Editing Failing Witch:Volume2 Episode4 (section)

===Part 12===

''They'' suddenly covered the sky above Temple School City.

A dull “thud!!” rang out as something fell from the sky and crashed into the ground.

That something was Melehe’s broom that she kept in standby circling in the sky above.

“Wait, what happened, Orpheus!?”

“Melehe, w-watch out…overhead.”

A heavy wind blew in.

It almost felt like a massive wall swinging through.

No matter how skilled the Benandanti were, they couldn’t evade something when there was no physical gap. Taking a direct hit, they lost control in the sky and dropped to the surface like shooting stars.

“Watch out!” shouted Strena.

In the moment she was shoved out of the way, Viocia did not yet know what kind of danger she was in. She fell on her rear and blinked twice before her mind finally caught up with the reality before her.

The heavily-armored form of a Benandanti was right in front of her.

And Strena was collapsed face down, half-crushed by the fallen armor.

As a bouncer, she had prioritized guarding her allies over defeating the enemy.

In that sense, she had completed her job brilliantly.

“Strena!!”

“Tch. Run, Viocia. Hurry, and take your friends. Cough.”

Strena stopped talking.

Unable to do anything else, Viocia just stood there. If no one did anything, it looked like she might stay that way forever.

So Melehe shouted to her from right in front of her.

“Viocia, help me! Together, we can carry Strena!! Dorothea, you grab my broom over there!!”

Viocia nodded and took Strena’s arms.

Some things fluttered through the air, no longer under their master’s control.

They were a purple orbs about the size of fish roe, but something was curled up in the center of the translucent membranes.

Naked girls.

(Are those…?)

“I saw those at the photo booth. Aren’t these those Dracae girls?”

“Technically, they’re probably familiars borrowing their form and function. Real Dracae would be as big as you and me.”

Moving unsteadily while supporting someone’s weight, Melehe calmly observed the overhead threat.

“It looks like they tackle things instead of using projectiles. I think they’re designed to hit the enemy with a bird strike.”

“Eep. D-don’t the Dracae have a scary legend about gouging out the eye of girls who violate the rules? If that applies to the flying witches, it could be used as a means of attack.”

“But a bird strike?” asked Viocia.

“?”

“That’s an accident when a bird hits a flying witch’s broom, right? If such a small Dracae hits a witch hard enough to bring her down, won’t the Dracae go down with her?”

“''Do you really think whoever’s mass-produced these familiars cares''?”

The purple overhead made another move.

Another of the scrambled Benandanti witches had been knocked from the sky. Even the giant dragons and griffins who ordinarily circled leisurely in the sky had descended to low altitude to avoid getting hurt.

It was possible one of the armored shooting stars could crash into Viocia’s group on the ground.

“We need to – eep – get under a roof!”

Then Viocia realized something and looked to the side.

“Where did teacher go?”

“Sorry, but we don’t have time to check! Strena is injured, so we need to get her to safety!!”

Whatever they might do about this, they couldn’t just leave Strena when she was injured and unconscious. Viocia and Melehe carried her to a nearby building.

The door was tightly locked and it didn’t open no matter how hard they knocked.

“Eeeek! I couldn’t possibly unlock the door. Please forgive me. Forgive me.”

“Hey! If you’re going to abandon us out here, I’ll just break your door down with a water spear!!”

“Viocia! Over there!”

Dorothea pointed at something she had spotted.

Viocia looked to see one of the empty houses that dotted the city.

Once inside, Melehe groaned.

“Ugh!?”

The stark, unfurnished room had large barrels covering the entire floor space. Those did not belong in a residential space and she felt dizzy. She had read a newspaper article about people growing hallucinogenic herbs in houses, so was this an example of that?

But these were not potted plants.

Melehe looked inside to see a few small purple orbs at the bottom of the barrel.

Those were Dracae familiars that had failed to take flight for whatever reason.

(I was wondering where all those Dracae came from, but I guess I have my answer. But how many empty houses across the city were they in!?)

“Eep! Wh-what do we do now?”

“If this house will act as a shelter, we could stay in here and wait for help to arrive, but I doubt it’s so sturdy.”

“That’s right,” said Viocia. “And we have to find a way to save the Dracae.”

Silence fell.

Melehe and Dorothea were truly rendered speechless.

“They hurt your friend Strena here!” said Melehe.

“So?”

Viocia glared back.

Straight back.

“I’ll fight if it would make Strena happy. But what good is fighting for your own hatred? That’s what my grandma would say. And teacher ''isn’t the strongest because he’s just strong''. We can’t just strike our enemy down as evil and call it a day!!”

She wasn’t just saying that.

They were in danger and her friend had been hurt, but she could choose that path.

This wasn’t a matter of good or evil that could be so easily shaken by the circumstances. She was a witch who chose to live beautifully based on her own actions.

It may have only lasted a moment, but that “situation” enhanced Viocia.

“I mean, it makes no sense that they can only attack by tackling supersonic witches. Billions of Dracae would have to be crushed to take out all of us… Besides, what do those familiars gain by taking us out? That only matters to the witches – the Dracae themselves don’t get anything even if they succeed. So it’s wrong for them to be forced to give up their lives for that!”

“Y’know, artificial familiars technically aren’t alive.”

“''That doesn’t matter''.”

She didn’t even hesitate.

Dorothea giggled at how on brand this was for Viocia.

Wasn’t this failing witch the one who fought back against Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans to protect an artificial being like Moloch during the official practice exam? She might be a failure and a dunce most of the time, but she was a witch-in-training who could improve herself in these “situations” where she wielded superhuman power to face some great cruelty.

And when Melehe carelessly gasped at Viocia’s immediate response, she had as good as accepted it.

It wasn’t logical.

But Viocia was absolutely in the right here.

This wasn’t the Dracae’s fault.

And so Viocia wanted to rescue them from being meaninglessly crushed.

…The prep school ace could not arrive at a more beautifully arranged answer.

It was in that moment that she lost.

And it was a beautiful witch’s duty to wield her full strength as a loser when she lost.

“Argh!! Well, to help the Dracae and everyone else, we need to resolve the trouble covering the city as soon as possible. We can’t ignore injured Strena either. Is that okay with you!?”

“Eep. Yes, I-I’ll help too.”

All three of them nodded.

They took a look outside and saw an unnatural purple covering the sky.

“Is that all Dracae?” said Melehe in a daze.

This went beyond what a witch’s skill could handle. With a sandstorm of them up there, it was impossible to fly without hitting them.

“How many billions of them are up there? Trying to count them is as silly as trying to count the grains of sand in a sandstorm. Anyway, even if they’re as small as fish roe on their own, it’s unrealistic to expect to win against that many of them in the air.”

White smoke burst in a few places across the unnatural purple sky.

Almost like the midday fireworks signaling the beginning of a major event. But…

“Maleficium must be trying something too…but it looks like disseminating thought-reflecting crystal powder and gold foil isn’t accomplishing much. Cutting off the witch’s will to silence the familiars isn’t working!”

Melehe was smart enough to tell what was being attempted here, which may have been why she clenched her teeth in frustration.

“But these Dracae? Eep.” Dorothea sounded nervous. “We can’t get the city functioning again without defeating them.”

“We can’t let the Dracae be used up like this and I’m worried about Strena too. We need to call a doctor!” insisted Viocia.

“There’s no way a single person can manage billions of familiars at once,” said Melehe. “And even if she could, a single witch’s will can’t reach every last part of a city this big!”

“But there really are that many Dracae out there. How do you explain it!?”

“There must be a trick to it,” said Melehe, climbing the narrow stairs in the empty house.

She climbed up onto the roof, aware of the danger. Fortunately, the Dracae didn’t appear to be attacking anything at this height. At the very least, she had a 360-degree view for now.

“Yes, just as I suspected.”

“What is it, Melehe?”

“I can see a few smaller groups of Dracae separate from the ones covering the sky. I’m guessing the trick is there. Those groups were separated from the rest to protect something important.”

Viocia leaned forward and looked out into the distance.

“There’s a staff…or something sticking into the road. No, is that a spear?”

“I see. It must be a lance.”

“Eep?”

“The lance used by the Norse god Odin. But that isn’t Gungnir. It’s the magically-imbued divine lance that, if thrown toward the enemy army at the beginning of a battle, ensures the victory of the allied army!”

If Myousou Yagoro were here, he might have compared this to a front line antenna base that expanded the communication range in which drone weapons could fly.

“But you said there are ‘a few’ of these smaller groups. Eep. Then could there be more than the one lance?”

“From here, I can see 1, 2…5 of them. I can’t see the other side of the lake because of the diamond dust protecting Maleficium, but if the same distribution holds, there are probably 10 in all!”

Those lances were tools used to amplify a witch’s will so it could reach the Dracae from a greater distance.

Destroying the lances one at a time, would reduce the compatible area for the familiars, removing their freedom of movement.

Destroying them all would prevent the witch from commanding the Dracae from wherever she was in the city, freeing the Dracae from her. The artificial Dracae were neither good nor evil, so without a powerful command, they wouldn’t attack anyone. That would reclaim control of Temple School City’s skies.

“Eep. B-but there’s no guarantee the Dracae won’t attack us on the ground. Since they have groups stationed around the lances, they might just attack us if they sense danger there.”

“…”

Melehe couldn’t deny that possibility either. They had too little data. The Dracae weren’t attacking them up on the roof here, but altitude might not be the only condition. Using magic on the surface or approaching within a certain distance of a lance could also trigger a deadly attack.

So.

Glasses bandage girl Dorothea glanced over at Viocia, who was biting her lip out of concern for still-unconscious Strena and sorrow for all the Dracae having their lives thrown away.

Dorothea was the oldest daughter of a large family. Her family wasn’t exactly wealthy.

She understood how the real world worked.

She was used to seeing small children give up on something or go without something they really wanted.

But even so…

(Now isn’t the time to give up. Viocia isn’t asking for the impossible and she isn’t wrong. So there’s no reason to disappoint her here!!)

The glasses bandage girl gave a small nod.

What could she do? ''What was a beautiful witch?'' She asked these questions of herself.

And she used her will to acquire the appropriate “situation”.

“Eep. Then I’ll act as a diversion.”

“Dorothea?”

“It isn’t the Dracae’s fault they’re being ordered to die, so we have to do something for them, right? We also need to get Strena to a doctor. But the flying Dracae would catch up with either of you if you tried to run on foot as a diversion. Only I can fly close enough to the ground to distract the Dracae without hitting them. And if the legend about gouging out eyes is accurate, even the people on the ground could be at risk.”

“Hey, wait- damn!!”

Melehe reached out, but she was a step too slow.

Dorothea jumped from the rooftop and then used her Formula Broom to take off with extreme speed. After the girl was zooming away at low altitude, Viocia and Melehe could no longer keep up.

They sensed a shift in the purple mass overhead.

“What do we do about this?” asked Melehe

“We just have to break all the lances stuck in the ground,” said Viocia. “So we’ll have to run out and find them on foot. We can’t let the Dracae dirty their hands because someone made them and Dorothea can’t last as a diversion forever. So we need to do it before that happens!!”