Strongest Warlock - Wizard World Irregular

"Will this rain stop anytime soon?" Ethan asked.

"I don\'t know," Lilian replied. "But right now, I feel like there\'s a hole inside of my heart that won\'t close no matter what I do. The only way I can relieve the pain in my heart is by singing.

"If I don\'t sing, I feel like I\'m going to go crazy and lose myself completely. If that happens…"

Lilian sighed and closed her eyes, not wanting to continue what she was going to say earlier.

"Can you tell me what the problem is?" Ethan asked. "Maybe I can help you."

"You can\'t help me," Lilian answered in a heartbeat.

"Are you sure?" Ethan inquired. "I am a wizard. I can use magic."

Lilian\'s sad expression was making him feel sad as well.

He at least wanted to know what was causing her pain. As long as he knew of the cause, then he could find a way to deal with it right away.

"The Witch of the East took something very important from me," Lilian answered after a minute of silence.

"What did she take from you?" Ethan asked. "I\'ll take it back right away."

The Lady of the Lake sighed a second time before walking towards the teenage boy once more.

When she was only a step away from him, she reached out to hold Ethan\'s hand.

"This was what she took from me," Lilian said as she held Ethan\'s hand and looked at his wedding ring.

"The Ring of Promise. A ring that would give anyone dominion over me. The only reason why I am not under her control is because she doesn\'t know my True Name."

"Don\'t worry. I promise you—the ring will be returned to you without fail," Ethan said firmly.

"Don\'t start promises you can\'t keep," Lilian replied before reluctantly letting go of Ethan\'s hand. "The Witch will not return the things that she has managed to get her hands on. Not in the past, not now, not in the future. Those who try to steal her treasures will only die a gruesome death."

After saying those words, Lilian turned around and walked away, slowly submerging herself back into the lake.

"Leave this place while you still can, stranger," Lilian said softly. "Because if you remain in these lands long enough, you will also lose things that are important to you, just like how I lost what is precious to me."

The Lady of the Lake finally disappeared, leaving Ethan to ponder the words of warning that she had left to him.

The fog that had prevented him from reaching the lake earlier also disappeared.

Ethan stood on the lake\'s shore for a few minutes, looking at the place where Lilian disappeared before turning around to return to the town.

Since he might have a confrontation with a powerful Witch, he believed that he needed to know all available information about her.

This was a sensitive topic, so he planned to ask Chloe and Agnes in private about it.

He hoped that the two of them would be able to answer some of his questions about the Witch of the East, who had stolen Lilian\'s Ring of Promise.

There were no unexpected mishaps on his return trip, so he was able to return faster than he had expected.

When he returned to his lodging, he asked Agnes to have his lunch delivered to his room.

He still needed to sort his thoughts, and it was also a good opportunity to ask his questions in private.

But instead of Agnes, the one who delivered his food was Chloe.

Ethan thanked her and didn\'t hesitate to ask her the question that he had been meaning to ask.

"Is the Witch of the East a good or evil Witch?" Ethan asked. "Can you tell me anything about her?"

Chloe\'s face immediately turned pale after hearing Ethan\'s question.

She even looked around the room as if trying to check if there were any eyes or ears listening to their conversation.

"You shouldn\'t casually ask people about the Witch of the East," Chloe whispered in Ethan\'s ear as if afraid that the witch would hear her.

"Then, can you tell me what you know about her?" Ethan asked.

A look of hesitation appeared on Chloe\'s face, but after he assured her that he would keep it a secret, the young lady finally relented.

Chloe took the other chair from the table and placed it beside Ethan\'s chair.

She then leaned close and whispered what she knew about the Witch, whom none of the townspeople dared to talk about in the open.

"The Witch of the East is said to be one of the prodigies of this era," Chloe whispered. "However, her pursuit of knowledge has led her to perform inhumane experiments. As long as she is able to get the results she needs, she is willing to do anything.

"She and our Town Mayor don\'t really see eye to eye. But since Lord Fortis is a powerful Wizard, the Witch doesn\'t dare to confront him head-on. But a week ago, Lord Fortis left for an important business trip.

"It should have only taken a few days at most, but it\'s already been eight days since someone last saw him. The heavy rain also started around that time and has been pouring since then, even to this day.

"I overheard the guards talking when I went shopping this morning. They said that the Witch might have ambushed our Towns Mayor on his way back to Fortis Town. Of course, no one knows if this is true or not.

"However, I have this nagging feeling that things might only get worse. I just hope that we are just overthinking things, and our Mayor\'s business trip has merely suffered a minor mishap, making him unable to return right away.

"The Witch is also a well-known magical artifact collector and an artist. She sells paintings to noble families. There are times when she will ask some townspeople to pose for her paintings.

"But after getting their image painted by her, everyone who returned from her cottage seemed to have changed into a different person. Because of this, no one wants to become her model anymore."

Ethan\'s frown deepened because the more he heard about the Witch of the East, the more he felt that she was a formidable character.

After Chloe finished telling him everything she knew about the Witch of the East, Ethan thanked her and promised that he would not tell anyone what he had heard from her.

When the young lady finally left, Ethan sighed and laid down on the bed.

He needed to organize his thoughts so that he could plan properly on how to deal with this matter.

\'First, I\'ll try to infiltrate her cottage and see if I can find the ring without confronting her directly,\' Ethan thought. \'Fighting her will be the last resort. I guess I should find a place to practice what kind of spells I can use for combat.\'

Ethan was unable to summon his Tridents.

He was also unable to call forth Dainsleif.

He didn\'t know if his Domains would activate inside the painting or not.

But, he needed to get a better picture of what kind of spells he could and couldn\'t use. A single mistake during a duel could prove fatal for him, so he planned to better understand the spells that the world wouldn\'t restrict.

While the young man was thinking about this, a certain Witch who lived inside a cottage in the woods calmly sipped her tea as she looked at the crystal ball in front of her.

Displayed inside it was a handsome young man with long blue hair and eyes that made her smile.

"I didn\'t know that such a good model had appeared in this dreary town," the beautiful witch smiled sweetly. "I better add him to my collection."

The many paintings that hung on the cottage walls all trembled as if dreading that another innocent soul would fall prey into the witch\'s hands.

Ethan, who was unaware that he was being spied on with a crystal ball, closed his eyes to rest.

He was feeling drained and very exhausted, which made him wonder if he\'d caught a cold.

However, he tossed this thought aside, thinking that it was an impossible thing to happen.

But just as he was starting to fall asleep, he once again remembered Lilian\'s words.

"If you remain in these lands long enough, you will also lose things that are important to you. Just like how I lost what is precious to me."

Ethan felt that those words sounded like a prophecy.

Unfortunately, those thoughts soon disappeared from his head as he slid to sleep\'s embrace, not knowing that the Witch of the East already had her eyes on him.