Ep.6 - Witch Apprentice (1)
Ep.6 - Witch Apprentice (1)
***
"Mm... mmm... oo... mm..."
A girl opened her eyes. As if the fatigue and pain from the hours she had been unconscious all came rushing back at once, her face was etched with the unpleasantness of a headache.
"Mmm... mm... m...?"
But as soon as consciousness returned, she clamped her mouth shut and forcibly suppressed her own groans.
"..."
She sensed other people nearby. She could hear voices, as if they were conversing among themselves.
On top of that, her body kept swaying this way and that, as if they were moving somewhere. And, strangely, a peculiar fragrance wafted in the air...
"M, mm... hm... nyaa..."
The clumsy girl carried on with her painfully awkward act. She didn't know where she'd been kidnapped to, but considering the terrifying thief she'd last seen, she was surely in for a rough time.
"Hmm... mm..."
So first, without letting on that she'd woken up, she had to subtly—ever so slightly—crack her eyes open and secretly assess the current situation!
Didn't they say that if you kept your wits about you, you could survive even being dragged into a dragon's nest? First, she'd thoroughly examine the situation, then look for a chance to escape...
"Hey, that little shit woke up."
'H-hiik...!'
"She's just toughing it out like that, pretending to be unconscious. Hey, about time to open your eyes, yeah?"
A bloodthirsty voice.
A terrifying voice.
A chilling, merciless voice that sounded like it could kill someone without the slightest hesitation...!
"W-wait! Please, spare me... I'm just an apprentice who doesn't know anything. Please..."
The girl pleaded for mercy, her voice choked with tears. She had no idea why on earth they'd kidnapped her, but to survive, she had to throw away all her pride.
There had been rumors about witches being kidnapped and turned into slaves, too. Had she somehow become their target? Had she been caught by those ruthless people who made you squeaky-clean polish dishes and forced you to clean a vast mansion all by yourself with a broom?
That would be better, actually. Better than dying, better to end up broken as a witch slave with a leash around her neck...
"Eva!"
But the voice that reached her from right in front felt strangely like a kind older sister, and the girl, utterly bewildered, ended up opening her eyes.
"Eva, eonni. Ahh, Eva..."
'What the...?'
A remarkably beautiful woman had wrapped her arms tightly around her and was patting her back. She had no idea who this person was, but for some reason, being held like that only made a corner of her heart grow anxious.
"Wh-who... who are you? Please, could you at least spare my life? I don't want to die yet... I-I'm good at magic, too. Really...!"
The girl cried and looked around frantically. It was an instinctive struggle to figure out where the hell she'd been dragged off to.
But what she was met with only made her head spin.
'Th-these people... what's going on?'
A person from the Holy Kingdom who looked like someone of incredibly high status,
a beastman with tail and ears gently swaying,
a person who looked like a scary criminal at a single glance,
some strangely... cute? No, a weirdly erotic boy and...
"Ah, aah! Professor Chichi! Professor-nim!"
One person she knew!!!
"Huaaang... please save meee..."
The girl immediately let out a scream—Ppaek!—and began to sob profusely.
She was saved now!
Professor Chichi was the best among witches!
"...Who is it? I don't recall seeing a student like..."
"Professor, Professor-nim... hic, hikk... I'm still an apprentice... so I haven't been able to take your class, that's whyyy..."
The girl desperately clung to Chichi. She was her only lifeline.
"I-I sent you so many letters. Right? He-Heyla! It's Heyla, Professor! Don't you recognize me? Yesss...??"
"Heyla...?"
Chichi looked flustered, as if she recognized the name, and kept muttering "Heyla" in disbelief.
"You don't mean, that Heyla who sent a piece of candy and a single rose in a letter every single day...?"
"Yes, yesss! It was coffee-flavored candy, the flavor you like, Professor Chichi! At the end of every letter, I always wrote that I respected you, that I'd keep working hard so that someday I could stand alongside you...! I wrote that, didn't I!"
The others' gazes focused on Chichi. The stares of five people, trying to determine whether what the girl was spouting was the truth!
"...That's right. This child, she's a student I know. She sent letters constantly, but never showed her face..."
The girl's tearful face brightened with renewed hope. She'd been kidnapped, and yet she got to meet Professor Chichi, whom she'd always admired! Where else could she find such luck?
"I believed you were innocent, Professor. I really did... So I was gathering materials to help you, and... th-that person... hikk..."
The girl raised her hand and pointed at the thief. The annoying woman embracing her from the front kept obstructing her arm, but she ignored the nuisance and desperately appealed to Professor Chichi for help.
"She suddenly just grabbed me by the hair and... fed me something strange... huaaaang..."
"...So? What. You guys told me to catch her."
"Still, the hair-grabbing was a bit much, wasn't it...?"
"Oh, bullshit. Coming from the little shit who was just sitting around stuffing his face with bread."
"Goodness. As rough as ever, aren't you. Fufu..."
"All of you, shut the fuck up!"
"H-hiit...?"
The atmosphere, which had seemed almost amiable enough to end things, froze up again in an instant.
The girl was so startled that she began to hiccup, hikk-, hikk-. The strange woman who'd abruptly been embracing her had yelled so terrifyingly loudly that the small, pretty girl had no room to resist and simply shrank in on herself.
"...Fucking bitch. Near blew out my eardrums."
The thief grumbled.
But the woman, who seemed clearly to have lost her mind, ignored even that fearsome thief's curses and immediately started murmuring toward the girl.
"E-Eva. Eonni. I'm your eonni. Hm? Don't you remember...? I said look this way, not over there...!"
Neva's words spilled out rapidly as she held the girl's soft, squishy cheeks in a firm grip.
Neva spoke while staring intently at the girl from a distance so close their noses nearly touched. Even the women watching the scene from the side were clicking their tongues!
"H-hiik! Professor! Professor-nim! Save me! S-save meee!"
The girl screamed, twisting her whole body. And Neva, right in front of her, could hardly comprehend that scream.
"E-Eva..."
Although Neva had already recovered Eva once before, the shock she felt now was indescribable.
"...Originally, when they take someone to serve as a witch, they block or blur their memories."
"Doesn't that person already know? Even that time she was caught before, she was clearly brought along... mmph!"
"Just keep your mouth shut a bit...! Just zip your lips and live. Please."
She was right.
Neva already had the memory of recovering Eva, and back then too, she had been in a state of lost memory.
Meaning there was no reason for her to be shocked now!
However...
"..."
Neva's boiling eyes were filled with fierce jealousy.
A noble and beautiful knight surely shouldn't harbor such an emotion.
Yet that sharp feeling was making things quite difficult for Chichi...
"...Hoo, wait a moment. I understand what you must be thinking, but I didn't know she was your sister, and in the first place, the two of us haven't even known each other long. And I hadn't even properly seen this child's face. You understand?"
"...Yeah. I understand. Majesty, please fix her memories. A spell of that level should be effortless for the [Professor] herself, wouldn't you say?"
Seeing the heavy emphasis she placed on that word, the foreboding was that her grudge would last quite a while.
"That little shit really is mentally ill, I'm telling you. She's been like that for ages. Did I smack her skull too hard back in the day?"
"Were you two... close?"
"...As if we were, you dumbass."
Anyway, Chichi let out a deep sigh and approached the girl—the girl who was whimpering, her eyes brimming with thick tears, like a rabbit scared out of its wits.
"Heyla."
"It's not Heyla, it's Eva. Professor."
"...Fine. Sorry about that. Anyway, Eva? Try closing your eyes gently, and don't worry. Trust me. There now..."
The girl trembled, glancing at the silver-haired woman glaring at her, but trusting the professor she'd always admired, she closed her eyes resolutely.
That person, at least, she could trust. The great witch who represented her dream, her future, at least her...
"Hikk... hik..."
"Don't worry too much. It's just unlocking memories that were temporarily locked away. It won't be painful or anything."
Chichi's gentle voice gradually calmed the girl's trembling. The girl loved Chichi...
"...And Neva. For your information. Originally, when someone becomes a witch apprentice, they erase unpleasant memories and slightly alter only the stories related to Raftel, so they can continue their studies in peace. Once they become a full-fledged witch, they unlock those memories and overcome their past through magic. What that means is..."
Chichi's voice trembled faintly. She was dimly realizing why the girl couldn't remember her own sister.
"...So she resents you. That little child resents you, our knight-nim."
Helen finished Chichi's words for her.
But even after hearing that heart-wrenching story, Neva didn't stop.
"I don't need it, so put her back to normal right now. Right now. Because there's no way she could resent me."
With a soft movement of her hand, Chichi created a beautiful magic circle and brought it to the girl's forehead.
And just like that,
the girl collapsed forward...