Amelia Trudged Back To Her Lodgings.
Sophia, who had been cawing raucously all the way from the library, followed her inside.
Normally, Amelia would have silenced her with magic for being too loud, but she didn’t have the energy for that now.
What is it?
Why?
How come?
These three questions spun in a furious rotation through her mind, appearing and disappearing.
Amelia went straight to the bathroom, turned on the magically conjured shower, and doused herself from head to toe.
Sophia’s crow used its beak to fill the sink with water, then flapped its wings, enjoying a bath.
“Amelia, are you angry?”
Amelia didn’t know men yet.
She had never even thought about wanting to have sex.
In the first place, Amelia didn’t even really know what sexual desire was.
She hadn’t intended to do anything strange by bringing a slave to her lodgings.
Still, since she had gone to the trouble of calling him over so late, she had thought she would at least give him a cup of tea and teach him how to live in the future.
To think he wouldn’t even accept the invitation.
Amelia was a witch, and the man was a slave.
Wasn’t she supposed to be able to seduce him, given this vast difference in status?
“I’m not angry.”
“You sound very angry.”
“Aveneu, I’m really not angry. And how long do you plan to stay here?”
“Okay, okay. I’ll just wash up a bit and leave. You know crows like to be clean, right?”
Seeing the crow splashing around so nonchalantly made Amelia even more furious.
She was especially annoyed that Sophia had witnessed her earlier disgrace.
Sophia tried to comfort her with some ridiculous words.
“Maybe he was just intimidated because you’re too beautiful?”
“Could you just shut your mouth?”
“Okay.”
Amelia trembled as she watched Sophia stubbornly clamp her mouth shut.
If Sophia hadn’t come to the research building and pestered her, she wouldn’t have had to go through this.
Amelia clenched her fist.
She wanted to strangle that crow, but she couldn’t possibly do something so undignified.
“Why…”
Amelia bit her lip, looking confused.
The crow, who had been splashing around for a while, looked intently at Amelia.
Sophia had become a witch about 20 years before Amelia.
The previous Aveneu and Merigold had been close friends, and as soon as Sophia inherited the witch’s mark, she quickly absorbed the knowledge of her predecessor. She had even taught various spells to Amelia when she was a fledgling apprentice witch.
As such, Amelia and Sophia had many things to do with each other, and Sophia saw Amelia as nothing less than a younger sister.
Amelia, however, vehemently refused to be treated that way.
Amelia was so focused on her magical research that she seemed to be risking her life every day, and she didn’t take any other pleasure in life.
Sophia’s various suggestions for escapades stemmed from her desire to show Amelia the joys of life beyond magic.
“Ugh…”
Seeing Amelia tearing at her hair, Sophia knew that today was a lost cause.
To think that the slave would reject a witch’s, and especially Amelia’s, offer of nighttime companionship.
She didn’t know the slave’s exact intentions, but Amelia seemed to be in shock from the rejection.
“Amelia.”
“What!”
“Don’t be too upset.”
Amelia, who had been groaning, glared at Sophia, huffing and puffing.
“It’s all your fault!”
Amelia pointed her finger, unable to control her anger like a child.
It was the first time Sophia had seen her like this since she became a witch.
“Why did you have to tempt me…”
In Sophia’s eyes, Amelia was still a hothouse flower who hadn’t even gone through puberty.
On the surface, she was polite, dignified, and chaste, perfectly imitating her teacher, but she had not yet developed a mature self.
There was a reason for this.
After the previous Merigold died, Amelia inherited the mark.
Sophia, who had played a role similar to a babysitter, then left for a journey to the mortal world.
It was a very long journey.
She had accumulated experience over a long period of time, escaping the cage that was Gehenna, witnessing the flow of history in the wide world, and killing the monsters called ‘Homunculi’ that were created by the creation witch.
Although she hadn’t even raised her magical rank by one level, they had been truly happy and enjoyable days.
After her long journey.
Sophia returned to Gehenna after 140 years and immediately sought out Amelia.
‘It’s been a while, Aveneu.’
The Amelia she met again had an even stiffer expression and had become someone who didn’t smile much.
Yes.
She was like a doll.
The place where Sophia reunited with Amelia was the forest cabin where Amelia had lived with the previous Merigold.
The cabin, which was no different from before, was filled with Amelia’s deep longing for the previous Merigold.
In that cabin, Amelia was researching magic.
Of course, it wasn’t strange for a witch to research magic.
However, Amelia was excessively focused ‘only’ on magic.
Without forming relationships with anyone, without talking to anyone.
For over a hundred long years, she had been holed up alone in her room, burning everything she had for magic.
Sophia realized that Amelia’s obsession with magic was not simply due to a thirst for knowledge.
Amelia had always been clumsy at making friends in the first place.
Her mentor, who was like a parent to her, had suddenly disappeared, and even Sophia, the person she had opened her heart to the most, had left for the mortal realm.
The way Amelia, left alone, chose to sublimate her sadness and loneliness was through magic, something she had been so unsure of during her apprenticeship.
She endlessly whipped herself on.
Amelia, who had been judged to have no talent as a witch, pushed herself until she had risen two ranks in just 140 years.
How lonely she must have been?
How painful it must have been?
And how difficult it must have been?
‘Why are you crying?’
Sophia, wearing the witch’s robes her mentor had left her, hugged Amelia tightly, who was buried under a pile of papers.
Amelia pushed Sophia away as if she found the contact unpleasant, but Sophia wouldn’t let go.
What if she had taken Amelia to the mortal realm instead?
Instead of being distracted by the mysterious and new world, what if she had returned to Gehenna even once for Amelia?
There was a huge amount of regret left.
‘Don’t just stay here, let’s go to the academy together.’
‘Why? I like it here.’
To her, who refused the offer, Sophia said, suppressing her guilt.
It was Sophia who had forcibly dragged Amelia out and recommended her as an associate professor at Trinity Academy.
‘If you go there, you might gain a new perspective on magic.’
‘I’m not interested.’
Of course, Amelia refused at first.
There was no way she would easily leave the place that had been the foundation of her life, a place filled with memories of her mentor.
‘Amelia, this is a cake I bought in Kypusi.’
‘This is a dress I had made at Flora’s Dress Shop. How is it? It suits you perfectly, right?’
‘This is called a cigarette, and it’s good to smoke when you have a headache sometimes.’
To get Amelia out of the nameless forest in Gehenna, she tempted her with all sorts of new things.
Sweet desserts, pretty clothes, even cigarettes.
Of course, Amelia didn’t follow Sophia because of the materialistic reasons Sophia presented, but anyway, after Sophia’s persuasion, which was close to a courtship, Amelia reluctantly took office as an associate professor at the academy.
‘Amelia, won’t you go to the Harvest Festival with me?’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘Don’t you want to go out to the mortal realm? You’d be really surprised.’
‘My mentor also spent her whole life in Gehenna. There’s no need for me to go out.’
She had only looked at magic her whole life, so there was no way her lifestyle would change instantly just because the location had changed.
‘I’m busy, go away.’
Even after leaving the hut, Amelia tried to focus only on magic.
If Sophia hadn’t interfered every step of the way and dragged her to various places, she probably would have repeated that until it was time to pass on the mark.
Only five years had passed since then.
It was too short a time for Amelia, who had been buried in memories and longing, living in her own world, to fully mature.
She used to act like a noble witch, just like her respected mentor, but such efforts were nothing more than a thin layer of plating.
Amelia was easily sulky, sometimes stubborn like a child, and sometimes flustered when faced with unexpected situations like this.
“How dare… a slave…”
In Sophia’s eyes, it was still a great improvement.
At least, compared to her lifeless appearance back then, her current appearance, where she was suppressing her anger, was much better to see.
Originally, people grow in the process of being happy, angry, loving, and enjoying.
Sophia had already learned that outside.
“I can’t forgive this. How dare they give me such humiliation.”
Sophia, who had been secretly smiling with satisfaction, came to her senses when she heard Amelia’s monologue.
Considering that Amelia, who rarely spoke her mind, was even making such passionate soliloquies, it seemed that the stimulus had been quite significant.
Now, it was time to soothe her.
That was when Sophia made up her mind.
“A slave, a slave, a slave…”
“Amelia?”
“This is an unforgivable insult.”
“Huh? That’s not it?”
Amelia was radiating a dark aura and was being consumed by a desire for revenge.
Again, Amelia was still immature.
She didn’t know how to handle emotions that were more than a certain level of bewildering.
Now, as a way to accept the shocking fact that she had been rejected by a slave, she had chosen to project it onto the rigid class theory of Gehenna’s social hierarchy, which she was familiar with.
And the conclusion she came to was terrifying.
“Let’s make sure that the slave who doesn’t know their place realizes their position.”
Birds don’t originally have sweat glands, but Sophia felt sweat pouring from the body of the crow she was using as a prosthetic.
She could clearly see the path of suffering that the slave from earlier was about to embark on.
She already felt sorry for having captured him as a slave, and now she had created this trouble.
“Sorry about that.”
Sophia walked out of the washroom without saying a word.
Amelia wasn’t cruel by nature, so she wouldn’t directly harm the slave, so she didn’t have to worry too much about it.
“I’ll show them what’s what!”
With Amelia’s resentful soliloquy, the bathroom door closed quietly.
Lol it all makes sense now.