Side Story: A Certain Witch's Tale (1)
There once existed a race known as the descendants of Capella, the Goddess of Water and Wisdom.
In appearance they were indistinguishable from humans, yet like the elves they were a long-lived people, blessed with lifespans far beyond the ordinary. They were born with reserves of mana no other race could hope to match, and with a natural aptitude for magic that bordered on the divine. From the moment of their birth, each carried a unique magic of their own — an Imprint — and by that gift they stood as the most gifted sorcerers the world had ever known.
Witches.
"And that, my dear, is what we are."
A woman spoke those words with a gentle smile, looking down at the little girl settled on her lap.
"Hmm… Then is Papa a witch too?"
The pink-haired girl on her mother's knees tilted her head, her eyes — the same soft pink as her hair — bright with curiosity as she looked up.
"No. Only girls are born as witches. Your father is an ordinary human. Well… not so ordinary, I suppose, if he managed to steal this mother's heart."
At the child's question, the woman glanced down at the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, a faintly bitter look crossing her face. Then she smoothed the girl's hair with a tender smile.
"A witch can create a child only once in her entire life — and only with the person she truly loves."
"Our little Rika will meet someone like that someday too. Her fated person."
"…Can't I just keep living with Mama and Papa forever?"
The child, far more interested in the warmth of her parents' arms than in stories she could not yet understand, burrowed deeper into her mother's embrace with a soft whine.
"Fufu. Of course you can. But Rika — there is one thing you must remember."
Patting the girl's back, her mother leaned close to her ear, her expression suddenly close to tears.
"If anything should ever happen to Mama and Papa… if you ever find yourself alone…"
"Mmh…"
"You must go to the place I told you about before."
A location she had shared just in case the unthinkable ever came to pass.
"If you reach the City of Witches, our Queen will protect you."
A faint red glow of mana rose from the hand still stroking the drowsy child's back. Once the sleep spell had drawn Rika into a deep slumber, her mother laid her gently on the bed. Outside the window, the sky that had been black only moments before was slowly bleeding into red. She rose from her seat.
"…Mother Capella. What sin could this little child have committed, that You would lay such a trial upon her?"
She took up the staff she had set aside ever since meeting her husband, and looked one last time upon her sleeping daughter's face.
Find her! Even if you have to burn the entire forest to the ground!
That way! The direction her father held until the end!
A great reward to whoever brings the child back!
The voices carried from far off the moment she stepped outside. She clenched her teeth hard enough to make a sound, then quietly stretched a hand back toward the house and wove a barrier around it. With a soft shimmer, the home melted into the surrounding landscape and vanished.
"I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you until the end, my little one."
Her red hair streamed behind her as a rain of fire began to fall from the sky.
When the sleeping girl opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was not the cozy ceiling of her home, but a stark white one that felt somehow desolate.
"Huh…?"
Still half-adrift in sleep, she looked around with bleary eyes and a vacant little voice.
"Where… is this…? Mama…? Papa…?"
She sat up, her face crumpling as she searched for her parents — but before the tears could fall,
Shunk!
Something drove through her stomach faster than she could cry out.
"Aaaagh—!"
Screaming at the pain blooming in her belly, she looked down and saw a massive blade protruding from her own abdomen.
Whoosh! Thud!
Behind her, an old man yanked the sword free with merciless force and flung her aside. He watched the blood drip idly from the blade, then turned his gaze toward the girl he had cast so far away.
"Heh heh. Just as I thought."
He grinned as he watched the gaping wound in her stomach slowly knit itself shut.
"Ever since I heard the tale of a child who came back to life after a falling rock crushed her skull, you cannot imagine how long I have waited for this."
Already the tear in her clothes revealed an abdomen as smooth and white as if the injury had never existed. Greed flooded the old man's ugly face as he stared at her.
"Ah… aah…"
The girl was too deep in panic even to register that her wound had healed.
"The Mark of Immortality. A fitting name indeed."
The old man merely licked his lips at the sight of her and issued a command to those around him.
"Begin. For the sake of my eternal life."
"She will not die no matter what you do, so be as rough as you like. Bring me only the results."
And so it began.
"N-no… st-stay away—!"
The girl's hell had started.
How much time had passed since then?
Clank.
"…It doesn't even hurt anymore these days."
The girl who had become a woman — Frederica — murmured quietly to herself, her limbs bound in thick iron chains, watching the sunlight that filtered in through a distant tower window.
The old man who had first abducted her, the one who called himself a king, had long since died of old age. But from his son to his grandson, generation after generation of his bloodline had kept her locked away, continuing their research into immortality without end.
"Haa…"
Cut off her head, and she did not die. Pierce her heart, and she did not die. Drain every drop of blood from her body, burn her until nothing remained but ash — and still that body returned to life, again and again.
Perhaps it was the nature of a long-lived race that refused even the mercy of madness. For decades upon decades she had simply gone on living, unable to die.
"I miss Mama…"
Her father, being human, had surely reached the end of his lifespan by now. But her kind mother — she would still be searching for her. Of that, Frederica was certain.
She was still lost in that quiet lament when a sudden vibration shuddered through the tower and the world around her erupted into chaos.
Rrrumble…
"Huh?"
We have to help the Hero!
Damn it, why is a disaster-class monster in the capital…!
The frantic voices belonged to the very mages who ordinarily dissected and studied her body. Amid the clamor, one word caught her attention, and she turned it over slowly in her mind.
"The Hero… They said he saves people who are suffering and in pain…"
She remembered a story her parents had once told her, with her settled on their knees.
Boom! Rumble…!
"I wonder if he might save me too."
Frederica was staring blankly at the trembling walls of the tower when —
Crack!
"Huh?"
— the chains binding her limbs crumbled under the relentless shaking, and all at once her arms and legs were free.
"What…?"
The uproar outside had drawn away even the people who usually stood watch over her. And perhaps because she had been locked away for decades already, the door to her cell did not even have a common lock.
"Gulp."
She swallowed hard and carefully made her way out of the tower. Crossing the vast castle grounds — empty of even a single shadow, so unlike usual — she emerged into the open.
Kra-kra-kraash!
"Wow… it's beautiful…"
Not far off, a man wielding a greatsword that shone pure white was battling a massive monster on the rampage. The Hero. And right before her eyes, people fled in terror from the creature.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Hurry! Run!"
Frederica forced her stiff limbs to move and slipped in among the fleeing crowd. Her fear that she would be found at any moment and dragged back proved laughably unfounded — she escaped with almost absurd ease.
"Hah… hah…!"
Panting, she hid herself in a back alley far from the city center.
"Excuse me — are you all right?"
"Kyaah—?!"
A man's voice from directly behind her tore a scream from her throat.
"Ah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you…"
Frederica's legs gave out; she sank to the ground and scrambled backward. The black-haired young man — barely past the threshold of adulthood, by the look of him — scratched his head with an awkward expression.
"You just seemed to be in some kind of trouble…"
"W-wh-who are you…?"
"Uh… my name is Ray…"
Despite her mature appearance, Frederica was sniffling like a child. The man who had introduced himself as Ray could only stand there, frozen between one impulse and another, looking thoroughly lost.
"Hey, Ray—! What do you think you're doing, running off on your own—!"
A furious voice cut through the alley as a red-haired woman came charging toward him. She looked about the same age — just past adulthood, with short hair — and she seized Ray by the collar and shook him several times before she noticed the girl huddled and sniffling beside them.
"Huh? Who's this?"
"Well, you see…"
Ray confessed that he had been helping with the evacuation when he spotted a girl in rags slipping into an alley, and worry had driven him after her.
"Honestly. You and your soft heart for every stray you find."
"Haha. Anyway — you'll help, right, Stella?"
The red-haired woman — Stella — turned her face away from Ray's bright, expectant smile, her cheeks coloring as she gave a quiet nod.
"Let me introduce myself properly. My name is Ray. I'm an adventurer."
"…I'm Stella. Also an adventurer."
The two of them held out their hands toward the still-seated Frederica, inviting her to stand. It was the first kindness she had known since being locked in that tower, and she hardly knew what to do with it.
"I-I'm Fr-Frederica."
With a shy expression, she took both of the hands extended toward her.
And so Frederica, having crossed paths by chance with the otherworlder Ray, set out with him on the long road back to the place that had once been her home.
After roughly a month of travel, she arrived at the site where her house had stood — and what awaited her there was not the house in the green forest of her memories, but two gravestones raised on a barren hill, bearing the familiar names of her parents.
Here lies Talia, the Wise Witch.
Here lies Arban, the Battle-Hardened Mercenary.