Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode2 (section)

===2===

''Thump, thump, thump, thump, bang, bang, bang!!

Some kind of racket interrupted the night in Temple School City, a tiered city filled with the gentle glow of the huge pumpkin lamps placed on the street corners and on the roofs. But this racket was not roadwork.

“…What are you doing?”

“Oh! Hey, teacher!”

The noisy nuisance ended as soon as the 17-year-old blond boy named Myousou Yagoro called out to it.

Peace and quiet returned to the city built from white marble and black obsidian.

Viocia Modestlucky was a girl with long, fiery red hair and a long dress (with slits on the sides) which looked like a pumpkin tart thanks to its orange, red, and purple coloration. She was riding a bicycle instead of a Formula Broom and she wore a large backpack. That seemed like a terrible choice in a tiered city full of stairs. Was she doing construction on her pelvis using the bike seat?

An accusatory question or two wasn’t going to keep the girl down, so she gave Yagoro a beaming smile.

“Heh heh. I’m working part-time to help out the people of the city! I get instructions by carrier pigeon, go buy the requested item at a shop, and bike it over to the designated location where they pay me!!”

“And why are you doing this?”

Needless to say, this fantasy world had no mobile phones. (It doesn’t, I swear.) But the city’s teenage girls were still starved for information. So if you looked up, the cooing necessities for life as a modern magical girl could be seen lined up on the sidebars of the giant red elevators that resembled scales. Those urban mobile messengers had been domesticated to the point their internal clocks didn’t tell them to head back to their nests at night, but they were apparently smart enough to stay off the roofs where they would fall prey to kitties. Flying witches needed to be cautious of bird strikes.

But Viocia’s response was carefree.

“Because I need to work to afford the prep school tuition.”

“Gh.”

She had a surprisingly good explanation for this one.

Come to think of it, she had come to Temple School City after running away from her grandma’s house deep in the woods. Yagoro had worked with her ever since signing a tutoring contract with her about a month ago, but he was only now learning she couldn’t rely on her parents’ financial support.

(Ugh, that’s another problem to deal with, don’tcha think?)

Securing time for studying was the biggest and most fundamental problem facing exam students. He also couldn’t have her wasting her mental capacity on how to do her job efficiently and where all the shortcuts through the city were. Because the entrance exam was (supposed to be!!) a crucial time in your life when you couldn’t afford to think about anything other than the exam.

“Sigh. ''If only the prep school would teach me for free like you do.''”

“That’s not going to happen, don’tcha think?”

Yagoro was fine working for free since he had ''his own objective'', but the prep school was a business. And as a private business that didn’t receive support from the kingdom, it would go under if it didn’t receive a monthly tuition from each and every student.

“Hm. What is the Finnish mill that produces endless supplies of pure gold, salt, and food?”

“Eh, we’re doing that here!? Um, uh, well, uh, that would be, ha ha, the Sampo!”

That she could answer even when caught off guard meant she was actually working at her memorization. She didn’t even erroneously assume it had to do with Norse mythology. She was making progress from when she would wouldn’t even answer a multiple choice question. He was also glad to see she wasn’t trying to abuse that knowledge by attempting a reckless grinding challenge with the nearest mill.

“Anyway, I have work to do! See you later, teacher!”

“No, not see me later! You have the prep school’s Bealtaine practice exam this week!!”

“This backpack is apparently stuffed full of marigold and red clover. Those are for stopping bleeding and stopping poison, so it’s probably urgent. Ugh, liquids have to be transported in bottles, so they’re really heavy. If I’m late, I won’t just get a bad rating, the adventurer party in Lakeside’s semi-underground park dungeon will be wiped out!!”

It was harder to stop her when people’s lives were on the line, but she still wasn’t supposed to show this kind of mercy when preparing for the exam. Viocia pedaled off as soon as she saw an opening and thump-thump-thumped her way down the stairs.

Lakeside’s semi-underground park was a legitimate(?) ''deadly zone''. In fact, you could say anything related to Lakeside, the lowest level of the city, was a dungeon you were risking your life to enter. Yagoro’s student had found a fairly dangerous job.

The tutor boy could only speak into the empty air.

“Can’t that brat at least get a job as the one who mixes up the potions in a cauldron?”