Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode2 (section)

===9===

A witch’s broom – a Formula Broom – generally always moved forward. That meant it didn’t easily hover in place or move vertically.

When not using the breakaway method, which meant stepping out into the air from an elevated location, taking off from the ground required distance. Short takeoff and landing was the mainstream method for modern witches, but that still began with low-altitude flight skimming just off the ground and required nearly 500m for a stable takeoff.

Thus, the witches facing each other immediately passed each other by in their ultra-low-altitude flight.

After picking up enough speed, both sides gained altitude while performing a large U-turn. They just barely avoided the red-painted elevator pillars and the thick chains while they prepared to pass each other again but much higher this time.

However, they were not preparing for a harsh exchange of attacks.

A small scratch ran across Melehe’s right cheek.

(Did they lay out invisible wires or some other kind of trap during our first pass?)

They wouldn’t have had time to extend wires between all the various protrusions and support pillars. If they had, Melehe would have been decapitated. So had they each thrown out a few of the coiled wires designed to be dropped from above to tangle up a carriage’s wheels and its horse’s legs? Melehe’s cheek had been struck by one of the ultra-thin curved wires forming a coil thicker than a washtub.

Witches were familiar with weaponizing flight techniques. The big circular wires were cheap and easily acquired, they could be folded down like an accordion, and they could unilaterally attack a powerful warhorse’s legs, a carriage’s wheels, or a warship’s rudder from the sky.

“Are you kidding me? You dare use a wire to harm my skin when I work with Orpheus, the master of the lyre, ancestor of the modern harp!?”

The red, blue, and green wicked girls of Sassafras Cfa Prep School had a special way of flying. They held their Formula Brooms backwards so the brush end was out front. That looked tricky at first, but it was actually one of the official riding styles.

Furthermore, four sharp metal plates resembling a mantis’s arms extended out from the sides of the brush. They were angled outwards, creating something like the end of a trumpet. Those extra wire cutters were used to slice through any unseen barriers set up in the air, thus ensuring their safety. The focus on avoiding traps showed they understood the threat of their own traps better than anyone.

“Gya ha, ah ha ha!! Holibre, Lampans. Hee hee. Let’s go with the usual rules!”

“Right? Each bone of hers we break is 1 point and whoever earns the most points wins!”

“Arbamini, Holibre, we’re here to invite her to our school, so don’t kill her. Anything short of that’s fine, though. Hee hee. Now, what should I have you buy me after I win?”

Of course, no one could manage an adaptation without first mastering the basics. If this trio could fly like that, they had to have decent flight skills. They could have used those skills to create so many smiles, or to protect those smiles.

But they didn’t.

They only used their witchcraft skills to make others suffer.

(What is wrong with them!?)

“The lyrist can even open the path to the underworld with his music. Not even the god of the dead can alter his decisions.”

Melehe felt intense anger, but she accurately recited the incantation under her breath and used her empty left hand to create different whistle-like openings. As long as you trusted your Formula Broom and kept it under control, you only had to tell it what you wanted to do and it would search for the knowledge to make that a reality and guide your body through the necessary actions. She was flying using the instructions of the tool she held in her hand. She had no way of knowing, but that method would make the residents of Earth think of a certain term: fly-by-light.

“So even if his flesh and blood are split apart and discarded, his pace will not slow. Orpheus, control all flowing paths – be they water, river, or sea!!”

A roar and a glowing light came from Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus’s handle.

It was a single linked mass.

Far below, the stone pavement split and water burst out, ignoring gravity to swell up after Melehe. It formed a massive spear that took aim at the trio approaching her from head on.

They were on course to collide above the Arena.

But just before that happened, Arbamini, with the red braided fried shrimp, gave a roar.

While laughing in amusement.

“Ah ha ha! Gate, door, metal bars!! Shut tight and swallow your sacrifice whole!!”

“Tch!?”

Melehe heard something like blades slicing through the air.

That was exactly what this was. A perfect sphere of space above the Arena was cut away.

A lot of the water was left outside the field, but a volume greater than a bathtub remained within the giant sphere and obeyed Melehe.

The field itself had a diameter of 100m and its center point was about 200m above the ground. That meant the lowest point of the spherical barrier was located 150m above the ground.

Melehe wanted to avoid crashing into that invisible wall. She immediately figured out that “rule” and made minute adjustments to the nose of her broom to travel along the wall of the spherical barrier so closely the soles of her shoes just barely touched it.

She slid along it like a sled.

In the blink of an eye, Melehe and the witch trio had each circled the interior of the sphere at least 5 times.

That was the kind of speed they were using here. They were in a world that far surpassed sound.

(Is that barrier not coming from their Formula Brooms? Is it part of the Arena itself?)

Melehe held one hand up to her ear to better gather sound and heard some men cheering up at them from the ground.

“They’re at it again! We’ve got another witch fight!!”

“Okay, everyone, who’re you betting on!? It’s not a real day at the Arena without some gambling!!”

“It’s one against three. What kind of gamble is it when they’re ganging up on her like that!?”

Did those wicked witches use this mood to further their ends as well?

This wasn’t their first time doing this. There must have been students secretly biting their lips in frustration after having their wings broken by these three.

It would be best to assume no one would be reporting this to the Benandanti.

(Curse those gamblers and drunks. Of course, if someone did release a carrier pigeon to report this, I might just run into it!)

When they passed by each other yet again, some voices suddenly reached Melehe’s ears.

“(Everything’s ready. Guess what? We’ll be smashing every one of your bones, so I hope you’re prepared.)”

“Kh.”

“(Right? Kee hee hee. The witches who led Macbeth astray play music to cast magic on the air.)”

It took a split second for them to pass by, but a mass of compressed sound – and the words contained within – remained in Melehe’s ears like those three were breathing into her ear.

Then all three of them spoke as one while mimicking stirring a cauldron with their empty left hands.

“Welcome, you slow, slow fool. A turtle would be faster than you, human.”

Melehe suddenly pitched forward and her breath caught. It took her a few seconds to realize her Formula Broom had drastically lost speed. That alone could have been fatal when moving faster than sound.

But she didn’t die.

That one phrase had robbed her of so much speed. The trio were still at their top speed, so they seemed to melt into streaks of red, blue, and green.

Their distorted supersonic voices reached her again.

(Spears of sound!? And these aren’t just shockwaves. It’s their witch words that really matter. These carry some kind of curse!)

“Welcome back, you fat, fat fool. Your weight puts iron to shame, fatty.”

Her speed dropped further.

“Do not worry, mi…ady. Do not…anic and lose…ontrol!!”

“Orpheus!?”

Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus was trembling in a disconcerting way. The broom she was entrusting with her life was having trouble securing enough centrifugal force to continue rotating around the inside of the large sphere. The fear of dying from a fall crawled up from her toes to her chest. Her broom was malfunctioning like someone had opened it up and dumped sand or sugar inside.

“Hee ha ha!! One more! Just one more!!”

“Right? The three witches who led Macbeth astray only need to speak thrice to complete their curse. By linking the three points, we create a single current. There’s no escaping now, you brat!!”

“Sigh, fine. If she dies, we can go apologize to our instructor. Inviting in a good student only gets you a special bonus – it isn’t required or anything.”

Just once more.

All alone, Melehe gulped. If they completed their curse, she couldn’t remain airborne. If she fell from this height and they deactivated the spherical barrier surrounding them, she might really fall to her death.

(They aren’t each supplying all Three Aspects of Admiration, Antiquity, and Amorality.)

She shook her head to drive out her timidity.

She wouldn’t fall for their tricks.

She would never turn this around if she let fear rule her mind. If she intended to be a true witch, she needed to use knowledge to stop her trembling and work to analyze the threat she faced.

(I thought they were quick to put that magic together, so are they forming a single large piece of magic between the three of them? Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans. They each focus on one of the Aspects!!)

Red, blue, and green.

Those streaks of color were hard to follow with the naked eye, but they were intertwining and approaching Melehe. True to the basics of aerial combat, they intended to move in from behind.

The three curse-bearing sound spears rushed in toward her.

“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. Now fall from the heavens like the fool you-!!??”

They never finished.

The trio stopped prematurely because they had lost sight of their target.

That said, Melehe could not use magic to turn herself invisible or to teleport. What she really did might seem trivial by comparison.

Inside the 100m sphere, her Formula Broom suddenly ascended straight up, completely ignoring the curvature of the field.

Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans continued their supersonic flight, but that was why they couldn’t process what had happened fast enough just by viewing the scene ahead of them. They had to have mostly been operating based on their mental predictions of what would happen. So a single action outside their predictions was enough for them to overlook something crucial.

They failed to notice Melehe’s 3m ascent.

The tricolored lights shot by directly below Melehe.

“A vertical…takeoff!?”

“''No one ever said it was impossible, did they?''”

Melehe Superlative had put a lot of effort into polishing her vertical takeoff technique. She could already do it on her own, but she still didn’t understand the process well enough to teach the members of Private Striga. If she could verbalize the parts she did by feel and turned it into a technique she could actually convey to someone else, she was sure it would greatly enhance the entire coven’s strength.

(Reproducibility is the heart of science, huh? That pervert tutor does know how to hit you where it hurts, in that inconsiderate way of his.)

So this was a symbol of her future pride – something she intended to one day teach to everyone in Private Striga. She didn’t have time to use it for any kind of misdeed.

Soldier Melehe focused on one of the 13 Multiples: save the weak.

She would not let these wicked witches rejoice in sullying someone’s attempt at getting a new start in life.

(I won’t have a second chance at this. I need to turn this around right now!!)

Melehe gripped her Formula Broom tight.

It was now her turn to move in behind the tricolored witches who had carelessly surpassed her.

“Their great triangle is dangerous, but it all falls apart if I can take out just one of them! Witches can’t use any significant magic without using all Three Aspects!!”

Still riding her broom, Melehe held out her open palm. The barrier had cut away most of it, but she still had more than 500L of water on the inside. By controlling it and changing its shape, she could launch a water spear.

She aimed at one of them – it didn’t matter which. She arbitrarily chose Arbamini’s red back.

“Tch!!”

“Arbamini!!”

The blue and green joined her and their three lights danced wildly about. A lot like shuffling paper cups with a ball below one.

Melehe launched the water spear regardless.

The instant it pierced the red, all three colors vanished into nothingness.

Melehe’s eyes widened.

(It wasn’t just one of the three.)

“''All three were decoys''!?”

“Ha ha! The witches who led Macbeth astray vanish after their dance! Without warning!!”

The colorful lights flew in a large circle to the opposite side of the 100m diameter. From Melehe’s perspective, the colorful malice was clinging to the domed ceiling using the powerful centrifugal force. After recovering as if drawing out a massive rainbow, the three witches approached the brown girl again.

This time, their third curse really was coming.

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“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. Now fall from the heavens like the fool you are!!!”

Melehe’s strength faded.

Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus ceased to function.

Melehe felt like an icy hand was clutching her spine. That hand was the fear of death.

She was thrown out into the empty air at more than 150m up.

She wouldn’t even have to fall all the way to the ground.

She would die the instant she struck the thick barrier.