"Something interesting has come up."
Cold sweat trickled down his back.
A suspicious smile hung on Odile's tiny face.
At a glance, Odile looked like an innocent, carefree girl, but no matter how you sliced it, her true nature was that of a witch.
Odile and Odette always called out to Siwoo with "Assistant! Assistant!" using polite language.
It wasn't out of respect for him, nor because they saw him as a full-fledged person.
It was simply because Amelia had introduced him as her assistant during class.
Thus, outside the academy—outside of class time—Siwoo was nothing more than a mere slave.
That mindset shone through plainly in Odile's attitude and tone.
Odile, already unpredictable in her whims, had now become an even greater danger.
"Show me what the assistant bought."
A slave buying magical supplies from a magic tool shop.
Even a fool would find the situation suspicious.
What would happen if it got out that he could use magic?
If he was lucky, they'd just confiscate all the magic documents he'd been studying and recording up until now.
But if word spread that a lowly slave had been using magic permitted only to witches, he could lose his city slave status and be demoted to a private slave.
Of course, this was all just Siwoo's speculation.
Feeling as if a blade hovered beneath his chin, he handed over the bundle of mana paper with trembling hands.
"Mana paper, huh?"
Odile flipped through the sheets like she was counting a stack of bills.
Siwoo racked his brain, wondering what to say, how to defuse the situation.
Should he name-drop Amelia and claim it was an errand for her? Lie and say he hadn't known it was magic supplies?
"Owner, isn't this a bit much?"
Odile, who had lightly skimmed the papers, addressed the shopkeeper unexpectedly.
Siwoo flicked his gaze over.
The shopkeeper, who had been staring at the floor while fidgeting anxiously with his glasses, jerked his head up.
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb."
Odile turned back to Siwoo, fanning the mana paper like a hand扇.
"Assistant, how much did you say this cost?"
"12 pennies—that's 1 shilling for 3 sheets, and I've bought 2 so far."
Odile flashed a cheeky grin.
Her white teeth gleamed under the ceiling's oil lamp light.
"This junk for one silver coin per three sheets?"
"Pardon?"
"Even if the buyer's a slave, you can't rip people off this badly."
Siwoo looked at the shopkeeper in shock.
Now he saw it.
As the owner of a magic tool shop, he must deal with witches all the time.
But sweating like a waterfall just from encountering one felt unnatural.
"Assistant, you've lived too naively, haven't you? When dealing at a shop, you at least check the item's condition and market price."
"W-Witch, it's a misunderstanding. Here's the quality certificate from 'Gemernai Company'..."
"No, no need to see that."
Odile pulled out one sheet of mana paper and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.
The thin paper, which had clung together as one, split into three layers.
Sandwiched between the two separated sheets was an extremely thin silver foil, so sheer you could see through to the other side.
Not some cheap aluminum—this was pure silver, refined through alchemy.
"Look at this! The silver foil's in terrible shape, right? It'll create so much noise that you'll waste strokes stabilizing the magic circle."
Odile crumpled the wrinkled paper into a ball.
"Not only selling defective goods for money, but at one silver per three? You saw his kind face and decided to really screw him over."
Siwoo glared at the shopkeeper, belatedly feeling betrayed.
Even as a slave, the man had treated him like a proper customer, which had touched him.
To think he'd get stabbed in the back like this.
"Mind if I see that quality certificate? If you're really peddling trash like this, we need to reprimand our paper mill managers."
"Our paper mill...?"
The shopkeeper's mouth fell open in horror as he stared at Odile with bulging eyes.
"N-No way..."
"Yeah, I'm that Gemernai."
Gemernai Company was a magic tool enterprise owned by one of Gehenna's seven counts.
In other words, the witch before him was a member of Gehenna's highest decision-making body, the Tree of Sephirot.
More precisely, the count's apprentice witch.
"In business, even if the mark's an idiot, you should've covered your tracks better if you were gonna do it."
"I-I'm guilty as charged..."
The shopkeeper threw himself flat on the floor begging forgiveness, but Odile didn't even glance down, merely grooming her fingernail tips.
"I let momentary greed blind me and committed a grave error...!"
"Where'd you get this stuff?"
"I asked a friend named Dick at the paper mill to slip me some items headed for the scrap heap. I swear, I won't do it again..."
The shopkeeper spilled his friend's name in an instant, begging pathetically—a pathetic, ugly sight.
Yeah.
As if his life depended on it.
"Please, please spare me...!"
Odile's lips parted with an incantation, unmoved by the pitiful pleas.
"Sing."
⟨ Binding Chant ⟩
Her lively voice filled the magic tool shop, rippling outward in massive waves.
Even an apprentice witch who hadn't inherited 10% of the stigma was still a witch.
The surge of mana made the hairs from his toes to his crown stand on end.
Magic.
"You sold magic tools to a slave without permission. And you sourced defective goods, even forging certificates? That could've badly damaged our company's reputation. You think I'd forgive that, I, Odile Gemernai?"
"Guh... kkh..."
The shopkeeper suddenly clutched his throat and pitched forward.
He flailed about, mouth gaping, foaming at the mouth in agony.
Siwoo instinctively gauged the flow and pattern of the mana.
The spell Odile was casting combined alchemy applied techniques using five elements and barrier magic.
A rune-based barrier, dominating space, had been deployed invisibly.
The range covered the floor where the shopkeeper writhed in pain.
Odile was turning the isolated inner space into a low-oxygen environment.
No matter how hard he tried to breathe, he'd slowly suffocate.
"Odile!"
"Don't interfere."
Siwoo tried to stop her.
Her reply was the cold, arrogant voice of a witch.
The earnest words of a mere slave couldn't quell Odile's rage.
"You think I'll just let a con artist who nearly trashed our company's goods go quietly?"
At this rate, he'd die.
A man was dying right in front of him.
Siwoo closed his eyes briefly, hesitating.
Strictly speaking, he had no reason to step in.
The shopkeeper was just a swindler who'd exploited Siwoo's situation.
He was merely receiving due punishment.
But was killing someone over something like this truly right?
"...No way."
"What are you doing?"
Odile eyed Siwoo curiously as he suddenly grabbed a bottle of mana essence from the shelf.
"Pierce!"
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡Dispel Pin
Interference pins to halt magic circle operation
He poured mana essence onto his palm, then simultaneously plasmified and manipulated the mana.
-Shwooo!
His mana exploded upward, hair whipping wildly, before swirling violently inside his body.
Siwoo shaped it into countless slender strokes.
Each varied slightly in length and thickness, but their purpose was singular.
Interference devices to stop a deployed magic circle's operation.
Dispel pins.
"That won't block it."
But Odile reacted indifferently to the dispel pins.
Amusing to see a slave perform tricks, but she wasn't taking it seriously.
It made sense.
Dispel Pin was so basic it appeared on the first page of every elementary magic text.
Just a spike of mana, no complex formulas or calculations needed.
But successfully dispelling with them was an entirely different matter.
To dispel, one had to fully comprehend every stroke and rune meaning atop the magic circle.
Then insert the pins precisely in the exact right spots and order to sever the mana flow.
This was his first time actually trying a dispel, but luckily Odile's formula wasn't too complex.
He drove two pins into the triangular protrusion at the far right.
First, the invisibility attribute Odile had applied lifted, revealing the barrier's shape.
"What...?"
Siwoo pressed on, ignoring Odile's astonishment.
Next target: the stabilization device at the vertex of the triangle inscribed in the circle.
A sort of firewall that normalized the barrier against external mana interference.
Interfere without removing it, and the barrier's homeostasis would erase the pins instantly.
"Ngh!"
A splitting headache pounded, but Siwoo kept waving his hands like a conductor, manipulating the pins.
As they slotted in one by one, the large circle encircling the barrier shattered like glass, scattering into the air.
The final target: the pillar, the barrier's core.
Twelve pins into the pillar supporting the ceiling, and the whole thing ground to a halt.
"Done!"
He'd dispelled the barrier before the temporarily halted stabilizer reactivated.
"Hah... hah... Th-thank you, thank you...!"
His breathing restored, the shopkeeper kissed Odile's shoe, loudly thanking his survival.
But Odile paid him no mind.
Her wide eyes bored into Siwoo alone.
All that studying hadn't been for nothing.
He'd dispelled an apprentice witch under a high witch's dispel—using only his own power.
A sense of accomplishment bloomed amid his ragged breaths, electrifying his heart.
"Hoo..."
But that elation vanished like bubbles the moment he noticed Odile's gaze.
Her eyes stabbed at his chest with excessive, terrifying curiosity.
Screw it.
Siwoo knelt before Odile, just like the shopkeeper.
"This lowly body dares apologize for interfering with the great witch's magic! But I couldn't bear to watch someone die because of a spell I admire!"
He slipped in a nod to witches' fanatic love of magic as an excuse.
Odile gazed down at him steadily.
"Assistant, first off, a correction: I never intended to kill him."
"Huh?"
"Just a sharp lesson. To teach that messing with a witch's items could cost you your head."
So he'd stuck his neck out for nothing?
No.
Even so, how could he stand by while someone died before him?
Odile was a curiosity-driven apprentice witch anyway; she'd have hounded him relentlessly about the mana paper.
"I thought you were just a handsome slave, Assistant, but nope."
Odile skipped lightly over and pulled Siwoo to his feet.
Siwoo looked up at her, dazed.
"Fun, fun, so much fun. You grasped my barrier's structure at a glance, right?"
Otherwise, dispel would've been impossible.
"I'm truly sorry..."
"No need to apologize. I just suddenly developed massive fondness for you, Assistant."
Odile's fingertips drummed the table, carving letters into the wood as a serial number emerged: 68.29.121.
Such number sequences were vault numbers used like accounts in Gehenna.
"Owner, deposit all the silver you scammed from our assistant into that vault."
"Y-yes, of course."
"I trust you'll add plenty as compensation and apology. I'll overlook reporting to the city hall, so show some sincerity."
"Thank you! Thank you!"
Not only spared his life but dodging city inspection too—the shopkeeper's face overflowed with relief.
Ignoring him bowing repeatedly, head nearly touching his feet, Siwoo and Odile descended to the first floor.
Odile spun around immediately upon exiting.
"Assistant, you free?"
Honestly, being around Odile made him uncomfortable.
He didn't like those violet eyes prying into his every thought, nor the shady scheming always lurking behind them.
"Well, I'm a bit busy today."
"Oh? Guess I'll have to share the good news with Professor Amelia then. That her assistant's actually a mage of tremendous talent."
"...I've got all the time in the world."
"That's more like it."
Odile finally smiled in satisfaction.
This was exactly why Siwoo hated witches.