Champignon Witch (シャンピニオンの魔女)

He still isn't awake yet?

This whole thing is such a mess.

I will raise this child by myself.

I know that I can make him into a magician.

None of us have any idea when that boy may transform into The End of All Things.

I believe in Luna. I believe in her.

Oh, I meant to ask you.

That Cat Witch that appeared the other day.

She was a friend of yours?

This story happened before the black cat Sisi came to live in Luna's house.

Look. Isn't that her?

I CANNOT RETURN TO THE CAT FOREST

The one who moved to the forest

and got a special exemption to become a black witch?

The Champignon Witch, Luna?

Ew, look! Everything she steps on or touches really does grow mushrooms!

Hey, Dorothy! If we're here to spy on her, could you at least keep it down?

Ew, that's so gross!

Are you even listening to me, Dorothy?

You don't have to tell me, Bat Magician.

We're here as representatives of the black witches

to spy on the shady new girl.

Hey, hey! A real weirdo moved in nearby!

Imagine the nerve! Let's go find her!

How are we representatives when nobody asked us to come?

How about you shut up, Mouse Magician!

Hiss!

SECOND-RATE BULLY

I just wanna go home.

PICKS ON THE WEAK

You're the one who needs to shut up.

We use our magic to help cleanse this poisoned world

and protect it from behind the scenes.

We are proud black witches and black magicians.

In training, you mean.

We'll be official soon enough!

But that Champignon Witch,

I heard she became a black witch with almost no real training.

How was she able to pull that off?

You're just jealous.

It's way too fishy to be legit.

And just look at that! She's already noticed we're here!

Dang it! All because you guys couldn't keep your mouths shut! Get down!

You're the one who's been doing all the yapping.

I wonder if all the rumors are true.

Rumors?

About her. That she used to be a cursed youngling.

Huh?

Thanks to the magic she was born with,

she didn't become The End of All Things.

She was a cursed youngling?

It made her breath and body poisonous.

The mushrooms she grows are all poisonous, too.

Ew! That's so nasty! Gross! Why is she even here?!

Shh! Shh!

Mmfh! Mmph!

Hey, our cover is so far blown, I think she's started making tea for us.

This is a disaster. To think that such a creepy girl is a black witch like us.

She's gonna give all of us black witches a bad name!

We have nothing to do with her, but the humans aren't gonna know the difference!

Well, I heard our master, the Beast Magician, is taking good care of her.

Maybe we could also be... uh, maybe not friendly,

but why don't we back off and give her some space?

What did you just say?

She gets tons of attention only because she's such a pain in the neck,

and gets private lessons from our master when she's not even his apprentice?!

She's backed our poor master into a corner where he has to waste all his time

rehabilitating this delinquent instead of tutoring his top students?!

Jealousy, check. Resentment, check.

Talk about biased commentary.

She's unbelievable. I'll never forgive her for this, damn it!

Why'd you have to bring up the master, man?

My bad.

That's no way to serve tea to a guest! Where the hell are your manners?

I'll bully her until she runs crying from the black witch community!

Uh...

How did we end up in here?

You're the one who doesn't have any manners.

Isn't this great, Luna? I know you said you wanted try a tea party for once,

just like the one you read about in that book the other day.

What?

Oops. I'm not gonna let something like that make me lower my guard.

You baked these with those poison hands of yours, right?

Scary! There's no way I could eat one.

Wow, she's terrible.

Isn't this great, Luna? Finally, a chance to talk to people!

Come on, don't be shy.

Uh, what?

Nobody was even willing to get close to you before!

She must be so miserable she can't even tell when she's being picked on.

She didn't touch the cookies with her bare hands, so they're okay to eat.

We're even learning about good manners today.

Aren't you glad our first guests are such nice people?

This is such a wonderful day.

You know, I could eat this for you if you want.

The Cat Witch was perplexed.

You could say that her toxic attitude had been washed away,

defenseless against this sudden shower of goodwill.

The cruelty she was so used to flaunting

could not find suitable footing

in an atmosphere drenched with such a profound sense of loneliness,

and that seemed to have thrown her off her game...

especially because she had never once associated herself

with the words "nice people" before in her life.

Here comes that black witch again.

She goes around feeding all those thieving stray cats.

They're so noisy at night!

She isn't even helping us get rid of all the mice!

That's all your fault, you know! I had to cut back on the mousetraps

with you around, so now I get blamed!

Grr.

Hiss!

What's he gonna do? It's not like he can do his job without familiars.

And we can't do our job gathering info if we don't get along with the townsfolk.

Thanks for being so considerate.

It's hard enough here already,

where black witches have such a bad reputation.

Hey. Isn't that...

So you must be the mushroom witch I keep hearing about.

Recently I have noticed a suspi... uh,

a very inquisitive-looking person passing by the store.

So you were friends with the Cat Witch all along?

I wouldn't say we're friends or anything.

She is a little hard to get along with, though.

Has she been picking on you at all?

Hiss!

It's your own fault! Ow, ow, ouch!

She isn't like that at all.

She talks!

Huh?

She is a wonderful individual.

Thanks to her, I finally got to visit this bookstore today.

She keeps doing nice things for me. I think she is a very kind person.

Huh. "Kind" isn't a word that comes to mind when I think of the Cat Witch.

Starting around then, whenever the Cat Witch was showered in compliments

such as "kind" or "nice,"

she'd get a blissful expression on her face,

as if she was under some kind of spell.

In time, she started to visit the mushroom house more often

in order to get another helping of this new and still unfamiliar feeling.

Luna, aren't you glad she's lending you the book you wanted to read?

The birds in town were singing, "the Cat Witch has a twisted, evil soul,"

but that isn't true at all, is it?

She's a kind witch, and she's been coming to visit us a bunch recently,

so every day has been lots of fun.

It was as if these unadulterated showers of praise