Chapter 261. Each Person’s Constitution (4)

After the successful conclusion of the defensive attack against the Demon Empire, a growth frenzy swept through the holy city, Shalyh. The heroes, who upgraded to the next level by defeating various great demons and their countless legions, craved further growth like a thirsty person digging for a well. Their situation was different from when they first entered Liber completely powerless. Now that they had the foundation to exercise some of their old powers, they wandered outside nonstop as if to relieve their previous sorrows.

All the requests put up by the Cassiubia League were gone, and there was no space to even step inside the guild association building. It was the same for those in Ru Amuh’s zone, but there were some changes compared to before. Several people declared that they would be acting alone. The first to make that declaration was Chi-Woo. On the day that Byeok gave him to organize everything before training, Chi-Woo went up to Ru Amuh and said he would be devoting himself to training at home for a while.

Ru Amuh felt disappointed that Chi-Woo would be gone for the time being, but he couldn’t possibly oppose his teacher’s decision. In a way, Ru Amuh had every right to express his complaints. In order for Ru Amuh to maintain his area, they all needed to pinch in, but Chi-Woo was telling him that he’d pursue individual training instead. However, Chi-Woo didn’t think he should miss this golden opportunity, so he pushed forward with this plan. On the other hand, he handed over all the money he had left to Ru Amuh due to his conscience. Ru Amuh tried to turn the offer down, but Chi-Woo forced it into his hand.

In Ru Amuh’s perspective, he knew that Chi-Woo was giving him money with good intentions, but he felt that teacher had already given him more than enough so far. Since Ru Amuh was able to make a contract with a god faster than anyone thanks to Chi-Woo and was able to take the lead among all heroes, he was right in a way. Moreover, platinum tier was within his grasp and quite a few good requests practically fell on his lap because of the rumors spread about him among the Cassiubia League. Of course, finances were still tight, but he had enough to buy necessities and maintain his area. Ru Amuh respected Chi-Woo’s will and thought there was a good reason why Chi-Woo was going off by himself.

Ru Amuh sincerely wanted Chi-Woo to be able to focus on his goals and wants, and in order for him to do that, money was necessary—money that would allow Chi-Woo to focus on training without paying attention to anything else. After pondering about this for a while, Ru Amuh, who went to Chi-Woo’s house to return his money with some bonus, was able to easily solve this dilemma. It was all thanks to Evelyn. She came out on behalf of Chi-Woo, who was training, and heard the situation from Ru Amuh.

“What? He did that without even consulting me? He must be crazy,” she said. “There’s a limit to how generous he can be. Is he planning to let his wife and children starve?” And she quickly took the money. Then she also added, “I will manage the money for him from now on, so please consult with me about money-related issues no matter what.”

Ru Amuh was able to relax after hearing that Evelyn would take care of Chi-Woo. There was now only one thing left. Ru Amuh believed that his teacher was not the type to lie. Since Chi-Woo declared that he was going to focus on training, Ru Amuh was sure that he would come back much stronger than before. With this thought, Ru Amuh couldn’t stay still anymore. He had to also get stronger in preparation for the day his teacher returned. Thus, he set himself a goal; he would be promoted to platinum tier before his teacher began outside activities again.

With this determination, Ru Amuh immediately went to the temple to visit Shahnaz and received a promotion test. Of course, Ru Amuh wasn’t the only person who thought this way.

* * *

Salem Eshnunna was the princess of a fallen kingdom. After the sudden decision to emigrate from Shalyh under the orders of the legend, Chi-Hyun, Eshnunna fell into deep despondency. Moving out of the kingdom left her with nothing to do. Or to be more exact, her role as an administrator turned obsolete. In the main base in the forest, she had represented the natives. Then she had managed food and supplies and done other administrative tasks in the fortress and the former capital of the Salem Kingdom.

However, Shalyh didn’t need her. It was only natural since they were not in a situation where her status as a princess of a fallen kingdom carried any weight or importance. To be frank, she was just like any other native to the Celestial Realm heroes.

She became plagued with thoughts like, ‘Should I just live like this?’ ‘Should I just start farming with the other residents?’ ‘There’s nothing I can do anyway.’ In fact, she was in a situation where she had very limited choices. However, no matter how many self-justifications she made inside her mind, she couldn’t give in to her circumstances. Every time she tried to give up, she recalled the same scene in her mind—when the natives had no choice but to sacrifice themselves. And above all, her younger brother, Yohan, who had left with a bitter smile.

Yohan had entrusted Liber’s future to her. He apologized to her for being a bad younger brother and said that, unlike him, she would definitely be able to do it before willingly accepting his death. Eshnunna couldn’t give up when she thought of her younger brother, whom she couldn’t even bury properly in a sunny place. Thus, she resolved herself—not to restore her fallen kingdom, but to help out the natives. Currently, not all the natives of Liber had been wiped out. There were still displaced people wandering around, and there were some who had been captured and were living as slaves. There would come a day when some of them were liberated, and Eshnunna needed to give them strength and courage. She couldn’t just sit back and watch. She had to give hope to the other natives by showing them that even a powerless native like her could stand side by side with the Celestial Realm heroes and help change Liber’s future.

After much consideration, she decided to visit Chi-Woo. Since she had given up the legacy of Salem Kingdom’s founder to him, she thought he might help her at least once. However, she came at a bad time because once she reached his house, Chi-Woo was not there; instead, a woman named Evelyn appeared. Evelyn told her that Chi-Woo was away on an expedition. She was about to turn around in disappointment when—

[Hey, wait a minute.]

Evelyn stopped her, and Eshnunna received an unexpected offer.

[Do you want to be a witch?]

It was a question out of the blue. Eshnunna tilted her head.

[Oh my, you didn’t know?]

After hearing Evelyn’s explanation, Eshnunna finally realized why Evelyn, who was the witch of the Abyss back then, had told her they could’ve been comrades at the fortress.

[You have talent in this area.]

[How fascinating. I thought everyone was hunted down back then. Well, no wonder. Rather than bloodline, ours come from personal manifestation.]

Of course, Eshnunna was still shocked to hear this. As a former princess, she had never imagined that she would have the qualities to become a witch. It was something she had never dreamed of. On a positive note, she would have originally been burned at a stake as a witch, but it was not a problem anymore considering Liber’s situation.

[Of course, I’m not a witch now. All my powers as the witch of the Abyss were taken away, and I regained my qualities as a Saintess.]

However, the extensive knowledge she accumulated as the witch of the Abyss still remained in her head.

[If you’re really desperate to do it, I think I can be a good teacher to you. How about it?]

It was a proposal that Eshnunna had no reason to refuse; rather, she wanted to cling to Evelyn’s legs and beg her to teach her. Although it was a little uncomfortable that she’d become a witch, a group that had always been oppressed historically, it didn’t matter to her anymore. If she learned how to control mana, she’d be able to create a better future for Liber. And like this, Eshnunna became Evelyn’s disciple.

However, in actuality, Eshnunna’s work was no different than that of a housekeeper doing housework. Eshnunna had to sweep and wipe the floor with a mop and clean the room. She had been cleaning the house like this every day since Chi-Woo went on the Narsha Haram expedition. Of course, she hadn’t done only housework; she also had to regularly participate in Evelyn’s experiments. The problem was Eshnunna couldn’t understand the purpose behind said experiment. A person’s willpower was finite, and Eshnunna’s patience finally reached its limit today.

“Have you arrived?” Eshnunna asked Evelyn.

“Yep. I’m back. Shall we start right away? I have to go out early tomorrow too.”

Eshnunna greeted her master, who returned from the temple like usual, and sighed inwardly before following her. Evelyn went to the backyard and called out to Eshnunna after she finished her preparation. Soon after, Evelyn tied up Eshnunna to a pole with a rope and lit a stack of straws and plants around her.

Crackkkkle! The fire burned quickly by consuming the dry stems and leaves. Eshnunna looked at the blazing fire with empty eyes and finally closed them. She had a completely resigned expression; it felt as if she was experiencing a real witch hunt that she’d only seen in history books. She fervently prayed that it would end even a second earlier, but the fire gradually grew bigger and got closer to her. It didn’t touch her body, but it got close enough for her to feel its heat. Soon, Eshnunna, who was suffering from the heat, couldn’t stand it anymore and screamed. Evelyn didn’t even blink while Eshnunna twisted her body like crazy.

After watching silently, Evelyn put out the fire when Eshnunna really reached her limit. Although she managed to save her life, she was in complete tatters. Her pale skin was bright red, the edges of her clothes were burnt to a crisp, and her hair was scorched and frazzled.

“Well…how was it?”

Eshnunna felt a surge of murderous rage at Evelyn’s question. How was it? She wanted to kill Evelyn. If she could, she wanted to grab her hair and slap her cheek, but of course she couldn’t do that. “For how long…” Eshnunna spoke while trying to suppress her anger, “...do I have to do this?”

“What?”

“Did you really bring me here as your disciple?” Eshnunna finally voiced the thoughts buried deep inside her heart.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Is this really what I have to do to become a witch? Are you seriously telling me to believe that? Even though I almost died just now?”

Only then did Evelyn realize the seriousness of the situation and raised one eyebrow. “Then what?” She tilted her head and asked, “What did you think you were going to do?”

“I at least didn’t think I’d have to deal with this nonsense!” Since Eshnunna already let out her frustrations, she decided to pour out everything she had wanted to say so far. “You say I’m your disciple? Stop lying! I’m just a maid or your lab rat!” After becoming Evelyn’s disciple, she never learned any theory or knowledge, but only ever did things like being surrounded by fire like just now, soaking in the water all day, tanning until the sunset, standing alone in a dark room, or digging and burying herself underground. It was only natural for Eshnunna to feel this way after being forced to do all these strange things.

“…All right.” After listening quietly to Eshnunna, Evelyn told her to wait a while and went into her room. “Here. A book.” After coming back, she handed her a bundle of papers. “Should I say it’s a witch’s introductory book? Anyway, I was planning to give this to you as a gift as soon as you’re ready. It took some time because I had to write every sentence myself.”

Eshnunna flinched at Evelyn’s words. She had been wondering why Evelyn went to bed at dawn every day and had no idea it was because she was making a textbook for her. She felt a little apologetic, but her eyes opened wide at Evelyn’s following words.

“It’s not finished, but read it. Tell me what you feel. Anything is fine.”

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

This was what Eshnunna wanted; this was the teaching that she was used to. If she knew that Evelyn was going to hand her this textbook, Eshnunna thought she should have complained earlier. “I see.”

Since Eshnunna had been bright in her studies since she was young, she immediately turned the paper over with excitement. She read confidently for a while, but her face soon hardened.

“…” She flipped over the pages, but her gaze gradually wavered, and she chewed on her lower lip. After a while, sweat ran down her forehead as she focused intently, and she stopped flipping through the pages. Eshnunna raised her head blankly.

“…I don’t know.” In the end, she raised a white flag.

“I said anything is fine. What do you feel?”

“It’s di…fficult…”

“Really? What should we do? That’s the basics of the basics.”

Eshnunna looked extremely stunned. She could read it, and she could understand that it was academic content. However, it was extremely difficult. She couldn’t even understand a single line.

“It can’t be helped that you can’t understand it,” Evelyn spoke as if she had expected this reaction. “It’s not something you can understand without a realization.”

“A realization…?”

“I’m talking about mana. It’s a mysterious power,” Evelyn said as she hummed and spread her index, middle, and then ring finger. “There are a total of three groups that mainly study and use mana. The first are magicians.” Magicians were those who accurately materialized and controlled mana according to established laws and conditions.

“The second are sorcerers.” Sorcerers were those who ignored established laws and only sought to freely use pure mana to its limits.

“And the third are—”

Eshnunna thought the third one would be witches. However, she was wrong.

“Shamans. Did you not know? Witches are derived from shamans.”

Eshnunna quickly blinked because this was completely different from the belief that witches made contracts with demons. Shamans were those who exercised mysterious powers based on native faith.

“To be more precise, they’re more like shamans who are in charge of rituals. They pray purely to the sky and earth, not to a god, for rain or good harvest.” The important part here was that witches did not put their faith in gods.

“Then whose power do you think they use to prevent disasters?”

“That…uh…”

“What are you pondering about? I just told you. It’s all around you,” Evelyn said and spread her arms wide. Eshnunna also looked around by instinct, and all she could see was…

“Nature.” As Evelyn said, witches prevented disaster with supernatural powers from nature rather than gods.

“Do you know? There’s a very thin line between a witch and a saintess.” In fact, the two were very similar. While the saintess used divinity granted by a god, a shaman used mana obtained through nature to help people and listened to their prayers. Since their roles were similar, they became targets of persecution. Gods fed on faith and grew their influence by gaining people’s beliefs, so they didn’t look favorably upon the shamans who got their powers from nature. Therefore, they persecuted and discriminated against the shamans as evil enchantresses, claiming that they used mysterious and dangerous powers. As the persecution continued for a long time, some of the shamans became corrupt and joined hands with demons; that was how witches were born, but if one looked back at history, that hadn’t always been the case.

“Then the problem lies here. What are the basic conditions for becoming a shaman?”

Eshnunna stammered at Evelyn’s question, “Understanding…nature…?”

“Something like that.” However, Evelyn said it wasn’t completely accurate and revealed the answer, “It’s to gain nature’s favor.” She looked around and said, “We have to find out which of these many, many different types of natural elements likes you.”

It finally dawned on Eshnunna what Evelyn had been trying to do. In short, Evelyn had been trying to help her find a natural element that she had a high affinity with. However, Eshnunna was even more befuddled because they had already tried hundreds of times.

“But I have…!”

“Stop.” Evelyn raised her hand. “Why are you blaming nature?” She said bluntly and stared at Eshnunna in the eyes. “You definitely have the makings of a witch. That means you have an affinity with at least one natural element. I can guarantee this.” Nevertheless, despite having tried so many different methods, Eshnunna hadn’t awakened her mana yet.

“Who do you think is to blame?” Evelyn asked sharply, and Eshnunna’s face turned pale at the indication that it was not nature’s problem, but hers. Evelyn continued, “It’s a completely different thing to have the qualities of being a witch and to awaken those qualities that have stayed forgotten and dormant for so long.”

Evelyn smacked her lips. She had felt a sparkle from Eshnunna and thought that if she raised her well, she could be helpful to Chi-Woo, but Eshnunna wasn’t meeting her expectations. “But…I guess you’re not as determined as I expected.” Evelyn could help her out with everything, but determination was something Eshnunna had to figure out by herself.

“Everything follows the same principle in the end. They’re actually all the same. Summoners and elementalist as well. Who would lend their strength to someone who’s not desperate?” Evelyn shook her head and took the bundle of paper from Eshnunna. Even though it was just basic information, it was a record that contained information she obtained as the witch of the Abyss. If it got leaked to someone who recognized its value, it might become troublesome for her.

“Come back once you’ve organized your thoughts. If you don’t want to, you can quit anytime. However, if you come back, I will not hear another word of complaint from you.” When Evelyn was about to turn around, Eshnunna spoke up to stop her, “Do you not think I’m desperate enough?”

“You don’t think so?” Evelyn turned and said, “Why don’t you go out to the yard.” She pointed to one side of the yard with her index finger. “Go and see for yourself. Someone who’s so desperate that he’ll die more than a hundred times a day but still continue to get up to fight like hell.”