“…Is…that so…?”
The mages disembarking from the train put up their umbrellas and dispersed along the road. They passed shabby-looking people huddling under scraps of cloth and others running by, bent over and holding parcels close to their stomachs to keep them from getting wet. The mages chuckled scornfully at them before disappearing into the city.
“How about you, Miss Witch? Don’t you want to ride around and watch the pitiful anima from inside a comfy train car?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have the stomach for such spiteful pastimes.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. But if your tastes don’t agree with it, then I guess that’s that.”
I shook my head again. Letting out a long sigh, I stared up at the rain, that hated rain, and said, “My conscience doesn’t agree.”
Not with this country, nor with you.
CHAPTER 2
How to Use Weapons Peacefully
“What? Huh… You want me to make your spears and shields superstrong…?”
“That’s right! If you don’t, those bastards from the village to the east are gonna kill us all!”
All the men of the village were kneeling before me, looking up with desperation in their eyes.
Next to them were a bunch of dull-looking spears, really nothing more than knives stuck onto wooden sticks, and pot lids that seemed better suited to keeping food warm, haphazardly piled up like garbage.
Make these superstrong? Right…
“Um, that’s a bit of a tall order…”
“We’re begging you! We’ve gotten word that that awful bunch from the village to the east entreated a witch and got her to make their weapons superstrong! There’s no way we can fight them like this!”
I didn’t really understand the situation. Apparently, this village in the west didn’t get along very well with their neighbors to the east. Recently, things had gotten so bad that the people had begun asking themselves, “Well, why don’t we settle this with force?”
But as far as what they had on hand for weapons… There wasn’t much. So they had gotten it in their heads that asking a witch to enchant their weapons was the way to go.
It was just bad luck on my part that I encountered them when I did.
Which brought us to the present.
“Hmm… Well, it’s not impossible, you know? To make weapons stronger.”
“We don’t want them ‘stronger’! We want you to make them the strongest!” shouted the man who appeared to be their leader.
Agreeing with him, the several dozen men crowded around nodded and snorted violently. They reeked of sweat.
“It’s just as simple to make your weapons the strongest—but there’s one problem.”
“What is it?”
“Can you pay for it? I don’t mind making weapons for you, but it’ll cost quite a lot of money.”
“I heard that the witch who went to the other village made their weapons for free! So we also—”
“Shall we pretend this conversation never happened?”
“……”
“What’ll it be?”
“…E-exactly how much will it cost?”
“……”
I silently put up my index finger.
“Wow! Only one copper! How reasonable!”
“I will enchant your weapons for one gold piece.”
“You’ll do all of them for one gold piece! Certainly a very reasonable price!”
“One gold piece per weapon.”
“Hey, that’s not reasonable at all…”
“I told you it would be expensive, didn’t I…?”
Looking over the pile of trash they wanted me to enchant, I expected I could make about eighty gold pieces.
…Well, would you look at that. The pile of garbage is suddenly glittering like gold. Oh-ho-ho.
Of course, if this was the best weaponry the villagers had been able to scrape together, they probably weren’t particularly wealthy. I could see despair spreading across the faces of the men kneeling around me.
“C-can’t you give us a discount, Madam Witch…?”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t make it any cheaper than that.”
“…Oh, I know! In that case, let us pay you later, please! We’ll get you to make our weapons superstrong, and then we’ll plunder money from the village to the east! How about that?!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I require full payment for all weapon enchantments in advance.”
“…Why?”
“It affects my motivation.”
“But there’s no way we can pay you right now…” Hanging his head, the man who seemed to be their leader said, “Could you accept something else in lieu of money?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Really?! All right, you guys! Bring it here!”
“Okay!” The men who seemed to be his lackeys scattered and disappeared from view.
I waited.
And then they returned with the “something” in hand.
They ceremoniously presented me with a load of vegetables, so many that one person couldn’t possibly hold them all. There were so many that it was easy to imagine a person living off of them for an entire month.
“These vegetables were grown by all the residents of this village! Please accept them as payment!”
“…Um, I don’t know what I would even do with this many veggies.” There was no way I’d be able to finish them all before they started to rot.
“Please accept them!”
“……” I let out a long sigh. “Let’s pretend this conversation never happened. If you can’t pay me with money and can only offer this, then I feel no obligation to enchant your weapons for you,” I said flatly.
“Just a moment, Madam Witch.” Cutting in from the side was the wife of the man who seemed to be the leader. Glaring coldly at the men, who were sunk in despair, the woman spoke. “We have prepared a special banquet for you. Won’t you kindly accept that as your payment this time?”
“Hmm.”
“When did she—? Ohhh, I knew I could count on my wife!” The apparent leader looked overjoyed.
“……” After shooting another harsh glare at him, she smiled at me. “What do you say, Madam Witch?”
I replied, “Depends on how it is.”
Intending only to inspect the offerings, I made my way toward the village’s assembly hall, led by the village leader’s wife. The exterior of the building was old and worn down. Enough to make me apprehensive about going inside.
But the woman leading me was not about to let me run away. “Please go in,” she said, half forcing me as she pulled me inside.
“……”
Now, what do you suppose the interior looked like?
The answer was: an incredibly lavish banquet hall. Freshly harvested fruits and vegetables lined the tables. Fragrant scents filled the building. It seemed preparation wasn’t quite complete, as many wives could be seen scurrying around the hall.
To make the run-down building look just a little bit nicer, the interior walls had been covered with curtains. The curtains, which were all made of from various designs and materials, looked like they’d each come from a different household, and I was touched by all their efforts, as pitiful as they were.
But there was one problem.
None of the pots had lids, so if we didn’t hurry and scarf the dishes down, the food they had worked so hard to prepare would get cold. Actually, it was already getting cold by the time I arrived. Seriously?
The situation required haste.
“Let’s enchant these weapons of yours at once.”
I returned to the group and promptly set about my work.
Ignoring the men as they jumped up and down with joy, I pulled out my wand and sprinkled magic over the mountain of junky weapons.
The result was immediate. A gentle, sparkling light engulfed the weapons and changed their shapes. When the light had completely disappeared, they were made anew.
“Th…this is amaz
ing, Madam Witch!”
The men were overcome with emotion upon seeing their transfigured weapons.
The “spears” that had been nothing more than knives stuck to wooden sticks were reborn into long spears with beautiful spikes in the shape of icicles on the ends. The simple pot lids had changed into brutal-looking shields that appeared like they would be enough to crush an enemy on their own.
Yes, the mountain of trash had become a mountain of treasure. It was only natural that they were moved.
“By the way, you can probably tell from holding them, but they’re much lighter and stronger than they appear. However, they do have one weakness—”
“Yahoo! With these, we’re sure to win! Yeaaahhh!”
Ah, they’re not listening at all.
“Um…”
“Men! We’re going to strike at those bastards in the east village right away! Come with me!”
They all took up arms.
“Um…”
“Everyone, grab a weapon! Make the most of Madam Witch’s generosity!”
They headed for the gate.
“……”
“Miss Witch! Thank you so much! We’ll be back after our certain victory!”
After bowing to me, they sprinted off toward the village to the east.
“……”
I had been left alone in that place.
This was an unexpected development.
“Hmm…”
I had hoped they would at least conduct themselves a little more carefully when handling the superstrong spears and shields.
Running off like that, they were sure to use them poorly. Maybe I should go stop them.
I hesitated.
“Madam Witch, we’ve finished preparing the banquet hall.”
“Ah, I’ll be right there.”
Oh well.
I suppose everything will go as expected if I just leave it alone for now.
“Madam Witch. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your help. At last, our village will finally know peace.”
“Don’t mention it.” I shook my head as I continued piling food onto my plate. “It was nothing, really.”
All I had done was tweak the weapons a bit.
I didn’t need any thanks.
“By the way, here is your real reward.” The village leader’s wife handed me a package.
“Thank you.”
“There are ten gold pieces in there. Your combined fee from us and them.”
I peeked into the package. There were ten glittering gold coins inside.
Oh-ho-ho!
I removed my pointy hat and bowed. “Thank you very much.”
“I’m the one who should be thanking you. Tranquility will finally return to our two villages.”
“Indeed.”
“Now then, please, eat up.”
“That’s right—we probably don’t have much time.”
That’s why I really wanted to explain everything to them before they left.
Well, that’s all right.
I took my knife and fork and dug into my food.
The men returned not long after that—it was just after I had left the assembly hall, riding on my broom with a full stomach.
The men came back, clearly in a different mood than when they had left the village.
There were twice as many men as before, but none were holding the spears and shields I had made for them. They looked up at me, swinging my legs atop my broom, and yelled their grievances.
“What is the meaning of this, Madam Witch?!”
“The spears and shields all broke the first time we used them!”
“What a joke! You’re a fraud!”
“Give us back our money!”
“Give us back our knives and pot lids!”
“And our sticks!”
“What was that? Explain yourself!”
My, my.
“As you requested, I enchanted your weapons to be superstrong. Were you dissatisfied?”
“If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be making this much of a fuss! Just as we were about to fight, we saw that the other villagers were using the exact same weapons!” shouted the leader of the western village.
“You tricked us, didn’t you, Witch?! The weapons looked good, but they were incredibly frail! The moment that spear and shield collided, they shattered into pieces!” The leader of the other village raised his voice.
My, that is unfortunate.
“Well, you know the strongest materials can be the most brittle, right? Isn’t that how it goes with precious jewels?” I said. “Of course a superstrong spear is going to shatter if it collides with a superstrong shield. The same is true in the opposite scenario. They’re both superstrong, after all.”
I was teasing them, and the leader of this village said, “But, Miss Witch, you never told us that our weapons needed to be handled with care, did you?!”
“I didn’t get the chance. You ran off without listening to me.”
Originally, the plan had been to lead the two villages into a decisive battle after explaining that their weapons were all very brittle. But they had run off without a second thought, so I had been put in the awkward position of having to rush through my meal. How about you take responsibility for that?
“Which means, Miss Witch, that you were the witch who made superstrong weapons for the eastern village, right?”
“Hmm? I thought I told you that.”
Of course, the day before, I had used the same trick to transform a similar pile of garbage into weapons for the opposing village in the east.
Well, it is what it is.
“At this point in time, I consider my business here concluded. I’ve received sufficient payment, after all. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my way.”
I slowly proceeded forward on my broom.
Their angry words grew even more abusive, and some people even tried to pelt me with stones. None hit me, though.
“Okay, I’m off.”
In truth, the job I had been hired to do wasn’t simply the morally questionable task of enchanting weaponry. At the same time, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that that was just one step in accomplishing my true objective.
My actual task had been to get those weapons away from the men of our two feuding villages.
So I had used a little magic to take away their weapons. And by making myself a mutual enemy to both villages, I seemed to have improved the relationship between them, killing two birds with one stone. And all it had cost them was all their knives and pot lids.
But if you thought of them as sacrifices toward ending the conflict peacefully, it was a cheap price to pay.
Complaints were still hurled at me from the gradually receding crowd.
The people who had hired me from the two villages were standing beside the banquet hall, waving at me, just barely visible behind the throng of angry men.
CHAPTER 3
A Runaway Princess, Pursued by Whom?
A forest of fallen autumn leaves. The leaves, dyed a vivid scarlet, danced down to the forest floor gently, painting the road between two countries a bright red.
A lone girl walked down the path that had been transformed into a red carpet.
She wore a black robe and a pointy black hat. It was cold out, so her slim legs were clad in black tights.
The girl with the obviously witchy appearance was indeed a witch—and a traveler.
“…Sigh.”
She stopped and raised her head to bear witness to a clear-blue sky. Standing idly with eyes that hid melancholy thoughts, she was beautiful by anyone’s standards. If a person was to happen by, they would no doubt swoon, bewitched by her loveliness. Man or woman, it mattered not. All would inevitably fall captive to her charms. She was positively dangerous.
This young woman kept her deadly beauty all to herself.
All would wonder about her identity.
That’s right. She’s me.
“……”
Um, I was obviously joking.
Ordinarily, when I moved from country to country, I flew on my broom, as one would expect of a witch, but this time was different.
I had decided that it would be a waste to zip by on my broom and miss the incredible scenery that accompanied this road.
The cold weather didn’t help, either.
“……”
Plus, to get from the land I had just visited—Waterwheel City, if I remember correctly—to the neighboring country, I just had to proceed down this road, and I would arrive before too long.
The outline of my next destination should come into view any minute now.
If memory serves, my next stop is—
“…Oh?”
My thoughts had been interrupted. Before I realized it, I had frozen in place.
I could see a figure coming toward me.
It was a man with a horse. He was proceeding calmly down the center of the road, horse in tow.
He noticed me staring and smiled. He had blond hair and blue eyes, a kind-looking young man dressed in clothes that seemed very expensive.
If he had just been an ordinary handsome man, I don’t think I would have stopped in my tracks just to stare at him. I would have simply taken a look and maybe greeted him as we crossed paths: Oh, hello. Nice weather, isn’t it? —Well, okay, that’s not a particularly appealing greeting.
But the man who stopped his horse in front of me was apparently one of those people.
What I mean by that is he was obviously—
“A prince?”
With his gentle smile still in place, he nodded. “Oh, do you know me?”
“It just so happens that I saw that crest on your chest in Waterwheel City.”
“I see—Hmm. As you have surmised, I am the prince of Waterwheel City. My name is Robert. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Madam Witch.”
He let go of the horse’s reins and extended a hand.
He wants a handshake. Okay.
I gripped his hand, gave a quick “How do you do?” and let go.
“So if we’re crossing paths here, you must be on your way from Waterwheel City to Windmill City; is that right?”
“I am, indeed.” I nodded.
This trade road was the only one connecting the two cities. Yesterday I had stayed in Waterwheel City. I was now on my way to Windmill City.
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, Vol. 2 Page 2