Champignon Witch (シャンピニオンの魔女)

I have to run! I have to run away!

But where to?

I don't...

have anywhere else to go.

Lize!

THE MAGIC DIARY

You not supposed to run away!

Oh.

You must now care diligently for this fellow,

until he recovers from the injury he accepted in your place.

I'm sorry. I forgot. I didn't mean to make you worry.

That will be your first responsibility.

But what do I do?

Why did you run away?

I think you know the reason, Minos. They said I'm a poisonous monster.

Huh?

I'm going to be killed.

Luna would never do something like that.

Oh, this little guy must have eaten a poisonous mushroom.

Might be new to the forest.

Lize, don't do that! Claude just told you not to touch the black fog!

Oh. He looks a little better now.

Phew.

Are you okay, Lize? Doesn't it hurt when you absorb the black fog?

I guess it makes me feel a little heavy.

But...

if I can handle that, at least it cleans up the world a little.

That's something I like about you, Lize, but it also makes me kinda sad.

Just like Luna.

You weren't supposed to hear any of that.

Wait. You didn't...

Hey, Luna. The kid's been sniffing poison again.

We're going home.

Lize?

I can't move.

Somebody help me!

I've been swallowed up so many times by that dark sludge in my dreams,

but you came and held on to me.

You saved me. Nobody else even heard me cry out before, but you did.

You're the only one who noticed.

Even if it's only in dreams,

you were the only one who understood.

Thank you.

In your own clumsy way, you smiled upon me.

I don't care what you are.

Even if you're a horrifying witch.

Even if you're the person who will kill me one day.

Every time you use mushrooms to draw the poison out like that,

you're also sucking out the memories that those mushrooms fed on, right?

Probably along with any growth.

Are you okay with that?

A sorrow mushroom.

Huh?

A mushroom that grew out of the sorrow this child carries

from being placed in a situation

where he always has to tiptoe around others' emotions.

He's a vessel,

burdened to serve as the final container for other people's poison.

No one else can understand the darkness he lives in.

That poison, with nowhere else to go,

is what will turn him into The End of All Things.

I'll start being more strict with him tomorrow,

to make him a magician strong enough to overcome the fate of a cursed youngling.

Please don't cry, Miss Witch. When I wake up, I need to tell you something.

"Master, I realize I am an unworthy apprentice,

but I humbly ask for your guidance."

What is this? I feel a kind of heaviness in my chest.

I feel like I endured something really painful, but I can't remember what.

But I think I remember Miss Witch's warm hand gently holding my own.

What was that all about, though?

As punishment for trying to run away yesterday,

you are not allowed to set foot outside this house for a week.

Huh?

WARM HAND

Did I really try to run away?

Actually, never mind.

I was right.

When your mushroom draws out his poison,

it removes more than just the cause of the blight.

It also eliminates all memories associated with it,

probably including any growth he experienced during that time.

That would be a problem.

Well, there's nothing I can do about it.

But that will have a big effect on his ability to master magic.

You've gotta do something about that.

If you don't, he's heading straight for an execution at this rate.

The crow is bullying Miss Witch again.

Why does she put up with that crow, anyway?

Good question. He's a real annoying crow.

Is he a friend? An annoying neighbor? Some kind of ugly pet?

I'd better go rescue Luna.

Oh, no. Is he a lover?

And emotionally abusive?

Don't let him get to you.

And emotionally abusive?

Cut it out, you dumb crow!

And emotionally abusive?

Hey.

What's up with him now?

Wow, he sure looks gloomy.

Give me a break. He starts pouting as soon as he gets in trouble?

Is he really that thin-skinned?

He seemed okay a minute ago.

I'll go and ask.

What's a-happen?

If he keeps accumulating more of that blight without even realizing it,

he'll never be able to hold on to even a single memory.

First, he needs a way to deal with the poison he collects on his own.

Otherwise all your magic training will go to waste.

Miss Witch gave me magical paper to use as a diary.

Starting today, if anything unpleasant happens to you, write it down on that.

Miss Witch made this special magical paper from the mushrooms she grows.

She's mixing something in.

And it's supposed to have the ability to extract poison.

She's filtering it.

She's drying it.

She's training it.

That must hurt.

Huh?

It's impossible to write anything down on this paper with charcoal or a pen.

Apparently, you can only write things down by projecting feelings and memories.

Using magic to draw from feelings and memories is very difficult, though.

There!

So I have a really hard time recording only my bad memories on the paper.

The bad memories I write down on this magic mushroom paper

become mushrooms themselves and float away.

I learned that these are called yuck-shrooms.

Once they float high enough, they flutter and disappear.

My own unpleasant memories completely disappear along with them.

However, I also think there is something melancholy

about how beautifully these yuck-shrooms disappear.

Also, I have a feeling that I still need those yucky feelings somehow,

so this makes me a little uneasy.

I haven't been able to tell Miss Witch how I feel about it yet, though.