[V13C19] Dancing in the Palm of the Witch

During the Barrier Mage’s stay at the Royal Institute of Magic, he was paid a visit by the Starseer Witch.

Mary gasped upon seeing Louis’s change of appearance, dressed only in a simple medical gown.

“…What do you want?” Louis growled, sitting up on the bed.

“Oh dear, oh my… It seems you’ve really ‘cleaned up’ over the past few days~.”

Gluttonous Zoe had reduced Louis’s hair to around neck-length, but now it was even shorter. The hair on the back of his neck was practically the same length as a buzz cut, with his sideburns and bangs trimmed to match.

Louis grimaced as he ran his hand across the nape of his neck.

“Well, the fixation experiment resulted in a bunch of sparks, igniting a portion of my hair on fire… While I was locked into the bed.”

Many believed that Louis had a heart of steel, but this was quite a terrifying experience, even to him.

The researchers managed to extinguish the flames by pouring water on his head, but Louis tore off his restraints and tried to beat up the researchers. The incident resulted in quite a commotion.

After venting all his complaints, Louis extended a hand to Mary.

“…So? I returned from the border only to be betrayed by my comrades and turned into some guinea pig for human experimentation. Surely you have something to give me in return. I demand liquor, jam, and a meeting with my family.”

“I’m really sorry about what happened, Louis-chan. Could you please find it in your heart to forgive us? The other Sages have promised to cover the repair costs for the windows you broke.”

Mary asked for forgiveness with a cute tilt of her head. In response, Louis only clicked his tongue.

Louis generally maintained the minimum courtesy toward Mary, who was the acting leader of the Seven Sages. Now, however, he was not in any mood to act polite, because he was convinced of a certain fact.

“You were the one who orchestrated that magical battle, Starseer Witch-dono.”

“It was the consensus of the Seven Sages~.”

“——But you steered the discussion in that direction, yes?”

Everyone knew that Louis would listen to his father-in-law, the Aquamancy Mage. With him present, it should have been easy to gain Louis’s cooperation.

And yet, they challenged him to a magical battle instead. There had to be some sort of ulterior motive.

Louis slouched down and voiced his thoughts on this matter.

“The Gluttonous Zoe incident made the Seven Sages’ lack of coordination painfully apparent. You wanted them to recognize their weaknesses… And in that sense, I was the perfect opponent.”

Louis glared at Mary with his ashen-purple eyes.

“Well,” Mary said with a smile. “You sometimes hold a grudge after losing, but you’re strong enough to get over it.”

“…”

As Mary said, Louis was surprisingly quick to accept defeat. Of course, he would never forget the humiliation of a loss, but he rarely let it get him down.

Louis was the type of man to thoroughly study the reason for his defeat, determined to pay it back twice as much.

“As long as you’re given a chance to exert your full strength,” Mary continued. “You accept your loss surprisingly well.”

Mary kept the Aquamancy Mage as a failsafe in case Louis won the magical battle. With this, she could let Louis rampage to his heart’s content, allowing the other Sages to recognize their weaknesses.

In other words, all of them had been dancing in the palm of the Starseer Witch.

Mary changed the gloomy atmosphere with a clap of her hands.

“So? Tell me what you think, as the former captain of the Magic Corps.”

“If you had employed the Abyss Shaman more effectively, you could have won much earlier.”

Magical battles are decided by mana. Taking damage exhausts your mana, and you lose when your mana is depleted. As a result, it becomes difficult and time-consuming to defeat opponents with absurd amounts of mana.

Louis would need to expend a considerable amount of mana and effort to take down mana monsters like Glenn, Raul, and Bradford.

But curses had the power to neutralize them in an instant. Moreover, regular barriers were unable to block curses.

The Silent Witch had developed a barrier that worked against curses, and shared it with Louis. However, this was a recent invention that most mages lacked the ability to use.

Ray Albright didn’t make much use of it, but his advantage over mages was extremely potent.

“…And the Silent Witch really got me good.”

When Louis took the Magic Corps hostage, Monica had neutralized his threat by deploying a barrier over the building.

As a result, Louis deemed them worthless as a hostage and abandoned them. Or rather, he was tricked into abandoning them.

This allowed them to lure Louis to the Smoke Mage’s hiding spot, resulting in his defeat.

In the end, Monica bombarded Louis with fireballs to stall him. She had chosen this spell purposely to cover up Rutherford’s smoke with the smoke from her explosions.

“The other Sages acted with no overall strategy, only the Smoke Mage lurking as a trump card. Despite that, the Silent Witch improvised this plan and directed Glenn and the Dragon Slayer Mage into action. Quite impressive, though it would be better if she could take full command from the beginning.”

Monica had the intellect to devise strategies and the ability to execute them. However, she lacked the communication skills to propose strategies, or request cooperation from others.

If only she had an aide capable of handling those weaknesses, she would be incredibly valuable as a commander. It was truly a pity.

“I’ll omit my opinion of the Artillery Mage, since I’m sure he understood your intention from the beginning, and enjoyed the event as a game. The Dragon Slayer Mage is too straightforward; he needs to learn the concept of deception. The Thorn Witch is not even capable of harboring bloodlust towards his opponents, so that’s where he needs to start.”

Mary listened to all of Louis’s comments with a smile.

“Silas-chan and Raul-chan seem to be reflecting on their performance,” Mary explained. “Hehe, I’m glad they still have room for growth.”

Louis pouted his lower lip, becoming the splitting image of a sulking child. He still had the restraint to swallow the rest of his complaints, but he could not stop a deep sigh from leaking out.

The long braids that used to sway behind his head were no more.

“So I am the only one who gets nothing? Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair?”

“Oh,” Mary gasped. “Does that mean your hair is…?”

“Impossible to restore. Tiny strands of hair are simply too small to reattach. Trying to force it would send a bunch of sparks flying and… Boom, my head is on fire again.”

Apparently, restoring the things stolen by Gluttonous Zoe became far more challenging for tangible items. Even the Smoke Mage’s age was only partially restored.

Meanwhile, reattaching hair involved a huge quantity of tiny cross-sections.

“They had to spend an incredible amount of time and effort to reattach a single strand of hair. And the success rate of each strand is less than 10%. It’s so ridiculous that I can’t even laugh.”

“Well, at least your diet has improved during the stay. Your health is always most important, right~?”

“…”

As a side note, Louis’s doctors had asked him, “How are you so healthy with such a terrible diet?”

The already healthy man only became healthier during his confinement, so now, he was overflowing with energy.

“Ugh, I want to see Rosalie… but then she’ll see my short hair… I worked so hard to grow it out because the Aquamancy Mage called me unsightly… I took such good care of it… What if she starts asking for a divorce when I come back? …That damn bastard Theodore… I’ll drag you back from the dead so I can shave off your entire head and hang you from a tree…”

Louis covered his face with both hands. However, his lamenting gradually turned into curses filled with murderous intent.

Mary could only place her hand on her cheek and return a wry smile.

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