Failing Witch:Volume2 Episode2

Episode 2: Summer Solstice

Part 1

July 20 was a cloudless, sunny day.

Viocia Modestlucky hopped out of bed precisely on time.

“Good morning!”

This was an unusual amount of energy for the usual sleepy-head. Before even washing her face, the redhead girl wearing a frilly, sheer negligee (that the young dancers working at the establishment downstairs had forcibly made her wear) slapped the full-to-bursting backpack next to her.

“Everything’s already packed! I’m all ready to go on a wonderful field trip today!!”

She had nearly been unable to even go on the field trip, but she had worked hard at various part-time jobs. She was so glad she had just barely earned enough to afford the trip. (Although her tutor was at his wits’ end about how much energy his student was dedicating to something other than her studies.)

(I only barely got a good enough score on the latest prep school test, though.)

Now.

She could get dressed and do her hair in her room, but washing her face required going downstairs where the well was. She used the narrow, steep stairs to reach the ground floor where she ran into Olivia and the other dancers. Those adults were all unsteady on their feet because they worked throughout the night and they were only now closing up shop after finally finishing their work. Although for some of them, it may have simply been the significant amount of alcohol they had ingested.

“Good morning, good morning! What beautiful weather we’re having!!”

“Ugh. Guh mo’ing. Is idh thadh dhime aweady?

Olivia always did everything flawlessly, so this side of her could only be seen early in the morning. In a way, it was more impressive that she managed to check through the income for the night in that state. Strena, the bodyguard, didn’t bother hiding her yawn as she snacked on some leftover ham and fries. Her long blonde ponytail wasn’t a fashion statement – it was a practical choice she used to strangle any drunks who took things too far and drag them outside. When the last order approached, the dancers would casually pressure the customers to order a lot of food so plenty would be leftover for them to eat after closing time, but that was top secret.

A cow-like groan came from the kitchen.

“Moloch!”

Viocia waved and the bipedal bronze bull waved back in greeting. He had originally been an unbeatable boss who randomly attacked the exam students walking around the official practice exam dungeon, but Viocia had collected him and taken him here.

“Mr. Kevin, Moloch is a witch cauldron, so don’t keep him in the kitchen all the time.”

“Yeah, but he’s so useful. We can cook and serve spare ribs now and Moloch loves it when we use him as a pressure cooker.”

“Ugh, but I want to make jam from concentrated recovery herbs.”

“Ham and fried chicken tastes so much better when you make it in a pressure cooker. Hah hah hah! People’ll be a lot happier if we make a bunch of Kevintucky Fried Chicken! Right, Moloch!?”

“Moo, moooo!” bellowed Moloch while the dishwasher and serving wagon (which had been given bodies of their own) shook and rattled in enjoyment. The kitchen had become something of a den of living monsters.

And when they all seemed so happy, Viocia couldn’t argue too much.

After Kevin the cook gave Viocia an extremely simple breakfast of toast loaded up with cooked vegetables and a fried egg, Olivia the dancer spoke to her while rubbing her eyes.

“Your field trip starts today, right? Are you going to be on time?”

“Yeah! After eating this, I’ll wash my face and head out!!”

Part 2

Vast green plains spread out outside Temple School City. The view was clear all the way to the horizon. The hilly and flat parts of the terrain could be seen by the stone-paved road winding across the plains. Some areas had been cultivated to grow wheat or vegetables, but there were no satellite cities.

All of those people lived in an isolated area of land.

(Of course, this environment is why the squatter’s district is such a crucial supply of firewood inside Temple School City.)

The entrance exam had created a fairly unique environment.

The city was a lot like a tourist destination, which required an influx of outsiders to function.

They had a reason for making such leisurely observations. They had no other choice.

“Pant, gasp, eep. U-uhh.”

“Why...do we have to walk this long road...when we have Formula Brooms?”

“The rules outside the city are different. Most places, failed students aren’t allowed to fly around at top speed.”

Yagoro maintained an even pace while thinking back on his basic training for the Force, but Melehe and Dorothea’s legs were already unsteady with all the heavy camping gear on their backs threatening to crush them. Maybe their urban lifestyle had been short on exercise, or maybe they had spent too many late nights studying at their desks.

Schanze alone used reins to ride her canard wing broom at an altitude of 2m.

“Okay, everyone. Totally focus on the rhythm of your breathing and walking. And don’t forget to pump your arms too. With enough willpower, a cool witch totally won’t feel tired at all.”

“Gasp, pant. Easy for her to say when she’s flying slowly along with her broom…”

Sweaty Melehe complained, but she had to know that flying a Formula Broom at a snail’s pace like that was actually harder than flying them at the speed of sound. Her argument wasn’t very convincing. And Dorothea, the caring big sister of a large family, supported Melehe from the side.

“Hm? Teacher, you don’t have very much luggage,” noted Viocia.

“True.”

(I do have have a shaver I made in my HEA house and my hair dye since I don’t want to end up looking like a custard, but is it safe to use it in the river? I don’t want to harm the sacred natural environment.)

The summer solstice field trip wasn’t just a Carraway Cs thing. It was a joint event they held with a few other prep schools, so there were quite a few witches in training walking along. Watching a swarm of hundreds of zombies shambling along brought the term “death march” to Yagoro’s mind.

Schanze was acting as one of the guides and she formed a megaphone with her hands.

“Totally stop there, everyone. It’s time for a break.”

“Eep. Phew, a-are we finally there?”

“We totally aren’t making a good enough pace to arrive by lunchtime.”

“…Eep…”

Sweaty Dorothea nearly collapsed backwards, so Yagoro had to rush in and catch her.

Viocia sat down in the grass and pulled out a leather water bottle.

“Whew. Looks like everyone’s worn out.”

“Exam students don’t have any idle time to waste, Viocia, so you need to take this time to study. What’s the effect of anise hyssop, wolfberry, and guarana?”

“No fair! You can’t expect me to learn now! Do you even know what a field trip is, teacher!?”

“The answer is stamina recovery. 0 points. …And I believe a field trip is a 24-hour-a-day exam-studying paradise with no escape.”

After a break, they walked another two hours. By the time the sun reached its peak overhead, the scenery finally began to change.

The horizon vanished as a group of trees rose into view in the distance.

That was known as the Dazzling Forest.

The instant Yagoro stepped inside, the temperature seemed to jump more than 5 degrees. The entire forest seemed to function like a greenhouse on Earth. The plant growth was odd as well. Instead of pointy pine conifers that would have made good Christmas trees, the forest was primarily palm trees with plenty of plants and flowers colored bright reds, blues, and yellows. This forest was supposed to be north of Temple School City, yet it was filled with tropical flora.

The soil underfoot was different as well.

Instead of the dark soil usually found in forests, the ground was covered by the fine sand found at the beach. Unnaturally transparent rivers of all sizes were visible snaking through the forest, but it wasn’t uncommon to see mangroves supported by rivers no deeper than 30cm.

(With this weird heat and strange sand, there might be a volcano around here, don’tcha think?)

Regardless, they were still only at the forest’s entrance.

The students started putting down their heavy luggage and taking a break now that they had arrived, but the gyaru-style instructor spoke up in an unnecessarily saccharine way that (probably intentionally) rubbed the girls the wrong way.

“We’re still totally nowhere near the campsite. Unless you want to collapse here and sleep on the ground without a tent, then keep on marching, everyone☆”

The stone pavement vanished within the forest, so the path was a lot bumpier. Rocks and roots jutted up and the ground itself wasn’t always flat, including plenty of steep slopes. Walking on the bumpy ground of fine sand was a lot like walking through a strange desert covered thickly in trees.

The experience was quite different from marching through the deep forest as part of Yagoro’s training with the Force.

“Be careful, Dorothea.”

“Eh? O-okay.”

His short warning only earned a confused tilt of the head from Dorothea.

The exam students had no set uniform. They all chose their own clothing, which ended up being a lot like Halloween costumes, so one was dressed like a French doll and another like a dragon girl. The one thing in common were the bare midriffs and so much more exposed skin. They were on their way to a somewhat maintained campsite, but those outfits were not the best for walking through a forest of knife-like underbrush and pointy tree branches.

“I said be careful. I mean your bandages.”

“Eh, eh? Eeeek!?”

Yagoro had simply informed the oblivious glasses girl that one of her bandages was starting to come undone after catching on a small branch. Her many curves may have created a lot of gaps between the cloth and her skin for things to catch on.

“Mh. No looking, teacher!”

“You pervy tutor!”

For some reason, Viocia leaped at him and Melehe jabbed the end of her broom against his head. With his vision covered, he heard a rustling of cloth that suggested Dorothea was retying her bandages.

Only once Dorothea sighed in relief did Viocia remove her hand from over Yagoro’s eyes.

Viocia immediately moved on ahead. Like she was in a hurry.

“Hop, hop, hop. I can cross this river by jumping from rock to rock!”

Even an elite like Melehe was all sweaty and out of breath.

“H-how in the world – huff – do you have so much energy left? Puff.”

“Hm? Maybe because I used to go visit my grandma in the forest every day?”

That grandmother was one of the Limit Breakers and had been known as the Queen of the Night, the Shadows, and Love. If Viocia had spent her childhood playing in a final dungeon of a forest known for being nearly impossible to navigate, then this fairly well maintained forest path to the campsite probably did seem like nothing to her.

And in addition to being unfazed by the forest journey, Viocia was unusually excited.

It seemed like more than just eagerness to visit a new playground.

“I’ve heard elves still live in the Dazzling Forest!”

“You must be kidding. Finding an elf would be a big enough discovery for your name to go down in history. You would have a crowd of reporters approaching you on a daily basis and even the Maleficium witches would be begging you to teach them your exploration methods.”

“Ehh? But, Melehe, it’s important to dream big!”

“The last alleged sighting was more than 30 years ago and that came from the Elf Preservation Society who are all volunteers who swear elves still exist. They didn’t even have a silver halide picture or lithograph. Elves are long since extinct.”

Melehe snorted derisively at Viocia’s non-argument.

Dorothea tried to intervene with a gentle smile, proving again she was the big sister of a large family.

Elves here are seen a lot like the Japanese wolf, noted Yagoro. No one here would know what he meant by that, though.

Part 3

“We’ve totally arrived☆”

The forest had many different faces – some areas were filled with thick trees and others were covered mostly by undergrowth. Schanze had guided them to a flat area near a clear river. There were some tropical-ish trees here, but the ground was half fine sand and half rock, meaning almost no undergrowth and it was dry too. If they moved the larger rocks out of the way, they would have plenty of space to pitch their tents.

(Now, this is where it really begins.)

There was no point in taking the trip if they were only going to take it easy.

Yagoro wanted to ensure E-rank Viocia reached the D-rank on the next official practice exam. How much she could learn during the summer solstice field trip would play a big role there.

Besides, witches borrowed a lot of power from nature, such as herbs and the arrangement of the stars. Camping out deep in the woods was the perfect opportunity for a Maleficium entrance exam student to gather knowledge and experience. In a way, there was more to learn here than from a library with all its shelves packed full of grimoires.

“Gyahhhhhh!! Agyahhhhhhh!”

“Oh, no. M-Melehe is freaking out after seeing a bug with lots of legs. Eep.”

“Ah ha ha ha ha!! Spiders are good bugs, so you don’t have to be scared of them.”

“Did you see all the bright colors on that one!? And it was the size of my hand!”

Myousou Yagoro held a despairing hand to his forehead and Schanze smiled bitterly at him.

“The students totally want a break from their studies, so you can’t expect them to start quietly observing their surroundings right away.”

Fortunately, the field trip was several days long.

The things they directly observed in the forest were of course important, but the real test was their ability to view things in such a way that they could see the magical techniques and knowledge hidden in the ordinary scenery. The very shape of Temple School City was filled with wisdom. It could provide more knowledge than any parchment textbook.

“I ate my biscuit before we even reached the forest, teacher. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Um, uh, teacher, I don’t like the look of that dark smile!”

“Heh heh heh heh. I made sure to prepare plenty of quizzes for downtime like this, so don’t you worry. Oh, I’m so glad to have such a studious student, Viociaaaaa!!”

“Gyahhh! Why did I have to open my dumb mouth!? And there’s no way to escape on the field trip!!!”

Going easy on her now would only hurt her in the long run.

“Okay, a question: ATU 0124 is usually known as the Three Little Pigs, but that’s the name of the most well-known story, not the official genre name. So what is the correct name for ATU 0124?”

“Ugh. Why would you give another name first just to confuse me, teacher? That’s mean.”

“Exam questions aren’t just about testing your knowledge. The way they present the question or have you answer will often include tricks or traps to influence your thinking, don’tcha think? Hint: it’s Blow the (___) Down.”

“Oh, I know! Blow the (Pig) Down!”

“It’s (House), idiot. +1 point: Three is an important number in witchcraft. There are cases where taking the same action thrice gives it a different effect. For example, the three little pigs gradually reduced the big bad wolf’s effectiveness by repeatedly defending their houses of straw, sticks, and brick. By the time they arrived at the brick house, the wolf had dropped to the position of jobber. It can seem pointless and like a lot of work, but preparations are important, don’tcha think?”

“Huh, so brick is best then?”

“In the standard version of the story. It was a house of iron in the original, but I feel like that house would rust and cause the ground to sink below it.”

Now, what were they waiting for at the moment?

Schanze made a loud announcement.

“Okay, listen up, everyone! Setting up camp is totally the focus for today. That means getting your tents up so you have a place to sleep tonight. The Goddess’s Spring is totally deeper in the woods, but it’s already the afternoon. It’d be totally dark out before we got there if we tried today, so we’ll try for that tomorrow morning instead☆”

An oiran-style kimono yuki onna, a fur bikini werewolf girl, and a Hasshaku-sama enhancing her height with thick soles on her shoes whispered to each other while watching excited Schanze.

“Are the rumors true? If we dunk our Formula Broom in the Goddess’s Spring, does it enhance some of its stats?”

“But trying out modernized enhancements sounds kind of scary.”

“But, but. I don’t want to be the only one who doesn’t do it.”

They may have been so suspicious because they were too exhausted to look at it any other way. The instructors had probably chosen to make the first day almost entirely free because they had known the girls would be so exhausted.

(A goddess, huh?)

Myousou Yagoro thought on that while making sure no one else noticed.

What goddess was this supposed to be exactly?

If this had anything to do with the goddess hanging around at the midpoint between worlds – in the gap between life and death – then this was worth some personal investigation separate from the entrance exam.

They had eaten lunch before entering the Dazzling Forest.

They could wait to pitch their tents until sundown.

So what would the hopeful witches prioritize? They naturally came to the same conclusion.

Namely…

Part 4

“Yahoo!! Nature is beckoning with this clear water that makes even the summer heat attractive. There’s only one thing to do: swim!!”

Viocia had changed into a red and orange two-piece swimsuit with lots of frilly decorations and she threw herself into the river. She had chosen not to remove her big hat.

Yes, she was wearing a swimsuit.

A world of swords and sorcery wouldn’t have synthetic materials, but natural rubber was available and people sold cloth and leather that was waterproofed with oil or wax. Of course, there were no standards, so the quality varied drastically.

(This river is linked directly to the so-called Goddess’s Spring, so wasn’t this supposed to be a chance for the students to experience a pure ablution?)

“Stop leering, pervy tutor.”

Melehe, who wore a black bikini and held her sky pirate hat down with a hand so it wouldn’t fall in the water, glared cautiously over at Yagoro.

If she didn’t want to be seen like that, why had she chosen such a revealing swimsuit?

“Um, uh, h-how embarrassing.”

Dorothea was fidgeting bashfully, but she was wearing an ordinary white swimsuit.

“Viocia, eep, if you leave your clothes so close to the river, they’ll be washed away.”

“Ehh? They’re fine where they are!”

“No, they aren’t. You need to move them over here and add some kind of spice to keep animals away.”

Dorothea crouched down and placed own a bundle of cloth about he size of an eye drop bottle like it was a talisman. Her large chest tended to gather a lot of attention, but her butt was quite nice too. She had become a Voland because her body kept growing too much and that growth was especially brutal in certain areas.

But Dorothea seemed more embarrassed by this swimsuit which hid her chest behind decorative cloth than she was with her more revealing bandages outfit. Yagoro sensed a cultural disconnect there.

Melehe put her hands on her hips and gave him a look of deadly ice.

“A witch’s ordinary clothing and swimsuit are not the same thing, pervert. The ablutions are an important ritual, so we have to purify our bodies beforehand. But controlling our desires can act as a trigger to achieve our goal, right? We don’t want to actually eliminate our desires, so bathing with a swimsuit on provides a masking effect to preserve the desires we don’t want to lose.”

“Oh, really? And in your case…”

Yagoro brought a hand to his chin and began analyzing.

First, he focused on her black bikini.

“The black indicates the night, the truth, and...no, in this case, it might symbolize protection. So you are seeking something you want to protect.”

“Um?”

Melehe flinched, but Yagoro focused his gaze on another point.

He stared at the black top covering her shapely chest.

“But the chemical used to tan the waterproof leather includes mountain ash. That herb symbolizes protection of the home.”

Yagoro held each symbol in his head as his gaze dropped from her chest to her brown belly.

He checked her bikini bottom held up by side ties.

“The bikini strings are braided. Hair-related magic symbolizes control, so…”

His gaze rose past her navel and up to her chest again.

Then some confusion formed on his face.

“Hm? What does that mean? Combined, those symbols would mean you want to be pampered by your mother??? She is admittedly the supreme commander of a giant coven, but what is it you want to gain even it means controlling your mother’s love?”

“Stop staring at my swimsuit and analyzing my desires, you pervert!!”

Melehe tearfully blushed, grabbed a river rock the size of a grapefruit, and took a throwing pose, so Yagoro made a quick getaway.

The girls began playing in the river.

They mostly splashed water on each other, but then Viocia found a tropical coconut. It was too hard as-is, so she wrapped a thick towel around it to turn it into a ball. Once they had a toy about the same size as a volleyball, the level of violence rapidly increased. They came up with an original game halfway between beach volleyball and dodgeball and adjusted the rules whenever they found a flaw.

Dorothea’s big sister switch had been activated, so she was diligently working to help in any way she could.

“Eep. Viocia, if you move around too much in a two-piece swimsuit, it will slip out of place, so you need to be careful.”

“Ugh. Dorothea, this pareo is so heavy now that it’s wet.”

“No, you can’t remove it.”

What, so was that originally part of Dorothea’s swimsuit?

Each group was doing their own thing, so one group was chasing after small fish and some girls had lined up river rocks to separate out a portion of the river water as a small pool.

Viocia held the coconut ball between her hands and her still undeveloped chest and turned to Yagoro.

“Aren’t you going to join us, teacher?”

“I’m not here to have fun.”

“Then I’ll have to have so much fun you’ll be jealous enough to come join us. Okay, Dorothea! Attack!!”

A small “eep” followed.

Dorothea failed to catch the coconut ball and fell back into the shallow river.

First, time seemed to freeze for Melehe. Next, Viocia tilted her head and followed Melehe’s gaze. Finally, Dorothea realized the other two were staring at her and lowered her gaze to look at her own body.

It had turned see-through.

Her pale skin tone was completely showing through the chest of her white swimsuit.

The big sister of a large family enjoyed looking after others, but that apparently meant paying less attention to herself.

“~ ~ ~!!!???”

Part 5

Evening had arrived.

“Eep…”

“Huh? What’s wrong, Dorothea? Why are you trembling like that?”

“Oh, no. The area below my navel...and between my legs...feels really hot and even hurts? Oh, I put that bag of spices on my clothes to keep animals away, so m-maybe some of the spicy stuff got on them and then got in somewhere it shouldn’t be. Ahhh, it stings so bad!”

“Go over to the river and deal with that immediately! I’ll do everything I can to keep the pervert away!!”

Yagoro heard some splashing in the distance, but he did his best to ignore it.

Together with the instructors from the other schools, Schanze formed a megaphone with her hands and shouted.

“Okay, everyone! It’s totally time to split into your groups and set up your tents!!”

If the groups didn’t gather and set up their tents before it got dark, they wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep that night.

“I am getting a tent up, I am getting a tent up, I am getting a tent up, I am securing a safe space – a holy ground – for human beings where no bugs can get in,” muttered Melehe, a dark look in her eyes as she was removed from the comfort zone she had built up from urban living.

Dorothea (with new bandages wrapped around her) spread out a thick cloth waterproofed with wax.

“First, we need to figure out where to put our tent. Eep.”

“To measure the best spot witchcraft-wise, we would have to wait until the stars come out. I say we focus on the river current and the positions of the hills instead.”

Melehe began staring at the parchment map she had spread out on the ground in the forest. Of course, the existence of that map was proof this was a safe and maintained campsite.

Viocia set a cup of water on the ground to check the angle of the water’s surface.

“Ohhh, it’s completely level. The ground here is flat and has no roots, so it won’t be too uncomfortable. Just move the stones and level out the ground and it’ll be perfect!”

“You really do come alive in the forest, don’t you? Eek!?”

Melehe shrieked and jumped when she discovered some creepy-crawlies on the underside of a large rock.

She continued forcefully but tearfully.

“We will be safe in the tent, won’t we? It’ll be hell if any bugs get in through the gaps. All our attempts to seal the tent up will only keep them from getting back out.”

“Heh heh. So you’d only feel safe in the house of brick, Melehe?”

“Oh, shut up. This isn’t about that ‘third time’s the charm’ story in ATU 0124.”

“?”

Viocia’s head tilt suggested she still had some training left to do. ATU 0124 was Blow the House Down and Viocia herself had identified its most famous story as the Three Little Pigs.

Melehe precisely measured out the directions and terrain and laid out a square sheet of leather to act as a floor.

Viocia created small holes in the ground around the perimeter and stuck a thin pole much like a fishing rod into each one. And with some help from Dorothea, she brought together the tips to create a dome-shaped frame.

Lastly, all three placed the waterproof cloth tent over the top and tied it in place with string.

However…

“Uh, oh! Wait, wait, the frame isn’t coming together right. Viocia, you measured the lengths and dug the holes so the poles would all come together at the top, didn’t you!?”

“Wah!? Th-the wind is picking up the floor sheet!”

“If I tie this here...huh? Eep. Th-there’s a gap between the tent and the ground.”

Untested theories were notoriously unreliable.

A hellish struggle awaited them.

Determining directions, choosing terrain, adjusting the frame’s angle, placing the poles in the ground in order, tying the strings with the appropriate knot – did they realize how much of this physical labor doubled as witch studying?

“Done! Our team’s tent is up!! …Huh?”

When Viocia was done focusing on her task, she took a look around and saw Dorothea and Melehe collapsed on the sandy ground. The tent work had been preceded by a long walk and playing in the river. They had all (except for the idiot) worn themselves out more than they had realized. Looking further away, a fair number of teams hadn’t even managed to get their tents together before collapsing among those big pieces of cloth.

(Teacher should be fine, though.)

“Hey, listen up. This is totally the night patrol guide.”

“Why would I need that? Hold on! Keeping these hundreds of students from sneaking out to have fun during the night is a job for you prep school instructors! I’m just a normal tutor, so I’m sleeping! What, am I being conscripted!?”

But Myousou Yagoro was called away by Schanze Dwelling.

(Since I can still move, I need to do the work.)

And so Viocia was off.

“Hm, hm, hmm♪”

Viocia walked through the forest, collecting dried twigs for firewood.

While camping, they would be cooking over a campfire instead of using recipes to make instant food, so they would need fuel for that fire.

Since the others were so inexplicably exhausted, Viocia knew she had to do the work or there wouldn’t be anything to eat once she was hungry.

Then she noticed something gold and shiny swaying deeper in the woods.

Was it long hair?

And were those long ears twitching along with it?

“Could that be...a legendary elf!?”

Part 6

Melehe Superlative gave her an icy look.

“There is no way you saw an elf alive in the modern day. Even their fossils are rare.”

“But, but I saw her with my own eyes!!”

“You were alone and all you did was see it? No more? You didn’t capture it and you didn’t get a silver halide photo?”

“Uhh…”

“That’s what I thought. It’s possible you did see something that looks a lot like an elf, but remember – this is the campsite where the last alleged elf sighting happened. Some tourists with too much time on their hands probably dressed up as one for a photo shoot.”

“Urrrrgh!!”

Argued into a corner, Viocia tearfully glared over at Yagoro, but he only covered his face with his hands. With a sketchy story like that, what kind of help could he give her?

“Eep. Anyway, Viocia, is that all the firewood you got? W-we need to cook our own food, so we need to be ready soon.”

“You just brushed it off with an ‘anyway’, which tells me you don’t believe me either, Dorothea. But I swear I really did see a legendary elf!!”

Viocia protested, but she joined Dorothea in preparing the campfire spot. Her empty stomach may have gotten the better of her.

They had eaten lunch during a break before entering the Dazzling Forest, but dinner was a different story.

“You must only start a fire in specific, prepared locations. You could start a wildfire otherwise.”

An old man who appeared to be an instructor at another prep school cautioned all the students in a wizened voice.

Instead of instant food made with witch recipes, they would be cooking over an actual fire.

Dorothea usually cooked for herself, so she wanted to adjust this makeshift stove to her liking.

“Will this work? Eep.”

“Don’t worry too much about stacking the rocks just right. You can fill any gaps in with sand, don’tcha think?”

This was all a learning experience, but Yagoro helped with the initial heavy lifting. After gathering stones from the riverside and arranging them in three sides of a square, they placed a metal grill on top. Then they only had to arrange dried plants and twigs below and ignite them.

Striking the flint and metal together reminded Yagoro of the metal matches he had been issues in the Force. Not that he had ever had a chance to use them.

“Ohh, it’s burning, it’s burning!” exclaimed Viocia.

“We’re not here for the campfire. The point is to cook some dinner. Cough.”

“Sausages! And thick bacon!!” said Viocia as she snatched up more and more food for her own plate. “Munch, munch. Melehe, do you like the healthier chicken?”

“I want my internal environment to lean toward the wind element. As for you, pork is the fire element, so you should use sweet basil or cumin. Star anise is a water element herb!”

Her mother seemed to be a vegetarian, but Melehe didn’t appear to take it that far.

“Dorothea, you’re only eating the vegetables? You’re so grown up.”

“”Ugh. I-I would really rather fill up on meat too.”

Maybe it was to stick to the water element, but Dorothea was munching on grilled apples flavored with chamomile. No one had asked her to, but she would occasionally add more wood to the fire or blow into the fire to adjust the heat level. The big sister’s efforts were going unrewarded, but at least she appeared to enjoy looking after the fire.

“Oh, can’t forget this. Heh heh☆”

“Hm? Viocia, eep, why are you filling up a new plate with meat?”

“Okay, I need to write a note. ‘To the elf: eat this if you’re hungry.’ ”

“Are you still fixated on that? That mysterious species went extinct ages ago. And even if they were still around, who knows if they would even understand our language.”

Viocia ignored Melehe’s exasperated comment and placed the plate and parchment note on a stone a short distance from the campsite.

In addition to the meat and vegetables, they had long, narrow loaves of bread. Were they baguettes? The bread was fairly hard, but thick pieces could be sliced off and grilled, or the whole loaf could be slit lengthwise so meat could be placed inside a lot like with a hot dog.

Yagoro was a little saddened by the bread because he saw white rice as the perfect companion for meat.

Part 7

However, all Myousou Yagoro could do was help out with the cooking.

He was not a prep school student – he was a tutor who had tagged along. Which meant he was not paying the tuition. The camping gear and food had been paid for by the hopeful witches, so he would have felt wrong eating that food.

So instead he slipped away from the group and prepared a fishing rod.

For some reason, Schanze approached him.

“What do you want?”

“You totally know that already, don’t you? I’m not paying a tuition either. I know the instructors aren’t supposed to have to pay, but I’d still feel bad eating their food.”

Salary-focused prep school instructors could be particular about these things.

“Are you using the water mirror?”

“That’s right.”

There were ways to determine the location of fish without a sonar-based fishfinder.

One magical method of searching out villains, such as someone who stole a personal item, was to complete a special process and then peer into a vessel full of water. To get back at the thief, you could stick a blade into the water to cut their face, marking them.

Although this sort of thing reminded Yagoro more of an old urban legend about searching for a marriage partner.

(If possible, I want Viocia’s group to move past using the camping gear they brought outside the forest. That would give them a situation where they can borrow the wisdom of nature itself.)

“Ohh, that’s a really cool fish reading you’re getting. Hm? But it’s moving weird. Like it’s totally used to dealing with people. I guess that’s what you get with a popular campsite. Oh, wow, that fish totally just escaped from the hook!”

“Then this calls for a bit more intervention.”

Yagoro grabbed a flat rock with his other hand and gave it a sharp toss. The rock skipped across the water’s surface, scaring the fish into a sudden change of direction that brought it right toward the hook.

The tutor boy held the rod firm and tugged hard.

“There’s one.”

“Hee hee☆ Looks like I totally won’t go hungry tonight!”

“Now, Schanze, did you do anything at all to help? You just got through nobly saying you couldn’t eat the students’ food, but now you’re going to take my food!!”

Part 8

Night had fallen.

Each group’s tent was up, so they could rest easy as the gentle darkness settled in.

“Wow. The summer solstice is supposed to be the longest day of the year, but once it gets dark, it gets dark fast. Eep.”

“You say that, but it’s only 8 PM. For exam students, the night is only just beginning.”

“Wow, Melehe. Eep. Y-you can tell the time without a clock?”

“Using the moon and stars. They don’t move through the night sky at random, you know?”

After Dorothea took that advice to heart (so easily it actually made Melehe jealous) and began trying it herself, she saw an orange light flashing in the distant sky. It reminded her of an oddly-colored firefly.

“?”

And with dinner over…

“Oh, neat. Your textbooks are completely different from ours!”

A short distance away, Viocia was speaking with some other girl.

She was already making friends with a student from another prep school.

“Dorothea, Melehe! This is Ileana from Costus Af Prep School. Eh heh heh. At their school, they use automatic writing to figure out their weaknesses and focus their studying there!”

“Oh?”

“She also goes to Aurora Swan Flight Sports Gym to increase her Formula Broom skills. She’s amazing!”

The Ileana girl was dressed like a white ghost, which meant she wore a large sheet over her head. That was as much a symbol of witch parties as an orange pumpkin. The front of the sheet wasn’t kept closed well, providing glimpses of her bare skin below. It looked like she only wore some large stickers below the sheet.

Those weren’t the only two engaged in some cultural and informational exchange. When Melehe took another look around, she noticed quite a few sunlight seal lanterns shining outside the tents.

“Melehe Superlative? So you’re Carraway Cs’s ace?”

“Wait, are you the Ileana I sometimes see on the official practice exam rankings?”

She sensed an unexpected connection here.

Before long, parchments describing different study methods arrived from somewhere. People were apparently writing whatever advice they could think of and passing them around.

Dorothea’s eyes widened behind her glasses.

“This is a mnemonic for memorizing what power you get when you burn different types of wood. Apple, birch, elder...huh, neat. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

With a dry slap, Yagoro – who had approached without them noticing – knocked the parchment from Dorothea’s hands.

“Eep!”

“What is wrong with you, pervy tutor!?”

Melehe snapped at him in a hurry, but he ignored her.

“Elder, or elderberry, shouldn’t be on there.”

“Eh?”

“Trick question warning: Elderberry is a special plant. Burning it is forbidden.”

“Um, eeep, th-then…”

“It’s just a mistake. That’s the problem with secondhand or who-knows-how-many-hand information, don’tcha think? The answer can get warped without anyone trying to deceive anyone.”

Part 9

The field trip looked lively enough, but all the students here were rivals.

And it wasn’t always a good idea to trust those rivals.

That may have been why the girls entered their tents relatively early. Of course, each tent still had a dim light within, so it didn’t look like many of them had actually gone to sleep. They were using moonlight seals, which glowed with the pale light of the moonlight sealed within. Inside the tents, the rivals were fighting their physical drowsiness and exhaustion to stay up studying.

Needless to say, the tutor boy couldn’t enter the tent. That was Viocia, Dorothea, and Melehe’s space.

Viocia rummaged around inside her overstuffed backpack as if she had been waiting for this moment.

Worrywart Dorothea whispered to her.

“Viocia, eep, are you looking for something?”

“Tah dah! I smuggled in some snacks. And I know it’s only a cupcake, but this is for you, Dorothea.”

“Eh?”

“Hooray!! Happy birthday, Dorothea!!!”

“Um, uh, oh.”

Viocia celebrated loudly, but the birthday girl herself mumbled under her breath. The eyes behind her glasses said she really wanted to say something.

Melehe kept her eyes somewhere else entirely.

“(Yeah, getting a year older isn’t exactly something to celebrate for an exam student. Sigh, I need to redouble my efforts to make sure I get into Maleficium this year!!)”

Part 10

As the night wore on, not a single tent still contained the glow of a moonlight seal. For a professional(?) student, it wasn’t out of the ordinary to stay up all night studying, but none of their stamina had lasted after enjoying the great outdoors so much during the day. While they all slept like logs in their tents, Myousou Yagoro got to work all on his own, but then he noticed some movement out of the corner of his eyes.

It was Schanze Dwelling.

“So you noticed?”

“A number of things.”

As one of the lead instructors for the trip, it was that witch’s job to ensure the students were safe. Even as a salary-focused self-taught witch – or maybe because of it – she intended to do the job she had been given.

Without producing any light in the dark forest, those two used only the moonlight to sneak away from the campsite. After walking a short way along the river, they noticed something odd.

“…”

The plate Viocia had left on a rock was missing.

“You aren’t going to suggest that a supposedly-extinct elf totally took the food, are you? There are plenty of cool wild animals that will readily steal any food you leave out.”

“I’d agree if it was just the meat on the plate that was missing.” Yagoro spoke cautiously. “But with the plate and the parchment note gone too, it doesn’t feel like the work of an animal. And they aren’t lying on the ground anywhere around here either. And look over there.”

Yagoro crouched and pointed at a spot not far away, so Schanze quietly extended the end of her Formula Broom in that direction.

“Hey, don’t use me to test for dan- owww!!!”

Metal jaws snapped shut with a violent “clang!!”

That was a bear trap.

And it was installed with quite a powerful spring. If a human had stepped in it, they likely would have suffered a complex fracture in the leg.

“I see.”

This trap was more than just noisemaker or paint meant to deter intruders. Sharp shards of glass were attached to the end of a tightly bent tree branch. If the thin pot hanging by a rope were to fall to the ground, it would scatter honey and rotten fat so they would splatter across the victim and draw in all the violent animals with excellent noses. Seeing all that, there were likely unseen pitfalls as well. And those pitfalls would likely be the kind with sharpened sticks at the bottom.

Yagoro turned around.

They were less than 150m from the campsite where the students were sleeping peacefully in their tents. It made no sense for all this to be so near a well-maintained campsite. And with one trap specifically designed to draw wild animals to the victim, these clearly weren’t simply meant to keep animals away or for hunting.

There was only one other possibility.

“We can’t rely on the assumption that this is a safe campsite anymore.”

“So has something totally dangerous moved in here?”

The forest’s trees rustled in the night wind.

The Dazzling Forest’s darkness was still too deep to see through.

Today’s Quiz 2

There is no quiz for today.

Aren’t you glad, Viocia!? And the rest too!?

Viocia: …

Yagoro: What’s wrong, Viocia? I thought you would be weeping with joy at being spared a quiz.

Viocia: There’s more to this. It’s like a death sentence written in a cheerful font… I know you would never be this nice, so there must be something even worse lying in wait for me later on!!

Melehe: You’re probably overthinking this. What proof do you have that the pervert is plotting something?

Dorothea: What proof do you have that he isn’t? Eep.

Melehe: That won’t work on me. I know proving a negative is called the devil’s proof.

Viocia: The devil is here? And you have proof!? Are we in danger!?

Melehe: Look, now she’s overreacting, so just give up already!!

Dorothea: But, eep, w-would the tutor really do this without a good reason?

Viocia: …

Dorothea: …

Melehe: …

Yagoro: Ahem.

Yagoro: Now, this has proven, much to my surprise, that Melehe has the worst crisis management skills of the three of you. You’re skilled, but you let your assumptions restrict your thinking too much. You really are easily outwitted for a supposed elite.

Melehe: Just explain yourself already!!!

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