Chapter 105: Chapter 105: The Quiet and Beautiful Girl_1
Aiden sat in the mist, his mind blank.
What... was happening?
The air around him became cool and moist; he faintly heard the hooting of owls that one could only hear in the suburbs after midnight.
The dense fog that prevented him from seeing his hand when he stretched it out began to thin a bit, and although his vision was still hazy, he could make out a little of his surroundings.
His office was nowhere to be seen; instead, there was a space shrouded in gray mist, with a large, solid wooden table in the center and a stack of jack-o’-lanterns on it. He found himself seated in a high-backed armchair next to the table, as if among the guests.
Besides him, there were others seated at the table—six people in total, including himself, all shrouded in gray mist, with only the woman at the head of the table, who clearly seemed to be the host, distinguishable.
Aiden couldn’t see her face but could vaguely make out that she seemed to be wearing a style of robe similar to the dresses Daili typically wore, only without the wide-brimmed witch’s hat like Daili’s.
Actually, she couldn’t wear it unless she cut two holes in the hat’s brim—Aiden was surprised to discover that the woman had a fairly sizeable pair of horns on her head.
A demon? Or perhaps... possessed by a demon? Aiden speculated in his mind.
He had started to calm down a bit and began to rapidly analyze the situation.
It was the gray mist from the pendant that had transported him to this strange, inexplicable space, and Meiruki had told him that the pendant was a token distributed by Abigail to those Great Witches she acknowledged; possessing this token would allow one to meet Abigail in person...
Therefore, the woman seated at the end of the table was most likely the "Witch at the Apex," Abigail.
So that’s how it is, this was the method to meet Abigail with the "Great Witch’s token."
It wasn’t that holding the pendant would allow one to traverse the mist in Banquet Forest to find her, but rather that holding the pendant would allow Abigail to summon one to this space.
In this space, Abigail was the host, and the other Great Witches were guests. From what had just happened, it seemed like this summoning was semi-compulsory and was facilitated through the pendant that served as a "token"; simply carrying the "token" was akin to consenting to Abigail’s summoning.
In other words, if Aiden now threw away the "token" in his hand and let it get far away, he should be able to break the summoning and leave this eerie place.
Leave?
No, since he could leave at any time, there was no need to rush.
Aiden decided to observe quietly for a while; he had grown a bit interested in this magical gathering.
There were six people here—if Daili, who had lost her freedom in prison, were included, that would make seven.
Seven seats for witches, and Aiden was occupying Presia’s spot.
Everyone other than Abigail was obscured by fog, and Aiden guessed that he probably appeared roughly the same in the others’ eyes.
Thanks to the mist, he could conceal his identity; otherwise, as a man occupying this spot, even if his face were not visible, his presence would be immediately obvious.
"Lamia, just to confirm, you aren’t eating, are you?" a person from the opposite seat uttered a muffled voice, "Because if the fog clears and you are swallowing the carcass of a Magic Beast like last time, I’m going to throw up."
"Don’t make it sound like I eat anything, I’ve been dieting recently," a hoarse laugh emerged from the mist beside Aiden, hissing like a snake’s tongue, "But if you, Qiqimora, were to stand in front of me, I wouldn’t mind trying a taste of you."
"Magic Potion Queen" Lamia was there too, having said the exact same thing as Meiruki...
As for Qiqimora, the witch’s name, he had never heard of it before.
That wasn’t strange, actually; a considerable number of witches chose to sever all ties with the secular world and live in seclusion, interacting only with other witches as a means to avoid being hunted and pursued by state authorities. Among them, there may well have been witches who could stand shoulder to shoulder with Daili and Presia.
While they conversed, Aiden noticed that their voices gradually became clearer, and the fog swirling around them seemed to have thinned a bit, vaguely revealing their silhouettes.
He realized something was wrong. The fog enveloping them was probably just some mechanism of the spell, and the fact they had been summoned to this space seemed to be a process that needed to gradually "load." Once the loading completed, the fog would thin out, and their silhouettes would gradually become visible.
With no time to think, he swiftly used his body modification ability to change his body into that of a woman’s, and tried to adjust it as much as possible to a height and build similar to Presia, as he remembered her.
Soon, everyone’s figures emerged from the fog. Fortunately, Aiden found that the attendees seemed only able to see a bit of each other’s contours, not able to discern faces and details like fabric and patterns on their clothing.
He didn’t know whether this was something Abigail, the spell caster, had done on purpose for some reason, or if the spell could only achieve this much. But in any case, thanks to this situation and his body-modifying ability, it seemed Aiden might be able to hold out a little longer.
However, suddenly activating this ability in such an emergency was much more painful than transforming methodically, and Aiden barely managed to suppress a cry.
Once he had recovered, he silently surveyed the people present.
Two individuals were sitting opposite him, one on either side of her.
When he saw Lamia sitting on his left, he couldn’t help but freeze for a moment.
Lamia’s figure was visibly larger than a normal person’s, and... it seemed she wasn’t wearing any clothes. But due to the darkness and the natural blurring effect of the thin fog, Aiden couldn’t see any details.
But Aiden didn’t feel he was missing out on anything, for Lamia didn’t even have legs—she had a long snake’s tail coiled around the chair, not seated but rather sprawled on it.
Aiden could faintly make out the slender, forked tongue protruding from Lamia’s mouth.
As Meiruki had mentioned before, Lamia had already transformed herself into a monster.
Considering the look on Presia after she took the Magic Potion, Aiden was a bit afraid to imagine what Lamia’s true form might look like with such a bizarre appearance.
"What?" Lamia noticed his gaze and glanced over.
Aiden shook his head and turned his face back.
He knew he couldn’t make a sound indiscriminately; while the ability to modify his body could change his voice, to specifically mimic someone’s vocal timbre required precise adjustments that Aiden couldn’t achieve at the moment.
To maintain his disguise, he had to remain a quiet and composed beautiful girl here.
But then, the witch seated to his right suddenly spoke to him, "Presia, what on earth are you wearing? Even if you can’t buy nice clothes, at least get something that fits."
