Difference between revisions of "Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode2"

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{{Incomplete|parts=8|tparts=14}}
  
 
==Episode 2: Is Being the Ultra Elite of a Prep School Really so Impressive?==
  
==Episode 2: Is Being the Ultra Elite of a Prep School Really so Impressive?==
   
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===9===
  
===9===
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A witch’s broom – a Formula Broom – generally always moved forward. That meant it didn’t easily hover in place or move vertically.
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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.
  +
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Thus, the witches facing each other immediately passed each other by in their ultra-low-altitude flight.
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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.
  +
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However, they were not preparing for a harsh exchange of attacks.
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A small scratch ran across Melehe’s right cheek.
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(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.
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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.
  +
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“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!?”
  +
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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.
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  +
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.
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“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!”
  +
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“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.
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But they didn’t.
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They only used their witchcraft skills to make others suffer.
  +
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(What is wrong with them!?)
  +
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“The lyrist can even open the path to the underworld with his music. Not even the god of the dead can alter his decisions.”
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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.
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“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.
  +
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But just before that happened, Arbamini, with the red braided fried shrimp, gave a roar.
  +
  +
While laughing in amusement.
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“Ah ha ha! Gate, door, metal bars!! Shut tight and swallow your sacrifice whole!!”
  +
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“Tch!?”
  +
  +
Melehe heard something like blades slicing through the air.
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  +
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.
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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.
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She slid along it like a sled.
  +
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In the blink of an eye, Melehe and the witch trio had each circled the interior of the sphere at least 5 times.
  +
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That was the kind of speed they were using here. They were in a world that far surpassed sound.
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(Is that barrier not coming from their Formula Brooms? Is it part of the Arena itself?)
  +
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Melehe held one hand up to her ear to better gather sound and heard some men cheering up at them from the ground.
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“They’re at it again! We’ve got another witch fight!!”
  +
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“Okay, everyone, who’re you betting on!? It’s not a real day at the Arena without some gambling!!”
  +
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“It’s one against three. What kind of gamble is it when they’re ganging up on her like that!?”
  +
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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.
  +
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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!)
  +
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When they passed by each other yet again, some voices suddenly reached Melehe’s ears.
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“(Everything’s ready. Guess what? We’ll be smashing every one of your bones, so I hope you’re prepared.)”
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“Kh.”
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“(Right? Kee hee hee. The witches who led Macbeth astray play music to cast magic on the air.)”
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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.
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Then all three of them spoke as one while mimicking stirring a cauldron with their empty left hands.
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“Welcome, you slow, slow fool. A turtle would be faster than you, human.”
  +
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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.
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But she didn’t die.
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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.
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Their distorted supersonic voices reached her again.
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(Spears of sound!? And these aren’t just shockwaves. It’s their witch words that really matter. These carry some kind of curse!)
  +
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“Welcome back, you fat, fat fool. Your weight puts iron to shame, fatty.”
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Her speed dropped further.
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“Do not worry, mi…ady. Do not…anic and lose…ontrol!!”
  +
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“Orpheus!?”
  +
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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.
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“Hee ha ha!! One more! Just one more!!”
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“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!!”
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“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.”
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Just once more.
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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.
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(They aren’t each supplying all Three Aspects of Admiration, Antiquity, and Amorality.)
  +
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She shook her head to drive out her timidity.
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She wouldn’t fall for their tricks.
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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.
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(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!!)
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Red, blue, and green.
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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.
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The three curse-bearing sound spears rushed in toward her.
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“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. Now fall from the heavens like the fool you-!!??”
  +
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They never finished.
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The trio stopped prematurely because they had lost sight of their target.
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That said, Melehe could not use magic to turn herself invisible or to teleport. What she really did might seem trivial by comparison.
  +
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Inside the 100m sphere, her Formula Broom suddenly ascended straight up, completely ignoring the curvature of the field.
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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.
  +
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They failed to notice Melehe’s 3m ascent.
  +
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The tricolored lights shot by directly below Melehe.
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“A vertical…takeoff!?”
  +
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“''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.
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(I won’t have a second chance at this. I need to turn this around right now!!)
  +
  +
Melehe gripped her Formula Broom tight.
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  +
It was now her turn to move in behind the tricolored witches who had carelessly surpassed her.
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“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!!”
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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.
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She aimed at one of them – it didn’t matter which. She arbitrarily chose Arbamini’s red back.
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“Tch!!”
  +
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“Arbamini!!”
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The blue and green joined her and their three lights danced wildly about. A lot like shuffling paper cups with a ball below one.
  +
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Melehe launched the water spear regardless.
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The instant it pierced the red, all three colors vanished into nothingness.
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Melehe’s eyes widened.
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  +
(It wasn’t just one of the three.)
  +
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“''All three were decoys''!?”
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“Ha ha! The witches who led Macbeth astray vanish after their dance! Without warning!!”
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  +
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.
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This time, their third curse really was coming.
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[[Image:Failing_Witch_v01_BW04.jpg|thumb]]
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“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. Now fall from the heavens like the fool you are!!!”
  +
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Melehe’s strength faded.
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  +
Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus ceased to function.
  +
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Melehe felt like an icy hand was clutching her spine. That hand was the fear of death.
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She was thrown out into the empty air at more than 150m up.
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She wouldn’t even have to fall all the way to the ground.
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She would die the instant she struck the thick barrier.
   
 
===10===
  
===10===
  +
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Just before death reached Melehe…
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“Hhhnyahhhh!”
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She heard a strange noise.
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No, that was someone’s voice.
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“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
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Destruction followed.
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What was destroyed? The spherical barrier located above the Arena.
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A single hole formed in the massive barrier and the entire thing popped like a soap bubble. Something had pierced through it from below. Whatever had been launched from the ground had mercilessly torn through the thick barrier and caught Melehe’s jacket just as gravity started to pull her down.
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It was Viocia.
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The two of them circled around in the air until Viocia somehow managed to get her Formula Broom stable again. Melehe’s broom remained entirely silent and refused to move.
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“Sigh, the open sky feels great. If only all this wasn’t going on.”
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The trio did not respond with a silly question.
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First, red Arbamini raised her voice.
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“Wha-!? It might be safe now, but this started out as an unofficial arena where the strongest witches fought the giant creatures made at Maleficium. How powerful is that girl to break through one of its barriers!?”
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Melehe also stared wide-eyed at the girl she was holding onto.
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She gave her a quintessential look of disbelief.
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Dorothea wasn’t the only one to outdo Melehe on a part of the Bealtaine practice exam. On the ultra-high speed portion of the flight section, Viocia had outdone even the Rank A genius girl.
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“How did you manage that extreme acceleration? Don’t tell me you could pass the airless ultra-high-altitude barrier and reach the far side of the starry sky!?”
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“What are you talking about?”
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Viocia herself was the most confused.
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Melehe’s eyes widened again.
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“(Who is this girl and who is her tutor?)”
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Viocia only tilted her head.
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“''More importantly'', Melehe, you’re safe now. Help has arrived!”
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“Hey? You really think your brute force power will be any help? You’re just an extra bonus for us. Have fun falling after we break all the bones in your body!!”
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“I…”
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Viocia didn’t hesitate to respond while both supporting Melehe and operating her broom.
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“I never said it was just me. And you need to stop making fun of my teacher!!”
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''Boom!!!
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“!?”
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The color silver shined bright.
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If not for the particles in the air, Arbamini would have been hit before she even noticed. The mass of wind was a lot like a giant wrecking ball.
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Arbamini swung her body to dodge at the last second and gripped her broom all the tighter while scanning her surroundings with her eyes.
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The afterimage was still burned into her retinas.
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“What!?”
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“Magic, right!? And more’s coming. Dodge, Arbamini!!”
   
 
===11===
  
===11===
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Myousou Yagoro twirled his 70cm baton and rested it on his shoulder.
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“So Macbeth’s witches whip up the wind in the reverse direction of the sailors’ map to stop the ship. That includes the wind and the water element. A direct hit from that sticky blow would have knocked them unconscious.
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“Not that I expected to hit supersonic witches so easily,'' sighed Yagoro. Especially when it was an impromptu bit of magic that didn’t even include all Three Aspects.
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“But that’s fine.”
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The scared trio took a few seconds before they burned with intense humiliation and rage. If they rushed his way, he could easily win. His biggest fear was if they kept their cool and continued hunting Melehe.
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(Dammit, Viocia. You didn’t have to steal my line like that, don’tcha think? I’m risking my life when it really isn’t my fight, after all.)
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That said, it had been odd for Melehe to barge into the Arena without any hints to guide her there. She must have overheard Yagoro and Schanze’s conversation. And ''he was willing to pretend'' that gave him a justification for helping her out.
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Also, the tutor boy had finally risen to the same height as the witches. However, he was not tearing through the air at supersonic speed on a Formula Broom.
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He was using one of the cutting-edge elevators that looked like giant red scales and rotated up above the buildings. That meant he was on one of the narrow elevator cars dangling below them. Quick movements and evasion would be difficult from there. He had to use the advantages of the fixed position to overwhelm the supersonic witches.
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“Bring it on.”
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Yagoro swung his collapsible baton while constructing a strategy in his head.
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Multiple lights melted together at once. Popping the spherical barrier had released all the witches into the open sky. When the red, blue, and green lights gathered, they skillfully avoided the giant dragons and griffins flying through the dawn sky and wove their flightpaths together to draw a large circle around Yagoro’s position. The radius of this circle was less than 200m.
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At that speed and distance, stopping their spellcasting fingertips to destroy their magic wasn’t an option.
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“Ha. On the ground, you could’ve at least used the buildings and terrain to shield you, but you were stupid enough to come up into the sky for us.”
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It was probably the green light that was actually speaking. That would be the witch named Lampans.
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“What, is this the famous tutor? I’ve heard some stories about Navigate Exam, but I also know your name isn’t found on any of the prep school lists of successful students. That means you don’t know jack about Maleficium! You’re just some bluffing boy!!”
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“Was the spherical barrier meant to be a distorted version of the Sphere of Sensation? No, I don’t need to figure that out. Since it was broken from the outside, its identity doesn’t affect the battle.”
  +
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''He wasn’t listening.'' The unnatural blond boy’s thoughts were elsewhere.
  +
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(I would estimate their speed at between Mach 1 and 3.)
  +
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This wasn’t a simple competition of speed. The most frightening thing about witches was their ability to turn as sharply as a bicycle or motorcycle while moving at those speeds. Yagoro imagined their general specs based on some of his old knowledge. In a pure dogfight, the witches would have an edge on the latest ramjet engine fighters.
  +
  +
But this was a good thing, actually. If the witches charged at him, they would reach him in no time, but their magic used their voices. That wasn’t a major problem for them when they were pursuing a fleeing supersonic opponent while surrounded by a barrier, but when their opponent was stationary, they would pass him by before their voice spears could have their effect. Generally speaking, witches always moved forward. There were exceptions like Melehe who could hover or take off vertically, but that trio were forced to fly in a large circle.
  +
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That gave him a chance.
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Had the long-sleeve sailor uniform boy’s casual behavior wounded their pride? The three lights gathered together and directed their prophecy toward the center of their giant circle.
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“We’ll shred you to pieces!!!”
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“''As if you could''!”
  +
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That simple statement was all it took.
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The entire sky seemed to freeze over.
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“Your Macbeth witches spell is certainly powerful. It has the extraordinary effect of burdening people with the ''destiny'' of whatever fictional role or position you give them!”
  +
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If they called you their lord, you really would become that. Whether you wanted it or not.
  +
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“But that’s a verbal curse. It doesn’t work if there’s no one there to hear it, don’tcha think!? So you have no way of damaging this elevator that would fall the instant you cut the chain!!”
  +
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“!?”
  +
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“Your only other option is to get me to hear your voice so I can make the elevator malfunction myself, don’tcha think? Which is why you went to all that touching effort to see if your voice was reaching me.”
  +
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“Oh,” said Melehe, her mouth falling open of its own accord.
  +
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They had been fighting at supersonic speed. ''It had been unusual for their voices to reach her at all.'' So Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans had constantly exchanged provocative comments while watching their opponent’s face. That way they could monitor in real time if their distorted voices were reaching that opponent using the compressed bundles of sound.
  +
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The blond tutor boy roared from atop the giant scales.
  +
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“But that’s exceedingly easy to interrupt!”
  +
  +
“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. You stagger more than a drunk, foolish human!”
  +
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“That isn’t going to work! The world of magic isn’t simple enough for you to brute force your way through it!!”
  +
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Nothing happened.
  +
  +
The only thing reaching Yagoro was how rattled the red, blue, and green lights were.
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“It doesn’t matter what you say! No matter how I did it, this was over from the moment I reached the same height as you. And now I have a prophecy for you: you’re the ones who will be falling to the ground!!”
  +
  +
“Welcome back, foolish, foolish scarecrow. You are more unsteady on your feet than a tightrope walker, foolish scarecrow!!”
  +
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“You’re fine with ending this quick, I hope? You have no way of dodging this!!”
  +
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He ignored them and pointed his baton at them.
  +
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They were nowhere near within his reach, but the three streaks of light still showed clear signs of panic.
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“Welcome back, silly, silly doll. You will fall from-!?”
  +
  +
“''I’m sick of your brute forcing. This is magic. If you’d kept up with your studying, you’d know the answer''!!”
  +
  +
He verbally cut them off, but he was actually more cautious of their actions than anyone else.
  +
  +
Their magic took affect when it was heard, not when it was spoken.
  +
  +
Even if each individual sound had a large quantity of language data compressed into it, sound was still sound.
  +
  +
Their large circle put them less than 200m away and the speed of sound was approximately 331m/s. That meant a lag of just over 0.6 seconds for their sound to reach him, which just barely gave him enough time to react after seeing a change in the streaks of light.
  +
  +
He was safe as long as their voices did not reach his ears. Just like speaking commands to a demon or whistling from a keyhole, the intention was not enough. And stopping it didn’t require anything as precise as the antiphase. For example, there was the masking effect. When a low and a high sound were produced simultaneously, the high sound would be drowned out. That could even confuse pilots during midair refueling or acrobatic flying because the sound of the other craft’s engine would seem to suddenly vanish.
  +
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What mattered was that their voices could not reach him but his voice could reach them.
  +
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(Outdoors, an unamplified voice generally can’t travel 200m. If not for that, I wouldn’t use this cramped elevator.)
  +
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“Now’s your last chance for a tearful apology, Lampans!!”
  +
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“How about you go to hell, you- gah!?”
  +
  +
“Lampans!?”
  +
  +
One of the three streaks of light grew distorted and unraveled. The green light – ponytailed Lampans – entered a spin and rapidly lost speed. She was no longer conscious. Like this, she really would crash down into the ground, but the blue light – Holibre, just barely managed to catch her.
  +
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“What’s this? Are you sure you have time to worry about her, Holibre?”
  +
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“She’s my frie- geeyahhh!!!?”
  +
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Holibre’s body jerked upwards. She had the face of someone who took an electric shock to the heart. At this point, even someone without much knowledge of magic could tell some kind of invisible power was at play. Something was attacking the three witches and it had torn through the sky to pierce that girl’s young body.
  +
  +
Blue Holibre stalled out while still holding onto unconscious Lampans. She wasn’t falling straight down, but she would crash eventually. But the final member of the trio – crimson Arbamini – did not go to retrieve the other two. She may have thought this curse was triggered by physical contact.
  +
  +
“If so, you’re ''wrong'', Arbamini!”
  +
  +
She didn’t respond.
  +
  +
The red light raced away from the falling two, but she hadn’t abandoned them. Even at this distance, Yagoro could tell she was muttering something under her breath.
  +
  +
Which meant she had slowed down enough to be followed by the naked eye. The trio of witches each commanded one of the Three Aspects, so with even one out of the fight, their magic fell apart.
  +
  +
But at the same time…
  +
  +
“This isn’t over yet. I’m still magically linked with Holibre and Lampans. If I send my willpower to them through that invisible line, they should wake up. And then they can use their brooms to recover before they crash!!”
  +
  +
“But can they do all that in time, Arbamini? If not, your friends will go splat against the stone pavement!”
  +
  +
(No response, huh? ''In that case,'' I need to change tack too.)
  +
  +
For the first time, the tutor was aware of some faint worry within him.
  +
  +
Still dangling from the giant scales by a single chain, he lifted a leg. He pulled off something pasted to the sole of his shoe. This was not just a scrap of parchment. It was a talisman with an actual meaning.
  +
  +
“Cursed items don’t have to be anything special. Food, ritual tools, and other ordinary objects can become cursed if you mistreat them. Just like supposedly holy temples and churches can become dens of monsters once they’re abandoned.”
  +
  +
This was a piece of magic he had prepared in advance.
  +
  +
The blond boy held the cursed talisman between his fingers and held his arm out horizontally.
  +
  +
The curse didn’t have to be strong. Not if it was only a targeting tracker used to ensure an attack reached its target.
  +
  +
“Take this!! You have 180 seconds!! Attach it to Arbamini and this is all over!!”
  +
  +
Something sharply passed Yagoro by from behind.
  +
  +
The instant he let go, Viocia caught the impure parchment with perfect precision.
   
 
===12===
  
===12===
  +
  +
Viocia and Melehe held onto the same broom as they flew. Ordinarily, they couldn’t hope to win an aerial battle with that kind of extra weight, but Viocia still managed to swing her broom around and used an unbelievable amount of power to catch up to red glowing Arbamini.
  +
  +
Melehe realized they could actually win this.
  +
  +
They had the greater speed. And while the fleeing enemy was constantly changing course, she never caused them to overshoot her. Arbamini wasn’t even using any obstruction magic. That meant they would catch up sooner or later.
  +
  +
Melehe whispered to the other girl sharing the broom with her.
  +
  +
“Keep pouring on that absurd power. I’ll show you how to make the subtle course corrections. Move your body left or right based on how you feel me shifting my weight. You focus on catching up to Arbamini!”
  +
  +
“…”
  +
  +
“What?”
  +
  +
Viocia was acting strange, so Melehe frantically called out to her.
  +
  +
“Your broom is Formula Broom – Wittenberg, right? We need its ridiculous acceleration to catch up to Arbamini!!”
  +
  +
“B-but…”
  +
  +
Viocia’s voice was trembling in hesitation.
  +
  +
“If we attach this talisman to her, teacher’s curse will get her! She’s the last of that witch trio. If she’s knocked out too, all three of them will hit the ground!!”
  +
  +
“…”
  +
  +
“But teacher never lies to me. So if he says he’ll do it, ''he really will do it''!”
  +
  +
Melehe’s eyes widened.
  +
  +
That boy had said they had 180 seconds.
  +
  +
That wasn’t much time. She didn’t know what he was going to do, but whatever curse Navigate Exam launched would be guided this way by the parchment talisman. It was guaranteed to be a powerful curse since it had already knocked out Holibre and Lampans so easily.
  +
  +
“30 seconds left,” said Melehe through clenched teeth.
  +
  +
Viocia still wasn’t moving, so Melehe snatched the talisman away from her.
  +
  +
“10 seconds to go!! The curse is coming!!”
  +
  +
Arbamini was doing her best to get away. Her mocking attitude was nowhere to be found. And seeing the witch for who she was, Viocia realized she had to be powerful. She wasn’t running away for herself. She had suppressed her anger and rationally chosen to run away so she could collect her two defeated friends.
  +
  +
The countdown reached zero.
  +
  +
Something massive blocked Viocia and Melehe’s view.
  +
  +
But this ''wasn’t'' Myousou Yagoro’s curse.
  +
  +
A giant pillar appeared between Viocia and Arbamini. And a huge wall. And a huge window. Altogether, it was a stone school building. It was twisted, distorted, and nothing like its original form, but the 10km structure that jutted diagonally up to this height was definitely a school building. Even a dragon flying through the sky had to quickly twist out of the way.
  +
  +
Arbamini disappeared beyond the wall.
  +
  +
Viocia and Melehe couldn’t pursue her any further.
  +
  +
A witch’s Formula Broom would continue forward on its own.
  +
  +
A head-on collision with that would mean death.
  +
  +
Melehe immediately reached her arms around Viocia in front of her on the broom and grabbed the broom handle tight.
  +
  +
“Stop!!”
  +
  +
The two of them came to a rapid stop. Melehe had forcibly shifted the direction of thrust like she did for a vertical takeoff, causing the Formula Broom to stop in place. They were less than 5m away from the white stone wall.
  +
  +
The tutor must have known the enemy had gotten away. The talisman remained in Melehe’s hand, but the long-range curse still hadn’t hit her.
  +
  +
Several dull cracking and creaking sounds rang out.
  +
  +
“Wah!!”
  +
  +
Melehe immediately launched the broom straight up.
  +
  +
The school building was not just a straight line in front of them. It was spreading out to the left and right. From above, it looked like a massive mesh folding fan. The different parts collided and tore each other part as they complexly intertwined.
  +
  +
And Viocia pouted her lips.
  +
  +
“Uhh, Mephistopheles. You always ignore me, so why did you actually listen to Melehe?”
  +
  +
“We would have crashed into the wall if it hadn’t. …Come to think of it, I did that in the heat of the moment, but why could I control it when I haven’t gone through the consecration process for it? That was extremely risky.”
  +
  +
“No, it’s incredible. You really are the prep school’s ace. You didn’t even need to try to control a Rank S<sup>3</sup> broom☆”
  +
  +
“Habwahbh!? N-now you tell me! Were you trying to kill me with that crazy estimated rank!?”
  +
  +
“I hope that Arbamini girl is okay.”
  +
  +
“You make my head hurt… But she’s probably fine. The school emerged behind her, so she wouldn’t have been at risk of crashing into it. And look.”
  +
  +
Melehe pointed down at two lights traveling along the streets of what looked like a miniature city from this height. The blue and green lights were probably on their way to join the third light.
  +
  +
They must have been done for the day.
  +
  +
Melehe frowned while using her vertical takeoff magic to hover in place.
  +
  +
“But what’s with that school?”
  +
  +
The massive structure had emerged diagonally.
  +
  +
The Arena was built at the center of the city, in the dangerous Lakeside area.
  +
  +
That could only mean one thing. Viocia followed Melehe’s gaze.
  +
  +
There was only one place it could have come from.
  +
  +
“From the lake. So is that a Maleficium building?”
   
 
===13===
  
===13===
   
  +
On the giant red elevator, Myousou Yagoro sighed while also looking into the distance. He couldn’t have predicted this accident.
−
===Today’s Quiz 2===
  
  +
  +
For unconscious Holibre and Lampans, he had knocked them toward the lake so that the diamond dust in the air could slow them enough to safely land in the water, but it hadn’t ended as planned.
  +
  +
This signaled more than an exam run by a single prep school.
  +
  +
“If the site has emerged, it can’t be long now.”
  +
  +
He viewed the school building that had emerged diagonally and spread out chaotically in every direction.
  +
  +
“It’s time for the official practice exam run by Maleficium itself.”
  +
  +
===Today’s Test 2===
  +
  +
Viocia: Um, teacher, I’m kind of panicking right now. Is this really the time?
  +
  +
Yagoro: Shut up. The entrance exam is the most important thing in the world. You can’t get into Maleficium with that attitude. Now, a quiz! ''You can find all the hints in the prep school''.
  +
  +
Melehe: I’m here too. Are you sure I should be hearing this?
  +
  +
  +
  +
Question: Fill in the blanks to explain what magical methods the human Myousou Yagoro used to defeat the Sassafras Cfa Preparatory School aces – Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans. (10 points per blank, 100 points total)
  +
  +
  +
  +
We will only be focusing on what I did against the Sassafras Cfa trio. Let’s look at it piece by piece.
  +
  +
The Aspect of Antiquity was the mandragora. You die if you hear its (____) when it is uprooted, but you can remain safe by tying a rope to a dog and uprooting it that way. Simply put, you can avoid the danger using (____). That said, I was stuck in a fixed location, so I had to use a different method to avoid hearing the sounds and voices even at a short distance. For example, I could drown out the trio’s higher voices by shouting a lower sound, don’tcha think?
  +
  +
Mandragoras can also be used to attack. The symbol of (____) caused by hearing a scream is too good not to use.
  +
  +
  +
  +
The Aspect of (____) was ATU (____). In other words, the Wolf and the Young Goats. That is the story of some (____) opening the door for and being eaten by a wolf pretending to be their (____).
  +
  +
You can use that to make magic that knocks someone out if they answer your call. Viocia, note that I didn’t use your names when I called out to you. I simply told you to “take this”.
  +
  +
I did panic a bit when Arbamini ignored my call toward the end. I didn’t want to take their lives.
  +
  +
  +
  +
The Aspect of Amorality was a curse made by intentionally (____) a tool. That’s a standard of the Black Mass. And I used it for targeting support based on the fundamental law of (____) that says two things will continue to affect each other even at a distance once they come into (____).
  +
  +
  +
  +
The end. Any questions, Viocia. And Melehe since you’re here too?
   
 
<noinclude>
  
<noinclude>

Latest revision as of 07:33, 8 November 2023

Episode 2: Is Being the Ultra Elite of a Prep School Really so Impressive?[edit]

1[edit]

Report on the crash of the JX-401 SSTO Broom God (30th and Final Report)

  • If you would like to view the unredacted version and you meet all the clearance requirements, receive approval signatures from the supervisors of each relevant department and follow the instructions at the cabinet political strategy document archive.


To Ministry of ＊＊＊＊,

Ministry of ＊＊＊＊,

and ＊＊＊＊＊＊＊ Force Special High Altitude ＊＊＊＊ (classified unit)


Now that the United States has collapsed, we cannot expect any help from them. Selecting a replacement next-generation transport method was no easy task. We began this domestic single-stage-to-orbit project using only domestic contractors despite the foreign projects already underway in India, Brazil, and elsewhere because we wanted to break our country free of its standstill in the space science industry, but there was an ＊＊＊＊ during the final test at Tanegashima on ＊＊/＊＊/＊＊. We detected speeds surpassing Mach ＊＊, but the craft broke apart before ＊＊＊＊. The craft is thought to have been badly damaged at ＊＊＊＊ and scattered its pieces above ＊＊＊＊, but no actual wreckage has been discovered in the estimated region of ocean and the recovery operation has been exceedingly difficult. (→Details in a separate report. See the Ministry of ＊＊＊＊’s ocean current prediction charts and the Ministry of ＊＊＊＊’s recovery operation report)

The pilot ＊＊＊＊’s fate remains unknown.

At midnight tonight, the search for the pilot will be called off and that task will be removed from the recovery operation until ordered otherwise.


(Hidden Note: The astronaut who was invited in from outside the Force – that cocky genius kid who skipped straight past most of his schooling – is among the stars now. Which is fine with me. If he wants to be reborn in another world or another dimension, let him have it. But the Broom God was packed full of purely domestic industrial secrets taken from all sorts of domestic companies. I don’t give a damn about that kid’s life – just let us collect as much of that wreckage as possible!)

2[edit]

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?”

3[edit]

Myousou Yagoro was out at night. He had fallen for a strange cyclist student trap on the way, but he had actually been on his way back home after doing some shopping during the excellent discounts just before closing time.

His home was on the upper level, where land was relatively cheap (which meant it was an inconvenient place to live). If he left his apartment from the front, he would find himself on a main street. If he left out the back, he would be in a labyrinthine squatters district. Once back at that highly convenient apartment, he found the silver-haired used bookseller doing some kind of difficult work.

It was hard to tell since she always wore an apron with an animal printed on it, but Yagoro noted that her black dress seemed unusually nice. It was black with gold embroidery, so it reminded him of an adult chocolate cake that smelled of brandy.

The gentle young woman was lifting a giant bag like Santa Claus and pouring some kind of clear beads into a lockable metal box larger than a bathtub. That was the magic ice used for refrigeration and it was free for anyone living on the block to use.

“Heave ho, heave ho. Nhhh!”

“Whoa, are you alright? Could you use some help?”

“No, no. This kind of daily housework and exercise is important for maintaining your health and beauty.”

Her troubled smile told Yagoro his offer really was an unwanted favor. Trying to be gentlemanly had a way of backfiring with her, so he had trouble figuring her out. He hoped to make a breakthrough soon so he could earn her praise.

He at least knew better than to let her know he found it oddly sexual when a busty young woman groaned in effort.

(Huh. I had noticed the magic ice was always full, but she must intentionally refill it late at night when no one will see. It’s not like there’s a rotation schedule, but she really goes the extra mile.)

The wealth disparity and population density was a lot more obvious at night. When viewed from the upper level, the tiered city clearly had a lot more pumpkin lamps filled with sunlight seals in the shopping district and luxury residential district on the lower level. Of course, they would also have a lower crime rate than up here where there was more darkness.

Some might find this odd since conventional wisdom said the rich gathered at the highest points of a city, but that wasn’t always true. People always wanted to live where life was easier and more convenient.

In other words…

“Oh, I can at least go draw you some water. The wells up here are a lot farther up from the groundwater, so it would be a lot of effort for you to-”

“Yagoro.”

She cut him off. She wanted her exercise and she could be frightening when it came to matters of health and beauty. He felt a chill along his spine, like he had touched a sharp blade with his fingertip. She may have thought it was a divine blessing that she lived on the upper level where getting around was such a pain in the rear.

And if she wasn’t going to let him be a gentleman, he had nothing to do, so he simply said goodbye to the jiggly young woman, and entered the apartment building. From there, he entered his room.

“Damn. My head already looks like pudding,” he groaned into the mirror.

His hair was naturally black, so if he neglected to care for it for too long, the black roots would start to show below the blond, making him look weird. As much as the blond hair gave him a wild look, all the haircare items and washing it required made bath time a chore. Did all those delinquents on Earth really go to all this trouble? Not that that would change how they looked. Glossy black hair was valuable here, so openly walking around with it could get him attacked by masked unlicensed barbers, but it was still a considerable expense.

While lining up a few readymade foods, his mind was focused on exam countermeasures. Coming up with quizzes was easy and, if he let himself, he was confident he could stay up all night making them and enjoy every moment of it, but that was meaningless if Viocia wasn’t in a position where she could absorb the information. That dunce was focused on so many things other than the exam, but he needed her attention directed solely toward studying. His first thought when considering that problem was always to lure her in with food, but he had never managed to come up with a concrete plan based on that.

And on that note…

“She is studying during the night, isn’t she?”

Normally, that would go without saying for an exam student, especially the wounded beast that was a student who had already failed the exam once, but he suddenly realized he had failed to check on that because it seemed too basic an issue. He wanted to believe she was. But his worries grew when he recalled that part-time delivery job. Once he thought about it, he realized he had always helped her study at the prep school or the park gazebo, so he didn’t know where she lived. What was her room like? Was there a lot of noise or drafts keeping her from focusing on her studies?

4[edit]

And so it was the following day. Night had already fallen.

“(I’ll be going to your place tonight, Viocia.)”

“Ehhh!? You can’t just decide that, you stupid teacher! I-is this like that thing in Macbeth where it seems like good luck at first but it’s actually the beginning of a great tragedy!?”

“Huh, so you have been studying. I’m glad to hear it.”

Myousou Yagoro smiled but only externally.

“+1 point: Witches’ words are attacks that only gain meaning once their target hears them, so talking about the future all on your own is meaningless.”

They were in the Honeycomb self-study room of Carraway Cs Preparatory School’s structure building.

“And why would me visiting your home seem like good luck?”

“Bwehablkadfh!? Th-the fall into tragedy has already begun!?”

The large room was split up into small booths by thin partitions and each booth contained a desk and a chair. Everyone fixed their broom vertically to the edge of the desk using a 5cm glass holder, making them look like raised flags. (In the other world of Earth, a broom raised at the doorway was instead a sign the woman was out.) The Honeycomb name likely referred to how all the small booths were arranged. In Rosicrucianism, honeybees symbolized those who pursued wisdom, but that was probably reading too much into it. When it came to the witch entrance exam, thinking you had discovered hidden knowledge was a dangerous thought process, so you had to be careful.

Everyone was studying hard in preparation for the Bealtaine practice exam.

The Bealtaine was only a school event and had nothing to do with the real practice exam, but improving your rank in the prep school let you use more equipment and read more grimoires. That could lead to the prep school itself being the deciding factor in whether or not a witch passed the exam, but it was also true that a high-level grimoire would only go to waste if it was lent out to a clueless student. Cutting down on pointless lines like that was thought to help as many students as possible pass. Unfortunately.

So if you wanted to pass, you had to prove your worth in the prep school to be granted greater rights there.

(That not everyone is treated equal is another way prep schools differ from compulsory education.)

The lights used at night were generally the sunlight seals that had sunshine sealed inside, but the ceiling lights in here used moonlight seals because the students handled old books. The gentler light was a lot less bright, so Yagoro was worried about his student’s eyesight.

(She needs to at least get an average score so she can still use all the basic facilities and equipment. If she scores below average and is stuck with only the spare equipment, there’s no point in paying so much money to go here.)

And it looked like that unfortunate girl’s mind was elsewhere.

She had been so sleepy when it was still bright out, but now she was more alert than she had been all day.

“You can’t spring this on me at the last second! If I don’t clean my room first, where will you even have room to stand?”

“Well, that’s enough right there to know your room is not fit to study in. This is necessary if you’re going to keep using the prep school’s basic equipment. I’m doing it and that’s final, Viocia.”

“Could you not talk about ‘doing it’ right now?”

“And you have no right to act all innocent about this, don’tcha think? When we met a month ago, you’re the one who followed me to figure out where my apartment is.”

“Ugh! S-sometimes girls get curious about things they want to keep secret.”

“I’m only doing what you did and I have an actual legitimate reason for doing it.”

“I refuse! A girl has a right to privacy. You don’t get to see all of my secret places just because you want to!!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure everything gets nice and clean. You are in for quite a night, so I hope you’re ready. I’ll even bring a variety of tools.”

“This is happening? It’s really happening? No way! And when you say everything, do you even mean on the inside too!?”

Just then…

“G-give it a rest, you two!! This is a prep school for witches who are serious about getting into Maleficium. It is not a place for, um, perverted tutors who are after their student’s bodies!!”

Someone had a very wrong idea about Yagoro.

They were poking their head in from the next booth over.

Apparently a lewd tutor was only considered a wonderful fantasy when the tutor was female and good looking. Yagoro hung his head, trembled, and bit his lip in silence.

The person who emerged from her booth while blushing bright red was a girl with shoulder-length silver hair and brown skin. But unlike gyaru-style Schanze, that appeared to be her natural skin tone.

She looked around Viocia’s age, so was she 15 or 16? That would mean she was a single failure.

She wore a midriff-baring black jacket, a tight miniskirt, and a large hat. Overall, she looked like a cross between a sky pirate and a soldier. She did have something like medals or unit insignia on her (decently-sized) chest, but Yagoro couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to mean. Her clothing had gold embroidery here and there, so she looked something like a fancy chocolate parfait.

“Also, I can see your underwear,” said the girl.

“Eh? Hnyahhhhhhhhh!?”

Yagoro’s student immediately jumped up from her chair. Her long skirt must have been caught on the back of her chair, leaving everything exposed from behind and she had only just realized. Her clumsiness batting average was nothing short of a miracle considering she wore an ankle-length skirt, even if it did have slits on the sides.

But Viocia looked kind of happy even though this girl was mad at her.

“Huh? Wow, she’s a celebrity.”

“Do you know her?”

“I said she’s a celebrity, didn’t I? She’s Melehe Superlative! She’s Carraway Cs’s strongest witch, she always gets the top spot on the practice exams, and it’s rumored she was awarded Rank A by Maleficium!!”

“Heh heh.” Melehe teased her silver hair with a hand and proudly held her head high.

But…

“Sure, but this isn’t some prestigious school or anything. And there’s no point in lifting any one person up as special when reproducibility is the heart of science, don’tcha think? Now, I don’t know if she’s from some famous family or something, but if she’s at a prep school so late she’s practically spending the night, then she must have still failed the exam. Is being the best of the failures really such a great-”

Yagoro stopped when he noticed everyone in the large self-study rom glaring at him. Quite harshly at that.

He had apparently said something he shouldn’t.

Melehe tried her best to regain control of the conversation.

“I-I intentionally failed last year’s exam. I was awarded Rank A status at the time, but I knew if I spent another year studying, I was guaranteed to get into Maleficium.”

Oh, so hers was a calculated failure.

There were some students who chose to spend another year studying despite already being a lot more clever than the other students. That might mean she was indeed smarter than the others who had actually tried and still failed.

…But it still meant she was a girl who had failed to pass her first time. And if she didn’t realize that, then she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.

“You know Private Striga, the largest coven in the snowy region which has three whole regiments of witches? I am their key bearer. Simply put, you can think of me as the future commander of the largest witch force out there.”

“If you say so.”

“But this isn’t about me!! This is about your problematic behavior, pervert tutor! Really, why must you do this when I am trying to study for such a crucial exam? The Bealtaine is coming up! I do not have time to be distracted by anything else.”

“Viocia, this girl knows what she’s talking about. Listen to this Rank A Genius and imprint her words on your idiot brain.”

“Ughh.”

“I was speaking to you, pervert.”

Melehe sounded somewhat exasperated.

The prep school’s strongest(?) witch put her hands on her hips before continuing.

“Listen. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by using the prep school’s lax security to sneak in as a tutor, but if you interrupt our studying, I will throw you out myself!!”

5[edit]

Teacher, I’m going home now, but you are not invited to my room. And no tailing me to find out where it is.

If I catch you following me, I swear I will kill you!!


“Huh, so that’s where Viocia lives.”

“Leave it to a pervert tutor to ignore the poor girl’s warning and tail her anyway.”

Did she think he was doing this because he wanted to? It was necessary for his job. Viocia had said enough for him to guess her room was a pigsty. And there was more to studying for the exam than attending a prep school. Having a clean and orderly study space at home was one of the most basic strategies.

He would do whatever was necessary to ensure she passed the exam and got into Maleficium. Because that was the tutoring contract the two of them had signed. So he wasn’t going to stop here.

“So, Melehe, why did you follow her too?”

“Because who knows what a pervert like you would do out in the city at night if you aren’t supervised.”

Melehe was flipping through some flashcards while hiding in the shadows near Yagoro. Instead of just memorizing a list herb names, she appeared to be randomly drawing them from a giant collection that linked the different herbs by type and other connections. Even at Rank A, she was still an exam student. He really wished a certain idiot he knew would learn something from her.

Melehe didn’t just have access to the basic equipment. In her position, she would have access to the top-level documents on the Horned God. That didn’t mean Viocia’s fumbling efforts were worthless, however.

The prep school was a prep school.

Scores in practice and during preparation didn’t mean all that much. Whoever won out during the final entrance exam would have the last laugh.

“Come to think of it.”

From what Yagoro had seen at Carraway Cs, Melehe’s Formula Broom was heavily customized. It had curved Y-shaped handlebars, a cushioned seat, and boxy luggage compartments hanging down on either side at the rear. The headlight used both sunlight seals and moonlight seals so she could switch between light intensities at will. She had probably done it all to make the broom easier to use, but the end result looked a lot like an enormous American motorcycle.

“If I remember correctly, your Formula Broom is incredible, but isn’t it hard to carry around? It’s kind of big and heavy, don’tcha think? Is that why you don’t have it with you now?”

“Do not mess with me, pervert. Are you planning to steal it even though it has a girl’s seat? But unfortunately for you, I have it circle overhead when I don’t need it. Why should I carry it around at all times when I can just summon it to me when I need to use it?”

Myousou Yagoro did a double take.

“What?” Melehe stopped flipping her flashcards and looked up at him in legitimate confusion.

“You’re allowed to fly in the city? Without a guide?”

“So what if I am? Any witch can do that if they have the necessary knowledge.”

“But you failed the exam.”

“Do not say that to my face, pervert.”

The girl gave him a harsh look. But he wasn’t her tutor, so he didn’t need to worry about building trust with her.

Surprisingly, Viocia was living in the lower part of the city. Specifically, in the expensive shopping district.

“She lives in a fairly nice place.”

“She’s only renting a room, so the land value doesn’t really matter all that much, don’tcha think?”

But there was another issue.

What was with that Sabbath Party place? The colorful sign lit up for the night included bunny ears, a bottle of booze, and underwear shaped like an upside-down triangle.

A dancer woman stepped out from the entrance, presumably to attract customers. In fact, several did. And they all wore revealing, see-through clothing that was concerning in a number of ways. Their outfits were the kind of thing that made you wonder “who would actually buy that?” when you saw it on a mannequin near the entrance of a women’s underwear shop.

If this was what they were like outside, what went on inside there?

Seeing them was enough for Melehe to jump several centimeters into the air.

“Y-y-y-you pervert!!”

“(I’m beginning to think she’s the real pervert. She’s tied up focusing on her studies for now, but is she actually extremely interested in these “perverted” things?)”

“O-o-o-o-of course not! Don’t you dare speak another word, pervert tutor!!!”

His speculation seemed to have grown to something much bigger in Melehe’s mind because she began strangling him while blushing, but the blond tutor in a sailor uniform remained calm.

“Dancers in skimpy clothing? Is it a witch establishment for exorcism and evil-warding where they listen to their customers’ worries and resolve them with purifying dances? Still, the main draw is probably choosing a girl and a song and watching her do a sexy dance, don’tcha think?”

If they were really only interested in resolving people’s worries with a magical effect, it would be easier to listen to the customer’s story and use certain herbs to whip up a magic recipe for a unique food, cocktail, or smoothie.

“The fact that you could figure all that out at a glance makes me question your life experiences,” grumbled Melehe with a hand on her forehead, but then she appeared to realize something. “Oh, wait. They sell animals in this amoral and decadently lewd shopping district? Is it a pet shop that charges a flat rate? Seeing that cute bunny lit up on the sign is so soothing.”

“That would be a strip club where the girls dance in nothing but an animal ear headband, don’tcha think?”

“Vwahhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhh, ahhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The prep school’s ace(?) doubled over and scratched at her head through her large sky-pirate-ish hat. That she saw that place as the one ray of hope here must have made the shock all the greater.

There were flowers and other plants decorating the fronts of the various clubs, perhaps to celebrate some kind of occasion, but given the type of city this was, they all looked fairly toxic. The giant tropical flowers weren’t so bad, but why the carnivorous plants? They may have been based on some kind of superstition rather than being an ingredient for a witchcraft ritual.

A lot of clubs had a familiar designed to look like a wolf or monitor lizard seated next to the entrance, perhaps to ward off evil. They also looked cute sitting there looking bored, so maybe they also helped attract customers.

Now, Viocia was only renting a room, so she had nothing to do with the club on the first floor. Yagoro noticed the gentle-on-books (but bad for the eyes) light of a moonlight seal coming from the window on the 2nd floor.

Even Viocia had to be working hard to make sure she kept her access to the basic equipment.

It would be sad indeed if she were labeled a failure by the prep school before even getting to the actual entrance exam.

Then again, the noise coming from the club was noticeable even at a distance. That 2nd floor room had to be physically vibrating from it all. Could she really study like that?

(It’s best to have 15 minutes of silence at the start to help you get focused on your studying. Once you’re properly focused like that, it’s a lot harder to get distracted.)

“So a coven, huh?”

“What?”

“You said you’re from Private Striga, right? If you belong to an organization of professional witches, why are you bothering studying here in Temple School City to get into Maleficium? Wouldn’t it be faster to learn magic from the many tutors your coven could provide?”

Private Striga in particular had a strong independent streak. If she knew that was where she would end up anyway, it seemed like she would save herself a lot of effort focusing her education in their unique direction as early as possible.

“I can’t do that.”

“Because you think a Maleficium education can’t be beat?”

Self-taught witches could use a Formula Broom to an extent. But if you wanted to go beyond that extent and customize the broom’s untouchable core, you had to go to Maleficium.

“Private Striga is definitely my home, but that’s why I have to be stronger than all the others. I need to be the kind of leader who can stand at the very front and guide the way. I won’t get there with a sheltered upbringing surrounded by things I like and am good at. Ultimately, I need to surpass even daddy and mom.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought for an exam student.”

But that was a child’s dream. She had to have some accepting parents if they agreed to that plan and even let her strategically fail the exam once.

He was afraid he had clawed at her self-esteem, which could be even more sensitive than a scab, but Melehe sounded happy.

“Heh. Of course I did. My mom stands at the very top of the 13-branching tree, she wields Formula Broom – Greek Theatre, and she’s earned the highest score in Private Striga’s history. It’s said she has already reached the level of a one-woman army.”

“Greek Theatre?”

“That’s right. And mine is Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus. Heh heh.”

Would that mean the mother’s guide was Dionysus and the daughter’s was Zagreus? No, if the category was defined more broadly, it could be Orpheus. Either way, the fact that Melehe had so thoroughly customized the broom that tied her to her mother was probably a sign of how much she loved and looked up to the woman.

As a teenager, she probably thought she was keeping it hidden, but it couldn’t have been more obvious.

Not to mention the proudly snorted “heh heh”.

(Hm. Would the Orpheus connection mean she’s a vegetarian?)

But did that group even allow women to join? He wasn’t certain, but the process of magic knowledge spreading to this world could have caused some changes like in a game of telephone.

Of course, Melehe was only interested in the Formula Broom and learning any magic she could use right away. She wasn’t trying to join the Earth-born Orphism religion so she could reach a fulfilling afterlife.

“Her name is Viocia, right? Couldn’t you ask her much the same thing? Maleficium fails more than 99.9999% of the people who gather from all over to take the entrance exam. It should be obvious you can’t pass if you aren’t wholly committed.”

“Hm, I guess there’s no reason to hide it.”

“?”

“She wants her grandmother to get better.”

Their surroundings were as noisy as ever, but Melehe fell silent.

So Yagoro continued.

“The doctor said she’s just old and nothing can be done about it and the old woman herself accepted that answer. But Viocia refused to let that go unchallenged. She wants to create a brand new potion to heal her sick grandmother who lives deep in the forest. That’s why she wants to learn magic and work on the potion in the best possible environment: Maleficium. That really is all there is to it for her. Her magic knowledge is almost entirely self-taught, so she’s missed a lot of the basics. In fact, her mother isn’t even a witch. Both her parents are ordinary people. They apparently wanted to keep her as far away from magic as possible.”

“…”

“I’m not trying to convince you to go easy on her. The entrance exam is a competition. Your reasons for wanting into Maleficium won’t decide who passes and who fails. Worrying about your rivals’ sob stories will only hurt your chances.”

“…I know that.”

Melehe sounded sulky.

She flipped through her flash cards, but she also asked a question through pouted lips.

“But you decided to help her because of that, didn’t you?”

“That’s a privilege granted only to an outsider who isn’t interested in passing the exam.”

6[edit]

After scoping out the area, it was nearly dawn.

Yagoro had learned the noisy partying in that club continued well into the early morning. The silhouette in the window was facing the desk, but she couldn’t study properly without getting used to the noise or coming up with another solution.

Melehe had faithfully stayed with him the entire time and she was looking sleepy. But she associated her yawns with a failure in her flash card memorization and redoubled her efforts there. It was honestly impressive.

“Do you think you can help her with that noise?”

“The club is only on the 1st floor, so the higher the floor, the more the building itself will block out the noise. Even something as simple as studying up on the roof would make a marked difference, don’tcha think?”

“I see. Yawwwn.”

Viocia’s room was apparently a mess since she couldn’t clean up, so that would kill two birds with one stone. She would need another solution for rainy days, though.

“Are you alright, Melehe? The Bealtaine is today. I know it’s not the official practice exam, but a bad performance still means restrictions on the prep school equipment and facilities you can use.”

“Mind your own business.”

The brown sky pirate girl suppressed another yawn and waved a hand toward the lightening night sky.

“Hey, elevator. Over here!”

“Wah!?”

A red metal beam resembling a giant’s scales gave a roar. The rotating scales passed above the stone buildings to come this way. The “elevator car” supported by a thick chain lowered onto the circle drawn on the street. Melehe boarded it and vanished into the gray sky.

“I had no idea anyone actually used those dangling thrill rides.”

He heard a new voice from overhead.

“Ha ha ha. Shy as ever, I see, milady. You could just tell him you’re relieved to find he is an honest tutor who cares about his student. C’mon, do it☆”

“Never speak again, Orpheus.”

Instead of riding the elevator somewhere, she must have joined her Formula Broom up in the air so she could ride it away. At the edge of the elevator car attached to the slowly rotating scales, a witch on a broom took flight into the near-dawn sky.

Myousou Yagoro had to get going too. He couldn’t afford to oversleep and force his student to wait on him. He had to get back to his apartment and take a nap.

The dark blue sky began to shine as dawn approached. The pumpkin lamps automatically switched off as the sunlight arrived. The unique chill of early morning caused him to straighten his spine while simply walking through the city.

“Huh?”

Someone called out to him. A girl of about his age with red pigtails emerged from a narrow side street. Her lovely but extremely fit body was contained in a maid outfit with a long skirt. Much like a track suit on Earth, that was considered a normal thing to wear when you were cleaning and didn’t want to get your regular clothes dirty. This city of swords and sorcery could be incredible at times.

“Wait, that sailor uniform and blond hair. Is that you, Yagoro!?”

Myousou Yagoro’s response to the surprised Benandanti elite was quite simple: he held his left index finger to his lips. Even a child would understand that gesture and the pigtails girl immediately fell silent.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, Nancy. I don’t want to bring any trouble to your peaceful life.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Nancy raised her hands in mock surrender and Yagoro asked her a question.

“So what are you doing out this early?”

“Hunting a Grade 7 Riot Hydra spotted at Lakeside. That isn’t a job for the Benandanti, but it is one of the monsters that escaped from our school.”

It was scary how casual she was about taking on a monster that would normally require a small group of knights to deal with.

Or did this just prove how abnormal that Voland had been?

Now, passing by a Benandanti on the street wasn’t exactly rare. Maleficium students did live in this city just like everyone else, after all. But they camouflaged themselves with disguises and anti-recognition spells so they could blend into the crowd and no one would notice they were there.

“Also, I suppose I should apologize. Yagoro…sorry about before.”

The boy tilted his head, unsure what she meant, so she childishly pouted her lips and continued.

“I’m a member of the Benandanti who protect this city under White Magic’s management, right? But we more or less left you all to die the other day.”

“Oh, that? I really don’t think you need to worry about it. Your personal conscience and guilt are trapped in an external mental cage when you wear the Hexenturm.”

“True, but still…” The girl’s voice trailed off.

Myousou Yagoro was impressed that yet another girl he knew had such a troublesome personality.

“So how many is it this year? I can’t believe you’re still doing this,” she said.

“I’m going to keep at it until I get some kind of result.”

“Hee hee. As one of the girls you helped pass the exam, I’m not sure if I should be happy or upset. Because I never did live up to your expectations.”

It all came down to that. You could make as many complicated relationships as there were people out there. Not everything could be placed in simple categories like friendship or love.

The maid outfit girl gave one final warning as she left.

“But I don’t think President Ulrike is going to let you have your way. No matter what.”

The air temperature seemed to plummet.

No one could defeat her. Not even Myousou Yagoro.

Everyone in White Magic (Maleficium’s student council) was a monster, but none as much as that ultimate witch who possessed nothing but the most destructive forms of magic imaginable. She had completely destroyed the being thought to break all the limits when it came to destruction and, no matter how great her power, she could never bring happiness to anyone. Yagoro understood how fearsome she was down to the very core of his being.

Wise Fencing.

Why had they needed to invent a term for magical swordplay in a world of swords and sorcery? Because a brand new category was necessary to properly describe that president who had mastered both of those categories.

“Remember what the president always says: you must not touch the edge of the world. Even I can tell what you’re doing will violate that. So you shouldn’t be out alone on the border between day and night. You know all too well the abnormal things the witch seated in White Magic’s throne is capable of, don’t you? Don’t blame me if you wind up with a knife buried in your back.”

It was hard to tell if Nancy was joking or not.

But she had always had trouble making jokes, so she was probably serious.

“Also! You need to return the grimoires and otherworld maps you borrowed. Don’t tell them I told you, but the Glenstrae have their eye on you.”

“Oh, is that all? I should be fine until their head librarian sends her highlander unit after me, don’tcha think?”

“That’s a bad habit,” sighed Nancy before leaving.

(I should get home too.)

“Huff, puff.”

Or so he thought until he spotted another familiar face.

But this was not the wonderful homemaker of a president heading out with a one-shot-kill icepick and an apron to keep the blood off of her clothes.

“Pant, gasp. Huff, puff.”

“Dorothea?”

Dorothea Rockpool, the zombie girl with white bandages wrapped around her curvy body, was running this way. She looked calm for someone running, so she probably wasn’t attempting a desperate flight from some kind of threat. So did she have a habit of going for an early morning jog? He had thought she was more the indoors type, so this came as a surprise. Especially in this tiered city of stairs that was the bane of movers and bicycle delivery workers who made use of carrier pigeons.

She apparently placed her head bandage over the temples of her glasses to keep them from slipping out of place when she jogged. Clever.

(But since those bandages don’t leave much to the imagination, I never know where to look.)

When he called out to the girl whose bandages looked dangerously close to coming undone, she came to a stop. She smiled at him while wiping the seat from her brow with a light-colored towel.

“Oh, Mr. Tutor. G-good morning.”

“Good morning. Oh, now I get it. Damn, is it morning already?”

“?”

The no-bake cheesecake bandage girl tilted her blonde head in confusion. A cow familiar used its legs – which were more suited to all the stairs than wheels – to lazily walk past them with plenty of newspapers and milk bottles loaded on its back. It was already time for the morning deliveries.

“It is important to keep up your health so you don’t get sick, but can you really afford to give up study time for this?”

“Ha ha. This towel h-has herb names and ATU numbers sewn into it. Eep. That may not actually help much, though.”

She wiped off her fogged-up glasses and smiled. Yagoro really wished his dunce of a student could learn a thing or two from Dorothea. Was she focused on the Bealtaine right now? And how useful it was to have study materials sewn into the towel didn’t really matter. The simple act of sewing them into the towel associated that knowledge with a special event, which would help it stick in her mind. Dorothea’s efforts would remain in her memory as part of that event.

“Do you always use this course?”

“I don’t really have a course in mind. I-if I decide to jog a long distance in advance, I lose my nerve, so instead I focus on running to the next elevator pillar I can see and then keep doing that as long as I can.”

So like how a small child on the way to the dentist or a lesson they didn’t want to do would kick a rock down the road from streetlight to streetlight?

“I can still focus on the exam race thanks to you, b-but I still want to do something about how weak I am. And I don’t mean academically or physically. If I was stronger on the inside – eep – I don’t think I would have relied on that back-alley recipe.”

It would be crass to say anything here.

Exam students needed to study as much as possible even if it meant tying themselves to their desks, but that wasn’t the only problem they faced. They were all fighting their worries about the future to some extent. Everyone had to find their own way to conquer those fears. These early morning jogs were Dorothea’s strategy and that gave her a vision of victory in her mind. If jogging was a calculated part of her daily routine, then Yagoro had no right to stop her.

Some might call it irresponsible, but he knew what Dorothea needed to hear most right now.

“Keep at it.”

“Hee hee. Should you really be saying that when you’re Viocia’s tutor?”

Yagoro smiled bitterly after they parted ways.

She was right. But he had no real intention of taking back his words at this point.

After walking up all the stairs back to his inconvenient top-level apartment, he saw the aproned bookseller doing something in front of the building first thing in the morning. Much like with the magic ice, she was carrying a bunch of the firewood that was stockpiled as shared materials for the neighborhood. Was she also exercising for her health and beauty? She tended to be upset when he took a job from her in an attempt at being a gentleman, so he simply greeted her and walked on past.

“Now, now, Yagoro. When you see a lady with her hands full, a man is supposed to take the burden from her without even needing to ask☆”

“…”

The silver-haired young woman was even smiling. The mystery of how to act around her continued to grow. Maybe it wasn’t a set ideology or rule and he had to determine what kind of mood she was in that day.

Firewood was an important fuel in this world where electricity was not yet commonplace. It was used in the kitchen, the bath, the heater, and so much more. Sunlight seals only provided light, so they couldn’t heat a frying pan and Myousou Yagoro was the only person in the world who could use a microwave oven or air conditioner.

“By the way, the children in the squatters district wanted to see you,” she said.

“I see.”

“That district is less developed so you can find a lot more greenery growing there than anywhere else around here. It’s the only place in this city of white and black stone you can get firewood. Those children have found a good business to run. And it’s cheaper than buying fuel from outside the city because there are no transport or security costs.”

You could say his tutor’s nature had gotten the better of him. He had simply given some advice to the neighborhood kids who seemed to have intentionally chosen a harder life by living back behind the apartment. Of course, getting them to listen to the advice had required a bit of brawling with some brats who had a learned mistrust of other people and were armed with rusty blades.

“Those children have calmed down a lot since you arrived. They even smile happily now.”

“I hope you’re right.”

The young woman smiled and made a suggestion after he finished helping her.

“To thank you for helping, I will bring you a little something later on. Hee hee. I was already planning to cook a vegetable stew tonight, so making a little more won’t be much trouble.”

“Ugh.”

“Yagoro?”

The jiggly young woman looked legitimately puzzled.

If it was a vegetable stew, then the vegetables were the main ingredient, not beef or chicken. This was the fly in the ointment with a young woman who was picky about health and beauty. A 17-year-old boy’s body demanded thick bacon, sausage, or something equally greasy that would immediately fill the stomach.

After parting ways with the bookseller, his pleasant exhaustion had grown to actual drowsiness. He decided a shower could wait until he next woke. Right now, he collapsed into bed to make use of that drowsiness.

7[edit]

“Ehh? Viocia, wh-why did you leave so many of the question blank? Eep. You can’t get any points on the Bealtaine unless you actually write something down.”

“If I leave it up to luck like that, I just know my test will be posted on the hallway bulletin board to show off my ‘funny’ answer. With only my name covered up for privacy.”

“Stop being weirdly hesitant about answering test questions and actually study so you can avoid that kind of embarrassment. Now, you should have known Cernunnos would be on the Aspect of Antiquity section of the Bealtaine. Why did you focus all your studying on flight magic, and ultra-high speed flight at that?”

Dorothea, Viocia, and Melehe were arguing in the self-study room one night.

The Bealtaine was meant to check how well each student understood the material and to give the students practice assessing their own work. So once the test was over, they were allowed to discuss it with each other.

Now, Carraway Cs Prep School’s self-study room was always open, but the students could not stay there forever. They had to rent time there using free tickets they were issued. If they were allowed to stay there all day long, some would curl up on the floor below the desk and sleep there.

Gyaru-style Instructor Schanze – who looked like a Mont Blanc in her vest, tight skirt, and leopard print show-off bra – gave the girls a sidelong look. As the broom instructor, she wouldn’t normally be here for this, but overseeing the test was considered a boring job and she had apparently secretly gotten another instructor to pay her to do the job for them. When even the instructors were filling in for each other, you had to wonder how sound the prep school’s business model really was.

Of course, the gyaru-style instructor’s thoughts were on something else entirely. She whispered with Myousou Yagoro in an empty booth.

“I see Dorothea is totally back. What even happened between her and her Formula Broom?”

“With Aristotle, you mean? He’s back inside the broom. I may have threatened to mess with the inside of the broom so it would read in a different geographic location if he pissed me off again.”

“I see. Well, if a real monster like you is totally keeping an eye on things, that broom shouldn’t cause any more trouble for a while.”

Schanze had a “that explains it” look on her face.

The girls’ peaceful conversation continued while she watched.

“By the way, Viocia, based on which questions you left blank, it looks to me like you didn’t study the Black Mass much at all.”

“I-it is true the Aspect of Amorality has a lot of frightening things in it, so I don’t like reading about it much either. Eep. L-like offering a part of your clothing to a demon or using blood as an ingredient.”

“Ugh. I hate gross things.”

“Well, deal with it. The textbooks are nothing but knowledge, right? Besides, there’s a lot more to the Aspect of Amorality than that. Like creating curses by letting tools go to waste. That’s the logic behind monsters making homes out of abandoned churches.”

“H-how about we focus on the Aspect of Admiration for a change of pace? Eep. ATU 0123 is the Wolf and the Young Goats.”

“Gyahhhhh! A story about young goats carelessly opening the door and being eaten by the wolf disguised as their mother is plenty gross!!”

“Anyway, your practice exam results are always going to be catastrophic if you don’t study the Aspect of Amorality. And you, uh, must have a reason you want to get into Maleficium, right?”

“Hmm? Melehe, have you gotten nicer recently?”

“I am not nice and I am not harmless!! Do not mock the fearsome future leader of Private Striga!”


The gyaru-style instructor gave an arbitrary nod and got down to business.

“I’ve totally finished questioning Dorothea after what happened.”

“Questioning her about what?”

“The guaranteed weight loss talisman. Or more accurately, the crazy recipe for it.”

That was another issue regarding Dorothea.

How to mix herbs to produce different effects was one thing a witch had to know for the entrance exam, but dangerous recipes were a different matter. In this city full of witches who had failed the exam, there would always be idiots trying to get rich quick at the cost of someone else’s future.

Schanze Dwelling crossed her lithe legs as she continued.

“Yellow District, Block X.”

“Sassafras Cfa Prep School, huh?”

Myousou Yagoro instinctually lowered a hand to his hip. He rubbed the grip of the collapsed baton to ensure it was there.

“They have a super bad reputation, don’t they?” said the gyaru-style instructor with a bewitching laugh.

There was a wide variety of prep schools in Temple School City. With its focus on the instructor’s salaries, some might think Carraway Cs was a waste of time.

But one thing was for sure: it was better than Sassafras Cfa.

“Sabotaging your rivals is assumed. That totally criminal prep school doesn’t even try to raise successful students of its own. Instead, they search out students that look like they could totally get into Maleficium and then threatens them into transferring. And even with that, I’ve heard rumors they falsify their pass rate each year. And any investigative reporters or internal whistleblowers have a way of disappearing. They probably end up thrown into Lakeside’s semi-underground park where they’re eaten.”

“That’s one of the most deadly areas in the city, isn’t it? It started out as an overgrown dungeon no one had bothered looking after, but after witches started using it as a dumping ground for giant gargoyles, mandragoras with deadly screams, and other things they can’t look after themselves, it’s turned into a real den of monsters.”

“There are even adventurer parties who bring along a dog and try to have it uproot the mandragoras from a safe distance. Really, anything in Lakeside is totally like that. You can’t even trust the length of a meter or the mass of a kilogram there. The rich all want to live on the convenient lower levels, but Block Y and Block Z at the very bottom totally aren’t an option, are they?”

At any rate, if students from that school were involved in Dorothea’s case, this was more serious than Yagoro had thought.

She might not be their only victim.

He had to assume this “attack” was targeted at the entire school. How far had the corruption spread through Carraway Cs? They had used a guaranteed weight loss talisman. It was possible students worn down in body and mind had been so worried about the exam they leapt at the easy solution presented to them and now effectively worked for the culprits. If so, letting this problem fester could bring unnecessary danger to Viocia.

But…

“That’s totally not the biggest problem. Are you familiar with the Arena?”

“You mean the public exercise facility at the bottom of the city, bordering Lakeside? And the Arena isn’t its official name.”

“Right. Basically, it’s a free facility for anyone to use when their prep school’s indoor training ground is too crowded.”

“Are you saying these dangerous people have turned it into their base?”

“It’s in Block Z, at the very bottom, remember? And people like that have a way of appearing at tourist attractions, shopping districts, and anywhere else you find a lot of people. But that means the recipe sellers will have corrupted more than just Carraway Cs. We haven’t heard of it anywhere else because every school totally has to keep up appearances, but shouldn’t we assume several schools have already been affected?”

This was more than a direct clash between two schools.

The infamous Sassafras Cfa Prep School had put all the city’s prep schools in danger.

Like they had spun a spiderweb that captured and devoured people’s lives.

“…”

If Yagoro was going to make a move, what should he consider his goal?

Did he only want to remove the rot from Carraway Cs? Would he drive the recipe sellers out of the Arena? Or would he oppose infamous Sassafras Cfa as a whole? His objective was simply to help Viocia with her entrance exam. The weight loss talisman incident was a major threat, but dragging his student into a lengthy battle was the last thing he wanted when the entire point was to eliminate any unnecessary noise from her surroundings.


“To be honest, I’m amazed you’ve managed to just barely keep your right to use the basic equipment this long.”

“Incredible. It looks like the things you studied – eep – were exactly what ended up on the practice exam.”

“That was the pervert tutor’s doing, I’ll bet.”

“Heh heh. Now, before we continue, a special weapon to help keep me focused: a chocolate bar.”

“I-I will be confiscating that.”

“Ahhhh!! Dorotheaaaaa!”

“Do you have any idea how much work it is for a witch to keep in shape? And sugar would only make you sleepy.”

“You don’t understand, Melehe! I need it! It’s that effect where two things that come in contact will continue to affect each other even from really far away. And wasting food is bad luck!!”

“The fundamental law of curses does not apply to this, you stupid failure!”


Melehe raised her fist but started fidgeting and couldn’t bring herself to swing it back down. This was probably because she had learned Viocia’s reason for wanting into Maleficium.

Myousou Yagoro sighed softly while watching those girls from a distance.

If he wanted a simple answer, he knew where to find one.

(I know exactly what Viocia would say to do.)

8[edit]

“Huff, puff.”

The girl focused on keeping a set rhythm when jogging. She moved from the upper levels of the diamond-shaped city to the lower levels. She didn’t worry about her speed. She took each step as if it would help expel the negative energy from the core of her body.

Zombie Girl Dorothea Rockpool had finished the Bealtaine practice exam.

Her self-assessment was even better than she had expected. It was far from perfect, but she had aced the ATU number memorization part, putting her above even Melehe, who always scored Rank A. It may have helped that she was a bookish girl through and through.

Finding something she was good at gave her the courage she needed to keep going. It helped her believe that all her efforts hadn’t been in vain.

“Phew.”

It was still dark out. She stopped her running feet in the predawn city and pushed her slipping glasses back into place. She looked up on a whim.

There was a massive lake in the center of the city. She saw a large circular building bordering the Lakeside area. That was the Arena. Unlike the standard prep school training grounds, this was a witch sporting facility that anyone was free to use.

Before, she had frequently visited there with Formula Broom – Lyceum.

Toward the end, she had begun relying on something else entirely.

“––––”

She shook her head to drive out the unpleasant memory. She didn’t need any quick tricks or cheats to skip over the usual process. Even if it wasn’t visible yet, she wanted to gradually improve herself the right way.

This time, she would take her own step forward.

“O-okay.”

The zombie girl slapped her cheeks and turned away from the Arena. She had reached the end of her jogging route. Now she had to jog back the way she had come. She didn’t need to focus on a distant goal right away. She set a smaller goal for herself: the next large elevator pillar painted red so flying witches wouldn’t run into it.

All while she believed these small things would eventually add up to passing the exam.

“Ohh?”

Someone grinned while watching her from behind.

And they weren’t alone. Three girls were watching Dorothea Rockpool in amusement from a corner of the Arena’s gate.

“So Dorothea’s working hard to get back into studying for the exam. What a waste of time. Peh heh heh.”

“And after she cried, begged, and hopped so desperately to buy those recipes from us. Can you believe this, Lampans?”

“Who do you think you’re kidding? We all know you’re planning to drag her back in. Aren’t you, Arbamini, Holibre?”

Red, blue, green.

The girls all wore puffy round miniskirts, white short-sleeve blouses, suspenders, and colored leggings – each girl wearing her own color. They all wore an identical sash diagonally down from one shoulder. The yellow and black stripes were the stereotypical warning colors of venomous creatures.

A waitress uniform that emphasized the chest may have been the closest comparison.

But their sweet macaron-like miniskirts were polka dotted instead of a plain color. That looked fancy at first, but it was actually another threatening pattern used by venomous animals.

They were the wicked aces who ruled over the other 300 girls at the infamous Sassafras Cfa Prep School.

They embodied a distorted view of preparing for the entrance exam where they specialized in sabotaging their rivals rather than increasing their own scores.

Some muffled groaning came from nearby.

All three of them had parchment talismans pasted all over their broom handles.

The talismans said “do not disturb” on the front. Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans were holding a strategy meeting. They didn’t need any unwanted advice from their Formula Brooms.

“Of course we are, Lampans. Carraway Cs has strict defenses, so it’s hard to get at them. We went to all the trouble of giving ourselves a pawn there, so we need Dorothea to cause some more trouble in their walls.”

“Does the naïve fool really think she can just back out after choosing for herself to get involved? Know what I mean, Arbamini, Lampans? We’re the ones that decide when she isn’t useful anymore. And that’s when we throw her out.”

“Then let’s get it over with, Holibre. That weight loss talisman is powerful, so no matter how stoic she pretends to be, she can’t escape its allure. She’ll crumble the instant we give her more.”

The talisman’s effects couldn’t be stacked, so there was no point in having multiple. And the body would build up a resistance to its effects, so the one recipe wouldn’t be enough for the addicts and they would seek out an even more powerful recipe and be willing to pay a lot for it. “New and improved” was not just used to advertise food. It was a useful phrase for these shadier products as well.

But these three didn’t actually do all that much. They simply made some minor adjustments to the default recipe and sold the addicts that. It only had to get around the body’s resistance. And it was none of their concern what happened to the addicts’ health as more and more new stimuli and reactions were introduced to their bodies.

The addicts knew it was unhealthy going in, so they didn’t question it when their health deteriorated.

“I mean, why should we care what Dorothea wants? If we surround her, we don’t even need all our arms to pin down all her limbs. How about we apply the parchment talisman to her by force? Using a sturdy glue, of course.”

“Sounds great. How about we also give her a chastity belt she can’t remove herself. That way we know the talisman’s staying in place until it takes effect.”

“Hee hee. But then she couldn’t get it off even if it caused an overreaction. You two are so mean. Don’t blame me if that dumb witch foams at the mouth and dies.”

It was unclear what she was so embarrassed about, but heading out alone at around dawn when there weren’t many people out yet was like asking to be attacked. As long as they were on the lookout for the delivery familiars who always followed the same course, there was plenty of room to kill someone.

“Okay, let’s go get this job over with.”

“Right? Let’s do it, let’s do it. It’s not like we have to pass the exam this year or anything.”

“Yes, getting into Maleficium is only the beginning. Hee hee. Our school life after passing will go much smoother if we intentionally fail a couple of times to spend a year or two earning some money.”

Arbamini had her red hair in a braid that resembled a fried shrimp, Holibre wore glasses and had her blue hair in twintails, and Lampans had her green hair in a ponytail. The poisonous macaron trio in waitress outfits had their target in sight.

They walked out from the Arena’s gate as one.

Or they would have…

“Don’t even think about it.”

The witch wore a black jacket, a short skirt, and a large hat. She looked like a cross between a sky pirate and a soldier. Her chocolate parfait look was adorned with medals and rank insignia on her chest.

With her shoulder-length silver hair and brown skin, Melehe stood in those girls’ path.

So she could push back their violent malice on her own.

“Wow, would you look at that. It’s the ace of Carraway Cs. She’s supposed to be their strongest witch, right?”

“Right. So won’t we get a reward if we beat her up and drag her back to our school? They pay for girls who look like they could get into Maleficium.”

“She’d make a fuss if we just abducted her. You brought your handheld silver halide, right? Then let’s ensure her silence by taking some compromising photos first. Hee hee.”

They laughed.

And laughed.

“Hey, did either of you bring the bear trap? Where’s that thick chain?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll do you a favor and put a bag over your head first. It wouldn’t be much of a threat if we’d already ruined you. Being seen stuck on the ground and unable to fly is enough for a witch to kill herself, after all.”

“Let’s do it with her submerged up to her shoulders in that filthy river in the squatters district. She looks like the proud type, so if we leave her there a while, she’ll have the tears and snot running down her face . One photo of that and we’ll have the perfect bargaining chip.”

It took the full use of all Melehe’s facial muscles to avoid reacting to the sensation she felt pushing in like dark ripples. If someone didn’t do what these girls wanted, they would teach that person a lesson. Melehe now understood just how thin of ice that timid girl had been walking on.

“You were the ones spreading around those guaranteed weight loss talismans, weren’t you?”

Melehe wanted to pass the entrance exam to meet her mother’s approval and to take an important step toward being a powerful leader for the Private Striga coven she so loved. If her rivals were cheating, it would call into question her own accomplishment.

Melehe was not enough of a philanthropist to protect the weak.

She knew ensuring a proper study environment was part of the battle toward passing the exam. Maleficium failed more than 99.9999% of those who took the exam, so there was no chance of a convenient dream where everyone passed.

If you weren’t strong enough, you would be failed without a second thought. She could not even give Viocia special treatment just because the girl wanted to help her grandmother. Dorothea had to have a serious motivation too since she had worked to get back on her feet after running into trouble. And of course, that alone wasn’t enough to pass.

But Melehe had seen Dorothea’s strength during the Bealtaine. Melehe always kept a rank of A in the official practice exams, but Dorothea had surpassed her on the ATU number memorization.

Melehe could not deny the girl’s ability.

She could tell the girl had worked herself to the bone until she produced real results.

Everyone was gritting their teeth and working hard in this “war”, but there were others who didn’t do any work, didn’t bother trying to earn points, and focused only on sabotaging others to take the easy way out.

The exam was meant to be a battle against oneself. It was wrong to have people’s futures taken from them because they were sabotaged and never had a chance to prove their strength. And to make matters worse, these girls had mentioned a monetary reward as an added bonus.

Melehe knew someone who had realized her mistake and worked to get back on her feet. Her progress may be slow, but she was moving forward now. Her efforts were bearing real fruit. How could Melehe stand by and let someone break that student’s spirit again and mock her for it?

“I hope you don’t expect me to just surrender.”

The trio simply sneered in response. Apparently even witches had failed to find a medicine to cure a fool.

“What are you saying we did? There’s nothing wrong with writing up a recipe and selling it. Your gloomy glasses friend is the one who believed it and actually made the thing.”

“Right? Seems to me you should be directing that righteous fury at Dorotha over there. Go on, get her instead☆”

“Hee hee. Be nice, you two. If you take her righteousness from her, she’s got nothing left. Push her any further and she’ll probably fall apart all on her own.”

A dull thud rang out.

A Formula Broom had been circling up in the dawn sky but now it dropped like a blade from the heavens, its tip striking the stone pavement hard. Before the broom could fall over, the silver-haired girl grabbed the long handle. She twirled it in her hand like a baton.

Melehe glared straight back at the trio and gave a proclamation.

“Answer me, Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus.”

“Of course.”

“I know exactly how you feel, Orpheus. So don’t bother holding back. You are a performer who puts your tastes above the rules of the world, after all. …Please help me fight. If you have a heart, I know you’re as pissed at these three as I am!”

“That goes without saying, milady. I will demonstrate that anger can be used to fuel the creative process.”

The three girls gave belligerent smiles and licked their lips while adjusting their grips on their brooms.

“Ha ha☆ How stupid are you!? Now you’re the one who picked a fight with us. What luck! Now we’re officially the victims no matter what we do to you!”

“Right? So let’s gang up on her and beat the crap out of her!”

“Dorothea doesn’t even matter as long as we have a pawn to get us deep inside Carraway Cs. Let’s make an addict out of her. She’ll be begging us for a way to forget all about reality before we’re done with her.”

Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans raised their malicious voices as one.

They exchanged dark grins and revealed even their brooms were identical.

“Formula Broom – Glamis!! Answer us, you three witches, you bubbles of the earth!! Draw out the great triangle and deceive Macbeth!!!”

The low sound of air being compressed erupted in triplicate.

It was one against three.

Multiple figures shook free of gravity and tore sharply through the air. An aerial witch battle had begun.

9[edit]

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.

Failing Witch v01 BW04.jpg

“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.

10[edit]

Just before death reached Melehe…

“Hhhnyahhhh!”

She heard a strange noise.

No, that was someone’s voice.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Destruction followed.

What was destroyed? The spherical barrier located above the Arena.

A single hole formed in the massive barrier and the entire thing popped like a soap bubble. Something had pierced through it from below. Whatever had been launched from the ground had mercilessly torn through the thick barrier and caught Melehe’s jacket just as gravity started to pull her down.

It was Viocia.

The two of them circled around in the air until Viocia somehow managed to get her Formula Broom stable again. Melehe’s broom remained entirely silent and refused to move.

“Sigh, the open sky feels great. If only all this wasn’t going on.”

The trio did not respond with a silly question.

First, red Arbamini raised her voice.

“Wha-!? It might be safe now, but this started out as an unofficial arena where the strongest witches fought the giant creatures made at Maleficium. How powerful is that girl to break through one of its barriers!?”

Melehe also stared wide-eyed at the girl she was holding onto.

She gave her a quintessential look of disbelief.

Dorothea wasn’t the only one to outdo Melehe on a part of the Bealtaine practice exam. On the ultra-high speed portion of the flight section, Viocia had outdone even the Rank A genius girl.

“How did you manage that extreme acceleration? Don’t tell me you could pass the airless ultra-high-altitude barrier and reach the far side of the starry sky!?”

“What are you talking about?”

Viocia herself was the most confused.

Melehe’s eyes widened again.

“(Who is this girl and who is her tutor?)”

Viocia only tilted her head.

“More importantly, Melehe, you’re safe now. Help has arrived!”

“Hey? You really think your brute force power will be any help? You’re just an extra bonus for us. Have fun falling after we break all the bones in your body!!”

“I…”

Viocia didn’t hesitate to respond while both supporting Melehe and operating her broom.

“I never said it was just me. And you need to stop making fun of my teacher!!”

Boom!!!

“!?”

The color silver shined bright.

If not for the particles in the air, Arbamini would have been hit before she even noticed. The mass of wind was a lot like a giant wrecking ball.

Arbamini swung her body to dodge at the last second and gripped her broom all the tighter while scanning her surroundings with her eyes.

The afterimage was still burned into her retinas.

“What!?”

“Magic, right!? And more’s coming. Dodge, Arbamini!!”

11[edit]

Myousou Yagoro twirled his 70cm baton and rested it on his shoulder.

“So Macbeth’s witches whip up the wind in the reverse direction of the sailors’ map to stop the ship. That includes the wind and the water element. A direct hit from that sticky blow would have knocked them unconscious.

“Not that I expected to hit supersonic witches so easily, sighed Yagoro. Especially when it was an impromptu bit of magic that didn’t even include all Three Aspects.

“But that’s fine.”

The scared trio took a few seconds before they burned with intense humiliation and rage. If they rushed his way, he could easily win. His biggest fear was if they kept their cool and continued hunting Melehe.

(Dammit, Viocia. You didn’t have to steal my line like that, don’tcha think? I’m risking my life when it really isn’t my fight, after all.)

That said, it had been odd for Melehe to barge into the Arena without any hints to guide her there. She must have overheard Yagoro and Schanze’s conversation. And he was willing to pretend that gave him a justification for helping her out.

Also, the tutor boy had finally risen to the same height as the witches. However, he was not tearing through the air at supersonic speed on a Formula Broom.

He was using one of the cutting-edge elevators that looked like giant red scales and rotated up above the buildings. That meant he was on one of the narrow elevator cars dangling below them. Quick movements and evasion would be difficult from there. He had to use the advantages of the fixed position to overwhelm the supersonic witches.

“Bring it on.”

Yagoro swung his collapsible baton while constructing a strategy in his head.

Multiple lights melted together at once. Popping the spherical barrier had released all the witches into the open sky. When the red, blue, and green lights gathered, they skillfully avoided the giant dragons and griffins flying through the dawn sky and wove their flightpaths together to draw a large circle around Yagoro’s position. The radius of this circle was less than 200m.

At that speed and distance, stopping their spellcasting fingertips to destroy their magic wasn’t an option.

“Ha. On the ground, you could’ve at least used the buildings and terrain to shield you, but you were stupid enough to come up into the sky for us.”

It was probably the green light that was actually speaking. That would be the witch named Lampans.

“What, is this the famous tutor? I’ve heard some stories about Navigate Exam, but I also know your name isn’t found on any of the prep school lists of successful students. That means you don’t know jack about Maleficium! You’re just some bluffing boy!!”

“Was the spherical barrier meant to be a distorted version of the Sphere of Sensation? No, I don’t need to figure that out. Since it was broken from the outside, its identity doesn’t affect the battle.”

He wasn’t listening. The unnatural blond boy’s thoughts were elsewhere.

(I would estimate their speed at between Mach 1 and 3.)

This wasn’t a simple competition of speed. The most frightening thing about witches was their ability to turn as sharply as a bicycle or motorcycle while moving at those speeds. Yagoro imagined their general specs based on some of his old knowledge. In a pure dogfight, the witches would have an edge on the latest ramjet engine fighters.

But this was a good thing, actually. If the witches charged at him, they would reach him in no time, but their magic used their voices. That wasn’t a major problem for them when they were pursuing a fleeing supersonic opponent while surrounded by a barrier, but when their opponent was stationary, they would pass him by before their voice spears could have their effect. Generally speaking, witches always moved forward. There were exceptions like Melehe who could hover or take off vertically, but that trio were forced to fly in a large circle.

That gave him a chance.

Had the long-sleeve sailor uniform boy’s casual behavior wounded their pride? The three lights gathered together and directed their prophecy toward the center of their giant circle.

“We’ll shred you to pieces!!!”

“As if you could!”

That simple statement was all it took.

The entire sky seemed to freeze over.

“Your Macbeth witches spell is certainly powerful. It has the extraordinary effect of burdening people with the destiny of whatever fictional role or position you give them!”

If they called you their lord, you really would become that. Whether you wanted it or not.

“But that’s a verbal curse. It doesn’t work if there’s no one there to hear it, don’tcha think!? So you have no way of damaging this elevator that would fall the instant you cut the chain!!”

“!?”

“Your only other option is to get me to hear your voice so I can make the elevator malfunction myself, don’tcha think? Which is why you went to all that touching effort to see if your voice was reaching me.”

“Oh,” said Melehe, her mouth falling open of its own accord.

They had been fighting at supersonic speed. It had been unusual for their voices to reach her at all. So Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans had constantly exchanged provocative comments while watching their opponent’s face. That way they could monitor in real time if their distorted voices were reaching that opponent using the compressed bundles of sound.

The blond tutor boy roared from atop the giant scales.

“But that’s exceedingly easy to interrupt!”

“Welcome back, you foolish, foolish fool. You stagger more than a drunk, foolish human!”

“That isn’t going to work! The world of magic isn’t simple enough for you to brute force your way through it!!”

Nothing happened.

The only thing reaching Yagoro was how rattled the red, blue, and green lights were.

“It doesn’t matter what you say! No matter how I did it, this was over from the moment I reached the same height as you. And now I have a prophecy for you: you’re the ones who will be falling to the ground!!”

“Welcome back, foolish, foolish scarecrow. You are more unsteady on your feet than a tightrope walker, foolish scarecrow!!”

“You’re fine with ending this quick, I hope? You have no way of dodging this!!”

He ignored them and pointed his baton at them.

They were nowhere near within his reach, but the three streaks of light still showed clear signs of panic.

“Welcome back, silly, silly doll. You will fall from-!?”

“I’m sick of your brute forcing. This is magic. If you’d kept up with your studying, you’d know the answer!!”

He verbally cut them off, but he was actually more cautious of their actions than anyone else.

Their magic took affect when it was heard, not when it was spoken.

Even if each individual sound had a large quantity of language data compressed into it, sound was still sound.

Their large circle put them less than 200m away and the speed of sound was approximately 331m/s. That meant a lag of just over 0.6 seconds for their sound to reach him, which just barely gave him enough time to react after seeing a change in the streaks of light.

He was safe as long as their voices did not reach his ears. Just like speaking commands to a demon or whistling from a keyhole, the intention was not enough. And stopping it didn’t require anything as precise as the antiphase. For example, there was the masking effect. When a low and a high sound were produced simultaneously, the high sound would be drowned out. That could even confuse pilots during midair refueling or acrobatic flying because the sound of the other craft’s engine would seem to suddenly vanish.

What mattered was that their voices could not reach him but his voice could reach them.

(Outdoors, an unamplified voice generally can’t travel 200m. If not for that, I wouldn’t use this cramped elevator.)

“Now’s your last chance for a tearful apology, Lampans!!”

“How about you go to hell, you- gah!?”

“Lampans!?”

One of the three streaks of light grew distorted and unraveled. The green light – ponytailed Lampans – entered a spin and rapidly lost speed. She was no longer conscious. Like this, she really would crash down into the ground, but the blue light – Holibre, just barely managed to catch her.

“What’s this? Are you sure you have time to worry about her, Holibre?”

“She’s my frie- geeyahhh!!!?”

Holibre’s body jerked upwards. She had the face of someone who took an electric shock to the heart. At this point, even someone without much knowledge of magic could tell some kind of invisible power was at play. Something was attacking the three witches and it had torn through the sky to pierce that girl’s young body.

Blue Holibre stalled out while still holding onto unconscious Lampans. She wasn’t falling straight down, but she would crash eventually. But the final member of the trio – crimson Arbamini – did not go to retrieve the other two. She may have thought this curse was triggered by physical contact.

“If so, you’re wrong, Arbamini!”

She didn’t respond.

The red light raced away from the falling two, but she hadn’t abandoned them. Even at this distance, Yagoro could tell she was muttering something under her breath.

Which meant she had slowed down enough to be followed by the naked eye. The trio of witches each commanded one of the Three Aspects, so with even one out of the fight, their magic fell apart.

But at the same time…

“This isn’t over yet. I’m still magically linked with Holibre and Lampans. If I send my willpower to them through that invisible line, they should wake up. And then they can use their brooms to recover before they crash!!”

“But can they do all that in time, Arbamini? If not, your friends will go splat against the stone pavement!”

(No response, huh? In that case, I need to change tack too.)

For the first time, the tutor was aware of some faint worry within him.

Still dangling from the giant scales by a single chain, he lifted a leg. He pulled off something pasted to the sole of his shoe. This was not just a scrap of parchment. It was a talisman with an actual meaning.

“Cursed items don’t have to be anything special. Food, ritual tools, and other ordinary objects can become cursed if you mistreat them. Just like supposedly holy temples and churches can become dens of monsters once they’re abandoned.”

This was a piece of magic he had prepared in advance.

The blond boy held the cursed talisman between his fingers and held his arm out horizontally.

The curse didn’t have to be strong. Not if it was only a targeting tracker used to ensure an attack reached its target.

“Take this!! You have 180 seconds!! Attach it to Arbamini and this is all over!!”

Something sharply passed Yagoro by from behind.

The instant he let go, Viocia caught the impure parchment with perfect precision.

12[edit]

Viocia and Melehe held onto the same broom as they flew. Ordinarily, they couldn’t hope to win an aerial battle with that kind of extra weight, but Viocia still managed to swing her broom around and used an unbelievable amount of power to catch up to red glowing Arbamini.

Melehe realized they could actually win this.

They had the greater speed. And while the fleeing enemy was constantly changing course, she never caused them to overshoot her. Arbamini wasn’t even using any obstruction magic. That meant they would catch up sooner or later.

Melehe whispered to the other girl sharing the broom with her.

“Keep pouring on that absurd power. I’ll show you how to make the subtle course corrections. Move your body left or right based on how you feel me shifting my weight. You focus on catching up to Arbamini!”

“…”

“What?”

Viocia was acting strange, so Melehe frantically called out to her.

“Your broom is Formula Broom – Wittenberg, right? We need its ridiculous acceleration to catch up to Arbamini!!”

“B-but…”

Viocia’s voice was trembling in hesitation.

“If we attach this talisman to her, teacher’s curse will get her! She’s the last of that witch trio. If she’s knocked out too, all three of them will hit the ground!!”

“…”

“But teacher never lies to me. So if he says he’ll do it, he really will do it!”

Melehe’s eyes widened.

That boy had said they had 180 seconds.

That wasn’t much time. She didn’t know what he was going to do, but whatever curse Navigate Exam launched would be guided this way by the parchment talisman. It was guaranteed to be a powerful curse since it had already knocked out Holibre and Lampans so easily.

“30 seconds left,” said Melehe through clenched teeth.

Viocia still wasn’t moving, so Melehe snatched the talisman away from her.

“10 seconds to go!! The curse is coming!!”

Arbamini was doing her best to get away. Her mocking attitude was nowhere to be found. And seeing the witch for who she was, Viocia realized she had to be powerful. She wasn’t running away for herself. She had suppressed her anger and rationally chosen to run away so she could collect her two defeated friends.

The countdown reached zero.

Something massive blocked Viocia and Melehe’s view.

But this wasn’t Myousou Yagoro’s curse.

A giant pillar appeared between Viocia and Arbamini. And a huge wall. And a huge window. Altogether, it was a stone school building. It was twisted, distorted, and nothing like its original form, but the 10km structure that jutted diagonally up to this height was definitely a school building. Even a dragon flying through the sky had to quickly twist out of the way.

Arbamini disappeared beyond the wall.

Viocia and Melehe couldn’t pursue her any further.

A witch’s Formula Broom would continue forward on its own.

A head-on collision with that would mean death.

Melehe immediately reached her arms around Viocia in front of her on the broom and grabbed the broom handle tight.

“Stop!!”

The two of them came to a rapid stop. Melehe had forcibly shifted the direction of thrust like she did for a vertical takeoff, causing the Formula Broom to stop in place. They were less than 5m away from the white stone wall.

The tutor must have known the enemy had gotten away. The talisman remained in Melehe’s hand, but the long-range curse still hadn’t hit her.

Several dull cracking and creaking sounds rang out.

“Wah!!”

Melehe immediately launched the broom straight up.

The school building was not just a straight line in front of them. It was spreading out to the left and right. From above, it looked like a massive mesh folding fan. The different parts collided and tore each other part as they complexly intertwined.

And Viocia pouted her lips.

“Uhh, Mephistopheles. You always ignore me, so why did you actually listen to Melehe?”

“We would have crashed into the wall if it hadn’t. …Come to think of it, I did that in the heat of the moment, but why could I control it when I haven’t gone through the consecration process for it? That was extremely risky.”

“No, it’s incredible. You really are the prep school’s ace. You didn’t even need to try to control a Rank S3 broom☆”

“Habwahbh!? N-now you tell me! Were you trying to kill me with that crazy estimated rank!?”

“I hope that Arbamini girl is okay.”

“You make my head hurt… But she’s probably fine. The school emerged behind her, so she wouldn’t have been at risk of crashing into it. And look.”

Melehe pointed down at two lights traveling along the streets of what looked like a miniature city from this height. The blue and green lights were probably on their way to join the third light.

They must have been done for the day.

Melehe frowned while using her vertical takeoff magic to hover in place.

“But what’s with that school?”

The massive structure had emerged diagonally.

The Arena was built at the center of the city, in the dangerous Lakeside area.

That could only mean one thing. Viocia followed Melehe’s gaze.

There was only one place it could have come from.

“From the lake. So is that a Maleficium building?”

13[edit]

On the giant red elevator, Myousou Yagoro sighed while also looking into the distance. He couldn’t have predicted this accident.

For unconscious Holibre and Lampans, he had knocked them toward the lake so that the diamond dust in the air could slow them enough to safely land in the water, but it hadn’t ended as planned.

This signaled more than an exam run by a single prep school.

“If the site has emerged, it can’t be long now.”

He viewed the school building that had emerged diagonally and spread out chaotically in every direction.

“It’s time for the official practice exam run by Maleficium itself.”

Today’s Test 2[edit]

Viocia: Um, teacher, I’m kind of panicking right now. Is this really the time?

Yagoro: Shut up. The entrance exam is the most important thing in the world. You can’t get into Maleficium with that attitude. Now, a quiz! You can find all the hints in the prep school.

Melehe: I’m here too. Are you sure I should be hearing this?


Question: Fill in the blanks to explain what magical methods the human Myousou Yagoro used to defeat the Sassafras Cfa Preparatory School aces – Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans. (10 points per blank, 100 points total)


We will only be focusing on what I did against the Sassafras Cfa trio. Let’s look at it piece by piece.

The Aspect of Antiquity was the mandragora. You die if you hear its (____) when it is uprooted, but you can remain safe by tying a rope to a dog and uprooting it that way. Simply put, you can avoid the danger using (____). That said, I was stuck in a fixed location, so I had to use a different method to avoid hearing the sounds and voices even at a short distance. For example, I could drown out the trio’s higher voices by shouting a lower sound, don’tcha think?

Mandragoras can also be used to attack. The symbol of (____) caused by hearing a scream is too good not to use.


The Aspect of (____) was ATU (____). In other words, the Wolf and the Young Goats. That is the story of some (____) opening the door for and being eaten by a wolf pretending to be their (____).

You can use that to make magic that knocks someone out if they answer your call. Viocia, note that I didn’t use your names when I called out to you. I simply told you to “take this”.

I did panic a bit when Arbamini ignored my call toward the end. I didn’t want to take their lives.


The Aspect of Amorality was a curse made by intentionally (____) a tool. That’s a standard of the Black Mass. And I used it for targeting support based on the fundamental law of (____) that says two things will continue to affect each other even at a distance once they come into (____).


The end. Any questions, Viocia. And Melehe since you’re here too?


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