How About a Refill? ~The Elegant Tea Party of the Grand Witches~ - Chapter 27

Investigation Report

There was an old mansion in the outskirts of the capital.

The mansion was built long ago by a prosperous family as a place for their sick daughter to recuperate. It was surrounded on all sides by a garden full of flowers that bloomed all year round. The flowers were planted around the house so they could comfort the sick daughter no matter which room of the house she stayed in.  

Alessia woke up in one of the rooms covered by said flowers.

‘Where am I…?’

She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. She wanted to shout out at the unfamiliar scene before her, but held her tongue and examined her surroundings. 

‘I’m not bound by any ropes…’

She glanced down at her body to make sure she was alright and then sat up.

She was lying on a large, carefully prepared bed. The sheets were of a fine quality, perfect for nobility.

The rest of the room was dark with no lamp to illuminate it.

‘Perhaps I was abducted? The three staff members with me… they’re not here. I hope they’re alright.’

‘I wonder if there is something here that will tell me where I am…’

Her eyes fell on the large window that was letting in moonlight.

Alessia quietly got off the bed and walked to the window to glance outside.

“So you’re awake? Miss Alessia Caparoni.”

Alessia’s body froze at the unexpected voice that came from behind her. Nervous, she slowly turned around and saw a man with shoulder-length silver hair, and golden eyes sitting in an armchair in one corner of the room. He was looking at her. He looked to be about the same age as Alessia.

“What happened to the people who were with me?”

Alessia swallowed her fear and questioned the man with a determined expression. The man’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You’re quite courageous.”

“Please answer the question.”

The man got up and slowly walked up to her. Alessia pressed her hand against the wall behind her and moved back to keep some distance between them, but finally hit the corner of the room with no room for escape.

The man was a head taller than Alessia. He pressed her into the corner and, grabbing a lock of her golden hair, placed a kiss on it. 

“What are you…!”

Alessia’s hand shot up to slap him, but he grabbed it in his and stopped it midway. He lowered his head to her ear and softly whispered.

“Don’t worry. Your people are safe. They were returned to the original place along with the carriage.”

The man grasped her chin and turned her face towards himself. Forced to look up at him, Alessia grimaced in pain and then glared at the man.

“Where is this place? Let go of my hand!”

At her distress the man tilted his face with a pleased expression.

“You’re pretty good. Beautiful and strong willed, you don’t back down at all. Just like a magnificent dragon! Hahaha!”

The man stepped away from Alessia and began walking to the door. Alessia felt her legs going weak and slid down to the floor. 

“You can call me Gil. You’ll have to stay here for a while. I won’t do anything bad as long as I don’t feel any strange urges.”

Saying so, he left the room.

　◇

The three witches gathered in Beatrice’s mansion to discuss their recent investigations.

“I have an important announcement about the dragon that showed up in the valley.”

Eleonora pulled out a satchel from her orbes and placed it on the round table.

“I found these in various places in the valley when I was conducting my research.”

She pulled out some small bottles filled with red stones from the bag and handed one to both Beatrice and Valeria.

The bottle’s lids were attached with labels with a strange seal stamped on them.

“What’s this?”

“These are no ordinary red stones, right?”

They turned around the bottle, and held it up in the sunlight to study the stones.

“These are probably made from hardened blood of a young black dragon. Also, these bottles have the screams of that young dragon charged inside them. Don’t open the seals.”

“How terrible…” 

Beatrice and Valeria scowled.

“If you place these stones on a silencing magic circle the screams would become inaudible to humans. They would only reach black dragons in the demonic realm. They may have terrible sight but their hearing is pretty good after all.”

“So they used this to lure the young dragon to the valley. What a despicable way of doing so. I feel nauseated.”

“Buut, what exactly did they do that for?”

At Beatrice’s question, Eleonora shrugged and let out a laugh.

“I think they might have been targeting me.”

“Targeting you? If it’s a black dragon isn’t it impossible. Are they stupid?”

“Well there are always some bands of people that don’t think well of me. That has been the case even now since 800 years ago. Also, the old dragon I defeated 200 years ago was with the help of the royal knights so I didn’t use all of my power. I guess they thought I wouldn’t be able to defeat a young dragon by myself.”

As a mixed-race person with dark elf blood, Eleonora had always lived by herself since she wasn’t fully accepted in either race.

Even after becoming a Grand witch, there were people who felt afraid of her for being different from them, so there had been attempts to eliminate her.

That was also one of the reasons Eleonora chose to move to the valley and live there by herself. It was also convenient as she needed to be there to protect the barrier against the demonic realm.

“If we suppose that the red robes used the black dragon’s beard and black magic stones in theri summoning, then it has to be connected with this black dragon right?”

“Well, it is possible for them to subdue a young dragon if they have a few people to do so. It’s just the effectiveness of the ingredients would be lower since the young one doesn’t have that much demonic power in it.”

“So they forcefully went after the dragon? Sounds difficult.”

Eleonora picked up the bottles, put them in the satchel and put it back inside her robe.

“I also found out something. I looked at the magic circle which was used to kidnap Alessia. As we thought, it looks to be drawn up by more than one person. But the number is less than we thought, maybe around 5 or 6 people in total.”

“If that’s so then it’s possible they really did use the beard and the magic stones.”

“Looking at the abduction, and Ellie’s findings, it seems to be an organized crime.”

“It would be good if we also looked into the true salvation religion that Emilio mentioned.”

With that, the witches dispersed and began investigating once again.