Chapter 229 - Episode Twenty-Five - The Witch Altamir (1)
Note: Please don’t be confused. I don’t know what happened, but it skipped the title Episode Twenty-Four in the raw. So I just followed what I got from the raw 🙂.
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I finally set foot on the eighth level, the top of the Witch’s Tower.
The inside was a long passage.
There was no end in sight, just a straight path.
The floor and walls were made of ore with a faint green or blue glow.
Magic circles and strange patterns were drawn all over the place.
The suspicious light emitted by the ore created a strange atmosphere.
I had destroyed the floor through the apocalypse and made a huge hole in this level, but the warding magic didn’t seem to be broken.
I can feel the magic power that is incomparably stronger than the wards that are deployed on the other levels.
It seems that the wards have been carefully designed to ensure that the main body of Altamir does not escape.
“…… It’s an eerie place, isn’t it.”
Mea said while looking around the passage.
“…… this might be a bit of a problem.”
“You’re on to something, aren’t you? For Abel to feel so weak. ……”
“To be honest…… I had a bad feeling about this as soon as we climbed. That if we go any further might be dangerous. My premonition was right. This is place is bad. Mea, look ahead ……”
Mea followed what I said and looked at the end of the passage.
“I don’t see anything yet, though ……”
“That’s the problem.”
“What? W-What do you mean?”
“…… My leg might have cramps.”
“What?”
I’ve been pushing my legs pretty hard to get here.
I don’t know how many times I’ve gone over the limit.
My shins are so tight. They could tear at any moment.
“Le-, let’s take a break. I can’t go any further.”
“Yeah ……”
Mea’s shoulders slumped in disappointment, and she looked at me with a frown.
“Abel, can you just be a little tense even a little bit for a second ……”
“N-, no, I’m serious, because my leg is …… going to be holding my leg and moaning in front of Altamir.”
“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh……”
“I’m sorry, please rub my feet a little bit.”
“Yes! Leave it to Mea!”
Mea’s face lit up, and she left her luggage and ran to my side.
…… You can’t say too much about others when it comes to tension, can you?
Once I sat down at the end of the aisle, I decided to ask Mea to massage my feet.
As she rubs my feet, she asks me.
“…… You said Artamia’s research into forbidden magic has brought her to the attention of the government, and that she was a dangerous person who set up an army of golems against the court magicians, didn’t you? It’s possible that Altamir will break the seal and leave, right?”
“That’s right, the government is looking for her for researching forbidden magic, and having an army of golems against a court magician, and that’s dangerous.”
Huh…… I think I’m going to end up in a similar situation if I get noticed by the government.
“…… I think we’d get along well.”
“Mea thought so too for a moment……”
We took a break and headed onward and onward.
In the back of the aisle, there was a figurehead that was twice as tall as me.
“A mirror ……?”
Mea muttered curiously.
The world reflected in the mirror is distorted and a vortex appears.
From within the mirror, a dark-eyed with curly orange hair woman appeared.
She wears a poisonous purple pointy hat on her head and a cloak of the same color.
She is short in stature, carrying a huge staff in a somewhat annoying manner, floating softly in the air.
“Don’t tell me, this is Altamir……?”
She is a lot younger than I thought she would be.
I don’t think her age matters since she seems to be spiritified …… Perhaps this is what she looks like when he becomes a spirit.
She is short in stature, but her age seems to be around twenty or so.
I thought that she had become a spirit because she was trapped in a special ward, but her spirit body is too well organized.
Perhaps she had been turning herself into a spirit to become immortal even before she was sealed in the witch’s tower.
This means that at the age of twenty or so, she had the skills and knowledge to make herself a spirit.
I think I have a certain amount of knowledge as well, but as you can see, there are a lot of conflicts that are forbidden, and I don’t have enough experience to put it to practical use.
“I, If I had five, a few more years too……”
“…… Abel, are you thinking of something strange?”
I’ve been thinking about my rivalry with Altamir, Mea asked fearfully.
I certainly want to live a long life, but if I’m asked if I want to stop being human, I’m not sure.
“I’m sure Lord Peltaire is long dead,…… and I knew there would be assassins from the royal family sooner or later, but I didn’t think they’d suddenly start blasting away with magic weapons. But I’m not going to just disappear for free either.”
As Altamir spun his staff, her figure and the surrounding walls disappeared, and the space expanded at once.
Far up in the room, in the distance, Altamir’s figure appears.
Chantless teleportation …… It might not be the cause of magic tools that make the difference, but the fact that Altamir is a spirit and can directly manipulate simple magic without the need for a spirit.
Spirits are able to directly cause simple magical phenomena.
Originally, magic is something that is said by giving instructions to countless spirits and giving them magical power in exchange.
“Truth to be told, I’m happy to see a human for a long time, but …… since I can’t afford to play with you, I’m going to be serious. I’ll make this finish in an instant. If you want to hate someone, you should hate your boss for sending you here.”
She seemed to think that I had been sent here by someone else.
I was expecting her to be more dangerous than that, but maybe she’s a more reasonable person.
The only thing is, she’s in a serious situation right now, with veins on her forehead, wrinkles between her eyebrows, and a sharp glare at me.
“I’m prepared for this kind of situation. It’s not something I’d use against just two people, but after Apocalypse was taken out so easily, I guess it can’t be helped.”
Altamir raises her staff in the air.
In the space created by the disappearance of the wall, a huge blue metal mass suddenly appeared.
As far as the eye could see, it was blue, blue, blue.
It must have been nearly a hundred meters long.
It was too huge to make out for a moment, but it looked like a statue of a warrior in a kneeling position.
A metal cloth was wrapped around its waist, showing every detail of its wrinkles.
The upper half of its body was completely naked, and a huge mask was attached to its face.
In its hand, it held a huge, rugged sword.
The blue giant’s entire body was made of a uniform metal.
It seemed to be made of an alloy of the phantom copper Orichalcos.
There must have been no end to the amount of pure phantom copper Orichalcos that could be used to make the giant.
But even so, the amount of phantom copper Orichalcosused must be outrageous.
“Se-, seriously, ……”
As expected, I freaked out a bit from this.
I wonder how much time and effort she spent in the tower to make this stuff.
“I’m sorry if you’re despairing, but this isn’t the end.”
Altamir waved her staff again.
On the other side, another phantom Copper Orichalcos giant appeared.
“It’s a colossus,…… and it’s an oversized one ……”
A colossus is, in essence, a giant golem that is over fifty meters long.
The only thing is, once a golem exceeds a certain size, as well as the difficulty of creating it, it consumes a large amount of magic power when it is given a pseudo-will as a finishing touch.
In the past, the Garjanand Kingdom used a 100-meter-long colossus in warfare, and it took a hundred sorcerers a week to give it magical power to make it move.
It is said that the reason why the colossus was rarely used in history, despite its immense effect as a fighting force, was because of the time it took to make and move it.
It is said that what seems to be the wreckage of a colossus that was given up halfway through its construction is often found in ruins.
The fact that she was able to not only build two of them by herself, but also to move them around so easily was terrifying.
They are also clearly the largest in history.
This person alone could change the world. No wonder the High Elves wanted to come all the way down to earth to get her help.
“Now, go on, Colossus! No need to hold back!”
The two colossus stood up as if to match Altamir’s voice.
The metal lump, which had been huge, more than doubled in height.
I pointed at the World Tree Ortem at Mea’s luggage
Mea was looking up at the giant golem …… at the colossus in dismay, but when she noticed my finger, she took the World Tree Ortem and placed it in front of me.
“Puppet, dance.”
I waved my wand and chanted.
I waved my wand and chanted, and the World Tree Ortem caught the light from my wand.
“Flame, form, ball”
I continued to wave my wand at one half of the colossus.
A magic circle floated in the air and a huge fireball appeared.
The World Tree Ortem glows, and the exact same magic circle appears.
A huge fireball then appears in front of the World Tree Ortem.
I continued to make the magic circle appear in succession, wrapped the fireball that had appeared with magic in a ward, compressed it, increased the firepower to expand the range again, compressed it, and repeated.
In the same way, a magic circle floated around the fireball that was floating in front of the World Tree Ortem, and as if following the changes in the fireball I was floating, it compressed and expanded, compressed and expanded again.
In the blink of an eye, two masses of energy with a white glow were formed.
It was a double Abel ball, created by the double chanting of Ortem.
W-What, is that ……”
Altamir said as if she was shocked.
“Okay, go!”
I pointed my wand at one of the colossus, and one Abel Ball flew to each side of the colossus.
The two colossuses drew their giant swords against the Abel ball and tried to catch it with their blades.
The giant swords shattered, and in the next instant, everything above the colossus’ abdomen flew apart.
The momentum was so great that it flew straight into the ceiling, creating two huge holes in the durable ward.
An ear-splitting sound echoed, and the inside of the ward was covered in cracks.
The colossus’s huge body shook, and he fell to his knees on the spot.
The head part of the colossus fell in front of me. The other half of the head was lying far away in this level.
“…… What, they were just huge, after all. If you’ve got time to build two of these labor-intensive things, you might as well put a little more effort into each one.”
I muttered to myself as I looked at the remains of the two fallen colossuses.
“So that’s your trump card, is it?”
Altamir, who was floating in midair, was biting his lower lip with a pale face.