Chapter 76
“Never, ever mix with humans.”
The witch Morone remembered her late mother's final words.
Keep away from humans.
It was advice she had felt deep in her bones ever since a childhood too distant to remember.
“Because humans hate us.”
She did not know the precise reason.
Even though witches had never really harmed them, humans had hated them for thousands of years.
As a result, witches had been driven into the forest, where they eked out meager lives.
That was how things had been—until the Great War.
- What should we do now?
- The monsters are coming all the way into the forest.
- We're starting to run low on potions to hold them back...
The Alliance lost the Great War, and the monsters pushed into the forest.
Witches could hold out to some extent with potions and curses, but numbers always won in the end.
In the end, the witches had no choice but to blend into human society and pretend to be human.
“We don't have any other choice...”
Morone was one of them.
Surprisingly, life was fairly bearable.
With her extensive knowledge of herbs and magic, she could make quite a bit of money.
But trouble came out of nowhere.
“She's a witch! I saw it with my own eyes!”
It was because the village priest had pointed at her and called her a witch.
Morone felt as though her heart had dropped into her stomach.
‘How? How did he know?’
She had not done anything related to witches.
She did not even like making potions, let alone using curse magic.
She had even built up a good reputation by helping people.
But the priest had not seen through her nature and realized she was a witch.
“She is highly suspect as a witch. Have this woman brought before a witch trial!”
If the accuser won the witch trial, the witch's property naturally passed to the accuser.
It was a scheme cooked up by the priest and cardinal, who coveted her possessions.
Whether there was a victim did not matter.
“My arm has turned black!”
They could always just manufacture a victim.
Thus, branded a witch, she was put on the pyre with two other women dragged there for similar reasons.
Even though she was the only actual witch.
“I don't want to die...”
“Why... I didn't do anything... I'm the victim...”
Morone stared at the two women crying in terror, then slowly looked up at the sky and realized.
‘It doesn't matter whether I'm really a witch.’
They had only needed someone to hate, and that someone happened to be her.
She was doomed never to be welcomed anywhere.
If the cardinal, high as the heavens, told them to die, they simply had to die like flies.
She was just about to give up on everything and close her eyes when—
Head Mod*: (Frog angrily giving the middle finger meme)
Sorry, I baited you just to show you this..
The medieval humans' level of awareness—is this for real?
This is truly a trial by the world's most powerful idiots...
But even above the heavens, there was space.
An existence far, far higher than the cardinal.
Head Mod had crashed into Morone's life, which had held nothing but pain.
*
The cardinal's corpse was found in broad daylight.
It was a grotesque sight, with multiple arms, reduced to nothing but bones after being burned at the stake.
It was a murder filled with malice.
- Damn; how is anyone supposed to go outside now...
- (I'm scared meme)
- It's gotten hot, rehu~
- (Become Fire Punch meme)
But perhaps because the cardinal's conduct had been less than admirable, no one mourned him.
But murder was still murder.
No one knew when the sparks might fly onto innocent people, too.
Since I knew with a high degree of certainty who the culprit was, I naturally found it hard to look away.
I quickly found the Gallery user in question and checked their Gallery log first.
[Post List of PotionMasterGonnaBe!]
Private, ?? years ago / A Gallery suddenly appeared out of nowhere. But how do you use this?
Private, 8 years ago / Humans hate witches. But why? We haven't done anything...
Private, 4 years ago / The Great War broke out. The monsters have invaded the forest. I don't think we can hold out any longer. What should we do...?
Private, 3 years ago / I managed to hide in a human city. Maybe I can survive if I keep a low profile?
Private, a week ago / I've been branded a witch. There was nothing that could single me out.
A victim even appeared. They said her arm had turned black, but I had never seen that face before.
Could they be after my property?
...I don't want to die.
“Hmm...”
From her posts alone, she did not seem like someone who would commit a brutal murder.
More importantly, I had never seen a witch on the Gallery.
Not only did witches never make public posts, but no one had ever identified themselves as a witch.
That was naturally because of the dominant race, humans, and their hatred of witches, though I did not know the reason.
Myoran: It's because of the color of their magic.
Except for Myoran, who had been around for a long time.
Head Mod*: ?
Myoran: All witches' magic is deep or dark in color.
The color that came to mind when people said “mage” was blue.
But witches' magic was a dark purple.
But why would that matter?
Head Mod*: How is that a problem?
Could that color contain something harmful to the human body?
Myoran: No, not at all.
But there was nothing like that.
It was literally just a color.
Myoran: Humans thousands of years ago must have found it impure-looking.
Head Mod*: What the hell?
Even something trivial becomes a problem if people make an issue of it.
Mages were mainstream, while witches were not.
The entire reason witches had suffered such discrimination was simply the color of their magic.
“That doesn't make... No, I guess it could.”
Come to think of it, there had been plenty of similar problems in the modern world, too.
Of course, everyone knew that magic color was not a problem nowadays...
Myoran: It doesn't matter. Whatever the reason was, all they need is someone to hate.
Myoran explained it matter-of-factly.
As though they had known it for a long time.
“Then I can't just arrest them, can I?”
Witches had been playing a game of Revenge Restraint Lv. 99 for a long time.
But now that they were cornered, they would eventually be unable to hold back, and revenge would follow.
- Fuck, found another similar corpse;
Another murder occurred while I was deliberating.
This time, it was a murder in a village far from the city.
- Damn, who is it this time?
- They say it's the priest who put someone on trial for witchcraft last time?
- At this point, isn't it really something a witch did?
The priest who had reported someone out of greed for the witch's property had been found dead.
This was already the second.
Before something bigger happened, I sent the Gallery user a chat message.
[‘PotionMasterGonnaBe!’ has entered the chat room.]
Head Mod*: No, dude.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: Head Mod! What's going on?
Head Mod*: Are you the culprit behind this murder?
I asked without beating around the bush.
After all, she had openly said she was going to get revenge last time.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: Yep, that's me.
And Poma did not try very hard to hide it.
If things continued like this, she really would not be able to avoid a trial this time, would she?
The problem was that Poma did not seem particularly interested in living.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: I've given up on everything.
I can't fit into human society, and if I go outside, the monsters will kill me.
I'll at least get satisfying revenge before I die.
Head Mod*: Why? You have potions, don't you?
The witches in the forest had avoided monsters by drinking perception-lowering potions.
I thought that maybe they could live outside that way, too.
But the world was not kind to witches.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: The ingredients to make it are really expensive, haha;
It was all because of the cost of the potion ingredients.
Head Mod*: What are the ingredients?
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: 1 kg of sugar, 500 ml of oil, 10 frog hind legs, 1,000 insects, and 3 kg total of other organs, including animal liver, intestines, and lungs.
How are we supposed to get all that?
They were poor witches to begin with.
The beasts had practically been wiped out after the Great War, and even if they somehow gathered them, how could they obtain three kilograms?
On top of that, a thousand insects—and especially sugar—were impossible.
Witch potions were highly effective, but their ingredient costs were insane for what they did.
“That would be pretty difficult to gather in the forest.”
Even in a city, though.
Where would they get a kilogram of sugar?
And what about the oil?
“Witches? Not easy...”
Magic was a discipline for the chosen few.
Because it required both talent and money.
“But witches have it even worse?”
The cost of making a witch's potions was comparable to, or even higher than, the cost of magic.
That suddenly made me curious.
Head Mod*: Then what other potions can you make? Assume you have all the ingredients.
Even mages could not make a perception-lowering potion.
So how far could she go if she had enough ingredients?
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: I can make healing potions, too, if I have the ingredients.
“What?”
A healing potion...?
Wasn't that exactly what this otherworld needed?
Head Mod*: What are the ingredients?
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: I estimate 10 kg of pepper and 10 kg of salt.
“?”
Pepper and salt?
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: LOL, ridiculous, right?
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: Anyway... are you going to hand me over for trial now?
But Poma, unaware of what I was thinking, seemed to be misunderstanding me.
She seemed to think I was interrogating her.
After seeing the half-resigned chat, I left a reply.
Head Mod*: Dude, I'll provide all those ingredients.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: Of course, I'll always be grateful to you, Head Mod... Huh?
A brief silence.
The chat stopped for a few minutes, then started moving again.
PotionMasterGonnaBe!: You... really?
Even if people gave up, if there was a way to survive, it was human nature to want to live.
“There must be plenty of witches besides Poma.”
Even if their numbers were small, gathering them together should produce a decent number.
There was nothing more to think about.
Head Mod*: How about working with me on something instead?
“I absolutely have to hold on to them.”
Witch stock—this is guaranteed to skyrocket.
*
A dark, gloomy clearing in the forest.
Morone stood before a collapsing hut.
“I never thought I'd come back here...”
It was her old home, where she had lived ever since her mother was alive.
It had been abandoned after the Great War, and she had never had reason to return.
She brushed the dust piled up at the entrance with her index finger and recalled Head Mod's words.
“He said he'd give me everything...”
Expensive materials in unimaginable quantities.
Head Mod had readily promised to provide them.
Having been deceived by humans countless times and nearly killed in the end, she was skeptical.
It was not that she distrusted Head Mod, but could he really mean it?
That was an amount even human nobles would struggle to afford...
“Well, I don't have any other choice.”
Morone gave a small, derisive scoff.
She had definitely planned to take revenge and die.
But at those words from Head Mod, she found herself wanting to live another wretched life.
Perhaps she had remembered the warmth she had received from another person for the first time in her life?
Just as Morone began to feel a strange ticklish sensation in her chest.
[Your items have been delivered!]
“!”
The system's notification rang out in the silence.
Though startled, Morone slowly opened the box that had appeared beside her.
“M-my goodness.”
And there it really was.
[100 kg of pepper]
[100 kg of salt]
.
.
“I-it really is pepper?”
A luxury commoners could not even dream of, and one that even nobles could only dream about.
The pepper was piled up like a mountain.