“Oooh! Teto likes grown-up Lady Witch; you look so cute!” Teto exclaimed, throwing her arms around me.
“Thanks, Teto. It feels a bit weird not having to look up to see your face,” I said with a smile.
The new spell I had come up with allowed me to change my body from its usual twelve-year-old appearance to one resembling a slightly older teenager—around sixteen years old.
“I see you’ve finally perfected the spell, Master. Congratulations,” Beretta said.
“I did. It uses a boatload of mana, though,” I replied with an awkward smile.
People always doubted me when I told them that I was an adult despite my appearance. Conversely, pretty much everyone knew of Chise, the twelve-year-old witch, so making myself look older would hopefully prevent people from recognizing me at first glance.
I had hidden in the forest for the past decade to avoid garnering too much unwanted attention (the price of fame), but surely the rumors must’ve started dying down by now. Either way, I wanted my identity as the unaging witch at the head of the forest to stay separate from my adventurer persona. It was the whole reason I’d developed this spell in the first place.
“If it wasn’t for Howl and Devalna, I would never have completed it. Thanks, you two,” I said, turning to the two demons.
“Oh, please don’t thank us! My tribe is honored you chose me as your assistant,” Howl quickly said.
“We learned so much! We’ll use our newly acquired knowledge to improve the lives of demons all around the forest. Thank you so much!”
I thanked them, but they thanked me in return...
“Lady Wiiitch, how did they help you come up with the spell?” Teto asked.
“I used Howl’s Humanchange skill and Devalna’s ability to hide her wings and tail as reference material,” I explained.
“The Humanchange skill?” Teto repeated, tilting her head to one side.
Before, I had tried using Illusion Magic to make myself look older, but it ended up being a huge failure. After that, I was too busy dealing with the stampede and its aftermath to work on my spell, but now that things had settled down, I finally got to return to my research and perfected the spell right before our departure by mingling with the werewolves and the devilkin and observing them using their shape-shifting abilities.
“I see. Whenever you use the spell, you are basically changing the structure of your body,” Beretta said.
“Exactly, just like werewolves when they switch from one shape to the other. As for devilkin, at first I thought that they used Illusion Magic to hide their horns, tails, and wings, but it turns out that they also alter the physical composition of their bodies,” I explained.
When I first understood that, I was struck with inspiration and went to study all the other shape-shifting skills to get a better understanding of how they worked, and after some thorough testing, I finally managed to come up with my first transformation spell.
“It also enhances your physical abilities to match those of the transformed body,” Howl supplied.
“Not to mention, it’s a revolution for demons! It’ll allow all half-human, half-monster demons to hide among humans without being spotted,” Devalna added excitedly.
For instance, lamias, arachnes, and centaurs could turn their lower halves into normal legs and mingle with humans without any of them noticing that they were demons. All they’d need to do would be to learn the spell—or the Humanchange skill—and practice walking on two legs, and they could pass for humans.
Now, I had to be completely honest: the spell wasn’t perfect.
“Disguise skills and spells are weak to the Dispel spell, and outside interference in general,” I explained. “If someone were to cast Dispel on me right now, my body would instantly turn back into its original form.”
In stories, you often saw characters turning back into their real form after being driven into a corner or being forced to transform due to outside causes—like the full moon for werewolves, for example. Due to the nature of Transformation Magic, one might accidentally reveal their identity due to things like psychological distress or outside interferences. I had spent many years training my magic control abilities, so I probably wouldn’t break my own disguise spell too easily, but it was a lot harder to maintain than, say, Body Strengthening.
“It’s also a real mana sinkhole,” I continued.
If one wanted to make themselves look one year older or younger, it’d cost them about 10,000 MP to maintain the transformation for an hour. Since I was making myself look four years older, I actually expended 40,000 MP per hour. This meant that it would set me back a whopping 1,000,000 MP to keep the transformation up for a day. Despite eating my strange fruit every day, I only had around 900,000 MP, so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t keep the spell up for that long. Not to mention that if I used body-enhancing skills like Body Strengthening or put up barriers, my mana reserves would deplete even faster. But if I kept the spell up for only around fifteen hours a day and canceled it at night, I would only need to spend 600,000 MP a day, meaning that I still had some wiggle room to cast other spells.
“Wouldn’t demons quickly run out of mana, though?” Beretta asked.
“It’s a bit different for demons; they’re hiding their demonic side and emphasizing their human attributes, so it wouldn’t cost them as much. But if they tried to make themselves older or younger, or if a nonhumanoid race used the spell to turn into a human, it’d be a lot more expensive,” I explained.
“Is that so? Well, Teto loves small Lady Witch and big Lady Witch the same, so she’s happy either way!” Teto chirped, rubbing her cheek against mine.
Now that I look the same age as Teto, it feels a bit embarrassing to have her be all over me like that...
“Master, if I may, all of your current outfits have been made for your original body type. I believe it would be wise to have a few more made to fit your new appearance,” Beretta said.
“Uh, there’s not really any need to...” I stammered, looking for a way out. But Teto was still hugging me, so I couldn’t run away even if I wanted to.
Beretta gave a silent signal, and the next second, the door swung open and a gang of maids piled into the room.
I felt my face twitch.
Howl and Devalna decided that this was their cue to leave and excused themselves, throwing me sympathetic gazes on their way out.
“Master, please stay right there while we measure you.”
“No, I— Aaah!”
Despite my protests, the maids surrounded me and started taking my measurements.
Usually, Beretta never forced me into anything, but for some reason—perhaps the fact that I would be leaving soon—she spent the remainder of the winter treating me like a dress-up doll.