Interlude – The White Witch in a Cheap Room
The cramped one-room apartment measured a mere five pyeong.
Because the window faced north, sunlight never reached the room—even in the daytime—so it was always filled with a gloomy, shadowy atmosphere.
Moreover, every ten minutes a rumbling vibration and whirring noise came from nearby train tracks, the kind of train passing by at all times.
This was one reason why the rent here was so cheap.
Instead of the ceiling light, a stand lamp was used because the electricity bill was too high.
Under that shabby light, someone was reading a manga.
She was a girl with an overall gloomy appearance: messy hair, clothes that looked like she had forgotten to wash them properly so her neck looked stretched, and large glasses covering half her face.
If you looked closely, she had a face that still seemed a bit young, like a middle-schooler on the verge of becoming one, but it was obvious she had no interest whatsoever in self-care.
Stella… the girl who was turning pages of the manga with such focus that she looked as if she would get sucked in—suddenly screamed at the last page.
“Lie! It’s too much that Hesti doesn’t come back from there! Liber is so pitiful!”
Stella stomped her feet as if such a thing should never happen, her movements so vigorous that the glasses she was wearing were knocked askew.
At that moment, the other girl sleeping soundly under the blanket nearby woke up at the commotion, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.
“Sister… what’s the matter?”
“Ah, Asti. Sorry. You were sleeping so peacefully and I woke you…”
“Mmm. It’s fine.”
The girl half a head smaller than Stella was her younger sister, Asti.
She sat next to Stella with a small yawn, still looking sleepy.
“Were you bitten by a cockroach again?”
“No, that’s not it. I was just… looking at something for a moment.”
“That… a book? What? You, who hates books, actually read one?”
“It’s a manga. I picked it up from the trash bin in front of the house.”
“You picked it up? It looks so clean for trash.”
“Well… maybe they just didn’t have space to throw it away properly.”
Stella shrugged with no interest in why anyone would throw it away.
The only thing that mattered right now was how fun this manga truly was.
Asti, who leaned her body lightly against her sister’s cheerful-looking figure, checked the title of the book Stella was holding.
The title was simply “Liber” with no decorative flourishes.
This might be a person’s name. She had heard it somewhere before, too.
Unlike her sister, who liked books, Asti recalled carefully and, seeing the white-haired girl drawn on the cover, she immediately understood.
“Ah, Liber. I remember now. She’s one of the Three Great Heroes.”
“Three Great Heroes?”
“Yeah. Haven’t you heard? Hero Arthur, Prince Hendrik, and the Witch Liber, the strongest among them. She’s extremely popular.”
“I haven’t heard… This is the first time I’ve learned about Liber through this manga. There’s no Hero or Prince in here.”
“Really? Maybe the eras are different.”
Is she knowing more than I am? To satisfy her curiosity, Stella adjusted her glasses and looked at Asti.
“Do you know a lot about Liber? Can I ask one question?”
“No, I’ve only heard the name. I’m not interested in myths or legends.”
“I see… Asti has no interest except in magic, right?”
But the answer Stella received was quite disappointing.
Asti liked books, but she only read magic-related ones.
There didn’t seem to be any about Liber as a person.
Looking at Stella, who seemed a bit disappointed, Asti felt strangely pleased.
The sister who despised books was showing interest because of this one? Asti had no interest in manga, but this particular book had sparked her curiosity.
“What’s the story about?”
“That one? You’re curious?”
“Yeah. Since you’re so into it, I got curious.”
“Ufufu, is that so? Then this older sister will kindly explain it for you!”
Stella, who could finally become the older sister in front of her always-mature younger sister, happily took the first volume and began explaining the contents in a rush.
“This manga is about a girl named Liber who becomes the disciple of a witch named Hesti and grows up. Ah, witches are mages who can freely use magic without a wand. Isn’t that amazing? Witches are all super smart!”
“Hmm… yeah.”
Asti understood from Stella’s explanation that this was a manga about the childhood of Witch Liber.
In that case, the setting was thousands of years in the past.
In that era, magic was mainly non-calculative magic that consumed large amounts of mana without calculations.
Of course, wands that assisted with calculations wouldn’t have been needed.
Asti didn’t try to explain any of that knowledge.
She didn’t want to pour cold water on the excited Stella.
“The story starts from when Liber was born in the village called Lipori.
From a young age, Liber was close to the villagers.
She tried hard to revive the village suffering from debt.
So at eight years old, she and her childhood friend Arthur tried to make paper but failed.
At nine, she walked around the village helping with work.”
“Lipori? Arthur…? Wait, sister, is that the blonde guy?”
“How did you know? A super wavy blonde handsome boy!”
“…Is this an original setting in the manga? Or is it actually true? Childhood friends?”
“Huh? What did you say?”
“Nothing. Next, explain the story, sister.”
Lipori was a famous place as the village where a hero was born, and Liber, a witch who was childhood friends with a boy named Arthur…
If this was an original setting added by the author, it was quite reckless.
But if it was real, what an absurd coincidence.
Even Asti, who had no interest in hero stories, became excited by the tale and urged Stella to tell her the next part.
“However, no matter how hard she tried, there was no way to repay the debt.
So Liber accidentally met the witch Hesti and asked to become her disciple instead of repaying the village’s debt.
Hesti, with her kind heart, accepted her request, and that was how she became the witch’s disciple.”
“Liber… is quite a self-sacrificing character.”
“Right? But in the manga, she never shows her true feelings.
She’s completely tsundere!”
Stella said that and spread the manga book to show Asti a page.
There, the white-haired girl with an overly cute appearance turned her head away from the blonde boy while saying, “It’s not like I became a disciple just for the village or anything!”
Her blushingly embarrassed face was the very definition of an honest tsundere.
The illustration quality was so high that the author’s affection was almost felt.
“After becoming Hesti’s disciple, her actions got even more amazing.
She mastered basic magic in just half a year, which would normally take a normal mage five years, and passed the Great Witch Lethe’s exam in one try to become an official disciple!”
“Who is Great Witch Lethe?”
“Her master who taught Hesti magic.
At the time Liber met her, she was already a legendary being who had lived for hundreds of years.”
“Completely a grandma. Isn’t it too long?”
“Witches in this era don’t age.”
The setting is too over-the-top.
Asti, who had some knowledge of magic, barely swallowed the words that rose to her throat.
The mages she knew were humans who could use magic.
Humans transcending or something like that never happened.
But Stella, completely unaware of Asti’s dumbfounded expression, happily explained the story she had read.
“After being recognized as a disciple, she fought Marina at a witch’s meeting hosted by Lethe, went back to her hometown Lipori to save villagers swept up in a landslide, and single-handedly defeated bandits who had taken over the village to rescue kidnapped people.
That was at ten years old.”
“Ten years old is… what?”
“And at eleven, she created a magic to make paper and books.
Isn’t that amazing? At that age, I couldn’t even sleep because of it!”
“Even at that age, that was only three years ago.
Wait, but sister, you couldn’t sleep by yourself three years ago?”
Asti, who learned this for the first time, asked with wide eyes.
Stella quickly averted her gaze with an “oops” face.
It was an obvious slip-up.
Stella closed her mouth tightly and groaned in embarrassment.
Asti hurriedly changed the subject.
“Sister, is there a magic to make books? Is it Biblion?”
“Eh, Asti. How did you know that?”
“I’ve read it in a book.
It’s an incredibly complicated ancient magic that even university professors who teach magicology can’t manifest.”
“Really? Such a difficult magic? In the manga, Liber asks surrounding mages and witches to teach her.”
“Yeah.
In the past, you had to nest primitive magic, which was considered basic magic, thirty-three layers at the same time.
Plus, the mana consumption was too great.
They say that if you don’t succeed perfectly, you end up with a mess.”
Ah, so Liber really was a genius of magic!
She created such a difficult magic at only eleven years old!
Stella’s heart pounded as she grew even more respectful of Liber thanks to Asti’s explanation.
Asti, slightly irritated by Stella’s reaction, grumbled.
“…I think it’s a lie.
A mage who has only been learning magic for a year couldn’t possibly create a magic as difficult as what modern university professors fail at even with high-performance wands.”
“What nonsense! She’s a hero who saved the world! A genius of the era! Of course she could!”
“At the very least, there wouldn’t have been intact magic forms and formulas left from thousands of years ago.
It was probably created as a joke by later generations… Kyaa! Sorry, sister! It’s dizzy!”
“Cancel that! If you doubt Liber, I won’t forgive even you, Asti!”
She wasn’t even into religion!
No matter how much she wanted to argue, Asti surrendered to the dizzy feeling spinning in her head.
The fist really is closer than the theory, huh.
Asti, leaning her head against Stella’s shoulder and groaning, changed the topic again.
“So… what happened next?”
“…At twelve, she learned that her mana attribute was star mana.
Then, while her master Hesti went to the Northern Region to block monsters, she was entrusted to Great Witch Lethe and began learning star magic.”
“Hmm… I see.”
“But in the manga, this part is super emotional.
Actually, Liber at that time was in poor health due to the massive mana influence.
So Hesti brought her medicines from far away every time.
That’s why Liber gradually came to see Hesti as a precious family member.
Even while Hesti was away and entrusted to Lethe, she prayed for her safe return.
But when she was about to become an adult, the war with monsters finally ended… but Hesti didn’t come back and disappeared!”
“Then she must have died.”
“No! She’s alive! I’m sure there’s a reason Hesti couldn’t come back!”
How could she say such cruel words!
Stella gently shook Asti’s cheeks with both hands while she spoke calmly.
Asti, with her cute octopus lips, turned to her with another logical reply.
“Liber is a person from thousands of years ago.
If you’re curious, just look it up.
Then you can find out if she met Hesti or not.”
“Ah, no! I haven’t even read the childhood part yet! No spoilers!”
“Then I guess you have to read the next part of the manga.”
“But I’m worried about what happened to Hesti! I’m scared to read the back!”
“You’re such a pain…”
After a long while of bickering with Asti, Stella suddenly checked the time.
One hour before her part-time job started.
She had better leave soon.
Stella stroked Asti’s hair and stood up from the seat.
“Then I’ll go to work.
There’s rice in the fridge.
Should I pack it to eat?”
“Yeah. Come back, sister.”
“If your cough gets bad, take medicine on time.
Depend on Grandma the landlord!”
“Okay, okay.
I’ll go before I’m late.”
Stella changed into her few outer clothes in the closet and left the house while glancing back at Asti several times.
It was a rather chilly day.
She adjusted her clothes and headed out.
When she left the vicinity of the house, the street gradually filled with more people walking by.
After walking about thirty minutes, the towering skyscrapers came into view and the flashy neon signs below hurt her eyes.
It was a familiar scene, but it still hurt.
Stella, who wanted to see a starry night sky full of stars like in Liber’s story, suddenly looked up at the sky.
But in the pitch-black night sky, there was no sign of any starlight anywhere.
The sky was so lonely.
Stella, standing still and gazing up, suddenly noticed the news scrolling on a large electronic screen.
“…The Helia Comet, which passes by every thousand years, will arrive in two weeks.
The sight of the night sky filled with a brilliant comet has been told to be extremely beautiful, recorded in history a thousand years ago.
Astronomical mages say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…”
“A comet…?”
Even if it’s a comet, in this completely black sky without a single star, will it appear?
Since it’s a rare chance, it would be nice to see it with Asti.
Stella thought that and took a step forward again.