AFTER two hours straight of brisk walking, Nichika started to lag behind. Birds were flying over her head with ease; meanwhile, she was dragging her heavy feet.
“Ugh, if only I could fly too.”
Her master caught wind of the words she had thoughtlessly muttered— and that’s when the tragedy began.
“That’s a good idea.”
“…Pardon?” She looked up from her feet to see what he meant. Oswald pulled a gold card out of thin air and flipped its gaudy surface over to its white back, where he started scribbling something with a pen.
“This should do it.” He pulled the pen away from the card, and it burst into light and disappeared with a light pop. Then Oswald sat down on a nearby rock and waited.
“What did you just do?”
“It’ll be here soon.”
“What will be?” Nichika prodded, when a shrill sound of something slicing through the wind rose from the distance. “Eh?”
The instant she looked up at the sky, something really had arrived right away.
ZOOOM! SKIIIDDDDDDDDDD!
“Sorry for the wait! Super Express Delivery at your service! Thank you for hiring Witch Express! With a single summon, I will fly to the end of the world delivering whatever your heart desires!” exclaimed a bubbly voice, as a broom scraped across the ground.
Nichika’s eyes widened at the familiar face of the person who hopped off the broom. “Miss Charlotte!”
“Oh? Nichika?”
“Miss Charlotte!” Wolfie ran up to her. “Hi! Hi!”
“Wolfie’s here too…which means…” The witch spun around, sending her golden locks whipping. When she spotted the man in all-black, her face lit up like the flame of a candle. “I knew it! Osy! Oh my gosh! How have you been?”
Ecstatic to see him, she hopped up and down and rattled on at remarkable speed, “I was worried to death! Hasn’t it been quite a while since you set off? Yet, I haven’t heard any rumors about you. So I thought you might’ve gotten caught, or were dying on the roadside somewhere, or tossed into a pigpen for fraud, or forced into a marriage with a hunchback, or a buncha other wild situations I started imagining. But anyway, what a relief it is to see your sadistic mug! I see you found somewhere peaceful to settle down faster than I thought you—”
Charlotte swept her eyes across the endless prairie and cocked her head. “Is this where you’re settling?”
“…And I see you haven’t broken the habit of failing to listen to others first,” Oswald remarked, incredulously folding his arms across his chest.
Ignoring him, Charlotte threw her arms around Nichika and rubbed her cheek against hers. “Well, that stuff doesn’t matter! How have you been, cutie? Are you feeling okay? Not hurt? If you’re ever in need, just let this big sister of yours know!”
“Th-Thanks…it hurts…”
Oswald cut to the chase as Nichika was being crushed to death between Charlotte’s voluptuous boobs. “Deliverywoman, aren’t you going to do your job?”
“What’s your problem? I’m just celebrating our reunion!” Charlotte sulked.
Oswald filled her in about everything that had occurred since they’d last met.
“Heh. So that’s what happened. Nichika is the Spirit Priestess, huh?” She studied Nichika carefully, much to Nichika’s discomfort, but then broke out into a grin. “That sounds neat. You’ve got a mission now, right? I suspected you were no ordinary girl.”
“So says the woman who tried to turn her into her own apprentice,” Oswald said wryly.
“Falling into another world and becoming a priestess sounds like something right out of a book,” Charlotte mused, dismissing him.
“Ahaha…” Nichika smiled dryly, slightly bothered by their conversation.
“Well anyway,” Oswald concluded, “I plan to have her gather the Great Spirits while I journey.”
“Oh, I see. Knowing you, Osy, you’re planning on abusing that power for your own good.”
“I’ll leave that up to your imagination.”
Though Oswald always made it a point not to trust people, he appeared fairly open and honest with Charlotte. If it wasn’t just Nichika’s imagination, his expression was softer than usual too.
Maybe he trusts her a lot? Sensing something strange about their relationship, she attentively observed their interaction. They weren’t acting like they were just a deliverywoman and her customer.
“…!” With a start, Nichika realized she was overly invested in figuring their relationship out.
Don’t be stupid! I don’t care either way! I’m just worried I’m in the way if they are actually a couple!
“What’s wrong?” Wolfie curiously peered up at the girl vehemently shaking her head.
Oblivious to his apprentice’s internal conflict, Oswald placed an order with Charlotte. “I can’t keep slowing my pace to match this slowpoke. Sell me a single flying broom.”
Nichika looked up with alarm. “A flying broom?! For me?!”
“Ahhh, so that’s what you want!” Indifferent to Nichika’s surprise, Charlotte flashed Oswald a knowing look and rummaged through the pile of bags tied to her broom. “Okey dokey, wait just a moment. I’m pretty sure I had one stuffed around here somewhere… Huh? That’s a snake, not a broom. Where’d it go?”
Digging out all sorts of weird items from her bags, she tossed them over her shoulder after she confirmed that they weren’t what she was looking for. She was evidently pulling more items out of her bags than what would be possible given normal physics, but Nichika didn’t comment on it since she had grown more accustomed to this world. Humans are adaptive creatures.
Oswald stood outside of the flying merchandise’s trajectory. “At least organize your stuff,” he grumbled.
“Shut up. I usually prepare the goods after I receive an order. It’s all your fault for abruptly demanding I sell you something without ordering first! FOUND IT!”
Delighted, Charlotte pulled her head out of the bag along with a single box, which she brought over to Nichika. It was wooden and no bigger than a lunch box. Nichika accepted and gingerly opened it. What she found inside was unexpected.
“A mini broom?”
The miniature broom was crafted with exquisite detail and was about the size of her palm—it definitely wasn’t big enough for a person to ride. Maybe a cat could ride it? Nichika took another look and changed her mind. It was hamster size.
“Now, now. Don’t judge a book by its cover, girlie. Grab the handle.”
“Okay, grabbed it.”
“Now, throw it!”
She did as told and tossed it in front of her. White smoke erupted from it, and a full-size broom appeared.
“Oooh!” Nichika uttered appreciatively. “Okay, how am I supposed to ride this thing?”
“How? You put it between your legs, silly,” Charlotte replied, with a wide grin.
Honestly, Nichika was embarrassed. Any elementary school kid who enjoyed fantasy novels would probably give it a try at least once while playing make-believe. But Nichika was close to becoming an adult—she couldn’t shake her internal resistance to looking stupid while testing out the broom.
“L-Like this?” She warily wrapped her hands around the shaft and straddled it. It floated into the air with her on it. “Whoa!”
Before she knew it, she was floating several centimeters off the ground. Panicking, she tried to get off by placing her feet on the ground, but that was a bad idea.
“!!!!”
BAM! She took off into the sky like she’d been shot from a cannon.
“OH MY GOSHHHHHH!”
Wind whooshed past her ears, the world spun around in circles, and she completely lost her sense of what was going on. The blue sky, brown ground, and green forest blurred together in a single strange color as she spun out of control. Somehow, Nichika managed to cling to the broom in her panic.
“Oh my, that’s a terrifying reaction,” Charlotte commented.
“MISS CHARLOTTEEEEE! STOP! STOP MEEEEEEEEE!”
“You just need to give it the command,” Charlotte told her mildly.
“Let me down this instant! GAH!” The broom instantly jerked down, falling headlong toward the ground at breakneck speed. “NOOOOO!”
The broom grazed the top of the ground, skidding on the emergency break. All the strength left Nichika, and she fell off the side of it.
“You suck.” Oswald’s merciless comment hit her where it hurt.
✦ ✦ ✦
THIRTY minutes of broom flight practice went by, and Nichika was gradually starting to get the hang of it, but she instantly lost control anytime her mind wandered even a tad. Oswald sighed dramatically at her nth crash landing.
“You’re still crashing?”
“This thing is super hard to control! If you want to complain, show me how to do it the right way first!” she shot back, retaliating against his complaints.
But for some reason, Oswald turned red. “Stupid! There’s no way I could do something so embarrassing!”
“Huh?”
What’s so embarrassing about it?
Charlotte grinned evilly behind the confused Nichika. “Osy is embarrassed to fly.”
“Char, don’t teach her bad things.”
“What do you mean? Oh, wait, are you talking about how you said only women can use brooms?”
Nichika thought back to the conversation they’d had when she first met Charlotte. “It’s conventional wisdom that male witches can’t fly,” is what Oswald had told her at the time, but could male witches maybe fly after all?
“You see, wind mana is infamous for having a thing for girls,” Wolfie explained innocently, further adding to the crease in Oswald’s brow. “So they say the more attractive and girly the person, the better they can fly.”
“Wait, so—”
Charlotte cracked up and pointed a quivering finger at Oswald, laughing between her words, “Male witches who can fly have to be feminine!”
Oswald was certainly beautiful. He’d probably be an unparalleled beauty if dressed as a woman. But it appeared that cross-dressing was considered an embarrassing thing in this world.
“Let me get this straight. If Oswald wants to fly, he has to wear a skirt…?”
“Stop it! You’re making me sick!” Scowling, he chased Nichika back into the sky. “Get back to your practice!”
✦ ✦ ✦
ANOTHER thirty minutes of flying practice passed. Finally getting the knack of it, Nichika softly landed at Charlotte’s side.