A streak of blood light shot out from the banshee's body and sank into John's sword.
The second rune lit up.
Watching this, Andrei was left questioning life itself.
"That's it? Just like that?" Andrei said blankly.
Not just him—the other uncles also fell into deep doubt.
Was their nephew secretly cheating?
After a moment of thought, Alexi came to a conclusion. "Yadani's actions were decisive, and his luck was excellent."
Andrei gestured for him to continue.
Alexi explained, "The banshee's most dangerous ability is her scream, which can kill instantly. Yadani rendered that useless with his magical earplugs, cutting her power in half."
The uncles nodded thoughtfully—he was right.
Alexi went on, "And then there's his speed. On horseback, Yadani was incredibly fast. After knocking the banshee back, he immediately followed through and cut her down, leaving her no chance to react."
He sighed and added, "If it had been me, I might have hesitated because of her appearance."
The banshee's difficulty wasn't just her scream—it was also her deceptively innocent looks.
Back then, Andrei had been fooled by her little-girl face, lost the initiative, and nearly died on the spot.
John, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He saw at a glance that she wasn't human, and without hesitation, charged forward and cut her down with a single strike.
He gave the banshee no chance to fight back, ending the battle outright.
That decisiveness was a perfect match for a witcher.
But… their nephew didn't seem to have ever dated.
Thinking of the banshee's fate just now, the uncles suddenly felt as if they understood something.
Kid, with that attitude, it's going to be hard for you to find a wife.
...
John didn't stop moving. He pinched a bit of the sticky blood from his blade between his fingers.
"There's poison in this."
He frowned. Thanks to the dragon's hide, he wasn't afraid of poison.
He was about to dismount and investigate further when he noticed something squirming at the stump of the banshee's neck.
Looking closely, he saw it was blood wriggling like worms.
The writhing blood spurted outward, latching onto the severed head... and began dragging it back toward the body!
It was a horrifying sight—anyone else might have been scared stiff.
But John reacted quickly, slashing at the blood that connected head and body.
The stuff was like water; even as the blade cut through, it couldn't be severed.
The banshee's head slowly regained awareness, and from her mouth came a terrible scream.
John spun and drove his sword straight into her gaping mouth, pinning the head to the ground.
"I already got the 'experience points'—so why is she still alive?"
Staring at the banshee, John suddenly thought of another creature with a deadly scream.
A ghoul.
"Someone refined her into a ghoul?"
Seeing the blood writhing like worms, John was certain someone was behind this.
With her head nailed to the ground, the body couldn't reconnect to it.
The banshee's body thrashed violently.
John grabbed a handful of dead branches and tossed them onto the body.
Murmuring a strange incantation, he caused the branches to ignite.
The body went up in flames.
As it burned to a crisp, the head quickly stopped struggling.
John kicked the head into the fire as well.
He noticed the iron chain on the girl's leg retracting, and he followed it to see it burrow into the base of the wizard statue.
Targeting the stone platform carved with a circular pattern, he kicked hard.
The platform shuddered, sending a numb ache up his leg.
After five or six kicks, the slab finally cracked apart.
Beneath the statue lay a hidden passage.
John stepped inside; the tunnel was too narrow for the deaf horse, so it had to be left outside.
With the banshee gone, there was no danger above.
He felt at ease leaving the horse there.
Torches lining the passage walls flared to life as John followed the trail of firelight.
But the further he went, the longer the tunnel stretched, making him begin to wonder just where it led.
He kept his earplugs in, not certain whether more banshees might be waiting inside.
John tapped the wall with his sword, triggering the Sensory Charm. It revealed that the narrow passage still had no end in sight.
Up ahead, sparks flickered faintly where the chain dragged along the ground.
"Deliberately luring me in?" John narrowed his eyes and followed.
The chain seemed endless. Even after walking for over ten minutes, he still hadn't reached the end.
But along the way, he did find something interesting.
"This… should be a wand."
He noticed a wand stabbed upright into the ground and pulled it free.
"Purpleheart wood. Strictly speaking, this is more like a staff."
It differed from a regular wand, the biggest difference being its size.
Normal wands were slim and short, but this one was as tall as a man, like the kind of staff you'd see those long-bearded old men carry in stories—sturdy enough to smash someone's skull with.
He didn't know who had stuck it here, but once John pulled it out and weighed it in his hand, he thought it could easily be swung like a club.
There had been a time when wizards fought with such staffs.
But because they were too conspicuous, making it easy for Muggles to spot them, that practice gradually died out.
By now, hardly anyone used them anymore.
With the staff in his left hand and the sword in his right, John continued forward.
The deeper he went, the dimmer the firelight became.
Eventually, the torches vanished altogether.
But with his night vision, John had little trouble pressing on.
Suddenly, the sparks from the dragging chain leapt upward—it must have struck against steps.
Sure enough, John soon saw a staircase leading upward.
That meant the passage had reached its end.
The material of the steps looked oddly familiar.
Taking a closer look, John realized—wasn't this the same black stone from the Central Tower?
Climbing upward, he suspected he had circled back to the tower's location.
Thunk~!
He struck the ground again, and this time the feedback revealed a structure rising straight up.
It matched the shape of the Central Tower.
That wizard's tower, built a hundred and fifty years ago—according to Heiberg, only one person had ever entered it.
A witch.
Could it be that the witch turned the banshee into an undead?
But for what purpose?
The staircase stretched on for what must have been a hundred steps.
Step by step, John climbed until he reached an open chamber.
A burst of blue flame flared to life. At the end of the chain stood a gargoyle statue, clutching a lever that reeled the chain back in.
The whole space was cast in cold tones, the faint glow of blue fire offering little illumination.
There was little else inside, save for a single spiral staircase winding upward.
"This gargoyle… it looks a lot like the one in the headmaster's office."
John studied the gargoyle with interest.
"So that means the banshee was locked up by someone from the wizard's tower." He lifted his gaze toward the spiral staircase.
In recent years, the only one to have entered the tower was that witch.
Had she approached Black Iron Viscount from the very start just for the sake of the wizard's tower?
If so, the viscount was truly nothing but a pitiful pawn.
John set foot on the spiral stairs, noting that the entire tower was built from that same unyielding black stone.
John ascended the stairs step by step.
...
"Konsang's wizard tower—have any of you ever been inside?" Alexi asked.
His uncles exchanged bewildered glances. During their trials, they had all been nothing more than merciless task machines, rarely doing any exploring.
Even Andrei hadn't been inside—back then, he had killed the banshee and simply left.
As for the tower, curiosity alone wasn't enough to gain entry.
The doors had always been sealed shut, impossible to open.
Who would have thought there was a way in hidden beneath the viscount's statue?
This development was something the uncles hadn't anticipated.
After all, it wasn't supposed to be part of the trial at all.
...
John continued climbing.
Right now, he really missed his Meteor Shoes.
Unfortunately, like all his other magical items, they had lost their function upon entering this world.
Now, the Meteor Shoes were little more than finely crafted, durable footwear.
Step by step, he made his way up to the fifth floor of the wizard's tower.
The tower had ten floors in total, each one vast in space.
On the fifth floor, John found rows upon rows of books.
It resembled a library—towering bookshelves so high they required ladders to reach the upper levels.
There were also many tables set up, the kind that could easily serve as classrooms.
At the center lay a dried-up pool, and on one of the tables rested a cauldron.
Gems were embedded everywhere along the walls and floor.
Casually, John lifted the staff in his hand and tapped it against the ground.
A strange sight unfolded—the runes carved into the floor began to glow.
The light coursed through the lines, igniting gem after gem until the entire chamber shone brilliantly.
At a table sat a figure, robed in oversized wizard's garb, a hood shadowing even their head.
John could tell they were alive.
Because he saw the figure's fingers twitch.
"You. Witcher."
The voice was a man's.
He slowly stood up.
"You've brought me a suitable body."
Turning around, the hood revealed a mask that covered his entire face.
Blood seeped from the eyeholes of the mask, and his body looked boneless, hanging limp as though it might collapse at any moment.
John watched him steadily, raising his hand to cast a Charm.
The impact should have been enough to fling the man across the room in an instant.
But this time, only the robes went flying.
A figure, drenched head to toe in blood, stood there. It had slipped free of the clothing.
Suddenly, its body burst apart, exploding into a curtain of blood that surged forward and swallowed John whole.
________
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