Rewrite That Witch
CH1351 · Rewrite
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Chapter 1351: Crushed

The meeting place was the same. Even the seats had not changed much.

Valkries walked into the café and saw Roland at once, seated by the windows with the city spread out below him like a shadow he had grown large enough to cast. For a moment the sight played tricks on her — something divine about him, something unapproachable. She shook it off.

“I’m here.” She sat opposite him.

“What would you like to eat?” She shook her head. He caught the waiter’s eye. “One of everything, then. We can talk and eat at the same time.”

Coffee and pastries arrived quickly. Valkries took a small piece of cake without ceremony and placed it on her tongue, tasting the sweetness and the soft give of it — as though this were not a negotiation between enemies but an afternoon that simply happened to have good pastries in it. She had been passive at their first meeting, led like an animal by the nose. She had told herself it would not happen again. She could picture his expression every time he sent those texts, and she had endured it long enough.

“Something’s different about you,” Roland said, watching her.

“I’ve decided that eating and talking at the same time isn’t so bad.” She kept her tone easy. “Now. You’ve finally gotten a reply from me. Did you come to a conclusion?”

“What is your answer?”

“I refuse.”

A crack appeared in his composure — brief, but real. Startlement, and beneath it something that might have been puzzlement. He stayed very still with his cup raised, holding the position longer than made sense before finally bringing it to his mouth. The frown smoothed itself away.

”…What is your reason?”

“The fifty-fifty proposal sounded reasonable. Against the survival of an entire race, the front-line armies amount to nothing. I know the price must be paid.” She set another piece of pastry on her tongue. “I was almost convinced. The trouble is — everything you said only has meaning if it is true.”

“I am telling you the truth,” Roland said, and his voice had an edge she hadn’t heard before.

“But I cannot verify your truth.”

Silence.

“You see it too, don’t you? I am sealed inside this world. Every piece of information about the outside comes from you — the retreat in Wolfheart, the so-called Glory of the Sun. I cannot even track its progress, let alone stake a civilization on reports I have no way to check.”

“I thought you were smarter than this. After all the time spent here, reading your way through human history, judging the war potential of this species — isn’t the conclusion obvious—”

“Potential is not strength.” She set down her fork. “Yes, humanity has shown formidable force. Ursrook would not have named you equals otherwise. But the bulk of our forces are held at the Sky-sea Realm. If someone decides to commit fully against humanity, your people may not survive it. And the upgrade your civilization has received — I’ve traced it back as far as I can. Perhaps in centuries it will produce effects like the Shards. But what it amounts to right now, I cannot say.” She paused. “So you can stop sending me reports. There’s no need.”

Roland opened his mouth and closed it again.

Valkries looked out at the city. She had imagined that delivering this refusal would feel like something — a release, at least; a satisfaction at cracking his unruffled calm. The anticipated pleasure never came. The threat from God remained. Heathtalese’s warning remained. If Roland was right, refusing the fifty-fifty split was not merely neutral — it was wrong.

But she could not turn against her own race on the strength of a human’s account. That would be more reckless than any alternative. Between two kinds of danger, she chose the one she understood.

Even knowing what that choice might cost.

She swallowed the last piece of cake and let her expression settle into something relaxed, something final. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll miss this taste.”

“If you want it again, we can simply meet another day.” Roland shook his head. “You don’t have to make it sound like a last meal.”

Valkries went still. She had rehearsed his possible reactions — resentment, hostility, contempt, cold sarcasm. Not this. After declining his proposal, she’d half expected him to find a reason to kill her; she was a senior lord, part of the race that stood against everything he was trying to build.

“I’ll go first.” He took a breath, stood, and walked toward the exit without looking back. “I’ll keep sending you the news. Even if you’d rather not see it, the truth remains the truth.”

Does this man not listen to a single word I say—

“What are your plans now?” she called after him before she could stop herself.

He answered without turning. “My plans have never changed. Uncover the secrets of the Origin of Magic. End the Battle of Divine Will completely — regardless of what you choose to do.”

Is he still performing, or is that real?

The memory of their previous meeting surfaced — the last question he had put to her before leaving.

Do you think that the Transformer from a thousand years ago did the wrong thing?

“What do you make of the Martialist Association?” Fei Yuhan kept her eyes on the road as she asked.

They had just come off a freeway ramp and climbed onto a bridge expressway. Few vehicles out here; the horizon opened to a river that reached through the afternoon light, gleaming, apparently endless. This bridge was the seam between city and suburb. To get from Green Meadows Sanatorium to the apartments, you crossed it.

“Hmm…” Zero was less interested in the scenery than in the interior of the car. She pressed her fingers into the seat cushion, turned the radio up, turned it back down. Her ruby-colored eyes moved everywhere. “It isn’t what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“More mysterious. Not like a hotel off the main road.” She pouted.

“The Prism City base is more like what you’re imagining, but there’s been trouble there lately — we shifted here in the meantime.” Fei Yuhan laughed. With a child there was no need to maintain the careful indifference she showed everyone else. “My next question is more personal — about when you visited the park. You’ll be staying at the sanatorium for quite a while as you learn to manage your Force of Nature. If there’s anything you need in terms of daily life, you can tell your master.”

Zero didn’t answer at once. She turned and asked, “Is Uncle Roland working there too?”

“He is. Though he may not have time to be with you every day.”

“I know that.” The pout returned. “He has many sisters to look after. He’s always working late into the night without stopping.”

The car gave a sharp lurch forward.

Fei Yuhan’s foot had found the wrong pedal. She corrected it and cleared her throat twice as though nothing had happened, her expression perfectly composed. Shocking news. She had noticed those startlingly beautiful women around him — had even suspected they were from another world — but somehow she had failed to register the obvious: they called him Your Majesty.

A king with a harem was not incomprehensible. And if they were tied to Roland as the world’s creator, perhaps that was precisely why they had the ability to enter this world at all.

Accepting Zero as her apprentice had been the right instinct. Through Valkries and Zero together she would eventually piece together the other world’s secrets.

And if I want to visit that reality for myself, I suppose I would have to…

“Master? Are you alright?”

Zero’s voice pulled her back. “Fine, nothing. Go on.”

“That’s why I want to be a Martial Artist!” Zero announced with sudden conviction. “More time to see Uncle Roland. So no matter what the Association is like, I’ll persevere.”

Fei Yuhan laughed — not the polite laugh she used when required, but a real one.

A naive reason. Naive, and yet absolutely firm.

She had assumed Zero would need a long adjustment period after leaving familiar surroundings. She’d been wrong. “Take it easy — enrolment will take at least another week, and the Association allows vacations. You don’t have to treat it like a hardship. When we get back, make sure to say goodbye to your—”

On the opposite lane, a freight wagon tilted hard to the left.

It struck the center partition and toppled.

Fei Yuhan hit the brakes and swerved right.

The wagon crushed through the partition like a wall caving inward, sweeping vehicles aside as though they were crumpled paper. The road sealed shut in seconds. No room to escape, no time to think—

A hard bang. Then nothing but the noise of impact as the car drove broadside into the freighter, the body of the vehicle tearing apart around them, the driver’s seat collapsing inward.

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