[V6C5] I Will Steal You, And We Will Go Anywhere
Translated by Jodas 6: Secrets of the Wedge TowerFrom there on, Tia underwent the Witch’s procedure.
Her consciousness was dulled during the procedure, so she couldn’t remember what happened very well. Regardless, she remembered spending a lot of time lying on her back, which she rarely did, so she was on edge the whole time.
From what Kai had told her afterwards, they removed everything that was necessary for reproduction, constructed mock mana organs, and inserted whatever they felt necessary for her to pretend to be a human into her body.
To finish it off, they folded the wings and talons that distinguished her as a Harpy into her body and covered it all in a human skin, resulting in a complete human form.
Finally, Kai made minute adjustments to the human form that the Witch created.
Fundamentally, that involved washing the dirt off of her body, cutting her thick and fluffy hair short, and putting clothes on her.
And thus, the Harpy Folulutia had assumed a human form.
Now with human skin, Tia practiced how to act like a human under Kai’s supervision.
How to walk with human legs, how to use her hands, how to put on clothes and shoes, how to eat, how to read and write, and all sorts of human common knowledge. She had to learn a whole lot.
The part that especially gave her trouble was figuring out how to use human fingers. Humans were incredibly dextrous with their fingers. Apparently they didn’t use their toes or their mouth for any delicate jobs.
Tia found tying knots to be the hardest part. She had to move her ten fingers in super precise motions, create a loop in the string, hold multiple strands of string together, and pass the shoestrings through those holes.
Why didn’t humans just use their mouths? That would be so much easier! Tia couldn’t help but find it baffling.
By the way, if the string was small enough, Tia knew how to make a knot in it by putting it in her mouth and using her tongue to tie it.
One day, in the middle of their lessons, Tia asked Kai a question.
“Hey, Kai. How come you know all these things but you don’t know magecraft?”
“Ah, well, that’s because I’m just not cut out for it.”
“Hmm.”
If either Kai or the Witch could use flight magic, then there would be no need for her to go all the way to the Wedge Tower, but it sounded like things weren’t that simple.
Apparently the Witch’s magecraft was a special kind that chose its wielder.
That meant, if she wanted to learn flight magic, her only choice was the Wedge Tower.
“Pirororo… It would take a big cost to give me my wings back, right? Um… fifty years of life, right?”
“And what about it?”
“Piyo, is a creature’s lifespan really that valuable?”
Kai’s eyes widened slightly in response to her simple question.
Had she asked something really that surprising? As far as Tia was concerned, that was an obvious question.
“After all, if there’s something you can’t do… it’s not like living fifty years longer will let you do it, right?”
Tia had no idea what kind of power the Witch was using, but she understood that it was something really special.
The fact that such a miracle cost a mere fifty years of life — she wondered if it would be possible to add up the lives of two or three Harpies.
Fifty years was far too cheap a price for a miracle.
“That’s a very Monster-like way of thinking. Humans see a tremendous value in the life of even one human. Especially if that life is their own or someone close to them.”
“Hmm.”
Tia did not think her life nor the lives of her companions were worthless.
That said, she did not think a creature’s life was valuable enough to cause a miracle.
If she could bring forth a miracle for only the price of a life, that struck her as a wild imbalance.
Tia’s face showed her refusal to accept it, to which Kai muttered somewhat absentmindedly.
“She uses life as fertilizer for her miracles — Indeed, the Great Witch is amazing. She is a special being; no one else can replace her. That’s why I can’t have her side with men or Monsters.”
Rather than make another ‘hmm,’ Tia decided to vibrate her lips with a “piroro.”
When she was wearing this human skin, she couldn’t make three voices at once like she could when she was a Harpy. Her throat was made differently.
That was why, in order to prevent herself from forgetting how to sing as a Harpy, she practiced her voice all the time.
She was a Harpy of Breakneck Gorge. She did not want to become a human.
The Witch’s house had many rooms, and Tia ended up sleeping in one of them.
Typically, it was Kai who taught Tia about humans and cared for her, while the Witch rarely ever showed her face.
Occasionally, she would step outside to look at the trees and flowers or she would sit on the mountain of books in the room with all the glass balls floating around as she stared listlessly out of the window.
One day, when Tia spotted the Witch in the room with the glass balls, she decided to mimic the Witch by sitting on a pile of books, then started singing.
From the moment she first laid eyes on the Witch’s beautiful appearance, there was a song she felt like she had to sing.
“Because you are so beautiful, I taught you the color of the sky.
I wanted you to feel the spring breeze wafting over my wings.
Let us see the world outside the window.
O rose, O rose, with you, I will go anywhere.
O rose, O rose, with you, I will be forever.”
If she was in a Harpy’s body, she would be able to harmonize three voices at once, but Tia also liked songs that were sung with only one voice.
Her singular voice rang beautifully and delicately like the vibrating of a stretched thread, silently sinking deeper into her chest.
As Tia delightedly sang her song, the Witch, sitting atop her books, slowly raised a hand and curled her fingers. A ball of glass came from the ceiling and softly floated down to the Witch’s hands.
The witch held onto the glass ball with both hands as her lips began to move.
“Those aren’t the right lyrics to that song.”
“Piyo! Great Witch, you know the original song? It’s a super old song!”
In place of a response, the Witch turned to face Tia.
She could feel a silent gaze coming from behind the black veil.
“Pirororo… I heard that at some point a Harpy took what used to be a love song and changed the lyrics.”
A poor man was madly in love with a woman. To propose to her, he stole a rose from the garden in a noble’s manor. However, his proposal ended in failure, and the man was arrested as a thief, then executed — That was what the song was originally about.
It was said that a Harpy took that song and changed the lyrics.
“Um… Harpies can’t write songs of our own. Monsters don’t have the ability to make things out of nothing. The best we can do is change the lyrics…”
Tia considered the meaning behind this altered song.
She had a feeling that it wasn’t simply made on a whim.
This song in particular was passed down faithfully through generations of Harpies.
“I wonder if that Harpy wanted to leave a song as her legacy, even if it was only a parody.”
Knowing this song was the reason why Tia felt a strange feeling akin to nostalgia when she first laid eyes on the Witch.
A beautiful witch who resembled a crimson rose — something in her told her to do something for this person.
That was why she had no objections to offering up her colors. She wanted to please this person.
“Sing, please.”
The Witch silently ordered her, and Tia was ecstatic. She sang the Harpy’s parody song once more.
Because you are so beautiful, I taught you the color of the sky.
I wanted you to feel the spring breeze wafting over my wings.
Let us see the world outside the window.
O rose, O rose, with you, I will go anywhere.
O rose, O rose, with you, I will be forever.
—I will steal you, and we will go anywhere.