[V8C13] A Pretty Boy’s Service
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the BoundaryUpon returning to the kitchen, Wren lightly heated up some bread and cheese from the icebox and boiled some water for tea.
Supplementing that with freshly-picked berries and apples, he made a very simple dinner, but it was plenty to satisfy his hunger. Plus, since the berries and apples were outrageously tasty by themselves, he was more than satisfied.
Wren prepared the same meal again and brought it to the room where Tia was sleeping.
Tia was lying on her left side, breathing peacefully. Most of her injuries had been focused on her right side.
“Tia, can you eat?”
“Peuu…”
Tia’s mouth moved faintly and let out a voice that could have been a response or just groaning in her sleep.
Just to try, Wren brought a berry up to Tia’s mouth.
Rather than eat it immediately, Tia sucked on it with her lips a little bit. Then, once she’d confirmed the taste, she brought the berry into her mouth.
“The Witch let me have some. It’s super tasty, isn’t it?”
“Pyofu…”
Her voice this time sounded a little more gentle. It sounded like she was improving.
After eating a few more berries, Tia fell soundly asleep.
Wren checked her wounds by the lantern-light, and it looked like they’d closed much better than the last time he’d checked. At this rate, she might be able to move around a little bit tomorrow.
(The question is how we get back to the Lange Hamlet from here. It might be fine to travel by air to a point, but we don’t want anyone to catch a glimpse of a Harpy flying around near the village… Actually, I bet Sevil and the others are worried sick… I’d love to tell them that we’re doing okay, but I don’t have any way to do that right now…)
While wondering what to do, Wren gathered up the leftover food and plates. Along the way, he tossed another of the mana-neutralizing candies into his mouth.
It was getting pretty late. What was the Witch getting up to at this hour without eating anything?
He took a peek into the Witch’s room, but saw no one there.
The glass balls were still hanging from the ceiling and mountains of books still piled up on the floor. The room itself hadn’t changed, but the Witch herself wasn’t there.
Had she gone back to her bedroom? If she had, it would probably be rude to interrupt her sleep.
Wren returned to the room where Tia was sleeping, curled himself in a spare blanket, and laid on the floor.
By the way, it was Winter now, and there was no fire in the fireplace, but this room wasn’t cold at all.
Not too cold, not too hot. It was kept at a comfortable temperature.
It wasn’t just the garden of four seasons that was strange. The Witch’s house itself was equally strange.
(This place almost doesn’t feel real…)
There were so many things he had to think about. So many things he had to do, too.
But his body was terribly exhausted, so when Wren laid down, he fell into a deep sleep before he knew it.
“Good morning! Wren!”
The next morning, Wren wake up to find Tia as cheerful as ever.
He was stunned to see Tia acting just like her usual self.
“Tia, you… could you let me take a look at your wounds?”
“Piyopp!”
Tia pulled up her shirt immediately. Catching a glimpse of her pale midriff and navel, Wren panicked.
He hadn’t been flustered at all when checking her wounds the night before, but it didn’t sit right with him to have her cheerfully flash her skin at him like that.
“You don’t need to go that far! I just want to see around your neck, okay!”
The deepest wound that cut from her shoulder to her neck still showed traces of tearing, but was almost completely healed over by now. There was no sign of any pus or blood seeping out.
“Are you sure it’s okay to move this joint already?”
“It’s fine?”
“I get that, but, I still think you should rest another day or so… Ah, but Sevil would be worried if we didn’t get back as soon as possible…”
Tia really was in good spirits. Those terrible festering wounds she’d received just yesterday were now all but healed. Were such wounds really must not be a big deal to Monsters.
But Wren’s human intuition screams ‘Hold on!’ when he sees someone who’d been so gravely wounded walking about the next day. That was just how gruesome her wounds were. Just remembering the color of her flesh he could see through her torn skin or the redness of her blood pouring out of her made a shiver run down his spine.
As he wondered what to do, Tia looked around the room with a huge smile.
“This is the Witch’s house, right? Thanks for taking me here, Wren!”
“You’re welcome. Mm… By the way, since you’re in such high spirits, why don’t we go say ‘hi’ to the Witch?”
“Piyopp!”
Tia walked off with a smile. Wren found that a little off-putting.
As a Monster, while Tia may look carefree, she always had a certain skittishness about her like a wild animal. She was always quickest to react to outside threats.
Yet when it came to the Witch, it felt like Tia suddenly dropped her guard.
Tia opened the door to the Witch’s room and greeted her with a cheery voice.
“Morning, Great Witch!”
The Witch sat in the same room as yesterday, on top of the same pile of books.
A glass ball filled with colors rested on her lap.
Now that he thought about it, they hadn’t paid the Witch anything in exchange for her help yet. Last night, the Witch had told Wren to do her a ‘service,’ but she never explained how exactly he would do that.
At times like this, it was best to bring it up right off the bat. Wren took one step forward and opened his mouth.
“By the way, Witch. What do you want me to do as thanks for your help? I’m a pretty boy, so I’m not really cut out for manual labor, but I can write really fast and pretty. I’m great at copying other people’s handwriting, so I can scribe for you if you give me some samples!”
At that moment, the eyes beneath her veil trained on Wren… or so he felt.
The Witch’s beautiful red hair shook. While she had always sat up to this point like a doll, she now stepped down from the pile of books.
Now standing on the floor, the Witch looked down on Wren.
“Follow me.”
With a glass ball in one hand, the Witch walked past Wren into the hall.
Wren and Tia jogged to follow after her.
Tia asked at the Witch’s back.
“Great Witch, what should I do?”
“Go water the plants.”
“Piyopp! Then I’ll be off!”
Tia seemed to be used to this as she waddled off outside. He would rather she not leave him alone in such an unfamiliar place.
The Witch made almost no sound as she walked through the hall, then stuck a key into a locked door. Wondering where that key came from, he stared at it, but it simply vanished before his eyes.
The Witch’s pale hands opened the door. The smell of ink, paper, and dust clouded his nose.
“Is this… your library?”
While medicinal herbs and medicine bottles could be found in every room in the Witch’s house, there were no such things in this room, and the shelves were lined with books.
And in the corner, a drawing table and writing tools had been prepared.
The Witch pulled two books from the shelf and set them on the desk.
“Umm… Is it okay if I sit here? …Excuse me.”
The Witch said nothing, but feeling the pressure to sit down, Wren nervously slipped into the chair.
Then, he flipped through the books in front of him.
Both books had the exact same cover. They carried the title ‘The Truth of the Thorn Witch.’
But by flipping through their pages, Wren noticed something. One of these books was completely empty on the inside.
“Wait, are you asking me to copy this?”
“Use the same handwriting, please.”
Wren took the books in hand and turned the pages. The words were written in a more modern form of the Ridillian language.
As he flipped through the pages, every once in a while there would be a line through the text and a handwritten note added nearby.
(I’m not sure if these are corrections or revisions, but I think she’s telling me to write these new parts instead…)
Essentially, she wanted him to copy the original handwriting and rewrite this book called ‘The Truth of the Thorn Witch.’
This itself wasn’t an issue, but Wren had one concern.
“You know, if you’re trying to pass this off as the original, I think it won’t work. After all, this book’s pretty old, isn’t it? Someone could tell that the new one was a forgery from the ink color.”
The Witch wordlessly stood behind Wren, grabbed a feather pen, and drew a line on a scarp sheet of paper.
Then, she whispered something under her breath and touched the line with her finger.
…When she did, the black ink shifted hue to a brownish color. Now it looked identical to the aged ink.
He didn’t know what trick she used, but it seemed like the Witch could easily make a forgery look like the real thing.
(But that incantation just now… That wasn’t Modern Magecraft. It must have been Classical Magecraft. Monsters don’t use magecraft, to I guess the Witch is a human after all?)
The Witch’s incantation sounded a little bit like the incantations that Roswitha, the only Classical Magecraft user among his fellow Apprentices, used. Such incantations that sound like singing to a rhythm were characteristic of Classical Magecraft.
Wren looked at the Witch’s face in curiosity. The strange angle of the veil seen from the side left only her mouth visible.
“Once you’re done writing, leave.”
“…Yes ma’am.”
Wren dutifully responded to her instructions.
After all, what he feared most was being trapped here indefinitely. He hadn’t intended to stay here for long either, so the Witch’s idea was convenient for Wren.
(Alright, let’s get to work.)
Wren tied his golden hair back in a high ponytail, rolled up his sleeves, and grabbed a feather pen.
“—This is a record of the cornerstone of our House Roseberg: the First Thorn Witch, Rebecca Roseberg and the blessings she has bestowed us.”
The first line was to be rewritten as such:
“—This is a record of the cornerstone of our House Roseberg: the First Thorn Witch, Rebecca Roseberg and her demise.”