Chapter 14
The Blue Witch, who had blanketed the ground in white and ushered in winter early, came running at tremendous speed.
One moment I thought I saw her beyond the residential district; the next, she barreled in like a black bullet. She slammed on the brakes right in front of me and stopped. A moment later, the wind caught up, and frost pillars shattered by the pressure danced through the air like diamond dust.
With diamond dust glittering in the sunlight at her back, the Blue Witch looked fantastical. Even her familiar, tattered black robes, mask, and Cuanos somehow looked incredibly cool.
S-Something's making my heart pound. What is this feeling...?!
As I tried to calmly analyze the psychological glitch happening to me—how the suspension-bridge effect could make couples fall for each other so easily—the Blue Witch suddenly swept me into both arms, squeezed me tight, and said in a trembling voice:
"You're alive...!"
Her voice was filled with joy, yet she sounded like she was about to cry, like a lost child.
Normally, being held this tightly and restrained would send me insane with terror, but her arms were trembling so helplessly that sympathy won out over fear.
I see.
Of course. You must have been scared.
I knew that the so-called Wizard of Iruma, that piece of trash, had once had all the people under the Blue Witch's protection kidnapped and taken away. My kidnapping this time must have struck her trauma head-on and thrown her into quite a state.
She wasn't a hero who had come to save a princess.
This was a mother who had rushed over, worried about her kidnapped child. Mom!
As we shared our emotional reunion hug, the dragon, completely oblivious to the mood, said while very obviously trying to retreat:
"I-I'll give him back. I'm sorry. I didn't know he was your man."
"Huh?"
The Blue Witch, who had been anxiously patting me, cast aside her tenderness and glared at the dragon, her voice low and menacing.
The air abruptly grew heavy and cold, sinking so sharply that I almost imagined I heard a deep thud.
Even knowing that the killing intent wasn't directed at me, I couldn't keep my teeth from chattering. I couldn't tell anymore whether I was cold or afraid.
If even I was like that, the Dragon Witch, who was taking the killing intent head-on, curled her tail up in terror.
"Eek! I-I wouldn't have taken him if I'd known he was your man! This was an unfortunate accident! A misunderstanding!"
"Don't say something so creepy. He's a friend."
"What? The Blue Witch had friends?"
"What? I was your friend?"
"........"
The Blue Witch had the same genuine question thrown at her twice, so she put a hand to her head as if fighting off a headache.
What the hell was with that reaction? Friends? This was the first I'd heard of it. Did she get my permission before making that declaration? Decide whether you're my mother or my friend!
"Dragon Witch. You have no grounds for leniency. This incident alone merits death a thousand times over, but your other crimes are piled up like mountains—"
"No, wait, don't change the subject! That's not something I can let slide. Friends? We're friends? Are we friends? But, wait... Huh? I don't exactly feel bad about it. I don't feel good about it either, though. So are we friends? Since when? When did we become friends? Were we already friends yesterday? What about the day before? And isn't this the sort of thing that requires both parties' consent? If someone tells me we're friends and I think, 'Sure, why not,' does that mean we're friends now? The idea of paying a friendship fee is just an urban legend, right? Right? That's not a real thing, is it?"
"Socially inept. Be quiet. We'll discuss that later."
She said it in a fairly serious, annoyed tone, so I obediently kept my mouth shut.
Well, she had a point. I wanted to ask the Blue Witch's opinion on the claim that friendship between men and women couldn't exist, but this didn't seem like the time.
The Blue Witch held Cuanos at her hip and pronounced an absolute-zero sentence.
"Dragon Witch, I am executing you. As a fellow witch, I'll kill you instantly if you don't resist."
"......!!!"
It wasn't a threat or a bluff. Her voice made it instantly clear that she really meant to kill her.
Despite her massive body, the Dragon Witch moved with surprising speed, seized Octameteorite and Meteor Flame in both hands, and took flight with the ground rumbling beneath her.
That bitch is trying to run!
I was knocked flat by the wind pressure alone when she took off, but the Blue Witch didn't even flinch.
She aimed Cuanos at the dragon, who was trying to get away at rocket-launch speed, and began chanting a spell.
"The pure white spewed by that monster covered the world, and one more season was added."
In the sky indicated by Cuanos, directly above the dragon's head, a huge white vortex suddenly appeared. Spinning furiously, it engulfed the dragon and dragged her down toward the ground.
The dragon was slammed into the ground by the roaring white torrent. She struggled and thrashed, trying somehow to take flight again, but her resistance was futile as her wings slowly froze in the icy air.
I hurried behind the Blue Witch to escape the freezing gale. It looked like she was controlling the spell and narrowing its range, but the aftereffects were still brutal.
By the time the Dragon Witch's nest was completely covered in white frost and the entire area had turned into a world of silver, she had been weakened to the point of becoming a trembling fish on a chopping block.
Heh. Serves you right. Sensei, finish her off just like that!
"Damn! Even volcanoes, unable to withstand that starlight,"
"Freezing Javelin."
The Dragon Witch tried to cast some spell as a last-ditch struggle, but rapid-fire ice spears shot clean through her jaw and silenced her.
Incredible. Its power is in another league compared to the same spell I use. Even accounting for Cuanos's power amplification, it's incredibly strong.
"Uweh... s-stop... I-I surrender..."
The Blue Witch snorted at the Dragon Witch's white flag, delivered with a clattering jaw and slightly slurred speech.
During the battle—or rather, the punishment—a steady stream of onlookers had gathered from the residential district.
No, rather than onlookers, was this an emergency deployment of the guard? Everyone was carrying either a crossbow or a metal bat and wearing leather vests reinforced with metal plates.
"Hey, what's going on? What happened? What kind of monster is it?"
"No, it doesn't seem to be a monster attack."
"Huh, a witch? Is that the Blue Witch?!"
"The witch is frozen solid?!"
"This is bad, this is really bad..."
"This is hopeless. It's over. Team A, go back and evacuate the women and children."
Even after witnessing magic wielded by an inhuman being on a disaster scale, the crowd stood its ground without fear, though they remained alert.
Wow, the people who survived the Gremlin disaster really were made of sterner stuff. I suppose only the gutsy combat personnel had rushed over, but still—that was some damn nerve.
In front of the crowd, who had rushed over but could only watch helplessly from a distance, the half-frozen Dragon Witch begged for her life.
"I-I'll give you half my treasure if you let me go. So save me!"
"........"
"Half isn't enough? A quarter works too!"
Why does it go down?! Don't start getting stingy about your treasure now!
Perhaps the Blue Witch was exasperated by such a pathetic attempt to beg for her life. She didn't even bother replying anymore and simply readied Cuanos. The Dragon Witch still refused to give up, dragging her half-frozen body along as she tried to stagger away.
Just as the Blue Witch inhaled to chant her execution spell, a chubby middle-aged man burst through the crowd, his belly wobbling as he came lumbering between the two witches.
It was Zaizen-san.
Hey, Zaizen-san. It's dangerous over there!
The Blue Witch clicked her tongue irritably.
"You're in the way. Move."
"You are the Blue Witch-sama, correct? It is an honor to meet you. My name is Zaizen, and I handle administrative affairs—or something like that—in Dragon Witch-sama's territory."
"Ah... I'm sorry for the trouble. I'll tell the Eyeball Witch about the aftermath. This territory will probably be folded into another witch's area before long. Don't worry about what happens after this one dies."
The Blue Witch softened her tone slightly, but Zaizen-san spread his plump hands and stood in her way even more firmly.
"I don't know the circumstances behind this, Blue Witch-sama, but would you please spare her? It isn't that I'm worried about losing our guardian.
"Dragon Witch-sama is quite... something, as you can see. But one way or another, she feeds all of us. She protects us. Many lives have been saved by her.
"We owe her a debt. Please, won't you at least spare her life?"
The Blue Witch thought for a moment after hearing Zaizen-san's plea, then turned her gaze toward the crowd.
The crowd whispered among themselves for a while, then everyone nodded.
They didn't nod immediately, but the fact that they eventually did says a lot about the Dragon Witch's usual conduct.
Ugh, hmm. Even a shitty dragon who robs, kidnaps, and locks people up has some degree of popularity, huh.
I think we should just kill her here. If we let her live, she'll only do more awful things.
I'm on team kill-her, but the executioner is the Blue Witch. After being abducted so easily and needing her to come rescue me, I can't presume to weigh in on her decision.
The Dragon Witch's fate would be decided by the Blue Witch's feelings alone.
The Dragon Witch, emboldened by gaining an ally, beamed with delight as she said:
"That's right! It's okay, Zaizen! Tell her more! Killing me would be a loss for the world!"
"Witch-sama. I'm terribly sorry, but please rest now—and keep quiet."
"........ I see. I'll spare her life, but she needs to learn the hard way at least once. I'll tear off one of her legs."
"Oh, go ahead. If it's just that much."
When the Blue Witch rolled up her sleeves, Zaizen-san readily stepped aside.
The crowd also relaxed, wearing expressions that said, "Thank goodness," and began chatting away.
The dragon, having lost her ally, screamed as she watched the executioner approach one step at a time.
"Zaiiiiiizen! You betrayed me?! Don't come any closer! You're coming—wait, ah, stop—NOOOO! Dragon killer!"
I watched as the Blue Witch, who had cast a body-strengthening spell, forcibly tore one of the dragon's legs off bit by bit, while the dragon wailed without a shred of dignity.
Heh, serves you right. But that's a little gory. No wonder people fear the Blue Witch, seeing how calmly she carries out this kind of splatter.
I'll make absolutely sure never to anger her...