Failing Witch:Volume3 Episode3

Episode 3: Beyond the Entrance Exam Competition

Part 1

Examination of data from the ＊＊＊＊＊＊ Force’s ＊＊＊＊ Base using the Special ＊＊＊＊.

Sent to Ministry of ＊＊＊＊ ＊＊＊＊ Division ＊＊＊＊ Exception ＊＊＊＊ Department.

Pilot: ＊＊＊＊＊＊. Craft Used: F-＊＊J.

(Used Flanker E2 paint job to act as an aggressor based on ＊＊＊＊.)

The opposing unit was the ＊＊ Air Force ＊＊th Wing ＊＊＊th Squadron, known for having an SSS evaluation. They were flying F-＊＊Cs, F＊＊Js and DJs, and F-＊As. For details, see attached file. Not counting training squadrons and acrobatic squadrons, that ace squadron is effectively the best in the country in actual combat.

Max Speed: 2509km/h

Max Burden on Pilot: 9G

Continuous Flight Time: 30m and 00s

(He effectively continued flying until the training was completed.)

Chaff and Flare Usage Count: 0

Artificial Kills During Training: 38 AAMs, 12 AA guns

Death-to-Kill Ratio: 1:50

Hits: 0

(This includes AAMs and AA guns.)

(He was effectively shot down 0 times during training. He was ordered to land after the training period had ended. That landing was counted as a single death because the death-to-kill ratio cannot be calculated with a death count of 0.)

(Hidden Note)

We had summoned that ace squadron (which includes stealth fighter pilots) to take that genius boy down a peg, but he did better than we could have imagined. He far surpassed the supposed limits of a non-stealth craft. It feels like a waste to let him be a civilian astronaut. I know he was invited in from outside, but is it at all possible to keep him in the Force? We don’t need to leave any records of it. We just need a way…

Part 2

“That should do the trick.”

Her skill was downright frightening.

Yagoro himself couldn’t explain how he was alive after losing so much blood. That small witch had to know his body more intimately than he did at this point.

Tedaura Sugar Modestlucky.

Yagoro had known she was Viocia’s grandmother, but it still felt surreal to see her standing in front of him. She was like a living legend.

Besides, didn’t she live in a distant forest that was as dangerous as a final dungeon?

“What…why…how?”

“All things have signs before they happen. Events only seem so uncanny because ordinary people cannot see the signs. But if you had viewed the stars with more care, I think you could have seen this coming, Sir Tutor.”

So had she chosen to leave isolation and travel here because some form of divination told her of some coming danger to her granddaughter?

That seemed far too precise and specific, but there was no use in questioning a living legend.

It all happened so suddenly.

“Hm, but it had to be part of the Wittenberg series, didn’t it?” she said.

“Kh.”

He hadn’t explained anything to her yet, but Tedaura still made a somewhat exasperated comment.

Series? Where did she get that information?

This was something not even Yagoro was familiar with.

“Those are the eight brooms my former rival created so long ago. They were made based on the overly forceful idea that increasing the overall stats of the tool could make up for the witch’s own inferior power.”

For a legend like Tedaura, apparently the great secrets of the world were no more than talk of a childhood friend. And based on what she had said, Yagoro got the strong sense that this rival was a living legend in their own right.

Feeling somewhat exasperated himself, Yagoro asked a question.

“Are you saying there are eight brooms with that dangerous S³ rating?”

“There are different ways one could try to surpass me, right? I imagine the number was meant to correspond to the eight seasons in a year and then to draw out a variety of reactions from me by hitting my solid defenses with metal.” The little girl chuckled in an elderly sort of way. “Oh, and Mephistopheles was apparently made to cover all forms of skill, so he will answer even the most challenging question and place the answer in his wielder’s head. Makes me wonder how my granddaughter is doing.”

Yagoro stared into the middle distance, but that legend had become very real for him.

Yes.

The Student Council President had a Formula Broom – Wittenberg.

As did Viocia Modestlucky.

“Wh-what are you going to do now?”

“That President says she can control space both physically and geometrically, but she must define the coordinates based on her own senses. That is her weakness. Otherwise, she could have remotely pierced space to give you a mortal wound without appearing before you. So if you can physically hide your location, she cannot- ugh!?”

Tedaura stopped mid-sentence.

What had happened? Had the President remotely sent a curse her way?

That was Yagoro’s first guess.

The seemingly untouchable and unbeatable Queen of the Night, Darkness, and Love froze in an unnatural forward-leaning posture. No, she wasn’t completely frozen; she was trembling.

The 10-year-old (looking) little girl had tears in her eyes.

“M-my back… Oof, my bad back is acting up again. I can’t move…”

Yagoro could tell part of him seriously wanted to abandon her and run away.

Come to think of it, wasn’t this the reason why her granddaughter Viocia wanted to get into Maleficium?

Part 3

Going home wasn’t an option.

Maleficium’s Student Council President could easily access a student’s registered address.

(But why is she even attacking me?)

1. He had run up against Maleficium or White Magic’s interests in some way.

2. The President had been involved in some of the cases he had resolved in the past.

3. Someone outside Maleficium had hired her and it wasn’t personal to Ulrike.

Coming up with a few possible explanations wasn’t going to tell him the answer.

It scared him that he couldn’t see President Ulrike’s angle.

Because that meant he couldn’t predict her next action.

But…

“4. No one must reach the ends of this world.”

He had only been brainstorming ideas, but that one caught his attention.

The President made a habit of saying that line, but could that really be the reason?

He wasn’t certain.

Staying safe had to take priority. He and Tedaura had arrived in the shopping distract at night.

He knew it would be a lot of trouble, but there weren’t that many people he could rely on.

He just had to hope that the President wouldn’t have Viocia’s personal information since she hadn’t gotten into Maleficium yet.

(Formula Broom – Wittenberg.)

With that strange point in common, he couldn’t be 100% certain of that, though.

“Argh, my back. A-and I would be completely untouchable if not for this.”

That one line dragged Yagoro back from the realm of thought.

The world’s greatest witch – in name and fact – had been reduced to this.

After seeing it for himself, he could kind of understand where Viocia was coming from.

This was Viocia’s grandmother, but she looked like a young girl of only 10. But instead of a case of de-aging taken too far, this was apparently the result of her trying to do something about her bad back. And given the current situation, Yagoro was skeptical it had worked very well.

“B-b-but, Sir Tutor, how far are you planning to make me walk?”

“?”

Oh, right.

He had forgotten this would be Tedaura’s first time seeing where her granddaughter lived.

“Wh-what is this gaudy building? What kind of establishment are you taking me to?”

“If you don’t like it, we can go somewhere else. But it’ll be a long walk to the used bookseller’s place.”

“Wait, wait, I was only kidding, this is fine! If this is where my granddaughter is staying, it must be safe, so please no more walking! All the stairs in this city are hell on my back!!”

He took the tearful little (but actually old) girl around to the back entrance of a sketchy-looking bar so they could sneak in…earning him some experience points in things he couldn’t let the Benandanti see him doing.

Viocia must not have left for the Maleficium Trial Class yet.

It was a close call, but he just barely managed to run into her.

She held a hand to her mouth, eyes wide, and shouted.

“Teacher, are you saying my grandma visited you and got her back blown out!?”

“That is not what that phrase means!!”

Olivia the dancer sighed and intervened.

Apparently she was on break.

Tedaura was obviously in need of assistance, but unlike the idiot, the capable young woman’s sharp eyes noticed the dark red splotches here and there on Yagoro’s clothing.

But the fact that she didn’t immediately mention it showed she was truly capable indeed.

Olivia knew how to set her priorities.

“If that really is a bad back, this is no laughing matter. Strena, could you bring me some aloe and nettle? There should be some in the pantry. If you can’t find it, ask Kevin in the kitchen. I can throw together a quick witchcraft compress.”

“Wow, you must know a lot about this, Olivia,” said Viocia.

“It only relieves the symptoms, so it does nothing about the underlying problem. With a job like this, a lot of us end up with hip pain pretty young.”

Dancer Olivia gave a demonstrative wiggle of her hips in her gaudy midriff-baring outfit.

For now, Yagoro guided Tedaura to her granddaughter’s room on the 2nd floor.

“Ah, agh, aghhhhh!”

Simply climbing the narrow, steep stairway had her twitching in pain, but they couldn’t leave her on the 1st floor full of dancers. A wrinkly old lady would be one thing, but her little girl appearance would lead to some terrible misunderstandings.

The Limit Breakers were said to have conquered the concept of a lifespan, which reminded Yagoro of the supposedly immortal Baldr from Norse mythology, but this real example suggested it had its pros and its cons.

But while Baldr could be resurrected if all life around the world were to weep for him, there wasn’t much help available for this old little girl.

Bodyguard Strena poked her head in through the door.

“I have the ingredients and tools, Olivia.”

“Thanks.”

Olivia had clearly done this more than a few times before. She made the necessary medicine by crushing some aloe and a few other herbs and mixed that with some vegetable shortening made from nuts. She was quick and precise. She would smile self-deprecatingly when talking about how she had given up on the witch entrance exam, but the skills she used in everyday life had been honed to a level that impressed even a Maleficium student like Yagoro.

But…

“Ehh? A compress? But that’s so old-fashioned,” complained Tedaura.

“Olivia, can you heat some water in the kettle? I want to use that in place of moxibustion,” said Yagoro.

“Wait, wait, I’d die!! Heat my bad back with the bottom of a kettle and it’ll explode with pain and I’ll die! Okay, bring on the compress!!”

“x…I see. But there is a trick question here…x”

“Yes, of course! A cold compress is needed for back pain!!”

Placing the compress over her clothing wouldn’t do any good, so the little girl(?) lay face down on her granddaughter’s bed and bared her back. Also, why did she have to be wearing a dress? That made it hard to remove. Or rather, what should only have meant revealing her lower back instead meant essentially stripping the dress off, leaving her nearly naked.

Yagoro sensed her glancing back at him.

The next thing he knew, the idiot’s grandmother looked like she was asking him to apply some suntan lotion.

Tedaura lay face down in only her underwear, kicking her little feet.

“Heh heh. Since you’re here, I might as well ask you to do the honors, Sir Tutor. Oh, dear, but I just realized I’m down to my underwear. Is this perhaps a little too stimulating for a strapping young lad like you?”

“(Would Olivia be mad at me if I seriously attempted a (________) on this old little girl with a bad back?)”

“I can hear every word you are muttering to yourself. (Boston crab). Anyway, is that the only thing in this wide world holding you back? I’m kind of ready and waiting here, you know? And I did save your life, if you’ve already forgotten.”

She told him to do it, so Yagoro applied the rectangular compress to Tedaura’s lower back – which meant just above her white kiddie panties.

She jumped a bit when he did.

Then her extremely juvenile body slowly relaxed.

“Oh, ohh, yesss, mwohhhhh. That’s it, that’s it, that’s it. Ahh, i-it’s soaking iiiiiiin.”

“Are you serious? If I close my eyes, this just sounds like an old woman getting into a hot spring.”

“Of course it does, Sir Tutor. Heh heh heh. But there’s no need to be embarrassed. I know you’re actually into this. Those ordinary little girls just aren’t enough to satisfy you anymore, are they?”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, don’tcha think? And the way you keep dragging back up topics we’ve finished discussing is enough to know you really are an old lady through and through.”

“How can you look at this naked little girl brimming with youthful vigor and pretend it reminds you of your old relatives?”

That aside, Olivia’s skill was real.

Tedaura was already sounding more like her usual self.

The homemade compress appeared to have some effect. Skills built up through repetition in everyday life were on another level.

The living legend spoke with a quiet but dignified voice while lying face down (with her witch’s dress removed to give access to her back).

“You know what this means, don’t you, Sir Tutor?”

“?”

“I could crush that Student Council President in mere seconds if I had access to my full strength, but I currently cannot move. Since I have been rendered useless, you will have to deal with this instead.”

“I know knowledge and skills aren’t genetic, but I’m starting to wonder if my student’s tendency toward idiocy and uselessness is inherited.”

Part 4

Viocia knocked but received no response.

“Grandmaaa?”

She peeked inside the room (which was actually her own) and heard the gentle breathing of sleep. Tedaura appeared to be the type to sleep on her stomach with the pillow in her arms. She was still in only her underwear and without the covers over her.

She was the reason Viocia Modestlucky wanted to attend Maleficium.

Viocia wanted to fully heal her grandma’s bad back.

She wanted to create a new potion for that.

(What Olivia did was really cool, but it looks like not even that compress could fully heal her.)

Only she could help her beloved grandma.

“Ugh,” she groaned quietly.

Tedaura did not wake.

Viocia approached the bed, reached toward that young(-looking) lower back, and found the compress was room temperature. Was that right? Had its effectiveness run out?

“Um, these are the spare compresses, right?”

There were a few different types on the bedside table.

Since these were not products sold in stores, they weren’t labeled. Some had a red line and others had a blue line, which had to indicate two different types, but only Olivia would know what that meant.

“Hm.”

There were a few different compresses there, so Viocia picked one of each up and pressed her finger into the underside.

The red line one was a hot compress and the blue line one was a cold compress.

Red or blue? Viocia tilted her head.

(They both look the same to me, but Olivia wouldn’t have separated them unless it mattered.)

“I’ve heard old people will soothe their pain with moxibustion. And grandma loves the sauna and hot tea. So the red line one must be right! I need to heat her back!”

And an hour later…

“Gnyahhhhhhh!!!”

“?”

The very instant after Tedaura Sugar Modestlucky woke from her nap, she turned into a sea cucumber wriggling on the bed (with only a pair of panties to hide her body).

The living legend had true tears in her eyes.

“Wh-what happened wile I was asleep? Ahh, I-I can’t even roll over.”

Had the true idiot not been listening?

Swelling should not be heated.

Part 5

The following morning, when the sunrise and the rooster cries were arriving through the windows, Sabbath Party was finally beginning to close up. Yagoro had stayed the night and even gotten help with Tedaura’s back. He couldn’t think of anything he could do to help out beyond some cleaning.

“My, my. If you’d told me you would be helping out, I would have asked for some more specialized help in the locker room or shower room.”

Even if they looked perfect, Olivia and the other dancers were intoxicated from drinking so much alcohol during the night. Working to support oneself was never easy. Yagoro decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that comment. The alcohol was to blame.

But while working with a mop in hand, he did ask a question.

“What’s that?”

A grass sickle blade was soaking in a wash basin full of a white liquid. That didn’t seem like something necessary for cleaning.

Olivia readily answered (while fairly unsteady on her feet).

“A talishman againsht curshes.”

“??? Why do you need that? +1 point. Heating a sickle in fire and cooling it in milk is a dairy farmer’s talisman, don’tcha think?”

“Jusht in cashe. With sho much deshire gathering here, there are timesh when we want shomethign like thish. Hic.”

He had a feeling they might have some sulfur or soot mixed in with the milk. The talismans that caught on with ordinary people were generally a way of following a set ceremony to tune people’s wills toward a desired goal.

…Also, the mention of milk nearly brought his gaze down toward the dancer’s cleavage, but he gathered all his willpower to stop himself. He owed her a lot for Tedaura’s back, providing a hideout, and more, so he couldn’t do anything so rude.

“Oh, too bad. Ushually a bit of jiggling ish enough to draw any guy’sh eyes down to them. Controlling the audiensh’sh attention ish a part of my job, sho I need to keep training.”

(That was on purpose?)

Before too long, Yagoro was just about done cleaning.

“Yagoro.”

It was still too soon to start working on the morning cooking, but Nancy (who wore a maid uniform like it was a track suit) arrived at Sabbath Party.

She seemed to have some business with Yagoro, but she looked puzzled when she noticed the mop in his hand.

“Do you not even know how to clean? Using a dirty mop will only spread the filth around. Give that here. I can’t stand to watch this kind of ineptitude. Ugh, and were you just soaking it in the bucket without wringing it out? You’ve got the floor all wet! Fine, I’ll just redo it all myself!!”

“What are you, my mother-in-law?”

Yagoro stared into the middle distance.

Of course, the maid hadn’t come here to clean.

She was a Maleficium student. More than that, she was with the Benandanti who kept order among the witches. But…

“If Navigate Exam and the President start fighting, this city’s beautiful peace will crumble into ugliness. I’ll give you what information I have, so end this whole mess ASAP.”

Nancy pouted as she said this and some clanking sounds came from her.

Specifically, it came from the maid’s long skirt.

The cause was wooden ants, different colors of dirt divided into glass vials, and a glass tank divided up by panels.

In other words, it was an HEA house capable of creating any electronic.

Yagoro sighed in exasperation.

“You actually took that from my apartment? It isn’t just the Benandanti pursuing me on the President’s orders, right?”

“Hey, you asked me to do it,” coldly said Nancy with a snort.

Although the coldness was only skin deep.

…Maleficium’s clubs and committees were constantly competing to hold more power. If it was discovered Nancy had done this, she would be in a tight spot, but she had still done it.

(This gives me a lot more options.)

“I took this too.”

Nancy also pulled out the eye drop bottle containing the small Dracae familiar. Whether or not she would be any use in his current situation, he would have felt bad if she was left behind and withered away.

Yagoro tried to soothe the Dracae who was upset over being forgotten, and then snuck the small eye drop bottle into his pocket while Nancy continued speaking.

“The Channelers, the Glenstrae, and most of the others after you are trying to earn points with the President, but there is one elite group in the mix.”

“The Sorcerers?”

“No, the Earth Mothers. …They are powerful. They’ve already sent in their Grade 4 and Grade 3 knights and that’s only what I’ve been able to confirm. They might have given authorization for even more than hat.”

Yagoro slapped his forehead.

The Earth Mothers were White Magic’s field combat unit. That was bad news indeed. He felt bad after having Nancy go to so much risk to give him this inside information, but anyone who knew how Maleficium worked would want to raise the white flag at this point.

So what had happened to the locked container he had in the squatter’s district?

…It would be a real shame if that had been confiscated.

But.

On the other hand…

“It’s been a full night and they still haven’t attacked. That means all their efforts haven’t been enough to locate us. I must have slipped away from Ulrike for the time being.”

“I wouldn’t relax if I were you, Yagoro. I managed to find you and I’m with Maleficium. There’s no way the President at the very top can’t track you down.”

That was a good point.

And after the dancers here sheltered him for nothing in return, he couldn’t get them caught up in his fight.

Dunce #2 – aka Tedaura – was stuck in bed thanks to her bad back and both Bronze Moloch and Elf Freynir were living here. Bringing harm to people he had supposedly already saved was out of the question. Not to mention Viocia.

“What are you going to do now, Yagoro?” asked Nancy.

She was his former student. They had spent a full year together, so she was asking this question while knowing full well what kind of person he was.

(I can’t keep this hidden forever. At best, it’ll come to light in a few more days.)

He was at an overwhelming disadvantage.

But that didn’t mean he could fortify himself inside a bar to which he owed so much.

Myousou Yagoro made up his mind.

If he didn’t want to be ungrateful, he had only one option.

“I have to make my move before Ulrike makes hers.”

Part 6

This would mean a battle against President Ulrike.

That was easier said than done. Yagoro had already lost badly once. But he couldn’t get any help from Tedaura the Queen of the Night, Darkness, and Love because her bad back had incapacitated her.

He couldn’t involve Viocia, Olivia, or any other “ordinary” witch in this.

He would be dealing with that monstrous President. He would also have a hard time getting any more help from Nancy. …Although the problem there was how he was fairly certain she really would give up her position in Maleficium to help him if he begged her to.

So…

“Hey, Myousou. I hear you’re picking a fight with Maleficium. Why would you keep that from me? You know I’m the first person you should tell about any coming conflicts.”

“My, my. I hope you aren’t planning to use this information to feed your gambling addiction, Sorbeddy.”

Sorbeddy Icing.

And the mysterious used bookseller.

Two monstrous Limit Breakers had arrived at Sabbath Party. He needed someone on that level if he was going to trust them with his back here. Especially with the bookseller since she was also a Maleficium graduate.

Yagoro sighed in exasperation when he saw the two of them.

“Are you sure no one was following you, Sorbeddy?”

“Ee hee hee☆ Have you forgotten I’m the ice witch who runs the city’s ice business and reaps the lucrative benefits? No one has a better secret transportation network in this city. And as a self-taught witch, I don’t have to report anything to those arrogant Maleficium witches, so not even Ulrike at the top can track me.”

“She isn’t secretly working in the smuggling business, is she?”

The little(-looking) girl wore a sheer blue camisole dress that left little to the imagination, giving her a blue Hawaii ice cream float look. The way she put things, he didn’t feel all that comfortable about her providing help.

The bookseller sighed softly.

“Well, if she is operating on her business instincts instead of her terrible gambling addiction, then at the very least accepting her help won’t be suicide.”

“Hey! Do you want to take this outside, you unsatisfied cowtits wife?”

“It seems to me you are the one who crossed the line first☆”

Yagoro’s mouth formed a small triangle. He had hoped this temporary team would be a little less temporary than immediately devolving into a battle between Limit Breakers.

Regardless, it sounded like Sorbeddy would provide as much help as he liked as long as he gave her lucrative information regarding the upcoming conflict. He didn’t know – and didn’t want to know – how she planned to monetize this crisis, but he knew the money-lover would find a way.

Which meant…

“What about you?” he asked the bookseller. “I know I sent you that carrier pigeon, but you don’t have to help if you don’t have enough reason to risk your life.”

“Maleficium is my old school and my daughter Melehe’s goal. Ulrike, was it? If this President is trying to take control of the school and turn it into a place far too dangerous to send my daughter, then I must correct her immediately, don’t you think?”

Apparently she wouldn’t even consider the ordinary but hopeless option of keeping her daughter safe by forcing her to give up on her dream of attending Maleficium.

Viocia and Freynir’s voices could be heard coming from the kitchen.

They were apparently giving each other practice questions over breakfast.

“Um, ATU 0425c is Sleeping Beauty, so…”

“Moo!!”

“No. 0425c is Beauty and the Beast.”

“Ugh, the Beauty Series is so hard to keep straight. They all get hugged and kissed.”

“You need to remember the magical lesson along with them. Beauty and the Beast is the story of the woman dispelling the prince’s curse with the power of ordinary love. That’s completely different from the prince showing up out of nowhere and solving everything with a kiss.”

“Gwah! Freynir, you’re sounding more like teacher every day!”

The bookseller smiled gently as she listened in.

She must have mentally categorized them the same as her daughter.

Yet when she did speak, her voice was ice cold.

“We needn’t bother Melehe and her friends with this. They need to focus on studying for their exam. They needn’t even know about Maleficium’s dark truths. It is our job as the adults to deal with this before they are even aware of it.”

“Now we’re talking. You know this means all-out war against Maleficium’s Student Council President, right? You really are scariest when you let your mama side out☆”

Sorbeddy chuckled.

The team now contained Navigate Exam Myousou Yagoro, the Limit Breaker bookseller, and Limit Breaker Sorbeddy Icing.

Between the clubs, the committees, and White Magic itself, President Ulrike had as many people as she could want, but they didn’t need to compare numbers. Each of them was on another level entirely.

“Ohh, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.”

Then an odd voice reached them.

Someone hobbled into the room that was kept dark even in the morning. The small figure was Tedaura Sugar Modestlucky, the living legend who was also known as the Queen of the Night, Darkness, and Love.

“Getting a plan together?”

Still seated, the bookseller and Sorbeddy both looked back and then froze. Yagoro couldn’t blame them. He had thought his heart would stop the first time he met her too.

Tedaura herself tapped her lower back with a fist (while still looking just like a little girl) and winked before making one thing clear.

“You can see what state I’m in. Don’t expect any help from me in the fight.”

“…”

“But I will lend you my brains, lost chicks. It might be full of holes, but you have a basic strategy in mind, I assume? Let me see it. My millennia of wisdom can fill in those holes.”

Yagoro shrugged.

It was the tutor’s turn to be taught.

So the boy with the unnatural blond hair unrolled a large sheet of parchment on the table like it was a tablecloth. It had lots of memos and clippings pasted to it. Tedaura scanned through it curiously…and then froze.

If this plan could get that reaction out of the Queen of the Night, Darkness, and Love, did it maybe stand a chance against the President?

“Wh-what in the world is this?” asked Tedaura as she read through the different clippings.

Part 7

Yagoro’s team had only two or three days.

He doubted they had even a second to spare.

Part 8

It was late at night.

But this area had more bars than restaurants, so it may have been even busier than during the day. While the signs shined bright in the night, a group flew sharply through the pitch black sky above.

They were Maleficium’s Earth Mothers.

White Magic’s combat unit.

Nancy had mentioned their Grade 4 and Grade 3 members were taking part, but in fact the Grade 0 knights, ranked above even Grade 1, were out on the front line as well.

Dark figures stood atop rooftops all over the street.

President Ulrike held her long black hair down against the night breeze and spoke from one roof.

With a smile on her lips.

“Sabbath Party, hm? You have an interesting taste in hideouts, Yagoro.”

She was answered by the Earth Mother committee head who was down on one knee nearby.

“Indeed. I assumed he would be hiding out in the squatter’s district, so we may be over-prepared for this. Such a large unit isn’t necessary to bomb a single building from the air.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘overkill’ against that monster who can use witchcraft even as a boy. Make sure to use every last witch at your disposal.”

“Understood.”

They showed no hesitation.

Even though this cruel choice would kill other, unrelated people, not just Myousou Yagoro.

This went beyond magically sealing away their personal goodness and conscience. The President’s words were just that absolute. It wasn’t just a case of obeying her being the prudent course of action. They held something akin to religious faith in her.

“E-excuse me, but are we really bombing that building?”

It was Nancy who spoke up to question their actions.

This was unnatural. Even she knew it. But if she didn’t say anything, that bar would be blown to smithereens in mere seconds. It really would happen.

She felt like they would easily detect the parchment talisman she had between herself and her thick Hexenturm, preventing it from sealing away her personal goodness and conscience.

She was also simply curious.

Why was President Ulrike taking this so far?

And why had she launched the initial surprise attack on Myousou Yagoro?

“This area is bustling with people even late into the night. There are customers inside Sabbath Party, as well as drunks and workers out on the street. Even a precision bombing will mean some civilian casualties. Both from the explosion itself and from the stone and glass shards blasted outwards!!”

Ulrike twisted her lips into a cruel grin.

“Not to worry. I have Enemy Debug.”

“?”

“C-FS-…not that I expect you to know what that means. What matters is that no one will question it if I steal things, attack people, or even strip off my clothes in public. That is the special power I received as the only one in this world granted the goddess’s love. …Yes, even if I kill people, I will be forgiven as a matter of course. Most likely, this was originally meant to allow the hero to earn money and experience points by defeating their enemies.”

Nancy had no idea what any of that meant.

Still, it didn’t seem like complete nonsense. She sensed some kind of vast logic hidden below the surface.

But this wasn’t about being forgiven or not. The victims would be ordinary people who had not trained in witchcraft.

“Direct any complaints toward Myousou Yagoro. If he hadn’t chosen to hide here, we wouldn’t have had to make this painful decision.”

“But!!”

“Oh? If I didn’t know better, I would think you had some kind of problem with us bombing Sabbath Party, Nancy.”

The Benandanti’s shoulders shook hard.

She didn’t care about the club and committee members staring at her.

It was President Ulrike.

Looking back into that confidently smiling girl’s eyes was tens of thousands of times more difficult and terrifying.

“This is necessary.”

“?”

“It is a meaningful act. You passed the entrance exam with Navigate Exam’s assistance, meaning you spent an entire year with him, Nancy, but you still haven’t noticed just how horrific a threat Myousou Yagoro is?”

What?

What could she possibly mean?

Sure, he was an extraordinary person. He was a male witch. And he wielded magic with his own willpower instead of a Formula Broom. Anyone who knew that about him would view him as an oddity. But why did this bother Ulrike so much when she already ruled at the top? Why did it scare her so? Ulrike’s spatial control was far more deadly than anything Yagoro could do and her political and institutional power dwarfed his. Could she be afraid he would bring an end to the female-focused age of witches?

If so, she was mistaken.

Nancy knew that monster had no interest in political or institutional power. In fact, he might not be all that interested in this world itself.

He continued to support different girls while sending them to Maleficium, but what was it he wanted in the end? Nancy was his former student, but she wasn’t sure on that point.

“If you can’t see it, then you don’t have what it takes.”

“President…”

There was no summary execution.

Only a pitying look.

Mistaken. Could that term refer to both Ulrike and Nancy? That question roiled in the redheaded Benandanti’s chest.

“If you knew the truth, you couldn’t take this in-between position. Watch from there, Nancy. Myousou Yagoro will try to slither out of this. And when you see how he does it, you too will understand just how horrific a monster he is.”

(I can’t stop it.)

Ulrike had extraordinary power in combat.

She also stood at the top both politically and institutionally.

And she was reaching for a truth Nancy knew nothing about.

(I’m sorry, Yagoro, but I don’t think I can change what President Ulrike is planning!!)

“Two short days.”

The President chuckled and stroked a fingertip along her broom’s handle.

And she drew the slim, sharp rapier from the sheath fixed along that handle.

“Even the help of a legend like Tedaura Sugar Modestlucky only extended your life by 48 hours. Is this your limit, Myousou Yagoro? How tragically short. And no matter what you try here, I will prevail in the end and kill you.”

After speaking so softly on the rooftop, Ulrike glanced to the side.

To the building across the large tiered street.

Someone stood on that rooftop.

The curvy witch had brown skin and long silver hair. As Student Council President, Ulrike had access to the list of past graduates. That was the commander of Private Striga, the most powerful coven in the northern icy region. She was the priestess of death and blood who specialized in Greek mythology with a particular focus on the Cult of Dionysus.

“Good evening, President. I’m afraid I graduated too soon to meet you.”

She simultaneously had the look of a used bookseller and of a powerful coven leader.

But who was it who had said she was most frightening as a mother?

“A lovely night, isn’t it? Have you read the stars? They tell me even you can die satisfied tonight.”

The club and committee members prepared for battle around Ulrike. Had they not even noticed her until now? If so, all of their budgets would be slashed for next year.

“You are barely worth my attention,” summed up Ulrike.

She was not underestimating the woman. She had compared the accurate data on both of them and spat out the result.

The one who sat in the throne of Maleficium Student Council President couldn’t be threatened by a mere Limit Breaker.

“So where have you hidden Myousou Yagoro while using this obvious Limit Breaker as a diversion? Really, it doesn’t matter when I already have his Achilles’ heel in my sights. Wherever he hides and whatever he’s planning, that sensitive soul will come running the instant I start bombing Sabbath Party, won’t he?”

The busty witch didn’t dignify the President’s question with a response.

Instead, she smiled icily while her voice remained gentle.

“Maenads.”

The bookseller suddenly grew more than 20 arms. No, dark shadows emerged from behind her. Those bloody priestesses all possessed fearsome deadly power and would shred anyone they ran across – enemy or ally.

Ulrike gave a snort of laughter.

“Overwhelming me with numbers? Is that your idea of the ultimate attack? How boring. I don’t even need to raise a finger myself. I can simply send in all the club and committee members.”

The silver-haired witch continued smiling without responding.

As if to say she saw no value in speaking.

And the approaching clash never occurred.

Something grew up out of the rooftop.

The slender shadow hand latched onto Ulrike’s right ankle.

“?”

She shouldn’t have questioned it.

With her dangerous Wise Fencing skills, she should have severed space or torn down quantum theory in the local area to cut away the arm before even trying to think about it.

It goes without saying that shadows have no substance to them. So who had said they could only emerge from the coven leader’s back?

Thanks to this, the smiling bookseller was just one second faster.

“Have a nice flight☆”

The shadow arm swung her around.

Spun her around.

And after building up sufficient centrifugal force, it threw her in the opposite direction of the tiered city…that is, it threw her toward the vast lake in the center.

Over and over, water exploded from the lake as she skipped along its surface like a flat rock on the river.

Part 9

“President!!”

“President Ulrike!?”

Everyone else sprang into action.

The Maleficium forces glared at the irreverent witch who had launched a preemptive strike on Ulrike who they held a nearly religious faith in and rushed…toward the lake instead of the woman.

They had been drawn away by Ulrike.

Left alone, the bookseller placed her empty hand elegantly on her cheek.

(Phew. That’s phase 1 complete.)

“It would seem Yagoro’s gambles can pay off. Unlike Sorbeddy’s.”

Yes.

The first phase of Myousou Yagoro’s plan was to shift the battle away from the shopping district where Sabbath Party was located.

Any attempt to repel Maleficium’s army by force would lead to a hail of weapon’s fire that could get innocents hurt. But there was one loophole they could take advantage of.

“We just have to get in a preemptive attack on their charismatic leader before they can get started. That will make her supporters freak out, don’tcha think? I bet they’ll all focus on protecting and assisting their all-important master over attacking some boring target. No matter what it takes.”

Meanwhile, the Maleficium club and committee heads were riding brooms and soaring toward the dark lake.

“Where is President Ulrike!?”

“Don’t lose sight of the dark lake below you! We can’t rely on the city lights here!!”

They knew the President wouldn’t drown and die right away after falling in the water, but none of the club or committee heads could have guessed what they found.

They saw land.

Even though the massive circular lake was a designated anti-air region that acted as a boundary to protect Maleficium.

“What is that?”

A small island less than 200m across had appeared on the lake surface.

It wasn’t found on any maps and the Maleficium students had never seen it before. After all, even the lakeside was considered a deadly zone where reality itself was easily distorted. Anything could happen on this meager chunk of land floating in the lake.

And they found her.

The witch unit made up of club and committee members flew directly above the small island before shifting into a large curve to circle the island.

“President!!”

“President Ulrike would never be defeated by an ugly surprise attack like that.”

She wasn’t physically harmed.

But her pride was badly wounded. Worse than ever before.

Really, the biggest concern here was that the President might blow up Temple School City in a fit of rage.

The Earth Master leader tore through the night sky, controlling her broom with countless strings, and called out to another nearby flight group.

“Witch Doctors! Prepare a tranquilizer – one powerful enough to keep the President asleep – before we collect her. Use henbane or scopolia if you have to – just get it in her before she notices what we’re up to!!”

“Ugh, why do we have to get stuck with this job!? U-um, you actually expect us to trick President Ulrike of all people!?”

“Just do it! Now isn’t the time to worry about toxicity. Her willpower isn’t so weak that a simple drug will put her to sleep, but it should dull her mind some. If you don’t do it, at least half of the city will be destroyed!!”

The witches held this discussion up in the sky.

But they were mistaken about one thing.

Their enemy here was not President Ulrike.

“?”

They heard a sound like cracks running through thin glass.

One of the witches muttered to herself while watching white frost cover her hands and broom handle.

“Diamond…dust?”

Every Maleficium student knew that no unauthorized person could approach the enormous school at the center of the vast lake. It was all wrapped in a veil of pure white diamond dust, hiding the school’s true form, and any witch who did carelessly approach would be coated in ice, broom and all, sending them plummeting down into the lake.

However…

“Wh-what is the diamond dust doing this far out? We’re well outside its active ra-”

“Ee hee hee☆ Really, you should be asking why you thought a toy like diamond dust could do anything against me.”

“!?”

“I am Ice Witch Sorbeddy Icing. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?☆ Now, eat this! Your own anti-air defenses will bring you down!!”

Could the Maleficium elites even hear that mocking laughter?

With a disturbing freezing sound, the witches instantly froze over like frost on trees, robbing them of their ability to fly. One by one, they dropped toward the lake below.

Sorbeddy was a special witch who was most powerful in one-against-many battles. Of course, she had created that specialization intentionally so she could earn the greatest score in a single battle and keep all the reward to herself.

Maleficium was guarded by the thick diamond dust and the vast lake, but Sorbeddy may have been able to single-handedly freeze the entire lake and walk across.

“Over here!”

The used bookseller arrived a bit later on her broom.

Sorbeddy waved back while hovering on her dragonfly-like broom.

“My, my. I see you got them good.”

“Sure did.”

“So even you can win a bet if Yagoro does the calculations. Unlike when you run the numbers yourself.”

“Maybe I should drag him along next time I hit the casino. With him on a rope leash.”

The bookseller’s teasing had sent this in an odd direction. The tutor was in trouble.

Attempting to fight Maleficium’s army in an ordinary fashion would only get you crushed by their superior numbers, but there was one trick they could use in Temple School City.

This was part of Yagoro’s plan:

“If we can activate the anti-air system built by other Maleficium witches, we can bring down all those flying elites.”

“So we’ve finally got her where we want her.”

“But this is the Student Council President we’re talking about. We have essentially finished the warm-up exercise and the real fight is about to begin.”

The bookseller and Sorbeddy flew across the night sky along intertwining paths before landing on the small island. A normal witch would have needed 500m to land on, so landing on that island was exceptional in and of itself.

Something was squirming nearby.

Ulrike was already starting to get up on the 200m land.

Her long, long black hair defied gravity to float up around her head.

That was an ingredient for the most powerful curse.

“Did you…really think you had lured me into a trap, foolish Limit Breakers? It’s none of my concern if you decide to rush to your deaths after going to such great lengths to conquer your own lifespans. I will use everything: stabbing, cutting, sweeping, and slashing. I will show you just how deadly my rapier can be when combined with magic to fully control space both physically and geometrically!!”

That was no bluff.

It was simply the truth.

The President who reigned at the top of Maleficium likely could forcibly snatch victory away from two Limit Breakers.

However…

“My, my. Have you already forgotten, President Ulrike?”

“Forgotten what?”

“How you arrived on this small island in the first place.”

Like a skipping stone.

The memory brought a flash of fiery rage to the President’s mind, but then she realized this wasn’t just cheap provocation meant to reduce her effectiveness through anger. It was crucial information she needed to examine more closely.

With sufficient speed and the right angle, it was possible to send a human body skipping across the water.

“Tch!!”

She quickly turned around.

An impact struck her.

Had he used Cinderella, or the Three Little Pigs? Either way, Myousou Yagoro had run across the lake with his legs breaking the sound barrier and he launched a soaring kick right into Ulrike’s cheekbone.

Part 10

Myousou Yagoro landed on that small island and took a slow breath.

(That’s the second stage done. The bookseller helped me move the battle away from Sabbath Party and the city as a whole and now Sorbeddy’s magic took out the general army. This finally sets the stage for me to fight all out with the President.)

That only left the third stage.

He only had to directly silence the Student Council President.

The giant dragon named Hanako (who Yagoro had actually created in a Maleficium class before she escaped) could not pick up his scent this close to Maleficium. And she would only be shot down if she did try to rescue him, so he was glad she wouldn’t be showing up.

Several large, dark silhouettes lurked beyond the veil of white diamond dust. Were those the Leviathan he had seen used before and the multi-headed Hydra? The silhouette that looked like a fusion of a naked girl and several different monsters may have been a Scylla. If any of those mythical monsters caught her by surprise, even a Limit Breaker could lose her life.

Of course, unlike the giant creatures such as Tarou and Hanako, these weren’t actually real.

On this small uncharted island past even the deadly lakeside, any kind of nonphysical phenomenon could show itself.

But Yagoro couldn’t let that distract him. A much more dangerous monster stood before him.

Student Council President Ulrike.

It didn’t matter that he had cleanly hit her with a supersonic soaring kick.

She could still move.

“Tch. You really are a monster.”

She was just that extraordinary. He didn’t know how she had done it, but this meant that even a close-range shotgun blast to the head wouldn’t kill her. She was more durable than a zombie in a movie.

And “didn’t know how she had done it” wasn’t enough to survive.

He could not win this witch battle without revealing her tricks and putting a stop to them.

She gently stroked her cheek with her fingertips.

“Myousou Yagoro. Are you aware why you must die?”

“Are you mad I managed to fight back? Surely you aren’t that petty when you let yourself do whatever the hell you want.”

He swung his collapsible baton to extend it.

He twirled it in his hand and pointed it at her.

“You picked this fight with me. I won’t let you get anyone else involved. I will beat you down until you’re satisfied, Ulrike. As much as it takes.”

He had an enemy and two allies here.

Both sides moved at once.

The bookseller grew several more arms while Sorbeddy produced several thick hunks of ice from a distance.

“Who would like to die first?”

The President must have consciously switched modes because her calm had returned.

She reached for the sheath fixed alongside her broom’s handle.

And she sharply drew the weapon within.

She twirled the grip in her hand, drawing out a large circle with the rapier’s tip.

“Distance has no meaning. I am the witch who controls space both physically and geometrically. As long as I know their position, I can hit any target no matter how far away.”

There wasn’t even any sound.

A horizontal line suddenly ran across Sorbeddy’s neck before her head and body slid in opposite directions.

She would have died instantly had that not been an illusion created by light bending due to the extreme temperature difference between one position and another.

“Ee hee hee!! That was informative. Now we know your precious magic uses your ordinary eyes and ears for targeting!!”

Hunks of ice were launched Ulrike’s way, but she easily bisected them with her rapier. Each one was the size of a crane’s wrecking ball, but she did not break a sweat.

“Spatial awe. Tremble in fear of the ‘gap’ I have created, fools.”

Sorbeddy had already explained her stance.

It didn’t matter if her attacks failed.

If she could learn something from that failure, she was willing to invest any amount in it.

“So you control space, do you? Will you be messing with time too before long? Ee hee hee. But did you think you were the only one who could control the all-consuming black holes – those mysterious shadows that interfere with astronomical observations?”

“You already told me you are an ice witch. Wait…you don’t mean…?”

“Figured it out? Just like cooling the air creates drops of liquid air, all things (with a few exceptions) will reduce in volume when cooled. And while this world appears to be expanding endlessly, it will eventually lose all the heat gained from the big bang and cool off. …Now, what do you think you get when you take the concept of ‘ice’ to its absolute limit? Cooling is one way of creating any and all elements. I can easily provide a mere black hole by compressing a portion of the world into a single point. Ulrike, was it? I doubt you’re enough of a fool to still think you have exclusive use of this toy after that explanation!!”

The world audibly strained.

It wasn’t clear just how much Sorbeddy Icing could accomplish with her magic, but space as a whole was crying out in protest as both witches gave it simultaneous commands.

And the silver-haired witch wasn’t so inexperienced she would overlook an opening like this.

A momentary opening was plenty.

“Go get her, Maenads!!”

Several dark figures spread out to either side from behind the bookseller. More than 10 of them in all. Their claws were sharp enough to tear right through a castle wall and they rushed at Ulrike from a dozen different angles at once.

Their long claws would shred any life they encountered – even a wolf or a bear.

Ulrike was still in a state of confusion, so she couldn’t fully react to the priestess shadows rushing in from so many different directions.

“!?”

But they didn’t reach her.

That opening should have been decisive.

Yet for some reason the first attack of sharp swinging claws passed right by the President’s face.

The other shadows rushed in from their different angles, but they all failed to injure her.

Something was clearly off.

Their sense of depth was out of whack.

“This single centimeter is an eternal labyrinth with no exit. It can look so close or it can look so far. The distance will be misjudged without illusion and all who set foot inside will wander, lose all sense of direction, and veer off course.”

“Move, bookseller!! With a monster like her, it won’t end with a failed attack!!!”

“Kh.”

The silver-haired woman audibly gasped.

It happened the briefest of moments before Yagoro could intervene.

“If you hoped to trap me, you should have prepared at least a thousand of those shadows.”

Around 2 centimeters of long black hair were offered up as sacrifice.

Then another 2 centimeters.

And another 2.

“A hundred attacks, a thousand strikes, and ten thousand wounds. Enjoy this storm of blades!!”

It was like a silver-shining typhoon or hurricane formed around the President. Space split open, revealing countless rapiers that instantly pierced, sliced, and pinned down all of the dark shadows.

Ulrike had already arrived right in front of the bookseller.

The distance made no sense.

Maybe she had split apart space to teleport and maybe she had twisted the geometric meaning of that space to adjust the apparent distance or size.

The moon and the night sky? (Was it related to how bluer objects were more distant!?)

“Checkmate.”

It pierced right through.

With a sharp flash of the rapier, it stabbed right through the center of the bookseller’s chest.

The sexy silhouette unraveled.

It was in fact a decoy made of dark shadows.

Except…

“I saw that coming☆”

A dull sound rang out. The bookseller had circled around to Ulrike’s back left, the hardest spot for the right-handed witch to counterattack against, but Ulrike had accurately struck the side of her head with a roundhouse kick that sent her short skirt fluttering up.

She had already announced that distance was meaningless, so it didn’t matter whether or not her leg was actually long enough to reach.

This time, the bookseller was knocked to the ground.

“Moving a piece after checkmate will only get your king taken, you know?”

“Tch!! An attacker shouldn’t get taken out when we still have our tank, imbecile!!” shouted Sorbeddy as she adjusted her grip on her dragonfly-like Formula Broom.

She moved to prevent a follow-up attack against the unconscious bookseller.

Frigid white was compressed.

Something exploded.

Sorbeddy screamed.

“Gah!?”

Before she could construct her magic, it was sliced through right in front of her. The white explosion resembling liquid nitrogen hit her at close range, sending her rolling away.

“No number of straight lines can ever be exactly equal to the circumference of a circle. Which means no one can accurately measure my distance from them.”

The monster slowly approached.

She still held her sharp rapier and witch’s broom.

Silence fell.

Only one witch remained standing.

Silently, the white veil of diamond dust pulled back like a receding wave.

Sorbeddy had hijacked control of it and forced it this far out, so with her taken out, it was returning to its usual defensive line.

Even Yagoro gasped.

Two Limit Breakers had attacked at once, but they hadn’t even lasted 60 seconds.

The President turned toward him and grinned.

The two witches lay unmoving at Ulrike’s feet – the used bookseller on the right and Sorbeddy on the left.

“You monster…”

“Any more tricks up your sleeve, Yagoro?”

This wasn’t just about losing the great firepower of those Limit Breakers.

Another factor was much more frightening.

“No matter how powerful you might be, I know your one greatest flaw: you can’t fly. Which means with your Limit Breakers out of the fight, all I have to do is fly up and bomb you from the sky!!”

The air roared as it was compressed.

It didn’t matter that the island was only 200m across. With the extreme acceleration provided by Formula Broom – Wittenberg, Ulrike could even take off from the water.

After launching herself straight up, she began circling and took aim at the small island. Like this, he would be slowly worn down and killed.

But something odd happened then.

Myousou Yagoro did not rely on his collapsible baton. Even though that was supposedly the source of all his magic since he didn’t use a Formula Broom. He collected a thick tube from the ground and rested it on his shoulder.

“Hey, President Monster. An HEA house is a convenient item that lets me create any electronic as long as I create the plans first.”

“?”

“Which means I could also make precision devices if I set my mind to it, don’tcha think? And that includes Force equipment, like a portable short-range SAM that was redesigned by my country based on an American missile.”

An explosive soared into the night sky.

It drew out a long, white trail of smoke.

This was definite cultural contamination. It shouldn’t have existed here. Nevertheless, here it was.

Because she might choose to bomb Viocia and Sabbath Party too.

The President looked more furious about the technological contamination than about the attack on her. She yanked her Formula Broom around into a sharp turn, but the image recognition was in effect. The proximity fuse would trigger first.

It exploded.

The thick shockwave sent countless tiny metal balls rushing out like a solid wall.

The noise reached Yagoro after a short delay. The slight undergrowth on the small island shook and small waves formed on the lake’s surface.

Like lightning, there was a discrepancy between light and sound here.

However…

“Is that all?”

Something sharply broke through the cloud of filthy smoke.

The flying figure remained intact.

She wasn’t entirely unscathed, however. She had a small cut on her cheek.

Injuring President Ulrike even slightly was a historic achievement, but that was cold comfort given the circumstances.

If he couldn’t bring her down, it would be his turn to be shot up.

“Is that all you have, Myousou Yagoro!!!? I don’t care how many tricks you have as you sneak past the goddess of interworld reincarnation and contaminate this world! You can never defeat me… This world exists for meeeeeee!!”

Left on land, Myousou Yagoro looked up at the President in the night sky while he tossed aside the empty short-range SAM launch tube. What it meant to introduce that to this world was of secondary importance.

It hadn’t worked.

But he didn’t feel a shred of the fear and despair that should have followed.

“Hey, Ulrike.”

“?”

“I managed to create a short-range SAM, which is like the basic, most simple version. If I can do that, did it not occur to you I might be able to make more complicated versions?”

Yagoro grinned just before the President saw what he meant as she soured in the night sky on her broom.

There were 200…no, more than 300 of them.

Surface-to-air missiles launched from all over the city.

The President briefly froze at the sheer number of them.

Now that she had dodged one, was he trying to increase the number in stages until he had cut off her escape? Even if their initial speed remained the same, adjusting the launch angle or their flight course could change their relative arrival times. He was confident that one would eventually hit her and shoot her down, even if it was the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or even 10th wave!!

“The portable short-range SAM was more like a disposable talisman. It’s better than nothing, but it’s firing range is only around 4500m. Unlike the secret weapons seen in action movies, the real ones will only give a low-flying attack helicopter a scare and that’s if you’re lucky. You can’t use them to fight against a real fighter or bomber that can easily fly at more than 10 thousand meters straight up.”

“Yagoro…”

“But fixed-position mid-range SAMs have a range of 45km and long-range SAMs can reach as far as 150km. They can chase you down even if you’re flying over 15 thousand meters up where there isn’t much oxygen. As long as I write the plans out correctly, they don’t even need a phased array radar or a supercomputer. Not even a monster like you can laugh this one off, don’tcha think?”

“Myousou Yagoroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!?”

Ulrike roared and began shooting the missiles down with magic, but she clicked her tongue and began dodging them instead when more and more kept flying in. She looked like she had just seen black bass clogging up a clear river. She used repeated S-like curves, loop-the-loops, and many other maneuvers to confuse even those precision guided weapons, driving them off course.

But not even that was enough to escape them all.

There were just too many. Witches could ignore the atmospheric pressure, the cold, air friction, and inertia, but even they would rapidly run out of options if they were forced to repeatedly dodge missiles flying at them from all directions. Then the process repeated, removing more and more cards from her deck. She occasionally directed her rapier toward the source of the missiles in the city, but that was when air-defense Gatling guns would draw out lines of light in the sky or antiaircraft guns would light up the night sky with midair explosions. She doubted any of those would hit her, but they were enough to give her a scare until she was used to them.

She charged straight into the storm of explosions. She would eventually reach her limit and the missiles would catch up.

“But not yet!!”

(I still have the diamond dust cloud protecting Maleficium. With that ice witch defeated, I once more have control over it. Even with hundreds of those missiles after me, a single command can bring them all down!!)

No response.

The anti-air diamond dust would not activate.

“Wha-?”

Down below, Sorbeddy Icing was still collapsed on the ground but one of her hands had grasped her Formula Broom.

The money-lover grinned.

There wasn’t even time to say anything.

Countless surface-to-air missiles rushed toward the midair President and then detonated.

They shot her down.

Part 11

Myousou Yagoro slowly breathed a sigh. He once more reached for his collapsible baton.

He had managed to bring Ulrike back down to the small island. But that didn’t end this. To defeat the top witch, he needed magic.

“O-ohh.”

A dark shape squirmed.

It was made up of long, long black hair.

In this world, that was a dye used in the greatest curses.

“Ohhhhhh…ohhhhhhhh!”

Not even a supersonic flying kick had been enough to kill that President. It wasn’t apparent how many of the surface-to-air missiles had hit her and struck her with their explosive blast and metal balls, but she was still capable of moving. Even if it meant screwing with this world’s culture.

She seemed immortal.

But there was no such thing as an incomprehensible darkness in witch battles.

If you figured out how it worked, there was always a solution.

“You have complete control over space, both physically and geometrically.”

“…”

“So whenever external damage reaches your physical body, you have magic capable of bending space to divert most of it away or shifting yourself to the sides or back to forcibly ‘weaken’ the attack. I can see how a point-blank explosion wouldn’t be enough to kill you.”

However.

One thing was obvious from seeing how weakly Ulrike’s legs were shaking beneath her.

“All that does is ‘weaken’ it by some amount. Even if it’s based on an icosahedron, you’ll still take as much as 5%, meaning you can’t fully negate the attack. That makes it simple – almost too simple, don’tcha think? By overwhelming you with both quality and quantity, I can wear your stamina down to zero and then I win.”

She wasn’t immortal.

Her power wasn’t endless.

As long as he knew there was a goal at the end of the long journey, Yagoro had no reason at all to give up. Making a show of having endless power had been Ulrike’s greatest strategy, but he had stripped that away from her.

“Y-you…”

She held a rapier in her right hand and a witch’s broom in her left.

She was unsteady on her feet as she stood up, but she managed to get an odd statement out.

“You’re…the real monster. I’m nothing more than a fake…but you…you’re the original…”

“?”

“You weren’t aware? Did you think it was really just luck that kept you alive so long? You’ve survived two crashes in the past. And this year alone, you took Voland Arbamini’s attacks to protect your student Viocia during the spring official practice exam and then you took the goddess’s punishment at the flea market to bring yourself and Instructor Flamberg down. …Did you really think nothing more than luck allowed you to survive the serious injuries earned by your reckless behavior?”

Yagoro drew a blank.

He was in the middle of a witchcraft battle, but he had found something he couldn’t explain.

That was bad.

“Class 1 L-FS – Strange Picking,” she announced.

Yagoro wasn’t familiar with the term.

He could hear the President’s tooth-grinding resentment even from a distance.

“If not for that loathsome power, you and your absurd abilities never would have wandered into this world. This is my world. Myousou Yagoro, I was told your arrival here was a complete accident not found on the goddess’s schedule. I was granted the goddess’s love along with Class 1 C-FS – Enemy Debug!! …This was supposed to be my chance to redo my life after my time in my original oppressive, unrewarding world. So why did you have to wander your way in here too!!?”

He knew nothing about Ulrike’s life.

Or her past life.

But he got the sense that she came from a world different from his own Earth.

How many different worlds did that damn goddess manage?

“I don’t care.”

“Kh.”

“I don’t care where we came from or why the goddess made her mistake. That’s her business. None of it matters to Viocia or the rest of the city’s people who were born in this world the normal way. …Don’t force all this onto them. Absurd abilities? The goddess’s love? To hell with that stuff, Ulrike. We’re nothing more than outsiders intruding on their world. Dying and being reborn somewhere doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want there. Stop using your own misfortune as an excuse to be a nuisance to this world’s rightful owners!!!”

Yagoro extended his baton with a horizontal swing and walked straight toward her.

He didn’t use any tricks.

Ulrike still flinched, because she knew it all.

Two flashes of light sharply intersected.

After stopping the attack with her rapier on reflex, the President would have learned two things.

First, a magic light shined from the tip of Yagoro’s baton.

Second, this was no longer a unilateral slaughter. Now she was on the defensive!!

(Yet again I need to thank the Force’s punishing drill sergeant for teaching me so much I never thought an astronaut would need to know!!)

The two lights clashed a few more times.

It was a good attempt for an ad lib.

The President took aim with a spatial grid and altered the movement distance to make Yagoro’s baton miss.

They glared at each other with weapons locked together and Ulrike roared at him.

“Nothing you do can keep me from winning in the end!! Yagoro, what good is this stick against a rapier!? And if I need to, I can fill this space with thousands or millions of blades and shred you!”

“But you can’t artificially multiply your blade without altering space remotely.”

“Kh.”

“Which means keeping you from using this one little rapier makes all the difference!!”

They were close enough to have their weapons locked together, so they were literally right in front of each other. Yagoro pushed back her rapier with his baton and sent out a kick.

But lifting his foot from the ground messed with his balance.

The President grimaced at the dull blow and pushed back. Overpowered, Yagoro felt the sharp blade pierce his shoulder. He nearly had his ear taken off, but he forcibly twisted his head out of the way.

“Did you panic and choose poorly, fool!?”

That was when she must have noticed it.

Her blade had stopped at the unnatural blonde boy’s collarbone. Her tremendous magic power failed to bisect him diagonally. And he had kicked her on the side of the hip.

Hitting her in the pelvis and the spine.

Even with the support of the Formula Broom in her left hand, it was her own willpower that allowed her to use magic. Her focus had wavered from the unexpected pain, so she failed to construct her magic even with knowledge from Earth pouring in. An extreme example of this problem was Tedaura who was so powerful yet was immobilized by her bad back.

This was a one-time failure.

But no matter how extraordinary the President was, shoving the rapier into Yagoro wasn’t enough to produce its magic cutting edge!!

“Just give up already… This world wasn’t meant for you! Your every attempt will ultimately fail!!”

“It’s over, Ulrike! I won’t let you lay a finger on my student!!”

Something unbelievable happened.

Ulrike’s face crumpled. She had her skill as the Student Council President, her political and institutional power, and a unique ability directly gifted to her by the goddess, yet there was an unmistakable look of envy on her face.

That was the look of someone seeing someone who had something they did not.

It must have been a common expression for her before she was reborn in this world.

The black-haired girl even bit her lip.

“Hey, President.”

Light shined.

A bright light flooded out from the collapsible baton.

That was an exorcising attack meant to carve the impure heart out of a wicked witch who had succumbed to greed.

With her rapier in his shoulder, she could no longer stop his baton.

“This is magic. If you’d done your homework, you’d know the answer!!”

The point-blank blast exploded out.

A fearsome shock shot through her body, obliterating her willpower, and knocking her out.

Part 12

Myousou Yagoro took a deep breath and then wobbled on his feet.

That had been an intense few minutes.

It went beyond the shoulder wound. Even with Tedaura’s witchcraft treatment, he still hadn’t recovered from his earlier rapier wounds.

The used bookseller and Sorbeddy were both still on the ground.

As was President Ulrike.

Nevertheless, it was over.

Gentle weariness tempted him down into a sitting position where he wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up into the starry sky.

And…

“Yagoro. You don’t think this is over, do you?”

“!?”

“Oh, don’t worry. The goddess didn’t give me the ability to power up and take on a second and third form. I can’t even get back on my feet. This is the end for Student Council President Ulrike.”

Yes.

This long, long night was finally over.

There couldn’t be anything more…could there?

“No one must reach the ends of the world.”

The President gave him a dry smile from the ground.

“But don’t let me stop you. It’s you who will suffer if you learn the truth of the world, Yagoro.”

“?”

“And I think we’re past the point of worrying about the ends of the world. With my defeat, you must now face a new challenge.”

“What…are you talking about?”

“Answering that will be your first task.”

It didn’t seem like she was lying.

This world had been designed specifically for President Ulrike. Then Yagoro had wandered in by mistake and started messing everything up. And that had finally passed a crucial point.

So the President, who possessed a special ability, had attacked Yagoro, who had an equally special ability, to put an end to that.

Her reasons for fighting were selfish to the end, but that was why she wouldn’t hold anything back in preserving the stability of the world that was given to her.

That could only mean one thing: this world had been flawed to begin with. If nothing was done, Ulrike’s endless party in this world would be canceled – no, the world itself could even be confiscated from her.

Myousou Yagoro of course had no idea what this could be about.

And he was a Maleficium student.

(No, wait. That must mean…)

“You act like you know everything, but you are only a student, Yagoro. You don’t know what awaits after graduating from Maleficium, do you?”

“…”

That was indeed unknown territory for him.

There were still some blanks left.

The President was still unable to get up, her long, long black hair spread out upon the small island.

“Focus on what feels twisted.”

“You don’t mean…”

“Unlike the past, only female witches can use magic in this world. Nevertheless, the aristocracy that controls the political world remains a patriarchy steeped in the spirit of chivalry. Which means there is no room for magic-wielding women there. And yet the political world continues to turn. That means magic is not needed to control this world.”

Something rose from the depths of his mind.

He recalled so many voices he had heard in the crowds. It was a mishmash of information that he would normally forget as no more than background noise.

“Extra, extra! We have the latest on King Michael’s bastard son!! You don’t want to miss out on this!”

“This is the same model of hat Lord Brian wore to the general council.”

“Is it true those old men on the Senate are taking vacations on the sly?”

Sure enough.

Had he even once heard of a princess or queen mentioned in talk of politics?

“The ideal world for us witches is Maleficium. That is as high as it goes. We might graduate and work in any number of other fields, but we will never reach the top of any of them. The patriarchy resents us for our great skill and vast knowledge, so they use a number of social factors to simply extract labor from us… In the end, working ourselves to the bone to overcome the harsh entrance exam and entering Maleficium will not bring us witches a happy life.”

“Don’t tell me…”

Instructor Flamberg Wyrd had once asked if it was really right to help girls pass the exam and send them off to Maleficium. She had asked if that would really bring them happiness.

“The aristocracy spends so much public money to try and worm their way into the management of Maleficium because they hope to undermine the school’s efforts and produce inferior witches. If Maleficium carelessly accepts those public funds, it will really and truly mean the end of the age of witches.”

That would be why she held the position of Maleficium’s Student Council President.

She chose to remain there, refusing to graduate.

The world at large was ruled not by the wisdom to use magic, but by the foolishness to reject magic.

“Don’t act like you aren’t a part of this. You are both a tutor and a Maleficium student. This is your problem too.”

“So what? My students are my focus.”

“It’s the same either way if she comes to Temple School City.”

“She who?”

“You made too much of a scene, Myousou Yagoro. My original plan was to end this in a single swift surprise attack, but I failed to prevent the scale from growing. So she will be coming. Whenever a witch rises too far and crosses a certain line, she is labeled a threat to the patriarchal establishment and an assassin is sent to eliminate the problem. That traitorous witch is dispatched whenever the patriarchy of royals, bureaucrats, clergy, and artisans demands it.”

Another threat stood in their way even after graduating from Maleficium.

A traitorous witch.

Ignorance was fatal in a magical battle.

But Melehe’s mother, the bookseller, was a Maleficium graduate and also the leader of Private Striga, the largest coven in the icy north.

Had even she suffered some kind of setback which led to her giving up on something and settling for her current position?

Moreover, was that true even of Tedaura Sugar Modestlucky, the Queen of the Night, Darkness, and Love?

Yagoro couldn’t come up with a theory that seemed to fit well, but Ulrike shut her eyes while lying on the ground.

She could accept this, but she could not watch it.

It was a lot like someone looking away just before receiving a shot.

Without reopening her eyes, she spoke in a singsong way.

“Siren Carriers, the largest coven of the southern islands. Acrobat Valkyrie, the greatest coven of the western mountains.”

“?”

“You haven’t heard of them? Those witches were already destroyed by her. She did it alone and did it so easily it sounds like a bad joke.”

Yagoro felt a chill in his gut.

This meant he couldn’t even rely on the bookseller mama’s other identity. The coming enemy was like a massive shark who could devour tens of thousands of witches led by a Limit Breaker as if they were a school of small fish.

If she was dispatched, it was over.

Any witch would be killed instantly. Even the Limit Breakers who had conquered their own lifespan.

She allowed no exceptions.

President Ulrike had tried to fortify Maleficium’s defenses for her own happiness, but it hadn’t been enough. She had the power to fully control space both physically and geometrically, yet the option of going on the offensive wasn’t available to her.

Ideally, they would have gone unnoticed.

But.

Yagoro heard something.

A single footstep.

But why? It didn’t make sense. They were on a tiny uncharted island out beyond even the deadly lakeside. The bookseller and Sorbeddy were still incapacitated from their battle with the President and Ulrike hadn’t gotten back up yet. So why would he be hearing a footstep?

“Who’s that?” asked Yagoro without really thinking. “Wait…are you the one Ulrike was talking about?”

The newcomer immediately responded. A name flowing from her bewitching lips.

Part 13

“Adelaide Weaponbay Sanctuary.”

Part 14

Yagoro lost consciousness.

No, his consciousness was swept away.

But he hadn’t taken any kind of magic attack from the mystery woman. He wasn’t sure why he was so certain, but he knew he would have been pulverized were that the case.

Someone had flown in from the side and snatched him away just beforehand.

“Vi…ocia?”

“Are you alright, teacher!?”

Formula Broom – Wittenberg.

He heard the voice of the student riding that broom. Only then did his mind realign with the real scene around him. It finally caught up. Did that mean she had charged in with her usual super acceleration? Anyone other than him would have been killed instantly.

“I-I’m glad you aren’t hurt, tutor. Eep. But I thought you were fighting the Student Council President?”

“Hm. If that woman was enough to bring my mom down, we really need to stay focused for this one.”

Dorothea Rockpool.

And Melehe Superlative.

“How did you know where we were?”

“You can thank Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans for that one. Those villains told us how to find you, perv!”

…Apparently Sorbeddy wasn’t the only source of intel and travel routes in the city. Yagoro stared into the middle distance for a bit. He had forgotten to account for that. It made sense those three would know tons of loopholes undetectable by the (officially anyway) good guys of Maleficium.

That allowed Viocia, Dorothea, and Melehe to reach him without the President noticing. And once they learned the truth, they came rushing to his aid.

He really wished they could have just focused on their studies without learning the ugly truth about the adults and Maleficium, but it was too late for that.

Yagoro recalled the woman he had seen.

She was tall with long silver hair and pale skin. She had worn a jacket with a necktie, a tight skirt, stockings, and high-heel boots. Her glasses gave her an intellectual look, but her beret and armband made it clear she belonged to a government agency. She also wore a few medals at her chest.

Black, beige, and red. The subdued colors of her outfit’s design reminded him of fancy chocolates or cookies decorated with a ribbon.

That was Adelaide Weaponbay Sanctuary.

An assassin for the aristocracy.

A traitorous witch.

He couldn’t say anything for sure, but he had occasionally met people with that same look in their eyes when he was with the Force back on Earth.

His instincts whispered a term to him.

(Bureaucrat.)

Did she plan to go around crushing everyone involved in this incident, starting from the top?

Viocia looked back over her shoulder.

But she wasn’t looking at Yagoro seated behind her on the broom.

She was looking further back.

With terror in her eyes.

“Teacher, something’s coming. Something’s approaching fast!!!”

Today’s Quiz 3

Viocia: Teacher!!

Yagoro: …Not yet. A crisis is no reason to panic. Start by reviewing what you know. Your knowledge should lead you to a solution. The hints are all found in that late-night bar.

Question: What magical method did Myousou Yagoro use to deliver the finishing blow to the superior Student Council President Ulrike? (10 points per blank, 100 points total)

Willpower allows a witch to use witchcraft.

That is what matters most. By directing your full willpower in a single direction, it can transform into tremendous attack power.

Note: In this case, the magic interfered with the witch’s mind to shred her will to use magic, thus preventing the curse.

Didn’t Ulrike seem awfully cooperative after her defeat? That was the result of her hostility being artificially removed. Now let’s discuss the actual method.

The Aspect of (______) was a curse reversal.

This can be done with everyday objects. There is even a method where a fire-heated (________) is soaked in milk to cool and then mixed with sulfur and soot. Most any (_____) spread among ordinary people is a ceremony meant to direct their (_____) toward a single goal.

The Aspect of Antiquity was the Norse god of light (____).

But this isn’t about how to kill that (_______) god. It relates to the story after his death. It was said his death would be overturned and he would be (_______) if all life in the world wept for him. That shows just how meaningful it is for people to bring their wills together and wish for something.

The Aspect of Admiration was ATU (____)c, Beauty and the Beast.

There are a lot of stories where the pure (_____) known as love is used to break a (____).

That’s all. Any questions, Viocia?

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