The Most Powerful Witch in History

“This is going to hurt a lot!”

“…”

With Eddie’s roar, the heavy club came swinging down. Although the club was swung at a fairly fast speed, I simply avoided his powerful attack by turning my shoulder to the side.

“This is the real deal!”

“…”

The leader of these thugs immediately followed up with another attack. This time, he gripped the club with both hands and swung it towards my head like a baseball bat.

“…Yikes.”

His attack felt like it had real killing intent. At his blow that seemed more serious than I expected, I quickly ducked my head to avoid his heavy wooden club.

-Boss! Crush her already!

-We can’t let someone who messed with our family live!

“Don’t worry, brothers!”

“…”

The neighborhood thugs cheering at the continued attacks, and Eddie responding confidently. I adjusted my pointed witch’s hat and stared at them blankly.

“Hmm…”

Normally, I could have swept them all away with a single skill, but where I was now was the ‘Village of Beginnings’ where combat was prohibited.

If I killed an NPC inside the village, a nationwide wanted notice for me would be issued immediately, and guards and knights would start pursuing me.

This phenomenon, commonly called a ‘Black Quest’, was quite troublesome, so regardless of whether they were thugs or not, I shouldn’t commit murder inside the village at least.

“Hah…”

I sighed deeply at the annoying condition of having to subdue them non-lethally. Eddie, seeing me like this, snorted and said:

“I guess you’re sighing naturally at my strength. But begging won’t help!”

“…”

I frowned deeply at his self-absorbed lines. It was already annoying that I was wasting time unnecessarily, but with the continued unwanted provocations on top of that, I felt like my blood pressure was rising from head to toe.

Even the younger users of ‘Deal and Attack’ didn’t engage in such childish provocations or chat.

“…Let’s see how long you can dodge!”

“…”

Perhaps he had never learned martial arts, Eddie just swung his club crudely again. But this time, instead of dodging, I raised my right hand and grabbed his swinging wooden club, stopping it.

“…!”

“…”

Perhaps surprised that the club he had swung so forcefully and fiercely was stopped by a mere girl’s bare hand, Eddie’s eyes widened and he couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

“…Stop showing off.”

I glared at him fiercely and applied pressure with my right hand, crushing the club I was gripping.

“W-What…!?”

Eddie stepped back, staggering as he saw his weapon shattered in an instant. I immediately swung my staff to strike his jaw before he could regain his senses or pull out another weapon.

“Urgh!”

“…”

The leader of the thugs fell backwards with a short scream. The jaw is a vital point that would make one’s legs wobble even if hit with a normal fist, so being struck directly by my ‘Salamander’s Staff’, made of the best metal in the setting, he wouldn’t be able to get up for a while.

“B-Boss!”

“…”

Victor rushed hastily towards his boss who had fainted from a single blow. When there was no response even after slapping his cheeks and shaking his shoulders, Victor glared at me with burning eyes.

“How dare you do this to the boss…, you guys, grab that bitch right now!”

“…”

Thinking they could win if they rushed in all at once and overwhelmed with numbers, Victor ordered his subordinates to charge all together.

-Attack at the same time!

-Take her staff first!

-Aim for the vital points!

“…”

At the words of Victor, who was like a vice-boss, the thugs approached me gradually, brandishing terrifying weapons like axes, butcher knives, and maces.

Although there were quite a lot of them, they were all mobs in their early to mid-20 levels, not even as good as goblins. I activated a skill without showing any reaction.

“Stun.”

‘Stun’, a skill that incapacitates the opponent by giving a light electric shock. It was a low-level skill that wouldn’t work at all on high-level monsters, but there was no better technique for subduing these neighborhood thugs.

-Argh!

-My, my body!

-I can’t move!

“…”

The thugs, who had looked to be about thirty in number, all fell to the ground simultaneously, with faint sparks flying from their bodies. Now only two could move – me and Victor, whose right hand was tightly wrapped in bandages.

I slowly approached Victor with an icy expression. In contrast, Victor stepped back with a terrified expression as much as I approached.

“From the boss to the subordinates, y-you, what exactly are you…”

“…”

Realizing that his boss, whom he had believed to be so strong, and his overwhelmingly numerous subordinates had been taken down at once, cold sweat was running down Victor’s forehead.

“…”

“Uh, urgh!”

I grabbed the collar of Victor, who had fallen on his butt with his steps tangled, and lifted him up. Then I whispered to him with an ice-cold expression:

“…I am the witch of fire and flames.”

“W-Witch…?!”

“If you try something like this one more time, I’ll burn even your soul, so keep that in mind.”

“Y-Yes, understood.”

“…”

When I warned him, Victor nodded so hard it seemed his neck might break. I looked at him once with a pitiful gaze, then threw him down to the ground as if planting him.

“…”

Then, without looking back, I moved my steps towards the library, which was my original destination.

“…”

This should be enough warning for them to understand. If they did anything similar even one more time, I felt like I would just kill them all, Black Quest or not.

They should know their place before picking a fight.

“Here it is…”

After walking for about 10 minutes more, suppressing my rising anger, I was able to arrive at the ‘Library of Beginnings’, which should contain all the truths within the game.

“Hello, how may I help you?”

“…!”

And when I entered the library, a familiar woman with brown twin-tails and glasses greeted me. It was ‘Sarah’, the NPC in charge of the library.

“Is there any book or information you’re looking for?”

“…”

She addressed me with exactly the same lines as in the game. In the original ‘Deal and Attack’, you could get answers by asking predetermined questions like “What are the controls?” or “How do I enhance items?” to her questions.

But now that everything had become real, you should be able to request not just predetermined things, but also new questions and books. I spoke to Sarah in a careful voice:

“…I want to know about the Empire’s ‘Witch Hunt’.”

The Empire’s Witch Hunt that I had heard about from the three-person adventurer party. I only roughly knew that the Empire’s Sword Saint had independently massacred all witches, but since my job was a witch, it seemed necessary to know a little more deeply about this.

“For information on the ‘Witch Hunt’, please come this way.”

“…”

Sarah guided me deep into the library. The old paper smell of numerous books and the scent of knowledge stung my nose.

“…15 years ago, there was an incident where the wife of ‘Villerno Eta’, known as the Empire’s ‘Sword Saint’, suddenly died.”

“…”

As we walked, Sarah began to explain the incident in detail.

“…After much investigation, Villerno learned that his wife had died from a ‘witch’s curse’.”

“…”

“Immediately after, he set out on a journey to hunt all witches, leading his disciples, and under their overwhelming power, witches finally disappeared from this world.”

“…”

She explained the cause of the Witch Hunt. From what I heard, it seemed that the Sword Saint, upon learning his wife had died because of a witch, massacred all the witches in the world as an outlet for his anger.

In other words, as the three adventurers had said, it was clearly an independent act of the Empire, mixed with personal emotions rather than public reasons.

“…More detailed contents are written in the books over there. I hope they will be of help to you.”

“…”

Sarah pointed to bookshelves in a corner of the library as she spoke. Then, as if her role was finished, she bowed her head in a brief greeting and returned to the library’s front desk.

“…”

When I went to the bookshelf Sarah had pointed to, there were numerous books related to ‘witches’ inserted there. After examining them briefly, I shook my head and pulled out any book for now.

The title was ‘Everything About the Witch Massacre’.

As if people hadn’t read it for quite a long time, dust was thickly piled on the book cover.

“…”

Slowly turning the cover revealed the table of contents. The contents were simply divided into just three parts: ‘Cause’, ‘Process’, and ‘Result’.

Since I had roughly heard about the cause from Sarah just now, I skipped the early part of the book and opened the ‘Process’ section.

“…The process of the Witch Hunt.”

I slowly read the densely written text.

-The Sword Saint began massacring witches along with his 300 disciples called ‘Buds of Knights’.

-The witches tried to plead to the Sword Saint, who was indiscriminately killing them, that it wasn’t them who killed his wife, but the Sword Saint wouldn’t listen.

-As the number of witches dying at the Sword Saint’s hands grew very large, the Queen of Witches ‘Antiopia’ gathered all surviving witches to prepare for war against the Sword Saint.

-But in the end, the witches were utterly defeated, and Antiopia herself also went missing.

“…”

A miserable story of how the witches also made a final struggle against the Sword Saint’s massacre, but were ultimately defeated and all died.

And at the end of this thick book, it was written like this:

-Even after killing numerous witches, the Sword Saint’s anger did not subside, and the hunt did not end.

-So, if there are any surviving witches,

-I hope they never reveal the fact that they are witches.

“…Because the Sword Saint will come to kill you himself.”