Vol 1 Chapter 39 – Deepest Depths

The Deepest Depths.

The headquarters of the Witch Cult.

Right now, it was plunged into unprecedented chaos.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Voiceless figures.

Armed foot soldiers of the Witch Cult swarmed toward a single woman.

“Annoying.”

But in an instant, they were scattered—reduced to mere lumps of flesh.

Not a single Witch Cultist could stop the woman’s advance.

They only succeeded in building mountains of corpses. They could do nothing.

“Stop right there!”

Partway through, even executives of the Witch Cult—those with the privilege of speech—stood before the woman and lunged at her. After a brief skirmish, they were defeated and fell.

The Witch Cultists—

“Is this the place?”

And finally, that woman had stepped into the very deepest depths of the Witch Cult.

“…Troublesome.”

The deepest depths of the Witch Cult.

There stood a single beautiful woman with hair so long it reached the ground, surrounded by her entourage.

“What is the meaning of this, Number Five? Why have you betrayed me?”

The long-haired woman produced a staff from nowhere and posed her question.

“I haven’t betrayed anyone.”

In response to the question, the woman shook her head.

“Let me introduce myself properly, shall I? My name is Noah. I’ve come back from hell. Well, not that I actually went to hell or anything.”

Noah.

The instant she gave that name—

“Kill her.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the long-haired woman swung her hand down. At once, her entourage launched an all-out attack on the woman who’d called herself Noah.

The long-haired woman’s entourage possessed skills incomparably higher than the executives who’d come before—their movements on an entirely different level. They descended upon the woman called Noah and tore into her body.

“…Is it over?”

The woman called Noah couldn’t respond to any of it. She was stabbed repeatedly and collapsed to the ground.

“Attacking out of nowhere is pretty harsh, don’t you think?”

Was it over? Just as that thought crossed their minds—

One of the entourage casually removed their mask and began speaking freely.

“…!?”

“I introduced myself, so isn’t it your turn now? Making only the other person introduce themselves is just rude, you know?”

“…Who would—”

“Well, I figured it out even without you saying. Hmm, I see. So those around you call you ‘Lady Witch,’ huh? What were you trying to accomplish by making them worship you? In the end, I never once got to the bottom of this organization’s ultimate goal. Yeah, yeah… that’s all the information I can steal. Don’t need any more magic, I suppose.”

“…!”

Before the stunned long-haired woman—the Witch—the form of the currently speaking entourage member transformed. Standing there now as the original male Noah, he addressed her.

Vol 1 Chapter 40 – Soul Extraction Arts

Before the woman who’d called herself the Witch, now grimacing, I gave an exaggerated shrug.

“Haah, well, whatever. It’s not like I’m all that interested in the Witch Cult anyway. I’ll just call you the Witch. I won’t even bother asking your real name, and I don’t care about your goals either.”

“…Why? You were definitely stabbed. That’s what I heard in the report.”

“Obviously I accounted for getting stabbed.”

It comes with the business.

I always figured I’d get stabbed eventually. It’s only natural that some “I’ll kill you and then myself” type would show up. I thought through countermeasures for getting stabbed before I even opened my shop.

“It’s thanks to a group of original magic I call Soul Extraction Arts. What I used was a spell that implants my soul into whoever kills me. My original body rotted away ages ago.”

The first time I used it was when I was five.

Since then, I’ve changed bodies many times.

“…So that’s why you have no resistance to being a woman. You’re no longer in a male body.”

“How rude! The body is merely a vessel for the soul. The body quickly changes to match the form of the soul. I am definitively male.”

Incidentally, the problem with this magic is that I can’t steal the body of someone with a stronger soul than mine—instead, my soul gets consumed and vanishes.

Also, it drastically reduces the body’s usable lifespan. While the body changes according to the soul’s form, the body itself still has its own lifespan and durability.

When you completely swap everything out—

Well, I can just keep body-hopping, so this doesn’t really count as a drawback. If I wanted to, I could even achieve immortality.

“Well, none of that matters. Let’s get to the main point… the reason I deliberately let a Witch Cultist into my inner circle and had them kill me.”

“…”

“You people need to stop targeting me. Whatever plan you’re hatching—I don’t know the full picture of your scheme, but I’ve obtained the Dragon. At that point, this route is over. Just give up and go home.”

“…How much do you know?!”

“I can steal the memories of the souls whose bodies I take. That’s the main reason I was able to make it all the way to this headquarters. I kept taking the bodies of higher-ranked Witch Cultists, accumulating memories until I arrived here.”

The very first time was when I infiltrated my soul into a Witch Cultist I fought in the northern wastelands and peeked at some of their memories… but well, I have no intention of revealing all the techniques within Soul Extraction Arts.

After all, it’s my trump card.

“So? Do you understand why I came here? With that in mind, what do you say? Will you back off from me?”

“…”

My question.

In response, the Witch returned only silence.