Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode3

Episode 3: The Official Practice Exam Begins

1

It was the second time he had been blown to bits.

Ultra-destructive President Ulrike had exasperatedly told him it wasn’t possible. “I don’t know if you were reincarnated or leaped between worlds, but why not treat this second chance at life with more care?” The witch of ice and cold, who made a fortune having her people run around the city selling ice told, him much the same thing: “You can’t do that.”

They were right.

But it was possible he had wanted to fail.

After all, he had known too much success. He had always been able to do things no one else could, but that had earned him a lot of grudges. That fateful day, he only should have flown out into space, but something was off kilter and he ended up crossing the barrier between worlds. So could he make use of that spectacular failure somehow?

He had met someone during his near-death experience. She looked like a priestess with blonde hair and blue eyes, but she didn’t seem to be from Greek or Celtic mythology. She was more like something out of a picture book, but he couldn’t figure out her identity even after studying up so much on witches. He simply had the impression she was an unbound goddess who toyed with freedom.

She had appeared from the center of the circular spring and spoken to him in exasperation: “I was the one who coordinated your trip, so I kind of need you to be happy in that world. If you overturn my decision and satisfy yourself with purely human actions, it could call into question the righteousness of the gods.”

It reminded him of ATU 0729, the story with the gold axe and the silver axe. The honest woodcutter was satisfied with just the iron axe, but the goddess or spirit was pleased and gave him the gold or silver axe. Without that, he never would have been a target of his neighbors’ jealousy. So was this really a happy story for the unselfish man living a simple life? And happiness was supposed to be defined by the recipient, not the giver.

The bewitching but unguarded goddess also said, “Isn’t knowing a bit of magic good enough? Especially when you can be perfectly happy without any magic at all. Surely you’ve noticed by now that the kings and nobles who truly run that world are all old men who can’t use magic. Maleficium is only working so hard to preserve their individuality because…interfered…and stop…from continuing the…”

He woke up to see how battered his body was and to learn which world he had ended up in this time.

On the verge of death, Myousou Yagoro clenched his bloody fist and grasped at the blue sky. Slowly. Very slowly.

That method hadn’t worked.

He needed to fundamentally rethink his plan.

2

Viocia and Melehe didn’t know what was happening, but they decided to fly down to the ground for now. Not to mention it was unusual for two witches to be using a single Formula Broom. They didn’t want to suddenly lose balance and reach the ground in a less controlled fashion.

Melehe took control of the broom since she could handle a vertical landing. They gently descended toward the city.

“You’re such an idiot,” sulkily grumbled Melehe while guiding their descent (nervously now that she knew about the Rank S³).

The chocolate parfait of a sky pirate girl pouted her lips.

“The entrance exam is a competition. Anyone who shows concern for their competitors will be the first to fail the exam. So what are you doing pretending at having friends in a prep school?”

Viocia grinned despite being insulted by the person she had just saved.

“Heh heh heh☆”

“What?”

“You say that, but you saved me. By applying the brakes when I was about to hit that wall.”

“O-only because I would have been a stain on the wall along with you if I hadn’t helped!!”

“And you were so angry for Dorothea you picked a fight with those three witches all on your own.”

“~ ~ ~!?”

“Viociaaaaa,” called a voice down on the ground.

It was the glasses bandage zombie girl named Dorothea Rockpool.

“I forbid you from telling her.”

“Ehh? Why would you do that?”

“Please don’t tell her! I-it’s embarrassing!!”

Once the two witches were on the ground, they found the city abuzz with energy for so early in the morning. More than half the city’s people were exam students, so any major action by the summon restricted magic school was going to bring the city to life.

The bandage girl (who looked on the verge of unraveling in places) ran over through the crowd.

“Huff, puff. I-it’s incredible. Did you see it, Viocia? Eep. Everyone’s saying that might be the site for the official practice exam.”

“Did you say official practice exam!?”

“It’s the Source Building. It’s apparently a Maleficium building they don’t use anymore and it sometimes goes wild and produces labyrinths all on its own. The card fortune tellers were really excited. Eep. They said the big practice exam might happen in there. I-I didn’t expect a surprise event like this at all.”

“Uhh.” Viocia gripped her broom in her hands and suddenly shrunk down.

It was hard to believe this was the same girl who had been so eager to rescue her friend she blasted her way through a thick magical barrier.

“Don’t let it overwhelm you,” snorted Melehe Superlative. “You, um, have a reason you need to get into Maleficium, don’t you? Then don’t get scared just because of some practice exam in the…Source Building, was it? In fact, you need to see this as a chance to improve your standing in the ranks.”

“Huhh? Ah ha ha. Oh, did teacher tell you about that, Melehe?”

Melehe fell silent, Dorothea looked confused, and Viocia didn’t seem to mind that her secret was out. She even laughed bashfully.

“You’re so nice, Melehe. I’m glad you’re worried for my grandma when you haven’t even met her.”

“Well, she has a…difficult condition, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah. The doctor said modern medical technology has no way to cure it.”

That bombshell caused Melehe’s and even Dorothea’s eyes to widen. Did Viocia not have any problem bringing it up because she was so determined to cure it herself?

But there was more to it than that:

“Yeah, lower back pain is a real problem, huh?”

“Back pain!?”

“Apparently there’s no way to heal it right away.” Viocia sighed while smiling bitterly. “The doctor said it’s a really troublesome disease called Hexenschuss. And just like the common cold and athlete’s foot, he said you’d go down in history if you could create a medicine that fully cured it and kept it from coming back. So if it doesn’t exist, I have to work hard to make it myself! I need to help grandma feel better!!”

Viocia again gripped her Formula Broom, but with great motivation this time.

Meanwhile, another girl was hanging her head and trembling. Nearby, the white no-bake cheesecake of a bandage zombie girl had her hands uncertainly wandering in the air.

(Th-)

The prep school’s strongest witch’s thoughts were not on Viocia.

(Th-th-th-)

3

“That boyyyyy!!!”

Myousou Yagoro looked uncertain how to respond to her loud and angry yelling and finger pointing. He had only just reached the ground from the giant red-painted elevator, so what was this about?

“Hey, Melehe? Maybe you’ve forgotten because you got a little too worked up dealing with those Sassafras Cfa witches, but this is when they deliver the newspapers. You’ll wake people up if you yell this early.”

“You’re not talking your way out of this one! I won’t be satisfied until I’ve at punched you at least once! The doctor said she’s just old and nothing can be done about it!? And it turns out it’s just some lower back pain!? You tricked me!!”

In all seriousness, severe back pain could apparently be so bad it sapped the will to live, but maybe it was hard for a 15-year-old girl to imagine what that felt like.

And…

“Oh? Yagoro, you aren’t usually out and about this early. My, my. But I did see you out yesterday morning too. Have you put your nocturnal days behind you and taken up a more healthy lifestyle?”

“Bookseller.”

Hearing his name, the blond boy turned around and saw a smiling young woman in a witch’s dress and an apron printed with an animal picture. She ran the used book store he frequented. Every time he saw how her extremely ample chest distorted the apron’s rabbit face, he couldn’t help but want to be reborn as an apron in his next life.

“Hee hee. I just hope this new habit has some staying power.”

“Actually, I’m not sure I want to do this every morning. If anything, that sounds like the opposite of healthy.”

“?”

The young woman gave him a childlike look of confusion. The mismatch was honestly cute.

And for some reason, Melehe Superlative had been completely left behind by the conversation. In fact, she had petrified with mouth gaping. What was with her? Yagoro waved his hand in front of her face and got no reaction.

“M-”

Then the long-sleeve sailor uniform boy realized something.

This girl and the smiling mystery woman had two traits in common: silver hair and brown skin.

“Mom!?”

“Hello, Melehe. Sigh, I have raised quite the tomboy of a daughter, haven’t I?”

That was not at all what Yagoro had expected. Oh, so she isn’t just some gentle young woman. Yagoro found himself staring into the middle distance. This was apparently the witch said to have partially broken through the upper limits.

While the apron drew a lot of attention, she was wearing a chic black dress below it. She did have a lot in common with Melehe, just more mature. If Melehe was a flashy chocolate parfait, then the bookseller’s hat and dress made her look like a luxury chocolate cake decorated with alcohol and gold flakes.

Still pale-faced, shaking, and half clinging to Yagoro, Melehe questioned her mother.

“Why? Wh-wh-what are you doing here, mom!?”

“Well, I was just so worried about my 15-year-old daughter living on her own for the first time.”

“Have you been watching me!? How much have you seen!?”

“Hmm? To be honest, I spent several years before you arrived regularly visiting the city to prepare a place for myself here, so I saw everything, starting with when you first arrived and looked around half in tears because you didn’t know how to read your parchment map.”

”Ahhhhhhh!! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

The girl’s pride and privacy were utterly destroyed. Not just broken in two but smashed into tiny pieces. The embarrassment and shock must have been too much for her because the usually proud and elite girl held her head through her sky pirate hat and curled up on the ground.

Then her still-tremulous voice slipped into Yagoro’s ear.

“Did you think you were untouched by this, pervert? You’re one of her victims too. Now I finally understand why you wear that sailor uniform. If mom gave you that, there is only one place she could have gotten it from.”

The tutor felt a chill run down his spine.

No, it couldn’t be. Nothing that horrific could actually be true, could it?

“My, my. You really do look just like he did when he singlehandedly conquered the icy ocean☆ Hee hee. It reminds me of the wedding we held on his prized ship.”

“Gwahhhhh!! You mean this is used? It’s soaked with some stranger’s sweat!?”

Yagoro crumbled to the ground. That wife was a little bit too powerful.

But this meant that was definitely a witch’s broom the bookseller was carrying. When Yagoro studied it more carefully (despite his continuing dizziness), it spoke with the voice of a refined middle-aged man.

“Sir Myousou Yagoro, I thank you for all the help you provide the lady. I am Formula Broom – Greek Theatre. If you wish to know anything about that secret rites of Dionysus, you need only ask.”

The unnatural blond-haired boy was secretly impressed.

Apparently that wife really was a witch as well.

“I have tried to help tone down my Dionysus by eliminating his flaws, but I just can’t seem to fix his alcoholism. It never ends well when I carelessly polish his handle with sterilizing ethanol or brandy.”

“(You are not one to talk when it comes to alcoholism. You are far worse than me. Just since you arrived in this city, you got so drunk you began wielding the power of the maenads to near-instantly destroy a loan shark targeting the city’s students.)”

“Dionysus☆”

She silenced the broom. With a single smiling word. Wasn’t it said the best witches did not deny their desires and instead controlled them as a powerful means of driving them toward their goals?

The bookseller placed a hand on her cheek and sighed in a perfectly gentle way.

“Anyway, Melehe, I can’t help but notice you are still going the route of a jack of all trades. Didn’t I teach you the rest of that phrase is ‘master of none’?”

“Gh… Is that any way to speak to your own daughter when she can hold her own in any field?”

“Isn’t the excessive customization of your broom a sign that your soul is crying out for something you excel at? Maybe you weren’t conscious of it, though.”

Apparently the woman wouldn’t let up even after smashing your pride into tiny bits. A completely unprovoked punch to the nose would have been preferable.

Meanwhile, the bookseller’s gaze strayed upwards. Toward the bizarre structure that had appeared in a corner of the city, spreading out from the lake in a fanlike shape.

“So it’s already beginning for this year.”

“Do you remember what problems are on it?”

“”Oh, dear. I might have created this perfect figure by eating as much as I want and exercising, but 20 years ago, I was watching every gram I ate to keep my weight down so I could attend that school☆”

4

Carraway Cs Prep School was filled with a flurry of excitement.

The salary-focused prep school was showing an unusual amount of motivation, but only because, even though this wasn’t the actual entrance exam, a student earning a good rank on the practice exam was still excellent material for advertisements. Melehe and her Rank A were already treated like a school mascot by the faculty.

In the nearly empty cafeteria, Myousou Yagoro threw out a surprise question for the little witch in an orange, red, and purple pumpkin tart of a dress.

“You need to study the Three Aspects some more. Viocia, what is ATU 0709?”

“Uhh…Snow White! The one with the deadly apple!!”

“Good. That’s right. +1 point: The stepmother and the daughter were both beautiful, but the magical moral of the story is that unseen inward ugliness can still influence people’s lives. Even if you don’t use a mirror, telling your own fortune can confuse you or lead to self-destruction, so be careful. The same applies to the Kokkuri-san and automatic writing. Really, it’s not so much about what methods you use – it’s what you’re using the magic for. It comes down to the morality and purpose within your own heart. The uglier your heart, the worse it turns out for you, so it’s important to be a good person day to day.”

She seemed to have improved some from when she only memorized the round numbers.

“I know the details of the practice exam now.”

“Even so, why hold our planning meeting in the empty cafeteria? I pay a monthly tuition, so why can’t we just use the school’s lesson rooms?”

Because they gained nothing from letting the other students hear this.

“First, the location.”

“The Source Building. Apparently even big dragons are too scared to get close. The story is a student spent too many nights there studying and died of overwork, so her grudge continues to remake the school into a labyrinth. Yikes.”

“Why don’t you question why it is you know so much background information on a place you only just saw for the first time?”

Technically speaking, that was not a school building. Yagoro sighed.

“This time, it’s the old meal center. That’s the true identity of what all of you keep calling the Source Building. But it’s been abandoned, so no one uses it anymore. That’s probably where the practice exam will be held, don’tcha think?”

“Meal center? Ohhh, they had one of those back when I was at a normal school!”

“Once they began a system where anyone could set up shop and sell lunches to the students, the centralized meal center went out of business.”

“Phew. So it’s not some deadly school building. And if that urban legend was fake, then there’s nothing to worry abou-”

“(Of course, there is that rumor that a worker fell into a giant bubbling cooking pot around when it went out of business.)”

“Gyahhhh!? Of course there’s a story! And a terrifying one too!!”

That was enough of the history and rumors.

“As you’ve probably figured out, the building can grow on its own, creating a massive labyrinth. At its core, it’s a largescale kitchen, so it has lots of knives, pots, and ovens. The point is, you should expect it to be a lot more dangerous than if it had started out as a normal school building. There’s no telling what might come alive and attack you.”

“U-ugh. And what am I supposed to do in that place?”

“That’s the real question.”

Yagoro leaned in close to whisper to Viocia.

“(Maleficium is a ‘summon’ restricted magic school. That tells you what kind of power they’re looking for.)”

“Hweh? T-teacher?”

“(But since the practice exam is being held in a dangerous labyrinthine school, it seems unlikely they’re going to quiz you on Earth trivia, don’tcha think? Maybe they’ll ask you to investigate the pattern of the monster appearances or prevent a specific tool from transforming into one, but your task will probably be related to the monsters. I would focus my studying there.)”

“Y-you’re moving too fast. This is a sacred prep school dedicated to helping us pass the exam. It’s not the place for- gasp! I just realized there’s no one else around! D-did you plan this, teacher?”

“(The old meal center didn’t appear in a natural way, so it isn’t going to stick around for long. I don’t know the actual limit, but the practice exam will probably begin within three days, don’tcha think?)”

“D-does your first time always catch you by surprise like this? Grandma, I’m about to become an adult here in Temple School City! W-w-well, here goes nothing: nhh.”

When he grabbed the brim of his student’s hat and tugged it down, Viocia (who was inexplicably tense, squeezing her eyes shut, and lifting her chin a bit) came back to her senses.

“Armgwa?! Huh, teacher?”

“I finally noticed we were having two entirely different conversations. To further our mutual understanding, could you explain what kind of conversation you thought we were having?”

Viocia blushed bright and waved her hands wildly before finally crossing her arms to form a big X in front of her face. The pose meant “I’ll do anything you ask, just don’t make me answer that”.

And if she would do anything he asked, there was only one thing to ask as her tutor.

“Make the most of the official practice exam.”

“Hweh?”

“Specifically, improve your rank by one letter. You don’t need to reach the passing point right away. It’s much more realistic and important to gradually climb to that point over the course of the year. This is your first step on that path. If you can make progress here, then you’ll have even more opportunities in the future, don’tcha think?”

5

“Celtic magic is known for its many human sacrifice rituals. One of those rituals is the wicker man. Which of the following does not apply to that?

“1. People were stuffed inside a giant doll.

“2. Fire was used.

“3. A lot of people were killed.

“4. The people were killed before they were burned.”

“Um, uhh, 1, 2, 3, and 4.”

“Have you given up on thinking entirely, Viocia? The answer is 4.”

“Why is it always these scary topics about human sacrifice and killing?”

“Trick question warning: But the punishment the criminals hated most was being denied the honor of being sacrificed.”

Her tutor was trying to help her study, but Viocia was covering her ears while they left Carraway Cs Prep School. The change to the city was noticeable no matter where you were.

“So the entire building turned into a labyrinth just because it was abandoned by all the students?” Viocia said curiously as she craned her neck up. “It’s always there beyond the year-round diamond dust, but everyone sees it with a different shape. What even is Maleficium?”

“…”

“Bwagh!?”

After her thoughtful comment, Viocia tripped on absolutely nothing and fell flat on her face. She must have stepped on the hem of her long skirt. A skirt which did an astounding job of pulling all the way up as she fell. What is even happening here? wondered Myousou Yagoro, staring into the distance. Did she earn some divine punishment for trying to be something she’s not?

“Hey, your underwear.”

“Ahhhh! Teacher saw my more mature underwear!?”

Shut up, Miss Pumpkin Print Butt.

The official practice exam was approaching. Temple School City had countless prep schools and not all exam students used the prep schools. Then there were the untold number of girls outside the city who wanted to get into Maleficium.

Viocia took a suspiciously-sourced extra edition newspaper from a bipedal puppy familiar.

“Wow. They have a bunch of stands doing balloon yoyos and goldfish catching and stuff. It’s like a festival, Dorothea!”

“U-um. Eep. I don’t like crowds.”

Bandage zombie girl Dorothea had shrunk down. This had always been a big city, but the population density seemed to have tripled in a single day and it showed no sign of stopping. The inns were full up, so the challengers who had traveled here from a long way away were stuck renting rooms in rundown hotels that were partially on their way to being brothels already. Everyone was desperate to find somewhere to stay so they could avoid sleeping out on the streets.

(I see. Does Viocia rent a room in the shopping district because she arrived during one of these busy seasons?)

Real estate had its busy times and its lulls. If you arrive from afar for the entrance exam, failed, and only then decided to find a place to stay while you studied for next year, you might end up in that situation. Because everyone in those same disappointing circumstances would be searching for a room to start their new life at the same time.

Then Yagoro spotted a boy of around 10 wearing a filthy t-shirt in the crowd. He appeared to be looking for a pickpocketing victim, so Yagoro approached the squatters district resident and handed him a sandwich he had bought at a stand (that was targeting nonwitches who couldn’t create food from a recipe with the Happy Halloween spell).

Viocia and Dorothea had gone on ahead and didn’t notice. A pro(?) would know how devastating an opening that was.

(Stop it, Raynold. I’ll buy you food if you need it.)”

“(Geh, you!? B-but I’m not hungry. And I only go after bad people’s wallets. I saw her charging people ridiculous prices for hand puppets she claimed were talismans for passing the exam!)”

The little brat puffed out his cheeks in protest, but Yagoro only rubbed his head and left. The kid may have been right, but no game was as addictive as “noble crimes”. That was something to watch out for. You would find yourself having trouble getting along with anyone before long.

Then he noticed someone who wasn’t engaging in conversation openly or in secret. Melehe walked alongside the blond boy.

“What’s with you?”

“Something caught my attention while I was thinking back on our talk with my mom.”

She gave him a searching look.

Yagoro should have always had the upper hand, but he felt an electric tension run along his spine.

“Navigate Exam is the near-legendary tutor who enters prep schools without permission and guarantees the girl he chooses will pass the exam and get into Maleficium.”

Uh, oh, thought Yagoro.

He could tell where this was headed. There was no escaping this unscathed anymore. What mattered was how deep she managed to dig. He couldn’t let these thoughts show on his face.

“Wouldn’t that mean you yourself have gotten into Maleficium?”

Time froze.

A thick, invisible wall separated them from Viocia and Dorothea’s cheerful conversation not far ahead.

“You shouldn’t have known what my mom was talking about when you were looking up at the building the practice exam will be held in,” continued Melehe. Like she was investigating the contents of a box, one at a time. “Anyone who doesn’t pass Maleficium’s entrance exam will forget what was on the exam. Just like memories of last night’s dream fade away. Learning mom graduated Maleficium was a surprise, but it’s at least an explicable surprise. I understand how she could recognize the practice exam: ‘So it’s already beginning for this year.’ But not so with you, pervert tutor.”

“And? It’s not like we couldn’t hold a conversation about it. She generally meets us at our level and explains everything for us.”

“Maybe, but remember what you asked her? ‘Do you remember what problems are on it?’ You wouldn’t think to ask that unless you had something in your head to compare her comment to. If you didn’t recognize what was there in front of you, you would only wonder what she was talking about. I know I did.”

Melehe stared intently at Yagoro.

“Do you think I didn’t overhear your conversation with Schanze? You said you would mess with the inside of the broom so it would read in a different geographic location if Aristotle pissed you off again. But that means you would be accessing the core. Something only Maleficium students can do.”

“If you’re that curious, you could always go and check all the prep school lists of students who passed the exam, don’tcha think? You won’t find me on any of them.”

“That’s my point.”

She didn’t hesitate.

She had the tone of someone who was already convinced.

“'Are you an unprecedented genius who was entirely self-taught but still managed to pass the exam on your first try – something that’s never been done before?”

This accusation held great meaning. Since anyone who didn’t pass the exam would forget what was on it, not even the greatest prep school could collect past exam questions. That was why a prep school’s rank was determined by its number of successful students. But that changed if someone from Maleficium helped them. This tutor was the only one who could gather the necessary knowledge. Knowing all the past trends would make it a lot easier for him to choose what his student should study.

“That still leaves the question of what a boy who can’t become a witch was doing attending Maleficium, but it does explain the current situation. And thanks to our battle against the Sassafras Cfa trio, I know you can ignore the rules of this world and use magic without a Formula Broom.”

Yagoro briefly fell silent. And he reached a conclusion.

This is fine.

She’s still only scratched the surface. She hasn’t noticed how much deeper this goes.

“Sometimes you do run across miracles like this in Temple School City,” she said.

“How about asking your mom for help? She seems to be a Maleficium graduate.”

Melehe waved her hand dismissively. Maybe getting her mother’s help would reflect poorly on her when it came time for her to lead Private Striga.

All that aside, they had left the prep school to visit Viocia’s room.

“You were so reluctant to let me see your room before. What changed?”

“You followed me against my wishes, is what happened. And now that you know, there’s no point in hiding it.”

He knew better than to let that dunce know he had only asked to visit today because he was afraid she would get caught up in the festive mood of stands and street performers if he didn’t see her home.

“Eep. Wow.”

And come to think of it, Dorothea was the only one who didn’t know already. The place wasn’t running since it was still daytime, but she seemed overwhelmed by the sketchy business in front of her.

“Y-you rent a room here, eep, Viocia?”

“Yup! And since you’re here, come on in.”

Viocia grabbed Dorothea’s hand and marched in.

The place actually seemed more dimly lit during the day. The dancer inside widened her eyes in slight surprise. She apparently didn’t wear the skimpy, see-through costume all the time, so she was wearing a cardigan and holding a feather duster, giving her more of a homemaker vibe.

“Oh, my. We don’t often get a lot of young girls here. You really shouldn’t walk in the front door like that. You don’t want people getting the wrong idea, do you?”

“Ah ha ha. Sabbath Party is nothing like that.” Viocia cut in with a smile. “It’s a cheerful witch business where the customers come in looking glum and leave with smiles. Olivia here helps me come up with mnemonics for memorizing things, Strena the bodyguard accompanies me to the flea markets on her days off and helps me haggle for reference materials, and Mr. Kevin’s late-night cooking is the best. They’re all great, teacher. They can do so much I can’t!”

“I see. I would imagine so.”

“Heh heh☆ You have my word it’s 100% true.”

The dancer with the feather duster smiled bitterly. She may not have been used to this kind of praise. The reserved young woman (who had somehow ended up working at a place like this) whispered to the girl.

“Hey, Viocia. Inviting your friends over is fine and all, but are you really going to let them see your room as-is?”

“Geh!? You’re right, Olivia. I forgot to tidy up!!”

Hurried footsteps clambered up the steep stairs to the 2nd floor. The tumultuous sounds thundering down from the ceiling were enough to know this was going to take a while.

And once Viocia was upstairs, something new happened.

“E-excuse me.”

Melehe hesitantly raised a hand. That bundle of confidence had suddenly grown timid.

“Um, I need to apologize. I seem to have misjudged you based on my ignorant biases. I assumed this was a l-lewd place.”

Olivia the dancer looked puzzled at first. Then she used a quick twist of her hips to send her short, nearly-see-through skirt aflutter.

“Oh, we are very lewd here.”

“Wahhhhhh!!??”

Swimsuit-like Halloween costumes were the norm in this world, so what had Melehe seen? She blushed bright and just about fell backwards, so Dorothea had to support her from behind.

Olivia placed a hand over her mouth and giggled, but once she met Yagoro’s gaze, she bowed. Deeply. It was a surprisingly proper bow.

“That girl has told us so much about you. Please continue to look after her for us, teacher.”

“That is my job as her tutor, don’tcha think?”

He meant that as a serious response, but it earned him a casual kick to the shin from Melehe. She must have wanted something with a more romantic mood. But why would Viocia’s landlord go to this much effort for her?

“We are all self-taught witches here,” explained Olivia. “Since you know so much about the exam, you must know what kind of city this is. Sabbath Party is a gathering place for those who gave up after failing the exam one too many times but also couldn’t bring themselves to leave the city.”

Was that why they had accepted Viocia? They knew the anxiety and hardship of having freshly failed the exam, so they couldn’t turn away a girl who needed a room because her home was too far away to attend a prep school from.

There were those who felt resentment and jealousy when they saw someone with what they had already lost. There were others who would sabotage those people and mock them. These girls had only just been on the receiving end of that sort of abuse at the hands of the infamous Sassafras Cfa Prep School.

But Olivia and everyone else who worked here were different. Yagoro felt he could trust his students’ assessment that these were great people.

“That girl is yet another witch living in this city of failures. And she already knows the bitter flavor of that failure.”

“Yeah…”

“But she doesn’t need to taste that bitterness again. So please, teacher, help her. I want to see her smiling from the joy she finds in the dream that remained unfulfilled for us.”

“I swear I will. Like I said, that is my job as her tutor, don’tcha think?”

6

“Come on in, everyone.”

Viocia’s room was small. The bed, desk, and closet took up about half the space. But it was still a very feminine room. For example, the desk by the window had a three-sided mirror on top, so it doubled as a dressing table. A space larger than a cutting board at one edge of the desk was covered with thick cloth and a charcoal iron sat on top of that. It may have been an old one Sabbath Party had given her. It was looking like the dancers here really doted on her.

A sweet scent hung in the air, so did she have a habit of snacking while she studied?

The small room felt very clean and refreshing, but…

“Viocia. Eep. Wh-why is your closet door bulging like that?”

“Yeah, make sure you don’t touch that. Ha ha ha. It’ll explode if you open it now, so seriously leave it alone!!”

Was that her idea of tidying up?

While the tutor didn’t need anything more than a few pairs of street clothes, indoor clothes, and sleepwear, he doubted that small closet was enough to hold all of a teenage girl’s clothing. She appeared to have a few small wooden boxes under her bed as well.

“M-my underwear is in there, so stop paying attention to it. Bad teacher.”

“The pervert tutor strikes again.”

He had accidentally stepped on a landmine there. A girl’s room was full of dangers.

With Melehe and Dorothea here too, he doubted there would be time to really focus on studying, but since he was actually in her room now, he decided to give her some advice on how to best arrange the room for studying.

With the noise from Sabbath Party, she would have a hard time studying for long periods in her room at night. But there were other options.

“Viocia, keep your flashcards next to your bed. You need to build a habit of learning one of them as soon as you get up in the morning.”

“Ehh? Teacher, if that really worked, then what was the point of all the studying I’ve done?”

“If you learn one a day, that’s more than 300 learned in a year.”

“Uh, when you put it like that…”

“That’s more than a full set of flashcards. It’s still spring and you want to start that as soon as possible, don’tcha think? With the exam, anything you can get basically for free outside of your studying hours can give you an edge. And for memorization, you can attach notes to anything you use a lot, like the iron or the water pitcher. By combining the knowledge with those memories, you can preserve the term in your memory. Make them about the size of a sticky note…no, forget that. (They don’t have those in this world yet, do they?) Make them about the size of your thumb. The long lists of herbs and Black Mass info is made to be looked up in a chart, so they aren’t really designed for memorization. By having to write them down with limited space, you have to figure out how to abbreviate them, which will help you remember them.”

“Hmm. So could I get Olivia to give me some old ribbon and cut that up?”

That would work great. Those dancers would have rolls of the stuff and it was good that she came up with the solution herself instead of regurgitating an answer someone else gave her. Although this way of thinking was more in line with Crowley’s idea of linking book knowledge with actual experiences to learn it on a physical level than it was with Gardner’s idea of writing your own book to organize the contents of your mind.

To take that a step further, simply creating a cheat sheet could be seen as a way of studying through experience. But that method wasn’t recommended since other people could get the wrong idea and you would have to fight your own temptation afterwards.

“For the calculation problems that don’t use memorization…you can associate them with a relaxing and time-consuming activity. For example, you could practice palmistry or write out weather control equations on the mirror while you take a bath, don’tcha think?”

The witch entrance exam didn’t require some fancy legendary weapon. That was plain enough from the fact that witch’s preferred to model their weapons after the everyday broom. Dedicating every part of your everyday life toward the exam was the standard path to success.

“That said, you should always only use one study method per category, like herbs, incantations, or potion recipes. That way you know what kind of memory to draw on for that category of knowledge, so you don’t have to worry about it getting all jumbled up in your head.”

“Does that really work, teacher?”

“Try it out for a few days and you’ll find out for yourself, don’tcha think? And if you have too much to learn and have to use the same study method for different categories, you can organize the categories by ribbon color or something like that. It’s only a second best plan, but that way you can organize the knowledge a lot like organizing your writing implements and other odds and ends in smaller boxes within the same drawer. Even if it’s a compromise, you need it to work as well as it can.”

Melehe held a hand to her forehead.

“Why would you tell her this when we’re here? That isn’t going to give her an edge.”

“Oops.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” innocently said Dorothea while toying with the bandages wrapped around her.

7

It arrived sooner than expected.

Late at night, right at midnight, a great boom echoed across the entirety of the city. Everyone living there looked up into the night sky to see Maleficium’s old meal center towering over them.

Unlike when Demon Lord Aristotle appeared in Carraway Cs Prep School, this covered the entire city instead of just one building. Maleficium’s Jongleurs had activated a wide-area siren.

(Not long now.)

Summon Restricted Magic School Maleficium would be holding an official practice exam.

Myousou Yagoro only had time to quickly wash his face, brush his hair, toss parchment plans into his HEA house’s vending-machine-sized tank to have a quill-sized electric toothbrush made from the dirt within, and brush his teeth with that. He tossed on his usual long-sleeve sailor uniform and made his way to Carraway Cs Prep School, where he found a lot of students had already gathered. The prep school’s structure building was the best place they had to work on their Formula Brooms, so that wasn’t surprising.

Everyone was on edge.

No one took an optimistic view. The girls gathered here had all failed the exam once already. This was their first official practice exam in their year at the prep school. The results here would greatly change how the rest of that year played out for them. Life could be cruel. They all already knew that, if they didn’t dedicate themselves enough, they could find themselves mercilessly forced onto an unwanted path in life.

“Ugh. Good morning, teacher…”

“An exam student is supposed to dedicate every moment of her life to studying, so it deeply bothers me that you sound like you just woke up, but right now we need to focus on your final preparations. We’re going to open up your Formula Broom, okay?”

“Yes! Time to break the seal!!”

Bandage zombie girl Dorothea and sky pirate girl Melehe were busy performing their own maintenance at another work desk. They opened the broom handle like a three blade propeller to check the descriptions within and made sure to tune up the personalized map of Earth.

The witches and Formula Brooms conversed while completing their final preparations.

“Heh heh. A more aggressive forward-leaning position would be better. I guess I would say it would enhance my mood by half a tempo. You can sense the feelings flowing from me, can’t you, Melehe?”

“I don’t understand anything you’re saying. You musicians and you’re ‘feelings’…”

Meanwhile…

“…”

“Um, uh, eep, uh.” Dorothea was clearly troubled.

She wasn’t Yagoro’s student, but he couldn’t stand to just watch so he intervened.

“If you need any help, Dorothea, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll lend you a helping hand…or fist.”

“”Th-there is no trouble here! The work is going smoothly!! Request: stay far away from me!!”

The only broom that didn’t reply no matter how hard its witch tried was Viocia’s. She pouted her lips, but this was unavoidable.

They were at separate work desks, but the girls were chatting with each other.

“Um, do we take flight from the window instead of the chimney? Eep.”

“Yes!! Although for the Black Mass, the witch would reach the roof from the chimney so her family wouldn’t see her. Okay, now for the ointment. Ooh, I know! I’ll go with the safe choice! I’ll use Thunberg's geranium and heal-all for extra stability at high speeds!!”

“Uh. Eep.”

While Viocia excitedly cared for her broom, Dorothe hid behind the girl and tearfully rubbed ointment onto her own body. The ointment meant to reduce her apparent weight must have still wounded her pride, but had she noticed that she was using less and less of that ointment made from common agrimony, common ash, and her own fat? Her jogging didn’t seem like much, but it appeared to be gradually showing results.

“Melehe, your ointment is turmeric and wolfberry…so an instant speed boost?”

“Vertical takeoffs are convenient, but they’re unstable until you start to accelerate.”

“Your broom was having trouble thanks to that trio, right? Did you get it fixed in time?”

“Yes, I did.” The silver-haired girl didn’t look his way while she twirled a crow feather quill in her hand. “As its name would suggest, Formula Broom – Mount Parnassus is a witchcraft device focused on Orpheus, but its greatest feature it’s the flexibility provided by its many optional parts. I’ve given it handlebars, gauges, adjustable lights, a seat, and luggage holders. And I’ve given all of that a distributed parallel damage suspension system made from the pure gold needed to make the trip to the afterlife. Thanks to that, the damage didn’t reach the Three Aspects structure. Once I got the cushioning rebalanced, it was back to its original specs in no time.”

(Oh, no. She’s never going to stop talking about this once she gets started, don’tcha think?)

He should have realized from the moment he saw all the extra parts on her broom. Melehe was obsessed with customization and she liked to talk. Just like Earth’s dekotora drivers.

Up at the lectern, gyaru-style Schanze Dwelling clapped her hands to gather everyone’s attention. She spoke to them all with her tanned skin, blonde hair, dealer-style vest and tight skirt, leopard print show-off bra, and wrist scrunchie making her look like a Mont Blanc.

“Okay, listen up, everyone!! We totally just received an official announcement from Maleficium. The super cool official practice exam will begin at their second signal today. For the practice exam, you need to enter the old meal center on your own, avoiding all the dangers wandering around in there, and collect four numbers distributed randomly around the place. That’s totally all there is to it☆”

(Dangers, huh? So it’s like a test of courage in an abandoned building. I thought it would have something to do with monsters, but this sounds worse than I thought. They’re not going to ensure the monsters are at a level the students can defeat on their own. In quantity or quality.)

The prep schools were not compulsory education, so some girls diligently listened to the instructor while others continued their work. And Schanze wasn’t going to repeat herself either. The students could be seen as disrespectful, but unlike the boring classes of compulsory education, they could be greedy when it came to getting a leg up on the competition.

“The inside of that building is totally a labyrinth, so you can never know what objects inside will turn into a monster and attack you. There could also be false rumors and misinformation coming from the other students. You can try to take the easy way out and ask someone else for the numbers if you want, but keep in mind that you’ll only be throwing away your own future if you screw that up and end up with bogus numbers. You can diligently search them all out, you can gather a few and estimate what the rest must be, or you can rely on your network of friends. From here on, it’s totally up to you. Good luck!!”

Even in the same prep school, all of the students were rivals.

And this was the official practice exam. Girls from every prep school and from all over the land would be flying to that old meal center in ruthless competition. They would be spreading as much misinformation as they could, so you couldn’t expect to find the answers through cooperation.

The broom maintenance didn’t last forever.

Repeating the process over and over when it wasn’t necessary could actually wear out the parts or cause a malfunction.

“Ugh. I need something to keep me busy.”

“Viocia. While this is a practice exam, there are no safety measures inside that old meal center. The things wandering the building will truly be trying to take your life. You can’t defeat them all and you’ll end up having to escape most of them with low-altitude flight. Obviously you need to avoid running into walls, but just remember what you always do and be careful.”

“What I always do? You mean nap and scribble in my notes?”

Maybe expecting basic exam-taking knowledge from her had been a mistake.

With nothing left to do, the future witches gathered by the windows with Formula Brooms in hand. Silver-haired Melehe gripped her broom tight and bandage zombie girl Dorothea retied the white bandage around her forehead like a headband. Maybe it helped her focus.

They were all waiting for the next booming siren.

Yagoro wasn’t as restless as Viocia, but he did wonder if a long wait or a short one was easier here.

Then the time came.

The artificial boom of the siren shook the entire city of marble and obsidian.

Every window opened at once.

And not just at Carraway Cs. At every prep school across Temple School City.

The old meal center jutted out diagonally from the central lake to lean over the city in a kilometers-long fan shape, so it wasn’t a place one simply walked to.

The witches mounted their brooms and jumped from the windows. Confident Melehe and even timid Dorothea stared directly at their destination and flew up into the night sky.

There was nothing left for a tutor to do.

“Viocia!!”

“I know, teacher! I’m off!!”

8

How long had it been?

Myousou Yagoro stared up into the night sky from the window of Carraway Cs Prep School’s structure building.

He could see an occasional flash of light from the windows of the old meal center, forming a towering diagonal fan shape up above. The witches searching the interior were probably using magic.

“How long are you going to stay by the window? This is going to be a long night. I mean, they’re supposed to collect four numbers? Even if they can totally fly at supersonic speed, finding just four numbers in that giant labyrinth has to be hell. That’s like clam digging over a space of 10km or more.”

“Now this is a surprise, don’tcha think, Schanze? You don’t normally wait for your students to return.”

“Don’t be stupid. Prep school instructors are totally required to be rescue personnel in case of emergency.”

Which meant she was paid for this part. And as long as she was getting paid, it was just like Schanze to actually obey that responsibility no matter how dangerous it got.

“And this is only a practice exam. The real exam is so much worse, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

What was going on in there? There had to be a lot of things wandering that abandoned building and the students could try to sabotage each other as well. Their task was to collect four numbers. There would be baseless misinformation going around and some girls might try writing fake numbers on the wall.

Their lives were at risk.

Even if the witch responsible only saw it as a harmless bit of sabotage, it could lead to a serious injury.

“So it has finally begun,” said an old man with a bald head and bushy white beard who had appeared at some point.

Even Yagoro had failed to notice his arrival.

He wore the thick robe that was seen as a symbol of the educated class in this world, but he was a man. It seemed strange for a man to be headmaster of a witch school, but this was a prep school. Running one of those required business acumen more than magical knowledge and skills.

Plus, everyone was focused out the window at the moment.

“I so wish I could do this for her,” said Yagoro.

“Same. Assuming they would totally pay me extra of course☆”

9

Myousou Yagoro’s wish was granted in an unexpected fashion.

But that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

Boooooom!!!!

One corner of the old meal center exploded from within, spewing flames and rubble into the air.

The building had been sticking diagonally out over the entire city and now it had exploded. Stones larger than people’s heads and shards of glass poured down onto the city.

Screams echoed up from the ground, but they didn’t sound all that terrified. Most likely, everyone was watching from inside the buildings. This was not the shopping district, which was busy even at night.

Something had gone wrong.

Not even Maleficium would cause damage to the ordinary city like this. This was clearly an unplanned accident of some sort. The blond boy’s hands squeezed the windowsill tight, but the explosion had occurred far overhead. He couldn’t just walk there. Which meant…

“Schanze!!”

“Yes, yes. I’m being paid for this, so I’ll totally fly up and take a look around.”

The gyaru-style instructor mounted her Formula Broom at the window.

Yagoro took a seat behind her.

Despite the gyaru-style look, she noticeably blushed.

“Hey, wait! Don’t just grab me around the waist like that!”

“Hurry.”

“This totally isn’t happening. You can’t just do this. Do I need to throw you off in midair? If you’re going to hold me close and whisper a command in my ear, you’d better be paying me.”

“This big hair is in the way. I can’t get it out of my face. But whatever – just hurry it up. If you don’t, you’re the one the practice exam officials will be upset with, Schanze. And this is the official practice exam, so Carraway Cs’s headmaster can’t sweep it under the rug if you screw it up. Look, the old man’s already gone off to hide somewhere. Useless coward.”

“~ ~ ~!? Vwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

She leaped from the window.

A self-taught witch was someone who fought against society with her own skill instead of authority or academic history. Schanze complained, but her flying was steady.

“I would really prefer not to have a boy riding me.”

Merlin or Myrddin or whoever was a complainer too.

“Omens and jinxes really bother him. Maybe because he does prophecy?” said Schanze while demonstrating perfect flying form to reach the roof of the diagonal old meal center.

She used the large roof as a runway to have enough space to decelerate and land.

Once both of them had their feet on the ground, Yagoro drew the baton from his hip and swung it to extend it to around 70cm.

“Is the practice exam still on?”

“We haven’t received a carrier pigeon saying its canceled, so I’d say yes? But if there are any girls who have lost the will to fight and we don’t collect them, they’ll be totally devoured by the monsters wandering the place.”

That meant the Benandanti and the Witch Doctors wouldn’t be mobilized. For one thing, Maleficium was only renting out the test site. They couldn’t give anyone extra help before they had a chance to complete the practice exam, so intervening could render the entire practice exam invalid. Had they decided to let the students deal with it themselves?

Measuring from the lake at the very bottom of the bowl-shaped city, they were at least 300m up. That was about equivalent to a 100 story building.

But that was easy to forget with how solid the place was under their feet.

When they slipped into a hallway through a window, they found something unusual right away.

The place had been called labyrinthine and that was an accurate description. The structure was strange. Silver countertops jutted out from the walls and ceilings. Water supplies that should have been behind two layers of door for sanitation reasons, witchy herb gardens, and even an outdoor parking lot for carriages were all in the same place. The floor numbers on the wall had become corrupted text. Thoughtlessly climbing the stairs could easily send you to a strange space that wasn’t the 2nd or the 3rd floor.

The bizarre scene was overwhelming, but something else caught their attention more.

“The cleaning supplies locker, don’tcha think?”

“Totally.”

Instead of the locker door, Schanze crouched down and stabbed her obsidian-handled athame into the floor. The knife’s moonlight shadow flickered unnaturally. The gyaru-style instructor sprinkled various dried herbs around to pursue the shadow and trap it back in a single shape.

The invisible distortion surrounding the locker vanished.

Someone was curled up inside. Neither of them recognized the girl. She only muttered to herself and didn’t react when they opened the thin door. Her entire body was so tense they could tell just by looking at her.

“Formu…– The Scandinav…help….Antecessor…”

Something solid but light clattered out onto the floor: a dream catcher and a Be Silent Spell Bottle. Both talismans would preemptively capture invisible malice and curses, such as bad dreams or rumors, preventing them from reaching the owner. However, they weren’t capable of stopping the evil god, sorcerer, or other threat creating the malice.

(Did she think this would shelter her? She probably knew she was using them wrong, but she didn’t have any other choice. Purifying them with fire or water or lighting some exorcising incense would have worked better, don’tcha think?)

“Look how hard she’s clenching her teeth. She did everything she could.”

The gyaru-style instructor thumbed off the lid of some smelling salts. The vial of course contained a witch’s potion, so it would even work on cursed sleep or possession.

“But she tried too many things at once. Just keeping the seal in place must have totally worn her down mentally.”

“Which tells us something in here scared her so bad she overprotected herself to the point of collapsing.”

This was the old meal center, which meant it contained an industrial kitchen larger than a theatre. When they looked around some more, they found students in more than just the locker. More were hiding in the locker room, the shower stalls, and even the large silver refrigerators that were ordinarily packed with magic ice.

None of them were responsive.

In the moonlight, they all looked deathly pale.

Seeing all the witch students curled up with empty eyes, Schanze Dwelling, who lived life as she pleased as a self-taught witch, put a hand on her hip and sighed in mild exasperation.

“If they were this scared, they totally could have flown out the window. Or is there something here that causes their Formula Brooms to malfunction?”

“They probably just didn’t want to give up on the practice exam, don’tcha think?”

The entrance exam created a unique set of values and mental state in these girls who hoped to be witches. Yagoro had seen enough of that already with Demon King Aristotle and the trio from Sassafras Cfa.

But the overly tense girls were still alive. Yagoro decided to leave them for the other prep school instructors who had since arrived, so he looked deeper into the darkness.

This had all begun with a massive explosion, but what had exploded?

(They ended up like this when they hid and sealed themselves away, so I hope there weren’t any girls who failed to escape at all.)

A deep tremor ran through the building. And before he could gasp, another one.

This was no accident. Something had to be fighting. It could be two of the wandering monsters attacking each other, but if any of the witches in training were involved, he couldn’t just ignore it.

“This is totally going to mean more glass and rubble pouring down on the city.”

The meal center had been used to prepare food for more than a thousand people, so it was quite large. The pots lining the wall were large enough to bathe in. And the interior extended chaotically in every direction, forming a labyrinth.

Yet the place still felt claustrophobic.

Yagoro felt a pressure, like invisible walls were slowly closing in on him.

“Hyah?”

He grabbed Schanze’s slender hand and ducked below a nearby countertop.

With another tremor, the cold hard floor of marble and obsidian sank down a few centimeters.

Thanks to a foot.

Something unbelievably heavy had stepped right next to them as it walked past. The scraping sound they heard did not come from the floor or the walls. The thing’s head was scraping against the ceiling.

The giant stood more than 4m tall. A distorted three-legged body swung side to side as it walked. The moonlight entering through the broken windows reflected with a dull silver luster.

“(What…is that?)”

“(Sh.)”

The blond boy borrowed Schanze’s athame and silently stuck it out from below the countertop. He used the blade as a mirror to get a look at the monster.

He got a close-up look at the stout hunk of metal in profile. An unpleasantly biological mouth with thick lips and teeth was opening and closing. Was that white steam audibly shooting from the joints?

(But…three legs? What is this a distorted version of? If it had 5 legs, it would be a Buer. If it had a single snake or fish tail below its waist, it could be an echidna, a mermaid, or any number of other things. If the third leg is supposed to be a tail, maybe it could be following the standard image of a demon?)

They could only wait for it to pass, but Schanze proved she really was a witch by analyzing the monster just like the blond boy.

“(It’s totally not a toaster or an oven. Could it be a dishwasher that uses steam to clean the plates?)”

A kitchen item.

Witch hunt torture implements were generally tools like ladders, wheels, or smithing furnaces, but execution and sacrificing implements were a different story. For example, in the Earth country of Japan, criminals were once boiled to death. They could also be cooked in a pot instead of burned in flames so they would suffer more before they died and the corpse would be salted. In Europe, the victim would be suspended in a hanging cage until they starved to death.

A map was pasted on the underside of the countertop. Was that part of the building’s distortion? It wasn’t any help now that the place was a labyrinth, but it did contain some curious information. It was divided into colored sections.

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… 6? This is part of a school, but it guess it isn’t divided into seven territories ruled by the bosses of the seven school mysteries. …No, wait. Is it a total of seven if you count the outside of the building?)

At 4m tall, that metal monstrosity could swallow a human whole. It was a cell of death filled with steam of more than 100 degrees. It was best not to imagine what would happen to you if it chased you down and caught you.

After confirming the giant had lumbered into a different room with so much hot steam trapped inside, Schanze breathed a sigh of relief.

“That was too close.”

(You idiot!!)

Yagoro didn’t have time to caution her. Schanze had carelessly stuck her long broom out from below the countertop.

A short distance away, that thing came to a stop and turned around.

It didn’t have eyes or a nose, so it shouldn’t have been possible to know which way it was facing, but they could still tell it had turned toward them. They could feel the pressure of its “gaze”.

The three-legged monster had locked onto them.

“Eek.”

Yagoro heard a straining sound.

Schanze Dwelling tightly gripped the reins attached to her broom handle.

“Eek, ee, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!?”

And she flew away without a second thought.

Leaving behind Yagoro and an unknown number of students.

The straight hallway continued for more than 500m, so an indoor takeoff was in fact possible.

“Ho ho. You are so despicably cute, Schanze. Nothing looks better on a strong-willed gyaru than tears of humiliation.”

“Shut the hell up, you old geezer!! I totally wish I’d left you on the floor and run away! There’s even an Aspect of Amorality legend saying that Isobel Gowdie placed her broom in her bed when she went to the Witch’s Sabbath so her family wouldn’t suspect! I don’t get paid extra for it and there’s no way I could win a direct fight with that thing anyway!!”

“Yeah, you made the right choice here, Schanze,” said a third voice.

Silence followed.

Schanze glanced to the right while pouring with sweat aboard her broom.

Myousou Yagoro was casually running alongside her.

“Here’s your athame, by the way. A witch shouldn’t abandon the tools of her trade like that. Besides, you- what?”

“You have to ask!? How are you keeping up with a Formula Broom totally moving at full speed!? How many Mach numbers do you think we’re moving? And you’re doing it on foot!!”

Even if the labyrinth was dozens of kilometers long, it was still an indoor space. Catching up to a flying witch on foot wasn’t completely impossible.

(But no matter how much I master witchcraft, flying is the one thing I can’t seem to do. Almost like there’s something stopping me.)

“ATU 0510a – Cinderella. One night of the multiday ball, the bell rings to signal the end, but the prince and all his men failed to capture the departing girl.”

You couldn’t explore the labyrinthine old meal center if you couldn’t manage this much. The structure was a mess, so there were trash chutes fallen on their sides and even areas where you had to pass through an oven taller than a person or a freezer room covered in white frost. So just like passing your hand swiftly through a candle’s flame, you had to pass through too quickly for the heat to reach you, or you would die.

“Also, Schanze, you did a good job.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

The gyaru-style instructor gave him a suspicious look, but he was serious. When she had fled, he had sensed another presence nearby. Most likely, it belonged to a student trembling behind cover. They couldn’t allow the steam-filled three-legged dishwasher(?) to reach the girl, so shouting and fleeing in a different direction had been a lucky shot for Schanze as a prep school instructor.

Couldn’t her broom do prophecy? Maybe it had stimulated a 6th sense in her or something.

(But in that case…)

“Schanze, we should turn left up ahead, don’tcha think?”

“Kyahhh!?”

Schanze screamed when Yagoro suddenly pushed the tip of her broom to the side. She veered into a large room off of the straight hallway and just barely managed to stop before crashing into the wall. Formula Brooms really were extraordinary to turn as sharply as a bicycle while moving at supersonic speed.

“…!! –––––!?”

Schanze was just about ready to yell at him, but she held her breath when a rumbling reached them from the hallway. The sound of escaping steam was unexpectedly close by. Yes, they could not continue playing tag forever. Now that they had drawn the three-legged thing away, they had to lose it.

If they stayed in one place, it would just search all the rooms for them, so Yagoro wordlessly beckoned Schanze over and led the way. The labyrinthine structure meant the hallway wasn’t the only way to get around.

“(Totally what is this place?)”

Schanze nestled up against Yagoro and clutched his coat like a scared girl during a test of courage. She was so nervous because of what she saw behind the thick glass.

Beakers, flasks, and colorful liquids. Some kind of cold lab equipment lay before them. They were no longer functional, but those looked like book-friendly moonlight seals in the ceiling lights.

“(Did Maleficium’s old meal center do herbs and alchemy too?)”

Visiting there wouldn’t help them, so Yagoro walked on past making his own guess.

None of it looked all that suspicious. The scrolls stuffing the shelves were probably full of nutrition information. There were a few large cloth bags on the floor and he opened one to find it was full of parchment cards.

“Was this for quality control and testing out new menu items?”

Even if it was a general meal center, they must have wanted to give the students what they wanted if at all possible. The parchment cards all contained food requests. The purpose of a general meal center was to help the students stay healthy no matter their financial situation. The place was creepy and abandoned now, but it must have once been full of people passionate about their jobs.

“Are these recipes?”

Schanze made sure not to step on the parchment littering the floor.

Yagoro glanced through the scrawled-out text.

“Let’s see. ‘Mix the juice of boiled dog tongue with the wolf claws and wait for it to cool.’ ”

“Don’t look so disgusted. Those are totally just alternate names for herbs.”

The sailor uniform boy did a double take toward the gyaru-style instructor.

Schanze seemed confused by his shock.

“This is a surprise. Didn’t expect someone who dresses like that to know how to cook. I assumed you relied on bike deliveries or instant witch recipes.”

“What about me made you think any of that?”

With witchcraft, it was common for texts to be encoded using strange symbolism based on similarities in color or shape. But even that was better than the cryptic symbolism found in alchemy artwork.

While the three-legged monster was searching the various labs, Yagoro and Schanze emerged into the hallway and moved deeper inside. That thing didn’t seem likely to pursue them now.

“H-hey, Yagoro. Could you defeat that thing with your magic?”

“That’s a meaningless question, don’tcha think? Would our situation change any if I destroyed that countertop there with my fist?”

The aim of the practice exam was to find four numbers. That meant no one was ever intended to defeat that monster. The students were meant to either hide from it or escape with the speed of their broom. Trying to fight would get you killed if you lost, but it would only wear you down even if you won.

“If your anxiety is getting to be too much, why not reduce your brain’s processing power with a quiz? Okay, Schanze, what is ATU 0510a? Hint: glass slippers.”

“Why would I know? I’m a self-taught witch who totally doesn’t have to worry about Maleficium’s entrance exam.”

He was pretty sure you didn’t even need to be a witch to know that one and he had given the answer himself earlier, but maybe the story was only seen as a specialist magic text in this world.

At any rate, he wanted to investigate the site of the explosion.

Until they ran into any obvious enemies or traps, they decided to keep a slow, careful pace. With the locations of enemy and ally unknown, they could end up guiding an extraordinary monster to a student who was trembling in hiding after escaping with high-speed flight.

They silently walked down the dark hallway. They frequently spotted strange monsters. A lot of them used blades or flames. And each of them was just as powerful as the three-legged one, if not more so. Even when they didn’t see it for themselves, they could hear them slithering up above the ceiling. They did not engage. Without a solid plan that let them create a united front, clashing with every monster they encountered would only wear them down until they were killed.

“Huh? Is that what I think it is?”

They found one of the numbers. A piece of parchment was attached to the bottom of a large mixer, which was a metal cylinder the size of an Earth metal drum combined with a rotating blade powered by a foot pump. **8*. The parchment even provide which digit it was.

That said, they had no way of knowing if this one was legitimate. An unkind student could have left it here. And placing it location on the bottom of a giant mixer felt malicious.

They continued walking a while more.

Thanks to the extreme tension, each step seemed to physically wear down their stamina.

They spotted some kind of lump in the hallway up ahead.

As they approached, they found it to be someone collapsed while holding a Formula Broom.

(Is that…?)

“Are you totally serious? Melehe Superlative?”

Things had to be bad. That girl prided herself in her future position as leader of the Private Striga coven, so falling to the floor like this had to be humiliating for her. Even if she hadn’t reached the peak of her skill yet.

For once, frightened Schanze actually ran out ahead of Yagoro.

That was a mistake. She shouldn’t have strayed from the survival strategy that had brought them this far.

Orange light flashed out. It broke through the wall to her side and swelled out in a massive explosion.

“Goh!?”

“Schanze!!”

She was thrown to the opposite wall.

Had she…protected the collapsed Melehe from the blast? Was doing the job she had signed up for something self-taught witch Schanze prided herself in?

“Teacher!!”

Yagoro recognized that voice. The destroyed wall led to a large room. Everything inside was scorched black and the outer wall had been knocked down, allowing the night wind in. Was this the site of the explosion? But it wasn’t large enough to fly around on a broom. Viocia held her Formula Broom in her hands like a sword and looked his way. Was that Dorothea trembling next to her? Dorothea had her forehead bandage tied extra tight, probably to keep her glasses from slipping and to help her focus on controlling her broom.

Then there was the giant.

Something blatantly inhuman boasted incredible deadly power.

Orange embers danced through the air.

Something large enough to scrape its head on the large room’s ceiling was facing the girls. The bipedal giant resembled a bronze bull. It must have had a furnace inside because its bronze body glowed orange.

(The Horned God? I know it’s a bull, but that doesn’t narrow it down much. If it’s a goddess with cow horns, it would be Isis, but its body looks masculine. For a male god associated with bulls, it could be Dionysus, I guess.)

But he was wrong.

“Watch out! It doesn’t use fire to attack. Melehe said it’s actually a pressure cooker, so its breath is dangerous because it crushes you with its pressure, not because of the heat!!”

“+1 point: if this is a deadly bronze pot, then the symbol it acquired in the distorted labyrinth is probably Moloch.”

Moloch.

That was originally an agriculture god worshiped by the Semitic Phoenicians. But in contrast to the gentle image of an agriculture god, his demand in exchange for a good harvest was the regular use of ritualized human sacrifice where children under the age of 6 were thrown into a bronze statue heated by flames. For this reason, the Old Testament depicted him as the pinnacle of brutality and one of the greatest forms of evil. For better or for worse, he was a being of immense power.

But since this was another world entirely, the information and circumstances found in the Earth mythologies could be ignored. Yagoro decided this would work as a tentative definition for the monster: a killer pot that started out as a kitchen tool and now moved autonomously to capture its targets and cook them inside its cronze form until none of their flesh or bones remained.

The students were never meant to stand up to something like this.

The best option was to never be found. The second best was to escape. The worst was to try to fight it.

(Wasn’t there a rumor a worker fell into a large pot before the place shut down?)

Rumors were only rumors. For one, a pressure cooker had to be locked shut to seal the interior before it could be used, so you couldn’t accidentally fall in. But where there was smoke, there was fire. He decided to assume there was a kernel of truth to the rumor.

And now the thing had been transformed by the abandoned building’s conversion into a labyrinth.

However, there was one silver lining here. Since the practice exam task was to collect the four numbers, defeating Moloch and ensuring the injured students’ safety would not count as intervening.

(I don’t actually gain anything from fighting it, but I don’t think it’s going to just let us go.)

“Viocia, do your best to not provoke it while you move slowly along the wall and leave the room. Dorothea, can you walk?”

“Eh? Oh, um, uh. I-I think so.”

“Melehe and Schanze are collapsed out in the hallway. You two gather them up and escape to safety.”

“Wh-what about you, teacher!?”

“Schanze said she didn’t receive a notice of cancelation via carrier pigeon, so the practice exam is still on. So don’t think about anything else. Focusing on the exam is your job, don’tcha think?”

Yagoro took a step past the broken wall. He walked toward the monster when he didn’t even have a Formula Broom.

He stared down the 4m statue of scorching bronze at close range.

He twirled his 40cm baton and gripped it tight.

“So I’ll clean up all the other trivialities while you do that.”

10

A massive tremor ran through the building. Standing more than 4m tall, the red-hot bronze statue’s head scraped against the ceiling as it turned to face Yagoro.

Embers flew from its mouth.

It didn’t just have powerful jaws. Its entire torso opened up like a pair of double doors. And it would do more than just bite its victims and trap them inside its belly. The color red expanded explosively the instant it contacted oxygen and was released into the outside world.

Instead of a pot used to cook flesh and bone, this may have been more like a furnace used to melt metal for smithing. It went without saying what would happen to any living creature that came into contact with that.

A single hit would mean instant death. Yagoro kept that in mind as he nonchalantly checked the condition of the floor with the soles of his shoes to ensure he could dodge to the side quick if necessary.

And he produced a result that was plain as day.

He only gave a quick wave of his baton. That was enough for great roaring flames to burst forth.

A low tremor followed.

But this time, it wasn’t to advance. The giant bronze bull staggered backwards.

The pure flames pushed back an invisible explosion.

“Moloch, your greatest attack is all the energy contained within you and the pressure it creates. You possess enough destructive power to engulf everything with your explosions and shockwaves, but that simplicity makes composing a countermeasure a lot easier.”

With the wall and the window broken, the room was a lot like a horizontal chimney.

“I just need a greater force.” Yagoro gave a belligerent grin, squeezed his baton, and raised his voice to a shout. “A force far stronger than yours!! You can’t scare me as long as I can repel your attacks with that force!!”

He was answered by an explosion. And not just one. Moloch produced tremor after tremor, creating cracks in the ceiling, but he still failed to destroy Yagoro. Because an even thicker shockwave wall obliterated the invisible pressure producing the explosions.

The flames died and sputtered like a steam engine.

The bronze giant charged in but only passed right by Yagoro.

The bronze weapon tore apart the smoke and air filling the room and plowed through like a solid mass.

The boy turned around and swung his baton sideways to launch a giant ball of flames into Moloch’s back. The bronze statue roared, launched a flamethrower in the wrong direction, and tried to correct its misguided course.

The tutor’s fire was different from fire created with simple petroleum or explosives. It burned the copper in the bronze, but it didn’t shine blue in a flame reaction.

He had produced magic that burned the ugliness of the target’s past deeds.

“You see, Moloch, this is magic. Study enough and you can find the answer.”

Moloch breathed fire, grabbed every target within reach, and threw them into its internal furnace. It had even been targeting Viocia, Dorothea, and Melehe here. The ugliness of its deeds were a fearsome fuel that struck the bronze statue with the greatest possible force. Enough that its metal would eventually melt, destroying the monster.

But while waving his baton to manipulate the scarlet flames, Yagoro creased his brow.

Something wasn’t right.

(This thing…?)

“Teacher!!”

The girl’s cry stayed the tutor’s hand.

Their powers were about equal. Stopping could have let Moloch’s explosion crush him with twice the force. The slightest opening could have allowed an ultra-heavyweight tackle.

But none of that happened.

A low tremor shook the room. That was the sound of scorched Moloch falling to its knees. Its orange glow was gone and the embers in its mouth were fading fast.

“It can still move. You aren’t going to find any numbers in here, don’tcha think? So stay away from it, Viocia.”

“Y-you don’t have to kill him now. You don’t have to go that far. Ms. Schanze has been carried away and Melehe is awake and back on her feet!”

So she considered it killing. This was a killer pot that captured people and cooked them with great temperature and pressure. It was unclear if it was even technically alive.

(Ignoring her and delivering the finishing blow would be easier and it would keep that idiot safe.)

“Uh, uhhh.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t cry, Viocia! I’m here to protect you, not to destroy Moloch!! So I’ll take the option that doesn’t make my student cry, don’tcha think? Did I risk my life here for nothing!?”

“Heh heh☆ Really? Now we can be friends with Moloch!”

The scariest part was that none of that had been an act. The tears and the immediate joy were both heartfelt.

She had said Melehe was back on her feet, but what had become of Schanze? Yagoro was curious about that, so the two of them turned around and left the exploded room.

The heavy creaking of metal came from behind them.

“Viocia!!”

Yagoro immediately tackled the girl to the floor to protect her, but her attention was somewhere else entirely. Her surprised eyes watched as Moloch resumed moving.

“Something isn’t right. This isn’t like before. He was scary at first, but he didn’t force himself to stand up even if it meant destroying himself. Something’s happening inside him!”

The ceiling swelled out.

It burst and crumbled away to reveal a trio of girls.

They wore red, blue, and green waitress outfits with puffy miniskirts and suspenders.

“Sassafras Cfa,” muttered Yagoro.

(They’re guiding Moloch with some kind of magic, aren’t they?)

Arbamini, Holibre, and Lampans were all smirking.

“Hee hee. It’s not like we hold a grudge or anything.”

“Right? We knew all the prep schools would be here for the official practice exam, so we knew exactly what to do. We’ve already given up on this year’s entrance exam.”

“We need to earn plenty of money so we can live a worthwhile life once we do get into Maleficium. And we get paid for finding likely candidates and threatening them into increasing our prep school’s pass rate. Or if that doesn’t work, we can crush them to get rid of another rival. Simple, right?”

Moloch couldn’t move.

He was trembling, almost like he was struggling against something.

Meanwhile…

“Right? If this thing isn’t going to help us, I won’t be satisfied until I’ve blown off some steam punishing it.”

“My, my. What might this be? Something came out of it.”

It was a piece of parchment. Something had been scrawled onto on it, perhaps by Moloch’s red-hot fingertip. Moloch had changed shape and function by the area’s labyrinthine transformation, but this may have depicted some inner part of him he would not let be altered.

For example, in the Earth legend of the Minotaur, the queen hid in a fake cow.

In Egyptian mythology, Isis wore cow horns.

So Moloch’s bull-like appearance wasn’t what truly mattered – what he was on the inside was.

In that case, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t strictly alive. Just like a love letter someone had worked up the courage to write, this wasn’t something a third party should reveal without permission.

Arbamini lightly waved the parchment in her hand.

It was written in human language, which meant he had a mind just like humans did.

But she still read out the text burned into the parchment.

Ruthlessly.

“ ‘I want to eat tasty food with everyone again.’ Ah ha ha!!”

This was a defunct meal center.

This monster had likely started out as a pressure cooker the size of a bath and capable of containing a human.

Moloch had indeed been a fearsome being. He was a deadly pot that would cook people’s flesh and bones away with his great heat and pressure. He was undoubtedly one of the monsters wandering the practice exam site’s halls.

But what was his original purpose?

What had he been used for before being so cruelly abandoned?

Witch cauldrons sometimes manipulated the weather and sometimes cooked food for great numbers.

That had to be all he was meant to be.

People could be so irresponsible. They would make a cooker in the shape of a doll to delight the people eating the food it cooked, but once the limbs and head started to crack, they would find it creepy and stop using it. Moloch might be an extreme form of that.

This killer pot was rumored to have caused a gruesome accident where a worker fell inside when the facility was on the verge of shutting down.

But was that really true?

Pressure cooker lids had to be locked to use them, so there was no way for someone to accidentally fall in when it was in use.

“This is so stupid. Why should we care? Stop sobbing and get to work, you killer pot. C’mon, we’ve got you under our control!”

“Right? Because you ate it. Doesn’t matter if it was a trap or a trick. You still ate the fruit we left for you!”

(Eating the food of the underworld binds you. Is this based on Persephone and the pomegranate from Greek mythology?)

The other world of Earth told of a rule where someone who temporarily fell into the underworld by mistake would belong to the underworld and lose their right to leave if they ate the food there.

Moloch was a large pot that trapped his targets inside the red-hot bronze statue and killed them with his heat. He would test strange objects or enemies by biting them. A trap that activated by eating it was about the worst possible thing for him.

Green Lampans chuckled and tossed over what she held in her hand.

“Was one not enough? Then here’s your seconds. Open your mouth, you oversized trashcan!!”

Something splatted wetly against Moloch. It was a rotten fruit. How humiliating did that have to be for a cooking tool that needed to remain clean?

“You can have it. There’s plenty more where that came from. Pff, ah ha ha! You’re bound by strict rules here. Don’t think you can escape with vague feelings or emotions!!”

Yes, rules were rules.

After unwittingly eating one, Moloch’s rejection and resistance would be gradually torn down. He roared. The abandoned space shook with the resentment of the hunk of metal that no one would treat like a cooking tool.

What little pride he had left was defiled and sealed away.

A loud creaking rang out. The pomegranate’s smashed flesh and seeds may have fallen into a joint. But still Moloch could not resist. Embers spilled from his battered face and he was forced against his will to rampage as a killer pot.

“Pff. Tasty food? Face the truth. You were thrown out. No one wants you! Bwa ha ha!! Act like the monster you are and focus on killing people!!”

“Right? Talk about an unwanted favor. I’d puke if I had to eat food boiling away in this gross garbage can. Gya ha ha. Eating that’d be torture!”

“Hee hee. You mustn’t spill garbage everywhere. If you aren’t kind to the environment, the so-called experts won’t be happy with you. Hee hee. Someone shove that rotting garbage in the garbage can where it belongs.”

“No, wait…” said Viocia.

That she tried to stop them may have meant she had already guessed what was about to happen.

An earsplitting metallic creaking filled the space.

Eerily and disconcertingly.

It was like the wail of a being who couldn’t speak.

“Wait!! Don’t bully Moloch!!”

“Why shouldn’t we? What’s wrong with destroying a monster?”

Something audibly broke.

Forcing the metal joint to operate with the foreign object caught within caused the bipedal bronze bull to shatter on the inside and collapse.

Yes, he was a monster who suddenly attacked them in the old meal center.

Yes, he was a lifeless piece of metal.

But that bronze bull had still wordlessly told them he didn’t want to fight any more and had tried his best to resist.

He kept breaking, but he didn’t know how to make his dream come true and ended up wandering the halls all alone.

It happened far too easily.

Bending sounds came from the bipedal bull.

The door on his torso bent terribly. His right leg broke off at the base, he lost balance, and the impact of the fall broke off his arm. His two-horned head was bent at an odd angle.

If he were human, he would be beyond saving.

“Ahhhhh!! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”

Viocia’s tears and shouts did nothing to change the reality before her eyes.

The cruelly destroyed piece of metal lay unmoving on the floor.

I want to eat tasty food with everyone again.

That cooking tool had helped make the students’ food for so long.

And his feelings had simply been trampled on.

“Ee hee ha ha ha!! Pathetic. This piece of junk fell apart before it could even kill anyone!!”

“Right? We actually beat one of the bosses. Too bad we don’t get extra credit for that.”

“Pff. Stop it, you two. She’s already crying, so you don’t have to rub it in.”

Viocia had lost even ordinary anger.

She was slumped on the floor and not even Dorothea or Melehe could find anything to say to her.

Myousou Yagoro calmly focused on his thoughts in that hellish scene that echoed with mocking laughter.

Feeling sorrow was fine. That was an extremely human emotion. But the very real threat was not gone. So she didn’t have time to spend on the utterly destroyed Moloch. If he didn’t rebuke his student, snap her out of it even it meant slapping her, and drag her to her feet, she would be killed.

That course of action would not be wrong.

But was it really the right thing to do?

“…yet.”

That question led the boy to his answer.

He didn’t care one whit if it was inefficient or unrealistic.

What kind of tutor did he want to be?

That line of thinking produced only one answer. So he was through hesitating.

He would say it out loud and make it a reality with his willpower.

“This isn’t over yet!! Viocia, it’s too soon to give up on Moloch!!!”

Today’s Quiz 3

Yagoro: Okay, I need to give you a quiz before you forget everything!!

Viocia: …!!??

Dorothea: Um, uh, tutor? Viocia? Eep. I-I’m really not sure what to say when you interrupt all this for a quiz.

Melehe: We have to get through this to make any progress. Um, the hints can all be found in the prep school?

Question: Fill in the blanks to explain what magical methods the human Myousou Yagoro used to defeat Moloch, the deadly bronze pot. (10 points per blank, 100 points total)

Do you see how this works now? Then in standard witch fashion, let’s start with the Three (___).

For the Aspect of Antiquity, I used the Celtic (___). That’s a (___) where a large number of people are sacrificed using fire. I started by using that to obtain deadly force.

For the Aspect of Admiration, I used ATU (___), Snow White. The magical lesson there is that the stepmother and daughter are both beautiful but their (___) ugliness make all the difference. So of course, the (___) the target’s heart, the greater the damage.

If Moloch desired to capture and kill everyone he could get his hands on, the spell would have produced the (___) power of (___) and entirely melted him, but that didn’t happen. That would mean Moloch’s heart wasn’t that ugly, don’tcha think?

Lastly, the Aspect of (___) was a chimney. When a witch leaves for the Black Mass, she would reach (___) through the chimney. With the wall and window destroyed and with smoke flowing through the entire space, I treated the room as a safe chimney to distance myself from the danger of Moloch’s tackle.

The end. Any questions, you three?

Back to Episode 2

Return to Main Page

Forward to Episode 4