Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 15 - Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The Tale of a Certain Traveler

I never knew the names of my birth parents.

Tracing my oldest memories back through my mind, I arrived at some ruins standing by the seaside, where the smell of salt air assailed my nose. Broken timbers, beds covered in sand, pieces of clothing plastered to the ground, dolls buried in the sand, and only the skeleton of the house remaining. Everything I could see was wrecked and covered in sand. In the middle of this incoherent landscape, where everything was broken into little pieces and scattered around like a puzzle, I lay collapsed on the ground.

When I asked about it, I was told this was the scene after everything humans had built was washed away by water and the place had fallen into ruin.

And it was my birthplace, which no longer existed. I was the sole survivor, somehow discovered among all that wreckage. That was what my caretaker at the orphanage told me, casting her eyes down sadly. When I asked why she made such a sad face, my caretaker looked even sadder as she embraced me. I knew then that I had asked something I wasn’t supposed to ask, and I never raised the same question again.

My days at the orphanage seemed like endless tedium.

We got up at a set time, ate breakfast, and played until the afternoon. Then we ate again, and then took a little afternoon nap before playing some more. If we were lucky, we did some reading and writing or studied the world outside, then in the evening we ate dinner, had a bath, and everyone went peacefully to sleep.

Day after day, we repeated the same activities.

I don’t recall how many years and months passed at the orphanage.

Before I knew it, I was eight years old.

While I lived out my boring days confined in this little terrarium, the teachers at the orphanage stood at their lecterns and told us every day about what a broad and beautiful place the world was.

“—Certain people, known as mages, are capable of commanding a mysterious power called magic. They can use magic to make amusing things like this happen, right in their hands.”

Our teacher waved her wand, and the next thing she showed us was a dazzlingly beautiful burst of glittering stars. As the sparkling beads of light flickered around us, the teacher told us that this was an example of the sort of magical power that mages could wield.

At the sight of this beautiful spectacle that filled the room, all the children erupted into delighted applause.

I realized that applause was the appropriate reaction and, a moment later than the others, clapped my hands together quietly.

Before long, the teacher explained that there might be a mage among us and handed out wands to each and every child. Those who directed their energy into the wand and got bluish-white light to come out were mages, the teacher told us.

I was the only one to produce any light. I was showered with a sparse round of applause, half surprise and half confusion.

The teachers at the orphanage taught me the bare minimum of how to use my magic, telling me that it might help me in the future. How to channel magical energy. How to fly on a broom.

“When will this help me?” I asked them.

One teacher answered me with a broad smile. “I’m sure it will come in handy once you leave here.”

Once I leave here.

I didn’t know when that might be, but at the time, I couldn’t help but feel like my teacher was talking about some impossibly distant future.

From time to time, an unfamiliar adult would visit the orphanage. Whenever someone came, I would be instructed by a teacher to go greet them, so every time someone visited, I gave them a polite bow.

When the adults saw me do that, they were pleased. “What excellent manners you have,” they would say. Apparently, I could expect praise for proper greetings. Without fail, every time one of the adults visited, one of the children was no longer there.

It wasn’t like I was especially close to any of the other children there, so I never felt a sense of loss when they left, but it did make me curious whenever someone suddenly disappeared.

One time I asked, “Where did those other kids go?”

When I did, the caretaker averted her eyes from me as if she felt guilty about something and answered, “We got those grown-ups to take them with them into the outside world.”

“The outside world?”

“Yes.” The caretaker frowned and patted me on the head. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be taken away someday, too. You’re such a good girl.”

“If you’re a good girl, you get to go to the outside world?”

I fixed my eyes on the door of the orphanage.

The big door the adults always opened and came through. The dazzling sunlight of the outdoors streamed through the round cut-out window.

It doesn’t seem like anyone’s coming today either.

“Yes… If you keep being good and wait long enough, someone will find you.”

The caretaker patted my head.

I don’t know the names of the people who gave birth to me.

I don’t know where my own hometown is.

I don’t know the world outside that door, not a thing about it.

I don’t know anything.

I don’t even know what it means to be a good girl.

I have nothing.

The only thing I do have is this heavy feeling.

I was certain there was no way I was a normal child, since I was having these kinds of thoughts.

Locked away in this limited world, I had lived my life knowing nothing. The only thing I had was the heavy, stifling feeling of being swept away and submerged by flowing water.

The more time passed, the more distant the light beyond the door seemed to grow.

“…Boring.”

The boredom I suffered through every day gnawed at my mind.

“Boring, boring, boring…”

If I was a good girl and waited long enough, someday a grown-up would come and take me away. Those words my caretaker had spoken to me kept me confined to the orphanage.

“Every day, I’m always bored—”

I was convinced that I must actually be a bad girl.

“I’ve had enough—”

When I was around ten years old—

—I snuck away from the orphanage, alone.

I didn’t run away from the orphanage because there was anything bad about the place. In fact, I didn’t want for anything in life, and I could have lived out the rest of my days there without giving it any thought.

But I just wasn’t satisfied.

I had been told often and from a young age that I mustn’t take it upon myself to go outside the orphanage alone, but as I walked through the outside world on my own, it felt free, and wide, and pleasant.

“Leaving the country?”

As soon as I left the orphanage, I headed for the border.

I had a feeling that if I stayed in the country, my teachers would come and take me back to the orphanage.

“Leaving the country.”

I nodded, and the guard who was standing in front of the gate put his hand on his chin and made a sour face.

It was exactly the same expression the adults, who often came to the orphanage to talk to the teachers, made whenever they looked at me from afar.

I never knew what kind of conversations those adults were having about me, but even at that time, I could tell such expressions were not the product of good feelings.

And, so as not to let me know what they were feeling, the moment they made eye contact with me, the adults always put on fake smiles.

The gate guard crouched down and asked me, “Young lady, is your papa or your mama nearby?”

When I shook my head, he made an even more exaggerated sour face than before.

“Hmm, I see… Then I’m sorry about this, Little Lady. At your age, without consent from your papa or mama, you can’t go out of this gate. Go on home for now, and come back again after you talk to them.”

“……”

I answered him with silence.

“Did you understand me?”

“……”

I took out my broom, set it gently floating in the air, and sat down firmly on top of it. After my position was stable and I took a deep breath, I kicked off the ground lightly. My body floated up off the ground.

“…Hmm? What are you doing, Little Lady? Were you listening to what I said?”

“……”

I directed magical energy into my broom.

“…Little lady?”

“Leaving the country.”

Immediately after I said that, I flew off on my broom, leaving no room for argument.

“H-hey! Wait a second! Come on! You can’t do that! Heeeeeeyyy!”

The guard’s voice echoed behind my back.

When I turned around, I could see the guard running after me.

His voice rang out in the distance, but I kept on flying on my broom until I couldn’t hear him any longer.

I sucked in deep, deep breaths and kept on flying on my broom.

Flying through a world full of freedom.

My journey began because of my selfish curiosity, which would not allow me to stay in that narrow world.

The first place I visited was a tiny little village.

“Oh my, what a cute traveler you are.”

The people of the village, living a humble life in the forest, greeted me, a rare visitor, warmly. It wasn’t normal to see a child of only ten traveling alone. It was obvious there was something going on.

But they said nothing and accepted me in.

There were no lodging establishments in the settlement, so one of the old women in the village let me stay with her. It was obvious to see that I had no proper luggage or clothing with me, and the old woman gave me a bag with several changes of clothes in it, saying, “These may be a little old-fashioned for a young girl today, but…”

“…Are you sure I can have these?”

I didn’t have a single thing I could give her in return.

“Yes, it’s fine. Anyway, they’re not doing old folks like us any good.”

Along with the clothes, she also gave me a very mage-like robe to be part of my outfit. It was a gorgeous white robe. When I put my arms through the sleeves, it smelled of wood. It seemed like it had been lying unused in a wardrobe for a very long time. It wasn’t the right size, so it was baggy on me, but the old woman adjusted it for me so that it fit perfectly.

Gazing at me nostalgically after I got changed, the old woman told me the story of the people who lived in that settlement.

Those people living in their village in the woods all had various reasons for leaving their hometowns. All of them had found regular life stifling.

People who were wandering the outside world for similar reasons naturally gathered together, and in finding one another, they had formed a village.

“That’s why even though you arrived here alone, no one will ask you anything.”

The old woman prepared dinner for me.

She said that the local cuisine out there in the forest was based on mushrooms. We ate mushroom pasta and mushroom soup. It was a simple meal, but to these self-sufficient people, it was a feast.

After dinner, the old woman told me that if I wanted to, I was welcome to live in the village.

And that the other villagers were hoping I would stay.

They were such kind people.

“Thank you very much. But I can’t stay here.”

The following day, I left the village at sunrise.

As a parting gift, they gave me plenty of food and money.

They were the kindest people in the world.

But I knew I was not normal.

There was no way I could continue to rely on the goodwill of those kind people, who had never once pointed out that I was not normal. And so, after bowing deeply to the villagers, I once again flew off on my broom.

I definitely didn’t leave because I couldn’t stomach the mushrooms.

I flew for about two days after leaving the village, before I happened across a caravan crossing a plain.

Beside the wagons, three children and a young man and woman were having a friendly chat. I was gazing admiringly at the tranquil scene when their eyes eventually landed on me.

“Heeey! Traveling witch! Where are you headed?”

Where am I headed?

I myself didn’t have the answer to that question. My broom naturally came to a stop in front of them. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know whether there were even any countries in the direction that I was flying.

So I opened my mouth and immediately asked, “Are there any countries around here?”

“Any countries around here…? No, none right nearby, but—,” the man who seemed to be the leader of the caravan party answered me. He seemed perplexed. “Do you mean to say that you’ve been flying along on your broom without even knowing where you’re headed…?”

“Yes.”

“You’re quite the strange one, huh…?”

I understand that already.

“Miss, are you lost?” a young child asked from behind the man who seemed to be the leader. It was a boy, about five years old.

I didn’t even know whether or not I was lost.

To begin with, what does being lost mean?

I didn’t even know the definition.

“…If you don’t mind, would you tell us about yourself?”

The man who seemed to be the leader of the caravan party smiled kindly at me when I was stumped for an answer.

They were kind people as well.

When I asked, they told me they were a family-operated caravan. Apparently, they went around trading their wares as they traveled the wide world as a family.

The man who was the leader was the head of the family and the head of the enterprise. Second-in-command was his wife. It sounded like the three children mostly assisted them.

“We wanted the kids to know how big the world is from the time they were small, you see—that’s why I decided we would do this job as a family.”

After hearing a bit about my circumstances and sympathizing with me a little, the leader launched into an energetic explanation about everything that led him to want to start this caravan.

Sitting beside him, his wife said, “The kids are happy with it,” and stroked the children’s heads.

The oldest was seven, the middle child was five, and the youngest was three. Two boys and a girl, with the girl being the middle child.

“Having this unique experience at a young age will definitely be an asset to them in the future.”

The man talked about the details of forming his caravan business. He looked just like an innocent child who was lost in a dream. Looking at his bright eyes reminded me of some of the children who had been with me while I was at the orphanage.

The man estimated that even if I kept flying on my broom, it would probably take me three days to reach the closest country.

That kind man told me I could travel with the caravan for a little while.

I took him up on that offer.

I traveled with their family for about a week.

They were peaceful days. I spent almost every day playing with the children. Occasionally, we studied together. Apparently, the second-in-command could use a little bit of magic, and she taught me some of the principles of spellcasting, since I couldn’t properly handle even the barest basics.

All I did during those days was take advantage of those people’s generosity.

“Is there nothing I can do for you?” I asked the leader.

With a smile, he said, “You’ve been a big help to us already, just by playing with the children. The experience of playing with a girl a little older than them for a week will also be an asset to them, I’m sure.”

He told me, “I want them to try all sorts of things, come in contact with all sorts of stuff, and meet, talk to, and get along with all sorts of different people. If they experience a lot of different things, that will lay the foundation for the rest of their lives.”

After a week had gone by, we arrived at a certain country.

I separated from them there.

“We are planning to go do business in a country a little farther down the road, you see, so—we came here along the way.”

He said that, and then the head of the family business verified my identity to the gate guard and shouldered the expense of my entry.

As a parting gift, he handed me some amount of money.

I protested that I hadn’t done anything to deserve the money he was offering—I shook my head, and the man laughed and stroked his children’s hair.

My journey had been nothing if not blessed by kind people.

The caravan left the country, and I stood there waving as their wagons grew ever smaller.

And vowing that I would experience a lot of different things in this new country.

Then, a week after that happened—

“…Why?”

—I was penniless.

I stood in the street as my stomach growled and grumbled. Too much had happened, and I felt like I might lose my mind. I looked from the back alley I was standing in over to the main road and saw soldiers and shady men going every which way, looking for me. They were going around asking everyone they passed if they had seen a child with ash-gray hair.

“How did this happen…?”

For a little while, everything had been going well for me in that country.

I knew the money I had been given would only be enough to survive on for about a week. I needed a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear. I would need a lot of money to keep on living.

First things first, I would have to find work.

Cafés, restaurants, inns, clothing shops, bookstores…there were lots of different businesses lining the streets. I wondered what kind of place I could work to get some good experience. I wondered who would employ a ten-year-old mage.

Carefully scrutinizing each shop, I walked down the street.

“You! Hey, you! You over there!”

That was when someone called out to me. When I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a man beckoning to me from a small alleyway right beside a roadside stall.

“You, by any chance are you looking for a job? I’ve got a good job for you!”

Well! Can he read my mind?

I was very surprised when it happened, and I walked over giddily, as if being drawn into the narrow, gloomy alley where the man was standing.

“What’s this good job?”

I suddenly got excited, thinking I would be able to quickly gain some valuable experience.

“I want you to walk around handing these out to the people of the city.”

The man handed me a small basket. The inside was packed with lots of candies.

According to him, he had built a candy shop on a corner of one of the streets in town. His shop was going to open in a week. He said he wanted me to go around handing out the candies as advertising.

I had been walking around looking for a job, and the man had been looking for a publicist. Our interests were aligned. I readily agreed and walked off holding the basket full of candy.

For the next few days, I walked around handing out candy to people on the street.

“A new candy store is opening! Please come check it out!”

Every day, I did my job, shouting enthusiastically.

The man kindly prepared meals for me every day. I was incredibly grateful not to have to worry about food expenses, when I was using up what little money I had every day just to stay at an inn.

As the shop’s opening day approached, the man talked to me about his dreams. He told me how difficult it had been to get to the point where he could open a shop of his own and how happy he was to be able to open his candy shop.

However, a week later—

The very first people to open the door of the candy shop, the shop the man had always dreamed of opening, were some rude, shady-looking men.

“’Ey, you! You didn’t forget about the money you borrowed from us, didja? Before you relax an’ open up a shop like this, first you oughtta pay us back, don’cha think?”

The suspicious men pressed the shopkeeper.

Apparently, the shopkeeper had borrowed money from these shady characters.

“S-sorry…! I’m sorry! I don’t have the money right now—but once the shop takes off, I’ll definitely pay you back! I just need a little more—”

“What makes you think we’re gonna wait? Pay us now!”

One of the vulgar-looking men grabbed the shopkeeper by the collar. He was angry, and he threatened that if the man didn’t pay up, they would get their money by selling his organs.

At that moment, I remembered the man’s tale of hardships.

I was sure the reason the man didn’t have any money on hand was because he had been paying me a daily wage and preparing meals for me. My chest ached. Once I realized that, I stood up in front of these criminals.

“W-wait, please! If it’s money you want—if it’s money, I’ll pay it!”

Then I handed the shady man all the money I had.

I was penniless again.

But it was all right. Because I had been penniless before I entered the country and penniless right when I started my journey. I was sure this, too, would be an important life experience—

“Hey, hey, don’chu treat me like a fool, missy. Your pocket change isn’t gonna cut it!”

……

Huh? It’s not enough?

After frantically shoving all the money I had into his pocket, the vulgar fellow looked at me like he was appraising me.

“Missy, now that I get a good look atcha, you’ve got a real pretty little face. I could get a good price if I sold ya!”

……

I had a bad feeling.

“In exchange fer you not payin’ us back, we could just take her. That’d work fine.”

A really bad feeling.

In the threatening atmosphere, I gave the shopkeeper a look asking for help.

“……”

He immediately averted his eyes from me.

He said only—

“I’m sorry. All right then, please sell the child.”

That’s when I became convinced he was scum.

After that, everything happened so fast. I promptly pulled out my broom and escaped the shop. Just like when I had left my hometown, I fled with all my might.

“Ah, wait a second! Hey, you guys! Chase her, chase her! Don’t you dare let ’er get away!”

I knew I would attract a lot of attention, flying down the main avenue on my broom. So as soon as I managed to slip into the crowd, I put my broom away and started walking.

I had been walking away for a little while when I saw some of the country’s soldiers speaking to passersby.

That’s it, I’ll ask the soldiers for help.

“Mister soldier! Help me, please! Some scary people are chasing me!”

I clung to one of the soldiers.

“Hmm? Oh really…?” The soldier raised his eyebrows, looking a little surprised at me after I suddenly appeared in the middle of his conversation. Then he placed his hands on my shoulders. “Is that a true story, I wonder?” he asked. “Where might those scary people be now?”

“Um…”

I turned back to look around.

My frantic escape must have been effective, because the criminals were nowhere to be seen.

I wondered how on earth I was supposed to explain my current situation. I thought about it, with my young brain.

“But this is actually perfect. I was just out searching for you, too. You must be the little girl who’s been walking around handing out candies for the past week, right?”

“Uh, ah, yes…I am, but…”

“Do you know what was in those candies you were handing out?”

“…Huh?”

“When we examined them, it turns out that the candies you were giving out had an addictive substance in them, bordering on illegal, and we have no idea where it came from. Where did you get those candies, I wonder? I’d like to ask you a few—”

I see. This isn’t going to work.

I ran off.

“Ah, hey! Waaaaaait!”

And so, on top of being penniless, I found myself being chased by both the soldiers and the criminals.

I wasn’t sure whether my luck was bad or whether I’d simply had exceptionally good luck before then. But I had lost everything in the blink of an eye. I was reduced to sneaking through back alleys, trying to escape.

I was afraid I would have to live my life huddling up next to garbage forever, or at least until they forgot all about me.

But my pursuers easily outwitted a ten-year-old girl, even if she could use magic.

Almost as if the criminals and the soldiers had conspired to work together, they organized a search of all the back alleys. In no time at all, I was caught.

The one small mercy was the fact that the soldiers and the criminals had not in fact been working together to chase me down.

“Hey, what’re you soldiers doin’ here? This little girl is our valuable property! Don’t you touch her!”

Apparently, I had already become property in the criminals’ eyes.

“We should be the ones asking you. We have a number of questions we want to ask the girl. We’ve received multiple complaints about the dodgy candies she made. We have to bring her to justice!”

Apparently, I had already become a villain who made poison candy in the soldiers’ eyes.

Ahh, this is bad.

“Um, um, I-I’m not—”

How on earth am I going to explain this?

All I could do was stand there, utterly terrified, surrounded by the adults. Though I was a mage, I was only ten years old. When it came down to it, the only thing I could do was to break into tears right there on the spot.

But it was only natural that a large group of adults surrounding a young girl and shouting at each other in the street would attract attention from the public.

It was also only natural that someone should appear to protest against them.

“What on earth is going on here?”

Wedging her way in between the soldiers and the criminals who were fighting over me was a woman with hair so white, it was nearly see-through.

She was wearing a robe that was the same bright white as her hair, and upon her breast was a star-shaped brooch.

She looked like she was about in her late thirties.

“Do good people have fights over little girls in broad daylight?”

Her tone of voice was calm, but there was a forceful drive behind the mage’s words. The soldiers took one step back and straightened up, and the criminals dejectedly backed down.

One of the soldiers opened his mouth to speak to the mage who had suddenly appeared. He was probably going to try to explain the situation.

However, before the soldier’s voice could come out, the mage shook her head and said, “Regardless of the circumstances, your approach was all wrong, wasn’t it? The child is frightened, can’t you see?”

Then the mage ordered the soldiers to withdraw and drove the criminals off. “Away with you all,” she said. “I shall take charge of this child.”

And then, after she had cleared away all the dangerous people who had been around me, the mage looked down at me.

“I don’t know what happened here, but it looks like it is a complicated situation. Come with me,” she said, and she took my hand.

The woman who whisked me away from that place said her name was the White Witch.

The White Witch told me she was a witch who lived in that country.

It was my first time seeing a being known as a witch. Apparently, that’s what people were called once they developed their magical abilities and they received a star-shaped brooch from their teacher.

She invited me to stay at her estate.

“May I see you use your magic?” she asked as she handed me a wand.

There was hardly anything in the parlor of her mansion—just the barest furnishings of a table, a sofa, and a bookshelf—but even someone as ignorant as me could see that the furnishings were of good quality, and it was obvious that she lived an affluent life.

And so I carefully channeled some magical energy through the wand, making sure not to accidentally hit anything.

Light came from the tip of the wand.

“I see.”

She shook her head and told me that was enough, and then asked me, “Now then, would you tell me your story?”

My story.

“…Where should I start?”

I figured she probably wanted to know the sequence of events that led to me being chased by the soldiers and the criminals. I was stumped as to where exactly to start my explanation.

She smiled gently at me as I hesitated.

“Anywhere you like,” the White Witch said. “As much as time will permit, as much as you feel like telling, talk to me about whatever you like.” And then, because it seemed like it was going to be a long story, she brought over several plates of cookies and macarons, as well as some tea.

I talked.

I told her everything that had happened before I got there.

I told her my oldest memory of being buried in the ruins by the seaside. I told her about how, the next thing I knew, I was living in the orphanage. I told her how life in the orphanage was stifling, and boring, and heartbreaking, and how I had been certain that I wasn’t normal, and how I had fled. I told her about arriving at that kind village when I first set out on my journey. I told her about how after that, after flying across the plains for several days, I had encountered the caravan party and made my way there.

“A lot of people helped me before I got to this place.” During my journey, the old woman and the others in the village, as well as the people in the caravan, had all treated me with kindness. “I thought that being friendly to people in trouble was normal.”

While I was traveling, I had thought normal people lived their lives doing good things. Like all the people who had shown me kindness, I had also wanted to be kind to other people.

The White Witch asked me, “Are you traveling because you want to become normal?”

“……” I couldn’t answer her. “I still don’t really understand what normal is.”

The world was brimming with things I didn’t understand.

I had thought that if I could live kindly and treat people well, like those others had done for me, that that would be a normal way of living, but…

As a result of that thinking, in the week since I had entered this country, a group of men had taken advantage of me, and I had quickly lost everything.

“Is it not normal to extend a helping hand, to be nice when someone you know is struggling before your eyes?” I asked the White Witch.

She shook her head.

“I don’t know whether it’s normal or not, but as far as I can tell from hearing your story, I have no doubt that in this instance, your way of handling things was foolish.” The woman admonished me in a gentle tone of voice. “You mustn’t offer help solely out of a desire to be kind, without looking at the sequence of events that led the other person to wind up in trouble in the first place. You’ve got to think about what will happen after you help them.”

Kindness had to be something you did in consideration of others; it couldn’t be something you did for your own satisfaction.

That’s what she told me.

I wondered whether that was what it meant to be normal.

I thought about it while I was listening to her speak so earnestly. The White Witch must have been able to tell exactly what I was thinking.

She opened her mouth to speak again.

“This normal that you keep talking about—to put it another way, we can call it common sense. And common sense doesn’t have a definite form to it. It takes a different form for each person. By way of example, take these plates,” she said as she picked up a cookie.

“There are several different plates on the table, and they may look the same, but the pattern is a little bit different on each one. Common sense is much the same. It may seem identical, but it’s a little bit different in each person,” she said.

“For example, don’t the cookies and macarons served up on a beautiful plate look delicious? But if this plate was dirty and misshapen, would they look just as delicious, I wonder?”

I imagined it. Then I shook my head.

“…They wouldn’t.”

“Exactly,” the White Witch agreed.

People’s knowledge and experiences were built on top of their common sense, and if their version of common sense was peculiar, then the way they viewed their knowledge and experience would be different, too, she told me as she waved her wand and lifted all the cookies up off all the plates.

“And unfortunately, there’s no correct answer as to which plates are clean and beautiful and which plates are dirty and misshapen.”

“……”

I lowered my gaze.

To me at least, the plates that were left behind on the table looked like the kind of thing that anybody would say was beautiful.

“The people I met before coming to this country were good people.”

The old woman and the others who had been living in the small settlement and the members of the family caravan had all treated me, a complete stranger, with kindness. I felt certain that if I could be more like those kinds of people, I could become a normal person.

“Were they really? It doesn’t seem that way to me.” The White Witch simply shook her head. “For example, the lady who gave you that robe you’re wearing right now—do you really know who she was?”

“…?”

“Once, there was a mage in a country nearby here who killed her own husband. The mage was arrested and spent ten years in prison, after which she completed her rehabilitation into society. But the fact that she’d murdered her husband kept her at a distance, robbed her of her place in the community, and she fled from the country. The robe you’re wearing is the very same robe the mage wore at the time of the incident.”

“……Eh?”

“It sounds like you also encountered a family-owned caravan on your journey. From your perspective, how did they seem?”

“How did they seem…?” I was confused and at a loss for words, but I still managed to squeeze out a few words in reply. “They seemed…happy.”

“Did they? By the way, they came to this country once before, but they faced harsh criticism from the citizens here, because they were abusing their children. The people felt bad for the kids, who were forced to work from a young age and never given the opportunity to get a proper education.”

And so, unable to stand the criticism they faced, the family left, fleeing the country, she said.

“…But…” At least, those people had treated me, a complete stranger, with kindness. They didn’t seem like bad people at all. Not to me anyway.

I hung my head, and she nodded.

“People who seem good from your perspective may seem very bad from another angle. That’s what I’m saying.”

In other words, she was telling me there was no such thing as one correct version of “common sense” or one true version of “normal,” no matter whose perspective you looked at it from.

“As far as I can tell from what I’ve heard, your common sense hasn’t completely developed yet. You simply copy the behavior of the people around you who seem normal and naturally treat them as if they are decent people.”

Then the White Witch put her wand away.

The cookies that had been floating lightly in the air all fell down to the table and broke.

“…Well then, what am I supposed to do?” I asked. I wondered what I could do in order to acquire this common sense she was talking about. “What can I do to achieve normalcy?”

I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I only knew that I was ignorant. Other than that, I knew nothing.

I pleaded with her, desperate for any help I could get, and she simply shook her head and answered, “I wonder? That’s something I don’t really know either.”

Then, smiling gently and kindly, she continued, “So why don’t you join me in my studies?”

The White Witch was certainly a strange character.

She had used the metaphor of the plates to explain to me that each person’s definition of a beautiful plate was different. But if I were to follow that example, I think her plate would probably have been quite odd looking to most people.

After all, she took me, a complete stranger with absolutely no blood relation to her, as her pupil to study magic. She said it was wasteful for her to live alone in her overly large mansion and provided me with a room. Then she taught me everything about magic, starting with the fundamentals.

“I’m sure you’re eager to get back to your travels as soon as possible, but you can’t. There are too many bad people out there, and a young girl like you traveling on her own is a tempting target, easy to trick. It’s plainly obvious that if I let you go as you are now, you’ll be tricked in the same way again.”

“Well then, what should I do?”

I tilted my head questioningly, and she told me, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, “Become a witch. Show me proof that you are a mage in possession of advanced knowledge and skills and that you are powerful enough to use them. After all, I’m not going to permit you to return to your travels until you become a witch,” she said.

She was a strict but kind witch.

Day by day, she taught me not only how to handle my magic but also guidelines for traveling and other things that would generally be considered common sense.

Apparently, she was a witch of some standing in that country.

Every day, all kinds of people knocked on the gates to her estate with various requests. Whether she gave them the help they were seeking depended on the money they offered. She wouldn’t take a job for too little money, and she wouldn’t take one for too much money either.

When I asked her why, she answered, “Respectable people know better than to try to hire a witch for a pittance. And people who offer too much money almost always have hidden circumstances that they don’t disclose at the time they make their request.”

So she only accepted commissions from just the right type of people who offered her just the right amount of money, she said.

“Is that your definition of normal, Miss?”

“I suppose it is.” The White Witch nodded.

About five years after that, on my fifteenth birthday, I fastened a corsage of bellflowers to my chest. My training had begun to bear fruit, and so I became a witch’s apprentice.

My intense training in genuine magic began the day my apprenticeship started.

If I wanted to spend my life traveling, then I had to learn every possible kind of spell that would allow me to defeat any looming dangers—that’s what the White Witch told me as she instructed me in various spells.

After turning fifteen and becoming an apprentice, I also started lending a hand with the witch’s jobs.

We did everything from concocting potions, to exterminating pests, to locating things and people, to making and destroying objects.

She used her magic for the sake of the world and for the sake of other people.

But people didn’t always express gratitude toward the witch or her assistant. That was because when magic was used to help one person, it sometimes ended up hindering another.

Together with my teacher, I was sometimes appreciated and sometimes despised as I learned magic in that country.

“Why are you being so kind as to teach me magic?”

On the day I turned eighteen and became an adult, the White Witch said, “I think it’s about the right time for you to become a witch.”

And so, on the day of my birthday, I was recognized as a witch. “Congratulations. You’ve finally completed all the preparations to head out on your journey.”

The White Witch smiled gently, as she had when we’d first met.

I wore the black robe I had purchased for my travels while I was working as her apprentice. She fixed the star-shaped brooch to the breast of the robe.

Its modest weight pressed against my chest.

“I’m glad that I met you.”

These words, which I normally never would have said, came naturally spilling out of my mouth.

I must have been in high spirits at the prospect of setting off again.

“That’s my line.” She must have been in the same state as I was. “You could say that I was also saved by having you in my life.”

I shook my head.

“I’m not powerful enough to save you,” I replied.

But she shook her head, too, as if following my lead.

“No, no. I was saved as soon as we met…because I learned for a fact that I was not the only strange human out there.”

“……”

“And so these past few years have been fulfilling for me in their own way.”

At that point, I remembered something.

She never accepted jobs from the people who came to her for help unless they offered proper compensation.

If the compensation they presented to her was too high, she didn’t trust them, and if it was too low, she didn’t even show any interest. She had only ever accepted commissions from people whose sense of values aligned with hers, even just a little bit.

Whenever there was a gap between what she was being offered and what she was being asked, she entirely refused to hear the request.

The days I spent with her after we met had been happy ones for me.

I thought they had probably been happy for her, too.

“What kind of name do you want for your witch name?” she asked me.

I cocked my head.

“What kind of name would be good?”

For one thing, she was the only witch I really knew. I had never met another witch. I wondered what kind of names were appropriate to signify a witch.

At this point, I found myself asking her once again what was normal.

She answered me plainly.

“In this country, it’s considered normal to take a name that is connected to your hair color.”

“I see.”

I looked at her. She had beautiful white hair. And that’s why she was the White Witch. I felt like it was a little too simplistic, but—

“Well then, I’ll do the same. Please use the color of my hair.”

I bowed once.

She nodded. “All right, let’s do that.”

And then I received my witch name from her.

A simple name, connected to my hair color.

“The Ashen Witch.”

After that, I went on a long, long journey as the Ashen Witch.

I flew around the world on my broom, often veering off the beaten path. Sometimes good things happened to me, and sometimes bad things happened instead.

The world was overflowing with every conceivable definition of normal.

Every day was perfect.

After a number of years had passed since I began my journey, I took on two students of my own. From then on, I continued traveling while raising the two of them as apprentice witches.

Then those two both became witches, and each of them went down her own path, and I found myself alone again.

“Welcome to our country! Are you here for some sightseeing?”

I arrived at a certain remote country, far from any other civilization. It was a peaceful place, a small, unremarkable country without any notable sights.

Perhaps because they very rarely got any sightseers, the guard at the gate greeted me with a stiff salute.

I shook my head.

“Homecoming.”

“Oh? Homecoming, you say?” The guard’s eyes went wide, and he dropped his salute. “Excuse me, but what is your name?”

“I am called the Ashen Witch.”

“Wait just a moment, please! I’ll check the departure logs!”

If I was coming home, that meant I must have left once. Apparently, the guard needed to examine the records to confirm I had left the country some time before.

This was my first experience ever coming home, so I was confused.

“We don’t have a record of your departure, but—”

When I first left the country, I wasn’t yet the Ashen Witch, so understandably, I wasn’t going to be in the records.

It was even less likely, since I hadn’t exactly departed under the best circumstances.

“Try looking under the name Victorica.”

I told him to look back over a decade prior in his records.

It was already quite a long time ago. I gave him the name of the naive young mage who had taken it upon herself to sneak out of the orphanage, fearing that she was not normal, and then forced her way out of the front gates.

Once I designated the specific year for him, he easily found the record of my departure.

As soon as he found it, the guard furrowed his brow.

“…It says here that it was an unlawful exit.”

“And that’s why I came back to pay the fine.” Nodding to him, I asked, “Any chance you’re going to let me in?”

“Well, if you don’t come in, then you can’t pay the fine, so…”

The gate guard stepped aside and ushered me in. Familiar, peaceful scenery spread out before me on the other side of the gate.

“Welcome home, Lady Witch.”

Then I bowed back to the saluting guard and walked through the gates.

The Peaceful Country of Robetta.

The final country I visited on my journey was my hometown, the very place I’d started.