Chapter 1
Calliona, the sister Liriope loved for so long and hated at the same time, was dead.
“Found it! The corpse of the Black Witch, Calliona!”
“Search the area! There must still be some of Beligoth’s followers lurking nearby!”
In the polluted forest where the battle of witches had raged, a foul stench of blood lingered, impossible to mask.
Under a torrent of rain as sharp as knives, Liriope stared in shock at the cold corpse lying on the ground.
Three magic towers had vowed to maintain the balance of the world and protect this land from disasters.
Among them, the Northern Magic Tower had betrayed that vow and turned against humanity.
The wizards of the Northern Magic Tower became enemies of all, seeking to harness the powers of calamity to hasten the world’s end, turning the world into a hellscape.
Liriope and Calliona were witches of the Northern Magic Tower, and Calliona, the elder sister, was a genius poised to become the next Tower Master.
Unlike Liriope, who was always branded as a weak learner and eventually expelled, Calliona was a true genius, widely recognized for her abilities.
But with arrogance to match her talent, she always looked down on everyone with contempt.
And now, Liriope’s sister, who had regarded everyone with disdain, lay on the ground in a pitiful state, covered in blood and mud, far from the fastidious, obsessive-compulsive person she had been.
“Finally, that wretch is dead!”
“Hah, this demoness is dead? Seems there’s a god in this world after all.”
“No, it can’t be… It can’t! I was supposed to kill her with my own hands, to take my revenge myself… How could she slaughter my family so brutally and then die so easily!”
The voices of people cursing and shouting at the corpse nearly deafened Liriope.
‘Why?’
Under the cold rain, Liriope repeated a futile question in her mind over and over in a daze.
‘Why did it end like this? How did this happen?’
Then, she suddenly recalled the voice of a cursed man.
“It seems you two have a talent for witchcraft. How about coming with me? If you do, you’ll never suffer cold or hunger again.”
Ah, yes. Everything started to go wrong from that day.
That winter day when a white snowstorm raged.
No matter how hard the wizards worked to drive the shadows of calamity from the polluted holy lands and reclaim the earth, the number of gravestones grew each year, as did the orphans.
The two sisters were only twelve and thirteen years old when they were left alone.
Having suddenly lost their parents and with no possessions, as they wandered the streets, a man in a blue robe extended his hand to them.
The naive girls had few options and followed the only person who accepted them.
At the time, they thought it was mercy and kindness, but what a foolish illusion.
The place they arrived at was no paradise by any means.
A place that trained powerful wizards under that banner, where they underwent brutal training daily, and no one cared if children who didn’t meet the standards died.
How could such a nightmarish place, where daily survival was a challenge in itself, be compared to paradise?
In such a harsh environment where protecting oneself was difficult, how hard must it have been for Calliona to care for her younger sister, who was like a burden to her?
Perhaps that’s why the gentle elder sister began to change.
“I’m ashamed to have an idiot like you as my sister. Anyway, blood ties don’t matter to Beligoth’s wizards, so don’t you dare call me your sister in front of others.”
At some point, it seemed Calliona was determined to erase Liriope from her life entirely.
She started associating with evil wizards in the Northern Magic Tower, committing all sorts of heinous acts.
She no longer pretended to know Liriope when she was bullied for being a slow learner.
Worse still, Calliona befriended those who publicly humiliated Liriope and took as a lover someone who despised her.
Even when Liriope nearly died at their hands, Calliona only watched with cold eyes from afar.
The experience of having the person you thought would be with you until the day you died become more distant than a stranger was like drinking bitter poison.
“Liriope, you don’t deserve to bear the name Beligoth.”
The most shocking thing was that the one who expelled Liriope from the Magic Tower was none other than Calliona.
“From this day forward, you are no longer a witch of the Northern Magic Tower. So don’t ever appear before me again. If you do, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”
The memory of that cruel day when she was bound like a hunted animal and forced to press her head into the ground in humiliation.
Calliona’s cold, harsh voice fell upon her like the blade of a guillotine.
Calliona, who crushed Liriope’s magical core herself while stepping on her writhing body.
Liriope would never forget that excruciating pain for the rest of her life.
Even when Liriope became powerless, unable to use magic ever again, her elder sister didn’t spare her a glance.
Surely, in that moment, the two crossed a river of no return.
Calliona wasn’t one to speak empty words, so if they met again, she was fully capable of ending her bothersome younger sister with her own hands.
This was one of the reasons Liriope joined the Northern Magic Tower witch-hunting squad, tracking down the notorious Calliona.
She would rather die by her sister’s hand.
So when she finally confronted Calliona on a moonless night some time ago, she felt a sense of relief.
“Have you lost your mind? You fool, is this a place you can sneak into without fear!”
But why?
In the end, Calliona didn’t kill her.
“Come with me. You shouldn’t be in a place like this. Leave quickly before anyone sees you!”
The black magic that had once cruelly wounded Liriope now enveloped her to protect her.
“Go quickly. Don’t ever come back here. Don’t wander into places that don’t suit you. Live your life as if I don’t exist. Understood?”
In an instant, a spatial teleportation spell unfolded, and black magic feathers fluttered in her field of vision.
In that moment when their eyes met, Liriope saw in Calliona the remnants of the familiar affection she had desperately longed for.
“Let’s go… together.”
So Liriope, as if returning to her childhood, clung to her sister for the last time.
“Come with me, sister…!”
Both of them felt that this was their final moment.
Through the quiet black magic that tore through space like bars, a pale hand reached out.
“Farewell. Live well, Liriope.
I hope you grow old and live until seventy, and please, forget I ever existed.”
With a faint smile like a sigh, a warm touch like an illusion and a fleeting whisper passed by.
Suddenly, she was engulfed by a storm of black magic feathers.
That was the last memory of Calliona alive.
“But this is strange. These magical traces belong to Beligoth’s wizards, don’t they? This woman held a high position in the Northern Magic Tower, so why did she die so horribly?”
“Who cares? Maybe there was an internal conflict among them! Tsk, this wretch! She deserves to die a hundred more times!”
“Wait, what are you doing? Lord Calix said not to touch the witches’ corpses.”
“Damn it, but a little venting won’t hurt, right!”
Thud!
Someone spat on the corpse lying in the mud, barely recognizable as her sister, and began mercilessly kicking the cold body.
Others who had been cursing Calliona joined in one by one, as if infected by madness.
“Stop…”
In that moment, Liriope’s pale, bloodless lips trembled.
Despite how much she had hated her sister at one point, she felt no satisfaction.
“Stop. Please, stop…!”
Instead, it felt as if her throat was closing up and her stomach was twisting, as if she might die on the spot.
“Don’t defile my sister, my sister…!”
It was only natural.
No matter how much people cursed her or said she deserved to die, or even if she truly was an evil deserving of hell as they claimed, Calliona was still Liriope’s beloved sister.
When Liriope suddenly rushed forward and began striking and pushing people in a frenzy, everyone at the scene frowned.
“Get out of the way! How dare you, a powerless nobody, interfere?”
“You insolent wretch! Lord Calix, in his mercy, let you join the hunting squad despite your inability to use magic, and now you’re defending this wretch?”
“I knew it. You filthy Beligoth followers! I knew you were colluding with them from the start! You lied when you said the Northern Magic Tower expelled you, didn’t you?”
Liriope fell into the mud, kicked repeatedly, but she kept crawling toward Calliona, gritting her teeth.
My only sister, Calliona.
The one who had always been by her side since birth, the other half of her life she thought she could trust and rely on.
I don’t know. What exactly happened to her, or why she lived this life.
If only I could, I would ask her directly, but that chance will never come.
Because Calliona is dead.
She left Liriope and died alone…
If I had been a more dependable younger sister, could I have prevented her from meeting this death today?
But she was too powerless and weak, only able to blame herself and cry, incapable of doing anything else.
“Wait… when did the forest get this dark?”
“Now that you mention it… Damn it! Retreat quickly! The shadows are coming back!”
“Hurry, we’ve gone too deep into the polluted forest! Those lunatics from Beligoth! Even their hideouts are in disgusting places like this…!”
Ah… I want to return to those days when my sister and I laughed and faced each other without any worries.
In that moment, as Liriope’s hand finally touched Calliona’s cold body amidst this futile wish,
[At last, I’ve found you.]
Suddenly, a chilling voice pierced her mind.
Boom, crash!
A brilliant flash lit up the sky covered in black clouds, followed by a tremendous roar of thunder accompanied by lightning, as if it had been waiting.
[The Last Dawn Witch of the West. My final contractor.]
As Liriope stopped breathing, overwhelmed by a sense of strangeness as if time had frozen, the lights and sounds of the world suddenly vanished.
[I will grant your wish, so pay the price.]
Then, a pitch-black darkness and a vast void swallowed her like a wave.
