Antagonist Protection Service-Chapter 159 - City of Witches (3)

159: City of Witches (3)

159: City of Witches (3)

Once I was alone, the first thing I did was check the schedule given to me before.

“Seems ordinary enough…

The first lesson is due in a few hours, but isn’t that a bit late…?”

Similar to the corridor from before, this bedroom I was assigned had a sizeable window to gaze outside from, and of course, it was still dark as all hell out there.

“Even then, it would still be the early hours of the morning at best…”

It was certainly odd to be having a lesson at that time, but I guess I could make sense of it by thinking that that was simply a quirk of the story, or perhaps the characters themselves.

If everyone here was a witch like the disguise implied, then maybe it wasn’t so strange that they would spend most of their time in the dark.

Incidentally, I did find it a little strange that the view seemed much, much higher from this window than it did in the corridor, but that wasn’t much of a surprise considering the teleporting rooms I had already witnessed first-hand.

‘That woman, Aradine…

If she was the one who ‘hired’ the tutor from the disguise, then she must be that White Witch Queen Librarian mentioned…’

In that case, it definitely wasn’t strange to have all this magical nonsense going on.

Either way, since there was still a while until the first lesson, and I wasn’t tired enough to rest just yet, I thought I might as well get a good look around the place.

Not only did I have to find the Protagonist, but I also had to figure out what was going on as a generality.

In Drakon-Rasa, even when I met the Protagonist, I wasn’t able to kill her for a long time.

Even when she put herself in vulnerable positions, and even when she was literally crying by herself in the corner of some isolated place on her knees, I was still in a position where I had to be patient.

If 1-star Contracts had Protagonists that were weak and had nothing to protect them, and 2-star Contracts had Protagonists that were weak themselves, but had some form of external protection that meant I couldn’t just kill them on the spot…

Then, it would naturally follow for 3-star Contracts to have some form of protection that they could exercise with their own power, right?

Well, either that, or just a stronger form of external protection than 2-star Protagonists.

Thinking back to Drakon-Rasa, it was the same then too―Not only did the Protagonist carry around that Amulet that would revive her, but she also had that weird magic that could’ve killed me in retaliation.

Going one step further, I would argue that maybe Protagonists from one to three stars are mostly harmless.

The only difficult part was finding a way to kill them whilst avoiding the surrounding dangers of the plot or side characters.

Needless to say, I’m sure 4-star and 5-star Protagonists would be when they start to pose a real threat to my life, but that’s not what this was.

‘In that case, then this time around too, there’s gotta be some special method I have to use to take them out.

Just killing them straight up isn’t going to work…

it never is that simple.’

Whether it was a particular magical item the Protagonist was wearing, or some other crazy thing I couldn’t even imagine right now, I had to figure it out in order to clear the Contract.

“Alright.

I’m not gonna make any progress by just stalling, so let’s just explore a little.”

Picking up the red pin of a flower that Aradine had left me, I equipped it neatly on the chest of my suit before walking over to the door.

Casually opening it, a familiar corridor was revealed.

Walking through and closing the door behind me, the first thing I did was go to check outside the windows on the opposite site.

“…Huh.”

It was the same corridor as before, as evident by the ghostly, mystifying view outside.

“Guess they like reusing assets in this place…”

My own bad joke causing the ends of my lips to curl up slightly, I turned away and continued down the corridor, just as dark and eerie as before.

‘I shouldn’t be stuck in a loop this time, right…?’

Subconsciously fiddling with and adjusting the position of the pin on my chest, I watched every spot of the corridor attentively while walking, watching out for any peculiar occurrences or visible repeats.

It still felt like it took a while, perhaps because I was going slow due to my own nervousness, but eventually I did reach the end of the corridor.

There, a single door stood.

“…”

Watching the door sceptically, my eyebrows naturally lowered.

It felt wrong, but I approached it and tentatively grabbed the handle, opening it slowly.

‘…Oh?’

Surprisingly, what lay on the other side was a vast garden.

It was open to the elements, a view of the massive full moon visible right overhead somehow, casting its silvery hue upon the countless rows of flower bushes below.

Moreover, the flowers themselves, a matching breed of something I had never seen before, seemed to reflect the pale moonlight as a soft, violet glow that even seemed to leave the confines of the petals themselves, letting the light itself float through the air in the form of tiny wisps, like fireflies.

Walking silently through the flower garden, which was more like a miniature field, I wondered if it was actually a location inside the place I just was, or if it was actually as far away as to be positioned right beneath the moon, which appeared very far away from the corridor and the bedchamber windows.

‘I guess it doesn’t matter so much…

It’s all magic at the end of the day…

It’s still crazy though…’

At some point whilst I was casually exploring the surprisingly peaceful place, which seemed to have calmed me down significantly despite its extreme magical atmosphere, I began to hear an unusual noise.

“…?”

Or perhaps, rather than unusual, it was simply a noise I wouldn’t have expected to hear in a place like this.

“Is that…

piano…?”

I already knew there wasn’t going to be anything like 「scenes」 or background OSTs playing because this story was a Paper Book Publication, meaning someone was actually playing a physical piano somewhere nearby.

Following the sound through the garden, a labyrinth of amethyst wisps and beautiful violet flowers, it grew progressively louder, until I finally reached it.

In the middle of a small clearing, a circle without any flower bushes atop its stone floor.

A grand piano, and sitting just before it, a small girl.