Salamander

The rice seedlings I'd been raising in the shed had grown taller, and early spring had passed.

I checked the thermometer every day and predicted how the temperature would rise; today, I decided, was the best time this year to plant the rice.

If we had weather forecasts, I could use them to plan the farming schedule, but the Hachioji witch who had been leading the effort to restore weather forecasting died in the pandemic, leaving the project up in the air.

It still hasn't been decided whether another witch will take over the project or whether it will be handed over entirely to the private sector. Some people said the Magic University should do it, but Professor Ohinata instead pushed for restoring educational and research institutions outside the Magic University.

The current situation, with only one respectable institution of higher learning, is warped. The broader the foundations of education and research, the better.

Unless we can at least restart elementary education, before long we'll be overrun by adults who can't even read, write, add, or subtract.

More than four years have passed since the Gremlin disaster, and compulsory education is still suspended. For now, education is left to individual families, or to volunteer teachers holding open-air classes.

If not for the mushroom pandemic, schools were expected to reopen this summer, but the plan fell apart.

The scars left by the mushroom pandemic, which dragged down the recovery just when it was going smoothly, run deep.

Still, none of this is something I can do anything about.

All I can do is what I can do—specifically, make wands and live my daily hunter-farmer life.

On a pleasant spring day, perfect for working in the gentle breeze, I planted rice alongside the Blue Witch, who had shown an interest in it. At first, she rolled up the hem of her black robe and gingerly stepped into the mud, but she soon got used to it and planted even more efficiently than I did.

Witches really are in a different horsepower class. I'll overlook the slightly messy planting as a difference in dexterity.

We finished planting before noon, then sat together on the straw mat spread along the ridge and wolfed down rice balls.

The Blue Witch held one hand beneath the kettle and chanted while stuffing her face with a salted rice ball.

"Munch, munch... Flame!"

A flame shot up, and the kettle soon began spouting white steam with a shrill whistle.

After she poured boiling water into the teacup with a teabag in it, I grew a little melancholy.

The Tsugibi Witch, who had spread this convenient magic to the world, was sealed away. She was a good person, though... Was she a good person?

...No, she was a good person. A high-level closet pervert, but still.

As I recalled the Tsugibi Witch's perverted habits, I remembered that I still hadn't cleaned up the burned-out house she'd fire-sexed before being sealed away.

A burned-out ruin reduced to a heap of ash and charcoal can become a tinderbox if left alone. It is entirely possible for a fallen piece of glass to accidentally act as a lens and ignite the charcoal in the sunlight, for example.

I'd spend the afternoon cleaning up the ruin.

I set the bamboo leaf I'd used as a rice-ball wrapper afloat in the paddy and discarded it, then stood up.

"Thanks for the meal. What are you doing this afternoon?"

"Hmm. What's your plan, Dairi?"

"I'm cleaning up the burned-out site. You know, the house where you and Tsugibi... um... did that thing."

"Is that really something you need to hesitate over? Well, I don't have any plans today. I might help for a while before heading home."

"That'd help. Then let's go. Leave the kettle there; we'll pick it up on the way back."

We headed off together, strolling toward the site of the arson.

Okutama had gone largely untouched by human hands and abandoned for four years. Surprisingly, nature's encroachment wasn't too serious. It depended rather a lot on the location.

Houses along the mountainside had ivy crawling over their walls, been half-buried by landslides, or become dens for wild animals and stunk of feces and urine. But around the town hall, where houses were relatively concentrated, the concrete roads surrounding them had kept deterioration and weathering mild.

Even so, weeds poked through cracks in the concrete, and many windowpanes were broken. Small birds (or small bird monsters?) had skillfully built nests on the silent traffic lights, leaving the road below covered in white droppings.

Four years since the Gremlin disaster—only four years, and yet four years.

Things made by people would fade under the pressure of the wild and gradually return to nature.

The arson site had burned down completely. Blackened beams jutted diagonally from the heaps of ash and charcoal, while appliances such as the refrigerator, microwave, and washing machine lay scattered around, charred black and caked in soot.

I fetched two shovels from a shed in a nearby field and tossed one to the Blue Witch.

"Pile the ash and charcoal in one place and cover it roughly with soil. Move the big pieces out of the way."

"Aren't you going to use the ash as fertilizer?"

"No. I think it has plastic, shards of glass, and other chemicals that shouldn't go into the fields mixed in with it."

"I suppose you're right. Dairi, don't fall and hurt yourself."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

We split up and began cleaning the burned-out site. While I raked the ash together with my shovel, the Blue Witch stomped on the appliance remains, denting them, rolled them into smaller bundles, and piled them up. There was such a thing as too much power. Was she a human excavator?

We'd been cleaning the ruin for a while, getting our cheeks dirty with ash, when I heard the Blue Witch cry out in surprise. I stopped moving my shovel and looked up.

"What is it? What happened?"

"No, there was a monster. Dairi, don't come over here. I'll take care of it now."

"A monster? ... Ah—wait, wait, wait! Hold on! Don't kill it yet!"

I suddenly realized what was going on, tossed aside my shovel, and ran to stop the Blue Witch.

It wasn't as if I hadn't considered this possibility at all.

A witch is a monster-woman with the power of a monster. Though she is a being mutated from a human, in nature she is close to a monster.

The Mushroom Pandemic Witch and the Flower Witch reproduced parthenogenetically. If that was possible, then it wasn't inconceivable that an actual child could be born from fire-sex between two women—two witches, creatures closer to monsters.

Looking at witches as monsters, their species would be completely different, though (after all, fire and ice), so I thought the odds were practically nonexistent.

If there was a monster in this burned-out ruin, it was probably one of your own biological children, a child you don't even know about, Blue Witch! You mustn't kill it!

"Hey, I told you not to come over here. It's dangerous."

"I was worried. Where is it? Which one?"

The Blue Witch sighed and, holding out a hand to keep me from getting too far ahead, pointed inside the refrigerator, which lay on its side with its door flung wide open.

There were three monsters inside.

They were tiny lizards about the length of an index finger. Huddled together in a nest they'd made inside the refrigerator, they repeatedly threatened us with high-pitched mewing cries.

Their bodies were a vivid red, like flame. And a tiny fire burned at the tip of each tail.

They were Salamanders.

Uh... Hmm. Is this what the children of humanoid fire fairies are supposed to look like?

It also seemed entirely possible that they had nothing to do with the Tsugibi Witch, and that a monster which had randomly mutated from a lizard had simply made its nest here. I should investigate a little more.

I picked up a charred metal rod, poked one of the Salamanders with the tip, and flipped it over. A blue Gremlin, very similar to the Blue Witch's signature color, was attached to its chest.

Ah, this is unquestionably the fruit of their love. I don't understand the details, but did it turn into a lizard because it was a hybrid of two species?

The overall coloring favors Mama, but I guess the Gremlin takes after Mama too (?)

The Salamander I'd poked and flipped over thrashed around, and the other two, enraged, breathed fire at the metal rod.

The Blue Witch grabbed me by the collar and forcibly pulled me back.

"Idiot, I told you so! Are you burned? Freeze――――"

"Whoa, wait, wait, wait...!"

When the Blue Witch tried to kill a Salamander again, I grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth with my hand, and stopped her chant.

After mumbling into my hand, the Blue Witch relaxed and lightly slapped it.

When I let go, she gave a deep sigh and asked,

"Do you really like this monster that much? It's a monster. Better to kill it while you can."

"No... I mean, it's not that I like it... I just thought maybe we shouldn't kill it."

"Why?"

"Why, you ask..."

I was at a loss for an answer.

You see, that monster is one of the two children the Tsugibi Witch created by taking advantage of your ignorance.

There was no way I could say that.

Tsugibi, you bastard! Don't leave a bomb like this behind before getting sealed away!

Idiot! What a complete idiot! Pervert!

Well, I guess they only unleashed their depraved desire to do something naughty with the older woman they admired before being sealed away; they probably never thought it would actually produce children, did they?

And now I'm the one in trouble because of it!

"Th-they're cute, and they look harmless. Maybe we could spare them?"

"Huh? What are you talking about? Cute? Well, they are cute, but they breathed fire, didn't they? They're a long way from harmless."

"No, it's not that bad... In terms of danger, aren't they around the lower end of Class B or the upper end of Class C?"

I pulled the Quick Reference Guide to Monster Threat Levels (Third Edition), published by the Department of Monster Studies at Tokyo Magic University, from my back pocket and looked up the classification of the Salamanders, which were still mewing and threatening us.

Class A1... A single witch cannot defeat it. Contact the witches' coven and declare a state of emergency.

(Giant monster)

Class A2... Even a witch will struggle against it. A witch with a favorable match-up or a powerful witch is required.

(Those possessing multiple Gremlins and wielding multiple types of magic)

Class A3... A witch must be dispatched. A witch can defeat it without difficulty.

(Those that engage in intelligent behavior, such as using tools; larger than a house)

Class B1... A unit of mages can defeat it by using monster pincers, specialized magic wands, and the like.

(Hybrids of three or more types of living things; those with human characteristics)

Class B2... A unit of mages can defeat it.

(Those that form packs centered around an exceptional individual; those that use lethal ranged magic)

Class B3... A battle-trained elite mage can defeat it.

(Hybrids of two types of living things; things such as ghosts and slimes that do not naturally exist on Earth)

Class C1... A mage, or an armed person with strong combat ability, can defeat it.

(Those among mutants whose transformation into monstrous forms is clearly apparent)

Class C2... It may attack humans when necessary. Ordinary people are advised to flee. It can be defeated if armed.

(Mutated carnivores such as cats and spiders)

Class C3... It may attack weakened humans or small children.

(Mutated omnivores such as crows and rats)

Class C4... It flees when it sees humans. Harmless.

(Mutated herbivores such as rabbits and deer)

※Exceptions! If you are unsure how to judge one or something feels off, flee immediately and call the security force!

"...Class C4, then! It's afraid of us, after all. Harmless."

"There are three of them in a pack, and they breathed fire. I'd say Class B2."

"No, no. Look at this metal rod. Sure, they breathed fire on it, but it was pretty cute. The surface is only a little scorched, so their firepower is practically nothing... Wait, it's melted a bit."

The metal rod had only been sooty when I picked it up, but the part they'd breathed fire on had melted slightly and warped.

Oh, come on. That's some insanely high firepower for something so tiny.

I'm trying to keep them from getting the death penalty here, so could you stop submitting evidence that helps the executioner?

"..."

"Um, don't silently ready Kyanos, okay? Look at it another way. High firepower is a good thing, right? If we train them properly, they'll solve our fuel problem."

"Impossible. The Department of Monster Studies has tried training monsters, but every attempt has failed."

"But there's supposedly a community called the Hokkaido Magical Beast Farm, right? With a name like that, they must have some way of raising them."

"Fire monsters are a source of fires. They could cause more damage than their catalogued threat level suggests."

"That's true, but still. Come on."

After arguing back and forth with the Blue Witch for about an hour, I somehow managed to win a stay of execution.

The Salamanders gathered metal inside the refrigerator, melted it, and made a nest. The melted metal included an iron wok, suggesting that they could produce enough heat to melt iron.

There were black bits of charcoal around their mouths, so charcoal must be their food.

Charcoal fires can't melt iron. If you think of them as organisms that convert charcoal into heat hot enough to melt iron, then these Salamanders could be called valuable and important creatures.

If we trained them properly, we'd be free from the trouble of making charcoal and procuring coal.

After hearing my argument, the Blue Witch reluctantly went home on the condition that she not approach the nest.

However, she would come to check on them every day, and if they showed signs of becoming violent or changing their diet (to meat), they would be disposed of immediately.

Whew, that was close. Safe for now.

I wanted to pat myself on the back for preventing an infanticide without revealing the reason I'd defended them.

But later, I'd send Hitsugi a sealed letter saying, "If the day ever comes when the Tsugibi Witch is released, make her prostrate herself before the Blue Witch, lick her feet, and beg forgiveness." This is a real ordeal, all because of that pervert.

Still, I'd weathered the immediate crisis, but the Blue Witch's murderous intent toward the Salamanders remained high. Some safety measures were needed.

In fact, it was entirely possible that the Salamanders might go for a walk into town and start setting fires everywhere.

That was no joke. Their parent had a history of arson, after all.

I searched the storage shed at home for a suitable container to keep the Salamanders in, but gave up when I remembered they had enough firepower to melt iron. There was no cage I could keep them in.

The Blue Witch hadn't noticed, and I hadn't gone out of my way to tell her, but those Salamanders were newborns. They would grow from here on out.

If they were already like that at the size of an index finger, what would happen when they grew larger?

Troubled, I pulled every fantasy encyclopedia and fantasy manga from the bookshelves around the house and searched for clues about raising them. I'd write to the Department of Monster Studies through Professor Ohinata later, but it couldn't hurt to investigate on my own.

The Blue Witch had also said she'd gotten hints about the mechanism of mushroom disease from a mushroom encyclopedia, so this kind of research was not to be dismissed.

I stayed up late poring over materials (though it was questionable whether they could be called that). I found no particular hints about raising them, but I did come up with a hypothesis for why humanoid fire fairies had produced Salamanders.

Perhaps the Tsugibi Witch's species underwent complete metamorphosis.

Here, 'metamorphosis' does not mean a sexual perversion, but the kind of transformation insects undergo.

Fairies in fantasy are often compared to insects.

The fantastic fairies that flit around flower gardens are like butterflies, and sometimes undergo a transformation just as butterflies change from caterpillars to pupae, then from pupae to adults.

Four of the twelve manga featuring fairies depicted this, and the fantasy encyclopedia also had it as a sidebar.

This kind of life cycle—"changing dramatically via a pupal stage when going from larva to adult"—is called complete metamorphosis.

The Tsugibi Witch had been growing old and frail, so she had obviously been an adult.

The Salamanders born from that Tsugibi Witch were, of course, larvae.

The fact that parent and child looked completely different also made sense if they were assumed to be creatures with complete metamorphosis.

Surely, at some point in their growth, Salamanders would take on a pupal form, then emerge as humanoid fire fairies.

Of course, this was all speculation based on dubious sources, and it was entirely possible they'd simply turned out so strange because they were hybrids born between the Blue Witch and another species.

The mere possibility that the pervert who committed the barbaric act of fire-sex with the Blue Witch in an ignorance scenario might undergo complete metamorphosis was kind of hilarious. They really were a pervert.

My all-night investigation had carried on until morning, so I headed back to the arson site through the morning mist.

The Blue Witch had told me not to go near them, but I was worried about how they were doing.

The three Salamanders scampered around the burned-out site, rolled around in the ash and played together, and stuffed their tiny mouths with charcoal. They were full of energy.

When they noticed me watching from a distance, they stopped moving and stayed still as statues for a while. But when I did nothing, they slowly started moving again, soon scampering about energetically once more.

Cute. I want to keep these things so badly.

If I put aside for the moment the fact that they were the children of Tsugibi and the Blue Witch, they were genuinely useful.

I really wanted them to live inside my reverberatory furnace and tend the fire. I'd feed them all the charcoal they wanted. Heat powerful enough to melt iron was that appealing.

More than anything, though, a workshop furnace inhabited by fire monsters was incredibly cool. It was so cool that my entire being gave it a standing ovation. It had such intense legendary-workshop vibes.

But it was all a pipe dream.

Monsters don't grow attached to people. Keeping them was impossible.

If anything, considering how they could cause fires, I should dispose of them just as the Blue Witch said.

But they were the children of the Tsugibi Witch and the Blue Witch. It would be awful to dispose of them.

And they were cute and useful... setting aside the danger that they might one day emerge as humanoids, they'd make perfect pets.

I wanted to keep these three Salamanders, but I couldn't.

Now what was I supposed to do?