Chapter 316: Witches
The brown-haired girl jumped up and hugged Victor, seeming unaffected by the man's new appearance.
A very different situation from the other woman who was the perfect description of 'white'.
She was completely white, her skin, her eyes, her hair, her clothes.
If she stood in a completely white room, no one would notice she was there, she was that weird.
She just stared at Victor, transfixed, as she was simply too shocked at the difference between the old Victor and the current one.
In fact, that was the normal reaction. Few people would be so airheaded that they would ignore it. Few people were like that brown-haired woman.
"Hey, White, Brown, how are you doing?" Victor chuckled a little and asked as he stroked Brown's head.
'White and Brown?' Mizuki raised her eyebrow at these names, she clearly understood that these names were not the girls' real names.
'Is it some code or something?' Mizuki was curious, but she didn't delve too deeply.
"Hehehehehe~." Brown only laughed when she felt Victor's caress.
Victor's smile grew a little gentler. This silly girl reminded him a lot of Pepper. When she showed up at this place on Esther's recommendation, he was actually very surprised at how quickly she got along with him.
Especially during the time when his emotions were unstable.
"... We are fine, thank you very much, Count." White responded after waking up from her stupor.
"No need to call me Count, White. I've told you this before."
"... I know." She flashed a small smile.
Sigh.
He sighed a little.
"Where are the other girls?"
"Busy." White spoke with the same smile.
Victor understood what she meant. Basically, the other Witches weren't here because of Mizuki and Natalia.
The moment Victor touched the wall to enter this room, the Witches inside were able to see outside, and they decided whether or not to meet the visitor.
Victor thought that if he were alone or with Ruby, all the Witches wouldn't have left.
He looked around with his violet eyes, and he could see that Witches were hiding in various parts of this place with their magic.
He could see from the girls' expressions that they wanted to come here, but they were suspicious of Natalia and Mizuki.
"Oya?" Brown looked down towards Victor's Odachi, which had drawn a lot of attention due to its size.
"What is that?" She looked confused at the Odachi since she felt like it gave the same feeling as when she was looking at Victor.
She stopped hugging Victor and stood up. As she was really short compared to Victor [165 CM Tall], the Odachi seemed way too big compared to her.
In fact, this Odachi was too big for all the girls around.
White, who was the same height as Natalia [170 CM tall], couldn't even imagine if she could lift the Odachi or not, it was just too ridiculous.
If she didn't know that Victor was a Vampire, a being with immense physical strength, a being that could use this giant Odachi like an ordinary katana, she would definitely have wondered if it was possible for a human to use this odachi.
In fact, even Mizuki, who was 175 CM tall, was not confident enough to properly use this Odachi.
She had the strength to lift the Odachi, considering she'd created it, but using it correctly was another story.
Victor's Odachi's blade was just enormous, much larger than her Odachi.
But that was Mizuki's goal in creating the Odachi. She'd created it for a monster to wield and not a normal human.
"She has a name, you know?" Victor chuckled a little and released the Odachi.
As if it had a life of its own, the Odachi stood by Victor's side:
"Meet, Junketsu, the Blade of a Progenitor."
Even though the Odachi was inside the scabbard, the women could sense an instinctive danger coming from that Odachi, except for Brown.
"Ohhh..." Brown looked at the floating Odachi with her eyes shining.
"And… This is the person who created this Odachi." Victor lightly touched Mizuki's shoulder.
"..." The two Witches looked at Mizuki with eyes full of respect. After all, if this was the woman who could create this terrifying blade, it just meant that she was very strong.
Mizuki's brow twitched a little as she noticed the women's admiring looks, she didn't want that kind of admiration!
She just helped an 'enemy' get stronger!
Okay, so she kind of got carried away when she created the Odachi, but she didn't think that when the Odachi would come in contact with Victor's blood, the blade would become so…dangerous.
'Forgot about it.' Mizuki thought to herself.
Now that the damage was done, she just hoped that Victor didn't point that blade at her someday because it would be quite annoying to deal with. After all, she'd also taught him the hunter martial arts that she'd learned and some of her personal skills.
'...Wait, doesn't that mean I'm completely naked in front of him...?' Mizuki just realized the pit she'd dug for herself; 'If he fights me, he'll easily defeat me. I need new techniques!'
"This woman, you must know who she is." Victor touched Natalia's head.
"Yes, yes. She's on the report." Brown laughed.
"Alioth, right?" White spoke in unemotional neutral.
"Indeed." Victor nodded.
"...?" Natalia looked confused at White, who was looking at her with an almost imperceptible small smile as if she was pleased about something.
"Anyway, I'm in a hurry. Can you guys help me with something?"
"..." Brown and White looked at each other and then nodded their heads with their respective smiles:
"Of course."
...
Currently, in a secluded room, a completely white woman and a man were present.
Victor was sitting on the floor on top of a rather complex magical pentagram.
Victor had two goals when visiting these Witches. First, he wanted to turn one of Adonis' memories into a kind of magical recording; he would edit the memory so that the individuals would have their names censored.
After all, the name wasn't important. Only the situation itself was.
He needed to take these precautionary measures, or one of his wives' clans would become the target of a Certain old man's wrath.
Yes, the specific memory Victor wanted was the memory of the times Adonis visited Vlad's Queen.
Victor's second goal was to try to reorganize his memories.
In this case, the memories of all beings he'd absorbed from Roxanne.
At that time, as he absorbed all those beings, and as he had no control over his power, he ended up absorbing everything.
His plan was to organize these memories into a kind of library-like mind palace so that in the future, he could visit every individual he had absorbed in the past, and learn what was useful, and discard the rest.
As Adonis had said, he is a Night King, so he can place a value on the 'blood' of the people who he'd absorbed.
And Victor would do just that. He would take one being, strip out the good parts for himself, and discard the rest.
He needed to organize his mind.
The first objective was done. It was relatively easy to copy a memory and put it in a magic device, the tricky part started now.
White approached Victor and sat in front of him:
"The ritual is ready. Are you ready, Count?"
"Yes."
White closed her eyes and started speaking incomprehensible words to Victor.
Victor watched the woman in front of him.
Codename: White.
A Witch who specialized in extremely delicate magic, a Witch who specialized in memories.
She was an ordinary Witch who lived in the Witch realm. She specialized in psychology with a common magic of reading memories. Using this magic, she always helped Witches who had traumas from their days as humans.
But she got into trouble because Witches discovered that this 'ordinary' memory magic was actually very strong. It could enter a Witch's head and steal all their knowledge.
It didn't matter if Witches had mental defenses, she would get it all.
If she saw a Witch who had knowledge she wanted, she would simply trick that Witch into visiting her house and 'steal' all of the memories related to that particular Witch's knowledge of magic.
At first glance, her magic appeared to be amazing, but it had major flaws.
The process of stealing memories was quite complicated. She needed various materials to boost her magic and a large amount of time to prepare the magic.
The subject needed to stay asleep too and couldn't wake up during the process, and every time when the ritual was over, she was exhausted.
But... Despite all these limitations, she gained the knowledge of over 50 Witches.
She ran away from the Witch realms because her other sisters got greedy for her power. Her magic was her greatest tool, and if she was caught by the forces of the Queen or even the citizens of the Witch realm…
She would have to give her magic services to these women 'for free'. She would be forced to give all her magic research and even teach those whores her magic.
She didn't want that, she didn't want to lose her unique magic, and she didn't want to teach anyone either.
Like all Witches, she was greedy. She stole other people's magic, but she didn't want anyone to steal her magic.
'Although that is the nature of all beings.' Victor didn't blame or pity White. She was an adult, she made these choices even knowing the consequences.
Hearing about her life story, the only thing Victor thought was, 'As expected, you can't completely trust a Witch.'
Trusting a Witch was stupid. Just like Demons and Vampires, they were very greedy and wouldn't think twice about betraying someone.
If it wasn't for the magic contract, Victor wouldn't even be here. Despite having a 'good relationship' with the Witches here, he didn't trust any of them.
The only people Victor completely trusted were his wives, his father, and his mother.
Esther recruited her when White was banished and offered shelter, and with the magical contract, they became loyal to Ruby and Victor.
And in exchange for their loyalty, they could research anything in a safe environment, as long as their research didn't harm their contractors.
Needless to say, White easily accepted, staying under the protection of a Vampire Count was far better than living in the Witch Kingdom.
White extended her arms fully, and several magic circles began to appear on her arms.
She slowly started to bring her hands closer to each other.
The magic circles of her arms descended towards her wrists like a bracelet.
As white spherical power appeared between her two hands, White opened her eyes and looked at Victor.
"The process of rearranging memories is quite simple, I will just make several 'doors' in your mind, and you can access this place every time you meditate."
"Mm." Victor nodded as he looked at the white power.
Honestly, Victor didn't need to do that, he could just use his progenitor powers, and over time, he could instinctively sort out his memories.
But the problem was that this natural method would take a long time. After all, he needed to have control over his Progenitor form, and that was something that was far from happening now.
That form was simply too strong for his body and possibly his soul to handle.
It was not for nothing that there was another being within himself, a being that was the representation of his power.
Because of that, he was taking a shortcut.
By living with the Witches for a year, he'd discovered how completely broken these women were.
If they had enough resources and mana, they could do anything.
Their potentials were limitless.
'Because of that, the Witch Queen always takes in women who awaken magical powers.'
With their many strange powers, Witches could be quite a threat, but it was a great shame that most of them weren't combat-oriented Witches.
Having many strange powers was also a disadvantage as Witches were not always prepared for combat like Vampires or Werewolves.
But that didn't mean they were not dangerous. Take White, for example. If she wanted to steal all the knowledge of a race and had support to back her up, she could easily do that.
If she wanted the Yōkai's secrets, she could just make a base near the Yōkai and slowly kidnap their leaders and absorb their knowledge.
It might take a long time, but she would definitely get it all and wreak havoc on the Yōkai.
This was just White. But what if multiple Witches worked together?
However, that was something that hardly happened because all of them were quite individualistic and competitive.
Victor had a thought that if the Witch Queen wanted to, she could easily overthrow any race other than Werewolves, Vampires, Angels, Demons, and Gods.
After all, each of those races mentioned had its own realm that was quite difficult to access.
"Are you ready?" She asked.
"Yes." Victor closed his eyes.
White gently clapped her hands and destroyed the white sphere.
Soon, the magic circles beneath her began to glow.
The ritual began.