A violent wind whipped about. It was midday, and yet not a single ray of light breached the gloomy clouds above. Under this dreary sky, a girl clutched a staff about as tall as she was. The low-hanging hood of her black robe was soon doffed by the raging winds, revealing her flowing black hair.
The face which had been hidden under the hood was younger than one might have expected. Nonetheless, she tautly bit her lip, and her hazel eyes gazed fixedly forward.
An earthshaking voice rumbled. “Foolhardy humans!” Perhaps it was the voice of the storm itself.
Five people confronted the immense cataclysm. The robed girl, the smallest among them, struck her staff into the ground as if dispelling the wind and rain, which had quickly become a downpour. She chanted an incantation, producing a cluster of fireballs that vaporized the water droplets.
At best, the average mage could manage a single spell at a time. But the girl could cast multiple spells simultaneously. The fireballs twirled around to her will, swiftly laying waste to the monsters attacking them.
“Nice job, Dawn Witch!!!” A voice boomed as if in anger, though it was just his normal tone. The robust man to which it belonged roared with laughter, then ran forward with whirlwind speed hardly suggested by his physical appearance.
The girl was not fond of the moniker “Dawn Witch.” Under ordinary circumstances, she might quietly protest under her breath, but now was hardly the time for that.
She sensed an abnormality, and her narrowed eyebrows shot up. “Please get out of the way!” she shouted to the man’s back.
At the same time, she raised her staff. An instant later, lightning struck—a magic formula on such a grand scale that it drove back the headwinds. She tackled it with a lightning bolt of her own. The man was flung backward by the resulting explosion and hit his back hard, triggering a violent cough.
That wasn’t enough force! She clicked her tongue at her mistake. She checked the situation out of the corner of her eye, then overlapped more incantations without even turning around. Nobody could make out the spells that escaped her lips anymore.
With enough practice spellcasting, a single word could hold multiple meanings. These could be further stacked. Calculations, proofs, and estimations, all were repeated until she found the output. She accelerated her thinking pace to mind-fatiguing speeds, formed multiple magic circles, and then activated them.
“Lacey, don’t push it!” came a bold voice. “You’re a mage! You shouldn’t be so far out front!” A blond youth tore through the winds that gusted against his face. Their eyes met.
“For crying out loud, that stupid musclehead picked the worst time...! I’ll cast a divine blessing on Brooks!”
“We’ll back up Lacey! Wayne, are you ready?”
“Yeah!” Wayne—the young man with blond hair—nodded. In his hand was a sword that gleamed even within the darkness.
And then...
∗ ∗ ∗
These were her memories of vanquishing the Demon King.
Within a crowd, Lacey suddenly opened her eyes wide. Apparently she’d been completely zoned out. That was over a month ago. I must be really out of it. She gave her head a light knock.
She had thought she’d gotten used to being around so many people. Her oversized staff would get in the way, so she’d shrunken it to half its usual height. This was an elementary feat for her.
She walked on, then teetered, managing to bump into someone. Lacey was fifteen, though short and skinny for her age, which made walking around town difficult. Upon close observation, she had a sweet face, but her low-hanging hood hid her eyes, and her somber vibe masked any natural charm she possessed.
“Come on down, have a look! We’ve got portraits of the hero’s party that saved the nation! The Steel Warrior, the Saint of Light, the Dawn Witch, and the hero himself, Sir Wayne! Take a close look at this gallant visage. Hang it in your house for good fortune and eye candy! Get it now while you can!”
The proprietor of the store that Lacey was just now passing by was holding up a portrait and hollering. Right on cue, there were impressed oohs and ahhs from people behind her. Startled, Lacey clutched her staff and hunched up.
These were a fad in town. Everyone and anyone stretched their hands toward the dealer. The hero’s portrait in particular was flying off the shelves. After all, he was a blond-haired, green-eyed stud. Young ladies paid meager sums from their wallets and rushed off squealing in delight.
The dealer had already commenced selling his goods. Lacey couldn’t get away, so instead she huddled up so that she wouldn’t obstruct anything. More and more hands stretched past her, and her eyes darted around nervously.
“Gimme one of the Dawn Witch!” one of the customers said. Lacey’s shoulders jerked up.
The person depicted in the transacted picture was a seductive woman with brilliant golden eyes and voluminous red hair done in luxurious waves. Her clothes were extremely revealing, which complemented the woman in the picture well...but Lacey just gripped her staff tighter and became flustered, stammering. The man stretching his hand over Lacey’s head would never have guessed that she was the Dawn Witch.
“This is killing me,” she quietly moaned, feeling crushed not only by her present surroundings, but by the events of the past as well.
The real Lacey had ordinary black hair, not red. Her eyes weren’t such a striking shade of gold, but were instead hazel. Somebody had just randomly given her the title “Dawn Witch” on their travels. Each time they passed through a town, they gained new titles, like the Steel Warrior and the Saint of Light. This title in particular had been assigned to Lacey by someone who’d seen her performing magic.
The way she looked, with her waist-length black hair swaying as she gripped a staff as tall as she was and fired off a series of advanced spells, was like the night giving way to day. That was the intended meaning, at least. Unfortunately, the nickname was rather abstruse. One of the reasons why it was so often misinterpreted was because Lacey always hung the hood of her robe over her head and hid in the shadows of her more conspicuous companions.
The Dawn Witch was always out of sight. There was a common assumption that the “dawn” in her name meant that she must have red hair. Conceptions of her only got further off the mark from there, and eventually, overactive imaginations molded her into an appearance that appealed to the masses.