—
This wasn’t Leah’s first ti entering Will’s room.
Will’s room was always tidy—partly thanks to Eir’s diligent cleaning, and partly because Will himself kept his belongings ticulously organized.
In the lab, Leah often found herself being scolded by him for the ss she left behind. “How are you supposed to find anything if the lab’s in chaos?!” he’d say.
“Who’s the teacher here, anyway?”
Leah glanced around the room, searching for the item she intended to take with her—
A weapon.
Well… for a priest, the word “weapon” did sound a bit odd.
But whenever Will accompanied them into dungeons, he always carried his precious staff.
The staff featured a translucent black crystal orb, and with Leah’s years of experience as a mage, she could tell it was incredibly high-grade—possibly with so unique functions.
He seed quite fond of it, taking it everywhere he went.
Though he rarely used it.
As a priest, he didn’t rely much on his weapon’s output power; proper chanting was usually enough.
“Ah, here it is.”
The staff wasn’t hidden but was propped up next to his desk like a broom.
“This guy… at least… at least co back to grab sothing so important.”
Leah carefully picked it up.
“Then again, everyone’s guesses were wrong. If you didn’t even have ti to co back for your weapon, you must’ve been taken away by soone!”
Gazing at the translucent black crystal orb, Leah thought for a mont before swapping her own staff out of her ring and placing Will’s inside.
This way, his staff would be less likely to get damaged.
Her own staff was just a cheap, mass-produced one—nothing worth keeping.
The first ti she saw Will bring this staff to school was during their first finals.
Since it was rare for students to bring their own staves to school, she had asked Will about its origins.
“Oh, this? It’s actually related to you, Teacher.”
“Related to ?”
“Rember when you attacked … uh… and then I fell pretty badly? Back then, Carver… my father didn’t even co to see . He just told to hurry up and get back to school.”
“…I’m sorry about that.”
“No, no, no need to apologize. If anyone’s to bla, it’s your employer. Anyway, to make ands, he gave this staff.”
“So your father does apologize with gifts? I thought he was the type to just offer empty words.”
“Not really? He’s pretty good at keeping up appearances. But I don’t usually have much use for it. Today’s a good chance to test it out.”
Later, Will had enthusiastically explained how rare the staff was, detailing the dungeon they had cleared to obtain the translucent black crystal.
But…
What Leah rembered most vividly wasn’t the staff’s rarity.
It was the faint trace of sadness Will had shown when he ntioned being neglected by his father—just a fleeting mont when he seed like a student who hadn’t quite grown up.
And the way he looked at the staff, as if it were a precious treasure.
It was rare to see Will show such an expression.
Since it was such an important gift from his father, Leah decided to bring it along.
Who knows? Maybe he’d use it to clobber the woman who had taken him away!?
Leah took the staff and stood up. A breeze from the window rustled the pages of a book on the desk.
“Hmm?”
She noticed that the book on the desk was Will’s beloved notebook.
He often brought it to class, though she rarely saw him take notes in it.
“What’s written in here?”
“…As a teacher, I’ll just take a quick look at one page. I respect privacy, and this page just happened to be open. I’ll just glance at it…”
Protagonist.
The wind quickly flipped the pages to the very last one.
That page was filled with the word protagonist.
“……”
The handwriting was a bit childish, as if Will had written it shortly after learning how to write.
“Protagonist?”
The word felt out of place.
From what Leah rembered, Will had never participated in any school plays, nor did he seem interested in popular novels.
Why would he write that word?
Could it be…
Was there soone he had feelings for, soone he saw as the “protagonist” of his life?
“This is definitely odd. I’ll need to keep an eye on this.”
Leah didn’t dwell on it. She put the book back, turned, and left Will’s room, closing the door softly behind her.
Click.
—
So afternoon during the past three years…
Perhaps during a rare lull in the busy lab, when the sunlight stread through the windows and the leaves outside glowed green, Will casually asked—
“Leah, have you ever thought about sothing?”
“Hmm?”
Leah set down the book she was reading and looked up at him.
“You know how witches can use crimson mint essential oil to enhance the flow of their magical circuits? Do you think it’s possible for ordinary people to do the sa?”
“Hmm…”
Perhaps because Will often paused in the lab to ask her “academic” questions about magic, Leah instinctively approached this from a scholarly perspective.
She had actually researched this privately.
Witches, through the use of crimson mint essential oil, could indeed achieve more efficient spellcasting and break through their limitations.
Except…
Except for the side effects—overexcitent, heightened sensitivity, and occasional ntal instability, akin to using a potent stimulant—it had no adverse effects on magical circuits.
It was an incredibly effective auxiliary tool.
Not just for experintal breakthroughs, but also as a potential lifesaver in dungeons.
“The biggest issue for ordinary people is the difference in bloodlines compared to witches. So we’d need to understand what makes a witch’s bloodline unique.”
Leah closed her book and extended a finger, speaking with the seriousness of a teacher giving a lecture.
“The most distinctive feature of a witch’s bloodline is probably the closer connection between their magical circuits and their blood. The crimson mint essential oil stimulates the blood, which in turn affects the magical circuits. So, for ordinary people to achieve the sa effect, they’d need to bridge that gap first.”
Will nodded thoughtfully.
“Right, so if we were to use it on soone, we’d need to address that first. As expected of Teacher Leah—I hadn’t thought of it that way before.”
“But it’s impossible, isn’t it? Achieving that would basically require altering an ordinary person’s blood and circuits. It’s nearly impossible.”
Leah imdiately dismissed the idea.
“What if we introduced witch blood? If soone were injected with witch blood—assuming their blood types were compatible—couldn’t a portion of it integrate into their body, creating a slight possibility?”
“That’s a terrifying idea. I’m not giving you my blood.”
“I don’t want it either. But… hmm… if we were to create a tool or spell for this, we’d need to study the bloodline and blood type of the ‘subject’ first…”
Leah caught onto sothing strange in Will’s words.
With a teacher’s intuition, she felt like this kid was up to sothing.
“Hey, you’re not planning to use this on soone, are you?”
“Well… maybe I’m just reminding you, Teacher, that this could be useful for ordinary people too?”
“Hmph. We witches may be witches, but we’re not as devious as you, always scheming. We wouldn’t use this on ordinary people.”
With that, Leah gave Will a sharp karate chop to the top of his head.
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