Perhaps the smell of blood hadn’t spread that far; after walking a short distance, he was able to escape the excited witches shouting about the human scent. Once again, the banquet of witches spread out before his eyes.

Centered around the massive bonfire, groups of witches stood or sat in circles scattered across the field. Isaac navigated between them, observing them as meticulously as possible. As he did, his complexion gradually hardened.

A massive cauldron hung over a smaller campfire, bubbling with soup. And inside, skulls and eyeballs clearly belonging to humans bobbed to the surface. The food laid out on the tables beside the cauldrons wasn’t much different; unidentifiable internal organs and brains were lined up. Suppressing the nausea rising in his throat at the grotesque and horrific sights, Isaac forced himself to look away.

Walking a little further, he saw witches who, drunk and excited, were fighting amongst themselves. Fully swelling their bodies and revealing their demonic forms, they casually severed their opponents’ torsos and crushed them to pieces with their claws. Next to severed torsos crawling on the ground, other witches were catching wild beasts and burning them alive in the fire or skewering them while cackling, and beyond them, naked witches and half-human, half-beast demons were tangled together, lost in debauchery. Here and there along the path, corpses of witches who had died in the midst of it all lay strewn about, but no one paid them any mind.

It was truly hell.

Only pleasure, slaughter, lust, and instinct remained in everything; order, morality, or reason were nowhere to be found.

It’s like a nightmare. Isaac rubbed his nauseous stomach. He felt dizzy.

He had thought vaguely about witches. A few he had seen in his childhood, what he had read in books or literature, and the faint instinct flowing in his own veins.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand it at all. Even for Isaac, whenever the new moon, when the magic deeply hidden in his body stirred—arrived, selfish desires surged stronger than usual. Up until a few years ago, he had often gotten into childish fights because of it, or done things he regretted the next day.

Once every 7 years. A day when everything is cast aside and only demonic nature manifests entirely. Just like a human heavily intoxicated by alcohol or drugs strips away all humanity and turns into a monster, today was the day the witches turned into monsters.

……But it was still overwhelming. Even considering he was a half-witch experiencing the new moon, these sights were too much. It seemed the memories of living among humans his entire life outweighed the instincts of his half-blood.

Isaac tried his best not to look at the witches’ behavior, what they possessed, or what they were eating, but instead kept his eyes fixed on them. However, it became difficult. He couldn’t tell. Who under those dim hoods was Alikisa. Which of those dark shadows was that witch.

Where is she hiding?

She would be waiting for dawn to break somewhere inconspicuous.

“——.”

Isaac rubbed his temples. Having wandered through the nightmare-like scenes since earlier, he felt a headache coming on. His stomach churned as well.

He just needed a moment, just a few minutes to rest. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be strange if he collapsed and vomited right in the middle of those witches at any moment.

Isaac stepped away from the bonfire, moving towards the densely wooded forest. Although the forest was also often an area included within the barrier where witches walked out one by one, it was much more sparsely populated than the nightmare crowded around the bonfire. Although it bothered him that most of the witches emerging from the forest had blood or bits of flesh smeared on their hands and were stumbling and giggling as if heavily drunk, it was still better than near the bonfire where similar things were piled up like a mountain.

The forest grew uphill along the mountain slope. As he climbed up into the sparsely wooded forest, the field below came into view all at once.

With the massive bonfire in the center, countless witches were throwing a frantic festival. 

Isaac sat leaning between the thick, exposed roots of a large tree and clutched his forehead. A long sigh escaped him unknowingly.

‘Is Prince Kyan alright. I hope nothing bad has happened.’

Isaac looked at the sky. The stars visible through the branches were tilting even further than before, and the pitch-black sky was faintly brightening. Dawn was approaching. His heart pounded loudly.

What if we don’t find Alikisa……

Then countless innocent people would be sacrificed in the future. He had no idea how many more victims there would be. By the time the next Grand Banquet arrived, they might not even be able to find a single trace of that cunning witch.

“…….”

Seven years. It was not a short time. Even more so when thinking of the people who would die in the meantime.

Holding his forehead, Isaac let out a low groan. But that groan was buried by an even longer, more agonizing groan echoing from behind him a moment later.

Isaac stopped and looked back. A groan was echoing from the forest. The reason that groan pierced his ears so clearly was because it was the sound of a human. Pleading in pain and despair, gradually fading away in air.

Reflexively pushing himself up, Isaac directed his steps towards it. Through the trees, he caught a glimpse of a small clearing further inside.

In the dark clearing surrounded by trees, something bulging like a small hill protruded. Next to that small mound, rounded up to the size of a small hut, a few dim shadows were moving.

Witches. The witches, with their hoods pulled down to their heads, were hunched over, rummaging through that small mound like mangy wild dogs scavenging a garbage dump. Above them, whitish things like vengeful spirits or ghosts circled round and round.

Isaac quietly stepped closer, pricking up his ears to listen, but the groan he had heard just a moment ago did not sound again. Thinking he might have misheard, he approached closer to the mound, and the groan sounded again from across it. As he raised his head to look, a witch was moving where the groan originated. She was poking the mound with something like an iron skewer, and every time she did, the dying groan echoed.

Just as Isaac was about to step towards it, his foot caught on something and he almost tripped. Steadying his stumbling body, he dropped his gaze. His foot had caught on something squishy……, something squishy and long, like a tree root…….

“——.”

As his eyes registered what lay stretched out at his feet, Isaac went rigid. Protruding from the heap was a dried-up, withered arm. He followed it with his gaze, and only then did the full shape before him sink in. That thing, piled high like a small hill, was a mound of human corpses.

Corpses, pieces of corpses, were piled up like a mountain. Grotesquely mutilated to the point where it was impossible to find a whole body. It was the leftover corpses of the humans that the witches throwing the banquet in the field were tearing and boiling to eat.

Isaac stumbled backward in shock. The sporadic groans flowing from beyond had ceased at some point. The witch crouching there rummaged through the corpses and put something in her mouth.

*Urp,* nausea surged up.

Covering his mouth and taking another step back, something bumped into his back. Startled. He looked back, and the shadow that had been hunching over rummaging through the corpse pile flinched and scurried away. It retreated to the far side of the corpse pile, crouched for a moment, and then began rummaging through the corpses again.

Looking more closely, he saw about half a dozen such shadows clinging to the pile of corpses.

They were witches so wretched and powerless they couldn’t even mingle among the other witches. Unable to properly hunt humans, despised and mistreated even by other witches, they were digging through the rotting pile of corpses wriggling like maggots to find something to fill their stomachs.

“…—.”

Isaac ended up vomiting into the grass under the tree next to him. Having emptied everything he’d eaten for dinner, he gasped for ragged breath and shut his eyes.

‘I wish this were a dream. It’s horrific. I want to escape this chilling hell right now.’

Thinking he should rather go down to the field to find Alikisa, Isaac was wiping his mouth and lifting his head when it happened.

——KILL……!

——IT’S A HUMAN, KILL HIM……!

——CATCH HIM ALIVE AND DRINK HIS BLOOD AND TEAR HIS FLESH!

He thought he heard shouting from afar. Clamor and screams mixed together. They echoed faintly in his ears.

Turning his gaze towards the direction of the sound, he saw an unusually large cluster of pitch-black shadows gathered in one spot on the vast field. Towards that spot, other shadows swarmed like ants. A small, open space right in the center of it all. A person was there.

Even though it was too far to distinguish who it was, Isaac instantly knew. It was his prince.

The prince was cutting down witches there without hesitation. Around him, cutting down witches, the vengeful spirits and demons summoned by the witches swarmed pitch-black. Soon, his surroundings were obscured by chaotic shadows, hiding him from view as if wrapped in a black fog. Only the sounds surrounding him echoed endlessly. 「Kill him. Tear him apart. I’ll tear you to shreds……!」

His heart felt like it plummeted.

The black fog surrounding the prince was swelling more and more, and the demons and magic lunging at him sharply were also increasing. The demons and witches lunging at him were cut in half by his sword and scattered. The screams of the witches and the curses they poured out soared louder and higher.

‘I have to help him.’

No matter how unstoppably the prince’s sword cut them down like straw, the demons summoned by the witches, surrounding him like a black cloud, were continuously multiplying. He couldn’t possibly cut down all those swarming, pitch-black entities.

Isaac hurriedly pushed himself up and started running.

But just then, as Isaac leaped over a small mound of corpses, he collided with a small shadow crouching right behind it. Tangling his feet somewhere, he tumbled over the crouching shadow, as if it had been hiding behind the mound.

“——.”

The moment he fell onto the short body with the hood pulled all the way up over its head, a foul stench violently pierced his nose. A stench so terrible it was hard to even open his mouth. The nausea surged up once again.

As he fell, the hand that reflexively braced against that body sank in with a squelch, as if buried in a pile of soggy mud. When he raised his hand, it was smeared with rotting flesh, its horrific stench clinging to his skin. The witch, his body rotting and crumbling as though consumed by leprosy, let out a shrill scream and scrambled backward. *Plop, plop,* chunks of putrid flesh fell from her body with wet plops.

Perhaps that was why he couldn’t even mingle with the other witches and remained isolated here. A hideous and horrifying appearance and smell, as if no one would even speak to him or go near him. The other wretches lingering nearby didn’t even approach this side, let alone the witches.

“……Sorry,”

Isaac muttered unconsciously and looked at the witch. Any person, even a witch or a beast that ate rotting meat, would avoid him. His rotting face with its chilling appearance was briefly visible under the hem of the hood. Bones were exposed here and there under the already pitch-black rotting flesh. Above that, within the hollow, sunken sockets where its eyes should have been, a faint, flickering light glowed from deep inside like a firefly.

The moment Isaac’s gaze inadvertently met that firelight, the witch suddenly pulled the hem of his hood tight. The long, wide hem of the hood hid her rotting body. The witch scurried away as if struck by lightning. He quickly slipped over the pile of corpses. And,

“…—.”

Isaac froze in that spot for a brief moment. He looked down at his dirtied hand. The rotting flesh clung to it like pitch-black mud, giving off a horrific stench.

He had smelled this stench, which felt like it had been decomposing since long ago, once before. The face where everything had rotted and crumbled away. Even the faint smell of magic lingering over it.

“……Huspelt.”

The name he murmured unconsciously was a name long forgotten from his memory. The man who had risen to the highest position among human wizards. The guild master who was Alikisa’s shell. That was exactly how he—had become a corpse in a state that looked as if he had rotted away a long time ago.

Isaac jerked his head up and looked at the witch digging between the corpses. Something bothered him. Something was gnawing at his instincts, scratching in his mind. Something. Something.

What looked at Isaac from inside the rotting, dripping eye sockets was a flickering light. The light trapped inside, seeming to leak out faintly, was a light flowing out bluishly as if shining a light on ice. Where had he seen that faint yet distinct light before.

A pond. The pond covered in blue moss. The light flowing out bluishly from inside it. That was——.

The very next moment, Isaac kicked off the ground and sprinted. Just then, the witch, who had been trying to burrow into the pile of corpses as though hiding from something, noticed Isaac. Its rotting face twisted into a savage grimace, and the bluish light seeping from its empty eye sockets flared brighter.

——You saw.

A rough, grating voice that seemed to flow straight from hell. The sharp voice, like scraping metal, was unmistakable.

ALIKISA!

A chilling scream pierced his eardrums. It buzzed as if his eardrums would burst. At the same time, an explosive heat and wind erupted around the witch. The witch was chanting a spell with a terrifying momentum. Even as the rotting flesh fell off in chunks and the exposed bones crumbled, the witch chanted the spell filled with resentment and hatred, and the wind embracing the sweltering heat within that spell transformed into the forms of dozens, hundreds of beasts, swooping down on Isaac.

Isaac drew his sword and slashed at those beasts. The beasts, their shapes resembling those of wild dogs, even when slashed and torn apart layer after layer, kept rising again without end, madly lunging at Isaac to bite and tear at his flesh. Each time their sharp claws and fangs grazed him, his body was left crisscrossed with even more scratches and gashes oozing blood.

Between the witch and Isaac, beasts were swarming endlessly, and Isaac couldn’t narrow the distance by a single step. Even though he kept swinging his sword until the muscles in his entire body screamed in stiffness, the untiring beasts endlessly spawned, rushed in, and attacked again.

Above the heads of the endlessly swarming beasts, the sky was slowly brightening. How much time was left until dawn? Several minutes, tens of minutes? It was impossible to gauge. A reddish light began to drift across the sky.

The witch turned her back and fled. Even while doing so, the curse-laden spell didn’t cease, and Isaac, who couldn’t slow down the hand swinging his sword for a single moment, fully occupied with slashing the beasts, gritted his teeth as he watched her retreating back quickly grow distant.

He couldn’t lose her like this.

From far away, the shouts of the witches screaming to catch the human, tear him apart and kill him, could be heard. ‘Was he alright? He had to be alright.’ An anxiety bordering on despair rushed in. ‘What should he do? What should he do?’

The new moon was coming to an end. The new moon. The time of magic.

“——.”

Just then, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

The new moon——the only time Isaac could use magic. The night he could borrow and use magic. And there was still one wish left.

There was no room for long deliberation or calculation. Isaac stopped the hand holding the sword. In an instant, the beasts lunged at Isaac’s arms, shoulders, and waist, biting him, but he didn’t even have time to shake them off. Pulling the tinderbox from his chest, Isaac barely struck the flint against his arm, which was being bitten by the beasts.

In that instant.

A whirlwind rushed wildly right in front of Isaac. The fierce wind raged as if it would blow Isaac away entirely, and the trees rustled and shook violently. When the fierce wind and its loud noises – strong enough to send the beasts clinging to Isaac flying – ceased, a massive, pitch-black tiger sat before him. The beasts that had been surrounding Isaac lowered their bodies and growled. The tiger scrutinized the beasts, which were crouched as if ready to pounce at any moment. The beasts, still crouching and growling, took a step back.

「I will grant your wish. What do you desire?」

The tiger looked down at Isaac with pitch-black, glowing eyes and asked. Isaac cast his gaze past the tiger. The witch was running away. The fluttering hood was getting further and further away.

“Aliki,”

Isaac, about to open his mouth wider, stopped mid-sentence. They had said a wish involving an opponent whose magical power was stronger than his own could not be fulfilled. If so,

“——Move me to the top of that trapezoid rock over there. Right now.”

Isaac pointed to the rock visible at the edge of his vision and spoke. Almost before his words ended, the tiger’s answer returned.

「I will grant that wish.」

A low voice that seemed to fill his ears and echo within was heard. At the same time, the fierce wind raged again. The moment Isaac, swept up in the wind, unconsciously covered his face, he was floating high in the air, bitten in the tiger’s mouth. And below him, he could see the beasts that had surrounded him howling sharply.

The tall birch trees were beneath his feet. The stars, beginning to lose their light, were right beside him, and beyond that darkness, the sky beginning to be dyed reddish came into view——.

With a sudden feeling of dropping, Isaac descended onto the massive rock that was several dozen steps away. And just about ten steps ahead of him was the witch, running madly towards this side.

Isaac leaped down from the rock. Leaping without hesitation from a rock taller than a human, he felt as if his ankle had snapped, but he didn’t care. The witch was running towards him just a few steps away.

The witch froze when Isaac suddenly appeared before her. Her hideous face contorted as she hastily chanted a spell. At the same time, the pack of ferocious wild dogs appeared between the witch and Isaac——but they were a step too late. Giving his forearm to the wild dog rushing with its jaws open right before his eyes, Isaac approached the witch and grabbed the fluttering hood, pulling it hard.

The body hidden beneath it was revealed.

A rotting corpse.

Like a corpse that had died a long time ago, a hideous corpse with rotting flesh flowing and sticking to yellowish, decayed bones was revealed, and a horrific stench spread everywhere. It was the corpse of the wizard, now unrecognizable from its original form. The wizard, who had given his soul to the witch and died, was decomposing hideously, unable to rest under the earth even with his body.

「YOU BASTARD————!!」

From inside the skull, where only eye sockets remained without eyeballs, a bright blue firelight spewed out. The witch was screaming ringingly in wrath and fear. Locking his gaze on the blue light, the light shining brightly yet dimly like light on ice, Isaac plunged his hand into the witch’s chest.

His hand sank deeply squelch into the rotting, mushy flesh.

And——within it, there was a smooth sensation touching his hand.

“……Found it.”

Isaac whispered.

The witch still remained in the wizard’s corpse.

A witch can only possess something that has both the ability to use magic and life at the same time. The reason such a witch could still remain in a corpse was,

“——!”

Isaac grabbed the bone caught in his hand and yanked it out. The decayed bone tore out weakly with a *crack.* The pitch-black, sticky, rotting flesh splattered. A rotting smell pierced his nose intensely. And within it, a smooth, jelly-like body with a faint transparent glow was seen.

The rotting flesh that covered it flowed down, revealing the squishy, slippery body that had been submerged in water for a long time.

Alikisa’s real body.

It was Alikisa’s true body, hidden beneath the corpse.

The witch had been hiding here, deep in the forest, far from the bright, noisy bonfire. She had concealed her body beneath a rotting corpse in such a wretched, insignificant state that no one spared it a glance, let alone spoke of it. At the same time that body was exposed to the air,

——It’s Alikisa.

——It’s Alikisa’s presence!

——Alikisaaaaaaaaah——

The whitish masses of smoke swarming thick in the sky.

From near and far, those masses of smoke came rushing in like wildfire, converging upon that body in an instant, each one bearing the twisted, contorted form of the dead witches. The curses that swooped in with the momentum to completely fill the surroundings in an instant, like maggots swarming a rotting corpse, wrapped around the body.

And,

KIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA——.

A horrific scream tearing the eardrums rang piercingly through the forest.

At that moment, *CRACK,* a sound like something splitting echoed. It sounded like a terrifying lightning bolt striking. Then came a series of sharp cracks, as though the sky itself were splitting apart, *CRASH——*……, a sound unheard by ears rang clearly in all directions as a presence.

Above the forest, above the field, above this vast space where the witches were throwing a festival, came the presence of something massive cracking and shattering down…… It seemed that very fine things could be seen sparkling and scattering from the sky like an optical illusion, before quickly vanishing without a trace. However, the presence of something shattering was transmitted to everyone. To Isaac, to the witches in the forest and the field, and to the vengeful spirits wandering the sky.

The barrier was broken.

Like the obstructing air melting away, a sudden wind blew. It was the air rushing in from outside the barrier.

Along with that air, rough and thunderous shouts poured in from afar. The sound of clashing weapons and the roars of rough men pushed in as if they had been waiting, surrounding the field. High in the sky, a giant falcon glided through the thickly gathered crows, chasing them away.

Isaac looked toward where the distant sounds were coming from. He saw soldiers pouring into the field spread out below the slope, as if they had suddenly sprung up from nowhere. With the barrier broken and the space united as one, soldiers and witches mixed together in the open.

“KILL THEM!”

“KILL THEM ALL!”

The rough and tough border soldiers swung the weapons they used to kill magical beasts, cutting down the witches without hesitation. The witches scattered in all directions, screaming. The soldiers surrounding the field narrowed their net, driving the witches into the center. Their swords and spears ruthlessly slaughtered the witches.

Isaac, who had been staring at the scene as if entranced, suddenly flinched and turned his head at a fluttering presence right next to him.

Alikisa’s body, enveloped in curses, was thrashing.

——I will curse you, I resent you, I hate you, I will curse you.

The vengeful spirits, the grudges, the curses, tore into Alikisa’s body in an instant. Every time the curses, baring their sharp fangs and mercilessly shredding her body, scattered away one by one, Alikisa’s body also scattered along with them.

——Just a little more, I just needed to gather a little more, if I could just gather a little more vital energy——.

The witch’s shrieking screams echoed. Even then, the curses lunged like starving ghosts and tore at the witch’s body, and by the time the myriad of curses that had swarmed her scattered and vanished one by one, only a few fragmented clumps of Alikisa’s body remained.

The long-rotted corpse of the wizard and the semi-transparent, slippery pieces of the witch’s body lay scattered in a jumble across the forest floor.

Isaac stood frozen in place, looking down at those sticky, messy fragments. The witch, her body entirely eaten away and only half her head remaining, rolled her eyes wildly. Her face, stricken with the terror of death, trembled violently.

“…….”

Isaac stood blankly for a long while, looking down at the witch facing her demise. The witch, who had committed countless cruel acts for so long, was finally meeting her end. Just like a massive castle crumbling down in a single instant.

The cunning witch, who had lived a long life constantly changing bodies, was finally dying. Overwhelmed by the terror of death, far surpassing the agony of her flesh being torn to shreds.

The sky was gradually brightening. The nightmare-like night was coming to an end. ——Please let it be over quickly. Please.

The witch he had so desperately searched for and struggled against was now dying right before Isaac’s eyes. It seemed as though she had devoured countless people… but soon the witch would die, and there would be no more people dying or suffering because of her. Yet, he didn’t feel happy. He felt utterly drained, as if he had awoken from a long nightmare, Isaac let his shoulders slump.

——ISAAC!

Just then. From afar, someone called Isaac’s name.

It was the first time he had heard that voice shouting so loudly, but Isaac instantly knew whose familiar voice it was. The prince. The prince was calling him. Urgently, perhaps even anxiously.

Isaac turned his head toward the sound. Now it’s over. This nightmare-like night. Now the prince had achieved what he had long desired, and the long agony would finally come to an end. And as for me——.

「……Let’s make a pact.」

Just as Isaac was about to take a step.

A faint voice that seemed like it would scatter in the wind caught Isaac’s heel. Stop. Isaac looked back. The witch, rolling her one remaining eye wildly, was looking at Isaac. That eye was trembling, a chaotic mix of a desperate desire for life and the terror of death.

“I don’t make pacts with witches.”

Isaac replied quietly and tried to turn around again. At that moment,

「I can give you back the soul of that young wizard.」

The words the witch hastily spat out stopped Isaac in his tracks. The soul of the young wizard. The soul the wizard had handed over to the witch in exchange for ensuring the curse placed on the prince would never be broken. If the witch returned it and broke the pact……

The curse of the new moon placed on the prince could be broken.

“——.”

Isaac stared down at the witch piercingly.

No, that can’t be right. A pact cannot be broken unilaterally. That wizard is already dead, and the pact cannot be rightfully terminated. If the witch were to break it unilaterally, she would lose all the magical power she had accumulated throughout her entire life. She couldn’t possibly bear that fatal loss——unless, of course, she was in a situation like this, facing imminent death.

「I will return that wizard’s soul. I will break the pact. If I do, the human you serve will be able to escape the curse of the new moon. Just like the other royals. As long as you simply drive all the witches out of the human world.」

“……Then you will lose all the magical power you’ve built up until now.”

The remaining half of the witch’s face contorted with anger and pain. If she did that, far from being the strongest witch in the human world, she would become a witch weaker than even those wretched witches who scavenged corpses. It would be an unbearable humiliation and disgrace. However,

「I just have to gather it again. If I spend a long time, I can gather it again. As long as I can live. ——So, give me your body. No, just let me borrow your body to stay for a short while. Just until I find a new body to enter, that’s fine. Since you are half-human, I should be able to enter you.」

The witch’s body was beyond saving. Ravaged by the curses, it had been reduced to little more than shattered fragments. Within minutes, it would inevitably perish and vanish. And with no vessel left to transfer into, her soul would die along with it.

She had to transfer to a new body. Before this body died. And right now, the only person around her was Isaac. She had no room to be picky to escape death.

Isaac looked down at the witch without even moving an inch. With a frantic and urgent demeanor, the witch pleaded, 「Please……, hurry…….」

If he makes a pact with Alikisa. If he lent his body to Alikisa, the prince could escape the wizard’s curse. Then, eventually, he would be able to escape the curse of the new moon as well.

「I won’t steal your body. Since it’s not a pact wagering your soul, your consciousness will remain dominant. You just have to lend me your body for a short while until I find a new body. There won’t be any harm to you.」

The witch pleaded, panting. Her voice, trembling with increasing anxiety, was because she felt death approaching along with the brightening sky. And Isaac……

He remained silent, his gaze fixed on the witch. Endless, tormenting thoughts welled up inside him, refusing to fade. Then, without warning, he forced a miserable smile that looked as though he were about to cry. He pressed his lips tightly together and turned his head away. Isaac looked down at the field. In the field, the soldiers bearing the anti-magic talismans were ruthlessly slashing and slaughtering the witches wherever their swords could reach. Amidst that chaotic scramble of countless beings, Isaac immediately spotted the prince.

Kyan was looking around, as if searching for someone. He unhesitatingly cut down witches in the process, looking around every time he did. Even though everything the prince desired was coming to fruition, he was searching for someone with a hardened face that almost looked anxious.

After staring blankly at him for a long while, Isaac slowly let his shoulders drop. Isaac turned back to the witch, his own face nearly crumpling, and clamped his mouth shut, forcing down the sigh that rose unbidden in his throat.

He wanted to break the curse placed on the prince. He wanted to help him grasp what he had desired for so long. And now, that opportunity had arrived right before his eyes, and to make it happen, Isaac had to abandon a single selfish desire. The selfish desire he had stubbornly held onto—the desire to stay by the prince’s side.

It was a selfish desire he had held onto preciously, even knowing it was impossible. But now, he had to let it go. It was time he had to let go of the thing he didn’t want to lose.

“——Alright, let’s do it.”

Isaac whispered to the witch. The eye of the witch, who had been clinging to Isaac anxiously and nervously, flashed with joy.

「Yes, yes, let’s make a pact. Hurry. I will break the pact I made with the young wizard. In exchange, you will lend me your body.」

The witch spoke urgently. Before dawn broke, before death completely covered her, she had to quickly change the vessel to transfer her soul.

Isaac, as she instructed, drew blood from his fingertip and recited the spell she murmured, blocking his ears to the sound of the prince calling his name from afar. And whispered in his mind. ‘I’m sorry. Alikisa.’

Isaac newly realized the witch’s blood flowing within him. The selfish and wicked instinct to nonchalantly deceive others and drive them into a corner for the sake of what he wanted. And now, Isaac was about to do just that.

Alikisa will lose all the magical power she has accumulated and break the pact with the wizard. The curse the wizard brought down upon the prince will vanish as Isaac desires. And then——in the end, Alikisa will not be able to achieve what she desires. And neither will Isaac.

「With this, the pact is fulfilled.」

The witch’s voice flowed from the corpse fragments and floated into the air. And that voice, blending into the air and seeming to become transparent, suddenly rushed toward Isaac.

The feeling of a mass of air simultaneously digging deep into his body.

The mass of air that dug deep into his body soon spread to every corner of his body, and thus Alikisa settled inside Isaac’s body. The cunning witch, having broken the pact with the wizard and now left with no power whatsoever, crouched inside Isaac’s body.

And right at that moment, sunlight finally shone like a golden thread over the increasingly reddening mountain ridge. Dawn began to break, announcing the end of the new moon.

The desperate screams of the witches covered the field. The shouts of the soldiers and their roars drowned out those screams. The massive bonfire that had burned so fiercely in the middle of the field died down and faded with the dawn light, and around it, the corpses of witches piled up like mountains.

“…….”

Isaac looked down at the corpse fragments left at his feet. The rotting flesh, like pitch-black mud, and the bodies of the witches, having lost their light and turned dark, were scattered in a jumble. In the completely dead bodies, no soul resided anymore.

The screams and shouts drifting from afar felt distant. The immediate surroundings were completely quiet. As if nothing had happened.

Then,

“ISAAC!”

A voice calling his name was heard. The shouting voice approached at a terrifying speed from not too far away.

It was a familiar, longed-for voice. Isaac turned towards that voice.

He saw a horse coming up the slope towards the forest, leaving behind the field piled with witches’ corpses. The person riding it, galloping straight towards this direction, was the prince.

Kyan’s gaze was fixed on Isaac. He looked nowhere else, didn’t even glance back as he brushed past the witches’ corpses, coming straight for Isaac in a direct line. Isaac stood blankly in place and waited.

Soon, when Kyan arrived right in front of Isaac,

“……I’m glad you weren’t badly hurt.”

That was all Isaac murmured.

The tension that had soared to its limit unravelled all at once, and fatigue rushed in like a tidal wave, tying even his tongue. He felt he had many things he wanted to say, many things he needed to say, but nothing came to mind. So he ended up barely speaking the very first thought that came to him.

Kyan sat on the horse, looking down at Isaac in silence for a moment. His expression was hardened like a person who was greatly tense. Could there have been a moment of such intense tension for the man who casually cut down demons even while surrounded in the middle of witches lunging like evil spirits?

Kyan, who examined Isaac for a while, slowly shifted his gaze to the side only after checking Isaac from head to toe. To the rotting wizard’s corpse and the fragmented bluish body torn to pieces next to it.

Kyan, briefly looking at those pieces, must have realized they were the remains of the one he had chased for so long, yet he indifferently turned his gaze away. As if he no longer had any interest there, he looked back at Isaac, bent down while still on the horse, and scooped Isaac up with one arm around his waist. And, sitting him in front of himself, he turned the horse’s head again.

Riding side-by-side with the prince down the slope, Isaac said nothing, leaning his back against the prince’s chest felt behind him. The thought that it might be disrespectful to lean like this crossed his mind very briefly, but he ignored it. He was so exhausted it was hard to even sit straight.

Kyan also said nothing. He only slowed the speed of the horse running down the slope. *Clop, clop, clop,* the horse’s pace slowed down enough so that his exhausted body wouldn’t shake.

In the eastern sky, the sun had already fully risen. The dawn light shone on the soldiers gathering the piles of witches’ corpses here and there into one place. No more tearing screams or resounding roars were heard. Only the occasional sounds of soldiers calling each other or the clanking of weapons woke the quiet dawn air.

The nightmare-like night was over.

The memories of that horrific scene scattered into the dawn air.

It’s over. It’s all over. Even the nightmare-like night. The long days the royal family suffered from the curse. There might be a few surviving witches, but with the witches of this land slaughtered so ruthlessly, they wouldn’t stay long in the land of humans.

The prince had achieved what he had long desired, and now there would be nothing left to struggle with or suffer through. Now he just had to live peaceful and tranquil days.

All that was left was a small task handed over to Isaac.

From the other side, a single soldier came running. It was Rihan.

Looking up at the prince and Isaac, seemingly wondering why they were riding the horse together, he soon turned his gaze to the prince as if it were nothing.

“The witches in the field have been dealt with. The soldiers are now entering the forest to search. We will likely finish processing before morning and wrap up by noon.”

Rihan’s voice, starting the report, somehow seemed to drift further and further away. Isaac listened to the fading voice and closed his eyes. He was dead tired. To the point where he thought he might not wake up for more than a week this time.

From the chest pressed against his back, a familiar body heat was transmitting. Suddenly, an unparalleled sense of relief washed over him. The perfect conviction that absolutely nothing in this place could harm him. It was a very unfamiliar sensation.

A feeling he had never tasted even once while living alone all his life.

Suddenly, his heart warmed.

With his tension released, Isaac let his shoulders slump. His body naturally drooped along with it. Kyan quietly looked down as Isaac slumped completely into his embrace.

Isaac let go of his consciousness even before closing his eyes completely, and the arm firmly catching Isaac’s leaning body and pulling it into an embrace was the last memory remaining in Isaac’s fading consciousness.

* * *

[Continued in Volume 5]