Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, Vol. 2

by Jougi Shiraishi

  Then his grip on her hand tightened.

  At this rate, we’re going to lose our only remaining source of food. We won’t make it through the winter. My sister will probably die— With wild thoughts running through her mind, Elise panicked.

  Chomp.

  She bit down on the man’s hand as hard as she could.

  “Ow! What the hell’re you doing, you brat?!”

  The man flinched for a moment, and Elise wriggled out of his grasp and darted away, still clutching the apples.

  She kept running, watching her surroundings carefully, until she finally made it home.

  More than half the roof had collapsed—the aftermath of a fire—and the part that still had some roof left was lacking a proper floor. There were holes in the walls, which were practically paper-thin and offered no protection from the wind, rain, and snow.

  This is what she called home.

  “……”

  In front of the house, there was a small package, which perfectly fit in her two hands. Morning, noon, and night, there was always a small bundle left in front of their house.

  But maybe, just maybe, there was something different inside today. With a faint bit of hope, the girl crouched down, hands on the package.

  And then she opened it.

  “Ugh! Gross!”

  Elise immediately threw it aside. The package sailed through the air before crashing into the wall of a nearby house. The corpses of mice and all kinds of bugs exploded from the wrapping and scattered across the snow.

  Their mud-colored carcasses slowly sank into pillowy white.

  “…Oh no. And we went to all the trouble to make it.”

  “What a wasteful thing to do.”

  “How awful.”

  Several neighbors stood watching her, exchanging words.

  After glaring at those people, Elise disappeared into her home.

  “Welcome back, big sister!”

  Elise heard a voice from a corner of the house. She stepped farther inside and saw a smiling girl wrapped in a patchwork quilt.

  She was the spitting image of Elise, with golden hair and pale-white skin.

  She was Elise’s sister, two years younger.

  Her name was Mirina.

  “I’m home, Mirina—Here, I brought you something.”

  After Elise had nestled close to her younger sister and wrapped herself in the blanket with her, she pulled a fresh green apple out of her bag and handed it to Mirina.

  “Wow, amazing! How did you get this?”

  “I bought it just for you because I want you to get better soon. Eat up, okay?”

  “I will! Thank you!”

  Watching Mirina smile as she bit into the apple, Elise’s expression softened a little.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better, now that I’m eating an apple!”

  “Oh? I’m glad.” Recalling the incident in front of the street stall, she felt a prickling pain in her heart. “…But I’m really sorry about everything.”

  “Why are you apologizing?”

  “Don’t you get tired of eating the same thing all the time?”

  “Hmm…? But I love apples! I’m happy eating them every day!”

  “…I see.”

  That’s good— Elise put her hand into her bag and fished out her own apple.

  When all the apples were gone, this time for sure, they would have nothing to eat. Their lifeline had been severed.

  Elise pulled back her hood as she bit into the apple, brooding over the dark future ahead. In the safety of home, there was no need to hide what was protruding from her head.

  “…Sigh.”

  Appearing from beneath the tight hood were two curled sheep horns.

  The girl was a beastkin; she possessed a human form with a touch of the wild.

  Sadly, she had brought home only enough apples for one day. By the next morning, they would be out of food. Elise slowly slipped out of the blanket, so as not to wake Mirina, and headed for the main street of town—toward the stall with the apples.

  After checking that the proprietor was nowhere nearby, Elise took a number of apples and dropped them in her bag.

  Then, after her bag was full, she took money from her pocket and was about to drop it in the box…

  “…No, that’s all right. I don’t need to put any money in.”

  …but then she didn’t.

  It doesn’t matter if I pay or not. Which means I can steal as much as I want. This isn’t a bad thing to do. I’m not a bad person.

  Repeating excuses to herself, the girl turned to leave the stand.

  Then it happened.

  A hand came down on Elise’s shoulder.

  When she looked up in surprise, there stood a witch.

  “You mustn’t do that. You have to pay for what you take.”

  It was the young witch she had seen in the bakery the day before.

  Tossing several silver pieces into the box, she said, “Why don’t we talk for a little while?”

  Her ashen hair swung loosely, and she smiled gently as she spoke.

  I had been traveling without a care in the world when I was first summoned by a government official, right after I had done some shopping at the bakery on my first day in the country.

  From time to time, I’m called upon as a witch to help solve some country’s problems.

  “Please have a seat over there, Lady Elaina.”

  I was shown to the waiting room, where I took a seat on one of the sofas facing each other across a coffee table, bowing before I sat.

  “So what seems to be the problem? Oh, want some bread?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Really? …Mind if I eat while I listen?”

  “…Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.”

  From my bag, I retrieved a piece of the bread I had just purchased from the bakery and stuffed it into my mouth.

  The government official sighed and began his explanation.

  “Our country has a bit of a problem right now… We’d like to ask you to solve it for us, Madam Witch.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Om-nom.

  “……”

  Wearing a dubious expression, the official continued, “Our request to you at this time involves this beastkin.” He handed me a sketch.

  It depicted a human with a strange form…or what looked like a human. The most striking characteristic was the pair of horns growing out of the girl’s head. They were curly and crooked, just like a sheep’s.

  “The truth is, there are these creatures currently living in our country, but there’s a problem… To put it plainly, a rift has formed between these beastkin and our citizens. So we want to get the beasts to leave the country for the time being.”

  And then he told me the full story behind the request.

  He told me about the cruel country, and its people, and the pitiful little girl.

  “……”

  I wonder what kind of expression I was wearing after I had heard the whole story.

  I’m sure it wasn’t a very nice face.

  It must have been scornful. It must have been angry.

  “…Are you telling me that’s the reason you’re banishing a child from this city?” I asked.

  He tightened his fists at my statement and nodded slowly.

  “Personally, I can’t help feeling sorry for them… However, now that the situation has worsened, there’s no other way.” He continued, wearing a very gloomy, heartbroken expression, “Please. Isn’t there some way you can save her…?”

  I didn’t want to decide whether to accept the commission based only on the official’s story. That’s why I decided to spend a day looking into the state of things myself.

  I went to the place marked on the map that the government official gave me, the place where the beastkin were currently living—and found a dilapidated house there, more than halfway collapsed.

  “…Goodness.”

  I found the girls l
iving inside and was quite surprised.

  One was the girl I had seen at the bakery the day before.

  “……”

  And so I decided to accept the commission from the government.

  I didn’t meet the girl in person that day. First, I did some investigating. I went around asking about the beastkin girls, interviewing the proprietor of yesterday’s bakery, the owners of the shops lining the city’s main street, random passersby, and people in the neighborhood.

  Every one of them told me the same thing, more or less.

  The following morning, I set up a stakeout next to the crumbling house and watched the girl leave. She was headed for one of the stalls. It seemed to be an unmanned counter with a box set up for depositing money.

  And there, the girl did a bad thing.

  So I immediately stepped in to stop her.

  “You mustn’t do that. You have to pay for what you take,” I said as I clapped a hand down on her shoulder.

  I took her with me to a restaurant on a street corner. It was mostly empty because it was early in the morning.

  After we were seated by the window, we turned to face each other.

  “……”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” I assured the girl. “It’s my treat.”

  Even as I told her she didn’t need to pay for the mouth-watering dishes lining up on the table, the girl’s expression was as gloomy as always.

  I wonder if she’s nervous. She’s probably bothered by the negative attention she’s getting from the other people in here.

  “What’s your name?”

  “…Elise.”

  “Elise, is it? My name is Elaina. I’m a traveling witch.”

  “……”

  “So what exactly were you doing earlier?”

  The girl flinched and drew her hood farther down to cover her face.

  “…Um, please don’t tell anyone about that.”

  “I didn’t ask to threaten you. I was just curious. I believe we first met in the bakery the day before yesterday, didn’t we? You were acting a little strange back then, too, so I was curious about you.”

  “……”

  “And so, if you don’t mind, would you tell me about yourself?”

  I made my inquiry, and Elise finally spoke normally. “…If I tell you about myself, I’m sure you won’t like what you hear.”

  “Because you have horns growing out of your head?”

  “How did you…?”

  “I mean, I could see them under your hood the whole time. They’re cute horns, curly like a sheep’s.”

  Elise quickly looked out the window. Brown horns peeked out of her hood, reflected in the glass.

  “I’m a traveler. I’ve seen all sorts of people and hold no prejudices. I really don’t find you unpleasant.”

  I actually think the horns are pretty cute. I said something to that effect, and she finally turned back to face me.

  And then she began to talk, a little at a time, as if resigned to it.

  “Um, please don’t tell anyone else this, but…”

  She told me her story.

  In the past, Elise had lived a quiet life with her family on a remote mountain.

  Her father and mother had hunted the animals of the mountain with bows and arrows, and together with her sickly little sister, Elise had cooked the game they brought back. She and her family had passed their days in peace.

  Then, about a month ago, something had happened.

  “We’ll teach you to shoot a bow when we get home,” her mother and father had said, and then they went out together to hunt, like always.

  While Elise waited with her little sister for their return, she had become restless, thinking about how she was finally about to come of age.

  But even though the two girls waited and waited, their parents didn’t come back. Were they having a hard time hunting? Hours passed, but their parents never returned.

  The following day, strangers pulled up in a big carriage and paid a visit to their home. One person introduced himself as a government official of the nearby country. There were three merchants with him.

  The adults who had suddenly appeared outside their home took two huge sacks down from the carriage and told the girls the sad truth.

  Elise’s parents had fallen off a cliff while hunting and perished. The merchants had found their bodies as they traversed the mountain. As he told them this, the official opened the sacks to show the girls the battered remains of their parents.

  The girls wept. They clung to the bodies and wailed at the top of their lungs. But the bodies of their parents had long since grown cold.

  The government official had a proposal for the girls, now that they had no parents to support them.

  “There’s no way we can just leave you here by yourselves. I’d like to take custody of you in our country.”

  After commissioning the merchants who had found the corpses to make gravestones for the parents, the official took the girls by the hands. Without a moment to come to grips with reality, the two girls were whisked away to a strange new place.

  When they arrived in this country, a house was provided for them to live in.

  “From now on, I’m going to leave food in front of your house every day; so eat it, okay? Also, here’s money to live on.”

  He placed food and just enough money for everyday expenses into Elise’s hands. “I’ll bring you money at regular intervals, as well. You can use it however you like. I don’t mind. If you lose it, please let me know right away.”

  He also told her, “Until your heart is whole again, our country will look after you.”

  The country accepted the two girls.

  “…But the people who live here were not so welcoming.”

  After a short pause, Elise said, “Right after it was decided that we would live in this country, the house that had been prepared for us was set on fire.”

  “……”

  I recalled the place where she was living presently. It was a burned-out husk, more than half turned to rubble.

  “The harassment continued after our house was burned, of course. We’re treated like monsters by everyone we meet, we’re not allowed to buy anything even though we have money, and the food and funds the official brings are all for nothing.”

  “……”

  “So until the day before yesterday, we were living on apples from the unmanned stall, but—”

  That went south, too.

  I see.

  “…I understand your situation. You could say you’re in legit danger, and you’ll probably starve to death if things continue as they are; is that right?”

  “…Yeah. Well, something like that, I guess.”

  “I see, I see. I think I’ve got the picture.” I nodded several times. “By the way, I have one favor to ask. Is that okay?”

  “What is it?”

  “If you’ll listen to my request, you can eat all this food. You can even take the leftovers home.”

  “I thought you said this was your treat…”

  “Oh, go ahead and forget I said that.”

  “……”

  “Well?”

  “…What’s your request?” She stared at me, eyeing me cautiously.

  After a dramatic pause, I looked right back at her and made a simple request:

  “Please allow me to help you.”

  Elise continued staring at me, but this time, it was in confusion, maybe because she wasn’t expecting this.

  As I waited for her answer, I reached for my knife and fork. We had been talking for so long that all the food we had ordered had gone cold.

  At this point, the girl didn’t have many options—or any, really. She wasn’t allowed to use money, so she couldn’t even get the bare necessities. And since there was no one in the country she could really depend on, the girl had no choice but to join forces with an outsider like me. At least she was sharp enough not to let this chance slip away.

  “……Hey, what would
you do if I denied your request?”

  “I’d spread the news of what you were trying to do at the unmanned stand.”

  “…No fair. You said you wouldn’t threaten me earlier.”

  “Oh, go ahead and forget I said that.”

  “……”

  “Well, how about it? Will you grant my humble request?”

  “…Fine. But you do know I have nothing to offer in return, right, Elaina?”

  “That’s all right. I’ve got a lot of time to kill. Besides…”

  “…?”

  “I’m not the kind of coldhearted person who can ignore your plight after hearing a story like that.”

  And so it was decided that I would help Elise.

  But it was too annoying to do something that very day—er, what I mean is, I needed time to prepare, so I let her go for the moment.

  And then, the following morning, we met up next to the gate—outside the city.

  “…It’s so cold!” I stamped my feet, clutched my gear, and waited several minutes.

  She passed through the gate looking the same as yesterday. She trotted over when she saw me.

  “Sorry. I was running late… Huh, what’s that?”

  Elise’s gaze fell on the thing in my hand.

  “Oh, this? It’s a bow and arrow.”

  As I plucked at the bowstring and listened to the sound it made, I said, “I thought I would teach you how to handle a bow, Elise.”

  “Why?”

  “If you learn to hunt for your own food, you won’t have any reason to rely on the people of the country, will you?”

  Which means that yesterday I had gone around acquiring a bow and arrow, along with various things the girl would need from now on.

  “Miss Witch, can you shoot a bow?”

  “I’m so good that I can pierce an apple placed on top of someone’s head.”

  “Huh? When would you ever need to do that…?”

  “You could call me an expert. I’m so good that if I was ordered to entertain someone with my archery skills, I could reluctantly shoot an arrow through a paper fan that was swaying on top of a boat.”

  “Again, when would you possibly need to do that…?”

  I pulled the dubious girl by the hand, and we walked into the forest of white.

  Inside the forest, where tall trees grew in rows, a handmade, fully equipped archery range was waiting for us. The surface of one of the trees had been shaved down flat and had a round target carved into it. There was a sign placed in a spot a little distance from the tree, upon which was written: Please aim for the target from here (rewards given for hitting the center).