[V15C18] In the Face of Death, Remember the Black Rose That Didn't Bloom

It had been there inside Raul the entire time.

Like a second seed in a flowerpot, buried next to the main plant. It secretly fed off the same nutrients and water, thriving underground and out of sight since the beginning.

The soul of the First Thorn Witch, Rebecca Roseberg.

The sleeping Raul reached out and touched it.


He saw an angry mob surrounding the witch. They closed in on her with determination and fury, in order to avenge their fallen comrades.

“Your evil ends here, Witch,” they declared, denouncing her for her crimes.

Raul could not see the witch’s face, as he was watching the scene from her perspective. However, he could hear her thoughts.

(Whatever.)

Utter indifference. The witch sent her roses to slaughter the insignificant fools.

But the mob fought until the bitter end, laying trap upon trap, and pushing forward over the corpses of their fellows.

Until finally, one young man, the lone survivor, made it through the rose vines because his friends shielded him with their dead bodies.

Though bleeding and weeping, he alone reached the witch.

—— “It’s over! I’ll put an end to your evil even if it costs me my life…! Begone, Witch!”

The man stabbed his sword into the witch’s abdomen.

The mob of witch hunters had been reduced to a pile of bodies, and the witch herself was on the brink of death.

Even so, her heart held no anger, no sorrow, no fear.

Because somewhere in her mind, she had always known this day would come.

That said, she did have a single, minor regret…

The witch gazed up at the starless night sky and thought about ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’.

(There is one flower I failed to bloom in that garden. That is all.)

And so, the tale of the wicked witch came to an end. Her story should have ended there.

But just before the last spark of her life was extinguished, a group wearing matching robes appeared at her side.

They were her kin, as well as her worshipers.

“No! The great Thorn Witch cannot be allowed to end like this!”

“She must reign over our bloodline forever!”

“If her body is to be lost, then we must ensure at least her soul remains…!”

They wanted the witch to be eternal, so they denied her death.

This was done by extracting her soul and sealing it in a magical tool. A process usually reserved for criminals.

The result was something Raul understood in modern terms.

(She became… an ancient artifact…)

However, the Thorn Witch’s worshipers were not content with reviving her as an ancient artifact.

Artifacts had the ability to possess their wielders—like how Sophocles possessed Cyril and took over his body.

Thus, they gave the artifact to a girl who resembled her, hoping the Thorn Witch would possess the girl and be resurrected in full.

It did not go as planned. The artifact containing the witch’s soul was simply too powerful. Everyone who touched it was crushed to death under its unimaginable might.

Even after sacrificing many girls in the name of reviving the Thorn Witch, her worshipers did not give up.

Next, they delved into even darker taboos.

They tried to extract the soul from the artifact and implant it directly into a descendant of their bloodline.

However, all they managed to extract was a small fragment of her soul.

This was nothing more than a tiny seed, but it came from the great witch’s soul.

They planted the fragment into a member of the Roseberg bloodline, like planting a seed into a flowerpot. It was fine if the fragment did not bloom immediately, as it would be passed on to the next generation.

And so, they waited and waited.

Until the day that seed grew into a beautiful flower.

(They kept crafting vessels worthy of becoming the First Thorn Witch… and I happened to be the one the seed sprouted in.)

The idea had passed through Raul’s head when he learned about the secret behind ancient artifacts: Maybe the First Thorn Witch turned herself into an artifact managed by House Roseberg so she could live forever.

But no, it was the opposite. The First Thorn Witch never wanted eternal life.

It was her worshipers who wished for return, and they passed their wish onto their descendants, the current House Roseberg.

(…That’s why I have to go find her.)

“Wake up, wake up,” came a voice.

That’s right. He needed to wake up. This was no time to be lying down.

“How long do you plan on sleeping there?! Wake up already, Raul Roseberg!!”

Smack, smack, smack, smack—someone was slapping his cheeks.

“P-Please wake up, Raul-sama… pleeeeease…!”

Shake, shake, shake, shake—someone was shaking his body.

“Ugh, fine! If he won’t wake up, then let’s just drag him along! …Hngh, grr, ugh…!”

“Urgh…! I can’t even lift his upper body…! But I could lift Cyril-sama…”

“Wait, when did you do that?”

The hands slapping Raul’s cheeks and shaking him now joined forces to try lifting him, but their strength did not last long.

“At this point, just put me on his finger! I’ll take over his body and move it myself!”

Upon hearing that, Raul suddenly jumped awake.

“Eh, no way! You better not do that!”

He sat up to see Monica and Cyril struggling to move him. Behind them, there was a row of yellow roses and a shadowy figure the size of a child.

“Great Witch, Great Witch, welcome back, Great Witch, welcome back, welcome back.”

The shadow was speaking fragments in an excited tone.

Meanwhile, the yellow roses at the shadow’s feet crept towards them, with the defensive barrier of Sophocles holding them at bay.

Raul placed a hand on his forehead in an attempt to recall what happened before he lost consciousness.

However, Cyril promptly stood up and shouted, “Raul, you’re finally awake! We have to run!”

“Eh? Uh, where to?”

Monica turned with a flutter of her robe and started running off ahead of them.

“Winter! The exit is in the direction of winter!”

The yellow roses had surrounded them in a wide circle, and Monica used her chantless magic to slice through them with blades of wind.

It was then that Raul noticed Sophocles on Monica’s left hand.

While inside this book, their magic was sealed unless they made physical contact with Sophocles. In other words, only Monica could cast magic right now.

Even so, Raul reached into his pockets to prepare the roses in case he needed to fight.

But for some reason, he only found lint at the bottom of his pockets. The rose seeds were nowhere to be found.

(Did I drop them while I was asleep? …No, that’s not it…)

Raul could see the remnants of his crimson roses scattered among the plant debris on the ground. That was enough for him to realize what he had done.

He looked toward Monica and Cyril, who were running ahead, and bit his lip.

“Sorry guys… I must’ve lost control over the First Thorn Witch’s power…”

The two looked back at Raul without pausing their legs.

“I kept my promise,” Cyril said angrily, glaring at Raul’s cheek. “You had better not complain about any broken teeth!”

“Huh? Oh, you mean when you smacked me to wake me up? Don’t worry! That didn’t hurt at all, so I’m completely fine!”

“…”

For some reason, Cyril glanced down at his own right hand in frustration. His slender fingers seemed a bit red.

Suddenly, one of the yellow roses appeared to block their path, so Monica sliced it with a wind blade while explaining the situation.

“Raul-sama, ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’ was made by the First Thorn Witch… but it seems someone tampered with it. Right now, it is acting outside of its creator’s intentions.”

“…Tampered?”

“The shadow chasing us is probably supposed to be the forest’s caretaker, but they have been tampered too… That’s what the First Thorn Witch told us.”

In that case, Raul had a good idea of the culprit.

(The worshipers of the First Thorn Witch… They must have modified this book.)

They planted a fragment of the First Thorn Witch’s soul into their descendants, then waited until a vessel was born with enough talent to make it bloom. That vessel was Raul.

Once the vessel was ready, it needed to be injected with the First Thorn Witch’s mana to repair and reinforce her broken soul.

And so, they turned her creation, ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’, into a tool for performing that injection.

In which case, the monster inside the bookshelf of the Fifth Forbidden Section was likely tamed by House Roseberg.

(That’s why my family always holds the highest seats in the Library Society…)

The closer he got to the truth, the scarier House Roseberg’s obsession became.

As Raul trembled with unease, Monica spoke between breaths while casting spells.

“Um, I have one concern. She said the exit is in the winter forest… but if someone tampered with the book, then they might have done something to the exit too…”

“I doubt it,” Cyril said in a firm tone, staring straight ahead. “The witch needs an exit in order to leave. At the very least, the exit should still be intact.”

His words only affirmed Raul’s suspicions about the truth of the First Thorn Witch.

‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’ was a device for reviving the First Thorn Witch… and Cyril had realized it too.

(My friends are so reliable.)

Monica carved their path forward with blades of wind, and Cyril had already figured out the truth behind ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’. Raul was truly grateful to have such reliable friends with him.

Before long, the scenery around them changed. It was still a forest, but it contained mostly coniferous trees. The few broadleaf trees had lost their leaves. This was the forest of winter.

“That is the final page of the book! Proceed straight ahead!”

Sophocles spoke from Monica’s left hand as a tunnel of overlapping branches appeared in the distance.

They tried to enter the tunnel, but then, a sudden surge of pain shot through their bodies.

“Ow!?”

“Fugyu!?”

“Ugh…”

Raul, Monica, and Cyril grunted in pain, unable to continue forward. Any attempt to enter the tunnel of trees resulted in intense pain.

“Girl, it seems your concern was half right… The location of the exit is unchanged, but the condition for passing through has been altered.”

Raul immediately understood what the new condition was.

If this book was a tool for reviving the First Thorn Witch, then the condition for leaving was obvious.

——Only the First Thorn Witch is allowed to leave. Everyone else is to remain trapped inside.

Raul found himself breaking out in sweat.

If he let himself be taken over by the power of the First Thorn Witch, then perhaps he would meet the condition and be allowed to escape.

But that would mean leaving Monica and Cyril behind.

(No! Never!)

Raul clenched his sweaty hands and spoke in a tense voice.

“We have to destroy the ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’.”

He didn’t know how, but surely they could do it. Nothing was impossible with Monica’s intelligence and his vast reserves of mana.

However, Cyril promptly rejected Raul’s idea.

“No. The book itself is not at fault.”

“But if we don’t do something, we’ll never get out of here!”

Raul had fallen into an uncharacteristic panic, completely losing his cool.

(If we don’t destroy it, then Cyril and Monica will die here! I don’t want to lose my friends!)

His rising anxiety fueled his desperation.

The fear of losing his friends was only one factor. His greatest fear was at ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’ as a whole. The book was trying to reshape him into the First Thorn Witch.

But then, Cyril’s determined voice cut through all of his confusion.

“Sophocles! This is clearly an emergency, in which case, it falls under Article 24 of the library laws, emergency response provisions!”

“Indeed it does!”

“In addition, two of the Seven Sages are present. We meet the conditions for enacting emergency measures!”

“True, though you will have to submit a written report later!”

“Guh… Very well, I am prepared…”

“M-Me too!” Monica added. “I’ll help write the report!”

She removed Sophocles from her finger and handed it back to Cyril.

Cyril gave a nod as he slipped the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand.

Once the contract mark of the ancient artifact had returned to his hand, Cyril Ashley, the Library Lord, made the declaration.

“The forbidden tome, ‘The Botanical Specimen Garden’, has been illegally modified! I hereby initiate emergency restoration procedures!”

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