Editing Failing Witch:Volume3 Episode1 (section)

===Part 8===

Chloe Sharprain, the self-taught Rank A ace was in fact a habitual cheater. And whenever suspicion fell on her, she would make a false accusation against someone else to sow confusion and sidestep the suspicion placed on her.

This time, she had chosen Dorothea Rockpool.

And Viocia Modestlucky had received some suspicion for standing up for her friend.

It didn’t matter if they were found innocent.

Everyone had studied themselves half to death for the entrance exam. Melehe couldn’t let those two’s efforts be trampled underfoot to keep some damn cheater safe!

“The more I hear about this, the more it pisses me off, but do you know where Chloe’s friends will be? If we do not track them down fast, Dorothea and Viocia will be in trouble.”

“We weren’t allowed to bring our Formula Brooms or even a single talisman into the exam room. I don’t know what she used to hide the magic she uses to communicate with her cheating team, but they can’t be far away. They must be inside this building!!”

The rest was simple.

What room in Carraway Cs Prep School’s structure building had a large supply of reference material and books?

“The library!!”

Melehe kicked open the door and stormed in.

The room full of exam-takers was being strictly managed, but that had drawn personnel away from other parts of the prep school. And with exam-takers from outside the prep school invited in and extra examiners brought in to bolster security, there were a lot of outsiders in Carraway Cs today.

Any witch prep school would want as many texts as possible. The library was a large space rising through three floors of the boxy building.

To protect the old books, thick light-blocking curtains kept the room dark.

Several pairs of eyes shined in that darkness.

That would be the cheating team remotely supporting the cheater from outside the exam room.

Melehe sharply raised Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus.

“Orpheu-”

“Wait, Melehe!! Dodge now!!!”

Her partner sounded exceptionally panicked.

Something exploded.

Melehe was tossed through the air. A devastating impact pierced through her slender body, like she had been hit by a large carriage drawn by four horses. Unable to prepare for the landing, she crashed through a few wooden bookcases.

“Gahh!?”

She had thought the eyes shining in the darkness belonged to the cheating team.

She hadn’t been wrong exactly.

But a great form moved slowly in the darkness. Something massive looked down at her. But instead of a group of wicked witches who had abandoned their pure and beautiful lifestyle, it was something under their control. The many eyes were all blinking across a single great body.

Part crocodile. Part whale. Part sea snake. Those and other marine creatures were mixed together to create a giant, unidentifiable silhouette. Nature would never produce a creature like this.

“Hee hee. Hee hee. Hee hee ha ha.”

Cloyingly sweet and alluring laughter floated upon the air.

It was just as sweet as the silver-haired girl’s mother’s laughter.

But this came from a girl around Melehe’s own age.

She wore a white dress with toxic red decorations, making her look like an unhealthy sandwich oozing with sweet jam.

“Did you fail to make the overwhelming preparations needed to exact justice? You should have known we would have an offensive means of escape just in case. Honestly, and we even had the Leviathan active and waiting from the start.”

“…Khah…”

Leviathan.

Active.

“But, really, I’m thankful. I went to a lot of trouble preparing this strongest of guard dogs – hee hee ah ha ha – so it would have been a waste to have to disassemble the Three Aspects without ever once using it.”

Rank A Melehe had been taken out in a single attack, albeit a surprise one.

She couldn’t think of many possibilities there.

“It…bh…can’t be…”

“Oh, but it is. I have already joined the ranks of the Limit Breakers. The name is Brewery Establish and I ordinarily draw out the Seven Deadly Sins lurking within people☆”

Melehe could tell because she knew one quite well and not just as a legend.

“Then you’re a true monster that’s surpassed the limits of humankind!!” said Orpheus. “What is a living legend like that doing running a cheating team matching service in a corner of Temple School City like a common thief!?”

“Because it’s the most beneficial option.”

“…?”

“We act as a group to help students cheat so we can send them to Maleficium. This creates Maleficium students with a compromising secret that we, and only we, know. Hee hee, ah ha ha ha ha!! Doesn’t that seem like the fastest way to get what I want? I don’t even have to enter Maleficium myself. I’ve kept this part from Chloe, but the spell I have cast on her does more than just let me control her right hand remotely. ''All I need to do is whisper from a remote location and they become puppets under my complete control''!!!”

“How…dare you!” shouted Melehe.

“Even the scope of your villainy knows no bounds, you greedy wicked witch!?” added Orpheus.

She had to be stopped.

If Brewery Establish was allowed to continue, she would further corrupt the entire system of the witch entrance exams. That would end badly for the serious students like Viocia and Dorothea, but it would also end badly for students like Chloe who had sold their souls and chosen to reach for illicit activities like cheating. Brewery alone would swallow up all the happiness for herself.

Melehe understood that.

But she was still collapsed helpless on the floor, her feet only trembling unnaturally.

The initial attack had done far too much damage.

(No matter how sweetly rotten and drowning in greed she is, her strategy is horrifyingly correct. She won’t let me turn this into a close-quarters or ranged battle!!)

“Kh!!”

“I only need to win. That is the correct choice here☆”

The witch grinned.

And with that grin, a sweet sense radiated from her entire body.

“I don’t need to fight and I don’t need to worry about defeating you – I only need to win. I only humored you because it would have been a waste to activate the Leviathan and then never once use it. That’s all it was. …Now, then. Time to scratch that itch. Leviathan, show me the full power I designed you for.”

A dull roar burst forth.

Melehe’s breath caught.

Her head lost all sense of ordinary gravity.

Her limbs refused to move and she couldn’t even get up from the floor. All she could do was open her eyes wide as she watched that moment.

The roar sounded like Melehe Superlative’s slender body being thoroughly smashed to a pulp.

Except it wasn’t.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Eh?”

Did that confused voice come from Melehe’s mouth or Brewery’s?

Perhaps it was both.

Neither side of the conflict understood what had happened.

Because…

''That roar was the sound of the enormous Leviathan being smashed to pieces by a single attack and then vanishing.

“What…the…?”

The first to recover was Brewery. She really was at a higher level than Melehe.

But even so…

“What could have done that!? That was the result of bringing the Leviathan, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, into the physical world at ultra-high purity. How could it be destroyed so…so easily!?”

“Are you stupid?” responded a voice.

Someone else had arrived in the library at some point.

Neither Melehe nor Brewery had noticed this newcomer’s arrival.

“A monster made by mixing and matching animals is a simple enough idea. '''Trick Question Warning: the end result is impossible from a biological perspective.''' You might as well be giving your monster a ton of different vulnerabilities. You don’t need some great power to defeat that Leviathan. Take advantage of the anatomical contradictions and it’ll collapse all on its own.”

Something spun in the shadows. It was a collapsible baton.

“I really don’t care if you’re a Limit Breaker or if you have some plan to take over Maleficium with your cheating spell. This isn’t about that. …Did you really think I’d just let you leave after you messed with my student?”

A boy stood there.

He was a tutor.

And…

“''Hey, backstage witch. This is magic. If you’d done your homework, you’d know the answer.''”

A great mass of air blew in from behind Myousou Yagoro. No, that wasn’t air. It was a visualized version of the more fundamental concept of willpower.

It was a hunk of metal. A rounded piece of armor. A turret with several cannons lined up side by side. It had a bridge, a deck, a blister, a propeller, and an anchor. But none of these accomplished their intended purposes. Like dough being kneaded and balled up, it had been crumpled up and forcibly given the shape of a giant marine creature.

In other words…

“The…”

Brewery’s voice trembled as she looked up at it.

Even though she was a Limit Breaker.

“''The…Leviathan''?”

“Correct.”

The earlier one was no comparison.

The library was three stories tall, but this overwhelming colossus threatened to break through its ceiling. The archenemy summoned by Brewery would have quite literally been overshadowed by it.

That may have been why Brewery Establish refused to accept it was real.

The despair on her face said she knew what awaited her if she did accept it.

“Th-this is impossible. The Leviathan is a symbol of envy and the greatest marine creature. Its role is to die and fill the people’s bellies when the time of judgment arrives. It can’t possibly be some inedible hunk of metal!!”

“Witchcraft is pretty lenient when it comes to swapping out symbols. Just like you can use tarot cards designed ages ago to divine when you should buy a new smartphone or tablet.”

“?”

Oops. He mentioned some electronics that didn’t yet exist in this world.

“Different people see different things in the exact same scenery. The same applies to the field of mental meditation, don’tcha think? So as long as the symbols aren’t wrong, they can be freely swapped out. If you don’t have the lime juice to make the cocktail you want, you can get pretty close by adding some lemon juice instead.”

“It can’t be…”

“Still, this one may not have been entirely fair. I did base my Leviathan on marine weapons from Earth.”

Yagoro slightly tightened his grip on the baton.

He spun it around and pointed its tip out ahead of him.

“''I invented a superweapon that doesn’t exist even on Earth.'' It’s a combination of a crocodile, whale, and sea snake, right? Just so you know, this thing’s attack can easily end the age of gunpowder. Ah ha ha. But this world doesn’t even have gunpowder yet, so we’re skipping two steps here, don’tcha think? Anyway, you damn witch, don’t assume a plain, unmodified Leviathan of flesh and bone can withstand this.”