Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode1 (section)

===4===

Myousou Yagoro was not having a good time.

He didn’t have a change of clothes, so he was stuck being soaked. The parchment armor he wore under his clothes felt especially gross. At least he bleached his hair before dying it blond, so getting it wet didn’t matter.

“…”

“What are you doing here?”

Gyaru-style instructor Schanze Dwelling did not sound pleased to see him when he entered the faculty break room. Not too surprising when he was an outsider who wasn’t paying a monthly tuition.

Flight practice wouldn’t normally be called off if a witch in training fell into the pool, but this had involved a wax doll curse, albeit an unsuccessful one. The students were stuck doing self study for the rest of the period.

Dorothea Rockpool was resting in the infirmary.

She had gotten some water in her windpipe, but she would be fine. Physically, anyway. The psychological trauma was outside Yagoro’s area of expertise.

“How is she doing?”

“Hm? Oh, you mean Miss Dorothea Rockpool?”

The gyaru-style instructor thought for a second and must have decided the lip service wasn’t necessary with an outsider. She dropped the “miss” as she continued.

“To be honest, Dorothea is going to have a rough time.”

Yagoro breathed a heavy sigh.

He’d thought as much.

“Her grades totally aren’t bad. She lives on her own, but it’s a stable life and she’s economically capable of focusing on studying for the exam. Of course, that’s led to some pain-in-the-ass envy from the students who have to work part-time while studying. But on the physical side, there’s her size, which totally can’t be overcome with hard work.”

Her ointment was made to make her seem lighter than she was.

That meant the shy glasses girl had feared this and worked to eliminate that weakness.

“Now, that’s totally not worth getting bent out of shape over. If she only wants to be a self-taught witch, anyway.”

Schanze intentionally pushed out her voluptuous chest.

Her obvious curves had a way of drawing the male eye. In other words, she had a nice distribution of subcutaneous fat. And while she couldn’t say so in front of other women, that made her that much heavier. She had not grown in just that one direction. She had also grown tall as if to strike a nice overall balance. The same could be said about the silver-haired, brown-skinned used bookseller who appeared to have a Formula Broom. That was part of who Yagoro had pegged her as a self-taught witch when he first met her.

Schanze Dwelling interrupted his thoughts with a definitive statement.

“''But that changes if she wants to get into Maleficium.''”

“I imagine it would.”

“It’s a totally simple fact that lighter is better for a flying witch. Maleficium is a crazy selective school that rejects more than 99.9999% of hopeful students without batting an eye. It’s worth assuming that a single extra kilogram – no, a single extra gram – could mean the difference between passing and failing. Of course, being light alone isn’t enough to ensure you pass.”

“Earning as many points as possible ''is'' the standard rule of entrance exams.”

And those who couldn’t pick up a point within their reach would be failed without mercy.

He understood that.

And yet…

“But this a different issue, don’tcha think?”

“Hm?”

“Dorothea Rockpool isn’t just using a standard ointment. She’s using something else too. Isn’t it your job as an instructor to ensure ''things like that'' don’t find their way into the prep school?”

“Maybe if I got paid extra for it.”

Yagoro heard a distant voice calling “teacher!”

Viocia innocently jogged up to him.

That signaled the end of the conversation.

Schanze stood from her seat and left the tutor alone with his student.

“Here’s a towel, teacher. Wow, you still look like a drowned rat.”

“I already told you I don’t have a change of clothes.”

“Oh, right! Hee hee. Then I’ll dry you off with my specialty: the fire magic I just learned.”

“Please notice the contradiction there, Viocia. Before you set me ablaze.”

Viocia’s face lit up with excitement, so he had to put a stop to this before she turned into a little arsonist.

Witch and tutor were both hungry. After all the delays, they couldn’t use the school cafeteria, so they would have to buy some bread at the school store.

“Ugh, I really am worried. What if I keep failing the exam? I don’t want to get a normal job.”

“Don’t worry. We’re paying good money to study here, so we’ll be fine! The teachers all say so. I mean, when there are professional instructors to teach you, studying at home instead of a prep school is basically suicide.”

Yagoro quietly sighed at the conversation he overheard between two girls passing by.

Continuing your education was better than getting a job and a prep school was better than studying at home. Those salary-obsessed adults had done a great job of convincing the girls they were the best option. If the instructors’ claims were to be believed, then the 99.9999% failure rate wouldn’t exist in the first place. Then again, who you trusted and how you chose to study was part of the exam-taking process. Simply taking someone’s claims at face value was just asking for trouble.

The cafeteria and school store were in Carraway Cs’s structure building.

There was quite a crowd there, but coincidence played in their favor. The prep school girls didn’t want to be anywhere near soaking-wet Myousou Yagoro, so the crowd parted in front of them.

“Wow. It’s like I can see your charisma in action, teacher!”

“Can’t say I’m happy about it. Anyway, where’s the usual girl? Dorothea, I mean.”

“She brought her lunch. She makes her own lunch every single day. I wish I could do that☆”

(Makes her own lunch, huh? Is that a sign she avoids eating out because she can’t control how healthy the food is?)

Yagoro’s thoughts turned toward what he had recently learned.

That was another standard concern for witch’s preparing for the exam.

“I think she’ll meet up with us later,” said Viocia.

“I see.”

Viocia had to be boarding somewhere in Temple School City since she had come from her grandmother’s house deep in the woods, but based on her earlier comment, Yagoro had to wonder what her lodging situation was like.

“Red is fire. Yellow is wind. What is blue?”

“Um…water!”

Yagoro gave her a problem while using the metal tongs to grab a product from the shelf. That said, they didn’t have anything like stuffed breads here. It was all instant lists and example lithographs of the finished product held between glass panels. In other words, it was all witch recipes. That meant you could only choose from premade options, but it would all appear with only a wave of a broom.

“Since you can’t use a Formula Broom, I’ll do it for you, teacher! Happy Halloween!”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Yagoro, grabbing the recipe for a sandwich containing hot vegetables seasoned with salt and pepper. He didn’t really need to worry about his diet since a tutor wouldn’t be taking the exam, but he decided chowing down on something unhealthy while Viocia was restricting her diet would form a crack in the trust between them.

“Yay! They have a new product. A dessert sandwich with whipped cream and five kinds of cut fruit. I need to try that!!”

Hitting her head with the borrowed tongs would have been unhygienic, so he kicked her instead. Right in her shin.

“Ow!? A-are you the kind of hotblooded teacher who believes in corporal punishment?”

Oops. He’d fallen into a bad habit he picked up when building up his body in the Force.

Even though that sort of thing had felt out of place for him since he had only wanted to reach outer space at the time.

(Then again, the witch legends from Earth suggest they too used corporal punishment against rulebreakers.)

“I agree it’s a major problem that this world’s culture allows me to do that in a school, but let’s talk about something a little more close to home, Viocia. Are you kidding me?”

“But they say you need sugar to fuel your brain.”

“A favorite excuse of the weak. Salt, fat, vitamins, and minerals are all necessary, don’tcha think?”

“Vita-whats?”

Yagoro coughed. That term must not have existed in this world yet, so he had only confused his student.

“And working your brain isn’t going to drain your nutrients until you grow visibly emaciated. Throw out those convenient girly fantasies and focus on reality.”

“Ugh.”

“Eat that and you will gain weight.”

“Do you have to be so blunt with a girl in a moment of weakness!? I mean…don’t I deserve a treat after all that studying? It’s a necessary investment to keep my motivation up!”

“That way of thinking is the whole problem, don’tcha think? You’re paying good money to attend this prep school. If you want to pass the exam, you need to make yourself enjoy the time you spend studying.”

“Are you saying I should brainwash myself to like studying?”

Sketchy sleep learning using a wind-up phonograph was one thing, but if you could get into Maleficium by stuffing all the necessary knowledge directly into the brain, everyone would be doing it.

“Boo.”

Viocia pouted her lips and then hit a little too close to home.

With the innocence of a 5-year-old.

“Your life must be really boring, teacher. What can you do with magic, anyway?”

“You can pass the exam, don’tcha think?”

That was all Yagoro said while clacking the metal tongs together a few times.

(Yes. There is no easy path to passing the exam.)

That reminded him of something else.

Dorothea Rockpool and the strange scent he had sensed on her skin.

(Which is why ''shortcuts like that'' are such a bad idea.)