—
On the second night of her stay.
The full moon hung outside the window. From the highest-class room of the luxurious hotel, the moon was perfectly frad in the center of the window, like a pearl suspended in the middle of a picture fra.
But…
To Leah, sitting by the bed…
The moon appeared blood-red.
It didn’t look like a pearl; it resembled a drop of blood about to drip from the fra, caught at the mont of perfect completion.
“Truly beautiful.”
“It reminds of a certain night…”
—
Back at Entark’s First Academy, Leah and Will often worked late into the night.
Their experints would sotis require constant attention, making it impossible to leave the lab.
When they stepped out into the hallway, they could always see the moon in various phases.
Sotis it was a crescent, sotis a half-moon, sotis slightly chipped, and sotis…
Perfectly full.
Leah didn’t have any particular feelings about the moon. Having lived for over a century, she had seen countless cycles of the moon waxing and waning.
But…
Will would always pause during a full moon, looking up at it, lost in thought—or, to put it more elegantly, admiring it.
One night, during a full moon, he had finished tidying up the lab early. While waiting for Leah to lock up, he stood by the window, gazing at the moon outside.
“What’s wrong? I’ve noticed you seem to like full moons.”
Leah had approached him, standing on her tiptoes to peek over the windowsill and take in the full view of the night sky.
“Yeah. Maybe it’s because a full moon symbolizes completeness.”
Will nodded, though his expression turned sowhat lancholic.
“I’ve heard people often attribute special anings to the moon, even using it for divination… Are you one of those people, Will?”
“I don’t believe in that stuff. I’m a staunch materialist—a devoted follower of the goddess!”
“Oh?”
“It’s just… Leah, for you, the moon is sothing you’ve seen countless tis. But for , every ti I see it, it ans I have one less month to live.”
Leah fell silent.
“Life span…?”
She had long co to terms with this concept.
For a long-lived witch, eting and parting with people was normal. As long as she could watch over him during the ti he was alive…
She wouldn’t feel like she had wasted that ti.
“No. I just… never mind, let’s not talk about it. I just wanted to ask, Leah, if one day you found your mother, settled everything, and my adventurer team retired—what would you do next?”
“What a mature and distant question.”
Leah crossed her arms, lowering herself from her tiptoes, and looked at Will.
“Well, to put it simply, it’s like the end of a play—the narrator cos in and tells the audience what each character went on to do, right?”
“I get what you an.”
After hearing Will’s question, she thought for a mont.
“Maybe I’d go back to the mushroom cottage where I grew up and stay there for a while. Take a break, enjoy so peace and quiet…”
She paused.
Witches who ventured into the “human world” often caused chaos and then disappeared, finding a place “no one could ever find” to hide.
That was basic witch behavior.
A witch who didn’t cause chaos wasn’t a good witch.
And a witch who didn’t use the chaos to escape wasn’t a good witch either!
It almost sounded like she was planning to cause so major trouble and then make a quick getaway.
In fact, when Will got involved with the royal family, she had briefly considered doing just that.
It was the most natural thing for a witch to think of.
She pulled her hat down, but through its brim, she glanced at Will.
“…If possible, I’d bring soone I like with . To live together for a while.”
No witch had ever thought like that before, right?
After all, before returning to their “private sanctuaries,” witches were supposed to sever all emotional ties.
But…
Leah was different now.
The thought of living a sweet, cozy life with soone in her mushroom cottage seed wonderful to her.
“Yes! That’s the idea! You have to hold onto that thought!”
But after hearing her words, Will suddenly grabbed her hand, looking incredibly excited.
“Uh… y-yeah, it’s… it’s a bold idea…”
Leah couldn’t bring herself to et her student’s overly enthusiastic gaze under the moonlight—her golden hair reflected in his eyes was too conspicuous. Wait, what kind of teacher couldn’t look her student in the eye?
“If he doesn’t listen, you should…”
“Poison him!”
“Knock him out!”
“Kidnap him!”
“Enchant him!”
“Take him away and live with him forever—”
Leah was used to this kid spouting nonsense, but this was on a whole new level.
Had her student always been this unhinged, or had she made him that way?
“That doesn’t sound right, Will.”
How could soone go from lancholically gazing at the moon to being this excited in the next second?
“It’s perfectly right. You don’t understand, Leah—witches doing things like that is completely normal to us humans!”
—
Leah rembered the look of anticipation on his face under that moonlight, a look directed at her. Though the moonlight back then was white, tonight it was blood-red.
“But since you’re so eager…”
Leah muttered, seemingly having stood by the window long enough, gazing at the moon outside. She gently reached out and closed the window.
“Then I’ve already made preparations…”
In her room, her signature witch’s twin tails were untied, her hair flowing freely. She slowly turned her gaze to the room’s interior.
The small hotel room was packed.
Not only were there rows of beautiful witch staves, but also boxes of chalk for drawing teleportation circles…
And countless portable explosive magic grenades.
There was even a jar of Witch Bank coins sitting in a piggy bank.
…
The largest items were the “planks” leaning against the wall, which looked like redwood but glowed with a fiery brilliance.
In addition…
On the table sat a strange contraption, with a large round glass flask at the top, connected to pipes below.
It looked like…
So kind of apparatus used for experints involving liquid input.
“What a sha. You’ve already turned your gaze to soone else.”
Leah reached out, touching the glass flask of the contraption. It was spotless, reflecting her fingers clearly.
She wanted to regain his attention.
To make him look only at her, forever and ever.
To take him away from this world entirely.
Leah’s heartbeat quickened, her blood rushing through her veins, her magical circuits pulsing wildly. Though she stood still, her soul seed to be dancing.
“I guess I’m still… a witch.”
She sat down, looking at the thin notebook provided by the hotel on the table. Beside it was a pencil—worn down to a stub, so short only Leah’s small hands could hold it comfortably.
She opened the notebook.
“This… this is what being a witch truly ans, isn’t it?”
Inside the notebook were chaotic, nonsensical scribbles, incomprehensible to anyone else. The letters looked like a tangled ss of black lines thrown haphazardly onto the paper.
The pages were also filled with…
Countless rough pencil marks, where words had been furiously erased, leaving behind smudges so thick they glead under the light.
What remained…
Were glossy, almost luminous graphite marks, reflecting the light.
“Not a good teacher.”
“Not a good child.”
“Not a good girl.”
Yet Leah, sitting there, seed to understand the chaotic text effortlessly, flipping through the pages with a contented smile.
“I know you’re here. Even though you’re not obvious, I can still spot you in a crowd, you know?”
“That’s the strength of Leah, the teacher who’s always watching you.”
Her fingers brushed over the letters, as if the scribbles were nas and locations.
“Too bad. If I try to take you away—like you said—that woman would chase to the ends of the earth, wouldn’t she?”
“What an annoying person.”
“So, the best plan is…”
Suddenly…
Leah’s fingers and smile froze.
Her eyes, which had been filled with pink, slowly returned to their original blood-red hue.
“Wha… what’s happening?”
“I can’t read the text anymore.”
“My heartbeat… it’s slowing down…”
“My blood… it’s… stopping…”
Turning back, Leah looked out the window.
“The moon… it’s… white?”
She began fumbling around the table, knocking over a teacup—it didn’t shatter, thanks to the carpet.
“Crimson mint essential oil, the one you gave , the one you taught to use…”
She found the suitcase by the table, pulled out a bottle, and gulped it down.
These past few days, she had been drinking more than two bottles a day.
Far more than her usual intake.
“Red… thank goodness, the moon is red…”
Leah could feel it…
Rather than the crimson mint essential oil activating her magical circuits and preventing withdrawal symptoms…
It was more like…
The first ti she felt its effects, Will had been by her side.
During experints, he had always been watching her.
In the dungeon, he had always been behind her.
So…
Her “withdrawal symptoms” weren’t from the crimson mint essential oil…
But from…
Will.
“Alright, let’s stick to the best plan.”
“To separate you from her in the ‘dungeon,’ and unknowingly lead you into…”
“Our love nest.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)