The Witch of Hell

I am the world's greatest wandmaker.

But until now, I was also the world's only wandmaker.

Gremlins are difficult to process, and even a master craftsman cannot carve one into a sphere. That's why practitioners of the widely used Fertility Magic pick up Gremlins that are already roughly spherical and use them by clutching them in their hands.

I manufacture one or two general-purpose wands every day, but that's nowhere near enough to meet demand. The mana backflow prevention mechanism was added to the manufacturing process, too, making production take a little longer.

Professor Handa's new technology, devised after he joined Tokyo Magic University's Department of Gremlin Engineering, spectacularly shattered my monopoly on the wand industry.

In less than half a year after taking up his post, Professor Handa developed three Gremlin-processing techniques—"grinding, casting, and machining"—in collaboration with his lab students, making wandmaking by ordinary craftsmen possible.

The research results concerning "grinding" consist, specifically, of two achievements.

Thanks to them, craftsmen became able to shape Gremlins into spheres.

The first was the efficient and precise production of abrasives.

Gremlins have a Mohs hardness of eleven, and not even diamonds can scratch them. Thus, a Gremlin is needed to grind a Gremlin, so I used powder made by crushing and pulverizing Gremlins as an abrasive.

Professor Handa's lab improved on this.

Using the flow of water and the settling of material in fluids, this new method made it possible to mass-produce uniform, high-quality abrasives.

Abrasives bearing the Handa Lab mark are better than the ones I made, and they're convenient, too, so I've been using them gratefully.

The whole hassle of crushing and pulverizing Gremlins to make abrasives disappeared, making things ridiculously easy. As expected, when it comes to consumables, you can't beat buying them ready-made.

The second research achievement involving abrasives was quite a brute-force approach, but it was something I never would have thought of.

Gremlins are difficult to cut, and any halfway-decent processing technique will crack them immediately.

So the Handa Lab came up with a way to do it without cutting.

The logic is simple.

Use huge quantities of abrasive as lavishly as water, do no cutting whatsoever, and shape it entirely by grinding...!

When I first heard it, I burst out laughing at how brutally forceful it was, but the more I thought about it, the more rational it seemed, and I was left sincerely impressed.

Processing a Gremlin using only grinding is inefficient. It's like trying to straighten a jagged piece of lumber by starting with a file without using either a saw or a chisel. It was the absolute height of inefficiency, so it never even occurred to me.

But at least it won't split, chip, or crack during processing. It was an inefficient but reliable method.

Thanks to my natural dexterity, I could process Gremlins from the outset without even needing to devise any special tricks, so I never considered a method that was inefficient and took both time and effort.

The Handa team's grinding method was something someone as dexterous as me could never have thought of.

The research achievement called "casting" is an advanced version of the molten-and-re-solidified Gremlin method.

Professor Handa, who is well versed in fluid dynamics, developed the mana backflow prevention mechanism I devised and improved it through several stages. Using a Tesla valve as its prototype, he developed a shape that efficiently diffuses and attenuates backflowing mana.

It was a fairly complex, geometric shape, and looked troublesome to carve, but Professor Handa solved the problem through casting.

If it's difficult to carve, then make it in its finished form from the start.

He melted Gremlins into a gooey liquid, poured it into a mold, cooled and hardened it, and cast it from the outset in a shape suited to the dynamics of mana backflow, without even needing to cut it. Clever...!

Since I can carve and shape it through sheer dexterity without even needing a mold, I never would have thought of this method either.

Once it's pointed out, it sounds simple enough for anyone to think of. It's one of those Columbus's-egg ideas.

Processing molten Gremlins requires temperatures approaching 1,200°C, but apparently they solved that by giving the Everflame Witch the construction method and blueprints for a reverberatory furnace and commissioning her to build one.

The Everflame Witch is good at handling fire, and in her district, heating is provided even in winter and permanent public bathhouses are available. Fire-based industrial recovery is progressing quickly among both the government and private sector.

From what I've heard, there are apparently several reverberatory furnaces there as sturdy as my own. As expected, urban areas have manpower. No matter what you're doing, the work goes at a different speed when you're not doing it alone.

The final research achievement, "machining," supports the absurdly inefficient grinding process.

That said, machining doesn't mean they revived powered processing machinery. It's closer to a mechanical contraption than a machine.

Waterwheels have been installed on Tokyo's major rivers—the Arakawa, Sumida, and Tama—and are still being added. They are mainly used for pumping water, supplying the rain-gutter-style aboveground water network that was installed in place of the defunct underground waterworks.

The Handa Lab borrowed some of these waterwheels and modified them.

It stored the energy obtained from the waterwheel as potential energy using gears, pulleys, and weights. By stabilizing the output from the power source, they got a basic grinding machine capable of practical operation running.

With a grinder, grinding is far more efficient than carrying out an unimaginably tedious process by hand. An insanely inefficient task is improved to merely inefficient.

Thus, thanks to the Handa Lab's achievements, built on the three pillars of "grinding, casting, and machining," wand processing and manufacturing began.

Even if their manufacturing method is inefficient, they have manpower on their side. I lose in terms of production volume.

My share of the wand market was taken away, and I fell from my position as the legendary wandmaker. Was I going to become a relic of the past, gathering dust before long?!

I was trembling with fear at the thought, but nothing of the sort happened.

The leading figures of the Tokyo Witches' Assembly, including the Eyeball Witch, Everflame Witch, Hachioji Witch, and Foresight Wizard, sent me requests to make wands through the Blue Witch. The Eyeball Witch even ordered two.

Professor Ohinata continued to commission me to make student wands as well.

They could make as many as they wanted at workshops under the Witches' Assembly without asking me anymore.

The reason for their requests was simple: they wanted high-quality luxury wands.

The wands whose manufacturing method the Handa Lab established were several grades inferior to my work.

The spherical processing was so sloppy that I'd wonder whether they had done it while dead drunk, and they couldn't hollow out the inside to make a two-layer structure after merely making it spherical in the first place. That alone made their magic amplification rate plummet compared with my own handcrafted wands.

Their mana backflow prevention mechanism was also half-baked. You could tell what they had intended by looking at the structure, but its precision was lacking too. The processing accuracy hadn't caught up with the theory. I, on the other hand, can achieve the theoretical precision at one hundred percent.

On top of that, they had no sense of design.

This was unavoidable since they were mass-produced goods intended for widespread use, but every wand they made had the same simple design, without a shred of interest or character. There was no individuality.

Complex designs and ornamentation would reduce productivity. You could sense the effort that had gone into making the design as simple as possible.

The witches of the Tokyo Witches' Assembly hated carrying mass-produced wands intended for the masses.

After all, they were transcendent beings who had risen to the top and ruled absolutely, their military power serving as their foundation.

It wouldn't look good for the top of the top to be using mass-produced wands.

It would be like a yakuza boss driving around in a cheap kei truck. No matter how formidable he was personally, people would look down on him. If the leader is looked down on, discipline breaks down and public order deteriorates. It would also put him at a disadvantage in negotiations. Nothing good would come of it.

That's why the witches wanted my high-quality luxury wands.

It was also thanks to the promotional effect of Cyanos, the Blue Witch's wand. The strongest wand, wielded by the strongest witch. It was beautiful, too, and a first-rate work of art. Naturally, people would want a wand from the same brand.

The Magic University was the same.

Graduates of the Magic University were awarded one of my wands along with the Title of Wizard.

To put this in terms of pre-Gremlin Disaster values, it was like "graduating from a top university with a luxury car included."

Apparently, some students enrolled this year specifically to get a wand.

If talented people gathered and devoted themselves diligently to research and their studies, even if they came for the wands, the university would naturally continue commissioning me to manufacture and deliver them.

I'm truly glad I made connections with the Blue Witch and Professor Ohinata.

Otherwise, by now I might have become some no-name craftsman quietly making wands in the countryside. That was close.

In response to this revolution in wand production, I once again clarified my position.

In contrast to Professor Handa's mass-production strategy for the masses, I would pursue a custom-made, high-quality luxury line.

Mass-produced goods are what make luxury goods shine.

Seen that way, the advent of mass-produced wands was actually a plus for me.

The wand-processing technology itself will continue to be shared with the Magic University through Professor Ohinata.

The abrasives the university produces have been a huge help, and they've even upgraded the mana backflow prevention mechanism I came up with on their own. We inspire each other in a good way, so I want to keep expanding our exchange of technology.

The performance of ordinary wands will improve thanks to the processing techniques I've released.

But in the meantime, the performance of my wands will improve too. I have no intention of sparing the effort.

Many of my processing techniques cannot be imitated by ordinary people. What I gain by teaching the techniques vastly outweighs what I lose.

As long as we can exchange technology through written correspondence without meeting face-to-face, I won't hesitate to share my techniques.

I'm the world's greatest wandmaker, after all! Fwahahahaha!

Five days had passed since I shipped the custom-made wands to the leading figures of the Tokyo Witches' Assembly via Blue Witch Express.

Their individuality showed clearly in their order forms, which made crafting them both exciting and fun.

Since magic stones were unavailable, I used Gremlins instead, but the Hachioji Witch specified the Gremlin's color. She wanted black, so I got a matte jet-black Gremlin from a man-eating giant bird that the Blue Witch had supposedly slain long ago.

The Eyeball Witch, who had ordered two, didn't specify their designs, but one was apparently a gift, so I took care over not only the wand's design but also the gift box.

The Everflame Witch requested a durable wand. She said she would use it in plenty of combat and might even smash people with it, so I melted down titanium-alloy frying pans and woks in a reverberatory furnace, recast them, and used them for the wand's core. Assuming it would break anyway, I improved its maintainability and included two replacement handles.

The Foresight Wizard desperately requested just one thing: a mana backflow prevention mechanism with performance pushed to the absolute limit. Naturally, I poured every technique at my disposal into it and finished it with the highest possible precision.

Every one of them was a masterpiece.

It's surprising that I haven't received a commission from the Dragon Witch, but there's no way she doesn't want one, so the Blue Witch is probably keeping her shut out. Your manager work has been a big help.

But the Blue Witch hadn't come to my house once in these five days, which was unusual.

She surely had things of her own to do, but I was curious about the customers' reactions after receiving their products. So, while going to ask her about them, I visited Ome carrying a card set to crush the Blue Witch's defense-heavy deck with my own super-high-damage deck.

I reached the Blue Witch's house without getting lost, but something strange was going on, and I quickly hid in the shadow of a utility pole covered in vines.

A female ogre was sitting cross-legged in front of the witch's house.

She was probably a witch, right? That thing.

The Blue Witch forbade anyone who wasn't an Ome resident from entering Ome City.

Intruders were basically beaten black-and-blue and thrown out, or killed on sight.

There was no way an ordinary person would sit there so brazenly, and she didn't look like a monster, so she had to be a witch.

That witch was huge enough to tell even while she was sitting. She looked like she would be over 190 centimeters tall when standing.

Her breasts were huge too. Wrapped in a sarashi, they were larger than anything I'd ever seen. Her rippling six-pack was bare, which looked like it would leave her stomach cold.

Her black hair was cut in a rough diagonal across her back, with two horns sprouting from her head. She wore a baggy tokko-fuku like the ones favored by biker gangs, giving her the appearance of a female gang boss from Hell, but her face was an elegant beauty utterly at odds with her outfit. That somehow made her even scarier, like a sheltered young lady who had gone delinquent.

I don't know what was going on, but if she was sitting in front of the house, she must have business with the Blue Witch. If I went out now, she'd definitely stop me.

All right! Visit canceled! Back to Okutama!

I tried to sneak away quietly so she wouldn't see me, but a little bird that had been perched on the vines of the utility pole where I was hiding and pecking at bugs suddenly cried out, and the ogre woman sitting there turned toward me.

"Huh!!? Are you an Ome resident, by any chance!!?"

"Eek...!"

Once the ogre woman stood up, she was tall, her chest was huge, and even her voice was huge.

I couldn't get away. Reflexively, I looked down and hunched myself over.

I heard heavy footsteps, and a pair of gigantic shoes appeared in my view as I stared at the asphalt.

Eek! Huge! Human! Scary! Nooo!

"I-I don't know anything. It's none of my business. I have no idea. I've got somewhere to be, so I'm busy."

"Now, now, don't be so scared!! I'm the Witch of Hell! I won't eat you or anything!!"

"O-oh, really?"

"If you're a good person!!"

"Aaaah...!"

So she'd eat me if I were a bad person! No thanks!

I'm not a bad person! I just made some money once by producing copyright-infringing anime merchandise! Really, aside from that, I'm a good person, so don't eat me!

"The Witch of Ome won't listen to me, and I'm at my wit's end!! Could you put me in touch with her!!?"

"Um, well..."

While my eardrums were being rattled by her booming voice, shaking so hard I felt like I could cause an earthquake, I heard the familiar incantation "Freezing Javelin," and the ogre woman was blown away and sent rolling into the street.

Whoa, the savior's here!

I hurriedly dashed to the Blue Witch, who stood squarely in the doorway with Cyanos at the ready, and hid behind her. Thank goodness—nice one!

Relieved to be hiding behind the ultimate wall, I watched as the Blue Witch kept Cyanos trained warily on the Witch of Hell while she tried to get up, complaining irritably in a low voice.

"Why did you come here? I told you I can't go over there for a while because the Witch of Hell has been following me around, and told you not to come here."

"Huh? No, you didn't."

"I did. Through the Eyeball Familiar."

"Oh, right. I had you blocked. Because you kept making long calls."

At first, the Blue Witch's messages through the Eyeball Familiar had been little more than brief bits of business, but her conversations gradually grew longer.

Lately, I'd been forced to listen to about an hour of pointless chatter every night. It made me want to block her calls.

"You blocked me!? You idiot, then what's the point of having a communicator? Freezing Javelin—no wonder you never answered! You really are something..."

While blasting the approaching Witch of Hell away with magic, the Blue Witch muttered under her breath.

"Because you kept calling about nothing important. Who cares that you put out a bird feeder in your garden? Don't feed the pests."

"Shut up. It's cute, isn't it? Not only sparrows, but Japanese white-eyes come too, you know? I play your card games with you, but you're ignoring me?"

"That's true, I guess...? Sorry. Maybe I was in the wrong."

"Not 'maybe.' You're in the wrong. Thanks to you, an annoying situation got even more annoying. Freezing Javelin."

The huge ogre woman, blasted away by the icy spear several times, raised both hands to show that she surrendered.

Or so I thought, but she immediately sprawled face-down on the ground and assumed a perfect dogeza posture.

Then she spoke in a sincere, booming voice.

"Witch of Ome! As you can see, I beg you!! Please let me meet the wandmaker!! It would violate the code of honor not to thank my benefactor in person!!"

The Blue Witch fell silent.

I fell silent too.

You know...

I called this an annoying situation, but...

Hasn't this somehow turned into a pretty interesting situation?

She hadn't noticed at all that the wandmaker she was looking for was right in front of her.

Well, I probably just looked like a card gamer carrying a deck case, not a wandmaker. Good thing I'd put Henden Show in my pocket.

I peeked out a little from behind the Blue Witch and asked.

"Um, this benefactor—what did they do for you?"

I'd never seen this ogre woman before.

Who was she? I had no memory of doing her a favor.

Pretending to be someone else, I asked, and the Witch of Hell answered with her forehead still pressed against the asphalt.

"They brought my rampage under control! For the past two and a half years, I've been suppressing out-of-control magic the entire time! Adachi Ward was Hell! But thanks to the wandmaker's wand, I controlled my magic and eliminated the rampaging magic! Adachi Ward and I were both liberated!"

I-I see?

Her story made everything click. No wonder I didn't remember.

The gift wand commissioned by the Eyeball Witch must have ended up in the hands of this Witch of Hell.

And the witch's seal had been broken.

"When I thanked the Eyeball Witch! She told me it was thanks to the wandmaker! So I won't leave this place until you let me meet the wandmaker! Please! You're the only one who knows where the wandmaker is, aren't you, Witch of Ome!?"

"I don't know. Go home."

The Blue Witch dismissed her coldly, but the Witch of Hell remained in her dogeza, clearly determined not to budge an inch.

The human megaphone had scared me half to death, but her story piqued my interest.

She'd been suppressing rampaging magic for two and a half years?

And she'd managed to contain that rampaging magic using my wand?

You don't get such extraordinary real-world usage data very often. I definitely wanted to hear her impressions of using it.

I whispered to the Blue Witch.

"I want to hear what she has to say. Can't you let her into the house?"

"...Are you sure? She's not rotten to the core, but she is a man-eating witch."

"Honestly, I'm scared, but I'm curious. If she tries anything, you'll protect me, right?"

"That's true, but..."

"But I don't want to talk to her. Ask her what I want to know on my behalf. I'll listen from beside you."

"Go to hell. Talk to her yourself."

The Blue Witch clicked her tongue, hauled the Witch of Hell to her feet, and invited her inside.

Ugh, I have to do the talking? I don't like this... But it's necessary to get valuable data. I'll write it off as a business expense and make sure to get every detail out of her.