The Witch of Fragrance (1)
Lawrence realized that he had arrived in the Spirit World.
For the first time in a while, he felt clean and refreshed.
The clinging heat and humidity that had dogged him for so long were nowhere to be felt here.
His mind and body felt wonderfully light. That in itself seemed to whisper just how atrocious the swamp had been, and he had a hard time suppressing the dry laugh that threatened to escape him.
The place the dream of the Spirit World had guided him to this time was bleak and stark.
Had he climbed to a high mountain?
Clouds hung thick and hazy around the rocky peaks. Beyond them, mountain ridges seemed to dance one after another. A nameless bird drifted through the evening sky as if it were part of the scenery.
Wherever he looked, cliffs and precipices stitched the landscape together. Gusts of wind came and went, blurring his vision.
Because the slope was so steep, there was effectively no way down. The narrow path only pointed upward, toward the mountain.
After a moment’s survey of his surroundings, Lawrence began climbing the rocky slope.
The road to the summit was brutally difficult. The incline was steep, and the narrow gaps kept catching at his steps. There were places where he had to scramble up walls of stone and roots, and once he slipped and found himself teetering on the edge of a terrifying drop.
The natural fortress built by the mountain was determined to keep people out.
Still, persistence soon bore fruit.
At the summit of the rocky peak Lawrence reached, beautiful vegetation bloomed in a scene that seemed to deny the lonely, barren landscape that had come before. Somehow the weather had softened as well.
As if to match it, butterflies and bees drifted lazily among the plants.
It was a view like Dragon Valley and a fairy meadow had been mixed together.
Drawn in by the strangely familiar charm of the place, Lawrence could not take his eyes away. He caught his breath and looked around for any nearby neighbor who might be living here—
Then, out of nowhere, something appeared with a truly ridiculous grandeur.
Ridiculous grandeur?
No, that wasn’t a mistake.
It looked less like a creature and more like a child’s toy. A pumpkin face stitched together in the playful fashion of a child’s craft. Stumpy hands and feet that looked as though they had been kneaded out of bread dough. The way it came trundling toward him was so absurd it was almost comical.
He nearly laughed out loud.
But the laughter froze in his throat almost immediately.
It was huge.
Unbelievably huge.
As it came closer, the ground itself seemed to tremble, and a vibration like the mountain was about to collapse rolled through the earth.
The thing’s true form was a mud giant modeled after a jack-o’-lantern.
“Um...?”
Maybe it was a neighbor of the Spirit World after all.
The boy’s hopeful thought was answered by a fist.
Crash!
The earth shook for real this time.
This was no joke.
Snapped back to his senses by that one blow, Lawrence broke into a run across the meadow.
Now was not the time to complain that his legs felt heavy or that his arms wouldn’t lift. If he didn’t want to die, he had to move fast.
And yet, strangely, he couldn’t hear footsteps behind him.
He looked back, gasping hard, and saw the mud giant waddling after him far in the distance.
Slow.
Unbelievably slow.
At that pace, it looked like it would take half a day just to reach him.
With his nerves settling, Lawrence caught his breath again.
There was no need to panic. If the opponent was huge and slow, there was nothing to fear.
“Shadow Spear.”
The process was over in an instant.
The first spear was meant to test the waters—to trip it up and see how tough it really was. Lawrence fired the Shadow Spear.
Crack!
The mud giant’s body collapsed at a single strike. The enormous frame toppled without even enduring one blow, and dirt and sludge burst up violently in its wake.
The completely shattered mud giant no longer moved.
“......”
Something was wrong.
This wasn’t the real world, and it wasn’t even a being Lawrence had met in the Spirit World before. It wasn’t a normal monster either, and it was hard to accept that something like this had fallen to one Shadow Spear.
And that unease proved right.
The fragments of the mud giant began wriggling, and before long they transformed into small mud dolls that hurled themselves at Lawrence.
“Fire Tail!”
The fire whip blazed to life.
Each time the flames painted the ground, the mud dolls returned to dirt. The moment they touched the fire left by Fire Tail, they broke apart.
Compared to before, they actually seemed weaker in raw toughness.
But the real fear lay beneath that.
The scorched fragments twisted and burned, then rose again as mud dolls.
Smaller.
Faster.
Now they were moving so quickly that one blink would let them close the distance.
It was fine. He could still keep up.
In answer to Lawrence’s will, Fire Tail quickened as well.
That, too, was thanks to the precise control he had gained while taking on commissions.
Walls of fire rose and formed a barrier, and streaking flames snared the feet of the mud dolls.
Even so, they did not stop.
Again and again they rose after being broken, again and again they multiplied after being smashed.
He had driven back dozens, nearly hundreds of mud dolls when their movements suddenly stopped.
Had he finally subdued them?
No. Not at all.
After a brief moment, a girl with violet hair appeared, riding in on a broom from the sky.
With a gesture from her hand, the mud dolls scattered.
“......”
A white cloak fluttered in the wind.
She was more cute than beautiful, with a face that looked young—probably about Lawrence’s age, at most.
For now, he didn’t sense any hostility.
At last, it felt as though he had met a neighbor of the Spirit World who could actually talk.
“I’m sorry for the commotion.”
Lawrence did not forget his manners.
Just because she looked young, he couldn’t take that at face value. The girl before him was a neighbor of the Spirit World. There was no guarantee she was actually young.
Wanting to show at least a shred of sincerity, Lawrence dismissed Fire Tail.
“......”
The girl said nothing.
The broom drifted closer.
She came up silently, to Lawrence’s side, and then began sniffing him—sniffing, sniffing, as if checking his scent.
“W-what are you doing?”
“......”
Still no answer.
For a moment, Lawrence swallowed his confusion at the way she had shoved her face right up to him, then tugged at his collar and sniffed himself.
Maybe there really was a smell he couldn’t notice.
Perhaps he had worked up a sweat climbing the mountain.
But there was no smell at all.
Of course there wasn’t. Lawrence was sensitive to smells to begin with.
Whenever he had a chance to rest, he never neglected to wash thoroughly in warm water.
He had spent less than half a day on the hike. He didn’t live such a filthy life that he’d reeked by now.
“......”
Lawrence gently pushed the girl away, since she kept clinging to him.
Honestly, it didn’t feel bad.
And yet, at the same time, he wanted to keep his distance.
She reminded him of other mercenaries he had seen—men obsessed with women.
Be careful with alcohol and women.
It was even one of the Church’s teachings.
He barely had enough time to devote himself to magic, let alone spare any attention for anything else.
“Um... I’m Lawrence.”
She was a woman with a strange sense of personal space.
When he pushed her away again, the girl simply stared at him in silence.
Then, suddenly, she reached for her cloak and tugged at it with one hand.
Lawrence had no idea what she was doing.
He watched blankly as she pulled something out.
A black mask.
The elaborately decorated mask looked strangely familiar.
“Ah...!”
The western witch he had seen in Dragon Valley.
The ornate mask and cloak draped over the empty broom.
Back then, there had been no owner of the cloak. Now, there was.
Maybe the difference in cloak color had been their own way of showing courtesy.
“Were you there when Veles set out on his journey?”
“......”
For the first time, a smile touched the girl’s lips.
* * *
She guided Lawrence to the center of the rocky mountain.
Along a gentle slope, beyond the beautiful vegetation, colorful stones came into view.
It was nothing like the dry, barren mountain scenery he had seen so far.
Unfamiliar fireflies glowed in bright, shifting colors.
Following the light they cast, he found a great tree standing where the sky and earth seemed to meet.
A lantern resembling a jack-o’-lantern hung beneath its branches.
What surprised him most was that the towering tree, with its windows and door, was still alive rather than dead. Its branches stretched up toward the sky, heavy with fresh green leaves.
This great tree looked like the girl’s home.
Scattered around it were signs of daily life: a cauldron filled with some unknown liquid, a table crowded with herbs and bottles of medicine, and roots and grasses that looked as though they had been gathered from the meadow.
He held back his curiosity. The girl was already waiting for him at the door.
Lawrence followed her into the tree.
The house was more comfortable than he had expected.
The living room was so large it couldn’t be taken in at a glance, and the interior used the great tree itself as furniture in its own right. On the ceiling and floor, bugs could be seen crawling along the tree trunk as if it were their companion.
They were nothing like the pests he had met in the swamp. Their appearance was ordinary, and they did not feel dirty at all.
Was this what it meant to live in harmony with nature?
The fire in the hearth burned quietly.
On the table, those same medicine bottles and herbs sat waiting. Their scent felt oddly familiar.
So that must have been the source of the smell clinging to her body.
She offered Lawrence a cup of tea with a bluish tint.
“Thank you.”
The girl answered with a small smile.
As if to reassure him, she took a sip of the tea herself first.
Lawrence had been watching carefully, just in case, but now he was certain.
Apparently, she couldn’t speak.
As Lawrence lifted the cup, he froze for a moment.
Acheron’s warning surfaced in his mind.
If he ate food from the Spirit World, he would be bound to the Spirit World.
That was why he hadn’t eaten the fruit the spirit in Dragon Valley had offered him.
The girl looked at him for a while as he hesitated with the teacup, then got to her feet and went upstairs.
A moment later, when she came back down to the first floor, she was carrying a staff glowing with bright light.
From the staff, which seemed to paint the air itself, a cluster of sparkling light spilled forth.
It looked just like the fireflies that had made the great tree so beautiful.
The lights soon formed words.
「It’s fine to drink it.」
He could read it.
It was a script he had never seen before, and yet he understood exactly what it said.
Once he confirmed that communication was possible, Lawrence’s face brightened.
“I heard that if you eat food from the Spirit World, you’ll be bound to it.”
「That only applies when your body is in the Spirit World.」
So it was fine now, while he was dreaming?
Thinking back, when he had been in Dragon Valley, Lawrence had crossed into the Spirit World by passing through a gap himself.
That was also the first time he had heard Acheron speak of a soul’s form.
Unlike a dream, he had been staying in the Spirit World without waking up.
「If you’re worried, you don’t have to drink it.」
Still, he could not dismiss the possibility that something might happen.
Not every kindness was the same.
Lawrence had learned from Acheron what the kindness of a neighbor meant.
It was not the same as the goodwill he had always known.
His hesitation was brief.
He set the cup back down.
He should act carefully. There was no need to cross a dangerous bridge just because it was in front of him.
The girl seemed to take no offense as she wrote again.
「Orel tea.」
Orel.
A familiar name had been mentioned.
She showed him a green herb with many thornlike leaves.
It really was Orel.
Strangely enough, the girl was holding the poisonous root.
“The roots of Orel are poisonous.”
「Poison and medicine are two sides of the same leaf.」
The way something was used determined whether it became poison or medicine.
Lawrence understood the meaning behind her words.
「Orel is a familiar herb to us. It’s good to remember it.」
“Do you mean it’s good for mages?”
「Yes. It helps you govern mana.」
So that was why she had offered him tea.
Because of the fight with the mud giant, Lawrence’s body was in poor shape. If Orel tea really had that effect, then she had prepared it with him in mind.
He felt even more guilty. He had refused tea she had gone out of her way to make for him.
「Arwen.」
“Arwen?”
The girl pointed at herself with one finger.
「Yes. My sisters call me the Witch of Fragrance.」
Lawrence realized that was her name.
“I see... I’m Lawrence, Arwen.”
「I know. Lawrence, the beloved child.」
Arwen’s lips curved faintly.
「Welcome to the witch’s workshop.」
It was a smile full of unadorned kindness.
Such honest emotion was always hard to face.
Maybe that was because the boy had already been through too many harsh storms in his life.
A little embarrassed for no good reason, Lawrence rose to his feet.
His steps naturally drifted toward the table.
Herbs and medicine bottles.
The scent that lingered in the room all began here.
To any eye, it was a scene steeped in magic.
He had forgotten. A witch was a mage too.
Then wasn’t this a chance he had somehow stumbled onto?
“Arwen. Could you teach me magic?”