[V8C11] It’s a One-Time Offer…!
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the BoundaryWith Wren dangling beneath her feet, Tia relied on the wind of the wind spirits to carry her Northwards.
Without her flight feathers, gliding on her wings resulted in a terribly unstable, shaky flight.
The wounds carved by those mantis Monsters stung horribly. She had multiple wounds on her back. A huge gash from her right shoulder to her waist. And the deepest of all was the right side of her neck that was bit into with tremendous force.
By a Harpy’s standards, this level of pain registered as ‘I’m not fine, but I’m just barely hanging in there.’
She might die if she let these wounds stay as they were, but she should be fine as long as she could get to a place with high mana density to recover. That was the gist of her situation.
“Tia! Where are we going?!”
A Harpy could make three voices at once.
While singing her song to the wind spirits, Tia tried to answer Wren’s question. But, before she could speak, Tia’s body started to shake.
Her candies had run out of time.
(But I’m so close…!)
Her spread wings and bared talons slowly disappeared underneath a human skin.
Feeling the pain and discomfort of her flesh rending itself and foreign objects being shoved inside, Tia screamed.
“GYUIIIIIIIIUGUUU!!”
Tia continually lost altitude. Just before they reached the ground, Wren let go and jumped to the ground.
“Tia!”
Tia wanted to come down where she heard Wren’s voice. But she couldn’t.
Tia slammed unceremoniously into the ground, then bounced several times before coming to a rest, face-first in the dirt.
(If I could eat just one more candy, I could make it there…)
No more strength could make it into her now-delicate limbs. Her heavily marred right side in particular was numb, and she slowly lost feeling in her fingertips.
She was terribly tired… Even though she knew it wasn’t okay to sleep just yet.
As her vision blurred over, she saw Wren looking concerned. He looked like he was holding back tears and doing the best he could to keep it together.
“Tia, where do I need to take you.”
“…’s hou…”
With great effort, she could just barely get her left arm to move, pulling the small bottle of candies out of her pocket and showing it.
“The one… gave me… roses… blooming…”
This was as much as Tia could do. If she was in Harpy form, she should have been able to accomplish at least a little more, but there wasn’t much she could do when she was wearing human skin.
The bottle of candies dropped from her limp fingers.
Then, Tia lost consciousness.
As he looked down on Tia lying in the dirt, covered in blood, Wren did all he could to suppress his nerves.
(Calm down, calm down, first, be aware of your surroundings…)
Tia had flown North from the Lange Hamlet. She had to have had a clear destination in mind.
This forest they were in was close to the Crystal Territory. Was she trying to make it all the way to the Crystal Territory?
(Tia wanted to recover somewhere where there was lots of mana. That didn’t necessarily have to be the Crystal Territory…)
Most importantly, the Crystal Territory was the land of Monsters, and the mana density there was ridiculously high. If someone with low mana like Wren were to go there, it wouldn’t end well. Tia had to have understood that too.
(Somewhere with plenty of mana, but not quite as much as the Crystal Territory…)
Wren picked up the bottle of candies that had fallen to the ground.
Just before losing her consciousness, Tia had said:
“…’s hou…”
“The one… gave me… roses… blooming…’
(Oh, that’s it…!)
First, Wren tried to tie the shirt Tia had given him tightly around her wounds to stop the bleeding. He wasn’t sure if human first aid would work on a Monster like Tia, but surely it wasn’t any good to have her loosing too much blood.
Then, he slipped the boots Tia gave him back on her feet. If he was going to be carrying Tia on his back, it would be a good idea to protect her feet. Wren was short, so there was a chance Tia’s feet might drag on the ground.
Finally, keeping the bottle of candies he’d picked off of the ground secure in his pocket, he lifted Tia onto his back.
“Hmph! Time for a pretty boy escort mission!”
By saying those words, pretty boy power coursed through his body.
Wren turned towards the North where Tia was heading, and marched off.
Around them was nothing but dense forest. The canopies of the trees covered the sky, shading the surface from the sunlight. As a result, even in midday, it was dark and cold. Cold enough for his breath to fog up.
Wren took a deep breath, then screamed.
“WITCH!! TIA NEEDS YOUR HELP!!”
It surprised him how little the echo was from his scream. It was as if the forest itself was sucking up all of the sound.
Only now did it occur to Wren how unsettling this forest was. There was no sign of the wild animals or birds he would expect to see in the forest.
Just like the Lange Hamlet right before the Monster attack.
—Something terrifying lived in this forest.
Regardless, Wren raised his voice as he walked.
“WITCH! IF YOU’RE THERE, COME OUT!!”
The more he walked, the denser the trees got, and the more unstable the ground beneath him became. Weaving through the gaps between the trees, on a path that could not be called a ‘trail,’ he pushed onwards and onwards. All the while, taking care not to let Tia’s feet drag too much.
His hands were beginning to feel numb. Pretty boys weren’t made for manual labor.
(But, back during the entrance exam, Tia carried Sevil and me as she walked through the forest.)
It wasn’t becoming of a pretty boy to never return his favors. — Convincing himself with his own strange logic, Wren kept moving his tired legs.
“WITCH! TIA NEEDS YOUR HELP!”
He really wanted to set Tia down and take a break. But if he stopped here, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get moving again, so he kept on going.
“WITCH!”
Tia’s body felt warm on his back, and he could still feel her heart beating. Feeling about to cry over that fact, Wren shouted again.
“IT’S A ONE-TIME OFFER! YOU’LL GET A PRETTY BOY’S SERVICES FOR FREE!”
He heard a rustling sound.
The bush in front of him was shaking. Worried that some kind of creature was coming, Wren braced himself.
Eventually, something long, thin, and green emerged from the bush. At first he thought it was a thin snake. But no.
It was the vine of a plant, covered in sharp thorns.
(A plant Monster…?)
Wren had never encountered one himself, but he’d heard in his time at the Wedge Tower that such Monsters exist.
Eventually, a bud formed on the end of the vine, and a crimson rose suddenly bloomed out of it.
…That was it. Nothing else happened.
With much trepidation, Wren approached the rose and peered back into the bush.
It looked like the rose vine was growing from quite a long way away. It continued deep, deep into the forest. As Wren approached, another red flower popped into bloom.
(Could this be… a guide?)
It could be the trap of a Monster trying to lure humans in.
But, if this was a Monster’s trap, then all it had to do was tie that vine around Wren and Tia and they’d be as good as dead.
Wren forced the corners of his mouth upwards into a bold smile.
“…I’m being led on by a trail of roses. Now you’re talking a pretty boy’s language.”
Speaking to hide his exhaustion and fear, he followed the path of the rose vine. As Wren walked, roses bloomed at regular intervals.
While an untamed forest such as this was difficult to navigate no matter what, he had the feeling that the vine traced the path of a relatively easier route to walk. At least, there were no precipitous drops or treacherous rock walls to climb.
How long had passed since he started walking without breaks? Not knowing the answer, eventually, a clearing came into view where there stood what looked to be a building.
Wren summoned the last of his remaining strength and marched in that direction.
Since he was carrying Tia at the moment, he couldn’t push the branches aside, so he did the best he could to shove them away with his shoulder. Once he was through, he lifted his face.
“What the…”
He saw a small house, surrounded by a fence. Around the house was a garden, where flowers bloomed in every color — something about that exceedingly vibrant garden gave Wren a feeling of unease.
Geranium, Iris, Woodland Sage… and more flowers that he couldn’t name. But he’d seen many of these flowers at his home, so he knew one thing for sure.
(Aren’t these flowers that bloom in the early Summer? …It’s Winter, isn’t it?)
Wren cast his eyes from edge to edge and came to a realization. Starting from the Spring, the flowers in the garden were arranged clockwise around the house, shifting to Summer, then Autumn. On the other side, blocked from his view, there must have been Winter flowers as well.
He knew there were techniques for making flowers bloom out of season by carefully controlling their environment.
But this was something else. This was a strange garden where all four seasons bloomed together at once. This something that no rich man could obtain, no matter how much money they spent. A true miracle.
Carefully, Wren entered the gate and walked through this garden.
The house in the center of the garden was built in an old style, but it didn’t look dilapidated at all.
Wren had heard of some reclusive wealthy people liked to buy old houses like this. Wren felt a similar feeling from this house in front of him.
The front door of the house was slightly ajar. The rose vine stretched through that crack.
(Tia said that it was the Witch and a man named Kai who saved her, right?)
The Witch was the one who gave Tia a human body in exchange for her colors and mana.
Then it was Kai who taught her about humans and sent her into the Wedge Tower.
(Sevil did say to keep an eye out around Kai…)
If Kai was behind this door, he couldn’t let his guard down.
As soon as he achieved his priority of healing Tia, he had to make sure to leave this place as soon as possible.
Wren shifted Tia’s weight on his back, pushed the ajar door open with his foot, and slipped inside.
There were no signs of anyone in the entryway, and the rose vine continued further into the house. When Wren entered the house, yet another rose bloomed beside him.
(It’s saying to come down the hall, I guess…)
The inside of the house was similarly antiquated as the outside, yet he could feel a distinct quality to its decor.
While there were no paintings or statues to decorate the rooms, in their place were lines of flowerpots and what looked like dried medicinal herbs hung along the walls. They gave this place a strange lived-in feel to it.
Nobility and the wealthy would not hang medicinal herbs along the walls and ceilings like this.
Suddenly, Wren noticed that the rose vine was emerging from a door in the back of the hallway.
With Tia on his back, he couldn’t knock. But, it felt weird to open the door without announcing himself, so Wren called out in a restrained voice.
“Excuse me…”
Just as with the front door, he pushed the door open with his toes.
The rose vine extended from the feet of a single woman sitting in the back of the room.
The woman had piled a stack of books, and sat on them in place of a chair.
She wore a black dress and her black lace veil covered this woman’s vibrant, curly, red hair.
The moment he laid eyes on her, his spine shivered with a similar sense of fear and discomfort that he felt when he saw the garden around this house.
A beautiful but strange garden. A beautiful but strange woman.
—That garden was this woman. This woman was that garden.
Wren gulped, then opened his mouth cautiously.
“…Are you the Witch?”