matrix that read the other party’s surface emotions, I couldn’t pretend not to be convinced, but I had always possessed an exceptionally picky way of thinking.
‘Go on. Convince me.’
A question filled with the intent to pry out even a little more information.
At that, the witch’s brow creased slightly.
“Fine. I’ll tell you the truth.”
“…….”
Was she going to break through head-on?
She answered as if she had no intention of backing down.
“There was a time when that ‘Archmage’ you mentioned earlier took an interest in the Electrosphere.”
Lee Hayun had taken an interest in the Electrosphere.
I recalled how my younger sister had been seriously hopeless with machines.
“At the time, the Electrosphere had just been discovered. That woman found the newly appeared otherworld extremely fascinating, and she explored the Electrosphere for a very long time. Deeply, and widely.”
The witch lifted her chin and continued.
“I am a thought-form created when that human walked the Electrosphere.”
“…….”
“That should be enough of an answer, right?”
A thought-form left behind in the Electrosphere by the Archmage.
Realizing that, I finally understood the source of the déjà vu I had felt from the witch all along.
‘So that’s why she felt similar to an Electrosphere Herald.’
A spirit made of essence, and a thought-form made of thoughts.
The contents that formed their shapes were entirely different, but the concept was almost identical.
“Then it’s my turn.”
The witch looked at me as if piercing straight through and asked.
“What are you?”
The same question I had received.
I answered immediately.
“I’m Diesel.”
“Ha.”
The witch let out a small breath.
“Right, Diesel. The Ghostcatcher who silenced Gale Consortium’s AT-71 as his first job. Known as a spellcaster who realizes dual mana of the cold-type and lightning-type.”
She emphasized the last words and continued.
“So what are you, exactly?”
“Looks like even the Witch of the Electrosphere doesn’t know everything.”
“…….”
At my mocking remark, the witch’s brow tightened slightly.
“It seems you’re trying to test me.”
With her low voice, ripples suddenly began to spread across the lake’s surface.
“I told you, I’m very strict about rules.”
As the waves grew more violent, my gaze shifted toward the lake.
“It would be best not to try any half-baked probing.”
What would happen if I were submerged in a lake created by the witch?
At the very least, I’d surely become a wandering specter drifting through the Electrosphere for the rest of eternity.
That was probably the lucky outcome.
“Archmage Lee Hayun.”
I spoke my younger sister’s name as if she were a stranger.
At that, displeasure once again surfaced on the witch’s face.
“That woman possessed a special awakening ability.”
“…….”
“The one said to be able to handle all surreal phenomena, ‘Manipulating Hand.’”
“……You’re impressive for a rookie to know that much. You do know that’s classified information permitted only to a very small number among Joseon’s imperial agents, right?”
“Yeah.”
Information I could obtain because my older brother had been one of those few agents.
Then I told the witch my identity.
“I share the same bloodline as Archmage Lee Hayun.”
“…….”
It wasn’t a lie.
That bloodline was merely a second-degree relation, next closest after parents.
“The same bloodline…….”
At my answer, questions sprouted on the witch’s face like thorny vines.
But rules were rules.
As if swallowing back the questions that threatened to spill out, she took a sip of her tea.
“Was that a sufficient answer?”
“Yeah.”
At her words, I immediately threw out another question.
“Why did you want to meet me?”
“I wanted to meet you?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
From my perspective, this entire operation being put together was no coincidence.
The information that the Witch of the Electrosphere was planning to attack Podvig’s moon base.
She herself must have deliberately leaked that information.
To the Ghostcatchers and to Little Sister, who were constantly desperate to uncover her identity.
And the reason she had done that was…….
“This whole moon base job was done just to make contact with me, wasn’t it?”
It had to be to meet me in person.
Was I being overly self-conscious?
No, this was closer to fact supported by solid evidence.
Because of the very first thing she had said when she saw me.
‘I’m sure she said she was bored of waiting.’
Why would a witch who could roam so freely even after being cut off from the Electrosphere remain quietly inside the server while my group tried to capture her?
The only conclusion was that she had been waiting to contact me after my fight ended.
“…….”
The witch looked at me with an interested gaze.
“Well, it’s a simple deduction.”
“The answer?”
At my urging, the witch lightly raised her hand.
Then several photographic materials began to appear on the table.
“India, Odisha. 134 people.”
“……?”
“Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. 87 people. Saudi Arabia, Jeddah. 72 people…….”
At the witch’s gesture, scenes from cities around the world passed by.
Each photo showed people who had been brutally massacred.
The photos shared another common point besides that.
All of them showed agents standing guard, bearing a certain ‘emblem.’
An emblem depicting burning flames and a sharp sword.
It wasn’t hard to recognize what emblem that was.
‘Inquisitors…….’
“And lastly, Joseon.”
At the witch’s gesture, a familiar sight unfolded.
The appearance of a spirit research facility disguised as a wastewater purification facility somewhere in Northern Gyeonggi.
“Sector 7-6. 0 people.”
“…….”
With that, the witch looked at me without any further explanation.
As if to say that this should be enough.
And indeed, I didn’t need a long-winded explanation.
‘That pale corpse next to the Inquisitors……. It’s exactly the same as the white-growth ghost from back then.’
If so, the regions the witch had listed were places where ghosts had appeared.
The numbers appended afterward must be the number of victims sacrificed to the ghosts.
‘But 0 people? Do they not count half-androids as people?’
That seemed to be how the Inquisitors compiled their statistics.
“This should be enough of an answer.”
“I’d like you to explain in a bit more detail.”
I already knew what she was getting at, but I calmly requested additional explanation.
The witch stared at me for a while, then continued.
“Recently, there have been incidents where ghosts appeared simultaneously in various parts of the world.”
So ghosts hadn’t appeared only at the Black Water Institute.
That was something I hadn’t known before.
‘This might be a sign.’
Ghosts that had been hiding deep within the real world moving collectively was not something to be taken lightly.
“And slaying ghosts is the Inquisitors’ special duty. Each country has its own units meant to deal with ghosts, but they exist in name only. There isn’t a single one that functions properly. Well, in a way, that’s only natural. It’s been almost over 80 years since ghosts disappeared from the world. So you can think of most of those numbers as personnel from enforcement agencies who died while waiting for Inquisitor support.”
If what the witch said was true, then the corpses in the photos were likely local police officers sacrificed to buy time until the Inquisitors arrived.
“But there was only one place. A place where the situation ended before the Inquisitors even intervened.”
The witch’s gaze turned toward me.
“The place where you were, Diesel.”
“…….”
“Now is that an answer? Mage who slew a ghost.”