The Blue Witch

Since cars were unusable, I trudged along the railway line for three hours, making my way all the way from Okutama to Ome.

There were plenty of houses along the way, but they were deserted and silent.

I considered scavenging those houses, too. However, something seemed wrong, so I gave up on the idea.

The houses were half-collapsed or completely destroyed, as if a monster had gone on a rampage.

They hadn't collapsed in an earthquake. Nor did it look as though there had been a fire.

Parts of the houses had been gouged out and blown away, as though they had been swept aside by a gigantic arm or pierced by beams. Some houses had blue tarps over them, but most had been left exposed to the wind and rain through their collapsed sections, and decay had already begun. They were in a terrible state.

They looked seriously bad. Even if public order had collapsed and rioters had run amok, they wouldn't have ended up like that.

Maybe a monster really had appeared. Magic was real, after all. Monsters were possible, too.

In fact, there had been deer and tanuki that used magic. If there were bears or lions that could use magic, blowing houses away would probably be well within their capabilities.

Too scary.

A wise man keeps his distance from danger.

I chose Ome as my supply-scavenging destination because its buildings were relatively undamaged.

There were some houses that had burned black, some whose roofs had been blown away, and some with broken windows, but I saw no signs of a monster rampage. The houses were all otherwise in decent condition.

Whatever terrifying thing had destroyed the houses, it apparently hadn't come this way.

The lack of any sign of people was another plus. This was the perfect place to scavenge.

Holding my magic wand, Henden Show-kun, in one hand and staying alert, I snuck into a house with broken windows and scavenged food. The house was empty, but there was a powerful stench of something rotten, so I decided not to enter any rooms with dried bloodstains in front of the doors.

Something terrible really must have happened in the cities. Good thing I'd holed up in the mountains!

There wasn't much food indoors, but I still found a decent amount of unopened canned goods, seasonings, and dried noodles. It was also a big bonus to find the manga volumes I'd been wondering about on the bookshelf. I shoved everything together into my hiking backpack and started scavenging the house next door.

The front door of the neighboring house was open, and a note left for the family read, "We're evacuating to the General Medical Center." The date written alongside it was from last year.

The added warning, "Watch out for monsters rather than humans," caught my attention. Did "monsters" mean those animals that used magic? I had magic, too, so I could probably deal with monsters as small as rabbits or rats, but... Were lions or rhinos that had escaped from zoos wandering around? I'd scavenge what I could and hurry home.

The second house had no food at all, but I found seeds for strawberries and edamame that could be grown in planters in the storage shed. Neither was in my home garden. This was huge.

There was nothing else of note. The only thing that tugged at my heartstrings was a fish tank in which all the water had completely evaporated, leaving a dried-up goldfish lying on the gravel. The end of the world is a melancholy place.

I was about to head happily toward the third house, sneaking along and enjoying the weight of my increasingly heavy backpack, when a voice from above made my heart stop.

"Wait! You there, who gave you permission to be in this area?"

I nervously looked up and saw a girl standing on the roof of the house diagonally across from me.

She looked about high-school age. Her long black hair was tied together at the back and swayed in the wind, while her black clothes, so tattered that their original design was impossible to discern, fluttered ominously.

She had a beautiful, cool-looking face, the sort that might grace the cover of a model magazine. In fact, I felt as though I might have seen her face in one of those magazines. Then again, all three-dimensional beautiful girls looked more or less the same to me, so I could easily have been mistaken.

It would have been easier to recognize her if her hair were a different color, like in anime, but she, like everyone else, had either black or brown hair. How unhelpful.

Despite being such an unhelpfully beautiful girl, she had a severe expression fixed on her face. Rather than a beautiful model, she looked cold and ruthless, like a soldier on a battlefield who wasn't letting her guard down for an instant.

"Can't you answer?"

When I remained silent, the girl held up a palm-sized blue jewel to the sun.

At once, the air grew cold and heavy, and chill began to swirl around us like a prelude to something terrifying.

Gaaah!? Someone with a magic stone!

I surrender! I surrender! I don't want to have a magic duel! I'll die!

I hurriedly threw down my wand and raised both hands in surrender. The girl leaped down from the roof without taking her eyes off me.

She landed lightly and effortlessly, displaying inhuman physical ability.

Wh-who are you? Just the fact that she's human is already scary, but her overbearing attitude and the glimpse of her physical ability make her three times as frightening.

I looked away from the girl and stared at the ground. She was too terrifying to look at directly.

"Who gave you permission to be in this area? Where are you from?"

The girl stood in front of me and asked again.

Her voice was so hostile that I could almost hear the unspoken words, "Answer, or I'll kill you."

I shrank back and answered honestly.

"I-I, um... I'm unaffiliated."

"Do you live alone?"

"Y-yes."

"Where do you live?"

"Okutama."

"There was a warning sign on the way here saying, 'Unauthorized trespassers will be killed beyond this point.'"

"Huh? No, um, I was walking while looking at the ground, so... I guess I didn't see the sign... Haha..."

"......"

I nervously raised my head and glanced at the girl. She appeared to be exasperated.

"Well, judging by your behavior, I suppose that's true. What a pathetic man."

As she spoke, the girl noticed Henden Show-kun, which I'd thrown at my feet, picked it up, and began examining it.

"What is this?"

"A wand. A magic wand."

"A Gremlin? But this is... modified...?"

The girl ran a finger along the wand and held its electric crystal up to the sun, inspecting it with interest.

"Um..."

"Wait."

I was about to ask, "If I give you this wand, will you let me go?" But the girl cut me off, and I fell silent.

Fine, I'll wait. I'm smarter than a dog, so I can obey "wait."

I did as I was told and stayed quiet so I wouldn't anger her. Then the girl deliberately raised Henden Show and chanted a spell.

"Du Vaala!"

After uttering a strange word in an unfamiliar, bizarre intonation, an ice spear large enough to wrap one's arms around was launched from Henden Show-kun. It slammed into the wall of the house and made it shake.

"Huh?"

M-magic!? Amazing! It looks like more advanced magic than the white beam I always use!

How did you do that!? What you just chanted was a spell, right?

I was startled and instantly became intensely curious, but the girl was even more surprised.

"Huh? ...Hey, what's going on!? The power is all wrong! A Gremlin this size can't produce this much power. Where did you get this wand!?"

"Eek! I-I, um... I made it."

"What?"

"I made it."

The girl pressed in on me, and I felt like crying.

I was taller than her, and she actually had a slender build, but the pressure she exuded was as if a heavily muscled giant of a man were bearing down on me. When she came closer, I caught the smell of gunpowder wafting from her and felt a chill run down my spine.

She's definitely bad news! Let me go! I want to go home! This is why I hate meeting people!

When I could no longer endure my fear and tears began spilling down my cheeks, the girl looked shocked.

Her expression softened, and she awkwardly shoved Henden Show-kun back into my hands.

"Sorry. It doesn't look as though you broke in here with some scheme in mind. But tell me everything. You entered my territory without permission. Whether you like it or not, you're coming with me."

Her voice was calm, but her tone left no room for refusal.

Unable to resist, I nodded, sniffling.

The girl looked thoroughly exasperated, took my hand, and began showing me around.

Damn it. What's with that exasperated look!? It's not like I want to cry!

I'm crying because I'm scared! What else am I supposed to do!?

The place the girl led me to appeared to be her base. The wall around a single-family house had been reinforced with barbed wire, while a dry moat and sandbag barricades had been constructed around it, making the place look like a small fortress.

The inside of the house was spotlessly clean, and bundles of drying herbs hung from the living-room ceiling, filling the air with a soothing, comforting scent. But the smell of oil and gunpowder from a case on a workbench in the corner ruined the whole effect.

The girl sat me down in a chair, then brewed tea in the kitchen and brought it to me.

The girl plopped herself down across the table, took a sip of tea, and gestured for me to drink as she introduced herself.

"You may have heard of me, but I'm the 'Ome Witch,' or, more recently, the 'Blue Witch' for short. I rule this entire area. And you?"

"Oori Kenshi."

"Hmm? That's an unusual surname. How is it written?"

After I explained, the Blue Witch nodded.

"I see. You said you live in Okutama. What's it like around there?"

"What do you mean?"

"Monsters? Who rules it?"

"When you say monsters, do you mean animals with gems attached to their bodies?"

When I asked, the Blue Witch tilted her head.

"Well, some of them are like that. But there are also things like dragons and ghost-like things."

"Huh? No, I've never seen anything like that."

"Oh? Then does whoever rules the place exterminate them as soon as they appear? Who kills the monsters?"

"No one. There are a few animals in Okutama that have gems and use magic, but there aren't any dragon-like things. I haven't seen any other humans, so there probably isn't anyone killing monsters, either... I think..."

"Oh? Is Okutama really that peaceful? Hmm, I wonder if monsters are stronger in densely populated areas...?"

"Um, I don't really understand what you're talking about. Almost everything you're saying is new to me."

I raised my hand a little and timidly interrupted. The Blue Witch leaned back against her chair and looked at me with interest.

"I see. If you've lived alone in a peaceful place, it's only natural that you know nothing about any of this."

"I'm not so ignorant that I know nothing at all. But I'd really appreciate it if you could teach me enough for us to have a conversation, maybe...? Ah, no! If that's not okay, then never mind! Really!"

"Don't be so frightened. Just because I'm a witch doesn't mean I boil people in cauldrons and eat them. There are witches who do that, though. But setting that aside..."

Don't casually drop terrifying information like that.

You're trying to scare me while pretending to reassure me, aren't you?

I tried to show that I wasn't afraid by gracefully raising my teacup to my lips, but my hands were shaking so badly that I spilled about half of it down my chest.

"It would help if you could explain a little bit of everything, as though you were teaching a beginner."

"You spilled your tea... Well, never mind. All right. Where should I start? Do you know what a Gremlin is?"

"The crystals that grow by eating electricity?"

"That's right. They're named after the mischievous fairies in British folklore that cause machines and computers to malfunction."

The Blue Witch seemed prepared to give me the lecture I'd requested. I listened attentively.

Yes. This was exactly the sort of information I'd been wanting. It would have been even better if she had given me the information in writing instead of lecturing me face-to-face.

"On April 4 of last year, the Shantak meteor shower rained magic stones down on Earth. The magic stone I'm holding is one of them. The magic stones scattered something like invisible spores, and the spores quickly grew on electrical appliances, forming Gremlins. They disabled electrical devices all over the world. Think of the magic stones as the original seeds, and Gremlins as their inferior offspring."

"I see."

So they were like an invasive alien species.

Like bluegill released into a lake, devouring the native fish in no time and multiplying out of control.

I'd thought the Octameteorite was the embodiment of romance, but it turned out to be one hell of a hazard.

"Gremlins grow by absorbing electricity, but that isn't limited to machines. You know about electric eels, right? Most of the electric eels kept in aquariums were killed by Gremlins that ate their way out from inside their bodies, but some of them adapted successfully. They gained magical powers and became monsters. Other animals, whether because of their constitution or some other reason, began circulating Gremlins through their bodies and using magic, while others mutated into monsters completely unlike their original forms. All of them are classified as monsters."

"Teacher, I saw some houses that had been destroyed on the way to Ome."

I raised my hand as I spoke, and the Blue Witch nodded.

"It was probably the work of monsters. They aren't necessarily evil creatures, but many of them are enormous. They break things simply by moving around, and they'll eat humans when they're hungry. They also use magic. The police and Self-Defense Forces did their best for a while after the Gremlins paralyzed the government, but once the monsters began multiplying, it was all over. The Ome evacuation center was wiped out, too."

"Ahh..."

That was a chilling story.

It really was a good thing I'd holed up at home. If I'd evacuated, I'd have been done for. Everything had worked out in the end.

But listening to her, it sounded as though humanity was on the verge of extinction.

Electricity had been cut off, and if the factories that produced firearms couldn't operate, ammunition would soon run out, too. Wasn't it all over?

But one thing bothered me.

"For monsters this dangerous, you were standing openly on a rooftop, Blue Witch-san. Don't you need to hide?"

"I'm a witch."

"...Um. You mean that you can use magic and you're strong?"

When I asked for clarification because I didn't quite understand, the Blue Witch waved her empty teacup and elaborated.

"I had a condition that made me prone to static electricity. I was born with a tendency to accumulate electricity. So things were awful when the Gremlins began to spread. It felt as though needles were flowing through every blood vessel in my body. I hovered between life and death for three days and three nights. Apparently, many people with the same condition couldn't endure it and died."

"Even so, I survived. Among the people who survived despite having their bodies invaded by Gremlins... Ah, I'll skip the details, but many of them were women who met certain conditions. Women who survived and gained the ability to use magic are called witches. Female monsters. Hence, witches."

The Blue Witch added that men were called wizards, then poured herself another cup of tea.

She'd really been through a lot. Good thing I wasn't prone to static electricity.

"Tokyo is like that, and I suspect other regions are too, but cities with supplies are generally ruled by witches or wizards as leaders. Witches and wizards are the only ones capable of opposing monsters. Few monsters can be killed with a metal bat or crossbow."

"I ruled Ome for a while and protected the people around here from monsters. My father, mother, younger sister, and childhood friend helped me. It wasn't a bad life. Rather than appearing in a model magazine and being fawned over by my classmates, I was better suited to beating down monsters that attacked innocent people and being praised for it."

The Blue Witch narrowed her eyes nostalgically and sighed.

The world was in chaos, but a beautiful high-school girl awakened to superpowers and saved the people!

Amazing. I felt as though I'd seen a plot like that in an anime before. Talk about intense!

"But there doesn't seem to be anyone in Ome now."

When I asked in puzzlement, the Blue Witch's face instantly became so cold it seemed capable of freezing over.

What? Did I step on a land mine? This is scary!

"Everyone died. I killed some of them. I live alone in Ome now. I hunt every monster that appears in this area. I kill trespassers. I've told the witches in the surrounding areas that if they find any survivors from Ome who are looking for a safe place to live, they should tell them about this place."

"I-I see?"

So when she'd asked, "Who gave you permission to be here?" upon our meeting, she had basically meant, "Which witch referred you?"

Ignorance is terrifying. The Blue Witch was intimidating and dangerous, but at least she could be reasoned with. If I'd unknowingly wandered into the territory of that man-eating witch she'd briefly mentioned, I would have been lunch by now.

I'm glad I got to learn all these basic facts this time.

To summarize the basic facts the Blue Witch had taught me:

Electricity could no longer be used anywhere in the world, and civilization had collapsed.

Monsters ran rampant, public order had collapsed, and corpses lay everywhere.

Now, witches and wizards who had awakened to special powers maintained order in their own territories.

So that's how things were. I more or less understood.

As I nodded in satisfaction, the Blue Witch tapped the magic wand Henden Show-kun on the table with one finger, leaned forward, and said,

"You understand the general situation now, right? This time, it's my turn to ask questions. Tell me about this OOPArt."