Chapter 1009: The Secret of the Witch Congregation

The Ice Monarch’s territory was particularly peaceful that morning.

Fine snow fell over the palace gardens, slowly covering rooftops and trees with crystallized leaves, while a discreet barrier kept the harsher cold away from the small area where Vex was playing.

Strax was kneeling in the snow in front of her, holding a small ice creature the girl had shaped with her own hands.

According to Vex, it was a dragon.

According to anyone else with functioning eyes, it looked more like a fat lizard with crooked wings.

"It’s perfect," Strax declared with complete seriousness.

Vex broke into a huge smile.

"I knew it!"

Mercedes, sitting a few meters behind them beneath the shelter of a small pavilion, nearly choked on her hot coffee.

She looked at the creature in his hands, then at Strax with an expression that clearly said he was raising a child who would never be able to accept criticism.

"Don’t encourage her."

Strax turned the small ice dragon to look at it from another angle.

One of its legs was nearly twice as large as the other.

"I’m recognizing talent."

"It has five legs."

Vex immediately counted.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

The little girl widened her eyes and quickly ripped one off.

"Now it has four."

Strax nodded.

"Problem solved."

Mercedes closed her eyes for a few seconds and took another sip of coffee, giving up on that battle.

When she looked again, Vex was already trying to climb onto Strax’s back to recover another small ice creature he was holding out of her reach.

She grumbled, tugged at his shirt, and threatened to freeze her father if he did not immediately return her "wolf," while Strax laughed and simply stretched his arm farther away.

Mercedes eventually stood.

Her long light-blue dress barely touched the snow as she approached, holding the cup between both hands to enjoy the warmth.

Her eyes remained on Vex for a few seconds before shifting to Strax, and then that suspicious expression he knew very well appeared.

"Why did you come so early?"

Strax finally let Vex recover the little ice animal.

Mercedes continued:

"I wasn’t expecting you to show up again so soon."

Strax looked at her, then at Vex.

Without answering immediately, he grabbed the girl around the waist and lifted her.

Vex laughed when he placed her on his shoulders, immediately grabbing his hair to keep her balance.

"Can’t I come see our daughter?" Strax asked with a smile.

Mercedes narrowed her eyes.

Vex immediately jumped to his defense.

"Mommy is too suspicious!"

Mercedes raised an eyebrow at her daughter.

Vex pointed down at Strax as though presenting irrefutable evidence.

"Daddy only came to play with Vex!"

"Of course."

"It’s true!"

Mercedes kept looking directly at Strax.

He held that gaze for a few seconds.

Then sighed.

"You’re ruining all my credibility as an innocent father."

"You have no credibility as an innocent man."

"That was personal."

Vex leaned over his head.

"What’s credibility?"

"Something your mother thinks I don’t have."

Mercedes raised the cup to her lips to hide her smile.

Strax realized he was not escaping the interrogation and carefully lowered Vex back onto the snow.

Then he adjusted the girl’s little coat and pointed toward the palace entrance.

"Sweetheart, can you go get your toys? We’ll play some more afterward."

Vex looked first at him, then at Mercedes.

Her golden eyes narrowed.

"Are you going to talk about grown-up things?"

"Yes."

"Boring things?"

"Probably."

That seemed to satisfy her.

Vex nodded vigorously.

"I’m going to get my dragons!"

She ran across the snow, nearly slipped on the first step, recovered her balance as though nothing had happened, and disappeared into the palace.

Strax waited until he could no longer hear her.

When he looked back at Mercedes, she was already waiting.

"So?"

Strax put his hands in his pockets.

"I wanted to ask you something."

"I knew it."

"Do you know the Witch Congregation?"

The change in Mercedes’s expression was small, but immediate.

She took another sip of coffee before answering.

"I know enough."

"And what do you think of them?"

Mercedes slowly exhaled through her nose.

"I don’t like them."

Strax raised an eyebrow.

That was not the answer he had expected.

"Why?"

"Because they’re too intelligent."

He remained silent for a few seconds.

"That would normally be a good quality."

"It is a good quality."

"Then..."

Mercedes turned and began walking slowly through the garden.

Strax followed.

"It’s good for them," she explained. "That’s the problem. Witches almost always manage to solve whatever they’re hired to deal with. Curses, artifacts, barriers, magical diseases, lost research, monsters that are difficult to understand... when an important Witch accepts a job, you can usually consider the problem solved."

"That still sounds good."

Mercedes glanced sideways at him.

"Until the bill arrives."

Strax began to understand.

"They charge a lot."

"Ridiculously."

"Money?"

Mercedes let out a short laugh.

"Sometimes it would be better if it were."

She stopped near a tree completely covered in ice and set her cup on a small stone railing.

"Witches work through contracts. Some accept gold, others rare materials, artifacts, access to territories, rights over discoveries, or information. And there are those who ask for things so specific that you start wondering whether they created the problem just so they could charge for the solution."

Strax smiled.

"You sound experienced."

"A Witch once asked for permanent access to one of the northern glacial caverns in exchange for repairing a climate formation."

"And you accepted?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"I fixed it myself in eleven years."

Strax stared at her.

Mercedes remained perfectly serious.

"Eleven years."

"I’m patient."

"You’re stubborn."

"That too."

Strax spent a few seconds thinking about the contrast with Selene.

So far, the Great Witch had not seemed interested in extracting anything absurd from Asgard.

In fact, the Congregation itself was looking for territory and offering knowledge, barriers, and economic integration in exchange for stability.

Mercedes noticed he had been quiet for too long.

"Why are you asking?"

Strax leaned against the railing.

"Because one of the Ten Great Witches appeared in Asgard."

Mercedes slowly turned her head.

"Which one?"

"Selene Feywin."

Her expression became much more serious.

"Selene?"

"You know her?"

"I know the name. Any ruler older than fifty does."

"She wants to bring the Congregation to Asgard."

Mercedes did not answer.

Strax decided to continue before she started asking questions.

He told her everything from the beginning.

He explained the Magic Tower’s proposal, the approximately six hundred mages and Witches who might initially accompany the transfer, and the gradual decay of the magical cores in their current territory.

He explained that the Congregation wanted stability, independence from the Heavenly Emperor’s political power, and the freedom to continue their research without having to obey the demands of the Monarchs.

Mercedes remained motionless throughout that entire part.

Then Strax explained that Selene had taken him to their headquarters.

That was when her expression changed.

"They have an entire city inside a crater," he continued, not immediately noticing. "Floating towers, laboratories, islands in the sky, some enormous territorial teleportation thing. Frieren nearly had an academic orgasm when she saw the homunculus wing. They even built a forty-meter artificial dragon, although they still can’t make a heart for it."

Mercedes was staring at Strax with increasingly wide eyes.

He continued.

"Then we went to Selene’s office and talked about a treaty. Nothing too complicated. They help defend Asgard, integrate their barriers with ours, participate in the local economy, and respect our laws. In exchange, they get territory, academic autonomy, and protection. I told her to talk to Monica about the rest because I don’t have the patience to write all that."

Silence.

Strax waited.

Mercedes kept staring at him.

"And that was it," he concluded.

Nothing.

"Mercedes?"

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

"T-they just..."

Strax tilted his head.

Mercedes pointed at him.

"T-they just let you enter their headquarters?"

"Yes."

The Ice Monarch turned even paler.

Strax frowned.

"What?"

"You saw the Congregation?"

"I just said that."

"The real headquarters?"

"I assume so. It would be an absurd amount of work to build a fake one just to impress us."

Mercedes actually started stammering.

"S-she... Selene Feywin just opened a portal and took you there?"

"And Frieren."

"FRIEREN TOO?!"

Strax slightly pulled his head back.

"Why are you shouting?"

Mercedes put both hands over her face.

The cup of coffee was completely forgotten.

Strax watched her reaction for several seconds before finally asking:

"Is that not normal?"

Mercedes slowly lowered her hands.

"N-normal?!"

"Yes."

"Not even the Heavenly Emperor knows where it is!"

Strax went still.

Now it was his turn to blink.

"What do you mean?"

Mercedes looked at him as though trying to determine whether he truly did not understand the gravity of what had happened.

"The location of the Congregation is one of the oldest secrets on this continent. There are records of Monarchs trying to find it for centuries. Armies have searched for it. Space specialists have tried to trace the portals. The Heavenly Empire has agents dedicated solely to identifying routes used by the Witches, and they have never managed to locate the main headquarters."

Strax thought for a few seconds.

"I went through a portal."

"I KNOW!"

"It was pretty fast."

"That isn’t the problem!"

Mercedes began pacing back and forth.

"The Congregation’s portals are famous precisely because no one can trace their origin or destination. They use intermediate spatial layers, variable coordinates, and some kind of protection that prevents external readings. There are people who don’t even believe the physical headquarters exists within the continent’s normal space."

Strax remembered the violet portal.

Selene had simply opened it and pushed him and Frieren through.

"Interesting."

Mercedes stopped.

"Interesting?"

"Yes."

"Strax, they showed you the secret they hide from the Heavenly Emperor."

He shrugged.

"She seemed to like me."

Mercedes went completely silent.

Then she closed her eyes.

"Of course."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Strax began to smile.

Mercedes pointed at him.

"Don’t smile. This is important."

"I’m listening."

"No, you’re finding it amusing."

"That too."

She took a deep breath to recover her patience.

"Do you understand what this means? The Congregation is not merely evaluating Asgard as an interesting territory. If Selene showed you the true headquarters without even demanding a confidentiality contract first, then their decision to approach you was probably much further along than she allowed you to believe."

That made Strax a little more serious.

"You think they’ve already decided to come?"

"Maybe not all of them. You said there are Ten Great Witches and Selene doesn’t decide alone."

"Yes."

"But Selene has certainly decided something."

Strax thought about the way she had shown him the laboratories, archives, the artificial dragon, and even the territorial teleportation matrix.

At no point had she seemed concerned about hiding the Congregation’s capabilities.

Mercedes crossed her arms.

"And there’s something else."

"What?"

"Witches don’t give information away for free."

Strax raised an eyebrow.

"She gave me plenty."

"Exactly."

The two fell silent.

Mercedes began to understand the situation from another perspective.

"Either she believes Asgard offers something so valuable that she doesn’t need to negotiate every detail..."

"Stability."

"...or there is something the Congregation wants that you haven’t discovered yet."

Strax smiled faintly.

"Now you sound like Monica."

"That should worry you."

"It does."

Mercedes picked up the cup again, discovered that the coffee had gone nearly cold, and made an irritated expression.

Strax watched her for a moment before taking the cup from her hand and wrapping the porcelain in a small amount of White Fire.

Within seconds, the liquid returned to the proper temperature.

She took it back.

"Useful."

"I have talents."

"Some."

At that moment, a small voice came from the palace entrance.

"DADDY!"

Strax turned.

Vex was running toward them carrying a box of toys so large she could barely see over it.

A small wooden dragon fell along the way.

Then a horse.

Then some blue creature that was probably supposed to represent a monster.

Mercedes looked at her daughter.

Then at Strax.

"This conversation isn’t over."

Strax smiled.

"I figured."

Vex finally reached them, dropped the box onto the snow, and opened her arms.

"Now you’re going to play!"

Strax immediately grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the air.

"Of course."

Mercedes watched the two of them and let out a resigned sigh.

Strax might have just been granted access to a secret not even the Heavenly Emperor had been able to uncover.

But at that moment, Vex clearly considered building a toy fortress far more important.

And Strax seemed to agree.