No Longer a Witch
They say I’m no longer a witch. In a way, it was the perfect hiding place. No one would ever think of it. That the hero Kaira… no, that Kaira, now known as the witch who brought ruin to an entire ducal house, would be selling her body in a brothel beneath the eastern wall.
But the clerk didn’t seem to think so.
“Miss, even as a joke, if you blurt something like that out of nowhere, nobody’s going to laugh. If you’re short on coin, I could point you to a regular inn nearby. Somewhere cheap.”
“Thank you, but it’s not a joke. I’ve run out of money… I was wondering if there might be work here.”
The clerk frowned. He leaned closer, lowering his voice so the other patrons wouldn’t hear.
“That’s not the kind of work a well-bred mage lady should be doing. I shouldn’t be the one saying this, but a brothel is a sewer where women whose lives are already over end up. Once you fall in, it’s hard to climb back out… You’re young, and you’re a mage. You look like you could do plenty of other things. Why throw your life away here?”
Because ruining my life was the point. But I couldn’t say that out loud.
“I know, but…”
My words trailed off. Maybe he really wouldn’t accept such a sudden request after all.
A brothel. A brothel doesn’t only need whores. So then…
Something flashed through my mind.
“Do you also hire people to throw out rowdy customers?”
The clerk shrugged.
“That’s me. I also work the bar on the first floor, but I used to be an adventurer who’s dealt with monsters before.”
“Then, can you use magic?”
“Can’t. Can’t you tell just by looking? I’m an uneducated guy. Not some rich kid born into a good family and given a fancy education like you.”
I didn’t know what he thought of mages. If being born in a bakery in a good part of the capital was enough, then anyone could… Well, if that was the requirement, calling it “anyone” would be a stretch.
“I’m not a rich man’s daughter either… So, would you hire me as a bouncer? I wouldn’t have to get physical. I could just scare off or drive away troublesome customers with magic.”
I added one more line.
“And if you had a cute female employee greeting customers on the first floor, business might improve.”
It was the first time I’d ever called myself cute. My face grew slightly warm.
Surprisingly, the offer seemed to land. The clerk looked thoughtful. Finding whores was easy, but hiring a mage bouncer instead of a muscle-bound thug wasn’t. He couldn’t help but be tempted.
“Hmm. It’s still dangerous work, though…”
“I’m a baker’s daughter, after all. I haven’t done much dangerous work, but I have experience dealing with customers. And as a wandering mage, I’ve faced plenty of monsters too.”
It was probably best not to mention that those monsters had been empowered by the Demon King’s magic.
“Well, if that’s the case, I’m interested. Handling violent customers alone is pretty exhausting. Still, a mere clerk like me doesn’t have the authority to decide. I’ll have to ask the boss.”
The boss… meaning the innkeeper who was also the pimp. I pressed on.
“When will he be here?”
“He’s here, but he’s resting in a private room right now. He should be out around morning. If you’re fine with it, you can wait here with me. It’s boring this late at night anyway. Keep me company.”
To someone who might become my coworker, I forced a smile.
“All right.”
“Come to think of it, you being a mage… My old adventurer friend who was a mage always used magic you couldn’t even see. Asking spirits questions, picking locks, making the floor slippery. Useful stuff, but nothing flashy. He liked that kind of thing.”
I answered reflexively.
“Of course. Magic’s true essence is solving problems without being showy.”
“Still, us uneducated types prefer things we can see. Got any interesting magic you can show us? Nothing that breaks stuff or shoots out fire, obviously.”
“Understood.”
Melville’s Fireworks should do. It was magic I’d even used against the Demon King. I was tired, so I wasn’t sure I could focus properly, but I had to try. I took out my spellbook and a piece of charcoal, drawing the formula for Melville’s Fireworks.
Five-colored flames bloomed at my fingertips. The sparks that had been quietly rising upward suddenly seemed to fade, only to explode with a roar. The brilliant burst lit up the eyes and struck the eardrums of everyone present. It was loud enough that anyone with weak nerves might have toppled from their chair in shock. The flames and sound were intangible, affecting only the witnesses’ minds, but anyone who didn’t know that would be startled.
The clerk, watching the magic up close, recoiled in shock at the erupting flames, backing into the shelves stocked with bottles and ingredients. Only after feeling the solid wood against his back did he stop retreating, wiping cold sweat from his brow.
“It’s all right. Neither the sound nor the fire is real. Still, you were quite surprised.”
I chuckled. It was a pure laugh, without any particular emotion behind it.
“How would you drive off a drunk mage causing trouble with this kind of magic?”
“Whew. That really startled me. You really are a mage, all right.”
The clerk made a fuss. The patrons and whores who had been staggering or chatting around the tavern seemed to have recovered from the shock of the magic and began applauding. I stood up and bowed lightly, holding the hem of my robe in both hands like a magician finishing a performance. The applause grew louder.
Maybe it could be used as entertainment to draw in customers.
“What’s all this racket? I just closed my eyes for a bit.”
An old man with graying hair who looked like he’d been quite the fighter in his youth grumbled as he emerged from a small room attached to the kitchen. Even without being told, I knew who he was.
“Ah, boss! You’re up? Sorry for the noise.”
“Nah. A tavern being noisy isn’t a bad thing. But it got loud so suddenly in the middle of the night, I got curious and came out.”
“Right. So…”
The clerk explained everything that had happened to the owner, who was also the pimp. That I wanted to work as a bouncer at the brothel. Perhaps because he’d seen the magic, the clerk’s explanation was quite favorable toward me.
The owner’s expression, however, showed no particular interest.
“Hmm.”
The owner leaned in close to my face as I sat at the bar.
“It won’t work, mage lady. And Alber, if a girl like this showed up, you should’ve sent her away on your own. What made you think listening to this little kid was a good idea?”
Unable to hide my displeasure, I immediately retorted.
“Why not…?”
“First off, your face is way too pretty. Your body’s too slender, you’re too short, and overall you look far too young.”
“What?”
The owner pulled his face back slightly and continued.
“Miss, bouncers at taverns or brothels aren’t there to actually fight and beat up troublemakers. They’re there to intimidate customers with a menacing face or a large build, so drunkards or woman-crazy bastards don’t cause trouble in the first place. Do you really think someone who still looks like a child could do that? And besides…”
The brothel owner’s powerful arms, which didn’t seem to belong to an old man, shot out without warning. Before I could dodge, my mouth was covered and my throat was being squeezed.
“Mmph?!!”
“Try to get free. You can’t, can you? I’ve never learned magic myself, but when I was young I rolled around with mage comrades, so I know magic requires incantations and concentration. If your mouth or throat is blocked, you can’t use any power. How exactly do you plan to subdue a rowdy customer?”
The owner released me immediately, but I collapsed to the floor along with the chair that had no backrest.
“Khehk, cough, cough, haah…”
“Sorry for treating a customer like this, but I should still recommend a nearby inn… Huh?”
The owner’s words cut off as he watched me coughing painfully in the same position I’d fallen. I narrowed my eyes and glanced at his face. He seemed to be looking me up and down, appraising me. Worried that my identity had been exposed, I looked up at the owner with a frightened expression.
The owner slowly walked around the bar toward me. Even as he approached right beside me, I hadn’t fixed my posture—legs slightly spread, still fallen—and that’s when something caught my eye. A sticky stain on the lower part of my dress where it had gotten wet. I realized what the owner had seen.
The owner crouched down to meet my eyes. I swallowed nervously.
“Miss. You’re wet?”
The owner whispered.
“Did getting your throat squeezed and mouth covered just now make you feel something?”
“……”
My face flushed bright red and I turned away. Shame welled up so strongly that I couldn’t look the owner in the eye.
“Now I get it. Why a mage lady who must’ve been raised well would beg so desperately to work in a place like this. I thought you were an innocent girl, but you’re twisted in all sorts of ways, just like a mage.”
He was deliberately muttering loudly to make me more embarrassed. I bit my lower lip lightly, but shamefully… the stain on my dress was slowly spreading wider.
“Your body’s small and not much to look at… But your face alone is quite pretty. It’d be a waste to send you back when you came here asking for work yourself. And besides…”
An insidious line was added.
“There are plenty of crazy bastards out there who won’t touch anyone but a small girl like you.”
I sighed inwardly. So that’s what it was. Whether on Earth or here.
The old man brought his mouth to my ear and whispered.
“Miss, have you been with a man before?”
Trembling with embarrassment, I barely managed to answer.
“I-I have…”
After saying it, I realized that alone wasn’t enough to sell myself. I raised myself slightly and brought my trembling lips to the owner’s ear, speaking in a voice so small that no one else could possibly hear.
“Hahahaha!!!”
Hearing that, the owner, who had frozen with a startled expression for a moment, burst into hearty laughter. The clerk, and even the drunk patrons watching us with interest from the corners, were looking this way with amused expressions, sensing that something was happening.
“Miss, what’s your name?”
“Ka… ……. Karin. It’s Karin.”
I almost said my real name reflexively, but fortunately I managed to stop the words that were about to come out and give a fake name instead.
“Good, Karin. Since you’re a mage, you can read and write well, right? I’ll give you the contract right away. I’ll also give you the most expensive room on the fourth floor. Well, the room itself isn’t much different from the others… but your body is expensive. Stay there and entertain customers.”
“Thank you…”
With a dazed expression, I expressed gratitude to the man who was willingly dropping me into the worst pit a woman could fall into. The self-loathing that I had reached a point where there was nowhere left to fall transformed into a filthy pleasure, and the stain on my dress continued to spread.
Meanwhile, the inn owner… and my future pimp, added one more line.
“You smell nice, miss. Like the scent of baking bread that drifts in on the wind when we close up after the night shift. Customers will like that too. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Th-that’s… because I’m a baker’s… daughter…”
I could only mutter the same answer I always gave, reflexively.
What I had whispered to the owner wasn’t much.
That every time I was used, I would heal my body with recovery magic, so my body would remain a virgin. That I would continue to do so from now on. …And therefore, I could keep selling my virginity. At a cheaper price than an irreversible virgin, but at a higher price than other whores.
From that day on, I would live not as Kaira the baker’s daughter, not as Kaira the hero, not as Kaira the witch, but as Karin—the one who had even abandoned her name—the Friend of the Free People.