Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode3 (section)

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“That boyyyyy!!!”

Myousou Yagoro looked uncertain how to respond to her loud and angry yelling and finger pointing. He had only just reached the ground from the giant red-painted elevator, so what was this about?

“Hey, Melehe? Maybe you’ve forgotten because you got a little too worked up dealing with those Sassafras Cfa witches, but this is when they deliver the newspapers. You’ll wake people up if you yell this early.”

“You’re not talking your way out of this one! I won’t be satisfied until I’ve at punched you at least once! The doctor said she’s just old and nothing can be done about it!? And it turns out it’s just some lower back pain!? You tricked me!!”

In all seriousness, severe back pain could apparently be so bad it sapped the will to live, but maybe it was hard for a 15-year-old girl to imagine what that felt like.

And…

“Oh? Yagoro, you aren’t usually out and about this early. My, my. But I did see you out yesterday morning too. Have you put your nocturnal days behind you and taken up a more healthy lifestyle?”

“Bookseller.”

Hearing his name, the blond boy turned around and saw a smiling young woman in a witch’s dress and an apron printed with an animal picture. She ran the used book store he frequented. Every time he saw how her extremely ample chest distorted the apron’s rabbit face, he couldn’t help but want to be reborn as an apron in his next life.

“Hee hee. I just hope this new habit has some staying power.”

“Actually, I’m not sure I want to do this every morning. If anything, that sounds like the opposite of healthy.”

“?”

The young woman gave him a childlike look of confusion. The mismatch was honestly cute.

And for some reason, Melehe Superlative had been completely left behind by the conversation. In fact, she had petrified with mouth gaping. What was with her? Yagoro waved his hand in front of her face and got no reaction.

“M-”

Then the long-sleeve sailor uniform boy realized something.

This girl and the smiling mystery woman had two traits in common: ''silver hair and brown skin.''

“Mom!?”

“Hello, Melehe. Sigh, I have raised quite the tomboy of a daughter, haven’t I?”

That was not at all what Yagoro had expected. ''Oh, so she isn’t just some gentle young woman.'' Yagoro found himself staring into the middle distance. This was apparently the witch said to have partially ''broken through the upper limits''.

While the apron drew a lot of attention, she was wearing a chic black dress below it. She did have a lot in common with Melehe, just more mature. If Melehe was a flashy chocolate parfait, then the bookseller’s hat and dress made her look like a luxury chocolate cake decorated with alcohol and gold flakes.

Still pale-faced, shaking, and half clinging to Yagoro, Melehe questioned her mother.

[[Image:Failing_Witch_v01_BW05.jpg|thumb]]

“Why? Wh-wh-what are you doing here, mom!?”

“Well, I was just so worried about my 15-year-old daughter living on her own for the first time.”

“Have you been watching me!? How much have you seen!?”

“Hmm? To be honest, I spent several years before you arrived regularly visiting the city to prepare a place for myself here, so I saw everything, starting with when you first arrived and looked around half in tears because you didn’t know how to read your parchment map.”

<span style="font-size:150%">”Ahhhhhhh!! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”</span>

The girl’s pride and privacy were utterly destroyed. Not just broken in two but smashed into tiny pieces. The embarrassment and shock must have been too much for her because the usually proud and elite girl held her head through her sky pirate hat and curled up on the ground.

Then her still-tremulous voice slipped into Yagoro’s ear.

“Did you think you were untouched by this, pervert? You’re one of her victims too. Now I finally understand why you wear that sailor uniform. If mom gave you that, there is only one place she could have gotten it from.”

The tutor felt a chill run down his spine.

No, it couldn’t be. Nothing that horrific could actually be true, could it?

“My, my. You really do look just like he did when he singlehandedly conquered the icy ocean☆ Hee hee. It reminds me of the wedding we held on his prized ship.”

“Gwahhhhh!! You mean this is used? It’s soaked with some stranger’s sweat!?”

Yagoro crumbled to the ground. That wife was a little bit too powerful.

But this meant that was definitely a witch’s broom the bookseller was carrying. When Yagoro studied it more carefully (despite his continuing dizziness), it spoke with the voice of a refined middle-aged man.

“Sir Myousou Yagoro, I thank you for all the help you provide the lady. I am Formula Broom – Greek Theatre. If you wish to know anything about that secret rites of Dionysus, you need only ask.”

The unnatural blond-haired boy was secretly impressed.

Apparently that wife really was a witch as well.

“I have tried to help tone down my Dionysus by eliminating his flaws, but I just can’t seem to fix his alcoholism. It never ends well when I carelessly polish his handle with sterilizing ethanol or brandy.”

“(You are not one to talk when it comes to alcoholism. You are far worse than me. Just since you arrived in this city, you got so drunk you began wielding the power of the maenads to near-instantly destroy a loan shark targeting the city’s students.)”

“Dionysus☆”

She silenced the broom. With a single smiling word. Wasn’t it said the best witches did not deny their desires and instead controlled them as a powerful means of driving them toward their goals?

The bookseller placed a hand on her cheek and sighed in a perfectly gentle way.

“Anyway, Melehe, I can’t help but notice you are still going the route of a jack of all trades. Didn’t I teach you the rest of that phrase is ‘master of none’?”

“Gh… Is that any way to speak to your own daughter when she can hold her own in any field?”

“Isn’t the excessive customization of your broom a sign that your soul is crying out for something you excel at? Maybe you weren’t conscious of it, though.”

Apparently the woman wouldn’t let up even after smashing your pride into tiny bits. A completely unprovoked punch to the nose would have been preferable.

Meanwhile, the bookseller’s gaze strayed upwards. Toward the bizarre structure that had appeared in a corner of the city, spreading out from the lake in a fanlike shape.

“So it’s already beginning for this year.”

“Do you remember what problems are on it?”

“”Oh, dear. I might have created this perfect figure by eating as much as I want and exercising, but 20 years ago, I was watching every gram I ate to keep my weight down so I could attend that school☆”