Chapter 162: The Witch and The Contract of Magic (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 162: The Witch and The Contract of Magic (4)
Rapunzel considered there to have been three turning points in her life.
The first was being sold by her parents because the family had no money.
Her older brother had screamed that they couldn't, but with the family impoverished by a poor harvest, he couldn't change the minds of their parents, who had always considered Rapunzel an 'unsettling' child anyway.
The reason her parents disliked her was simple.
Rapunzel's hair grew quickly.
No, it was beyond merely 'quickly'; it was fast enough to warrant descriptors like 'incredibly' or 'abnormally'.
Her bobbed hair could reach her knees in less than a week.
It was an anomaly that couldn't be dismissed as a simple quirk of constitution, and it was reason enough for her parents to see her not as their own flesh and blood, but as a magic beast or something cursed.
Three silver coins.
For a young girl with no proper education and no use for manual labor, it was a rather exceptional price.
It was an era where people could be sold for a few copper coins.
However, this constitution didn't bring Rapunzel only misfortune.
The merchant who bought Rapunzel periodically cut her hair to make and sell wigs, which proved to be quite popular.
Thanks to this, while other slaves were frequently beaten or starved for not doing their work properly, she was spared such treatment.
The reason was that it would be troublesome if Rapunzel's body were harmed, thus lowering her 'product value'.
Aside from being ostracized by the other slaves out of jealousy, her life as a slave was reasonably comfortable. At least in the sense that she didn't have to worry about food.
The second turning point was when Rapunzel's older brother came for her.
To be honest, Rapunzel didn't recognize her brother right away.
There had already been a considerable age gap between them, but when they met again, his face was terribly worn. It was enough to make her suspect he'd come from working in some toxic mine.
At first, the merchant had adamantly refused to give Rapunzel up, but after a few 'discussions' with her brother, he became as meek as a lamb and let her go.
Rapunzel asked if they were going back home, but her brother just shook his head silently.
She couldn't hear a single word about what had happened to her remaining siblings and parents. She could only guess from his dark expression.
Her life with her brother, which had lasted for several years, came to an abrupt end on a rainy day.
When he disappeared, leaving only a short letter saying it would be difficult to see her for a while, Rapunzel couldn't help but feel utterly dumbfounded.
It made her wonder if he'd taught her to read just so he could pull something like this.
It wasn't that she couldn't guess the reason.
He always tried not to show it in front of her, but you'd have to be blind not to notice the strong scent of blood that occasionally clung to him and his frequent outings.
Eventually, he must have given up on hiding his identity, as he began to openly send her various things via undead.
The money pouches were one thing, but his sense of taste in having a corpse deliver food made her genuinely want to punch him in the face.
Living alone in a remote forest was quite difficult, but at the same time, it was peaceful in its own way.
Thanks to her damn brother's help, her finances weren't too tight, and given her upbringing, Rapunzel herself was fairly accustomed to rough living.
If the third turning point hadn't arrived, she might have been able to continue living that peaceful life.
-A witch! A wicked witch lives in the forest!
-I saw it with my own eyes! Dead animals bringing her gold and treasures! Where do you think that treasure came from? She harmed others and stole it!
-The beasts of the forest have turned violent! It must be the witch's curse!
-The truth is, the witch is a monster who has lived for hundreds of years, maintaining her beauty by sucking the life force from young maidens!
-There's a large spinning wheel in the witch's house, and they say she spins straw into golden thread! If that's not magic, what is?!
Rapunzel was dumbfounded.
Amassing wealth by commanding corpses—that much, she could almost accept.
Given her brother's profession, she never thought the money was particularly clean in the first place.
In the same vein, the accusation of 'harming others and stealing their money' wasn't entirely unbearable.
She doubted whether the eyewitness account was real, but since she'd received money more than once, it was plausible that one of those times had been seen.
But that was as far as her acceptance went.
Freely commanding wild beasts? If she had that ability, she wouldn't have needed to practice self-defense every day.
A monster hundreds of years old that sucks the vitality from maidens? She wasn't even twenty yet, why did she have to hear such things?
And when it came to the rumor about turning straw into gold, she was too flabbergasted to even speak.
This hair of hers that grew so rapidly every day. It was tricky to sell it for wigs like before, and throwing it away daily was exhausting, so she had just been letting it pile up. It seemed that had been strangely twisted into this rumor.
She vehemently argued that she was neither a wicked witch nor a necromancer who commanded corpses, but the people wouldn't listen.
The atmosphere was such that she felt she'd be tied to a stake and burned at the stake.
Rapunzel considered a bold escape, but the lord's wife protected her.
-I simply cannot believe she is a wicked witch.
-I shall take her in as my adopted daughter and prove it.
At the words of the lord's wife, famed for her wisdom and benevolence, the people lowered their raised farm tools. Rapunzel, too, secretly unclenched her fists.
She shouldn't have.
The price for letting her guard down was brutal. What awaited Rapunzel was not the warm, dignified life of a young lady, but a cold, hard prison.
Faced with a prison she couldn't escape no matter how hard she tried, she became completely helpless.
It was then, as Rapunzel was dejectedly contemplating her gloomy future, that a bone mouse—one that screamed, 'Ah, a creation of a wicked necromancer!' at first glance—appeared before her eyes.
An overwhelming sense of relief, and a burning rage toward the culprit behind this whole mess.
Caught between these two emotions, Rapunzel let out a roar directed at her accursed brother...
*
"...and that's why I misunderstood. I am truly sorry."
Thump.
The girl's apology, delivered with a bow so deep she nearly prostrated herself on the floor, was visible through the water mirror.
The girl, who had initially been shouting while literally shaking the mouse, quickly regained her composure and, upon realizing the bone mouse was sent by someone other than her brother, performed a swift change in attitude.
It was an incredible relief.
The sacrifice of the mouse, which had to use about half its body as bone-dust chalk to explain the situation, had not been in vain.
Additionally, the fact that her brother was already dead was still a secret.
The amount of chalk available to convey Dorothea's message was limited, and it would be a problem if the shocked girl started stammering and wasting time.
[The 'Tin Knight' asks if witches aren't fundamentally powerful beings!]
[The 'Tin Knight' wonders why the villagers would act so rashly, questioning what they would do if they attempted a witch hunt and were overpowered!]
Dorothea scoffed at the Tin Knight's questions.
"Not all witches have the power of the Four Great Witches, and ordinary people have no way of knowing a witch's true strength. And frankly, that perception isn't entirely wrong. You remember that bandit leader who kidnapped Adel? The one who used sword energy?"
[The 'Tin Knight' says it remembers he was the one who used a curved sword!]
"Where would a bandit like that have properly learned some martial art or mana cultivation method? He probably picked up some fragmented knowledge somewhere or just figured it out by instinct."
"It's the same with mages," Dorothea explained.
"It's not just mages who have formally studied under a master. It's not uncommon for someone born with a knack for mana to learn a single family spell, or master one spell from a strange book and use only that, day in and day out. To an ordinary person, that's a perfectly good mage, or a witch."
Therefore, the public perception of mages and witches varies wildly from region to region.
There are places where tales of respected and beloved mages are passed down, places where people tremble at the mere mention of their names in endless fear, and even places where they are treated as beings foolish enough to be tricked by a child, and flimsy enough to be killed simply by being pushed into a furnace.
"The perception of witches in this region is probably something like this: 'Something creepy and repulsive, but a being you should strike down first rather than tremble in fear of'."
After grumbling that this sort of thing was worse in the countryside than in big cities, she moved her familiar.
The skeleton mouse familiar began to write a new message, using its own body as chalk.
It was a good thing Rapunzel could read.
─Do you want to get out?
The girl on the other side of the water mirror replied.
"Yes, please! I don't want to be trapped in here anymore!"
─Come straight down. We'll take care of the guards in front of the tower. First, we need to open the door. Pick up the mouse and hold it near the doorknob—
"W-wait a minute. In front of the tower? What about the guards inside the tower?"
Dorothea's brow furrowed.
─Inside? I didn't see anyone else but you in there.
"I've managed to break the door and get outside a few times myself."
As Rapunzel raised her hand, mana flickered from it. It was something that could be called sword energy—no, hand energy or fist energy.
The party recalled Rapunzel's earlier explanation that she had 'practiced self-defense'.
"But every time, on my way down, I was caught by some strange figures and dragged back here."
─Strange figures?
"I don't know for sure. They wear something like armor, but the parts where their skin should be are like black mud..."
Dorothea thought for a moment before replying.
─Alright, then I'll send someone up. Wait there. If you have any spare mana, it'd be great if you could share some with the mice.
After confirming Rapunzel's nod, Dorothea spoke to Adel.
"Adel, you still have that mask you used when you went wild in Justitia, right? The one that blurs people's perception of you."
"Yes."
"Use that with this gem, and no one short of a master will be able to figure out who you are. Go, open the door, and climb the tower."
"Yes. I'll do it."
Adelaide agreed with a determined expression.
[The 'Tin Knight' asks what it should do!]
"Stand by. There's no guarantee things won't go south and we end up under attack."
Once the roles were assigned, they moved quickly.
Adel donned the mask, clutched the gem to her chest, and sprinted toward the tower.
"Who goes there! Stop at once—Gah!"
The guards protecting the tower tried to stop her, but while a knight capable of wielding mana might have stood a chance, ordinary soldiers were no match for her.
After knocking the soldiers unconscious and slicing through the tower's heavy door in a single blow, Adel ascended the stairs.
She was carefully recalling the number of floors the mouse had climbed, just as she reached the second floor.
Seeing a blurry shadow before her, Adel swung her sword reflexively.
A moment later, she had to desperately stop its momentum.
Slice.
Obeying its master's will by a hair's breadth, the sword stopped, having cut only a few strands of hair.
"Huh?"
And then, a girl in loose-fitting pajamas let out a dazed sound as she stared at the sword thrust before her eyes.
Her expression, her aura—nothing about her seemed outside the realm of an ordinary person.
Adel looked around.
Three or four rooms. Girls who had been wandering about unguarded, now frozen stiff at the sight of the sudden intruder.
It was a scene that looked exactly like what you'd expect if you gathered a group of girls for communal living and they were just starting to get ready for bed.
The bleakness and desolation the mice had observed on their way up were nowhere to be found.
Back in Dorothea's room, the girl in the water mirror asked anxiously.
"U-um, are you not here yet? How much longer do I have to wait?"