City of Witches

1.

“Haah… That was rough…”

After her first class was over, Sharon walked towards her accommodation while letting out a deep sigh.

Autumn was coming to an end. Although the weather was definitely getting colder, there were beads of sweat on her forehead.

Time passed by quickly, the class was over before she knew it.

Not to say that it wasn’t difficult for her to teach the twins, though.

Since she had prior experience, thanks to her teaching Siwoo before, she didn’t really have any problem on that part.

The twins also had solid fundamentals—most likely due to their upbringings as the heir of a prestigious noble family—so she didn’t need to do anything special to teach them.

There was no work-related issue for her to complain about, so the reason why she was so stressed wasn’t because of that, but because of a more personal issue, her relationship with the twins.

Throughout the class, they had been sending her stinging gazes towards the back of her head, making it feel all tingly, as if there was some kind of lump there.

It was clear that the twins had drawn a line between them and her, not showing any gaps where she could cross that line by answering her questions with short and curt answers.

Facing that kind of pressure, it wasn’t a wonder that Sharon felt incredibly nervous.

In the end, her plan to talk to them to get to know them better failed, and she ended up spending the whole session teaching them only.

Though, if she were to be honest, this development was better than what she usually saw in K-dramas or movies.

The twins didn’t throw small lump of papers covered with their saliva onto the back of her head and the Countess didn’t throw a bowl of kimchi onto her clothes either.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel disappointed by this development.

She really missed the cute twins who’d go up to her while going all ‘Sharon unnie! Sharon unnie!’.

For the first time in her life, she got to experience how scary a fight for one’s love could be.

As she moped like that, being all depressed, Siwoo’s face came to her mind.

“Siwoo… I miss you…”

Is the matter with the Drowned Witch over?

I heard that something big happened in Seoul. You didn’t get hurt, did you?

Do you miss me just as much as I miss you?

Her questions kept on coming.

Though she had achieved her long-time wish of coming back to Gehenna, without Siwoo by her side, she felt empty.

She opened the door to a villa inside the Gemini Mansion’s grounds.

It was a magnificent-looking three-story building that doubled up as both lodging and workshop.

As soon as she entered the building, the candlesticks lit up on their own, a dazzling hallway, decorated with luxurious-looking furniture, compared to even the main building, greeted her.

Housing prices in Seoul were ridiculously expensive, but compared to this one building, they were probably as cheap as dirt.

He’s going to visit Gehenna soon, right?

Soon, I can see his face again…

My happiness…if I can call it that…

“Haah… If only…”

Unfortunately for her, there was that agreement she signed with Countess Albireo.

To keep a distance between the two of them so that the twins could have a chance as well.

That was the price she had to pay to be able to get a stable job, teaching the twins, and pay off all her debts.

“How am I supposed to do that even…?”

The problem here was that unlike the agreement she signed ten years ago with the Countess, they only agreed to the current one verbally, and the terms were extremely ambiguous.

It felt as if the Countess was leaving everything to her to decide how much distance was appropriate. Instead of feeling relieved though, Sharon became more anxious to the point that she asked for another meeting with her shortly afterwards.

‘What exactly does keeping a distance entail…? Does that mean I have to treat him like a stranger, or…?’

‘Hm, I can’t exactly decide that clearly, Miss Evergreen. I don’t know the details between your relationship and Siwoo’s. You’re the one who knows best, so I’ll leave it to your discretion’

However, even after the second meeting, the Countess still didn’t mention how much distance was appropriate.

She only drew a vague line that might as well not exist at all.

If she had stated everything clearly like ‘Doing this and that is okay, but sex is not allowed’, then she’d be more at ease and she’d be able to make her move accordingly.

“Can I hold his hands? Can I talk to him to my heart’s content…?”

He wasn’t even here yet, but Sharon had already felt overly anxious about everything.

The Countess’ passive way to intervene in this matter was clearly a ruse to confuse Sharon like this. It was also a failsafe to prevent any kind of resentment from Siwoo if he were to find out about this deal.

Of course, Sharon failed to realize that the Countess had laid down such a detailed groundwork.

The clear boundaries that the twins had set.

And the ambiguous terms in their contract that Albireo had set.

Just those two problems already made Sharon’s head spin, but there was also one other problem that she had to face.

In fact, it was something that other witches couldn’t relate to.

After she woke up from her coma, her rank was increased to 20th.

Her accomplishment to overcome her incomplete inheritance was something worth celebrating for. This meant that she could finally get rid of the label ‘immature child’ that had been sticking around her for years and follow in her master’s footsteps.

Which meant, she had to, first and foremost, focus most of her attention on her research so that she could utilize all the newly acquired power completely.

“Come to think of it, Siwoo helped me in that regard too, huh…?”

Normally, incomplete inheritance couldn’t be treated so easily like this.

In fact, she was able to do this thanks to the sexual intercourses she had with Siwoo, allowing him to inject mana with the highest purity into her unresponsive brand.

She even checked the potency of this method in Ain.

Part of the reason why she had been flirting around with Siwoo was to restore her brand, after all.

Now that she couldn’t use that as an excuse anymore, gave birth to another problem that she had to face..

“Then again, that isn’t really something to worry about, is it…?”

Sharon shook her head, trying to clear her muddled thoughts.

She thought that since she’d need to keep her distance from Siwoo anyway, that wasn’t really something to worry about.

Feeling depressed, she walked toward the workshop inside the villa to start her magic research.

2.

The five hours of classes without even a moment of break finally ended.

After Sharon gave them their homework, she left the twins in the study room by themselves.

“Phew…”

“Haaah…”

For a whole minute, the twins kept on sitting upright like dolls.

When they were absolutely sure that Sharon had gone, they finally relaxed their bodies.

With a sigh, Odile leaned to the back of her seat in a position that definitely wasn’t good for her spine as she opened her mouth.

“She went tougher on us than Associate Professor Marigold did…”

“Does this amount of homework even make sense, Sis?! She’s violating our rights as apprentice witches!”

Though they were behind in their progress on Elemental Magic studies due to Amelia’s sudden retirement, in this single class, not only did they catch up to what they had missed, they even made further progress on the subject.

Due to how detailed Sharon’s explanation was, even though they studied a lot of things at once, there was barely anything that they failed to understand.

The one thing they were complaining about though, was that even Associate Professor Marigold arranged some time for them to take a break during the class.

They completely didn’t expect that Sharon would just continue on with her lecture for five hours straight without a moment’s break.

“Even Associate Professor Amelia gave us enough time to rest…”

“Right?! I told you, Sis, this must be some kind of mental attack from her! She’s planning to keep Mr. Assistant to herself while we’re drowning in our homeworks and classes!”

“Ngg… Is she really?”

Odette had practically turned into Zhuge Liang, trying to analyze the traps that Sharon laid and figure out her intentions.

As they had discussed during the first ‘Assistant Shin Siwoo’s Special Protection Task Force (Led by Odile Gemini)’ meeting the day before yesterday, they had designated Sharon Evergreen as their enemy.

However, as usual, though the twins held the same goal, they were completely divided in their opinions regarding how they should handle this matter.

‘Odette! Even if Sharon unnie is trying to steal Mr. Assistant from us, there’s no need for us to be too hostile towards her! Like they said, keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer!’

Odile argued that there was no need for them to act overly aggressive towards Sharon considering that she had been taking care of Siwoo well back in the Modern World.

Thus, forming the anti-war faction.

‘That’s too naive, Sis! You can’t hold on to anything with that kind of thoughts! Sharon unnie is a potential danger for us! If we can’t keep her in check, she’ll eventually steal Mr. Assistant from us!’

On the other hand, Odette thought that such a passive attitude shouldn’t be taken and instead, they needed to come out rather strongly, thus forming the pro-war faction.

The twins had been arguing all night to discuss their future course of actions, but thanks to the atrocities that Sharon had done to them, they seemed to have come to an answer.

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Since things were going completely in her favor, Odette’s eyes were bloodshot as she voiced her words passionately.

Her heated tone and clenched fists made her seem like some kind of freedom fighter.

“I told you, all big breasted women are foxes! Vera told me that even though they acted like they weren't, those kinds of women are actually really possessive and get jealous easily!”

Normally, when Odette insisted that her view was completely right like this…

Odile would fiercely oppose her and went on about how wrong she was.

But this time, Odile realized that her view was wrong and spoke out in a gloomy voice.

“Fine, I admit that you’re right this time, Odile. Your logic is correct, I’m sorry. I guess I was under the illusion that everything in this world is as beautiful as it looks like.”

Odette placed her pretty little hand on Odile’s shoulder.

She wasn’t trying to mock her sister or anything.

Because she knew it wasn’t the time for them to be divided, they had to stand tall together to face their common enemy.

The reason why she placed her hand there was to console her trustworthy rival if anything.

“Don’t feel so down, Sis. Just like there are times when I turned out to be wrong, there are times when you turned out to be wrong too.”

“Odette…”

Odile looked at her younger sister, who had grown into a mature young lady before she realized it, with moved eyes.

Then, the twins shared a sisterly hug.

“Besides… It isn’t like we hadn’t done anything in today’s class…”

“Yeah, you did a good job planning this out!”

“‘We’ did a good job, not just ‘me’.”

Today was their first class.

So, Sharon definitely didn’t expect that they’d set a trap on her.

Of course, this was something that Odette had actively pushed as the leader of the pro-war faction.

She wasn’t willing to take sole credit for it, though.

Instead, she shared her achievements with Odile, her own rival.

This made her older sister hold back her tears.

After all, her younger sister, who had always trotted behind her, had grown so much before she even realized it.

“Hehe, okay. But, she really didn’t notice it, huh?”

So, what exactly was the trap they were talking about?

“There’s no way Sharon unnie is able to notice it when even Baroness Marigold isn’t for years.”

“That’s true.”

They simply exchanged places.

During the class, Sharon had called out each one of them to solve something on the blackboard, but they never responded when their own names were called.

To put it simply, when Odette’s name was called, Odile was the one who came forward, and when Odile’s name was called, Odette was the one who came forward.

So far, they have been succeeding in this. Their goal was of course, to make trouble for Sharon.

Even though this was something they had been doing for a while, they couldn’t help but feel giddy when their ploy was actually working.

“Hehehe… Sharon unnie is completely clueless.”

“We’ll proceed like this from now on, Sis!”

“You got it, Odette!”

Of course, Sharon didn’t even realize that she had been tricked, while the twins didn’t even know what was the point of doing this kind of trick since no one would have noticed it anyway.

Nevertheless, their first operation concluded with a warm handshake between the two sisters.

***

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