Chapter 127: Chapter 127: Caterina
"How do you know?" Caterina’s lips trembled.
"I just do." Siderius said.
Caterina’s eyes lost her focus and her thought seemed to be trailing away. Siderius had to flick his finger in front of her a few times to catch her attention.
"Hey. Hey. Stay with me." Siderius said.
"Oh, yes. I am Caterina Fataliya. The Black Witch of the Woods. Are you here to kill me?"
"If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already. I came here to ask you some questions." Siderius said.
"Please sit down. It has been ages since I have visitors!"
Caterina got up on her feet and quickly dragged a chair for Siderius to sit down. The witch granny scattered away to pick up her old teapot and began to brew something for Siderius.
The hunter squinted his eyes and tilled his head slightly. He was observing Caterina.
A mana core was very important to a witch. It wasn’t just their source of power, it was also the reflection of their mind.
Witches didn’t have a mind space like normal people did. They had a magic psyche that manifested corresponding to their mana core.
Back in Siderius’ old world, witches were separated into three ranks. Pond, Lake, and Ocean, each representing the size and vastness of the witch’s mana core. For Pond witches, their psyche would be as big as an average size pond. That was how much mana they could store and also the reflection of their psyche.
A calm pond meant a calm witch with a very stable psyche. But rarely did a witch be calm. Their nature prevented them from becoming so.
A pond that always had a storm accompanied with it was a sigh of rage and anger.
A pond with no sky or stars and only darkness was a witch with a deranged mentality.
In this world, or more precisely, the Eldoria Kingdom. The three ranks of witches were Witchling, Lesser Witch and Major Witch. These three ranks corresponded to the ranks Siderius had known, only with different names.
The importance of the mana core to a witch was irreplaceable. They could sink into the bottom of their psyche and become dormant, allowing the witch to temporarily be freed from the corruption of magic. Jude Fisher fell into this scenario.
However, if the mana core was, in any way, damaged. Not only would the mana pool of the witch be reduced, their psyche would also fracture.
That could explain the wackiness of Caterina at the moment.
The Black Witch placed two cups down on the table and poured black dense ’tea’ into them.
Siderius was not going to drink that.
"Drink! Drink! It’s very tasty." Caterina said.
The witch grabbed a cup and tried to drink it. Siderius immediately grabbed her wrist and pulled it back down.
"Let go! Let go!" Caterina said.
"Who ate your mana core?" Siderius asked again.
"No! No! Not eating! I don’t know."
Caterina squirmed but couldn’t remove Siderius’ grasp. Her neck twisted unnaturally and she stuck out her tongue like a dog.
"Much more unstable than I thought." Siderius’ brow furrowed. "It might be hard to extract information from her."
"Let go! Let go!" Caterina spoke again, repeating the same words over and over.
Siderius stood up from the table and pulled Caterina.
"No! No! Don’t hurt me, Jude!"
Siderius stopped abruptly and stared at Caterina. It seemed like he had triggered some kind of trauma inside her. Siderius recalled Jude’s attitude and gestured, and tried to copy him.
"I’ve never hurt you." Siderius said.
"You hurt me! You hurt our son! I should’ve never married you!" Tears jerked out of Caterina’s eyes like water in a fountain.
"How did I hurt you? How did I hurt our son?" Siderius pushed further.
"You ate my core! You ate my core! You..."
Caterina screamed at the top of her lungs and suddenly lost all consciousness. The witch granny fell on the floor and fainted.
"I push her too much." Siderius carried Caterina into her bed and tucked her in.
The hunter grabbed a handful of Sulfur and dropped a little bit onto Caterina’s forehead.
"Calm yourself." Siderius gently said.
His two hands straightened out and stacked together. Then both of them slammed on Caterina’s forehead, they stopped just a little bit before actually coming in contact with her skin.
The Sulfur on her forehead lit up in orange and spread across her face in thin strand-like lines.
Caterina’s face became softer and the murmurs in her mouth quieted down.
"This trip wasn’t entirely useless but I wasn’t able to learn a lot either."
Siderius knew Jude was abusive toward Caterina and their son. But that was purely based on the fractured sentences Caterina was able to form. Whether or not it was true needed further confirmation.
Siderius also failed to learn more about the Baron and the possible reason why the Nightmare Phantom was tethered to him. He didn’t even learn the magic nature of the Baron.
"I wonder if I can access Caterina’s mind." Siderius mumbled.
He stacked his hands together in front of his forehead and slowly parted them. The Mind Eye was opened.
His right thumb pressed on the middle of Caterina’s forehead.
Alchemy wasn’t magic. This technique wouldn’t allow Siderius to see Caterina’s memories or emotions. But maybe he can pull the true Caterina out of her shell, not this babbling fool.
Her mind was fractured like Siderius expected. They were pieces of mirror that floated freely inside the imperfect mana pond that was raining non-stop.
Her psyche was filled with sorrow. It was too unstable for Siderius to stay there too long. He was repulsed back out after staying only for a few seconds.
His vision twisted and his head became a little dizzy.
"I really need to stop trying so hard these days." Siderius held his head.
He pondered what great tragedy had befallen this witch that caused her mana pool to become the eternal scene of raining and sorrow.
Siderius had a hunch that the answer to that question would help him find out the truth behind this entire series of events. But to know that, he must extract whatever information was left inside this unstable mind of Caterina.
Simple signs and alchemical seals wouldn’t be sufficient to handle such a task.
Siderius needed something more powerful. Something that allowed him to extract the psyche of Caterina entirely.
"I never thought that it would be this soon to use it again.