Taming The Villainesses

Chapter 429: The One Who Halts (4)

Hello friends, read this very carefully. Work on this novel is being moved to our backup site Mynovels.net. You just need to register there with your nickname and password, the same as you use on Novelight. See you there!

***

Priestess Miriam spoke.

“It sounds like we’re about to enter the city soon. Once we’re inside, let’s go our separate ways. That’s what we’ve decided.”

It had always been a temporary alliance.

We’d gained a lot by traveling together with this party, so it was a bit disappointing—but if that was their decision, we couldn’t very well refuse.

And I understood where Miriam was coming from.

The cold, unfeeling hunter had gotten injured saving someone else—an act that ended up jeopardizing their “mission.” She probably wanted to prevent anything like that from happening again.

And so, we agreed to separate after entering the city.

Honestly, it was already a huge stroke of luck that we met them and were able to infiltrate the city so easily. It was unfortunate, but unavoidable.

“This is the entrance.”

The hunter braced himself and shoved the rock wall inside the cave. Drurrrk—a low, heavy grinding sound followed, and a narrow gap opened, letting in a breath of wind.

Where wind blew, there was a path to the outside. Peering through the crack, I could see dilapidated artificial structures jutting out here and there.

It was the cityscape.

We had managed to enter this monster-filled city quickly and safely.

Surely now, even our pursuers wouldn’t dare get any closer. Unless they somehow mapped out every fork in this cave system, they wouldn’t be able to catch up.

With rising hope, we stepped forward.

“Move aside.”

Rene, the hunter’s warrior companion, nudged me aside where I was peeking through. Then she pushed the stone with both hands. Thanks to her, the narrow gap widened until a person could comfortably squeeze through.

Of course, Mirna trembled like a frightened kitten.

“I won’t get stuck again... right?”

She’d gotten her hips wedged in tight gaps before, and it clearly left a traumatic impression. Rene snorted through her nose and gave the rock another shove.

Now the opening was wide enough for two people to enter side-by-side. The hunter’s party slipped in without hesitation.

“May blessings follow you as well.”

Miriam’s parting words were calm and light.

A clean farewell. No mess, no clinginess—sharp and decisive.

Thanks to that, we had little time for sentiment. Ayra, watching the passage they’d disappeared into, spoke.

“Let’s head in too.”

Snapping out of it, we followed her into the crevice. I was the first to go. With a few heavy steps, I crossed into the city’s interior—

And immediately realized something strange.

What I thought was the ground beneath my feet was actually the outer wall of a building.

That’s right. I had stepped onto the wall of a building.

I’m not a chameleon or a ninja—what the hell was I doing standing on a wall?

“What...?”

Confused, I reached out to touch the pavement-laced surface beside me. Suddenly, I felt myself yanked violently by an unseen force and lost my balance.

Thud!

When I came to, I was sitting on a collapsed walkway. Looking up, I saw the rest of my wives still standing sideways on the wall like nothing was wrong.

“Careful—the footing here is strange. Something pulls at you out of nowhere and you can fall easily.”

Heeding my warning, the ladies carefully made their way down to where I was. Narmee was the first to speak.

“This place is totally jumbled up. Feels weird.”

She was right.

As far as I knew, gravity only acted in one direction: from top to bottom.

But here, the city’s walls pulled at our feet like magnets. It was impossible to tell where the sky ended and the ground began.

The stairs, the paths, the buildings... all twisted into a maze with no visible end.

From a distance, the city hadn’t seemed this massive. But now that we were inside, its scope felt immeasurable. I remembered what Ayra once said:

This city is much larger than it looks.

I hadn’t fully understood her then—but now, I felt it in my bones. This wasn’t just a city. It was another world, where physical laws didn’t apply.

Shk shk.

Stella looked around and asked,

“So, where do we go now? The hunter’s party is already out of sight.”

Unlike the area outside the walls—where monsters had swarmed like ants—

The interior of Gargarta was eerily empty. Like an ancient ruin where people had all vanished simultaneously, then left to rot for ages.

Massive baobab-like trees had rooted themselves through the rooftops of crumbling plaster homes, giving it the feel of a scene from a myth or fairytale.

“As for where we go...”

I looked up.

Right above our heads, the sky yawned open—a massive rift turning slowly like a black hole.

Mirna murmured,

“It looks like the end of the world.”

The gaping hole’s width and diameter defied estimation.

And if you really listened—

Uuuuuuuuuuuuunnnngggg—

—a deep, heavy hum reverberated from beyond. It sounded like... the rotational groan of the Earth itself.

It gave me chills. Like this gaping maw in the heavens could swallow everything.

But no—if anything, it wasn’t sucking things in.

It was spitting them out.

If you looked closely, you could see debris falling from the hole above. One piece fluttered near me and landed at my feet.

I picked it up and read:

“24-Hour Chicken Delivery — 10% Off for Takeout...”

Things you’d never expect to see in this world. Surely, more such debris was constantly falling from that sky.

Shk.

Then Ayra pointed upward.

“Everyone, look. There—stairs.”

She gestured toward a bizarre structure stretching up into the sky. Calling it “stairs” might not have been accurate.

Taking Stella’s telescope and peering closely—I saw it.

Warped, misaligned buildings floating layer upon layer, stacked like crooked stairs through the air.

Still—

It definitely looked like a path into that rifted sky. But... seeing it made me doubt if going there was the right idea.

“Wait—”

Suddenly, Mirna called out.

“The entrance we came through... where did it go?”

Blinking, we all scanned the surroundings.

The gap in the wall we’d come through had vanished.

***

Stella, after checking the walls for a while, finally sighed.

“I don’t get it. We searched everywhere, but the entrance is gone. How is that even possible?”

We combed the area thoroughly, but the cave entrance we’d used to enter the city had disappeared.

Still, we had the dimensional carpet—our magical safety net. If we wanted to go back, we could.

Or so I thought.

Just to be sure, I took the carpet from the inventory 《Squirrel Storage》 and laid it out. As I infused it with mana, the magic circle glowed faintly with a hum.

“Looks like it’s working.”

That was the last moment of relief I had.

Because although the spell circle activated, the coordinates... weren’t there.

None of the expected destinations—Angmar Palace, my room, President Leadernoi’s office in Pallen Village—none of them showed up.

“......”

Maybe I was too flustered to sense them? I calmed myself and tried again—but the result was the same.

The portal spell wasn’t working.

And the realization froze my chest like an icicle. The reason I’d had the confidence to come to Gargarta at all... was this carpet.

I’d counted on it as a failsafe. If worst came to worst, I could always go back.

But now it was broken.

Reading my expression, Elga scratched her forehead with a finger.

“What is it? Something’s not right?”

Ayra answered for me.

“This place... the mana here is unstable. And coordinates—those depend on gravity. They’re calculated under the assumption of a single, directional gravitational force. But here? Gravity’s all jumbled up.”

“...I have no idea what you just said. So, bottom line—we lost our entrance. And now we’ve got no way to go back, right?”

Elga nudged a stone at her feet.

The stone rolled and vanished into a distant alley.

She clicked her tongue.

“So we’re totally screwed.”

Mirna, ever the strict one, chimed in disapprovingly.

“Lady Leones. Didn’t we all expect something like this might happen? Complaining now is pointless.”

“Who’s complaining?”

“Sis, Lady Leones—both of you, stop—”

“Yeah, Elga. Mirna. Can we all please just calm—”

The tension rose. Voices escalated.

Just when things were going well... a crisis triggered all the things left unsaid.

They were scared.

And it was my fault.

They lost their sense of security because I panicked. If I didn’t act soon, the group would splinter.

So I spoke.

“There must be a way. ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) Let’s just search the area again. If anything strange turns up, let me know immediately.”

Stay calm.

A real hunter would keep his composure in times like these. That’s why Miriam and Rene trusted him—because he never wavered.

“Let’s do what we can for now.”

Elga, perhaps comforted by my words, quieted down. Soon, we all began another search of the area—

“Teo! Come here! No—everyone, over here! You’ve gotta see this!”

Narmee’s excited voice made us all stop and turn.

As we approached, she pointed at the wall.

“There’s something weird drawn here. Look.”

Where she pointed, something strange was drawn.

Calling it a “symbol” was vague—it was an arrow.

→

→

↑

Arrows painted on the crumbling city wall. Did they mean something?

Then Stella bent down and pointed at something else.

“Look here. There’s writing, too. Let’s see...”

But she frowned.

The handwriting was awful—either that, or it wasn’t writing at all, just a mess of squiggles.

But I...

I recognized those squiggles from somewhere.

Quickly, I opened my 《Squirrel Storage》 and pulled out a book.

The one titled “Teo”—the record left by my father, Isaiah Gospel.

I flipped to the end.

Scrawled across the pages, like the ravings of a madman, were lines of deranged handwriting.

I held the book up next to the symbols Stella found.

“They match.”

Sure, scribbles often look similar—but my half-fairy senses were certain.

These were drawn by the same person.

Isaiah had been here.

Then... could these arrows be a message from him?

“...Let’s try following the arrows.”