City of Witches

༺ Ars Magna Town (1) ༻

1.

Siwoo was exhausted from the massive ejaculation he just had and when Sophia saw Siwoo falling asleep on her lap, she had the urge to devour him, but she quickly abandoned the idea and left the room.

Siwoo was the first man Amelia, who had never met a man before, expressed interest in after leaving that cramped hut, despite the fact that she constantly denied having feelings for him.

On the other hand, Sophia, who was aware of Amelia’s unspoken emotions, would never act in a way that would prevent her precious friend from experiencing love.

“I can’t possibly do that.”

In the first place, Sophia could already predict how the first night of Siwoo, who had no experience with women, and Amelia, who had no experience with men would go.

Especially if it was Amelia, she would undoubtedly be lying on the bed stiff like a piece of wood, while Siwoo would be in a panic.

How disappointing would it be if that was their first experience?

Since ancient times, women have always preferred to be led in bed a little bit because it makes them feel more comfortable and desirable.

Along with the reward, Sophia decided to teach Siwoo about the basics of how to treat a woman in bed ahead of time in order to prevent them from facing an awkward situation during their first experience.

“Ugh…”

Sophia stretched after getting up from the bed and then put on her robe and hat.

In truth, Shin Siwoo’s suffering over the past few years was Sophia’s fault.

If she hadn’t instigated Amelia in the first place, Amelia would never have been rejected by Siwoo, and he wouldn’t have been tormented.

In addition, if such an event had never occurred, rumors that Amelia was interested in Siwoo wouldn’t have spread in Trinity Academy and Amelia would have been loved and respected by witches because of her noble appearance.

Of course, Sophia herself did not agree with the manner in which Gehenna treated slaves. But that was simply the way things were.

“The Elites are always picky, aren’t they?”

The night had grown old and the day was rapidly approaching.

Witches did not require sleep because of their spiritual bodies, so Sophia, a witch with a brand who also had a spiritual body, could stay awake and do the task Siwoo had requested of her.

Sophia had to leave it up to the guards to decide what to do with the captives, and she also had to prevent criminals from revealing that Siwoo could use magic.

“It’s best to stay awake at times like these.”

Sophia, who had been wearing a robe, leaped over the window frame and transformed into a big crow with feathers sprouting all over her body. She then flew away into the moonlit sky.

2.

There were no special vacations for slaves in Gehenna.

Even during the holidays, which was only one day a week, Siwoo had to work until lunchtime.

But something unusual happened. Siwoo didn’t have to work today and was now lying comfortably on a bed of straw while swinging his arms and legs.

Through the windows, the sun could already be seen rising in the middle of the sky.

Siwoo was sluggish due to oversleeping.

Siwoo, who was always up at or before dawn, found oversleeping to be a tearful luxury.

“How long has it been since I’ve been this lazy?”

He had never known that being able to sleep in without doing anything was such a wonderful sensation.

It was the first holiday he had ever taken in his life as a slave.

Just the other day.

Amelia, who had slept the rest of the night and woke up late in the afternoon, hired Siwoo as her assistant and gave him a day off as a reward for his hard work, walking around Border Town until late at night to find an inn.

It was really hard to believe.

Siwoo had received a day off from Amelia, who usually assigned him as many tasks as possible to prevent him from getting any rest. Therefore, it was hard for him to accept it.

The sudden changes in her demeanor perplexed him, but Siwoo was fortunate that she seemed to have at least somewhat changed her bad attitude toward him.

“What brings her here?”

Siwoo, who was lying in his bed at the time, couldn’t help but murmur as he noticed someone walking along the grassy path from a distance.

After the incident in Border Town, he avoided Amelia to the point of being able to tell who was approaching based on the person’s gait.

It was Associate Professor Amelia.

“Why is she here?”

Siwoo, who usually slept half-naked in the barn, hurriedly put on his clothes.

“Ugh, if she had given me the day off, she should have let me rest as well. Why bother me so much when I’m resting?”

Despite his grumbling, it was improper to greet her in such a shabby manner.

He also thought the underwear Amelia had given him as a reward the other day was wonderful.

He was pleased with himself every time he put on his new underwear. He didn’t need to wear those ragged underwear he had received from the City Hall anymore.

When Siwoo saw his new underwear, his displeasure with Amelia, who had shown up unexpectedly, also slightly subsided.

“Is this how a slave behaves?”

Siwoo opened the door of the barn and went out to meet Amelia.

There was no reason for Amelia to enter the barn since there was only a large meadow filled with horse fodder where his lodging was located.

Actually, in the past 5 years, she hadn’t visited this place even once.

Amelia was holding a parasol as she stood outside the barn in the midst of the dazzling sunlight.

She waited while wearing her typical haughty expression as Siwoo came running to her.

“What’s the matter? Ms. Associate Professor.”

Amelia was bathing in sunlight as it streamed through her blonde hair, causing it to glisten.

He tried to avoid recalling the image of Amelia’s naked body at the inn after that day, but he couldn’t help but remember the scene that made his dick twitch when he saw her.

Men are such pitiful creatures.

Siwoo tried to think of something else in an effort to get his mind off the memory of that night, and prevent his thing from getting hard.

Amelia patiently waited for him to catch his breath before opening her mouth.

“You’ll be given to me as my exclusive slave tomorrow. You’ll begin training for your role as an assistant so I came here today because you have to move your accommodation to a nearby location. It won’t take long, so follow me.”

Indeed, it took more than 30 minutes to get from Siwoo’s barn to the research building.

He would need to move closer in order to properly serve as the Associate Professor’s exclusive slave.

“You lived in a much nicer place than other slaves.”

Amelia said as she looked at the barn perched atop the blue hill.

‘Nice place, huh? What about the rooms of the other slaves?’

Amelia, who hadn’t been inside the barn yet, might have thought Siwoo was living comfortably in comparison to other slaves in a building that appeared to be quite decent from the outside.

However, Siwoo, who had been living there ever since being brought to Gehenna, knew it wasn’t a place built for human settlement.

“Yeah, well, this place is fine.”

Amelia slightly tilted her head at Siwoo’s ambiguous response.

“Then I’ll guide you. Where should I go?”

“You should go to your lodging if you want to take your luggage.”

Amelia glanced at Siwoo as though he were asking an obvious question, then walked past him and began to climb the hill.

“Let me take you there.”

The draft of the magic circle, mana water, and magic paper were all in the barn, but he didn’t need to worry too much about those things.

After all, he’d hidden them in a box underneath a pile of straw, and Amelia had no reason to look inside it.

However, there was a possibility that Amelia would ask about the box if he were to take it out. He, therefore, planned to return to the barn at night and bring the box to his new lodging.

While Siwoo was thinking about various things, he opened the barn door and let Amelia inside.

“It’s a bit embarrassing letting the Associate Professor into such a shabby place.”

In contrast to what she had anticipated, Amelia couldn’t help but widen her normally expressionless eyes in shock as she looked behind the barn door and saw the decrepit interior of the building.

“I’ll pack my belongings as soon as possible, so please bear with me.”

A slave could only afford the essentials to maintain a standard of living, despite their desires. Therefore, Siwoo didn’t have much to pack anyway.

Siwoo went to the pile of straw and covered the box well with straw while taking out clothes and underwear from the closet, which was almost half rotten.

“……..”

Amelia was looking around while standing like a stone statue in front of the door, she was still dumbfounded from the realisation that Siwoo had been living in such an environment.

She appeared slightly bewildered, as though she was unaware of Siwoo’s living situation.

“Ms. Amelia, I’ve packed everything.”

Amelia, who had been dazed, came to her senses at Siwoo’s call.

She hesitated for a bit before opening her mouth but compared to how she usually spoke, her voice was a little softer.

“Is it okay to live in a place like this? Have you actually been living here?”

“Yes.”

“For 5 years?”

“I originally had a different lodging, but after about a week, my lodging was moved here. They told me they would rebuild the barn to make a place for me.”

“……..”

Amelia remained silent, even after Siwoo’s brief explanation.

She simply continued to blink her long eyelashes while remaining silent.

The awkward silence was occurring again.

There were numerous occasions when Siwoo and Amelia would cut off their conversation without further elaboration.

“I hope the lodging I’m going to live in would be a little better this time.”

Amelia lowered her head when Siwoo cracked a light joke to lighten the sudden awkward atmosphere.

Siwoo wondered why Amelia would be shocked by a slave like him living in a place like this.

In fact, Siwoo initially had a difficult time accepting the fact that he would be living in a barn, a place that was worse than the quarters for slaves.

An elegant young lady like Amelia, who had grown up in such a well-off environment, would surely have culture shock from seeing how different the lifestyles of a slave and aristocrat were.

When Siwoo tried to go towards the door while having such thoughts, Amelia suddenly grabbed his sleeve.

“Excuse me…”

Siwoo, who was facing the opposite direction, could feel the hem of his sleeve being pulled by her small hands.

There was a scent coming from her that swept all the foul smells from the area.

“Janitor, there’s something I would like to tell you.”

“Yes, go ahead. I’m listening.”

Amelia looked up at Siwoo’s face as if she had made up her mind.

Amelia opened her mouth, but the words she wanted to say seemed to be stuck in her throat as she gasped for air.

“Ms. Associate Professor?”

Amelia released the hem of Siwoo’s sleeve, appearing to have lost her composure. She remained silent for a while before speaking.

“From now on, Shin Siwoo, the Janitor, is my exclusive slave, therefore, I can’t let you wear such undignified clothing.”

“It’s a clean outfit…”

“You will change into something else later, but you’ll follow me for the time being.”

Amelia crept out of the barn and continued walking without saying anything else.

Siwoo had no idea what had happened to her all of a sudden.

Still, there was no reason to refuse if she decided to give him clothes.

He had been running out of clothes lately.

Siwoo threw the package of clothing onto a pile of straw before chasing after Amelia.

1. (Amelia’s POV)

Amelia was feeling uncomfortable.

She felt as if she had a stomach ache after eating spoiled cheese a very, very long time ago.

All of this had happened to her since she saw Shin Siwoo’s lodging.

Amelia involuntarily shut her eyelids as she recalled the events of the day Siwoo had rejected her.

It was the event that happened after Siwoo’s blatantly refused to serve her at night in front of Sophia.

Amelia, who had been insulted by a newcomer slave, rushed to the academy’s administrative office the following day.

Despite her fury, Amelia spoke calmly when giving the staff orders.

She gave the order to give that lowly slave the worst lodging available as the first phase of his torment.

Despite his status as a mere slave, Siwoo had shown the audacity to defy the order of a witch.

Amelia’s anger was at a boiling point when she thought about how he had insulted her in such a blatant manner.

Although she did not immediately make it obvious on the spot, Amelia’s face was red all night long from anger, and she was so distracted by the incident that she couldn’t even concentrate on solving a single magic formula for the rest of the night.

There had been no doubt as to whether this was a fitting punishment until that point.

After receiving a rejection from a slave, Amelia experienced a sense of shame so strong and unabashed that it seemed to consume her for the very first time in her life. Such things had never been done to her before.

Amelia, who knew how unpleasant it is to sleep in a bed that was hard and uncomfortable, took the best revenge that she could think of at the time.

It made sense as to why Amelia had just suddenly remembered something she had completely forgotten.

That was because she needed to tell Siwoo that he needed to move his dormitory closer to the research building since he had become her exclusive slave.

Also, Gehenna had a yearly cycle of twelve months.

The lawn that had been mana-modified never withered.

The lodging for Siwoo was located at the top of the mountain, where the long grass was rippled by the gusts of wind.

The scenery of the academy, which had a great deal of sunlight and, above all, a view of the academy below the hill was excellent.

Amelia doubted her memory of the order she gave at the administrative office when she saw Siwoo’s lodging from a distance.

She was sure that she had ordered them to arrange the worst living space for Siwoo, but the place he was relocated to was a huge wooden building in such a good location.

She wasn’t particularly upset about it, but it had gotten to the point where she had some doubts about how the academy handled its business.

When Amelia was heading toward the barn where Siwoo lived with a parasol to inform him of his transfer to a new lodging, the door in the distance opened and he came out running.

“What’s the matter? Ms. Associate Professor.”

Amelia went ahead to check on his place after explaining the situation to him, who sprinted out of the room panting.

Amelia ventured to this distant place because she hoped to find out what kind of place Siwoo had come to live in, and how her revenge was carried out.

It was a new feeling.

“It’s a bit embarrassing letting the Associate Professor into such a shabby place.”

Amelia doubted her eyes when the door opened under his awkward escort.

The floor of the barn was soggy and smelled strange.

The ceiling was all rotten and broken, leaving the sky visible in several places, and wooden boxes and straws, which were used as furniture, were wet and lying around.

She had instructed the administrative office to transfer him to a subpar lodging.

However, Amelia intended for him to be transferred to a home in Tarot Town when she ordered the “worst lodging available”.

The academy’s facilities were all colorful and beautiful, so even if it was the worst, she didn’t expect such a large gap to exist.

And for that reason, Siwoo’s accommodation was not a place for humans to live.

Amelia frowned at the sudden throbbing in her chest.

Her heart seemed to be pounding so hard that it started to become painful.

That feeling was strange.

“Is it okay to live in a place like this? Have you actually been living here?”

“Yes.”

“For 5 years?”

“I originally had a different lodging, but after about a week, my lodging was moved here. They told me they would rebuild the barn to make a place for me.”

“……..”

She simply checked to see if he was suffering as she desired, and it turned out that he actually was.

The feelings she was having at the time weren’t as pleasant as she had imagined it would be.

Siwoo was making jokes with her, despite having no idea what Amelia was currently experiencing.

“I hope the inn I’m going to live in would be a little better this time.”

Siwoo, who appeared to be the first to leave the barn, laughed as if his situation was irrelevant and paid no attention to Amelia.

Amelia couldn’t help but pull Siwoo’s sleeve from behind.

She realized it was time to tell him how he ended up living in such a shitty place.

She gradually felt more inclined to tell the truth to him.

“Excuse me…”

Siwoo was a slave, and Amelia was a woman of noble birth, but despite their social standings she genuinely wanted to apologize to him.

However, he would find her apology ridiculous from his point of view.

Amelia wasn’t sure if she could persuade Siwoo that her order was the reason he ended up in the worst possible location, even if that wasn’t her intention.

“Janitor, there’s something I would like to tell you.”

“Yes, go ahead. I’m listening.”

Amelia somehow managed to open her mouth.

However, as soon as she tried to apologize to him, she found herself suffocating.

She didn’t know what to say.

She had no idea where to even begin.

She had never apologized before and was unsure of the appropriate breathing, expression, and tone to use.

It wasn’t like she was casting a particularly difficult spell.

Even though she knew a simple apology would suffice, she found that her mind became white and obstructed, as if the words had become stuck.

“Ms. Associate Professor?”

When Amelia felt his questionable look, she was confused and spat out whatever came into her mind.

It seemed as though she’d blurted out the words without really thinking them through.

“From now on, Shin Siwoo, the janitor, is my exclusive slave, therefore, I can’t let you wear such undignified clothing.”

“It’s a clean outfit…”

“You will change into something else later, but you’ll follow me for the time being.”

That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say.

Amelia bit her lips in frustration and stomped out of the barn before Siwoo.

Now that it had come to this, she was going to buy some clothing for him.

The sense of guilt that had been vaguely present when she failed to apologize to him was wiped away.

All she had to do was treat him better and be kind to him.

That was the decision Amelia reached after making up her mind.