The Stagnant Witch’s Survival Method

As I was going out with such confidence to train alone…

I was caught.

“Nice to meet you, Grace. I am Witch Agrasha, who will be educating you all from now on.”

Hair the color of earth spread out in tendrils.
Perhaps due to her witch nature, this seductively beautiful woman introduced herself as soon as she discovered me trying to go outside.

“The other children are already gathered. Let’s hurry along now.”

She grabbed my hand.
As if dealing with a young child.
Well, it’s not wrong, but I can’t help feeling strange about it.

As I was dragged out, I soon saw several witches gathered in an open space.
They seemed to be children who had just become witches yesterday, around my age and with a somewhat fresh feeling.

I was made to sit next to those children.
As I sat quietly, the pink-haired girl right next to me spoke to me.
Her round face gave her a cute impression.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sharen. I became a witch yesterday like you.”
“…Yeah. Nice to meet you.”

When I gave such a calm reply, somewhat at a loss for how to deal with a girl of this age, let alone a witch child, Agrasha opened her mouth while looking at the young witches.

“You have now become witches belonging to the Witch Society. Before you handle that power and serve the Witch Society, you must receive proper guidance and care.”

It seems witches do enter the faction at an excessively young age.
Other factions usually enter around their 20s.
But for witches, the condition was 14 years or younger, so even compared to reality, it’s about middle school age.
What great things could such kids do?
Of course, this was a world where even 15-year-olds were treated as adults, but even considering that, young is still young.

“Now look at the back of your hands. There, you’ll see the pattern of the demon you contracted with engraved. The source of your power, and the demon you should be most wary of, is sleeping there.”

The young witches looked at the backs of their hands.
I did the same, looking at the backs of other witches’ hands, not my own.

One thing was certain – they weren’t as messy and complex as my pattern.
They took on some kind of form that was somewhat recognizable.

“The more distinct and rational the demon’s form, the more consistent the pattern’s shape will be. If your pattern is like that, you can be somewhat reassured. But if the pattern is too dirty and inconsistent…”

Agrasha’s gaze turned towards me.
Her look, as if seeing something pitiful, made me feel somewhat strange.
Does she know what kind of demon I contracted with?
It would be stranger if she didn’t know, since I hadn’t hidden the back of my hand.

“Normally, you’d quickly go mad, have your body and soul stolen by the demon, and become a slave suffering for nearly an eternity. So you must be careful, very careful.”

Still, I took the warning to heart.
No matter how strong my mental fortitude, you never know what might happen.
If I really became a slave to a demon, it would be worse than most deaths.

After explaining what it means to contract with a demon, the atmosphere sank low.
Some kids were sniffling, probably feeling scared.

Agrasha seemed to notice this and decided to give them a bit of hope.

“Don’t worry too much. As long as you don’t give too much control to the demon, there shouldn’t be big problems. And if you keep training and rising in rank without losing yourself to the demon, someday you’ll be free.”

Hmm, but I knew the opposite despair.
The time when a witch gains freedom from a demon is when they reach 4th rank.
The problem is that even the strongest witch here is only 5th rank.
How can they guarantee breaking free from bonds that even the head of the Witch Society couldn’t escape?

Though I’m the one thinking of surpassing the limits of a witch.
I don’t think that’s too difficult.
Even in the game I reached 2nd rank, 1st rank, so just 4th rank should be doable even for a witch.

This wasn’t arrogance, but confidence.

Perhaps deciding the gloomy talk was enough, Agrasha smiled brightly and said:

“But as much as you’re given instability, you’re also given tremendous power. Just as you can use your arms and legs from birth, you can use powerful abilities. One of those is magic.”

A black light flows from the back of her hand.
Magical power.
The resource used by those who have entered evil factions.
Power derived from negativity, death, and evil.

“Dark Arrow.”

As she gathered that power, the black energy formed a definite shape.
The front became a sharp awl, drawing a long shadow as it moved forward.
The arrow soon hit the wall, leaving a huge impact.

Bang-!

The young witches watched the miracle of the black arrow in shock.
And expectation was etched in their eyes.
Magic that witches can use – meaning they could use it too.

“You try it now. It’s magic that can pierce and kill people and monsters in one shot.”

“Dark Arrow!”
“…Dark.”
“Arrow!”

The young girls chanted clearly.
Then magical power flowed from the backs of their hands, creating small arrows.
The power of the girls, lacking in skill and rank, was still inadequate.
Some arrows went a little ways before falling to the ground, while others didn’t even form before dissipating.
But the talented ones managed to fire all the way, hitting objects far away.

Agrasha praised such children.

“Wonderful.”
“Hehe…”
“If you work a little harder, you’ll be able to rise to even greater heights.”

As Agrasha cared for the witches like that, she approached me.
I couldn’t help but flinch slightly at her affectionate gaze.

Even knowing witches are monsters, when a monster’s gaze is full of goodwill, you can’t help but feel a sense of dissonance.

Agrasha gently held my hand, looked at the back of it and said.
Do witches have some kind of obsession with hands?
Why do they keep grabbing hands?

“Grace, won’t you try it too?”
“Yes.”

It’s not difficult.
The knowledge of is vividly imprinted in my mind.
As I concentrated, the demon coiled inside my body reacted.

-Grrrrrr.

A monster that has lost both reason and emotion.
Perhaps because I contracted with something not quite like a demon, the power manifested somewhat differently from the way imprinted in my mind.
The magical power spewed out by the monster instantly covered the surroundings.

“Eek.”

As the young witch next to me jumped back in surprise, I controlled the magical power scattered around.
Although my head was dizzy from the sudden situation, I could gather it if I focused as much as possible.

For now, using all of this would be wasteful, so I recovered half and used half for the magic.
I opened my closed mouth and chanted in the girl’s voice that didn’t sound like mine.

“Dark Arrow.”

Whoosh-!

The arrow shot out at an unimaginable speed, destroying everything in its path.
It was an arrow with far more powerful force than Agrasha’s, who was one rank higher than me.
Even I who just fired it was dumbfounded.

How did it come out this powerful?
I didn’t know well since I had never properly played a witch before.
It must be the price for taking on the risk of contracting with a being no different from a monster.

Perhaps due to that influence, my head kept spinning.
That fact gave me a sense of caution.
Relying solely on mental fortitude is dangerous – one misstep and my mortgaged soul could be lost.
As I was slowly suppressing the dizziness, Agrasha patted my shoulder.

“Calm down, calm down.”

No, I’m trying, so stop shaking my body.
As I properly grasped my dizzy mind and focused my scattered attention, I realized the back of my hand was emitting an ominous light.
Uh… so the demon there was frantically pounding on the wall.

Is it already attempting rebellion?
I really made a bad contract. I thought it was just a thug, but it turned out to be an alcoholic that destroys its own house.
Still, when I focused my mind, it was quickly suppressed.
The demon that had been writhing as if about to overturn everything fell asleep.

“Huff. Huff…”

I calmed the light on the back of my hand and caught my breath.
Then I looked around, and every single witch was staring at me without exception.
For some reason, their eyes looked like they were seeing a very pitiful child, or someone about to become a monster.
It’s a bit unfair, I’m still fine.

“Are you alright? If you’re tired, you can go rest for a while.”
“I’m, I’m fine.”
“No, you don’t seem fine at all. You need to rest somewhere for a bit.”

I said I’m fine, really?
But I was grabbed by Agrasha’s hand and dragged away.
There must have been some kind of infirmary here, as we arrived at a bedroom full of the scent of medicinal herbs.

After forcibly laying me down there, she looked at me with a serious face and said:

“I was going to pay attention anyway, but seeing you today, you’ll need special care.”

“Special care?”
“I received a request from Lady Elender. She said that you contracted with a demon too difficult for you to handle due to her responsibility, so please make sure you don’t get eroded as much as possible.”
“???”

Responsibility? What responsibility is she talking about?
I couldn’t follow the content of the conversation at all, but I understood it to mean that she would provide various kinds of help anyway.

So Agrasha brought various odds and ends.
There was something dizzying about the items she brought, suggesting they weren’t just ordinary things. When I looked with my own eyes, I could quickly identify what they were.

Mental correction related items.
And magical power suppression tools.

“What’s this?”
“This lantern will stabilize your mind if you look at it while the light is on. Keep it on and look at it whenever you go to sleep, rest, anytime.”
“…”

I know the identity of the lantern too.
Since it appears in the game as well.
Recalling the item information:

▶ [Lantern of Stability]
▶ Stabilizes the user’s mind when looking at the light.
▶ Can inflict strong damage when used on corrupted beings.

I always used mental-related perks, so I remember using this mainly for fighting monsters like corrupted beings if I ever used it.

“Wear this too.”

▶ [Magical Binding]
▶ Controls and confines magical power.
▶ The wearer can barely use magical power.

She handed over black gloves as well.
This was really useful.
The demon spews out magical power that surpasses my mental fortitude, but with this I can control it.
Suddenly receiving all these items.
Each one is precious.
I was bewildered by such kindness.

“These precious things. Why give them to me…?”
“How could I ignore Lady Elender’s request?”
“…”

Although witches are an extremely evil faction that treats everyone except themselves like insects, they had very deep affection for those of the same faction.
That point made me even more uncomfortable.

“I’ll use them well.”
“Use them a lot, and never take them off your body.”
“…Yes.”

Agrasha told me to rest comfortably, laid me down on the bed, and left to educate the other children.

As I lay there, I thought:

“What kind of demon did I contract with?”

I thought it wasn’t an ordinary demon from the start of the contract, but looking back now, it exceeded expectations.
This means all the plans I had made were wiped clean.
With such powerful strength, I didn’t really need much of a training process.
Rather, I should think about surpassing even higher ranks.

I got up from the bed and looked out the window.
In the open space, young witches were continuing to practice magic.
And as I watched that, I turned my gaze to the back of my hand.

I had recovered a lot of the overly scattered magical power, so I didn’t need to borrow magical power from the demon like before.

I put on the gloves I received earlier and used magic.

“Dark Arrow.”

Now a more normal form of dark arrow was activated.
An arrow that scatters shadows around it.
I closed my eyes while looking at it.

I recalled higher grade magic.

Even though it was in a game, I had risen to 1st rank as a dark mage specializing in magic.
So I knew vast amounts of information about magic.

There’s magic that can only be used at 8th rank, but it can be ignored under certain conditions.
When magic-related perks or powers exist.
When mental-related perks or powers exist.

Of course, compared to magic-related perks that allow using magic while ignoring up to 2 ranks, mental perks only ignore 1 rank, but this is by no means insufficient.
It’s not for nothing that I always add mental perks.
They have wide applicability and even have rank-ignoring effects.

“Dark Sphere.”

A black sphere gathered in my hand.
As I slowly moved it out with my hand, it silently swirled and engulfed the surroundings.

Then I saw traces where part of the desk had cleanly disappeared in a circular shape.
The 8th rank magic [Dark Sphere] excelled at destroying without a trace.

Just as I was rejoicing at the success of the magic, I worried as I looked at the desk with a clean hole in its edge.

“…Will that be okay?”

Hmm, I’m not sure.