Editing Failing Witch:Volume3 Episode2 (section)

===Part 2===

“Huff, puff.”

Early in the morning, before Temple School City had gotten started for the day, a glasses girl wrapped in bandages was out in the city for her daily jog. This liminal time between late night and early morning was the least crowded time of day in the heavily populated city.

She carried Formula Broom – Lyceum bisA.

She was used to running with that long broom that had a ship’s wheel attached.

(ATU 0407 is the Girl Who Became a Flower.)

Dorothea no longer needed her flashcards. She could list off the ATUs in her head.

She was great at memorization like that.

As a merchant’s daughter, she would honestly have preferred some talent when it came to math.

(ATU 0408 is the Three Oranges. ATU 0409 is the Girl who was Turned into a Wolf. ATU 0410 is Sleeping Beauty. A fairy who was not invited to the princess’s birthday party cursed the princess to eternal sleep, but the princess was woken by a dispelling kiss. It tells us that if we master witchcraft, then even life and death are no more than statuses. Eep. And we can manipulate them at will.)

She had repeated all this countless times already.

But there were unexpected pitfalls there. Even the immortal Norse god of light Baldr was killed by a spear made from the one sapling he had overlooked, so it was always worth rechecking these things to what seemed like excess.

“Phew.”

Temple School City existed for exam students like her. Or so she had thought until recently. But when she ran through the city like this, she discovered so many other kinds of people lived here and had their own routines. Even now, a woman was receiving a newspaper from a bovine familiar out on an early morning delivery run, Dorothea passed by a cafe starting up its morning services in time with the late night businesses closing, and a guard trudged sleepily through the last patrol before his shift ended.

A city could not run with only witches living there.

Now, Dorothea’s goal was to get into Maleficium. She had no intention of giving up on the entrance exam and taking a different path just because there were so many options out there. If she only wanted a job, she could have taken over the family business.

But seeing so many kinds of experts in their own different fields made her wonder something.

She wanted to go to Maleficium and become an elite witch.

But what kind of witch did she want to be? What did she want to specialize in?

Running alone put her in an introspective mood, so she lost herself in thoughts like that.

“Watch out. Something is approaching from behind.”

“?”

Which made her slow to react.

Even with her partner broom’s warning, the glasses bandage girl only looked over dumbly.

“Huff puff.”

She heard some heavy breathing.

Someone had come up alongside her.

The witch was dressed something like a red waitress.

That was Arbamini, an ace from the infamous Sassafras Cfa Prep School.

Dorothea was surprised.

Not at her bad luck to run into that girl when the streets were so deserted, but at the fact that the famous delinquent was jogging in silence.

She ended up speaking without thinking.

“Eep. Um…uh, why?”

It was the obvious question.

But Arbamini pouted her lips a little as she answered.

“Oh, shut up. Am I causing anyone any trouble by going back to the basics and building up some strength?”

Dorothea was a bit taken aback.

But then she smiled.

She didn’t know the whole story, but apparently something was beginning to change among that infamous trio. And she could guess it was contact with that extraordinary tutor that had done it.

<span style="font-size:75%">“You can’t beat me. Eep.”</span>

“Hm? Hey, wait! I wasn’t challenging you to a race!”

“Ready, go.”

“Kh. Are you trying to piss me off!? Fine, if you insist, I’ll use these gorgeous legs of mine to trample on your pride and leave you in tears!!!”