Editing Failing Witch:Volume2 Episode4 (section)

===Part 6===

“Phew.”

After school, Myousou Yagoro was investigating something on his own.

The pale glow of moonlight seals created a quiet space seemingly cut off from the flow of time.

This was the usual used bookstore run by the easygoing bookseller.

“(The Spanish Fly Indulgence Bank used student loans, but they were more like a type of religion that used a love of money to earn people’s worship as a charismatic leader. And while Elinalva ran her research all on her own in the Dazzling Forest, she viewed the legendary elves like gods and hoped to obtain ‘divine appreciation’ by bringing them back to prosperity.)”

Religion did exist in the world of witches.

In fact, witchcraft borrowed power from supernatural beings, so it was actually easier for things to take a religious turn.

That was why he had been looking into that, but…

“(The point in common is a false god created by human hands.)”

The bookseller called gently over to him while assessing a purchase at the accounting counter.

“Couldn’t you have gone to Maleficium’s West End Library for this?”

“If I was only interested in the quantity of books, sure. But they have a lot of gaps in the available knowledge.”

It also meant a lot to be able to look into dangerous topics without gathering any attention from the Benandanti or White Magic. …And with his number of overdue books numbering in the dozens, any encounter with the Glenstrae librarians would end up with him being chased all over the school.

“That aside, why not take a break? You have been muttering under your breath while you read.”

“…”

Was he starting to look unhinged?

He had really been speaking into a digital recorder the size of a jump rope grip which was sitting on the table.

…If he had made an even more convenient smartphone at his HEA house, he could have photographed all the parchment pages, but he would feel guilty doing that when he owed the bookseller so much.

A sweet scent wafted over. The bookseller had brought him herbal tea and ginger cookies. He wasn’t sure that was the best idea in a used bookshop full of rare old books, but his policy was to accept any gift he was given. And it was quite good too.

“You could just turn this place into a book cafe.”

“My, my. I couldn’t run that on my own. And I don’t have any employees.”

She apparently had over 300 herbal tea blends, but they mostly used cold-resistant mountain plants. According to her daughter Melehe, she was the supreme commander of the largest coven of the snowy region.

She ran the shop all on her own. That made it an extremely inconvenient store that was unpredictably open or closed based on whether or not she had an errand to run, but Yagoro wasn’t the only customer.

“Miss Flamberg, I have finished my assessment. I will have to mark down the price for the damage and dirt. Now, how much these go for will change based on rarity and current trends, but will this be sufficient?”

“Yes. In fact, thank you for attaching prices for me.”

“Hee hee. It was nothing. Texts on Demonology: the Black Mass and other Heretical Rituals is a Class 1 Taboo and quite rare, so a private copy of the original pre-revision version will naturally fetch a decent price. Perhaps I should place it in the ultra-rare bookcase behind the counter.”

Yagoro would love to get his hands on that for research. They apparently had similar tastes. He and Miss Flamberg were not direct acquaintances, but he may have purchased some of her collection through this shop.

The witch herself wore a white outfit resembling a wedding dress, but the neck and wrists were accented with thick red belts. The coloration made her look like a strawberry shortcake. There was a bold slit up the right side of her long skirt, giving an equally bold glimpse of a white garter belt. Since the entire skirt spread roundly out on the floor, it could have looked like a wheel of cheese with a slice removed.

The woman with short blonde hair looked to Yagoro, bowed, and left the used bookstore.

After watching her leave from the counter, the bookseller placed a hand on her cheek.

She looked somehow worried.

“I appreciate her adding to the store’s lineup, but she shows up every once in a while to sell me rare books. Does she need money for something?”

“Must be capital for the real estate business. Buy up a ton of empty houses now and you can make a killing off of the exam students flooding into the city starting in the summer.”

Someone emerged.

The person searching the tall bookcases with a ladder was Sorbeddy, who was even more lovely than a snowflake.

“Nee hee hee. It is late June after all. The first dropouts will be heading home to go crying to their parents soon. Those are the ones who left home to live here, but found they couldn’t work part-time, do their housework, and keep up with their studies all at the same time.”

The ice witch, who was one of the Limit Breakers and one of the greatest self-taught witches, grinned and looked down at Yagoro. She rudely sat on the top of the tall ladder, an extremely risque choice given the short skirt of her already sheer camisole dress.

Her broom was leaning against the bottom of the ladder.

Formula Broom – River Seine bis9FE.

The front of the long handle had four thin wings of transparent silk lace and the end had a large crystal ball reminiscent of compound eyes. Overall, it looked a lot like a dragonfly. It could dart through the air on paths different from an ordinary witch, flying circles around an enemy or coming to a stop and hovering.

She was a specialist in using various kinds of disturbance magic to obstruct her enemies in aerial combat, so she could overcome the downside of single-handedly facing multiple midair foes. Yagoro had heard this was the result of repeatedly modifying her broom so the mercenary witch could take the full reward for bringing down her enemies.

He was pretty sure her broom’s guide was a goddess called Sequana.

(The Celtic water god.)

Yagoro knew he was reading too much into it, but he couldn’t help but react to the word “goddess”.

“White. A pure white goddess,” he muttered, drawing on his memories of the vision he’d seen during his near-death experience.

Was there something to this?

No, it didn’t seem familiar.

In fact, a white goddess was such a popular symbol it didn’t narrow things down much.

Norse, Greek, Celtic, and even Slavic and the Kalevala. He doubted he would find anything pursuing that lead alone. And white clothing reminded him of the woman who had just left. Miss Flamberg, was it? She wore a white wedding dress. She wore that all the time, so this world’s costumed partiers were something else. It was no use. His linking of thoughts with images was leading him astray.

Yagoro wasn’t even sure the goddess he had seen was from this world and maybe her ridiculous outfit wasn’t enough of a clue to lead anywhere useful. It was possible that was simply her personal tastes, the current fashion, or the only thing she had to wear at the time.

And…

“My, my. This troublesome boy is staring into the distance and calling for a white goddess… Did you like Miss Flamberg’s wedding dress, Yagoro? Are you into the lacy see-through look?”

“Eh? Wait, I wasn’t fantasizing about-”

“My.” “Oh, really?” “I see.”

“Um, why do I feel like you’re all against me?”

And why was the Sequana broom joining in? And with apparent fascination? Did the goddess of the Seine enjoy this sort of talk?

The ice witch grinned and began to tease Yagoro.

“Myousou, if you have time to dabble in fantasies about a woman who has already left, you must not have much else going on in your life.”

“Why do people with nothing better to do pour so much effort into causing trouble for others?”

He had assumed she was here to search for rare books, but apparently not.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“They’re having a flea market nearby.”

“Have they?”

Unlike in compulsory education, there were no official textbooks for the exam students. What reference material you chose would greatly affect the difficulty of the exam. A flea market could easily become a battlefield for the students because it offered a chance to purchase rare books with the limited contents of their wallet.

But they had to be careful because there were also shitty money lovers there looking for someone to scam.

“I buy up plenty of dirt cheap books that have a history but aren’t very useful and then sell them to new money who don’t know how to judge their value. Heh heh heh. I’m about to make a killing yet again!!”

“Calm down,” said the bookseller with a hand on her cheek and a smile on her lips. The good-natured mama had no problem with this plan because it let her sell a pile of cheap, unsold books to this greedy idiot.

“God, you’re greedy. You’re already rich, so why don’t you just enjoy the slow life now?”

“My, my. Her wealth is far from secure, Yagoro. The way I hear it, all the money she earned selling ice to the entire city vanished after one night at a high-rate casino.”

“Well, ice has a very stable demand, but that also means her sales aren’t ever going way up. With a set population, there’s a set number of freezers out there.”

“Shut up and do some honest work, worm!”

“Hm? Why is Sorbeddy mad at me for that?”

“Yagoro, you should already know she is very emotionally unstable even when she isn’t on her period.”

“Don’t you mean she’s just a terrible person?” added Sequana.

No, he didn’t already know that. And he was hesitant to comment on this dark exchange between the women. Meanwhile, Sorbeddy herself was left trembling with even her broom attacking her.

“Gh, kh… Screw that casino! Just you watch, you petty bourgeois! I’ll add some real estate business onto my ice selling and be back to my luxurious lifestyle by the end of the year!!”