The Witch of Silence — 2
"Ye-yes?! Th-the, the Great... Witch of Silence?"
Watching Lena tilt her head in confusion, I found myself at a loss for words.
The Great Witch of Silence was one of Ragnarok's romance routes.
She was the mid-boss of the story of Lacey, a dagger-wielding heroine.
A villain who, from her entrance to her exit, never spoke a single word—just relentlessly bombarded the protagonist with every dark spell in existence.
Silver hair, blue eyes, a genuinely beautiful girl—but thanks to her vicious dark magic, her off-tempo attack patterns, and her spell spam that came with no cooldown whatsoever, players universally ranked her among the worst characters in the game.
Could it be a case of the same name, different person?
Thinking back on that merciless dark-magic combo, she hardly seemed like the girl standing here, barely able to string a sentence together and blinking like a startled rabbit.
And yet, even setting that aside, the sheer talent in front of me—plus the silver hair, the blue eyes, and the name Lena herself—kept nagging at me.
Haa. Why does a villain keep landing in my options?
Right. Let's think this through.
If I took her on as a disciple, I could count on losing another route to my care, just like with Sowol.
Which would leave me exactly one route remaining. From a pure risk-management standpoint, walking away and finding someone else might be the smarter call.
But every girl I'd searched for through the Church and the information guilds had failed to meet my standards.
If that much digging turned up nothing, then maybe there simply was nothing to find...
"Um, umm..."
Watching Lena fidget as she tried to work up the nerve to speak to me, I let out a sigh.
Fine. Rather than burning more time hunting for a talented disciple, it'd be better to just take her in.
"Wh-what's... what's w-wrong?"
"Nothing at all!"
"Eep!"
Think positive.
The Great Witch of Silence hadn't just shown up in Lacey's route—she'd crashed into other characters' routes too, spamming her dark magic all the while.
If I won her over properly now, I'd never have to watch that filthy dark-spell spam pattern again.
I'd already accepted that teaching Sowol had thrown a few things off course.
Would one more addition really change much?
"Hiiik..."
I looked at Lena, trembling like a newborn fawn.
Her long silver hair was caked in dirt and grime, her pretty face smudged everywhere with sweat.
Her hands were covered in cuts, and her body was painfully gaunt, as if she hadn't had a proper meal in ages.
Simply put, I'd never seen anyone quite as destitute as this destitute kid.
"You. Do you live alone?"
"Yes? Y-yes."
"I see."
Kids who don't grow up under an adult's protection always end up cowed like that.
Which meant there was exactly one thing for me to do.
Raise her with love and care.
If I could bring her up to be a functioning human being, I could teach her magic properly and still reach my own goals.
Yes. Let's try it that way first.
"Where do you live?"
I asked Lena as gently as I could manage.
She led me there, hesitating every step of the way, and the destination was a little cabin deep in the woods.
Cabin was a generous word—this place was little more than a collapsing ruin of a house.
Could anyone actually live like this?
"Th-this is it."
But she seemed to consider it her home in her own way, because Lena looked genuinely proud of it.
I stared long and hard at the ruin—no, the cabin—and Lena, fidgeting under my gaze, finally worked up the courage to speak.
"U-um, um. I, I l-lost consciousness, and..."
"Hmm?"
"When I woke up, I was... right n-next to... that cabin... there."
Her voice started out strong and shrank smaller and smaller as she went.
Stumbling over her words, Lena talked her way through the whole story, and piecing it together, it went something like this:
Lena had no memories of her past.
Roughly two years ago, the first thing she remembered was this forest.
She knew her own name—Lena Stella—but with no idea why she'd been in the woods or how she'd come to be left there, she had no choice but to live in the forest alone.
That cabin was something she'd found back then too.
It seemed to have belonged to a forest keeper who'd long since left the woods, and she'd settled into it, scraping out a living by gathering whatever barely edible things the forest offered and selling them in the village.
And on her way back from selling herbs and mushrooms this time, she'd found me.
"So how did you learn to tell medicinal herbs from poisonous ones? Edible mushrooms from toxic ones?"
"I-I just... sort of already knew... I think."
"You don't know who your parents were, you don't know where you lived, you don't know why you were here—and yet you know that?"
"H-hiik. I-I'm sorry...."
There was nothing to apologize for, yet there she was, hunched into herself.
Watching Lena hunch her shoulders and tremble all over again, I gave a slow nod.
She doesn't know. But I do.
Granted, only because I'd played the game.
Lena Stella, the Great Witch of Silence, had originally come from the Dark Cult—a splinter faction of the Asura Cult.
The Dark Cult had secretly gathered orphans and subjected them to countless experiments, and the girl who survived them to the very end was Lena.
The Cult's plan was to forge Lena into a merciless demon and use her to topple the Asura Cult, with themselves at the center of everything afterward. In the end, the Asura Cult crushed them and wiped them out to the last man.
But in the chaos, the Dark Cult had smuggled Lena out as a contingency for the future.
Later in the game, the Asura Cult recovered her, and she became a demon who answered only to their commands.
In other words, right now was before her retrieval. Before everything went wrong.
"Wh-why are you staring at me like that...?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
If I simply left her alone, this girl would one day become the cold, ruthless Great Witch of Silence—destroying everything she touched, without ever understanding why.
But now that I'd taken her on, I couldn't let that happen.
Now that she was my disciple, I intended to make sure she'd grow into a proper human being, at the very least.
"Shall we go inside, then?"
"Y-yes...!"
'S-someone's coming inside my home—for the first time ever!'
She'd heard about it once, back when she visited the village—what you're supposed to do when you invite a guest into your home.
First priority: bring out tea.
Having decided as much, Lena threw open the cabin door and darted inside.
'There were herbs that make good tea!'
"H-here. Um. Please, s-sit. Sit down there...!!"
She hurriedly gestured toward a chair on the verge of collapsing, then rushed deeper into the cabin.
She'd kept a supply of herbal tea leaves, saved for the day she might someday make a friend and invite them over.
She finely ground the withered, brittle leaves and slipped them into a teapot missing a chip from its rim.
Then, straining the tea through a clean cloth, she poured it into a worn old cup and offered it to Lee Hyun.
"H-here you are."
'Will he like it? He won't get angry over tea this shabby, will he?'
"Thank you. Hmm... you know, living out here can't be easy, though."
"Huh?"
"It's dirty, and cramped. There's quite a lot of clutter, too."
"Oh! Then... d-does that mean y-you'll be... l-living here too, Master?"
Her eyes sparkling, Lena looked up at Lee Hyun.
She had lived alone her entire life.
And now, suddenly, there would be someone living with her?
'Is this... what they call family?!'
She'd seen it sometimes on her trips to the village.
Brothers and sisters, always together, always getting along—so unlike her, who had always been alone.
Lee Hyun wasn't all that much older than her, so surely it would be fine to think of him as a big brother.
"Heheh... hehehe!"
"From now on, I'll call you Ren."
'Aaaahhhhhhh, a NICKNAME!!'
She'd heard about them once, on a trip to the village.
Pet names—what people who were close to each other called one another.
For Lena, who couldn't even manage a proper conversation with anyone, let alone get close to them, a nickname had been something she'd truly, desperately wanted all her life.
Maybe that was why. Her expression began to melt, soft and gooey, as if it might drip right off her face.
"Hehehehehehehehehehehe! I-I'm R-Ren..."
I wish he'd say it again. Clasping her two fists tightly together, Lena's eyes shone bright.
"Ren. First things first—we're cleaning."
As if he'd read her mind, Lee Hyun called her by the nickname without missing a beat, drained his tea, and rose to his feet.
Watching him, Lena scrambled busily into motion as well.
Cleaning. She'd never really given it a thought before.
It wasn't as if she'd ever minded living somewhere damp and dark.
Her days consisted of sitting around blankly, or at most, idly watching the ants march by.
Until yesterday, she would have been huddled in a corner daydreaming at this very hour—but not anymore.
Not when Lee Hyun was here—her master, her family, and her big brother, all at once.
'A j-joint project! Just the two of us!'
It was a monumental occasion.
Lena was just breaking into a beaming smile and turning to work when she froze solid.
What if I cleaned it wrong? What if I make a mistake and disappoint my Master?
Fear seized her hands, and they wouldn't move.
Watching her flinch in place, Lee Hyun reached out and took hold of Lena's stiff, frozen hands.
"You clean from the top down. Not here—start over there."
"Y-yes sir..."
"It's fine to get it wrong. It's fine to make mistakes. I'm your master, after all. If you head down the wrong path, I'm the one who'll put you right—so don't worry. Just try."
"Uuuu..."
She nodded, and set about cleaning.
He had no idea how much weight the words it's fine to get it wrong lifted from her heart.
'Wo-work hard! I have to!'
There was no room for distraction now.
Rag in hand, Lena threw herself headlong into the cleanup.
And so their monumental first joint project came to an end. Once the cabin was clean, Lee Hyun had Lena sit down in front of him.
"Starting now, I'm going to teach you magic."
"W-wow..."
"The very first thing we must do—"
Gulp.
Before the tense, wide-eyed Lena, Lee Hyun set a book down.
Then another. Thick volumes began to stack up, one after the other.
"We'll center your studies on understanding mana and the fundamentals of spellcraft."
"....."
"Study! Study is the only way forward!"
At his firm declaration, Lena stayed silent for a long moment—then slowly raised her hand.
"Good. Questions are always welcome. Ask anything you like."
"U-um... I-I c-can't... read."
Watching Lena bow her head deep, fidgeting all the while, Lee Hyun let out a quiet chuckle.
'This is going to be more work than I thought.'