The Eternal Witch, Lady Faust, reigned at the pinnacle of magic as one of the Seven Sages, but for the past few days, an eerie cackle had echoed throughout her manor.
“Eh-heh… Hee-hee-hee… Ha-ha…”
This laugh was sinister, emanating from the darkest shadows, and with each passing day, it grew louder. It was akin to the darkness of the dead of night.
“Ooo-hee-hee-hee, ha-ha!!”
“Argh! Will you stop doing that, Meg?!”
I was grinning to myself in my room when my teacher burst in. She was absolutely livid.
“What’s the matter? Why would you barge in on me all mad during my alone time?”
“Because you’re laughing all night like a complete lunatic!”
“You’re upset with my laugh…? What’s wrong with the beautiful laugh of a young seventeen-year-old maiden such as myself?”
“You sound like a forty-year-old man chortling to yourself in here. And it’s not just me; the familiars have had enough of your antics as well.”
“The animals?”
My teacher then produced a letter and handed it to me. I opened it and found a note written in tiny, scribbled handwriting that said, Please do something about Meg’s annoying laugh.
“Whoa, this is actually impressive. I didn’t know the familiars could write… Right, White-Owl?”
White-Owl flinched when I said this.
“There aren’t many of them who can read, after all. But I remember you teaching yourself how to read. By the way, Teacher. Did you know they put birds on skewers and roast them in the East? They eat the wings, the skin, and even the rump.”
The more I said with my monotone voice, the more White-Owl began to tremble. I half expected him to start having a little seizure, when my teacher quietly stepped in. “Enough. There is no reason to take this out on your familiar. And he’s right. Your laughing is very disturbing.”
“That’s just how I laugh, though…”
My teacher then shifted her eyes to my tear bottle on my desk.
“Well, would you look at that? Your collection is growing. Is this what has you laughing so often?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
There were thirty tear shards inside my bottle. My teacher picked it up and gave it a gentle shake.
“Twenty-two of these appear to be tears of joy, and eight from other emotions, it looks like.”
“Do those eight end up being useless to me?”
“We’ll have to see… All the tears you’ve collected thus far are pure, so there may be a way to substitute them in.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. It’s impossible enough to get a thousand tears when you have no idea what kind of tears you’re gonna get.”
“Shards of emotion are just that powerful.”
“You know, I’ve been wondering what these shards of emotion are in the first place. Inori had no idea, and I can’t find a book that has much about them, either. I don’t really know where else to look.”
There was nothing on the tears needing to be of joy and what the concept of purity meant. I didn’t know what my teacher was looking at when she inspected my tears.
The only thing I knew was that shards of emotion were no longer used in modern magic, which was why they were so mysterious.
When I asked about them, my teacher’s expression appeared somewhat lonely.
“Mages no longer know about shards of emotion. It’s been long forgotten in the pages of time—what mages should aim for…and what’s important.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That, my child, you will have to figure out on your own. For now, you should focus on collecting as many tears as you can.”
As my teacher said this, she examined the bottle with an upset look on her face. She then shook the bottle, as if inspecting it for something in particular.
“How did you get these tears anyway?”
“Huh? You know, helping people, hearing them out… Lots of things. It was tough collecting just those thirty alone, you know.”
“I must say, you’ve been able to gather quite a few in a short time.”
“Yeah, you get used to it after a while.” I nodded smugly. “I’ve got a nose for this sort of thing now. Such as noticing a mum with a bratty kid, or an elderly woman having trouble walking. I try to find people who look like they will need help soon. I also got one by simply being nice to a salesman who was feeling stressed out from work. It’s getting pretty easy.”
“You sure seem confident in yourself.”
“What can I say? This is what getting good looks like. I mean, I even helped Sophie pull off one of the biggest jobs ever.”
Ever since the Celebration of Worlds and its parade, I’d improved my magic control. Although I overexerted myself during the portal ceremony and parade, through practice, I was beginning to better manage my mana.
With my knowledge of magic gradually growing, using different magic spells was no longer so imposing an endeavor. This was what gave me confidence.
“Meg, you aren’t allowed to use magic until I say so.”
“Huh?”
I was left dumbfounded by my teacher’s sudden decree, but she seemed unfazed by my reaction. I weakly opened my mouth to question her.
“Wh-why, though?”
My voice was shaking while I said this.
“Because at this rate, it will ruin you.”
“Why’s that…?”
“Place your hand on your heart and think. You need to find this answer for yourself. Me simply telling you holds no significance.”
With that, my teacher left the room—leaving me alone.
“What the heck?” No one was there to answer. “I don’t… What?”
“What am I supposed to do now?”
With a thump, I placed my forehead on the table where I sat. My companion Carbuncle gave me a cute “Squeak” of encouragement before jumping onto the back of my head. My friend Fine sat at the other side of the table with a cup of black tea and a surprised look on her face.
I was at her house, ranting about my troubles.
“Here I thought she was impressed with the number of tears I’d collected, then she hits me with a rule that I can’t use magic anymore. I don’t know what to think! I swear, I’m gonna smack that old woman when I get home.”
“Let’s be civil… Surely she’s doing this for you, right? I doubt Lady Faust is the type to be strict just to take you down a notch.”
“Well, yeah… That’s true.”
Fine was right; everything my teacher did had meaning. Whenever she had me do something, there was also a rhyme and reason to it.
Like it would teach me a lesson or help me realize something.
That was why this time, I just needed to figure out what that something was.
I knew the importance of being able to think on my own—it was something my teacher had taught me.
“Maybe she doesn’t want you using your magic for evil.”
“There’s no way. She’d kill me if I did that anyway. I’ve been using magic for years.”
“Maybe someone in town filed a complaint about you?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, all I’m doing is making people cry tears of joy. If someone files a complaint for that, I’m countersuing.”
“Hmm, this is hard…”
Fine breathed a small sigh before cocking her head at a new thought.
“How hard is it to get someone to cry tears of joy anyway?”
“It was tough until I figured out the trick to it. Little girls and overworked businessmen are pretty easy to get to cry if you know how to work ’em.”
“You sound more like a con artist than a tear artist.”
Fine, shocked by my words, smiled awkwardly as she drank her tea before murmuring, “It’s a shame, though. To hear you talking about people’s tears like that. I never pegged you as the type to talk about people like this.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you think tears of joy are something a person only sheds when they are at their happiest? I liked it better when you treated each and every tear with more significance.”
Each and every tear is significant.
This struck a chord.
“I mean, I don’t think I treat these tears any different.”
“That’s good, if you say so.”
In a way, she was right. With every tear I collected, I was growing more apathetic. The feeling when I got my first tear compared to the more recent ones was not quite the same. But that didn’t mean I considered the newer ones any less important. The only reason there was a problem at all was because the animals told on me when I was gazing at my bottle of tears every night with glee.
At the same time, I recognized that maybe my glee wasn’t for the tears themselves but how validated I felt as I acquired more and more. Maybe I was happier with the sheer number of tears I was pulling in than anything else…
“You need to hold each and every tear dear to yourself.”
Fine followed with this soft statement, as if she could see right through my introspection.
“I need one thousand in a year, though? It’s a massive challenge even without my life being on the line. Don’cha think it’s kind of impossible to put that much focus on the tears themselves?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but Lady Faust said you were going to ruin yourself at this rate, right? Maybe the value of your tears comes from the value you place in them?”
“I think they’re different. It’s not like the tears I’ve collected have changed at all.”
While I rejected her guess, I wasn’t confident in myself as I said it.
Seeing this, Fine smiled gently.
“What’re you smilin’ about? Can’t ya see I’m depressed here?”
“Sorry, it’s just funny that despite how upset you are with Lady Faust’s decision, you still obey her. You’re a lot more diligent than you let on. It’s a bit fun to watch.”
“Listen ’ere, toots. Ya wanna watch something fun, go to a movie theater.”
As I joked with Fine, she noticed the time on her watch and stood up, saying, “Oh no. I’m sorry, I just remembered I have an appointment after this.”
“What’s so important that you’re gonna leave your best friend high and dry? It better not be a date with some guy.”
“Oh, uh… Kinda?”
“Wait, seriously?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
I left Fine’s house, though it was more like she kicked me out. With the sudden news taking a heavier toll on me than I predicted, I wandered aimlessly through town.