Failing Witch:Volume1 Prologue

Prologue: Magic is Far Out of Reach

Now, for a quiz. A witch must always focus on the Three Aspects.

Let’s start with the Aspect of Admiration.

Which ATU number is the reference text for the Cinderella witch role?

ATU(777?)a   0000 1234

Go, lucky number!

Next, the Aspect of Antiquity.

You want to perform a four elements conversion based on the philosopher Aristotle’s formula, but the below diagram does not let you use the shortest conversion method of swapping out the four qualities (dry, wet, hot, and cold) one at a time. Fill in the blank to explain what needs to be replaced with what to provide the correct diagram.

╭ Earth ╮

Wind           Fire

╰ Water ╯

Replacing water with (To) will work.

othpaste

Teacher, the blank isn’t big enough for it to fit!

Hint: Fire = Dry + Hot and is a processed version of the common prima materia.

Lastly, the Aspect of Amorality.

Which of the following should not be done by the leader of the Black Mass?

1. Perform a deadly curse ceremony

2. Wear a rabbit skull over the head

3. Use a naked woman as an altar

I’m onto you. This is a trick question. They’re all correct, so the right answer is to choose none of them.

Can’t fool me!

Silence reigned.

The girl seated in her chair had turned her head entirely the side. At least she was aware what she had done. She appeared too afraid to look him in the eye.

Sweat poured down her face.

A 17-year-old boy with unnatural blond hair sat across from the trembling girl seated at the same desk in the same room. He knew going easy on her now would be a mistake. When he followed her gaze, he saw the warm sunny sky. He was honestly jealous. …On his side of the desk, he was about ready to crush the parchment answer sheet in his grip.

The boy wore a white long-sleeved sailor uniform with bright lemon yellow slacks. At best, that could have made him look like a sailor. At worst, like he was dressed in wedding colors. But the metal armor on his elbows and knees and the thick boots changed that impression. He wore a thick leather corset around his waist to keep his silhouette slim despite the several-centimeter-thick armor of stacked parchment he wore below the long-sleeved sailor uniform. He also wore a weapon at the hip. …Although in this world of swords and sorcery, it was apparently seen as little more than an illusionist’s wand with some weird extra functions.

“Um.”

“…”

“Teacher, could you not pierce me with that absolute zero glare? It’s terrifying.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

So she knew what absolute zero was.

If she was familiar with a term like that, why would she submit an answer sheet like this? It felt like a weird kind of talent at this point. The ATU number was pure memorization, so he could understand not knowing that. The Aristotle question required some calculation, so it could be a challenge if that wasn’t your strong suit. But with a multiple choice question, you could at least make a guess even if you didn’t know the answer. Even completely random chance gave you 33% odds of being right with just three choices, so it was definitely worth doing. So why would this extraordinary idiot suspect a nonexistent trick, waste that chance, and then act proud about it? She had sabotaged her own chances! She could at least not confidently proclaim that she can’t be fooled! According to the woman who was practically the founder of witch research, their gatherings weren’t led by people with a donkey or rabbit head and this said “skull” not “mask”, so it should have been obvious since a small animal’s skull isn’t fitting over a human head!!!

He wasn’t mad. Not really.

The boy she called her teacher simply didn’t know where to begin with her.

He was tutoring a 15-year-old girl.

Her name was Viocia Modestlucky.

She had long, fiery red hair and youthful features. Her pale skin was covered by a long dress. The slits on the sides of her skirt (which didn’t suit her at all) and the wide-brimmed hat did have a traditional witch look, but the colors were all wrong. Her outfit was primarily orange with small accents of red and purple. If she was being graded on creepiness, she would earn a perfect 0. They were autumn colors, so they were only Halloween-y in that they looked like a highly decorated pumpkin tart.

“Well, it is what it is, I suppose. To be entirely honest, this is my first time seeing an answer sheet that earns a perfect 0, but nothing is going to change what I’m seeing in front of me here.”

“…Okay.”

“But don’t let this get you down. I still have more advice to give you.”

“Okay!!”

“They’re opening a new café in the neighborhood and I hear they’re looking for part-time waitresses.”

“Wait, wait, no!! I’m not giving up on being a witch! Eek! Don’t you ever advise me to give up, teacher!! You’re supposed to be my tutor!!”

The boy sighed. He was the one who had chosen her as his contractual partner, so no matter how hopeless it might seem, he had to find a way to make it work. He had to start from there. If his student said she didn’t understand something, it was his job as her tutor to take a step back to that point and have her study it until she did understand.

It was possible to study on your own, but people had a tendency to take the path of least resistance when they did. For example, someone who was great at memorization would focus on that and neglect to practice their calculations. It was a tutor’s job to objectively identify those weak points and point them out. They couldn’t just give up after identifying their student’s weaknesses.

“Listen, Viocia. A witch must focus on the Three Aspects. Can you name them for me?”

“Um, teacher? I can’t hear you when you mumble.”

“They are Admiration, Antiquity, and Amorality. 0 points again. You need to at least develop a habit of giving an answer – any answer.”

Yet again.

The boy backed up to the very basics and reexplained everything from there.

“+1 point. A witch views this single world through three aspects and operates the Three Aspects together to gain great propulsion . Much like a steamship’s propeller. So you must use the Admiration acquired through texts, the Antiquity acquired from ancient rituals, and the Amorality acquired by taking advantage of the twisted view people have of witches. This quiz included all three of those – not just one. Only with all of the Three Aspects can a witch gain the great power needed to fly. Flight means ignoring speed and distance, crossing all forms of terrain, and rejecting every geographic limitation, so it requires a complex process and safety device.”

“Zzz…”

“…”

She was snoring. The blond boy in a sailor uniform bent his multipurpose wooden slide rule and let it slap against his student’s forehead.

“Ow, that hurt!”

“Three seconds.”

When she fell asleep, calling her name wasn’t enough to wake her and a slide rule slap was the only solution he had found, so he really wished she would stop.

He still couldn’t believe she was the granddaughter of the legendary witch who was known as one of the Unlimited and was referred to as the Queen of the Night, the Shadows, and Love. It was said her mind had perfect control over her physical body, but when she drew on her full power, she risked absorbing too much power from the land or air and accidentally turning into a little girl or growing wings and horns. Then again, he had heard Viocia had ignored everyone’s protests and traveled to Temple School City on her own. How much of a screwup did you have to be for such a powerful queen to insist you didn’t stand a chance and should just give up?

(Well, it’s not like the witch entrance exam is easy enough to coast through it on talent two generations down the line. Being the child of a genius always makes things harder. That’s true in academia, the arts, and in sports.)

“Yawwwn. Did I not get enough sleep because I was up so late last night searching for that lost kitty?”

A new revelation.

This extreme disappointment was not yawning because she had pulled an all-nighter studying.

“B-besides, shouldn’t a tutor know how to sound more professional?”

“If it would improve your results in the slightest, I’ll be a consummate professional from here on out. Shall we resume your educational training, madam?”

“I’m sorry, teacher. I couldn’t have been more wrong, so forget what I said.”

“I really think you’d do better waiting tables at a café. That one I mentioned apparently has these cleavage-baring uniforms with miniskirts that are practically sartorial sexual harassment. The chest might be a bit baggy with your flat chest, but there might just be an untapped market for that.”

“Hey, wait! When I said to forget what I said, I didn’t meant the part about not giving up on being a witch! Wahhhh! You’re pressuring me to do that waitress thing so hard you sound like a human trafficker!! Help me, Mephistopheles!!”

“If you want to be a top-rate witch, don’t rely on your tool. Speaking of, has that broom even accepted you as a witch yet?”

The girl groaned.

This large city was full of witches still in training, but she was lagging unusually far behind.

“You didn’t have any money, so you ended up buying a used one marked down repeatedly due to its history of accidents, and not even that broom has accepted you? If you haven’t completed the consecration that links the witch to the tool, can you even really call it yours?”

“Ugh, Mephistopheles is so mean… Besides, you shouldn’t even have to learn all those detailed calculations for magic these days. Your Formula Broom is supposed to do it all for you.”

Maybe so.

But the blond boy clicked his tongue and glanced at the 140cm witchcraft device affixed vertically like a cane or umbrella in a small glass holder attached to the edge of the desk.

That was Formula Broom – Wittenberg.

It possessed the name of the forest and town known as a magic location in the alternate world called Earth.

The broom’s texture was smooth, like porcelain. It was colored a piano-like black with borders of gold and red, making it chic and mature, with a somehow sinister solemnness to it. It didn’t even remotely suit that girl. It was of course not a cleaning implement. From the thick handle to each and every last bristle, it was the world’s greatest witchcraft device designed based on the most perfect witch technology. Did she really not find it concerning she had found it for cheap at a secondhand store?

Yes. To simply use magic, she only had to ask Formula Broom – Wittenberg for help.

There was no magic in this world.

That might sound insulting, but it was the truth.

This fantasy world of swords and sorcery had already been stripped of one of those two things. The history told of in a single long scroll was not a tale composed entirely of peace. Far, far in the past, the inheritance of knowledge had been cut off. In other words, this world’s magic had gone fully extinct at one point in the past.

Why were names like Cinderella and Aristotle known in this world?

The answer was found here. No one in this world could use magic any longer, but the people had grown reliant on magic and had found a way to make it work. They had developed a new system in which they snatched forbidden knowledge from an alternate world called Earth to forcibly activate their own magic.

This was done with the modern version of a witch’s broom: a Formula Broom.

Those horrific founts of wisdom would produce any ancient mystery in response to its user’s will and purpose.

(Kind of like a train or a bus, don’tcha think?)

The boy recalled some words he hadn’t heard in a long while. Even though not enough time had passed for the memories to fade.

Viocia had worked hard to wax her Formula Broom, so it sparkled like a racecar brought out in front of the fans and the press.

(That is, you can know how to use it, but that doesn’t mean you can drive it on your own. That’s perfectly fine for the people who only want to use them, but you can’t turn around and create them to further improve your life. Convenience and ease-of-use are nice, but when you can’t explain what’s actually happening, you can’t step off the well-worn path and invent your own stunts and acrobatics.)

Since the witches in this fantasy world could only wave their wands or brooms around without knowing how the magic worked, it wasn’t uncommon for people to disparaging refer to them with the term s(witch).

…Switch. The usage of English and Latin words may have been a result of taking knowledge from Earth. As a tutor, he couldn’t be the kind of person who had a thick textbook and a long ruler, but couldn’t actually build a rocket. That was nothing more than a slave who took the path of least resistance by just letting their student extract all their knowledge.

However, the analogy in the boy’s head wouldn’t help the girl who was so mentally overloaded she had a bit of smoke rising from her head. Referring to buses and trains would only confuse someone from this world.

So the sailor uniform boy changed the subject instead.

“Look into the distance, Viocia. You need to look.”

There was a symbol there. For those who still wished to be true witches in this magicless world, even if it meant dragging knowledge from another world altogether, it was a symbol of hope. For those who had worked themselves to the bone and still failed to earn a place beyond those gates, it was a symbol of pain.

But this girl was not yet to the point of cursing its name and packing her bags.

“––––––”

She was overwhelmed.

Like she had climbed a precipitous mountain and just seen the breathtaking view from the top.

She viewed it with the admiring eyes of someone faced with great beauty.

(If that’s how it looks to her, she should still be fine, don’tcha think?)

The colors white and black were visible in the distance. They were visible from anywhere at the center of the orderly city made from marble and obsidian. But while everyone should have been able to see the center point, no one could see across the massive lake there. With white diamond dust floating above the water year round, only the shimmering silhouette of a many-towered royal castle could be seen there. But even that wasn’t certain. There was no way to know if what you saw was what someone else saw.

Ultimately, the boy and Viocia may have been seeing entirely different things right now. But it was definitely there. Only the witches who passed the harsh trials and landed across the lake had the honor of knowing what it really looked like.

Summon Restricted Magic School Maleficium.

That highly selective school for witches who wielded borrowed power was something everyone knew of, everyone set as their goal, and everyone dreamed of, but it brought only humiliation and failure to more than 99.9999% of girls across the land.

“You have a reason to want to go there, don’tcha?”

“…Yes.”

It was all about that.

This is not the story of Summon Restricted Magic School Maleficium.

It was currently late April. Over half the population here had already failed the entrance exam at least once. It was a bizarre city with a massive economy run by the girls who had given up and the girls who were intent on trying again. The boy and Viocia were sitting in a gazebo in a small park in that city. They generally used this gazebo to study when none of the prep school’s study rooms were open.

“As long as you keep that spirit alive, I’ll give you all the help I can,” said the sailor uniform boy – Myousou Yagoro – looking her in the eye once more. The 17-year-old tutor spoke clearly. “I will make sure you pass next spring. Because that was the tutoring contract we signed.”

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