Or rather, in a small settlement. It was nighttime, with a full moon. Christopher was currently inside a small bar. He stood out quite a bit because he was, well, a foreigner, with reddish hair, but even so, no one approached him. He was there because he was supposed to be following Mathias.

Despite that, he was… resting, so to speak.

At that moment, Christopher noticed something, and it seemed the townspeople did too.

"Oh, wow…" he said.

Outside the bar, a man was walking alone. His clothes were strange, almost like rags…

“The people here seem to respect him, but… Ah, I see…”

He realized something.

“Excuse me, who is that man? Could you tell me?” he asked the bartender, speaking in Spanish.

“Um…”

It seemed the man didn’t want to say who it was because Christopher was a stranger. Christopher blinked.

“He’s a witch.”

“Alright, thanks for telling me.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“So I was right.”

He left.

Now he was approaching the man who was supposedly a witch.

“So, it’s you.”

“Huh? Were you waiting for me?” Christopher asked.

“No, it’s just that you radiate a spirit of hostility that’s hard to ignore,” the man replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”

He started to walk away. A flame appeared above Christopher, and a spectral snake appeared on the man’s shoulder.

“Ah, so it’s not Makt…”

“Cut the chatter,” Christopher replied, extinguishing the flame.

“Huh?” The man turned, and the snake spoke to him. Now, the man was visibly scared.

“You cursed me,” Christopher said. “Did you really think that would work? Ha, even that being on your shoulder is quite weak.”

“What do you want from me? Stay away!”

He began to flee.

“Ah!”

“Nothing, I was just bored,” Christopher suddenly appeared in front of him. “So you let yourself be deceived by a ‘creature’ for its ‘help,’ huh? Just look at you, you’re practically dead.”

He blinked.

“If you keep going like this, you won’t last another five years…”

“Ah… Ah…”

“So I’ll do you a favor.”

He blinked again and snapped his fingers. A humanoid figure appeared behind Chris.

image [https://i.imgur.com/H1NqpXy.png]

“That’s a…!” the man exclaimed.

“This?” Chris paused for a second. “It’s me.”

The humanoid figure touched the snake and…

“Bluarghhhhhh!!!”

“Aghhhhhhh!!!” the man screamed.

The snake vanished. It had been exorcised. Several spirits in its shadow met the same fate.

The man collapsed to the ground. He was dry… literally.

“…”

“They were connected… I didn’t expect this.”

First, he looked at his hand, as if frightened, then he glanced around. Some people were watching him.

“Well… letting yourself be controlled by ‘concepts’… Bah… What does it matter?”

“I wanted to do something interesting before meeting Jackeline, but this… Ugh. If all witches are like this, it’s disappointing.”

Power is terrifying, but… it’s also necessary. That’s what he thought. Furthermore, he wouldn’t let himself be controlled by it anymore but would use it to accomplish his plans and ideals.

Speaking more on this, he wanted to improve his skills and mastery, no longer depending on Martin and his power, to achieve what he had set out to do long ago… and at the same time, eliminate the scum who let themselves be controlled by these beings.

Moreover, according to him, what happened to Mat’s mother would never happen again. He regretted that. She wasn’t supposed to die back then.

“So… I’ll take his body, it might be useful.”

He blinked. The corpse turned into something like folded paper. After that, he left, heading into the forest.

||||||

“Uh, w-what?” Eliah.