Dear Not Cunning Witch

Part 3

“Be brave and don’t cry, my baby,”

the woman whispered to her child. He was on the verge of tears as he nodded back. A young woman with a newborn baby wrapped her hand around his shoulder and pulled him in for a hug.

The five volunteers who had decided to venture to the driver’s cabin finished preparing and lined up. Oliver was in the lead, and Diana was at the very back.

“We’ll be back before long. Please wait quietly,”

Oliver warned the other passengers one last time as he turned away from them.

A dark corridor stretched out before them as soon as he opened the door. Oliver and the three others ventured into it with quiet footsteps. Diana took one step inside after them before she looked back without much thought. The door was filled with stiffly nervous passengers. She looked back at them for just a moment before she soundlessly closed the door behind her.

Thankfully, there was no one else in the corridor. They only had two guns with them, so it was to their advantage if they didn’t meet any assailants until they reached the driver’s cabin. The group advanced cautiously. Diana, who was being affected by the bleak anxiety around her, gulped as she quieted her footsteps.

“We’ll have to pass the boiler room first. The firebox will be especially hot, so please be careful,”

said the woman in front of her. Diana nodded back uneasily.

Finally, they reached the boiler room. Oliver cracked the door open and peered inside to check for any movement before he silently moved his hands. The four behind them each found a place to hide themselves. Oliver pressed his back against the wall as he carefully opened the door. Creak creak. The door opened slowly. The dim light of the fire cast itself over the corridor, but they did not hear gunshots or feel the presence of any assailants as they had feared.

Oliver drew his gun and stepped inside first. The other three followed behind him. Diana stood blankly in the corridor and only tottered over after the woman had quietly called for her.

The boiler room was incredibly hot, just as the woman had said it would be. Diana’s face flushed red immediately as she grumbled,

“Is this a steamer?”

The heat was one thing, but the stench of smoke was horrible. Diana covered her nose as she looked around the cramped train car. Long pipes were spread out all over the place like spiderwebs, and everything aside from the narrow path, just wide enough for one person to pass at a time, was filled with mechanical devices with purposes she could not comprehend. She felt funny, as if she had walked into the insides of a mechanical creature.

“Miss.”

Dianna whipped her head up. Oliver was holding a handkerchief out to her. He continued,

“The smoke will only get worse from here.”

Diana accepted his handkerchief with indifference. Oliver returned to his place at the front of the line as she stared down at it vacantly. She covered her mouth and nose with the handkerchief before following after the group a step later.

They passed through the cough-inducing smoke and sultry heat before they finally arrived at a door. It undoubtedly led to the driver’s cabin, judging by the light peering through from its cracks. The four people ahead of her stood close to the door with their backs to the wall, and Diana hid behind a machine that was a little way behind them. She would not be discovered easily so long as she kept her head down.

Oliver pointed his gun toward the door before he gestured to her with his eyes. This naturally made Diana recall what he had said to her in the passenger car.

 

‘Open the door with magic when I give you the signal.’

 

Diana carefully studied the metal door. It did not appear to have a doorknob. Diana was untalented in magic, but the one thing that she could boast of was her ability to cast spells with her will alone and her ability to handle magic subtly. Thus, it was easier for her to open doors by turning the doorknob than it was for her to simply push the heavy metal door open.

But it wasn’t as if she could back out after coming so far either. She focused. The door was so heavy that it did not even budge at first. Cold sweat began to bead at her temple and the first drop trailed down by the time the door finally began moving with ease.

Steel continuously grated against steel. It wasn’t long before the metal door finally opened with a slow and dull noise. Both the noise gnawing at her nerves and Diana’s concentration came to an end. The boiler room was so desolate it was dreadful. Someone suddenly kicked off hard against the floor in the midst of the taut tension in the air. Diana forgot how Oliver had warned her to keep herself carefully hidden and peeked her head out to see what was going on.

The assailant who had been guarding the driver’s cabin was running toward the door. But Oliver caught him with his left arm as soon as the assailant crossed the doorway. The assailant fell over, unable to withstand the recoil, and the woman, who had been waiting behind him, bashed his head with a block of wood. But that wasn’t all. Gunshots abruptly sounded as they mercilessly tore through Diana’s eardrums. Diana startled and promptly ducked behind the machine.

The gunshots and the screaming —she didn’t know whose— refused to end. Diana covered her ears and huddled over like a caterpillar as she found herself in the middle of her first battle ever. Why on earth did I agree to come? She resented her past self from twenty minutes ago.

The occasional gunshots eventually stopped. She heard a powerful blow, the sound of someone tumbling to the floor, and a mixture of labored groaning. Diana hesitantly raised her head. The first person she saw was Oliver, who was standing proudly in the doorway. She let out a sigh of relief as soon as she saw him. The others in their group looked like they had been a little injured, but all the assailants were on the floor groaning. There were three assailants when she counted them.

“Is it over now?”

Diana carefully stepped out into the corridor. Oliver brushed back his bangs as he nodded. Diana quickly tottered over to him. And, as soon as she walked into the driver’s cabin, her eyes met with that of an assailant hidden behind the toppled chair in a dark corner of the cabin.

She didn’t have any time to think. Her magic activated instinctively.

“W-what the……?”

the assailant mumbled urgently. The rifle that had been in his hands was floating in the air before he knew it. It pulled back as if it was taunting him before it spun around. Its chilling barrel was pointed directly at him.

Oliver acted swiftly while everyone else was still frozen in shock. He aimed his pistol at the assailant as he gestured to the others with his eyes. They snapped back to their senses and gagged and bound the assailant. It was only then that the rifle clattered to the floor.

Diana, who had been barely managing to stay upright by leaning against the wall, slid down. Her legs were trembling. The sight of the assailant’s eyes meeting hers wouldn’t stop repeating in her head.

“Miss, are you all right?”

Oliver quickly made his way over to her. His countenance, which had been as rigid as steel until now, was filled with concern. Diana nodded like a doll whose strings were loose. To be honest, she couldn’t think straight. The breath-stopping anxiety shrouding her body hadn’t left her yet.

Then, a sudden cold wind brushed past her cheek. It was only then that Diana began breathing easier. But it only lasted for a moment before a certain premonition fell upon her like lightning. She jumped up to her feet and ran to the window.

“But it’s late spring right now…….”

A cold breeze was seeping inside from the window. Diana stared outside in a daze.

She wasn’t hallucinating it. She couldn’t be hallucinating it.

Diana, who had been looking down at the flattened grasses, slowly looked up. The evening sky was orderly. She saw a lone shining star in the sky as the indigo light dyed the empty field.

The harsh punishment that the goddess had enacted long ago when she was betrayed by her brother, and the merciless blade that guarded the King of the Stars.

Valdivia, the Winter Star.

“……It must be Hugo Alpheus,”

Oliver said quietly as he walked up to the window. Diana expressed her concurrence as her lips refused to budge.

No one else in the world could cast a spell like this. He was the true successor of Israel Alpheus, whom the witches and wizards who served the bluebuck had awaited for decades. The Wizard of Winter, who had summoned the winter into the White Hall at the height of summer.

Diana was overwhelmed by the colossal magic as she stood beneath the sky of an untimely season. All she could do was stand in awe as she stared at the miracle that she could not even have dreamt of.

 

“Shit. They’ve cut the line.”

Oliver clicked his tongue. Diana, who had been peeking next to him, asked,

“Is it bad if the line is cut?”

“It’s a wired telegraph. We can’t use it to communicate with if the line’s cut.”

Oliver touched the disconnected wire with a bitter look on his face. Then, the man who was about the same age as he was started saying,

“Maybe…… I don’t know if it’ll work, but…”

“If what’ll work?”

The man glanced at Diana.

The others, save of Oliver, had found it difficult to interact with Diana after they had witnessed her use magic. Diana did not mind their reaction, but it annoyed her that they were acting like they had seen something they shouldn’t have and were distancing themselves from her.

“Are you trying to ask if I can put that back together with magic?”

The man’s shoulders flinched when she asked without mincing her words. Diana looked back at him unkindly before she elbowed Oliver out of her way. She continued,

“Let me take a look. I’ll see if I can.”

Oliver obediently moved out of her way. Diana took his place and carefully picked up the wire. She didn’t know how it worked, but all she had to do was put the severed ends back together. She was burning with zeal —after all, she had not only successfully cast two separate spells but she had also witnessed just how amazing magic could be with her own two eyes. But she suddenly recalled one of the fundamental principles of magic just as she was about to confidently cast a spell.

 

It is not difficult to create Something from Something.

It is very difficult to create Something from Nothing.

 

She would have to create ‘something that wasn’t there’ if she wanted to put the separated ends back together. It didn’t matter if that something was rubber or simply an adhesive force. The important part was that she still had to create something from nothing.

“You don’t need to push yourself.”

Oliver pat her shoulder. Diana sullenly nodded back. Diana had always been extremely untalented in creation magic. She had been born under Callisto, the Star of Darkness, which meant that she naturally didn’t have much magic to begin with. Regardless, creation was called the flower of magic, and Diana, who could not use it, was evaluated poorly as a witch.

Diana did her best to brace her wrenching heart. Her insides had crumbled from shame and envy back when she was younger, but she had accepted and adapted to it now. There was no point in paying heed to something that she would never be able to do. It was far better to use that time to find something that she could do instead.

“So what do we……?”

Suddenly, the floor began to shake. There was a deafening roar, the likes of which she had never heard before in her life.

Rumble!

The train’s trembling grew worse, and all sorts of junk fell to the floor. The others lost their balance and grabbed the wall to stay upright, but Diana immediately rushed toward the window.

“Miss, that’s dangerous!”

Oliver yelled. But Diana wasn’t listening to him. She successfully made it to the window despite her staggering and stuck her head outside. Twilight was crawling darkly into the evening, and something mysterious was happening to the rear of the train.

The once-leveled earth was breaking apart like a cookie. Countless thick and thin tree roots burst out from the jagged surface and up to the heavens. The roots of the trees, which had been heartlessly cut down to make level ground for the railroad tracks, were waking from the dark underground they had been laying in and were growing.

And they twisted and twinned, guided by the magic that had woken them from their decades of slumber. The roots, which had been reaching up to the sky, began wrapping around a freight car. They bound it so tightly that not even a single ant could have escaped them.

Diana’s lips stretched into a smile as she watched from afar. She spun around as soon as the noise died down and exclaimed,

“My sister’s here!”

The three people who did not know of her familial circumstances stared blankly back at her. But not Oliver. The puzzled expression on his face immediately stiffened like stone.

“……What?”

“Oh my gosh! I think she’s really here! How do I even apologize —I’m sure she must’ve been so busy as it was!”

Diana wrapped her hands around her cheeks, flushed red with excitement, and spun around. The woman, who had been watching over the situation in a blank daze, gingerly asked,

“What on earth is going on……?”

“Wait. Isn’t that a wireless telegraph over there?”

The middle-aged man was pointing to a device sitting in the corner of the cabin. They had only seen it after all sorts of objects had fallen to the floor. Oliver quickly made his way over to it.

“It is. Though it looks pretty old.”

“Think it still works?”

“It can’t hurt to try.”

Oliver sat down in the driver’s seat and began fiddling with the square machine. Diana stared suspiciously at the back of his head before sneaking her way over to the woman.

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s trying to use the wireless telegraph. But it’s an old model, so we’ll have to hope its radio waves can reach the military.”

“Goodness, does that mean we can communicate with the military with that?”

Diana dropped her jaw.

“We’ll be using Morse code instead of talking to them directly. It’ll take some time, but it’s at least quicker than exchanging letters.”

Diana looked confused as the woman kindly explained things to her. She was so used to exchanging letters that she could hardly believe that the bizarre machine was capable of letting people communicate easily across large distances. Diana had a strong tendency to ignore human society because she had been raised and taught by House Jiles, one of the greatest magic households in Ingram, and she had not known that human society also possessed objects that were just as mysterious as magic.

It was only half an hour later that Oliver finally got up from his seat.

“I got in touch with the military.”

“What did they say?”

the middle-aged man raised his voice. Oliver brought his index finger to his lips as he whispered,

“I don’t know how, but they’ve immobilized the wizard. And the Revolutionary Army is just an unruly mob without him. The military has engaged in battle toward the rear of the train, and they should be able to arrest the Revolutionary Army soon.”

“But there’s no one guarding the front of the train now. Can’t we just run away? They won’t even be able to see us since it’ll be nighttime soon.”

“You’re right. The Revolutionary Army won’t have the time to care about us right now.”

Oliver pulled out his pistol as he continued,

“Let’s head back for now. This took a lot more time than I thought it would.”

 

The passenger car was in chaos.

“Did something happen?”

Oliver grasped the situation before anyone replied. A bunch of luggage was piled up against the back door, and about ten or so people were pushing against it.

“Is it the Revolutionary Army?”

“Yes.”

Oliver loaded his pistol before he walked over. The confrontation over the door had probably been taking place for quite some time now, considering how much the passengers were sweating.

“Miss, can you move the luggage?”

“I can try.”

Diana, who had been standing far behind him, nodded despite herself. Oliver beckoned the three people armed with rifles over with one hand as he said to the people blocking the door,

“Please move aside when I count to three.”

A chilling silence fell upon the once-noisy passenger car. Oliver held up the index finger of his left hand. Then his middle finger, then his ring finger. Diana cast a spell just as the passengers moved away from the door. She had never moved so much stuff at once before, but she had to make it happen.

Diana squeezed her eyes shut, and the pile of luggage heaped up against the door like a small hill exploded and scattered everywhere. The door, which the rebels were pushing against with their entire bodyweight, burst open.

Gunshots resounded. The rebels tumbled to the floor when the door suddenly opened and were shot before they even had the chance to counterattack. A few of them lost their guns to Diana too. Oliver had unwittingly suffered a few scratches here and there, and a few passengers had been hit during the gunfire. The horrible, ear-splitting gunshots, groaning, and screams were mixed into the air.

There was an assailant running their way in a hurry from the dining compartment just as the gunshots subsided. Oliver cursed as he loaded his gun. The other three were already out of bullets. But loud gunshots suddenly resounded from behind the assailant just as he saw the terrible scene inside the passenger car and hesitantly turned around to run back. He vomited a fountain of blood as he collapsed. They could hear the orderly sound of combat boots hitting the ground from behind him.

Decorated blue uniforms and sleek guns. The Ingram army had arrived.

“You must be Mr. Fenley, yes?”

One soldier walked up to Oliver after he had surveyed the passenger car. Oliver was panting as he nodded back.

“Thank you for responding to my call. We should escape the train for now.”

There were roughly twelve soldiers in total. About half of them left the train first while carrying the unconscious elderly couple and any wounded passengers, and the rest led the passengers out in an orderly fashion. At long last, they were able to leave the train.

But then, there was suddenly an explosion.

Boom!

The resulting tremors were so large the entire train was shaking. The passengers fell over as they were trying to exit the train, and the one light that was illuminating the passenger car flickered off. The passengers ran around in confusion as the darkness belatedly settled in until they heard the heavy voice of a soldier shouting,

“We’ll go and see what’s going on in the rear! Please follow the person in front of you as you leave!”

The passengers trembled and fear and begged them not to go, but the soldiers swiftly packed their guns and left them behind. The explosions were quieter than before, but they could no longer hear the soldiers’ footsteps once the noise had subsided.

It was so dark that no one could see even a single step in front of them. The passengers pushed against each other as they made their way outside. The single resolve to do whatever it took to survive dominated their minds. They stepped on each other, pushed each other out of the way, and jumped over each other without any hesitation whatsoever. They were so fixated on their obsession to survive that they did not have the leisure to even think about the people they were leaving behind.

But not Diana. She had not been able to withstand the second explosion and had fallen over. No one had held her up. Rather, they had mercilessly stepped on her petite frame as they passed by. Diana screamed, but there were countless screams resounding in the passenger car already. It was so chaotic that Diana could not fully describe it in words.

Eventually, her surroundings had quieted down. Diana sniffled as she barely managed to climb back up to her feet. Everything hurt. She was laboring just to breathe. She was groaning in pain as she struggled to get up when someone suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up. The familiarity of his voice nearly brought her to tears between her gasping breaths.

“Are you okay?”

Oliver was looking down at her in worry. Diana was on the verge of tears. But she could not cry here. Diana nodded recklessly as she pushed him forward. She had been kicked and stepped on, and her entire body hurt, but getting out of the train came first.

“I-is someone there?”

Then, they heard a tender voice calling to them from close by. They couldn’t see because it was dark, but it was clear to them that someone nearby was calling for help.

But Diana could not find it in herself to answer readily. The soldiers who had gone to check out the rear of the train didn’t seem like they would come back anytime soon, and the quiet gunshots she had been hearing had stopped at some point. She had a terrible feeling about this. What had caused the explosion that had shaken the train earlier, and why had things suddenly grown so quiet? Besides, even Oliver was silently moving forward.

“Please! I can’t find my baby! I can’t see anything!”

Diana closed her eyes shut as she did her best to ignore the endless pleas coming her way. It was always better not to listen to such things. After all, it wasn’t as if she could even help to begin with. She was already hard-pressed to keep her own body safe, so how could she be of help to anyone else?

But…

 

‘Why should I help you? Surely, you don’t see me as a sibling just because you’re being taught by my mother, right? If you do, then you need to learn your place.’

 

She hadn’t been able to endure it at all, but she hadn’t been able to ask anyone close to her for help either because she hadn’t even been able to tell her sister. Sometimes it was the first, sometimes it was the second, and sometimes it was the third. But the results were always the same. She was always heartlessly refused, and it always ended with her being mocked and scorned.

It had been so terrible that she had stopped asking for help entirely. She endured it all on her own and she pulled through all on her own no matter how hard it was. Today was the first time someone had treated her with goodwill, save for her sister, her only blood relative, and her teacher, who had taken her in out of pity.

“Please, please help me. My baby —please help me find my baby.”

A woman had crawled over and grabbed the hem of Diana’s dress. Diana absentmindedly stared down at her. She could make out the weeping woman’s figure easily even in the pitch-black darkness.

“Do you happen to have a match by any chance, Mr. Fenley?”

Diana asked quietly. Oliver silently pulled out a box of matches from his back pocket. He went through a few matches before he finally lit one small flame. It was a marvelous flame that illuminated the dreadful dark of night.

Diana slowly cast a spell. Beads of sweat formed quickly on her forehead because she had already exhausted so much of her magic. But Diana didn’t stop. Thankfully, her birth star, Callisto, the Star of Darkness, was not very affected by the state of the heavens. She could still use magic normally even though the sudden winter had thrown the heavens into disarray.

The flame, which had only been as big as a fingernail, was nurtured by her magic and grew larger. It burned through the match in but an instant and illuminated their surroundings while feeding off of Diana’s magic. The woman, who had been staring dumbstruck at the fire, immediately snapped back to her senses and began looking around. Her baby was breathing quietly in a corner. Perhaps the baby was too tired to even cry, but all he did was whine a little even as he was finally returned to his mother’s warm arms.

The woman expressed her gratitude as she walked past them. The flame, which had been lighting up the corridor, extinguished like a sigh. Oliver grabbed Diana by the arm and urged her to move as the darkness settled in again.

“We should go.”

The exit was close by. Winter hadn’t passed yet, and a cold breeze was pouring in through the door. Oliver pushed his way through the darkness and against the winter breeze on his skin as he descended the stairs. It had been an entire day since he had last stepped foot on the earth.

“Mind the stairs, Miss.”

The gentle light of the moon was shining down on him. Oliver turned around and reached out toward Diana. Diana stared back at him in a daze before she slowly grabbed his hand. A natural smile of relief formed on her lips. She would finally get to say farewell to the train, which she was so sick and tired of.

But a rough hand suddenly shot out from the darkness just then. Diana screamed despite herself when someone grabbed her by the shoulder. The blood drained from Oliver’s face.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Diana froze up stiff just as she was about to turn around. She had heard this voice before. Very recently, in fact, and inside this very train. It continued,

“Why won’t you answer, Little Miss? Hmm?”

The pressure on her shoulder gradually grew stronger. She could feel him, the wizard, staring at her. Diana’s lips were quivering as she assessed her situation as rationally as she could.

The wizard was strong. At the very least, he was strong enough that he could easily kill someone as small as her if he wanted to. She didn’t know what his birth star was, so she didn’t know how well he could use magic while the heavens were in disarray. He was too powerful an enemy for her to go up against while simply trusting herself to luck.

Diana just barely managed to exchange looks with Oliver. Oliver had realized what had suddenly happened and was shaking his head fiercely. He looked truly desperate, but there was nothing else he could do. Diana smiled faintly and just barely managed to open her mouth.

“……Please tell my sister that I’ll be a little late.”

She let go of Oliver’s hand as soon as the words left her mouth. She scraped together the rest of her magic and closed the door before she even had the time to miss the warmth of his hand. The door locked. She could only pray that the winter winds would keep blowing fiercely so that it wouldn’t be easy to open. After all, that was all she could do.

Diana staggered, having exhausted all her magic. The violent hand didn’t miss the chance to grab her by the collar and shove her against the wall.

“……You…”

It hurt so much she thought she might die. Her shoulders and back, which had hit against the wall, hurt to the point of tears. But Diana didn’t cry. She couldn’t. There were quivers in her breaths and her emotions were in chaos, and she was in the presence of such bloodthirsty eyes.

Quietly, the wizard growled,

“You’re a witch.”

 

* * *

 

Hester immediately made her way to the provisional barracks once she had learned that the passengers knew of Diana. She passed through the chaotic makeshift refugee camp and was guided to a secluded corner of the camp.

“You’re here.”

It was none other than Hugo Alpheus who welcomed her inside the tent.

“Why are you……?”

“There’s someone I happen to know here too. But your sister’s situation is more urgent right now, so please come inside.”

Hugo brought the perplexed Hester inside. She saw the back of the man who was sitting on the cot opposite of where Hugo was standing.

“Are you all right?”

Hugo asked as he leaned over the cot. The man nodded back, and Hugo stepped aside to introduce him to Hester. He continued,

“This is Mr. Oliver Fenley. He says he met Little Diana on the tra—”

“Why are you here?”

A sudden cracked voice cut Hugo off. Hugo looked a little surprised as he looked back at Hester. Lines of chaos had etched themselves into her visage, which was normally as calm as the deep seas. Her eyes, widened in shock, were nailed to Oliver and refused to budge. She continued,

“Why are you……?”

Hester’s lips quivered. She had grown as pale as a corpse. It was only then that Hugo realized that something was strange and was about to walk up to her, and Oliver quietly said,

“……Hester.”

His one word was more than enough to make the witch explode. The medical tools lying on the bedside table suddenly began vibrating. And that wasn’t all. The quiet winter winds grew stronger and were growing into a squall.

The firm witch who had never before expressed her emotions so openly was violently spitting them out. Her rage was readily apparent.

“Lady Hester!”

Hugo was startled. But he had summoned the winter just three hours ago, and he didn’t have enough power to put Hester’s magic to sleep. He continued,

“What are you doing?! Collect your magic at once!”

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Thankfully, the gale that had been circling the tent died down without a trace —perhaps Hugo’s shouting had reached her. However, the medical tools and all sorts of other miscellaneous odds and ends had been tossed to the ground, and the tent cloth had even been hideously torn.

No one was able to find it in themselves to speak up, and Hester glared at Oliver in agitation before she turned around. No one dared stop her. She left the tattered tent behind and wandered aimlessly around the chaotic camp. Her memories and the feelings that she had thought she had forgotten were gushing out and cutting her into pieces.

It was only when she had walked to a farm far away from camp that Hester finally stopped walking. All she could hear as she stood in the grass at night was the occasional chirping of the crickets. She stood alone beneath the messy sky in which no star could maintain their balance. All she could do right now was to withdraw into her faded memories —she was unable to even think about putting the shredded pieces of her heart back together, and she pushed aside all her duties.

That time when she had suffered the biggest loss of her life.

Hester was just a young girl of twelve in her memories.