City of Witches

1.

“Haa…”

Diana, who returned from Tarot Town with a bunch of books, was currently lying face down on the bed, resting her head on the pillow.

With how many things going on in her life at once, her head was filled with complicated thoughts, so she could only sit motionless for about three hours, muttering to herself.

“Come to think of it… That was my first…kiss…”

The word ‘first’ came with a lot of implications.

Such as, the world would only recognize people who were dubbed at ‘first in something’.

The same logic applied to how everyone treated ‘original’ as the best.

Such a thing also applied in what was known as a first kiss, and Diana knew this.

After all, she had read about it a few times in her mother’s novels.

Although, this was something that she had been contemplating about, but kissing was an extremely dirty act.

Why would you feel uncomfortable when being around someone who was sneezing?

Also, why would you spit on someone’s face or clothes when you wanted to insult them?

It was because saliva was considered dirty.

Kissing was an act where two people’s mouths—an organ that could be considered as the jar of saliva—would touch each other.

To take a step further, the two people would start mixing their saliva as a sign of love.

Diana just couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

She reached out and touched her lips.

Recalling the moment when she kissed that man.

While hanging on his neck—as he could easily handle her weight…

The feelings of his rough, yet at the same time, soft, gentle, and unusually hot lips, was etched on her own.

She could still remember how loud her heartbeat back then was.

But, Diana never once felt that the act was dirty.

If anything, it felt like magic that made her understand things she hadn’t understood before.

“…”

She did that under the excuse of weakness or whatnot.

Indeed, it was an excuse.

After all, Shin Siwoo had proved that he was trustworthy to Diana many times over.

And she already trusted him completely when they sealed their promise with a handshake.

The real reason why she kissed him back then was because she wanted to do it.

“It’s a mess…”

But then came the questions, why did she ask him to seduce her mother?

Why did she go out of her way to give out what essentially were strategy books so he could do it easier?

Even as she was indulging in the lingering feelings of the kiss, she still felt her possessiveness towards him when she recalled the moment when he embraced her mother.

“…I need a drink.”

In the end, she took this contradictory behavior as proof that her love for her mother outweighed her feelings towards Siwoo.

At least, that was what she thought at that moment.

2.

Even until they parted, Siwoo hadn’t given a reply towards Diana’s bold and bizarre proposal.

“…I don’t know what to say…”

A daughter who offered her body to get him to seduce her mother.

No matter how he looked at it, it was an immoral proposal.

Considering that the proposal came from Diana, someone who had the tendencies to overthink things to an extreme degree when left alone…

It was easy to see that the idea came from her short-sightedness.

After all, the naive girl didn’t even understand the intricate relationship between men and women.

Problem 1) She doesn’t want her mom to disappear.

Solution 1) If her mother has a boyfriend, she might just not disappear.

Problem 2) She needs a good reward so that he agrees to her proposal.

Solution 2) She offers her body.

Since she tried to solve these two things at once, her brain must have short-circuited somewhere, hence why she came up with such strange answers.

Indeed, solutions offered by an innocent and naive youngster sometimes proved to be disastrous.

“If only I can just tell her mother about all this…”

The reason behind why she kept acting so lazy despite her being able to do the opposite.

Should he tell the countess to get to the root of the problem at once, or should he keep his mouth shut to keep his promise to Diana?

He was currently stuck in this dilemma.

Currently, he was sitting inside the countess’ private study.

With a cigarette in his hand, he stared at the pile of books on the table.

The book about the Criminal Exiles he picked up, and the dozen or so books that Diana gave him.

Anyway, it’ll be a while until class starts. Should I try to read them?

Thinking as such, he opened the book which title he didn’t recognize.

“Sweeter Than Cocoa…? Is this a romance novel?”

The book, which seemed to be printed rather than handwritten, had neither a leather cover nor a hard cover.

It looked just like a romance novel one could see anywhere.

Who woulda thought that the countess has such a girly hobby.

You really can’t tell a person by their appearance.

Siwoo flipped through the pages without thinking much.

To summarize, the first part of the story was about a witch who fell in love with a man she had been close with ever since she was an apprentice witch.

It was the first time he had ever read this kind of novel, so he got hooked into it a little.

The book had a rich vocabulary and great writing style.

It also had various emotional lines that could evoke the reader’s emotions, and those were the things that kept himself entertained.

“Hm?”

But then, when he reached a fourth of the book, he was greeted by an explicit scene.

“Well, I guess it’s pretty normal to find something like this in this kind of books”

Sexual desire was one of the basic humans’ desires, something that could be easily incorporated into popular culture.

That was the case with Korean Pansori¹ and folk songs.

After embracing Countess Yesod last night, Siwoo had completely viewed her as a woman.

The image of a strict orthodox witch that always accompanied her had faded away from his eyes. Hence why he thought that it was normal for her to take a liking towards such a thing.

But then the content of the novel developed into something that was beyond his understanding.

Through various incidents, the witch opened her eyes to the pleasure of masochism.

At one point, she played as the male lead’s maid and begged to be dominated by him.

“What is this?”

It didn’t stop there. Different kinds of plays ensued in the novel.

Like the witch getting whipped in the butt by a modified horse whip, engaging in outdoor exposure plays, and at one point, they even brought adult toys from the Modern World to play around with.

Beyond the sweet romance, there were also those sticky and explicit sexual scenes.

“…Is this really a normal romance novel?”

Siwoo then quickly skimmed through the other books, just in case.

Now that he had taken a closer look at them, he noticed that the books’ titles were all unusual.

Devil’s Delivery Service, Dangerous Plays of a Bored Witch, Selling Your Life to Repay a Debt, How Butterfly Flowers Fall…

All of them seemed to be ‘high-level’ books.

If there was one thing those books had in common…

It would be that every single one of them was about a dominant man dominating a witch.

From the books’ theme to its writing style…

It was clear that all of them were written by the same author.

“Oh my head…”

The countess likes this sort of thing?

Wait, Ms. Diana was the one who gave me these books…

Does that mean she knows…? She’s familiar with such things…?

But, when she saw the twins kissing me back in the host club… That reaction wasn’t fake.

Does that mean she learned about such things after?

No matter how hard he tried to think about it, Siwoo just ended up confused.

“Mr. Siwoo? Are you here?”

At that moment, the countess entered the room.

3.

Countess Yesod’s day passed by in an instant.

After meeting up with Shriya in Border Town, she went to have lunch with Countess Gemini.

Then, she met up with Duchess Erelim to discuss the Academic Society’s reorganization.

Afterwards, she met with an agent to talk about her current business, receive some reports from them and instruct them on what to do next.

Finally, she had dinner with Diana.

Only after finishing all that did the countess finally could take a breather.

The only thing she needed to do for the day was the long-awaited tutoring session with Siwoo.

Actually, they had scheduled a ‘different kind of research’ for today.

“Recharging magic through sexual intercourse…”

Last night and earlier this morning.

The countess experienced something that was different from what normally happened when Siwoo ejaculated in her.

He absorbed her mana, turned them into extremely pure and clean mana, and then injected them all back into her after amplifying it several folds.

According to him, this phenomenon always happened whenever he shot his load inside a vagina.

The amount of mana a witch could store was different.

This was because a witch’s mana capacity heavily depended on her brand and her self-essence magic.

Normally, it took two weeks to a month for a witch to fill up her brand with mana after she exhausted it completely and turned it into her ‘self-essence mana’.

Even if she were to brute force it, it would still take at least a week.

However, with Siwoo’s method, it only took an instant, hence why it could be said that it went against common sense.

The countess was sure that even if her brand was completely empty, that single injection could fill it back up again.

Lucy Yesod was a witch thorough and thorough.

Even though just last night she had been indulging the pleasure the whole process brought her, right now, she was ready to satisfy her curiosity about the phenomenon.

And so, she decided that after their normal tutoring session was over, she’d try her best to investigate this matter.

“Ahem…”

Well, though she said investigation, at the end of the day, she’d just be having sex with him again.

She’d stay in his firm embrace again tonight, and show him all sorts of her embarrassing appearance.

But, she was still a little worried. After all, even though she had a real reason for it, she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d think of him as a loose woman if she were to ask him to have sex with her again.

Or if he’d think that she was a weirdo if she were to try flirting with him during class.

“It’s for the sake of research…”

Yes, it’s for research! There’s no need to be embarrassed!

After rationalizing herself once again, the countess opened the door to the study.

“Mr. Siwoo? Are you there?”

The moment she opened the door and entered, Siwoo’s flustered face entered her vision.

With a wooosh, things that were scattered on the table were instantly swiped by his black ribbon.

“Y-You’re here already? D-Did you get off work early?”

Seeing the way he was throwing an awkward smile at her, the countess…

Hmm… Suspicious…

“Oh my?”

When he received the countess’ gaze, he looked even more flustered than before.

He turns into a beast in bed, but here, he looks like a scared rabbit. It’s cute.

The gap only made the countess even more excited.

“Are you…hiding something?”

“N-No…?”

-Smile!

A playful smile appeared on the countess’ lips.

Is he thinking of me while relieving himself?

Or maybe he sneaked out one of my underwear?

“Were you having fun by yourself?”

“Of course not. This place is pretty much a lab, no?”

“Then, why don’t you show me what you’re hiding?”

“H-Huh…?”

“I saw everything, you know? The moment I entered, you started swiping everything on that desk away with your ribbon.”

The countess then went towards the desk in front of Siwoo.

Right under the desk, there were books scattered around.

Judging from the quality of paper and the damaged covers of some of these books, it was clear that they weren’t magic books written for academic purposes.

“Hm? Books?”

“Countess, this isn’t—”

The moment the countess’ eyes landed on the books, she threw Siwoo a smile, ignoring the poor man who tried so hard to change the subject.

How cute.

Were these erotic novels or something?

“What books did our dear Siwoo read, hm…?”

She used her telekinesis to grab one of the books, and…

“…Huh?”

As soon as she read its cover, her expression instantly turned a 180.

Then, she quickly scanned through the remaining books’ titles with her eyes.

“…”

She was struck speechless.

Because the books lying on the ground were no other than the erotic novels she had written herself.

“W-W-Where did you get these books, Mr. Siwoo?!”

“…So it’s true that you liked these books…”

“N-No! I-I mean, I wrote these books, b-but, just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I like what’s inside it! I-It’s just my creative decisions! Yes! W-What, are you trying to mock me, Mr. Shin Siwoo?! M-Me! L-Lucy Yesod herself?!”

“Of course not…”

“A-Ahh…”

The countess covered her face, trying to cover her embarrassment.

She didn’t know how he got his hands on these books, but however it was, her face felt like it was burning.

Lines after lines that she wrote back then flashed in her head.

O-Oh, no… H-He read through all those embarrassing lines, didn’t he…? Oh no, oh no!

Her dignity as a countess…

And her face as an older woman…

All the things that she had tried to maintain, had shattered to pieces.

“…”

So all these books that Ms. Diana gave me…

Are all written by the countess…?

Meanwhile, Siwoo was taken aback by the revelation.

“C-Countess, I-I don’t think having this kind of hobby is—”

“…Please… Just leave me alone…”

Siwoo patted her shoulder, trying to comfort her, while the countess squatted down, trying to deal with her embarrassment. This sight continued for a long time.

1. It is basically Korean's traditional musical storytelling.